A Day in the Life of Caleb S.

Page 1 - Morning

The morning began bright and early for Caleb at 7:00 A.M. He quickly put on his Boy Scout uniform and headed to breakfast, talking with his roommate about the day's plans. Caleb's roommate left the room when he was ready, not waiting for Caleb. When Caleb was ready, he walked quickly down the hall and became impatient when he had to wait for the elevator. The reason for his hurry became apparent when he reached breakfast and members of his lodge left him sitting at the table alone because they had finished their breakfast. It didn't seem to bother Caleb though- he kept eating like he was used to the "Keep up or get left behind" mentality.

Following breakfast, Caleb spent a great deal of time looking for his possessions which had been scattered about various rooms on two different floors in the dorm during the previous night. It looked like the party had been fun, with pizza boxes adorning the tables. Once he found his missing notebook and hat, it was off to training.

Caleb, a current Chapter Chief with his eyes set on higher offices, chose to attend the class "Tools of a Chief: Walking the Talk." Of course, the trick to attending a training cell is to first find it. It would be generous to say that Caleb's sense of direction leaves much to be desired. Caleb thought he was out of the woods when he ran into Thomas, another member of Blue Ox Lodge heading the same way. Luckily for Caleb, an information booth was nearby as well as a Good Samaritan who knew her way around the campus and was eager to lend a helping hand.

During his wanderings around Iowa State University, Caleb talked about how much fun he had at the previous night's show "head banging" in the isle on the floor of the stadium (even if his neck was a little stiff this morning). He was thrilled because he even saw himself on the big screen a couple times. He thought a round of bowling would have been the perfect end to the evening, but apparently so had a few hundred other people.

Once Caleb finally found his session, and he didn't let being late discourage him. As soon as he sat down, he immediately began participating in the discussion. When the trainers asked for a list of qualities a good leader must possess, Caleb raised his hand and said, "confidence." The trainers used candy as a positive reinforcement for the class, so Caleb - the 15 year old addicted to sugar - answered as many questions as he could. The session got better for Caleb when they started using videos like The American President to illustrate points like "What's popular isn't always right, and what's right isn't always popular." Caleb even thought he had "died and gone to heaven" when his favorite movie, The Lord of the Rings was used to demonstrate another point.

The training cell gave Caleb some outstanding ideas that he can't wait to take back to his lodge and put into use, like SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, and Timely). Another acronym he enjoyed was the SWOT analysis, a way to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Not exactly sure where to go after his session ended, Caleb tried to meet up again with Thomas. Unfortunately, he was a little late to their meeting spot. Finding himself alone again, he decided to walk around a little and try his hand at patch trading. The Blue Ox patch is trading pretty well this NOAC, so Caleb is confident he will be able to trade all the patches he brought with him. While trading, Caleb saw the a sign for the Camping and High Adventure Expo, and decided to take a look.

Being the diligent Boy Scout that he is, Caleb had already filled out all of his coupons to put in drawing to get free products from all the booths at the expo. When he visited the Relationship Division booth, he made a backpack tag and the Boy Scout Division gave him a sticky hand toy in a plastic egg. When he reached the Health and Safety display he talked with the representative about the Emergency Preparedness Award. The Emergency Preparedness Award is being created in a partnership with the United States Department of Homeland Security to increase the level of citizen preparedness across the country. In order to receive the award, Scouts must complete a variety of requirements. Caleb seemed interested and took a lot of literature as well as a sticker. More information about the award can be found at http://www.scouting.org/pubs/emergency/award.html

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Revised 8/3/2004.