<p>
	When I got the email from Paul about this internship, I initially didn&rsquo;t think much of it. Having just graduated last December, I was looking forward to a few months of rest and wasn&rsquo;t really expecting to jump into an internship right away.&nbsp; I consulted friends and family about it, and a majority of the responses were along the lines of &ldquo;you&rsquo;re crazy not to do it!&rdquo; or &ldquo;what better things are you going to do with your time?&rdquo; and &ldquo;you&rsquo;re lucky to have something like this pop up so quickly after graduation!&rdquo; So of course I sent a quick reply saying sign me up!&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Tree Huggers.jpg" style="float: right; width: 200px; height: 150px; " />Between the brief period of being accepted and packing up to leave, there were a few times where I thought to myself, &ldquo;Oh no! I&rsquo;m not a teacher. I&rsquo;m not used to being around kids. I have to do this for a month. AM I GOING TO SURVIVE THIS?!&rdquo; I&rsquo;ve done some coaching here and there, but never to the point where I was leading a lesson for an entire day! This worried me quite a bit!</p>
<p>
	Now that I&rsquo;ve been here for a few weeks, I&rsquo;m so grateful that I chose to pursue this internship! All those built up fears were washed away once those kids jumped off the bus to meet us on the first day.&nbsp; As I look back thinking how nervous I was, I just laugh at myself wondering how I was afraid of something so small and cute?</p>
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}UP200(1).jpg" style="float: left; width: 175px; height: 132px; " />I&rsquo;ve also met some great people and have a stockpile of memories from my experience here at Au Sable &ndash; from hunting for a red squirrel that&rsquo;s been living in our attic, to working in the kitchen for a free meal, to playing pond hockey on Big Twin Lake, and most recently going to see the U.P. 200 dogsled race near Grand Marais.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Alyssa Sunset.jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 188px; float: right;" />All these wonderful memories aside, the real reason I&rsquo;m here is to share the joy and excitement of the outdoors with young students.&nbsp; The weekend before the first students arrived, Paul took us interns to Sleeping Bear Dunes for our day off.&nbsp; When we visited the beach near the dunes, I noticed there were lots of shells lined up along the shore. I didn&rsquo;t realize they were Zebra Mussels until one of the other interns, Michelle, told me what they were. I was SUPER excited because I did research on Zebra Mussels for over a year while writing my senior Literature Review at Bethel University.&nbsp; It wasn&rsquo;t until I saw and held the mussels that something had occurred to me - I had studied and wrote my senior project on an animal that I&rsquo;d never even seen before in real life!</p>
<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}ZebraMussels(1).jpg" style="width: 250px; height: 188px; float: left;" />This is exactly the type of situation I believe the environmental education program here at Au Sable is trying to prevent. To get kids out of the classroom and let them experience nature on a personal level. In my short time here I&rsquo;ve learned that taking time to be outdoors does the body good, especially in the form of birding. Try it. It&rsquo;s a peaceful hobby.</p>
