Tales of the Parodyverse

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Hatman
Fri Aug 12, 2005 at 03:47:45 pm EDT
Subject
While the fridge is defrosting, here's what I've been up to/where I'm at these days
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I've been back in the real world for almost a week now, and I think I'm getting readjusted. Swearing still sounds kinda strange, but considering I work in the service industry I'm sure I'll be desensitized soon enough.

Camp was awesome. I'm flat broke since I haven't worked since June (excluding this past Wednesday), but I'd say it was worth it. I got snail mail from one of my campers yesterday with a picture, a letter, and a computer game he designed on a floppy disk (fortunately I made sure my laptop had a floppy drive when I bought it). That really speaks volumes to me that I made a connection with him, which is cool. This summer is also the first time I've ever lead a music team. For the bulk of the summer I was the team leader, which is funny considering I have no range as a singer and I can't play any instruments. Lots of people said that it went well though, and I had an absolute blast (after the first few days of being extremely nervous, which doesn't usually happen to me on stage). Leading singing for kids is so much fun! No matter how tired I got, singing with them always filled me full of energy.

Here's a quick rundown on how each week went, if you care to read.

1st week (ages 15 and up)- This the easiest week as a counselor, since the kids are 15 and older so I don't need to babysit them, plus the staff love working this week so we are always fully staffed. The campers have showers of their own accord, and are for the most part independent, which is great. I think this was the cabin I had the most fun with, as I had a great group of guys that all got along really well. We had one camper that would not wake up in the mornings (the one who sent me the letter, incidentally). Each night, in front of him, we'd plot how we were going to wake him up in the morning. Hitting him with brooms didn't work, hitting him with pillows, tickling, pinching, none of that. Two days in a row it was a mosquito that woke up him (to which I shouted while putting my broom away "You've gotta be kidding me!"). The best I think was the day we picked him up by his sleeping mat and carried him to another cabin. It was empty, so we were gonna dump him in "his bunk" in that cabin and leave him there to wake up. He woke up two feet from the door; in a couple days I'll be putting the video on-line for my guys to download, so if anyone wants to see let me know.

2nd week (ages 12-14) - This was by far the roughest week I had. I got one of the "problem cabins", being one of the senior counselors. We were also understaffed big time; we had half the staff of the 1st week with double the campers (about 50-60) From that end of things it went alright, but the biggest problem I faced was an age gap in the cabin. I had one 15 year old, three fourteen year old, and two twelve year olds who barely made the age cut-off for this week of camp. The older guys all got along fine, and the other two were twins so they were good with each other, but everything was over their heads, and they should've come during our 3rd or maybe even our 4th week. I had two really awesome guys in my cabin, but the other two were pretty apathetic. I felt I didn't really connect with my cabin very much. The way I put it is at the end of every week, I get sad because "My boys are leaving", emphasis on they're my boys. I didn't feel like that at the end of this week, which really made me sad. I also hurt my back playing a game in the later end of the week, which sucked, though one of my campers willingly offered to go and get me drugs when I was in agony that night which was really cool of him. On the plus side, this was my first week as Lead Vocals on the music team (I wasn't team leader though), which was nerve-wracking at first but fun by the end. It was also fun seeing how worked up about "The Banquet" these kids got; it was like Dawson's Creek in that regard, one big soap opera, in who was asking who and such. Very entertaining from the staff perspective.

3rd week (ages 11-12)- This week I was given a break from counseling, which I actually didn't really want, but fortunately I got to be Recreation Director with a friend of mine who I knew would do an awesome job. It worked out well in the sense that I didn't have to play any games so my back could heal since I'd be running them instead. I think we did a great job together doing Recreation, and a lot of people said that as well. It was weird not having a cabin; I kept looking for my boys even though I didn't have any. I feel kind of disconnected from the kids when I don't counsel, but it wasn't so bad since we didn't have a ton of campers (about 30, 20 girls to 12 boys I think). We also had three kids with special needs at camp this summer, and they merged really well with the camp and they were an absolute delight to have. Made Rec challenging at times, but we did our best to plan things they could participate in as well. This was the first week that I was the music team leader solo, which was nerve-wracking for a day or two but after that I really had a blast. I was told I did a pretty good job, which was reassuring and nice to hear. I have to add a quick comment on the food; every week the food is good, but this week it was outstanding! You could tell there was love and care put into every meal. Nobody cooks like good mennonite women, I tell ya. We even got perogies one day (which is a huge deal out in this area, as everyone loves Ukrainian food).

4th week (ages 10-12)- Some great stories came out of this week, the best being the "bear". I'll tell it if anyone is interested. Anyway, on to the week. First off, there was a big screw-up on the music team, firstly in regards to who was leading it. Long story short, there was a lot of miscommunications, I felt like I hadn't even been considered for the position even though I was told I did a great job the week before, the guy who was leading was worried about stepping on toes since he was brand new to the camp but some other staff put him up to it, it was a big mess. We had a meeting Wednesday that took 45 minutes, but we smoothed everything out. I led the morning team while he led the evening team. At first we both did things strictly our respective ways, but by the end we both learned from each other and incoporated things from the others way of doing things, which was cool. I definitely learned some stuff from him that week, and he said he did the same from me, which was cool. I bribed the Camp Director (one of my best friends) with food from the Olive Garden (I had to come back to the city to work the comic store on Sundays which kinda sucked, but oh well) to give me a camper I had the year before, and it was great having him back. I had a lot of fun with my boys this week, and in the end of week talent show I think our entry was the most original and maybe the funniest entry all summer. It was a culmination of multiple in-jokes in our cabin; the boys had a fixation with "Kung-Pao, Enter the Fist" and apparently I do the Evil Betty voice perfectly, my co-counselor that week had hair like Tom Welling so they called him "Clark Kent" all week, and at one point we were talking about Oompa Loompas. So our talent show entry consisted of a war between Evil Betty and the Chosen One versus the Oompa Loompas, but Superman swoops in to stop the carnage. My co-counselor is amazing on his keyboard, and he did music for "Kung Foo Fighting" (which I sang while the two Kung Fu Masters fought), the Oompa Loompa music for the song we wrote ("Oompa Loompa double D doop, I've got another beating for you. Punching, slapping, hitting with brooms, we're gonna send you all to your tombs"), and he programmed in the classic Christopher Reeve Superman music for his entrance as Superman (which I forced him to do, he really didn't want to fly around the building in a cape). It was awesome. This was also the week the Camp Director turned 30, so we threw him in the creek. That was the plan, anyway. We werent' planning on breaking the dock while doing it; 1500 pounds is a bit much for three hinges to hold we found. I ended up on the end that started to float away, we had to throw a rope for someone to haul us back in. I also, for once, had fun at the Banquet. I sat with one of the female counselors (we called it our"date", even though courting is against the rules, gasp! ) and had the first adult conversation I'd had at the dinner table all week. Oh yeah, I also hyperextended my knee near the end of this week, which really sucked because I love playing in Recreation; me and a couple other guys actually skipped our Rec period off because we love playing 4-way soccer so much!

5th week (ages 8-10)- I had a blast this week. I had a couple of discipline problems in my cabin, but nothing I couldn't handle. One of them was very rude and obnoxious on the Monday; by the end of the week I had him saying "please" and asking for things rather than demanding. Camp is still a place for manners. All summer we'd been mocking the "No courting" rule (just cause courting is such a fun word), and we'd also bee making fun of the mennonite "way" of marrying in the family (well, a couple cousins down, anyway). It culminated at the end of the week by the staff writing "courting notes" and sticking them in our Encouragement Note box. The courting notes were just a gag, I wrote about 30, but it was really fun the next morning seeing what everyone wrote. The Director was upset at first, but afterwards he realized it was the last day and there was no harm done. The staff gelled really well this week, even though we were dead tired on Monday. Sunday night we did a Team Development Activity that started at midnight and took until 3 AM (including our debriefing afterwards), and we completed the task in half the assigned time! Keep in mind I did this after my big car escapade, so I had a total of nine hours of sleep over the entire week-end (and I was dead tired to start the week-end!). My knee prevented me from playing any games until the end of the week, which sucks, but I did run a Rec period so the Recreation Director could play, which was fun, as I really do love leading Rec. We had a lot of fun as staff on the final night after the campers left too. One thing we did was tow an old, ready for the dump canoe, into the lake, fill it with 5 gallons of gasoline, and light it on fire. That was really awesome to watch. We also played a glow-in-the-dark game where we cracked open glowsticks and doused the ball in the chemical and then put it on ourselves. It was really awesome. I think I also had the most fun leading the music team this week, as we had a pretty good talent pool and the kids really got into it. The only negative of the week was there was an accident on Saturday morning hauling garbage. Long story short, one guy almost lost his fingers (it's a miracle he kept them, even though he'll never make a fist again) and is only getting out of the hospital I think today, maybe tomorrow. He's doing really well, but it's a real tragic way to end camp.

That's a very brief summary of my summer. I was tired for a lot of it, but it was worth it, as I've said. I still miss camp, but once work kicks in and I'm not at home as much I'll stop pining for it I guess. I still don't know what's happening with my car, I'm hoping to hear today. I think it may be a write off, but I can still hope.

I spoke to my boss about my new position on Wednesday. I was given my own set of keys for the arena; apparently I can open anything, at least on my level (I feel very important as this is my first time having work keys that I don't turn in at the end of the day:)). I'm going to be working the phones primarily when I'm in the office, but she's going to train me on everything so I can run the place if she's sick or away, which is cool. When hockey season starts I might even get to switch to doing the office all the time, which would be great. There will be nights when I'm supervising the suites as well, which is cool. Work's slow this month, which sucks cause I'm poor, but that's what credit cards are for. September is okay, but come October I'll be really busy, which is good cause I want to buy a new computer. I think I'm going to the dark side and buying an I-Mac, actually.

So yeah, hopefully I get motivated to write some stuff with this time off I have. Any requests on what I finish first?

~Hat~


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