The next day after seeing the team and friends again, we had no real responsibilities and I was able to slackline almost the entire day. ColeFox, another wonderful individual who will certainly make more appearances in the near future, hung with me most of the day and the conversation was held in an off balance dichotomy of easy going topics and true interpersonal depth.
The day after this, my team had our Round 1 debrief with the unit leader, Allan. It went very well, with my camera providing excellent slow-motion capture film, but mostly the highlighting the editing skills of Elizabeth, a member of my team who did the bulk of the work for the video.
After the meeting, my TL (Chris O'Reily), asked me to stay back. Of course that is not common, and immediately I am set on edge. What did I do. Who did I insult. Am I receiving praise or being reprimanded. What is this for. Does he look happy. Is my shirt tucked in. Was I appropriate. What could this be for!
He sits down, I follow suit, and he says...
"I have an offer for you. You'll have time to think about this, but I'm so excited to be able to offer it to you. I get to offer you the chance to go on the Big Bend project with Jeff-..."
He kept talking for a while, but I had no idea what he was saying after that. My mind was racing. I knew I was being told to choose between my team, the people that I had grown close to in Boulder, working in the middle of nowhere town of Eudora, Arkansas, or going to the impossible to imagine setting of Big Bend National Park doing 2 month of intense back country camping with a known-to-be-great team of individuals. I had multiple friends doing that project, and I was getting a chance to join them. I'm sure you can assume from this description, I told him I would love the opportunity to go.
I was being offered, for no reason at all, to join another team to do a truly awesome project, just because my TL knew that's what I wanted, and wanted to see me be rewarded for my willingness to 'go with the flow' of my team. He never said it, but I'm sure he was excited to offer this to me because when I was told that my team did NOT* want to go camping. All I wanted to do was camp, and I found myself on a team of city-loving, toe-shoe hating, non-climbers, who hated camping.
This was impossible, but I found myself in the situation, and honestly could not have been happier with the days proceedings.
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