<p>
	Stories don&rsquo;t really stand by themselves. In real life they are connected to everything else, like strings in a tapestry, lacing and weaving into the fabric of every day&rsquo;s life.&#8232; Following are excerpts from what I call my commonplace file, which is a sophisticated term that means that I am probably just too proud to call this my journal.</p>
<p>
	Jan 27, 2013:&#8232;The day has arrived. The internship is starting out quite favorably. Paul fitted us each with Cross country skis and snowshoes. We went skiing all over the extremely snow covered creation. Paul also gave us 4th generation iPod touches so that we can document our adventures. Wow. The 21st century has arrived in the Wilhelmina universe. Now I have just got to figure out how to use the thing.&#8232;We are going to build a Quinzy! That&rsquo;s what we are calling the snow fort.</p>
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	Comment: Seems like I am all kinds of excited, but not all kinds of articulate today.</p>
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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Will1.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 187px; float: right; " />Jan 30, 2014:&#8232;I never know how to spell the month that is coming.&#8232;We dug out the Quinzy yesterday. The steel bars on the front of my ski boots sliced though that snow like carving butter. And that evening, I spied the quinzy glowing with the light of the candles that Paul had placed inside. The sun shone almost all afternoon, signaling that the weather may be changing soon! Perhaps the sunny part of winter is coming after all! Lauren and I dragged ourselves out&#8232;to the lake after digging out the fort,&#8232;aided by sleds. <img alt="" src="{filedir_5}will2.jpg" style="width: 187px; height: 250px; float: left; " />The low sun over the frozen lake was spectacular, as was the convoluted snowdrift next to the shed.</p>
<p>
	We went snowshoeing again&#8232;yesterday afternoon, as we do every&#8232;day. However, my favorite was zipping along in the dark the night before on cross country skis.&#8232;</p>
<p>
	Reflection of the day: There is a certain amount of joy to be obtained from spending time by oneself.</p>
<p>
	31, Jan. 2014:&#8232;Today is a sore muscles kind of day.&#8232;We are going to Sleeping Bear Dunes. Yesterday we shoveled several feet of snow off of the roof of the logging town cookhouse, set up an orienteering course, and built survival fire in the snow.&#8232;Myer&rsquo;s Briggs still thinks that I would make a good cult leader or dictator. Sounds good to me!.&#8232;</p>
<p>
	Comment: That iPod sure comes in handy for taking pictures!</p>
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}will3_5.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 151px; float: right; " />3,Feb, 2014:&#8232;Last Friday we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes. I slogged out a quarter mile without snowshoes and from there we hiked up into the woods, off trail, through deepishly deep snow. We found and ate some rose hips. On the side of a hill in the middle of the boondocks, we found a pair of porcupines in a big, dark hemlock tree.</p>
<p>
	Soon after we ascended still further. The snow everywhere seemed yellowish and soft, as if dirty, which it was on account of the sand residue that had even come over the hills far from the dune.&#8232;So then we walked up this hill towards the dune, which filled the sky like some sort of terrifying snowdrift of doom. I could see strata on this drift, like the grand canyon of snow and ice. And then we were upon it, the trees suddenly ended. The dune was unbelievably steep, yet we hung onto the sheer dune face by the teeth of the crampons, by our freezing little fingers, and by the frosty hairs of our chinny chin chins. But all at once we had crested the snow and sand and we could see the lake! The surface of the dune was solid frozen sand, and the vista was breathtaking, with snow and sand stratified dunes piled upon one another; in the distance was Lake Michigan, with circular chunks of pancake ice conglomerated with clear ice cement as far as the eye could see.</p>
<p>
	So then we hiked across the dune edges, and up a nearly vertical face, into a crack in the side of the hill and back onto the beaten trail.&#8232;</p>
<p>
	Reflection: Off the trail is so much more interesting than the trail itself. Perhaps this can be applied to life, but I don&rsquo;t feel like synthesizing complex idioms about deeper matters at this time.</p>
<p>
	Comment: The Qunizy has sunken in on itself.</p>
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Will4.jpg" style="width: 187px; height: 250px; float: right; " />4, February 2014: First day of teaching today.&nbsp; My head echoes from a thousand small voices, and my own voice, hoping to share my excitement and maintain control above all the rest.&nbsp; It really does take a long time to put snowshoes on 11 first graders. My snowshoes fell off of my feet near the beginning of the hike, and every once in a while I&rsquo;d break through the layer of crust and sink down to my upper thighs in snow.</p>
<p>
	Reflection: I really do like snow. Perhaps I haven&rsquo;t been shoveling it often enough to meet reality, or perhaps&#8232;winter-phobia is just overrated.</p>
