Tennis

For the first time in the almost 4 summers I have been at camp, I played tennis with my girls. And boy do I suck! I have always had an inkling that when it came to actually playing the game--ie, doing the drills--I wouldn't know what to do. To my not-surprise, I don't even know how to do a front or back swing! I finally got the front swing down, but my backhand sucks. But I kept going, through all the drills with the girls, and finally was starting to improve a teeny bit. I think I'll keep going. The girls enjoyed watching me try and I would like to get better at it.

10:30 Bedtime

I never made it to the Transformers movie. Heather D. and I had a pedicure that was definitely on the other side of pain--I squirmed more than once while the dude was shoving my poor cuticles up my leg and using the roughest brush in the world to scour at my feet. Sheesh. At least the end result was good and I like the color. Then we went out to eat dinner, ran some errands, and made an appearance at The Wayne to be social. And I was in bed by 10:30. With the result that I am rested and refreshed this morning! Off to tennis with my girls...perhaps I'll learn how to actually play it!

Walk-Off

Last night was the first GL night for Upper Juniors--which just means that instead of the camp coming up with evening activity for my age group, I had to. Well, me and my co-GL. But it was my idea, so I'll take the heat for this one.

Two summers ago I did an impromptu walk-off with my girls on main campus and it was so much fun. Last night I thought I'd give it a try again, just more organized. Bill let us hold it in the Bill Widman Gym, because it looked like rain, and that is a prime spot that not many people get to use. I'll just chalk it up to the fact that Bill is awesome and he likes me. Anyway, we had costumes for the girls and we had two of the male staff do their own walk-off to show them how it was done. I was a little nervous we weren't going to fill the entire hour, but we could have gone longer. It was a lot of fun.

I did not get to go to bed until after 11 last night, but that was because we had Leadership and the girls always get riled up when the Bunk 1 girls come in. They are a little bit harder to settle down after that. No real criers, although I did have to take 4 girls to the health center for varying reasons. As a result, I woke up tired this morning.

It is my night off tonight!!! And the new Transformers movie is calling my name.

And That's Why I Love Camp

The bus ride yesterday went like a dream--usually dealing with parents can be intimidating. And since I was going to Long Island, I was fully expecting more than a few incidents when I would regret going. HOWEVER...it was cake! The ride up was good, the parents were beyond good, and Joe and I had a very smooth transition. After they got on the bus and we pulled away, we had to go around with a thermometer and take all their temperatures. It was one of those that you stick in their ear and wait for it to quit beeping, so it wasn't very hard. We had one slight temperature, but it wasn't over 100. Then the long ride back was great. They gave up cell phones, candy, and passports without a fuss. I was so impressed with how relaxing the entire day turned out to be.

After they got here, I had a couple criers in the dining hall--I didn't get to finish eating dinner. But we got them to stop and then headed down for the evening activity. Then I got all nervous, because we had to dance the Hoedown Throwdown. And that ended up being great. I only slightly screwed up once, but for the most part we were all in sync. It was a good time.

I have to get used to sitting on OD. I'm used to being able to go to bed when I'm finished, but now I have to wait another hour and a half. I was in bed by 11, which is pretty fantastic for the first night of camp!

Let's see how the rest of the day goes.

Lice checks...I am a little bit scared that I have lice, even though my head hasn't ever itched...irrational fear, I know. Still. I'll keep you posted on that.

That's How We Roll

And it is official: I know the Hoedown Throwdown in it's entirety. Not only that, but I can keep up with the music. And a good thing, too, because tomorrow night we are doing it in front of about 500 people.

More to come tomorrow, after the girl's arrive.

Yay for a bus to Long Island!!!!

Toga Designs

If I were living in ancient Greece, or anywhere else they wear togas all the time, I think my calling would be as a toga designer. I have always enjoyed the wearing of togas, and since rarely is there a choice opportunity to do such, the idea of wearing a toga. How awesome would that be, for that style to come back in? I would wear a toga all the time. Anyway, for Staff Olympics tonight the Group Leaders came out in togas to the olympics music. And I tied about half the togas. Heather D. tied the other half, and then eventually helped me with the style I wanted to fashion for my own toga. Who knew I had such a toga talent? It was a good skill to discover.

While we're on the topic of skills, we slack lined tonight behind the office for half an hour or more. It was so much fun to get back on a slack line. My slack line is currently hanging in my room, waiting for warm weather and two opportune trees. Perhaps when we go to Echo Lake for our family vacation I can get the slack line out for some family slack lining.

I managed to whack the ball of my thumb on something--not my thumb, per se, just the fat part at the base of my thumb. I don't know on what, but it swelled to about twice the size and hurts like a mofo. So I made my way to the Health Center and got some ice for it and some Ibuprofin to take the swelling down a bit. Then I rode around with Drew in the golf cart for 45 minutes while he did errands and I iced my thumb. And now, the swelling is down a teeny bit but it still really hurts. My guess is that I bruised it severely. Oh joy.

Unpacking Day

I loathe unpacking day. It is stressful, hot, sweaty, uncomfortable, and brings back to me my complete and utter dislike of packing and unpacking in general. I don't even like to pack or unpack for myself, why would I want to do it for 36 11-year olds? That being said, today went as well as it has ever gone in my past 3 summers at camp. It went quickly, it wasn't too stressful, and although it was hot and sweaty I think it actually wasn't as bad.

I am on a bus on Saturday to pick up the girls--I go to Long Island, NY. I like that trip. I get to drive right on through New York and see everything. I also enjoy being on a bus in general. Dealing with the parents doesn't bother me. For the most part they are all nice people and I like that I get to be somewhere and have some experiences, rather than waiting back at camp with nothing to do but busy work.

Tomorrow we have half the day off, and I don't know what is going to happen but I am pretty sure buying some navy shorts is in order. This year my Bryn Mawr leadership Polo is a size small and wonder of wonder it actually fits!! I'm digging that.

So You Think You're An Upper Junior

My counselors have been chosen. My cabin bed assignments are complete. My calendars are finished. I have a few other little things to do, and then tomorrow is the dreaded unpacking day. And then Saturday it begins.

Jane and Dan took the whole camp to the movies on Monday night as we always do every summer--I saw the Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Renolds and quite enjoyed it--and then when we got back to camp at 9:30, all the GLs dressed up like pirates and kidnapped the counselors, bringing them to the fieldhouse. There we proceeded to tell them their bunk placements and who their co-counselors were. No tears this year!!!! I was way too tired to deal if there was, and I'm sure it would have resulted in tears myself. At this point it was about midnight and I couldn't wait to go to bed.

I have met with my counselors and I think all will be great. I am not super excited about any, nor am I super bummed. I think the middle road is a good sign for right now. I'll take it.

Today we are finishing up some last minute things and then tomorrow the unpacking begins. I loathe that day. I don't like packing, either, but unpacking comes first so I'm just going to hate it a little bit more right now. I hate feeling hot and tired and stressed and sweaty.

On a happy note, we have sunshine!!! With a bit of a breeze to keep things cool. And I have already gotten quite the sock tan line. I think this year's is going to be a thing of beauty. I'll have to take pictures.

List Time

1. The weather has partially improved today--at least we got to see some sunshine! It is a wee bit cold still, but no rain is a good thing.

2. Last night was the best Rick Kelly show ever--mostly because it was short. However, I did enjoy the beginning of Rick Kelly, before it started to pour on us and we all got completely soaked. Dancing in the rain is as fun as it sounds, until the music started to slow down and I felt like I had jumped into the lake with my clothes on without the fun of actually doing it.

3. I heart the Ice Cream Cottage.

4. The General Counselors are all opening up and beginning to show us their personalities. I think we've got a good group this year.

5. I love Drew, in a platonic, PD/GL way. This morning I was a bit late getting out of bed and so I didn't get to have my usual adirondack chair sit before Revielle so I went into Drew's office and we picked the music for tomorrow morning.

6. I finally finished my calendars for the bunks!

7. I just remembered I have to be in the Dining Hall to serve lunch for the cheerleaders. Peace!

Getting To Know You

The General Staff is here. I hopped in a van with Joe, the fitness and sports conditioning PD and we drove to Newark airport to pick them all up. He took the luggage and I took the bus back to camp with the new counselors. They were all very tired from traveling and that bus ride is the longest in the whole entire world. It was a fun experience for me, though. No one was late and we didn't leave anyone at the airport. Mission accomplished.

The weather? Not so good. Rain mostly. How am I going to get a good sock tan line if the sun never comes out???

I have been getting to know many people lately. Some PDs, some male staff, and of course all the new general counselors. It has been a good time. I like everyone here thus far, and I really enjoy getting to know people better.

Today at our tour, Bill told my group I am his favorite GL. Then he gave me 2 suckers. It made me smile.

Tonight is the GL fashion show--I chose to be dress all in Gold to showcase Spirit Week, and to wear my Chocolate Banana Night skirt. Gotta love that thing. Remember? The green skirt with the orangey-yellow-gold hibiscus flowers all over it? That thing rocks my socks.

Ice Cream Cottage

Official Ice Cream Cottage count for the summer of 09? 3 times in the past 4 nights and I am planning on including it for tonight too. Ah the Ice Cream Cottage.

Today is our day off and we hit Trackside for b'fast this morning. Love the Trackside. Then we all came back to camp and hung out until lunch--Rachel and I cannot watch Twilight together. We ruin it for other people who actually want to take that movie seriously. Oh well. Lesson learned. Then everyone else went to play a rousing game of indoor soccer and I chose to take a nap. We had some extremely loud people last night and I was tired this morning when I woke up. My nap was delightful. Then I think we are heading to McDonalds--or Old McDonalds, as Kaelan calls it--and then the Cottage. Good times.

I have decided that there is no real purpose in going to Scranton on my days or nights off, unless I need something desperately. Otherwise I just spend money. So while I am sure there will be the occasional Scranton trip, I am cutting back.

My mom just became the new State Steward for the State of Montana. Congratulations, Mom! (It's a Postal Service thing, in case you were wondering what that means)

Days

Today was an exceptionally good day. I can't really think of a reason for this...it just was. Perhaps because we did some very awesome sessions and group activities. Perhaps because we had our Division Head dinner with all Junior camp GLs and Marjori. Perhaps because we get late sleep tomorrow. Or maybe because Thursday is our day off. Whatever it was, I was digging it.

I had my meeting with Jane and Marjori about the girls in my bunks. I have 36 campers this year, a new record for me. Hoo boy. I think it will be a challenge to learn all their names and to get to know them all. I have definitely been spoiled in previous years, especially since I had the same girls for 2 years in a row. We are told to come out of our comfort zones during the summer and I am especially going to be doing that this particular summer.

We get late sleep tomorrow and then Thursday is our day off. After that is the day the general staff counselors arrive, and I will be the one to pick them up in Newark. I've never done that before, so that should be a good time.

And I have nodded off. Talk to you later.

F*** Personal Growth

The above title is how I feel currently. Just know that it is mostly a facetious statement. However much I find it amusing--Heather D. and I had a good laugh about it last night--I do recognize the importance of personal growth in my own life and I do, albeit grudgingly, appreciate the fact that I have so much opportunity every summer to achieve it.

That being said, let me explain the reason behind the comment.

GLs received age group assignments and co's last night. I was fully expecting to get Upper Juniors, and no surprise there, I did. I haven't had these girls yet and I'm a tad bit nervous about how they are going to be...there are a few girls I remember from last year as being difficult. My co GL, however, was a surprise and only partially what prompted the title. It feels like every summer I have been here--with the exception of my first summer with Heather D.--that I have been paired with someone that I have zero in common with and someone I am flat-out apprehensive about working with. It isn't like we only see each in passing once or twice a day. We are pretty much non-stop together, so you can see how working with someone you have nothing in common with would be a challenge. And yet again, this person is someone I have little or nothing in common with and someone who approaches life and her position as a GL completely different than me. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. Last night wasn't the brightest for me, hence why Heather D. and I came up with the 'f*** personal growth' thing.

I slept on it and am feeling much more up to the challenge this morning. I met with Marjori and told her that I can do it and I'm not even really that worried about doing it. Is she the person I would have chosen? No. That being said, perhaps this summer will end up better than last summer--I got along fine with my co from last summer, but things didn't end up the way I would have liked with the girls in the end. They were all attached to me and made my life double as hard.

Taking a deep breath. And let the personal growth begin. (Sorry about taking your name in vain, personal growth.)

Two-Year Old Hair and Blindfolds

And once again, my 2 year old hair is making an impression--and it is clearly here to stay. I figured I might be able to combat the frizz this year. Humidity is proving a worthy foe and I think I'm going to lose the battle. In past summers I have always just accepted and even embraced my 2 year old hair. I might have to do the same this summer.

I have a bed that is like one of those old jail house beds made completely out of metal. You know the kind I'm talking about, with the sketchy guy handcuffed to it? Yeah, I sleep on one of those. The problem being that one side of the springs is broken so I sag to one side every night. Not cool. I requested a board for underneath my bed, and Bill, bless his heart, made it happen today. I could not sleep yet another night on that thing. One side of my body went numb from trying not to change positions all night.

Life here is good. I am happy. I am not digging the humidity, as previously stated, but I can live with that.

Oh, one more thing. Today we did teambuilding in the Field house. We were split into 3 teams and had to do a challenge at each one--passing each other over a rope fence without touching it, swinging from a platform to a circle without touching the ground, and crossing a gap with 2 boards and nothing else. The catch? Two of us on each team were blindfolded and the rest of the team had to watch out for them. Yes, you guessed it. I was blindfolded. Things are not good when you can't see what the heck you're doing. I was passed around and led from spot to spot and swinging off that platform blind was kind of scary--but exhilarating at the same time. I think going off the zipline blindfolded would be sweet. In one respect.

Newark

And I have arrived. Here are my impressions.

1. Packing sucks, but having to pay the ridiculous check-bag price the airlines are charging sucks even more. I would rather fly with nothing. Why aren't bags included in the price of travel anymore?

2. We couldn't even see the ground when we were landing in Newark. No New York skyline, whatsoever. The landing gear came down and then we landed in a fog. And it is still rainy and foggy this morning. Does this mean the summer to come is going to be cold and rainy??

3. Pizza is amazing when you are starving.

4. I leave for camp in 2 hours and I am still trying to get to that Bryn Mawr frame of mind. It came soooo quickly this year!

5. I have to do something with my hair, so peace! I'll write more later.

Countdown

I am almost on the way to camp. Almost because I don't fly until Thursday and because I haven't even started packing yet. I am crap at packing. It is something I do not relish.

Anyway, I drove home on Sunday from Casper and it was so hard to say goodbye. Those two little boys are my best buddies. Kaelan is growing up so fast and Kameron is a kick in the pants. He's the funniest 1 year old I know.

Today I am going into GF to get all the little things that make camp a successful summer--socks, shoes, head bands, etc. And then tonight I am driving to Helena to spend the night with Brandt and Ashlie in their new house. We'll hang out and them I'll come back on Wednesday for some serious packing. And Thursday I fly...hopefully much lighter than in previous summers. Like I said, I am crap at packing.

Convicts

Since I have started working at Precision, I have seen more convicts than in my entire life to date. We are always having guys come in from the many different Honor and Conservation camps scattered around Wyoming. Are there that many in other states, too, or is Wyoming just full of convicted criminals? I guess I'll have to do some research. Anyway, just today we had 4 guys in, all wearing those colorful shirts they make them wear--red, orange, yellow, blue--but definitely some type of prison uniform. They were very friendly, but very rough around the edges. One of them was there because he had been 'hip shot' as he put it, in the robbery or whatever it was that landed him in jail in the first place and this resulted in a twisted spine and a leg length discrepency. They had two armed guards there to keep an eye on them. It is a very interesting experience for me. I'm not nervous around them, because there are all those guns the guards carry, and I'm pretty sure I saw pepper spray and a tazer in the one guard's belt o'fun. On the other hand, I think we're all kind of conditioned to be wary around them. Who knows what they are in trouble for, after all. And of course there are the ones who come from the State Pen at Rawlins, with the orange jumpsuit and full on arm and leg shackles. The guards who accompany those guys keep one hand on their gun butt at all times.

Another story, while I'm on the topic of guns. Kamil hired a tech to work in the back with he and Vince today and when Sandy asked for his two forms of ID he handed her his driver's license and his concealed carry permit. It was awesome and struck up a conversation between he and I about guns. He used to be a police officer and he is now an instructor and still carries a gun around. I was interested by that. Research!! I am always researching.

Machine Guns

I went with Dan to the machine gun shoot here in Casper--well, actually it was outside of Casper by about half an hour, in the middle of nowhere, but that is understandable. The whole gist of the idea is to be able to shoot whatever kind of big gun you want. However, the prices? Not so great. You could spend 40 bucks to shoot one round of something. Yikes. I chose to just watch and keep my money. Dan shot a few things by haggling them down a little, but they weren't keen on the idea of haggling much. The .50 caliber was amazing! It felt like a huge explosion of air whenever it would go off. And then everytime one of them would go offyou off you could feel it in your stomach. It was cool. We watched some random guy sniping prairie dogs with a spotter and an enormous silencer on the end. Poor prairie dogs, to end up living in the field where the targets were set up. I really enjoyed seeing the tracers from the .50 flying way the heck over the field--like over 1000 yards or so, I think. We also got a good lesson from the Fort Casper reenactor guys with the cannon. At one point they showed us a real charge they had found in Fort Sumter. The guy said they didn't know if it was live or not, so they backed up and shot it with something! I was thinking, geez, no matter it's historic. It was hilarious, though, that the first response for them was to shoot it with something. Anyway, I got some sun and broke in my new Chacos--dust and dirt, yeah!--and got to see some very cool guns in action. That hobby is too expensive for me.