Training Camp: Preface

  I had written a blog earlier about training camp, but my computer jacked up before i could post it.  I tried to write it again, but like most of my blogs, it was just a stream of consciousness, and when i tried rewriting it late Halloween night watching “Child’s Play”  here is what i came up with.  It’s a lot longer than the first blog, and only talks about half as much.  I have a rambling problem, it comes from a couple years of having to fill 90 minutes of class time with 60 minutes of instruction.  But instead of editing it, I thought I’d just throw this up more as a part I.    All great movies start slow for plot development…consider this a masterpiece. 

So I’m an introvert. We had to take this personality test before camp, and when i got the results, introvert pulled the sweep in the I/E questions: Introvert-10, Extrovert-0. I was kind of concerned, because the people on staff were going to think i was a hermit, with the inability to communicate. When I was in middle school/high school, this was probably true. It’s interesting how God works. He’s done amazing things in my life. He’s taken me from the kid who didn’t say anything, and cringed at the words, “oral presentation” or “put yourself into groups” to a profession, which most people would say you have to be extremely extroverted. I was amazed most mornings, driving to work, knowing that I was a teacher. Knowing that, I would be standing in front of a group of 25-30 teenagers, for close to 5 hours of instructional time everyday. God’s given me the skills to do that, even though I don’t feel qualified. I feel kind of like Moses, who after being told by God that he was going to be His voice, tried to convince God that he couldn’t do it. If you ask most people that have known me for a long time, they would say I’ve changed a lot, and in many ways I have, I have become more outgoing, but truth be told, I agree with the personality test results. I’m an extreme introvert, but I’m not a hermit. I can take (somewhat) control of two dozen teenagers, give presentations, hold conversations….but it’s also mentally/emotionally draining for me. Don’t get me wrong I love doing these things, but I’m still an introvert. I’ll never be the “life” of the party–but I’ll have a good time….and i’ll probably never be shirtless at a sporting event, but i’ll still high five and fist bump you and some strangers on the row behind us when our team scores a touchdown.

Probably the biggest negative thing of me being an introvert is when I meet new people. I struggle with this, and also become incredibly nervous in unfamiliar situations. This is what happened before training camp. I was excited to start the drive down to Georgia, 300 miles of highway, on a nice fall day, with some Dispatch CD’s playing. But with about 20 miles left, the familiar feelings started. The tenseness and the nervousness of having to spend 4 days with complete strangers (apart from the random facebook wallposts and blog creeping). But that was one of the great things about training camp. These feelings vanished almost immediately. I became incredibly close, with some incredible people, in an incredibly short amount of time. A closeness, that I felt like I could share my life stories, and almost anything about me with.  The only other person I I can do this with I’ve known my whole life. I know this was God working, to begin uniting us who would be working and living together. God fast-forwarded the time it takes me to create close friendships, and it was pretty amazing….the bad thing was there are still a lot of people on the squad, and we didn’t have a lot of time to get as close as I would have liked to with all the people on the squad. The last day and a half of camp, when it was just our squad was incredible, and the big thing that I’ve been worried about this trip–getting along with people went away. The times when our entire squad is together on the race, I think will be pretty sweet. Speaking of the squad, here they are: