Today I pack up my life again, into my car in that familiar routine. Everything has its place in bags, boxes, suitcases, etc, and every bag, box, suitcase or etc has its place in my car. It all fits, with room for sleeping.
Except I'll go drive that car to my parents' house, and leave it there. I'm getting on a plane for Wyoming tomorrow morning, and not reuniting with my car until September 3rd, a couple continents later. That means a change in my usual routine. I'm currently packing, having to streamline my already pared-down belongings into one suitcase. Not too bad. Maybe I can get rid of everything I don't bring, and then only have one suitcase of belongings... Maybe.
I'm off to become a Wilderness EMT. I'll be taking a month-long course at the Wilderness Medical Institute in Lander, Wyoming, a branch of NOLS. I'll be a nationally certified EMT-Basic, with a wilderness extension, to cover incidents with delayed response from regular emergency services. So I'll be learning to stabilize fall victims for a multi-mile pack out to an ambulance, move accident victims to avoid flash floods, get spinal cord injuries under shelter for the night, stop bleeding with backcountry first aid kits. And so forth. Because isn't that useful knowledge?
As Heinlein says, "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Then it's off to Scotland, for the largest arts festival in the world, to coordinate all the technical aspects for Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl.
