Yep, it was intense

... The "intensive" I just returned from, that is. That's what the 4-day weekends of classes at BGI are called. The October intensive was the first of the year, so there was lots to do in terms of getting people oriented and introduced. It was the first time the "C5s" (Cohort 5 -- the fifth class to be admitted) were mixing with the C4s, as well as a handful of C3 three-year students too. And within the C5s, only half of us had met before during the orientation trip to BC because we did that in two separate groups.

I think there were 100+ of us at Islandwood (an eco-retreat center on Bainbridge Island). We stayed in dorms there, which are really quite nice -- big wooden buildings with comfy rooms that each have their own bathroom and shower. The beds have nice down comforters. I was in a triple, and my two roommates seem to be cool with my getting up early, so that was good.

We eat together in the big dining hall, and the food is plentiful and quite good. One challenge with meals is the short time frame, usually only 45 minutes to an hour, which isn't really enough time to arrive, find a seat, get something to drink, eat the meal (they are served family-style to each table by the Islandwood staff), eat dessert (served separately after the main food is over), and self-bus our own dishes back to the kitchen. It's also really loud in the dining hall with so many of us, so coversation can sometimes be difficult.

Classes are held for 8 hours a day, plus there is usually an evening event. That means we're going from 7:30 am to about 9:30 pm. It can be exhausting, especially for us introverted types. But then again, it's only from Thurs noon to Sun noon. 36 hours is doable.

One of the neat parts is that there is a woman on the island who comes to give qi-gong instruction from 7-7:45 am. It's a great way to start the day. The form is different from the one I've been practicing for the past 6 months, but similar overall and quite invigorating. I also managed to meditate each morning before coming to qi-gong class. That helped a lot.

Actually being in class offered a wide range of experiences. In Accounting, we worked in teams to try to understand some case studies we were doing. It was a slightly chaotic team-learning environment with laptops open and 5 people trying to talk through the problems. It's not a learning style I am very adept at; I always preferred to study on my own. I will have to go over everything we did together by myself in order to cement it in my mind. Another class was more lecture style for at least part of it. And our Management class was busy with teamwork/leadership exercises to get us to notice group dynamics and how we "show up" in various situations.

We also self-organized into teams for our "Action Learning Projects" for the year. These are actual, practical projects working with real companies to help implement sustainability. We'll be developing the projects all the way through June so we'll have time to really dig in and get something done. I am on a 3-person team working with an outdoors company to reduce the wastestream at their retail stores. We may begin with basic "dumpster-diving" to see what they're throwing out! That's the "action" part of action learning.

There's a lot more. And I think each intensive will be just like this. Whew! But it's good stuff, and the other students are interesting, engaging, complex people.