[0:00]I've been sitting here debating if I want to get on this camera or not.
[0:07]Thinking through what I might say if I did.
[0:15]There's a lot of different ways I could go with that.
[0:23]I had a YouTube channel for a year and a half. I never connected with my audience.
[0:34]People aren't patient anymore. They don't connect. They don't listen.
[0:42]They don't respect your boundaries. They don't respect you. They don't respect themselves.
[0:57]That's what I've seen in the world. A lot of people
[1:04]who are just performing now
[1:09]or impatient or disconnected.
[1:19]So I ended that channel. didn't make any sense to keep sharing
[1:24]my life with people who were not truly seeing me.
[1:32]But I mean, I felt the life.
[1:38]I started my channel and I made a decision to live differently.
[1:47]I've come a long way since then.
[1:55]I wish it were different. I don't know what's wrong with people.
[2:04]I am done trying
[2:08]to reach people who aren't reaching back.
[2:17]I'm just going to keep documenting my life
[2:19]occasionally cuz I think it's important. It's important to me.
[2:29]So that's why I turned this camera back on.
[2:37]This website right here, my website
[2:44]put a lot of work into that. I'm very proud of it.
[2:49]can't afford my my hosting bill. So, it could get shut off for a few days.
[2:52]I hope not. Hoping I'll avoid that, but it's very possible. It's late.
[2:58]I hosted on Amazon Web Services. Cost me about 70 bucks a month.
[3:05]Could get a little bit cheaper, but then I would have to figure out a
[3:09]different situation for hosting the database. That's the most expensive
[3:12]part. just sits on a little EC2 instance that doesn't cost anything,
[3:18]but the database part does. So, I can always work on it locally if that happens.
[3:32]And I like seeing this transmission section, my my YouTube channel basically growing,
[3:39]documenting my life ever since I made the decision to change it.
[3:47]I'm sitting on a threshold right now. I'm about to start a new role, my new volunteer role. I'm
[3:53]going to be called a caretaker. It's very, very different from what I've been doing, which is
[3:58]I've been a park host, so I've been managing campgrounds. Um, managing might even be too strong
[4:04]of a word, but you know, I am by myself. And I mean, basically, yeah, I manage campgrounds and
[4:15]now I'm going to be a caretaker. I won't actually be living on a campground. I'll be living at a
[4:20]uh it's basically a restricted space inside of what they call a corridor. And I get to drive
[4:29]a truck. So, that's kind of amazing. Um, it still surprises me that there are volunteer roles where
[4:38]that's possible or they give you that much trust. This is one of them. And my boss who is amazing,
[4:47]has been amazing for the past 6 months. Um, she's trusting me with this role and I want to
[4:55]do an amazing job. So, I see my job as supporting the other volunteers. So, I go around to all the
[5:01]different campgrounds that we have and I just um don't manage the supplies because that's really
[5:08]done on her side. I I deliver them. I deliver the supplies to the host and maybe help out
[5:13]on their campgrounds if I find things to do. I'm going to find out if that's okay cuz I think some
[5:18]host can get a little territorial about their spaces which I totally understand. I'm there
[5:24]to support them. That's how I look at it. I'm there to act as a bridge between the volunteers
[5:30]and the crew. I mean, a very unofficial one. I just think that just from the way that a lot of,
[5:41]you know, I've been becoming friends with some of the hosts over time and they say things and I got
[5:47]to stay neutral because, you know, I just when I so started thinking, you know, that's kind of
[5:53]like a bridge cuz I'm, you know, showing them a different way of looking at what they were
[5:59]looking at in order to see that there's a positive side they're not seeing, you know. um can see this
[6:08]happening. So becoming integrated into a small geographic region right on the coasts in the dunes
[6:21]um close to the ocean, do a lot of hiking. Another another host, she likes hiking and we do that a
[6:30]lot together now. It's been really rewarding. It's been a rewarding relationship, friendship
[6:36]that I've built with her. Um, we've hiked like 20, 25, 30 miles this week. I don't even know. I'm
[6:44]pretty sore. But we just keep going. I'm filling in my my GIA GPS map with, you know, an overlay of
[6:53]the places that I've been hiking since I got to Oregon. And we're really filling this place in.
[7:00]So, I'm excited for this next chapter. I think it's um
[7:11]guess I don't have the words for it. I'm still I'm excited and nervous of
[7:17]course and just want to do a really good job. I believe I will. It's affirming
[7:28]because what happened to me at the state parks was a brutal experience
[7:32]over two months. Just absolute psychological abuse
[7:38]and
[7:44]that was a lot for me to metabolize. I didn't get treated that way here and that matters.
[7:54]So,
[7:58]I guess that's the update I wanted to give.