Category: Work

Vote for Canyonlands!

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Some of you may have heard about a campaign Coca Cola is running where you can vote for your favorite non-profit idea to receive a grant. They are now doing something similar with the national and state parks! The park with the most votes will receive a $100,000 grant, and Canyonlands is WAY behind. So please go vote! You have until August 31st and can vote as many times as you like. Who knows the kind of things we could do with $100,000! Maybe even hire an extra ranger…. 😉

Thanks for your help!

Vote here: http://www.livepositively.com/#/americasparks/vote

View from Neck Springs trail, Canyonlands NP

Starlight, Star Bright

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One of my favorite memories of my summer here took place on a warm, clear night in early June. We have a giant white telescope sitting in the living room of the trailer, which we were told was broken upon its discovery. Coming back from a potluck dinner, I thought of it sitting there as I found my eyes glued to the sky my entire walk home. The stars were particularly spectacular that night, even for a sky as dark as ours. I just couldn’t make myself go inside, so I climbed onto the top of my car to watch the sky a little bit longer. A few minutes later I heard the crunch of my neighbor’s footsteps making his way down the road. He saw me sitting there and asked if I had ever used the telescope being stored in my living room. I told him no, that it was broken, and he announced that a few weeks before my arrival he had been bored and fixed it. He hadn’t told anyone for fear that they would move it to an inaccessible place. Continue reading “Starlight, Star Bright” →

Baby Bro in Canyonlands

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I’ve been telling people to come visit me since the moment I stepped foot in this place, more for their sake than mine, and last week in one day I got the news that I would soon have not one but two visitors – a good friend at the end of this month, and my baby brother this past weekend. Continue reading “Baby Bro in Canyonlands” →

Unusually Acceptable Behavior

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“So there isn’t a lot to see in this area of the park then?” The lady says, her eyes blank. She is completely serious.

I take a deep breath. Patience Mariana, patience.

Her husband slaps her across the arm.

Finally, someone who understands me.

A view from the White Rim Road, in the backcountry of Canyonlands NP

Observations from the Entrance Station: Part 2

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After considering my last, mostly negative post from the entrance station, I thought I should write a second to cover my butt just a bit. Yes, there are a lot of frustrating things about working in the entrance station, but there are a lot of great things too. And I thought they deserved their own blog post. So here are some of the things I like about working in the entrance station: Continue reading “Observations from the Entrance Station: Part 2” →

Observations from the Entrance Station: A Rant

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I work the entrance station shift several times a week (in fact, I’m sitting in it right now), and I’ll admit it’s not my favorite part of the job. Being isolated in a little booth by yourself for 5 hours at a time, repeating the same thing to visitors over and over again, isn’t exactly what I’d call ‘fun.’ But most of the time it’s not too painful, and I’ve got a great view. The entrance station is a great place to watch the storms roll by, the rice grass glow in the sun, and the wildlife going about their merry day. But the best views of all are of the tourists. Continue reading “Observations from the Entrance Station: A Rant” →

Life Decisions

Published on by Mariana8 Comments

Well, it’s official. I won’t be returning to Boston in the fall after all.

It went against my gut feeling from the start, and the more I learn and explore the more I realize I’m nowhere near done learning and exploring and nowhere near ready to settle into a single place and career. This is probably the scariest choice I’ve ever made, but I’m content that it’s the right one. My future is now one big, open span of time. Continue reading “Life Decisions” →

Copy and Paste: Canyonlands Week 1

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An email I wrote to my family and close friends after my first week at Canyonlands (abbreviated, if you can believe it): Continue reading “Copy and Paste: Canyonlands Week 1” →

Well, Hello

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It’s been a long time since my last post, and to be honest, I didn’t intend on writing again. A lot has happened in the past few months. And my life seemed to be heading in a direction that wasn’t exactly consistent with the mood and message of this blog. So I abandoned it. Continue reading “Well, Hello” →

Paperwork Paperwork PAPERWORK

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Just got back from a trip to visit the family in the Dominican Republic, I’ll write about that (as well as my hellish trip home) in a few days. But for now there’s lots of catching up to do, as I returned home to find these two lovely packages at my doorstep:

Along with happy little official acceptances and a few pages of information on the programs, both of these packages are chuck full of paperwork. The more daunting of the two is the Peace Corp packet, which is filled with medical papers that need to be filled out by 4 different type of doctors – my primary physician, dentist, gyno and a psychologist to verify that I’m either sane (or crazy) enough to go through with this.

Bahhhhhhh