ADAM: I'm being trained as the 'new guy', so to speak. For example, in Okamoto Ice Carving Studio which is in Queens, you have a team of artists and their medium is ice. So I joined that team for a day. But it wasn't like your typical first day, they throw you right into it between hauling a 400-pound block of ice to holding a chainsaw in my hand and trying to carve a work of art. So, I'm really trying to do the jobs. I'm not hosting and watching someone else do it and commenting, "Ooh, that's interesting." I'm thrown into it and there are varying degrees of success. Some are very difficult jobs, just arduous, a lot of labor. Some are highly skilled such as making works of art out of ice. Some are just a lot of work like working on a pheasant farm; which is a lot of hauling, using power equipment. I got to drive a tractor in Wisconsin. Which if you have never done I recommend doing. It was pretty cool.
At times, it's kicked my butt. They treat me like a new employee and we try to not let anyone go too easy on me. It's like you need this job done, let's get it done. You begin to see how difficult these jobs are that we take for granted. And you also get to see the skill that the experts have in the jobs themselves. So while I might not be a master pizza tosser, when you get to watch a master pizza tosser juggling pizza over his shoulder you still get to see that...and, wow, that's not just something I can pick up and do.
