After less than two weeks of training, tomorrow I dive head-first into being an outdoor educator. If you’ve known me for more than two minutes, you know that I’m fairly passionate about the outdoors and I’m fairly passionate about education. But this is a beast of a completely different matter.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve lashed canoes together to build a catamaran. I’ve donned a bee suit and worked my way into a hive. I’ve identified and eaten edible plants. I’ve hiked in and around the “classroom,” sometimes at night. I’ve been blindfolded and done corny team-building activities with the 17 other folks who are in this with me. And more often than not, I have felt completely out of my element.

I haven’t done research projects on birds or studied extensively studied environmental science. I haven’t taught kids how to backpack or how to build fires. Heck – I don’t even cook my own food over a fire when I’m camping. I don’t know how to identify birds by their call or find salamanders under rocks.

For two weeks, I have been completely intimidated, terrified, and overwhelmed.

But then I find myself laying in the grass, trying to write down everything I’ve learned (and everything I still need to figure out), and a tiny caterpillar crawls across my notebook. Or I find myself coming down a trail as the sun as setting and I just pause to listen. Or I hunt for quartz and successfully come up with two pieces that will create a chemical reaction, sure to wow a bunch of wily kiddos on a night hike.

Every day is a new chance to learn or discover or experience something. I am trying to focus on that…the advantage that gives me. Like the kids who will roll in tomorrow, I am here to learn. And we get to do that together.