the LGO journey

grad school is intense

So I have completed nine weeks of the summer LGO program.  School-wise, I think I am doing pretty well and am learning a lot.  Outside of the classroom, however, different story.  The first misstep was when I went on a whale watch with the CLGO (China Leader for Global Operations program) students who were visiting for a week.  I’ve been on many boats of all sizes and never gotten sick.  This time was different. I spent the majority of the trip in the middle back of the boat holding a couple of those cool white bags they have in the back of airplane seats.  Think of a 5-letter word that rhymes with comet and thats what happened.

Oh yeah, I saw a couple whales.  It was sweet.

This past Friday as part of our leadership course, we went to camp edwards to participate in a leadership reactions course.   This includes a number of physical challenges (more challenging than the double dare variety) that are designed for the army, such as transporting ammunition across a river and crossing a mine-field with limited supplies.  Needless to say, these were pretty challenging and quite demanding.  We rotated who would lead each activity in our teams and learned a lot about ourselves.  When you are forced into a leadership position it is always awkward at first, but these are the best opportunities to learn.  Here is a picture of our team trying to get across one of the obstacles (that’s a live mine field under us if you weren’t sure):

And again, on another one of the obstacles.  We had to transport a heavy barrel over the wall and down the other side only using one rope in under 10 minutes.

Apparently, this was not enough for me.  In an effort to show my team that taking risks can be good sometimes (note: trending into sarcasm now) I was scaling a wall and reached for a pipe to get to the other side.  I grabbed a pipe, it twisted and I ended up falling off the wall from about 5 ft on my back onto a ladder.  I was pretty out of it for a little, but tried to keep spirits up and urge my team to go on without me:

Dr. Jaffe, the army surgeon on site for the day was there to help, cleared me of a concussion and made sure I was alright.  He even called the next day, praised my toughness and conferred on me an honorary purple heart.  I respectfully declined as for me it is not about awards, but learning.  I learned not to make stupid maneuvers on climbing walls.  

Don’t worry future LGO 2013’s and beyond.  There are no physical requirements or whale-watching abilities needed to get into the program.  You can opt out of some of the more demanding activities so you don’t foolishly fall like I did.  

25 July 2010 · Comments