Fitting In

As Sarah has mentioned, for a lot of our project we felt slightly out of place; we were far younger than anyone else at KTA, were the only women in the lunchroom at Lake Metroparks, and felt like we knew nothing standing next to the Holden interns and employees who knew every plant we passed and bird call we heard. However, looking back, even when we weren't quite strong enough to help at the Metroparks, or didn't understand jokes, everyone that we met was extremely friendly, ready to talk and teach us. At KTA, the president invited us to her house, and while we couldn't go because we had a long drive, she talked to us for hours after work about the goals of the association. At Lake Metroparks, we were shuffled around to various parks to see different projects when there weren't any of them that we could help out with, and rode in various people's worktrucks so that we could learn about their careers, information that they very willingly offered. And at Holden Arboretum, the people we're working with joke around with us, invited us to their end of the week Conservation Crew ice cream break and let us sit in on their brief staff meeting. One of the biggest lessons that we've learned is that people are wonderful, kind and open, and that they'll talk your ear off about the most interesting stuff if you'll let them.