Staff - 2008 Vermont
Alex and Sean, Vermont 2006, photo by Allen Ellis
Advisors
Advisors do lots of things: teach workshops; lead games, sports, hikes, fieldtrips, and other activities; help out with logistics; and other stuff. But most essentially, they connect with campers--individually and in small groups. Each advisor meets daily with his or her group of 11 or so campers, and is generally available for support, hugs, and conversation.
Elizabeth Lund
Chicago, Illinois
Advisor, Vermont
Elizabeth spends most of her time reading, writing, or editing. She has moved twenty-five times but has lived in Chicago pretty steadily for the past four years. At her day job, she publishes books and newsletters for librarians.
She went to mainstream schools and college, but has been unschooling herself since she started reading about radical education in her late teens. Some of the projects she’s pursued in the last few years include immigrating to England, writing a novel, writing a book about moving, starting a blog, and falling in love.
She is more of a generalist than a specialist, or, rather, her areas of specialty are so specialized that they may not qualify as specialties. For instance, she knows a lot of trivia about young adult novelists, like that M. E. Kerr published a few books under the name Vin Packer and that John Green used to live in her neighborhood. She also knows about names, camp songs, and Künstlerroman.
Her biggest passion is young adult and children’s literature. Her other interests include feminism, adolescence and the portrayal of teens in pop culture, needlepoint, birds, cats, architecture, cities, investing, frugality, travel, The Chicago Manual of Style, and what might be loosely termed life design (figuring out how to create a life that is fulfilling and sustainable). She likes solving problems and researching things, especially things she doesn’t know much about.
She also loves to sing, dance, explore, and laugh.
This is her first year at NBTSC.
Gabriel Lester, 28 
Eugene, Oregon
Session 1 & Vermont Advisor
Session 2 Cook
(photo by Gayatri Janine Banks, NBTSC 2006)
Born to a large family of musical unschoolers, Gabe grew up in the wild Mojave desest. He received a mixed educational experience, unschooling at home and attending conventional school when his curiosity took him there. When he was 17, he attended NBTSC. He describes the experience as an eye opener. Meeting so many brilliant unscoolers helped him see the potential for his own growth and learning. Inspired, he took on new adventures such as snowboarding daily, traveling by bike, living in experimental communities, and attending silent meditation retreats.
He now lives in Eugene, Oregon where he continues his practice of meditation. He also has a regular practice of hatha yoga, and in the past year became a certified Bikram Method yoga (hot yoga) instructor. He now teaches 4 classes per week at the Bikram Yoga College of India in Eugene. Relying mainly on human-powered transportation, he has happily ridden his bike for day-to-day purposes for 7 years Musically, after twelve years of playing the guitar, he has focused in on the drums. He now has a lot of fun drumming for a band called May Harpoon. He also continues to work with his brothers on music for Abandon Ship, their band of several years.
Unschooling history: Gabriel grew up in a famous homeschooling family, the Lesters. (They were famous mainly because of musical tapes the family produced, and also because their mother, Darlene, was an early and significant contributor to Growing Without Schooling magazine.) Gabriel went to school but quit when he was 15, and attended camp at 17, which fueled his interest in unschooling. Since then, he has continuously been inspired by his participation in NBTSC.
Camp history: Camper in 1997. Supervised dishes 1998-2005, with a brief detour in 1999 to be on junior staff. Advised in 2005 and 2006, advised and cooked in 2007.
Sarabeth Matilsky, 28
Ithaca, New York
Advisor, Vermont
Year-round office goddess and east coast liaison
Sarabeth joined us as our East Coast liaison in 2004, and now operates the year round NBTSC office for both Oregon and Vermont. She has fabulous organizational skills, and is a delightful person for campers and parents to be in contact with prior to camp.
In 1996, Sarabeth came to the first-ever NBTSC as a sixteen-year-old camper. Growing up in suburban New Jersey in the eighties, there wasn't a whole lot of support for unschooling, and she was blown away by her NBTSC experience. She decided to do something BIG with her own life, and in 1997 she rode her bicycle 4500 miles across the country to camp (solo except for the great folks she met along the way).
Fast forward to 2008: Sarabeth lives in Ithaca, NY with her most excellent husband (whom she met on that fateful bike trip so long ago!), and their two boys, Ben Starling and Jem Reed (both born at home on, respectively, 1/10/04 and 8/5/07). Some of Sarabeth's many interests (most of which she will resume participation in once both children start sleeping through the night): hosting dinner parties, playing piano, discovering and listening to music by independent and wonderful artists, cooking and baking, doing pilates, writing, and wholistic health and nutrition.
Sarabeth and Jeff's latest adventures include raising "diaper-free" babies, moving to Ithaca, NY so that Sarabeth could cook at the famous Moosewood Restaurant, and now an upcoming move to EcoVillage at Ithaca, a cohousing community just outside of town. In 2008 they plan to take their first whole-family bicycle trip, along the Erie Canal from Buffalo to Seneca Falls.
Unschooling history: Sarabeth is the oldest of 5 sibs who have always unschooled. Having been at it for so long and in a very thoughtful, dedicated way (and written about and otherwise shared their experiences in numerous forums), the Matilskys have served as role models for many other unschoolers. Ben and Jem, like their mother, have been unschooling since birth.
Camp history: Camper in 1996 and 1997. Advisor 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 (Session 2 and 3), 2003 (Session 1 and 3) and 2004 (WV), logistics goddess in West Virginia 2004 and in Vermont 2006.
Blake Boles, 25
Bakersfield, California
Session 2 Advisor and Project Leader
Vermont Advisor
Blake is a native Californian who spends his summers in the High Sierras as an instructor, chef, and part-time director of a wilderness summer camp and the other seasons in various work and travel. This winter he finished his book, College Without High School, while getting paid to snowboard at a Lake Tahoe resort. In October 2008 Blake and co-advisor Abbi are planning to take a group of teen unschoolers through Argentina for 6 weeks (you should come!). His loftier goals include one day opening his own camp and writing more books.
Blake’s passions include wilderness medicine (he's a Wilderness EMT), frisbee (please throw one at him), swimming & slackline, and helping teens short-circuit the traditional school system to pursue big adventurous dreams. He became an “uncolleger” in 2003 as a UC Berkeley undergraduate and has advised at NBTSC since 2006.
If you’d like to learn more about Blake’s book, College Without High School, or the Unschool Argentina trip, please visit www.blakeboles.com.
Nathen Beryl Lester, 36
Springfield, Oregon
Session 1 Advisor
Session 2 Advisor and Project Leader
Vermont Advisor and Assistant Director
Nathen works as a music recording engineer and record producer, and is also famous (at least in some circles, including the NBTSC community) for Abandon Ship, a band he created with two of his brothers. He says, "I think I'm a classic unschooler in every way except that I am 36 years old and attended lots of schools during my first 27 years. I do what interests me. That includes writing songs, playing drums in a rock & roll band, making records, researching and experimenting with communication, relationships, nutrition and making money. I get excited about a lot of sciences--anatomy, physiology, psychology, evolution theory, geology and physics. I meditate, swim, climb mountains, read philosophy books and talk about them. I live with a group of adult unschoolers in Springfield, Oregon, where we grow food, compost and have parties and talent shows."
nbtsc history: Nathen has been an advisor at every session but two since 1999. He says, "What I love about camp is the people who come--the staff, the campers--and how they interact, how they share their excitement and inspiration and how they form friendships and communities with the people they meet. I love the talent shows, from nervous, first-time attempts to professional level performances. I love how at camp I'm treated like an interesting person and a friend by people who are younger than me."
unschooling history: Nathen homeschooled during third grade, and observed four of his younger brothers homeschooling/unschooling.
at camp: Nathen is famous not only for being sincere, friendly, enthusiastic, and sometimes potently amused, but also for the zeal, intellect, and originality with which he teaches workshops on subjects such as the human digestive system. Among his tentative plans for workshops at NBTSC 2008 are Metacommunication, The Science of Attention and The Aesthetics of Recorded Music. He will also reprise his popular Session 2 project, in which a group of musicians -- with a wide variety of skill levels and instruments -- co-create a piece of music and perform it for the whole camp.
Here's the Abandon Ship website.
Ethan Mitchell
Vergennes, Vermont
Vermont Advisor
(photo by Allen Ellis, NBTSC 2006)
I live on a sheep farm in Vermont, with my amazing wife, my parents, grandparents, 65 sheep, 17 ducks, 2 cats, 2 dogs, and many, many books. We keep open house so there are usually one or two other people living here as well, sometimes with additional livestock. To make the coin, I used to work mainly as a sculptural stone-carver, but immediately after NBTSC 06 (my first taste) I basically quit my job and started working as a tutor and organizer for the local unschoolers. Oh, and I spend a lot of time rebuilding my house, which used to be a cow barn. And writing. I write way too much, sometimes for money and mostly for fun.
Before I ran into hundreds of bona fide unschoolers (I didn't leave school until college, and that was more an act of revenge than emancipation) I used to think I had diverse interests. I think I can generally arrange my interests around three questions. Viz: What does unschooling mean at the level of the university? How did people fall in love in the 9th century AD? And (paraphrasing the Lester boys) how do we decide what to think about, and what not to think about? More, uhhm, specifically, I am passionate about: welding; free speech; ceramics; recycled building materials; telluric currents; Medieval feminism; ducks; and helping people get through grad school so they can, as someone once said, get a real life and education.
Ethan's resource page for Vermont unschoolers is here.
Evan Wright, 26
Seattle, Washington
Session 1 Advisor
Vermont Advisor
(photo by Vanessa Filkins, Quo Vadis 2004)
One of Evan’s defining characteristics isn’t obvious at first, although it has a long history. When he was ten years old, he decided he wanted to “stay underwater” and built a diving bell out of an upside-down garbage can, a length of rope, and 75 pounds of weight; he is a creative problem solver. After a decade developing experience as an autodidact, he is very much at home using the tools of stubborn curiosity, independence, and unconventional approaches to arrive at surprising and innovative solutions to problems.
Evan began his practice of self-education after reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook at 15. His curriculum included unlearning many of the unspoken lessons from school and re-establishing his own direct personal relationship to learning. He explored the British Museum, worked at a London soup kitchen run by nuns, raised harbor seal pups, disentangled sea lions from fishermen's nets in Mexico, and assisted in research of 5 ft. long green sea turtles in Costa Rica. Without school he studied the life of Albert Einstein, assisted with research on whales, and explored the writing of educational visionaries and critics. In response to his own struggles and uncertainty, he sought out philosophical works dealing with themes of despair, suffering, freedom, choice, responsibility, the absurdity of existence, and the art of carving out “meaning in life.”
As an adult, Evan has specialized in creating projects that bring people together. He enjoys facilitating connection among challengingly diverse groups of people and fostering community among those who may not fully appreciate what they have in common. He has worked within the gay community in Seattle to create a positive, healthy, social space for people to build community outside of bars and is currently planning similar projects through one of his businesses called Congress Events. He is the founder of The Education Empowerment Project (an unschooling organization) and for five years was the director of an adult unschoolers event called Quo Vadis. Evan has participated in Not Back to School Camp for a decade: for many years as an advisor, and as a camper before that. He is a total dork and is honored to share a week with one hundred home and unschooled teenagers.
Evan has led or co-led workshops and discussions on: Marine Biology, How to Build an Underwater Robot, How to Change the World in 90 minutes, Stone Sculpting, Investing, How to Make Homemade Pasta, The Life of Albert Einstein, How to Begin a Project or Event, The Supreme Court of the United States, Barn Raising (a networking activity), Blues Dancing, Quo Vadis, The Effective Unschooler, and How to Get What You Want.
Tilke S. Elkins
Springfield, Oregon
Advisor, Vermont
I champion a label-free life, but if you were to choose labels for me, they could be these:
painter
writer
designer
inventor
gardener
Caralea Arnold
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Advisor, Vermont
Ever since leaving school in first grade to take the world by storm, Caralea has been a self directed learner. An avid traveler, she has filled countless months with traveling extensively in the US, and somewhat less extensively abroad. Last year, after finishing an internship in Washington DC, focusing on sustainable agriculture and food policy (where duties included lobbying on Capitol Hill, marching in a cow suit, and coming up with cool food campaign slogans), she packed her bags and moved to the city of Philadelphia. You can now find her working with three women-owned businesses--all food related and awesome. Committed to contributing to larger things, Caralea is also organizing a creative fund raiser for breast cancer (www.bust-out.org) and working out how to get more people enjoying local, fresh, healthy food. Caralea is excited to be returning to Vermont to participate in another week of the magic that happens when NBTSCampers unite!
Denise Green
Advisor, Vermont
Denise was born with an insatiable curiosity and awe for all things. At a certain age it became apparent to her that the system that purported to foster her mind and spirit was, in fact, having a very different affect. Hundreds of unanswered questions and poorly rationalized school rules and explanations later, on a quest to find others who knew there had to be a better way, a friend from 4-H recommended the Teenage Liberation Handbook. Many late night family discussions, tears of frustration, strategically placed and dog-eared John Holt books later, armed with bails of hope and a belief that you make your own dreams become a reality, her loving but uninitiated parents finally succumbed to the idea of homeschooling.
That pivotal decision at the age of 15 has helped lead her to numerous communities of kindred spirits of all types, bountiful tropical islands, courage to learn how to do anything she wants, a rewarding and lucrative career in Sign Language Interpreting, and has made it impossible for her to ever get bored of life like grown-ups are oft apt to do.
Her most recent pursuit, thanks to exposure to NBTSC as a staffer for the past 2 years, has been taking on the language of music and the playing of the fiddle. These days she enjoys fixing things (cars!), tending her humble garden, running a one-woman interpreting business, being a sister to the amazing Wendy (a recent rise-out and NBTSCer!), playing outside in the rain, dancing with fire, creating art in myriad mediums, satiating her ravenous mind with Oliver Sachs research, and getting involved in her local unschooling scene both as a witness to how far we've come and as a beacon for newly initiated families.
NBTSC history: camper, 1997. Cook, 2006 (Vermont). Advisor, 2007 (Vermont).
Jeff Amaral
Ithaca, New York
At-large NBTSC volunteer (and busy father of Ben and Jem)
Year-round NBTSC database design and support
see photo above under "Sarabeth Matilsky"
Visiting Workshop Teachers
We're excited to announce that Carsie Blanton and Jon Darvill will be joining us in Vermont, to share their skills during 2 days of intensive workshops. Carsie will teach songwriting, and Jon will likely teach something called "Ethical Utilitarianism" (which might involve creating an economy at camp to test out different ideas about how to use an economy to make a society more ethical). Together, they will also teach a lindy hopping and/or blues dancing workshop or two.
Carsie Blanton, 22
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Visiting workshop leader, Vermont
Carsie has attended NBTSC in some capacity every year since 1998. At camp, she is known for her silliness, her music, and her parades, competitions and themed meals (including the 2007 classic, “eating like wolves”). In the world at large, she is known for her songwriting (having spent the last two years building a music career in Philadelphia), her dancing (along with her beau, Jon Darvill, she organizes and teaches at Philly’s premiere weekly Lindy and blues dance, LAB), and her incredibly cute puppies, Domino and LMNOP (pronounced “Ella Minnow P.”). Unschooled from birth, Carsie has studied a variety of subjects including herpetology, poetry, silkscreening, complexity theory, grant writing and dog grooming, but these days she mostly studies music and the music business.
Carsie's website is here.
Jon Darvill has attended many years of traditional schooling, and earned many degrees (most recently a bachelor’s in engineering physics and a master’s in computer science from Cornell College), and has retained his unabashed passion for learning and innovation throughout. In days past, Jon spent many an hour learning about jazz saxophone and clarinet, robotics, juggling, dog training, and swing and blues dancing. Nowadays, he spends his days researching artificial intelligence for Lockheed Martin, starting an online business called Quidplayer, teaching dance, playing squash, and living in Philadelphia with Carsie and their two dogs, Domino and LMNOP. This will be his first time at NBTSC.
Kitchen coordinator
Nicole Martin, 27
Albany, New York
Kitchen Coordinator, all sessions everywhere
Nicole's been on the NBTSC staff since 1997 as both cook and advisor. She is full of energy and creative ideas, has a magical way with food and is a sought-after chef/caterer, and comes as a set with her fabulous daughter Lou. Nicole is one of the most physically vital people you'll ever meet -- she surfs, does Capoeira, dances, and is at home in her body in a most inspiring way. She's also an accomplished singer and guitarist, an artist, a devoted activist, and a passionate mother.
Cooks
At camp, our fabulous cooks prepare 3 meals a day, harmonizing with each other and with the many campers who help out in the kitchen. Food at NBTSC definitely does not happen in a factory atmosphere; while making dinner, the kitchen crew is liable to sing together and to discuss life, the universe, and everything--or garlic, blackberries, and pizza crust, which often amounts to the same thing. Anyway, because they have so much interaction with campers we consider them unofficial advisors and hire them with that in mind--they are advisor-caliber folks who can also make magic with potatoes and other miracles of nature.
Abbi Miller, 23
New York City
Advisor, Sessions 1 & 2
Project Leader Session 2
Assistant Cook, Vermont
I came into this world one particularly brisk morning in November of 1984 (Year of the Rat), with dark curly hair, shrieking my lungs out, and demanding to be fed. I believe that description is still undeniably accurate.
I was pulled from a Montessori school at age 8, by a mother who was sick of volunteering all of her time there, just so she could see her own damn kids. I have an amazingly patient family who suffered through long evenings, while I inundated them with queries, "I don't even take tests! How will I learn anything!?". But as I've confessed earlier, I am a hungry girl. And we all know that curiosity = learning.
Since falling into the land of unschool-dom, I have had a swell time creating my life and the adventures that any true Scorpio dreams of. I have worked at a raw foods restaurant, been in national commericals, given haircuts on the beaches of Maui, hopped a boat to Indonesia, tap danced on the Eiffel Tower, and attended the NBTSC!
I still shriek and scream, but found a way to make money while doing so. I've lived in NYC for many years, enjoying a profession where people pay you to be someone else. I was cast in a play last year for my laugh alone. I am still deciding if that was a compliment or insult. As an actress, I've worked in: Colorado, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Illinois and in an International Broadway Tour of Grease that went all over southeast Asia. I've done the hand-jive more times than I care to admit.
I've been a dancer since a young age. If you like to dance, come find me and I will promptly join you, as I'm a fan of shakin' what yo' momma gave ya. My most recent dance endeavor was performing with a Chicago-based Modern company in a cavernous, vacated mansion! (No I did not meet any ghosts.)
A few years ago, my physical approach to learning led me to a beautiful thing called Yoga. Upon taking my first class, I was instantly smitten, and consider it one of my favorite things to do. I recently completed my certification to teach children and teens, at Karma Kids Yoga, in NYC.
Assuming that I've already eaten and am well coiffured, here are some things that I like to think about: getting more dark chocolate in my diet, how I can live more consciously, playing guitar, what songs I want to sing in the shower, dissecting Anne Sexton's poetry, reading about natural health and fertility awareness, geeking out on music theory, convincing people to give me a back rub, and finding ways to travel.
Which leads me to my VERY important closing statement: Come travel with Blake and me in our unschooler adventure trip. Check us out: www.BlakeBoles.com/arg2008.
Sean Ritchey
Tivoli, New York
Cook, Vermont
Sean is a passionate, grounded, energetic, curious person, who is fascinated by life, avidly questions the status quo and has a great passion to learn new things about the world around him. He is an entrepreneur who uses his work, success and privilege to better the world to his greatest ability, and then say it’s not good enough and work to do more. He also holds the opinion that laughter is an important part of a successful life and strives to help create and indulge in hilarity everyday.
In early 2007, Sean co-founded Deep Green Building, a green design and general contracting company, which exclusively designs, builds and renovates homes so they consume as little energy as possible, and are healthy and beautiful places to live for generations. The company focuses on building and renovating houses so they are net-zero energy consuming (or carbon neutral), meaning they consume no electricity from the power lines or fossil fuel in a year’s operation (read: they have no energy bills!). (www.DeepGreenBuilding.net).
Sean lives in the Common Fire Housing Co-op in Tivoli, NY, with ten other change makers, in a house that has been acknowledged as the greenest building in the eastern United States. The home consumes no outside energy, thanks to its extraordinary level of energy efficiency, and alternative energy systems (solar electric and geothermal heating). (www.CommonFire.org).
Sean finds that he is much happier when he spends his days doing work that he loves and feels like is contributing to ‘the solution’ and so he enthusiastically does just that (seems simple, but there seems to be an offal lot of people who don’t get the concept). He has found he is good at figuring out what he wants to do, how to do it, and then rolling up his sleeves and getting it done. He has used this skill to make his own life one that he can wake up every single day excited and happy to be living, and loves to help other people do the same. He loves helping fellow self-directed learners create direction in their lives and move toward new and exciting goals and create more empowering, fun, and rewarding alternatives to institutionalized education (especially high school and college). One way he has engaged in this work in through his three and a half year involvement with the Education Empowerment Project and the event called Quo Vadis. (http://EducationEmpowermentProject.org/about.html)
It is also important to note that Sean loves cooking and eating phenomenally delicious food. Even though Sean is energetic and confident (read: can sometime be a little intimidating to approach) he absolutely loves getting to know new people and hearing about the things they care about or the questions they are currently looking for answers to. He encourages anyone who is interested in getting to know him better to do just that.
Dragyn Lehua Gray
Kentucky
I started homeschooling myself in tenth grade, after reading the Teenage Liberation Handbook. I sometimes attend Amherst College in Massachusetts and major in Environmental Studies and Theater. While at school, I work for the Northstar Self Directed Learning Center. I'm currently taking a year off to travel via Greyhound and CouchSurfing. When I'm not at school or traveling, I live in Kentucky with my fiance (who is also unschooled). Some day very soon, we hope to buy a large patch of land and build a semi self-sufficient cob house in southern Appalachia. I intend to become a teacher and eventually open a center for homeschoolers, unschoolers, and other members of my community.
I might qualify as a free spirit, an autodidact, a nerd, and an INFP. I'm an individualist and an individual secessionist, with a philosophy that is somewhere between existentialism and absurdist (though, really, its unique hodge-podge of philosophies). Along with my general agnosticism, I am a Discordian and a Unitarian Universalist. I want to be a hermit, but with people; I want to travel; I want to understand how other people think, both philosophically and psychological. I am especially interested in stargazing, costumery, foraging, DIY-type-crafty-stuff, music, mountain top removal, natural building (particularly cob), animals of all kinds, and the Internet.
My official experience cooking comes from living in a twenty-two person vegetarian co-op, where I often cooked "family dinner". My unofficial experience come from a long time love of preparing and eating food. I spend more waking hours by far in the kitchen than any other room in the house.
Joshua Nicoson
Albany, New York
Cook, Vermont
"Josh in a nutshell," by anonymous:
Joshua Nicoson is an utter genius. He was born in Manhattan, and until most recently has lived in such places as New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois and Vermont.
Laughter unabated, the thinnest darn feet, redbeard to be reckoned with, a capacity to meet folks young and old right exactly where they're at in the most allowing of ways, degree in structural engineering, a degree in architectural nerdiness, more knowledge of sports facts than most would give a bleep to know and even the ones who do he knows more than, pool shark--yikes, eats onions like they're apples, has a son named Emmett who if he's lucky will grow up to be much like his father.
Dish Queen
Alex Rhue, 20
Cook, Oregon Session 1
Advisor, Oregon Session 2
Dish Queen, Vermont
Growing up, partially, in the middle of rural California was the most instrumental chapter of my life to date, I believe. For it was there that I discovered how, and why, to be curious. I would spend my days and evenings wandering through the forest near my house, with a small pickax, in search of fallen trees, natural springs, and the ever elusive Banana Slug. I think that my parents' unbridled willingness to let me spend quite literally every waking moment in the outdoors, galavanting, conversing with animals, and just... Breathing - is to this day one of the things I am most thankful for. That and the flavor of watermelon. Ennui was not an emotion I knew until my progression to Northern Michigan, acquiring a television, the invention of the internet, and puberty ( a malicious event in life that refuses to be supportive of you while you're around attractive people). Although, Michigan was the great state that introduced me to acting, being the home to the first play that I was cast in - Aladdin, I believe it was. I played a cloud. Now, surprising as though it may seem, it was not love at first sight. My older brother was actually the one interested, I merely followed in his footsteps with a little stiff handed prodding form my beloved mother. Much like my first year at camp, my mother had to bribe me with some unnamed culinary delicacy, or perhaps the promise of less chores if I would simply try it. I was, and remain, a rather shy child. After becoming enthralled with the fantastical ways of the stage, I spent the next 8 years learning lines, playing soccer, riding over the international bridge to get to rehearsals and ALWAYS being terrified of both the U.S. And Canadian customs officials, and playing more soccer. If I hadn't found my spark acting, then that's probably what I would be doing. Playing for the USA Olympic soccer team and trying to create some sorely needed dignity that the mens' league never had.
I moved out of my house at 19, to another, slightly more racially and culturally diverse city in Michigan, called Ann Arbor. I attended a very nice community college for one semester, before I abandoned higher education for the second time (but not the last, I assume) to pursue two "day-jobs" and begin writing what I only recently figured out to be a mildly fascinating screenplay. I then moved to New York on a whim (a proposition was made, with an expiration date of 20 minutes), where I divide my time between another increasingly ill-fated day job and writing down snippets and plot advances for several different screenplays and short films.
Night Owl
In early camp years, we had a few vigorous staffers--the most memorable was our beloved Billy (Upski) Wimsatt, also the author of a couple marvelous books--who tended to stay up all night right along with campers. More recently, as our staff aged and wrinkled, this niche didn't get filled as automatically, so we made an official position. Now, at each session somebody sweet and strong stays up late--until 2 or 3 a.m., depending on when most campers have nodded off--to be a reassuring and attentive adult presence.
Ryland Erdman, 25
Menomonie, Wisconsin
Vermont Night person
new bio coming soon ~ meanwhile, here's the old one.
Ryland is a very grounded, warm human being, and campers tend to feel safe and cared for when he's around during the night times. He says, "Even at an early age, no one wanted to subject me to formal education, so I thrived, getting a high-school diploma with the help of Clonlara (a correspondence School) although I have not found a use for it yet. Until I was 8 my family lived in a completely off-grid house (instead of being connected to power lines, we got 100% of our electricity from solar and wind, and wood heat) being exposed to that kind of lifestyle, and the type of parents that would choose that, set me up for a wonderful life, including a fascination with building, fixing, and taking things apart, from watches, to motorcycles, jewelry boxes, to houses. I've made dozens of knives, rebuilt a number of motorcycles, remodeled and built from scratch the whole kitchen in my parents' house, experimented in home-made soda, done a number of historical style woodworking demonstrations, done some wood inlay, built super fuel-efficient vehicles for competition, and I prefer to cook without the use of recipes. This summer I started working full time for a company that builds high-performance houses (as in energy efficiency) doing most of our work in stray bale, super insulation, and passive solar; it could be said to be the perfect job for me. In my spare time I like to use my weird sense of humor, read over the comics page of the paper, attend Co-op board meetings, try different kinds of ginger-ale and root beer, and think about human powered vehicles.
I also enjoy trying to inspire people to live fuller lives, to think in creative ways, and to toss small rocks at low flying airplanes."
At camp "my job is night watch, so I get to stay up late with those of you who are into that kind of thing, keeping an eye on everything to make sure everyone is safe and doing well, and joining in on some of the wonderful conversations when I have a chance."
Camp history--camper 1998-2001, junior staff 2002 Session 1, East Coast night person 2003 to the present.
Junior Staff
The junior staff does all kinds of logistical and grunty stuff that frees up the senior staff to focus on caring for campers directly--they scrub lots of pots and pans; supervise bathroom cleanup, the dish-line, and other chores; wake people up in the morning; count heads twice daily; cook; and do all kinds of other important stuff. We really appreciate and love our junior staffers! Their week on jr. staff also enables us to get to know them in a different context and find out how we think they might do in the future as potential senior staff, and it helps them see what being on staff entails. (Lots of fantasies are dashed, actually, when people discover for themselves how hard the staff works, so not everyone ends the week begging to join the senior staff!) Almost always, junior staffers are 19-21 year olds who have come to NBTSC previously as campers. Once in a while, they are folks completely new to our community. (As a bit of historical trivia, Nicole, Damian, and Jasmine all made their first appearances at camp as junior staffers.)
The Vermont 08 junior staff team is Michele Jones, Cameron Lovejoy, and Blake Collins.