My Life as a Tour Guide

The debate raging right now at Champlain is whether or not I'm the most collegial person on campus - or whether I'm just an idiot (I'm leaning towards the latter). As I'm sure my good friend Trish pointed out one time or another, when you start getting more involved on the student life side of things you end up acting as a tour guide or at least a bus driver. I should have figured this out when I foolishly became van-certified here at Champlain last year. I did it to drive the visiting Russian students around, but once you are certified you must certainly become certifiable. Plus, my year as a faculty in residence has, by definition, made me more involved with student issues/concerns. In addition, I've always been a sucker for anything relating to students (which feeds off of my natural weakness to be easily "guilted" into anything). Last weekend I (along with my friends "Original" Mike Lange, "False" Mike Kelly and Wes Donehower) took nine freshmen from Quarry Hill up to Montreal (more on that later) to grab a dim sum lunch and see the terra warrior exhibit. I was not even back in the state for twenty-four hours before being roped into another trip. Tomorrow morning I'm helping to drive eleven juniors and seniors down to Virginia as part of an alternative spring break trip. They will be working for Habitat for Humanity, an organization that I've always admired. At the last minute there was a snafu with their travel plans and they were going to have to cancel the trip - and this is where I come into the story. I'm not actually going to be helping to build a house (although I was asked), mainly because I'm buried and really need next week to try and get caught up. Mainly I'll just be serving as an academic taxi service - dropping them off and picking them up - and then in the downtime trying to locate wifi so that I can get some work done. I was hoping to grab an inexpensive flight down to New Orleans to bum around the French Quarter for a few days, but obviously I didn't lock into the tickets before my availability become public notice (grin). Now, after these two experiences I should have been able to say no, but have also immediately jumped into a plan with my friend Kerry to take some juniors in our respective China coureses back up to Montreal to see the terra cotta warriors. Hopefully I am now awash in Karmic coin to valance out my well-documented crimes against humanity.