Any Given Day

     A typical day at my internship is partly unpredictable and planned. Shea and I will typically schedule a time for me to pick her up, and then we explore Phoenix. Although, some of our planned events will be occupied at New Pathways for Youth, as we attend monthly workshops that build our relationship. Two specific events that come to mind is our trip to Camelback mountain, and our trust relay at New Pathways for Youth. 

     One of our first trips was to Camelback mountain, where we hiked to the highest point. One of the key lessons that we learned from our workshops is to try to conquer our fears. My biggest fear is heights, so this challenge was extremely scary for me. Shea and I also had to learn to trust each other, and we had to help one another up many of the obstacles that the mountain presented. I distinctly remember wanting to quit after the third slope, as this slope was the steepest. However, Shea encouraged me to continue up the mountain. It took about three hours to do the whole trip, and Shea was so tired that she thought she wouldn't be able to get back down the mountain. So, every time she doubted herself I reminded her of all the times that she thought she could not do something and still completed it. She completed the whole trip, and we celebrated our victory afterward.

     The next event was at a New Pathways for Youth workshop. Here we were tasked to perform a trust relay against several other volunteer matches. Each trial tested our trust of one another, and was scored on the completion of the task. One trail that I recall was when we had to connect one of our legs to each other, then attach a balloon to the two free legs. We had to work together to pop the balloons of the other matches, while keeping ours from being popped. It was a lot tougher then it sounds, and we took 1st place out of all the trials. We learned the precious lesson of teamwork and trust together.