The Beginning of the Mystic Seventh

After the longest Greyhound ride ever, I managed to land in Warren, Vermont. This is where I will be spending the majority of my summer - in a tent on the campus of Yestermorrow Design/Build School. Here, I will play the role of the "Mystic Seventh."

There are six Yestermorrow interns who all have very impressive resumes. They were hand-picked from a competitive bunch of some of the coolest grad-student-aged people in the nation. And I, a to-be Junior at Berea College in Kentucky, am their "mystic seventh." I have just enough knowledge of natural building and friends who know important people to be the unofficial seventh intern.

I will be doing all the jobs that the interns here do. Which is a lot. From morning chores cleaning up the classrooms and bathrooms to making repairs to managing the food gardens to preparing for workships, I will be doing it all. Over the summer, I will be taking four classes: Green Development Best Practices, Constructed Wetlands, Invisible Structures: Strategies Beyond "Going Green" and Community Design/Build.

There are a lot of interesting people here. A three-week building intensive course is starting today, so there are a lot of people who are just getting to campus. I met several teachers and students, many of whom are working to get their certificate in Natural Building. There are many interesting backgrounds - a lot have their own environmental businesses/non-profits... Ages vary greatly. Currently, I'm sitting in on their first class - sounds great! I'm sure I'll be around these people a lot in the next three weeks.

I'll let you guys know more when I know it. Tomorrow is my first official day of work. I have to meet up with the group at 8:30, which is not a problem, except that there is no cell phone signal out here and my cell phone is my alarm... I'm going have to find a form of alarm.

Looking forward to this summer!

Waiting on the Greyhound. 8am, yesterday.