I’m about to spend the next three months living in my tent in the forests of West Virginia… What have I gotten myself into? Now, I’m assuming that if you’re reading this, I’ve already word vomited the entire story to you; but to those of you who are confused I’ll catch you up! Even if you do know, I encourage you to still read (pretty pretty please).

My name is Katlin Mikelbank, and this blog is going to be the digital documentation of my Summer 2024. I’ve been given the wonderful opportunity to work in the Appalachian Conservation Corps as a trail builder from the beginning of June until mid-August. I’m extremely excited and extremely terrified! Personal feelings aside, I believe God has led me through this journey so far (that testimony will definitely be a future post!) and I trust that He will guide me throughout this Summer.

Now, again assuming that most everyone who is reading this knows me in some capacity, here is the version of myself that I am fabricating for online (it’ll be as true as can be without doxing myself). I am currently an upperclassman student at East Tennessee State University: my major is in Biology with a concentration in Natural Resource Ecology (fancy talk for I like nature). I am a very amateur poet, if I feel inspired I may share some of it here, but don’t get your hopes up because so far only my boyfriend has read any of it. My favorite color is green, and I try incorporating it into every outfit I wear, so reader, be watchful and see if you can spot the green!  I don’t have my big girl job yet, but my goal is to become a State Park Ranger in Tennessee. The goal with this Summer job is to help me gain some experience in my (hopefully) future career; I’d rather find out now that I hate working outside than find out after I’ve graduated. A big part of who I am, is my identity in Christ, and through this journey I hope to draw closer to Him. 

For right now, my life is bombarded with preparing for this behemoth of a task. I thought it would be easy to prepare for this… I was wrong.

I think I have most of my gear that I will need for the summer. It’s really hard to tell with such a massive pile growing in my room. No matter how hard I try to keep it organized, it is determined to be as hectic as possible. Right now I need pants, a headlamp, and sooooo many little things!!!

I’m finishing up my last few weeks at my current job. I’m sad to leave the familiarity of it, but excited for this new opportunity! I’m sure all my coworkers are going insane due to how much I talk about it (I’m sorry but you will be the victims of my enthusiasm!). 

The biggest task I need to do before leaving is cleaning out my living space. One might think they keep a place clean, but I’m slowly discovering that I can be a slob. I’m trying to focus on small tasks at a time so I don’t overwhelm myself in the last week. 

At the end of the day, the most important task left to do is to spend time with all my friends and family. It will be hard leaving them to go on this job, but they say distance makes the heart grow fonder (yeah, we’ll see about that). 

With all these responsibilities in mind, in a typical Katlin fashion, I will stress myself out and overthink every single thing and pray that I somehow complete all of them without going bald.

For this blog, I am going to try my best to have weekly updates (biweekly at least) of what is going on in my life. I have had lots of friends and family who have asked me to keep them updated, and this is where the updates will be! I will do my best to reach out to everyone though, but I figured this was the best way to ensure that anyone who was interested had the opportunity to be informed. 

So, for anyone reading this, I sincerely ask for your prayers throughout this journey. I predict that I will be needing lots of support and encouragement to get through this. A special thank you to my family for supporting me through these burdensome trials, my friends for feeding into my delusions, and my boyfriend for encouraging me to do this! West Virginia, here I come!