21 today… I finally close this chapter in my guiding journey

Normally when one reaches maturity or 21 years of age, there is a ceremony where celebrations are held, and if memory serves me correctly, a key to the proverbial door is handed to the birthday person…

So how do I end a journey that has taken me 21 years to complete? With a celebration? With a sigh? With a Facebook comment or an article in a magazine?

I have no idea…

But, I suppose the easiest way is to share this journey with you, the reader, and let you decide if I should see this as an ending or a beginning…

Like all good stories, this one begins with “ A long time ago”…just after the dinosaurs had left the planet…well perhaps just a few millennia later, I met Todd Kaplan who worked in an office not too far from where I was presenting an online radio show.

We got chatting about what it was that he did, my love of all things natural and how badly I wanted to be a game ranger (which is how field guides were referred to back in the day)

The year was 2002 and little did I know what actually lay in store for me.

Todd had mentioned that WildlifeCampus offered a Game Ranging (Field Guiding) course which should take me about a year to complete.

I was duly assigned a login name and a password and I thought that this was going to be the proverbial ‘piece of cake’ to complete.

I could not have been more wrong if I tried!

There are 12 modules, each of which contains 2-20 sub-sections. All of which have to be passed to get the final qualification. And the pass mark was 60%+ so the work had to be understood before attempting to write the supplied tests.

I did try to write a test or two without looking at the actual module, but given the way that the questions a written I soon crashed and burned by trying THAT technique.

I had originally thought that I could complete one module a month, which would see me graduate at the end of 12 months.

But I quickly got bored and I realized that distance/online learning is not my strong suit as I have no discipline when it comes to actually sitting down and doing the prescribed work that I had set myself.

One year dragged into two, then into 10. 10 became 15 and by then I had only finished 1 complete module and 2 subsections. I had also failed several which is what caused my confidence to waver.

Over the years, Todd and I had kept in contact and had discussions about me writing a course for WildlifeCampus. The idea was accepted in principle, but then I decided that there was too much work to be done on that and it would not translate well to the online learning platform.

So back to the course for me? Oh, no…I decided to tackle another course, Game Lodge Management.

“How long should it take to complete”? I asked Todd. “Knowing you, probably about 10 years”!

I confounded us both when I completed it in 4 months AND graduated with distinctions.

Then COVID lockdown occurred and as that progressed, I thought that THAT would allow me to complete the course.

But my enthusiasm was short-lived and I think that I completed 1 more module before putting it on a back burner…again.

At the end of 2022, I realized that 2023 would see the 21st anniversary of my starting the course and what better way to celebrate that journey would be to FINISH the course.

Seeing that I turn 70 this year, I decided that the completion would be my gift to myself.

So, I virtually locked myself in my home office, turned off all the distractions, and sat down to study and write the various tests. Being online the marking is instantaneous, which gave me the impetus to work through each module and pass them all!

As I write this, I have been informed that I will soon receive my certificate and, just like that, the course is done and dusted.

I am now considering whether to do another course or not. Do I want to graduate from the next course at 91?

I DON’T THINK SO…

But what I have come to realize is that perseverance does pay off in the long run. And I am glad that I can finally get to hang the certificate proudly on my office wall.

This article and my dedication to completion is a tribute to Todd Kaplan, who died before he could see me finally graduate.

“This is for you, Todd”.

If you want to find out more about the various course on offer, click on the logo and you will be directed to their website.

Remember, none of the courses are designed to take 21 years!

For those that were not aware, there is an extension to the Travel & Things Blog in the form of ‘In conversation with‘ a YouTube channel hosted by David Batzofin and filled with a plethora of interesting interviews with a variety of people.

To visit the channel, click on the ‘In conversation with’ image above.