Man vs. Wild: 5 Tips on How to Survive the TA!

Im sure you've all read tons of posts of everything we have been doing throughout the week and all of the fun everyone has been having and all of the new adventures we have all taken, but has anyone mentioned the TA? Stefan was our TA for this trip and throughout the past week he's been nothing but helpful to all of us and occasionally we would make fun of him for some of the quirky things he does. Here are your 5 tips to survive a week with Stefan:

This isn't weird at all.... I swear. 

Even the Rock likes to eat!

1) If you have any food, keep it hidden. Stefan loves to eat, at ALL times of the day. He's like a scavenger, always looking for food and if you have any leftovers forget about it! He won't actually take your food off of your plate but if you offer him your food before you give it back to the waiter then he will take it without a question and eat it. But that's good because then nothing goes to waste, right? So lets talk about the oranges. He LOVES oranges. Every dive that we were on he was always eating all of the oranges (before we dove). If you looked out into the ocean by the time he was done with the oranges it looked like a sad orange peel graveyard.

How all of our phones felt in phone jail...

2) Phone Jail! The first meal on the first day of our trip Stefan stole all of our phones and made us put them into phone jail. Phone jail was a plastic box that had "tropical osprey phone jail" written on it. The entire trip everyone would try and get in a picture pf the food or tag the location of the restaurant we were at on FB before he could take our phones but it never worked. Everyone always gave him crap for phone jail but it turns out that it wasn't even his idea!! It was Dr. Z's idea but stefan was in charge of phone jail, who knew! So get used to not having your phone during the trip because its either pouring rain, your underwater or in water, or your phone is in phone jail so theres really no time to use your phone throughout the trip unless you want to be really risky. 

                                                

3) He's a terrible DJ.... Sorry. When he would play music from his phone everyone in the van would look around at each other with a wtf look on their faces wondering what was going on and when this torture would end for us. my suggestion to you is to bring a pair of headphones to drowned out his music or a nice fluffy pillow so you can take a nap instead!

4) Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, hide yo stickers! He has a sticker obsession too. Everywhere we stopped he would buy stickers. No one really knows what he was doing with all of those stickers that he bought, but hopefully it was something really cool and crafty. My tip to you is to buy him lots of stickers to get on his good side, no one from our class did that so i think that explains a lot about how he felt about our group... Just kidding! 

5) Try not to annoy him too much! Stefan was very helpful even at 6 in the morning. If you forgot your water bottle in the cooler or you needed your dive gear and he had it he would make sure you had all of your stuff before we left! He was a volunteer. Stefan had to deal with all of us for about two and a half weeks and he chose to do this all on his own! So, try to not annoy him too much, im sure he likes to sleep in too. 

Stefan, on behalf of all of the Tropical Ospreys thank you for coming on this trip with us and spending weeks away from home to be annoyed by college students all day and night. We may have made fun of you for your horrible taste in music and love of all kinds of food but the trip wouldnt have run as smoothly or been as fun without you to help us out along the way. I dont know about group 1 but i know group 2 was a struggle bus and you never once complained about how annoying or obnoxious we all were. So thanks stefan, we apericate you! 

To find out what a TA does click here. 

To buy your very own phone jail click here.