Live A Large Life

While residents of the Southern Hemisphere are coming inside for the winter and those in the Northern one are about to go outdoors, both groups are entering periods conducive to thinking about the future. Whether reading by the fire or surrounded by the wonders of nature, students can find seasonal inspiration for life choices that plunge them into the whole wide world.

     For a little help in seeing beyond the here and now, Luke Jennings, a British journalist and avid fisherman, provides his brief book, Blood Knots. Beginning with his title that combines references both to family ties and a way to prepare fishing tackle, Jennings shows young people how to push beyond the ordinary to reach the personal joy of achieving expertise in any field.

     Jennings' own inspiration came from a father who bore scars from pulling fellow soldiers from a burning tank in World War II, and the free-spirited, falcon-owning Robert Nairac, who valued the precision of dry-fly casting that demanded the frustrating "hard right way." Even before meeting Nairac, however, Jennings wrote there was no one in his family who ever fished, "So I learnt from library books by Bernard Venables, Richard Walker, Peter Stone, and Fred Taylor.

     What can be learned from books is not limited to fishing. Even in summer, there are rainy days, when a trip to the library can stimulate an interest that leads to adventures in foreign countries the way fishing took Jennings to Guyana, Australia, Hong Kong, and South Africa.

     Books enable young people who lack financial means to experience the same new ideas and cultures others derive through travel. In Blood Knots, I learned, for example, fishing hooks come in different sizes, a #18 is smaller than a #12. Dry-fly casting for trout begins with making a fly using a delicate bit of silk and feather and requires, like kite flying, an open space where swinging a fishing line overhead and forward will not tangle it in an overhanging branch. No wonder, trout anglers don hip boots and wade into rivers.

     If students are lucky, reading will enhance their means of expression and chances of winning Scrabble by sending them to a giant dictionary to expand their vocabulary with new words, such as numinous, pellucid, ilex, ferrules, elegiac, jejune, and jinking, some of the words Jennings used in Blood Knots. Young people also will begin to find themselves observing and describing their experiences the way Jennings did in the following sentence: "Pigeons flew over us, cresting the roadside trees with a single wing-snap and gliding to their roosts."

     Once students recognize time as a fusion of past, present, and future, the way Jennings came to view it, a lifetime holds a world of opportunity.



   

Apply Now for Summer Opportunities

It's easy for students to miss out on summer opportunities, because deadlines are early in the year. My granddaughter has spent two summers in a science lab at the University of Wisconsin, because she attended an informational session, obtained teacher recommendations, and submitted the required application before February. Besides summer programs offered by colleges and universities, summer foreign travel/study tours, and summer acting/dance classes also have early deadlines.

     Girls ages 16 and 17 on June 1, 2017 have an excellent example of summer opportunities available to them, if they apply before January 31, 2017. The University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Natural Science and Mathematics and the International Arctic Research Center offer three FREE summer expeditions designed to combine scientific field studies with glaciologists and oceanographers, art, critical thinking, and mountaineering or kayaking.

• Girls on Ice Alaska explore an Alaskan glacier June 16-27, 2017. Program is open to girls 16 and 17 from Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, the Yukon, and California. 
• Girls on Ice Cascades explore Mount Baker, an ice-covered volcano in Washington State. Program is open to girls 16 and 17 in all countries.
• Girls in Icy Fjords explore Bear Glacier, the marine environment in a fjord near Seward, Alaska, and learn to kayak August 11-22, 2017. Program is open to girls 16 and 17 in all countries.

For more information and the application process, go to inspiringgirls.org. At inspiringgirls.org/alternative-opportunities, you also can sign up to be added to a mailing list that alerts girls to other programs besides Arctic expeditions.

Summer "Vacation" Projects

Older teens 16 to 19 years of age, maybe as many as 60% of them, have figured their futures will be better served by attending summer school or participating in sports and clubs, rather than working in a minimum wage job. Although such choices probably feel like heresy to parents and teachers who spent their summers as lifeguards and waitresses at resorts, working construction, or going from office to office as temps, young people who spend their summers focusing on opportunities that will lead to a career, especially a career with an international application, could be less likely to boomerang back home because they cannot find a job. As reported in the World Future Society's March 2014 issue of The Futurist, the analysis of older teens by Gray & Christmas can be interpreted to suggest summer vacation is an excellent time to help young people do some career planning and preparation.

     Where should students look for career-related summer programs and internships? Local colleges and universities, churches, 4H (even in urban areas), zoos and humane societies, children's, art, and other museums, libraries (in addition to programs, read biographies, self-help and special interest books), schools devoted to the arts (music, theatre, dance, art, fashion design), newspapers and magazines, fitness centers and gyms, YMCA and YWCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, professional and amateur sports teams, social service societies (Rotary, Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus), local, state, and federal governments, scout troops, political parties and candidates, camps devoted to a particular career, such as computers or space (See the earlier blog post, "Space Explorers.").

     Whether it is a Pillsbury Bake-off recipe or a winning photograph, contests are another summer activity that can lead to recognition and a future career. Contests are mentioned in a number of earlier blog posts: "Take Your Best Shot," "Young Voices," "Work Around the World," "TED Talks for Teens," "Robot Revolution," "Dairy Cows on the Moove," "A Healthy Environment."

     And don't ignore do-it-yourself projects: planning and planting a year-round sustainable garden (See the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment."); organizing a yard sale or running a lemonade stand with attention to pricing, display and advertising; using video or a vine to tell a story; planning the best cost-effective virtual foreign trip by watching exchange rates in a number of countries (See the earlier blog post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market."); subscribing to the World Edition of littlepassports.com in order to receive a monthly letter about a country visited by fictional "Sam and Sofia"; charting the weather (See "Climate Control."); or counting bees (See "The Bees and the Birds.").

     Whether they learn Hindi, how to coach soccer, or the value of a ruble, summer presents an opportunity for students to position themselves for employment in the global marketplace. After all, according to trendwatching.com, the global culture sees "consumers from nine to 90, from Chicago to Bangkok" using the same smartphones, eating sushi, and wearing the same sneakers.