Greetings my good people! This be post number one from Aidan on this fine platform of communication!

I am an alumni of St. Mikes from the class of 2018 and I currently work in the field of wilderness therapy as a guide at True North Wilderness Program in Waitsfield Vermont. Similar to Lauren's experience, post grad life has been quite wild and the education has in fact rapidly increased for me! I have traveled the most this past year than any other year of this life-starting in Alaska last Summer to Nepal and India in the winter time with a short stint in Switzerland somewhere in there and now I pack my bag once again for the most anticipated trip of them all-Ghana!

I accidentally took the drumming course my first year at St. Mikes thinking it was a band class-oh how wrong I was. Probably the best "mistake" I ever made, I fell in love with everything we did and it soon proved to be the most valuable and important experiences for me in my time at St. Mikes. It allowed a release of stress, provided a meditative environment, allowed me to understand a completely different style of learning (while twisting my brain in ways I still cannot use any words to describe) and led me into a community (rather-a family) of the weirdest and grooviest people on campus.

I had just missed the previous Ghana trip-as it happened the summer before my first year-and I had heard about how outrageously awesome it was from some of the students who had the privilege of going. Naturally I was curious and began to ask Joss about when the next trip was. Without ever getting a straight answer I just decided to started saving money to fund it whenever it was going to happen-this was in 2015. I had no clue if it ever was going to happen, but as fate has it we are headed off tomorrow, 4 years later! That clueless freshmen inside of me is jumping out of his pants giddy with excitement while my current self is feeling cool as a cucumber and ready to drink up the experience of a lifetime.

Big thanks to Joss for sharing her unusual and epic passion with a bunch of rag tag college kids along with the help of all the good people at St. Mikes namely Peggy Imai for all the support and encouragement for making this unique experience a reality!