The Ghost of Journal Entries Past

This past week I helped lead a paleontology field Program with Project Exploration, which, as most of you know from my years there as both student and staff, is a non-profit that runs top-quality science enrichment programs for CPS students. Before the program, I was looking for a journal with enough space in it to take admin notes in, like I did when leading the JP program.

What I came across was my journal entries from the last year I led the Junior Paleontologists (JPs) to South Dakota. PE field students read and write journal entries everyday, and so do the leaders. On the last night, after three weeks of academic, physical, mental, and emotional challenges, the topic is always "What does it mean to be a JP?"

This is what I wrote and read to 14 JPs my last year full-time with PE in 2008, grouped together on the side of a mountain as the sun set. I was the last to read.

Her page is a bunch of scrawled notes and crossed-out words. Every time she begins, a new thought, a new idea pushes its way in, and she must jot it down before it falls out her ear and down the mountain.

She has written this story 5 times in the past. First in 2001, when she was young and shocked at the immensity of the world. Again in 2004, her first year as a leader. In 2005 her mentor was leaving. In 2006 she took charge in her head; in 2007 she took charge in her heart.

Now it is 2008, and instead of having said everything before, there is too much yet to say. Too many memories of discovery, too many astounded faces, too many students she is so dearly proud of to sum it up in a few poorly written words.

And yet, this does not worry her, because if she has learned 1 thing it is that there is no time limit on your membership. She has, now and forever, her whole life to discover, learn, grow, and share that with all around her. There is no need to sum it up, dumb it down, or explain it, because those who get it surely use it, those who give it truly love it, and those who have it hopefully know it.*

A wise student once said "Being a JP is for you to discover it's meaning." It is the thrill of the chase, the hunt with your pack. It's to bite at the moon and grab at the stars, bend the mountain to your will and make the earth yield its many mysteries to you. It's to remember your past and create your future.

I have given you a tool for life, as it was given to me. Use it everyday.

Once a JP, always a JP.

*This refers to a puzzle I gave them earlier in the program. "Those who sell it do not need it. Those who buy it do not use it. Those who use it do not know it. What is it?"