Sea, Sand and Sky: Sea y'all next summer

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Sea y'all next summer

Hey y'all!

I can't believe it's already our last week of work for the summer :(. I had expected that I was going to enjoy my job, but I couldn't have guessed just how much I would love it and how close our team got. My group will definitely be what I miss most. I can visit a lot of the sites that we worked at on my own time, but it won't be the same without Ruben talking about fishing and chicken sandwiches, Will making absolutely terrible jokes that I may or may not still laugh at every time, Ari and Vanessa full-sending into the water with me and swimming out ridiculously far for no reason, and Claudia offering good advice and (miraculously) putting up with all of our antics. It's really hard to pick only one favorite moment from the summer, but I think I would have to choose our trip to Spectacle Island, though our trip to George's Island is a close second. I had actually never been to Spectacle before, and this was pretty much a perfect first trip. Our deliverable for the week was a vlog, so the only work I had to do was take pictures and videos. It was kind of disgustingly hot, but we still spent way too long searching for sea glass and then decided to hike up the hill way too fast (it was conditioning for soccer). The view from the top of Spectacle was beautiful, but what was even better was diving in to go swimming after we had been hiking in the heat for over an hour. And of course, any time I got to spend just talking and laughing with my group was a good time.

Team Claudia + Ms. Ryan, David, and Sam at Spectacle

View from the top of Spectacle

Of course, work wasn't all fun and games; we did actually have to do work. I learned a lot about the history of the Harbor, both in our Harbor tour with David and because I made a point to include some historical background about each site in our video introductions. Like my favorite moment, my favorite piece of history also comes from Spectacle Island, and that's the fact that Spectacle used to be a trash dump until they set it all on fire and it burned for ten years. Fun, right? I also learned plenty of important ~life skills~. As someone who usually prefers doing work alone (thanks school group projects), I had to learn how to collaborate and communicate with my teammates. Plus, we had to learn how to work together over Zoom and make content that was engaging online, which I'm sure will be very helpful during BPS' two months of completely online school. Writing these weekly blogs was very helpful as well - it made sure that I wouldn't forget how to write or do research or make a bibliography before my senior year starts. And lastly, this job made me a better photographer, so here are some of my favorite photos from the summer (they said to include 3 but, you know what, have 6).