Life's a beach

Paradise can be lonely.

I successfully survived my first week of work at Sea Life Park Hawaii. I went into it on Monday morning feeling hopeful and excited, and left Monday afternoon feeling terrified and overwhelmed. I thought I had taken on more than I could handle and was concerned my qualifications weren't enough to prepare me for the tasks at hand. I came into a department that consisted of all of three people: myself, an ancient Japanese lady and my manager, who is quitting Feb 11th because of her pregnancy. She handed me a binder that was 10 inches thick, showed me a cubicle and basically said "read". Some of my tasks include hiring, firing, scheduling, orientating and creating new volunteer programs in three departments, outreaches for public programs, new lectures, teaching and creating and redesigning the park's already existing lecture-based k-12 classroom programs. My manager was in and out of the office the rest of the week and I was tossed head-first into crying volunteers, bleeding and cut interns and scheduling school groups.

Tuesday afternoon after aimlessly staring at my computer unsure of what to do, I decided to take a walk around the park and ran into the general manager. He knew immediately who I was and said that I was the "famous person from California, brought in to save the education department". My heart sank. What!? I worked part-time at the Aquarium of the Bay talking about fish! Before that I was a waitress and before THAT I was training! He said how he had to wait weeks to hire me because I was coming from San Francisco and Stephanie (my manager) had insisted that I was the best person for the job. He started asking me managerial questions...needless to say I smiled and nodded and did the best I could in terms of answering them and walked away feeling like a deflated balloon. What was I doing!?

Wednesday afternoon after another full day of questioning my abilities to perform the tasks at hand, I decided to just jump and make something happen. Thursday I came up with two projects and presented them to my manager and got the "Ok!" to start them. My first project is to get an Education Cart set up in the park where I can take on more volunteers to staff it and talk about marine conservation and answer questions about marine life. I emailed the Monterey Bay Aquarium to ask about becoming a partner in their Seafood Watch program, drew up a proposal for the Sales and Marketing Department and got them to replace a hole in my floor, a new computer monitor, hired on 2 new volunteers and started drawing up lectures and lesson plans for my outreach cart.

Needless to say when I left work yesterday I saw a ton of potential in my position and helping to make the park a more education-friendly area. I've gotten the green light from a bunch of management and now it's just a matter of taking it and running with it all the way to the finish line.

...but after all the stress and success this week...I still come home alone. I cook dinner for myself, watch tv by myself, drive my car by myself, go to sleep by myself and wake up by myself. I went out with friends last night and felt like I was finally back home and had a blast, but wishing someone was here and being able to share all of these experiences with me just makes me feel lonely.

Last night I looked up at the stars and smiled at all their twinkling faces. Today, I stood on a rocky outcropping with a dear friend of mine and looked towards the back of an ancient volcano. It was covered in green foliage and contrasted against the bright blue sky. The water bellow me was crystal blue and stretched to the horizon. Nothing but the sound of waves and laughter surrounded me. I jumped off a log into the sea and swam around a rocky reef. I laid on a white sand beach and hiked back through a trail of black sand. I had so much fun, I felt completely blessed. And all I could think about was you.