We just had our Prep 4 Data Meeting. I am in a really good place mentally. I just found out that Pjay (one of my best friends) just booked a flight for New Zealand leaving Oct 4th. So Ben Gray and Pjay will for sure be there. It is nice to know I'll have at least a couple friends. I'm starting to get really pumped about that. Europe is also getting closer, that should be great. I love Europe and can't wait to see Hana. That has been more in the background of my mind as all the preparation for New Zealand has led me to focus on that. But 2.5 weeks in Europe with such a great person will be amazing, plus there is still a chance some other friends of mine are going to drop in. Also as an update to my long term plans Pjay and I have decided to commit to living a dream of ours. Next September after the 100th aniversary celebration Henry (Pjay) and I are going to bike from Vancouver, Canada to Mexico. A bit over 1800 miles. Should be about 40 days of riding and 20 of chilling out. I'm excited already. It should be a true adventure. So that makes my updated life intinerary
Aug 25th: Leave Camp
Aug 26th-Aug 31st: Hang out in Twin Cities possibly selling shaved ice at Minnesota State Fair
Sept 1st - Sept 19th: Europe with Hana
Sept 19th-Sept 24th: 3 nights in Phoenix, one in Tucson (21st?), one in LA(23rd). Fly to NZ
Sept 26th - Mid May 2009: Work and live it up in New Zealand
Mid May to Sept 3rd 2009: Camp? More New Zealand? Something else?
Sept 4th-Sept 7th 2009: 100th Anniversery Celebration at Camp Lincoln. Be There.
Sept 15th ish-Nov 15th ish 2009: Bike from Canada to Mexico.
Nov 16th - ? : The rest of my life
So I feel great right now. The best I've felt in a while. One day I may look back and regret not saving my money or getting a steady job and settling down. I'm not sure. But I will know that at least for a while, I was incredibly happy.
Joey
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Time OFF Part 2
So it is now 700pm. I have about 3 hours left to my time off. I can hear the music of the Rally Day Dance and a large part of me is tempted to go join. However I know I need this time to myself to prepare for the next two weeks. Plus, come on, I got bloggin' to do.
My second year at camp the time off situation changed a little. A small change was made in that it evenings out went from 1015pm-1230am. This was a fairly small change, but in showing how everything is relative at the time time we didn't know how we were going to be able to go anywhere in just 2 hours. Now I don't know what we ever did with 3. The biggest change was that instead of screwing around in the parking lot from 1015-1045, you left at 1015 now. You had to have plans when you got there or make them quick.
The more significant change was related to a change in special day. Camp went from having 6 special days a session to 4. It makes sense and I understand why they did it. They tried though for that summer to keep it to 3 days off per session, there was no EE now and all the days off were 28.5 hours. That presented a problem with the present system. So the solution was that you had special days off with half the staff and you had just regular camp days off with 4-7 other staff. The system had its good points and faults. Its primary good was that it kept three days off. However there was a long list of bad points. From a programming aspect having certain staff pretty much randomly off, meant staffing activities was much more complicated. From a staff perspective you didn't have a group of people you always had time off with so it made it harder to build strong relationships. Plus you have a day off with 4 other people who might be alright but you didn't really want to spend a long block of time with.
For me it was pretty good relatively speaking. My time off that year was defiantly not as good as my first year. Still I was generally lucky. I only had day off with a small group that wasn't that good. It was still nice, just didn't do that much. It was my first day off that I ever slept on camp. The days off except for two are generally less memorable. There was no more Molly so no more Molly's cabin and consistency that that meant. There was no more clique, at least not nearly so defined a one. Molly did come up once and a few of us that had come back that year did go to her place but it was not the same. Time off was good that year but did not have the meaning to me it did my first year. I think every year at camp so far there has been something that has made love this place. But it is always different. My first year it was my friends, my second year it was the kids and the job.
I will tell you about two that stand out though. During first session on one of the small days off there were 4 of us off, Scooter, Scotty O, Andres, and myself. but it was a great 4. There was also a girl I had met from girls camp, Jessica who came with us. Jessica is a bit of a story all to herself so if you've never heard you can ask me sometime. I will always remember this day off for a few reasons. One of the staff in my cabin apparently had a studio appt. that he loaned out for people on days off if they wanted. He warned me that is was really messy and there was no power right now, but a free place is a free place. So we left camp with 5 people in my 4 seater car and somehow Andres (the Colombian) was elected to drive. It made sense at the time. We stopped at wal-mart and bought 200 tea candles so we would have light. The drive there was fun, though cramped. We had some trouble finding the place and Andres was driving in true Latin-American fashion, we were a mix of terrified and in fits of laughter. We eventually got there though. Messy is my room at college, this was just disgusting. There was crap everywhere, you could hardly walk. We took a broom and swept all of his possessions to one side of the room. We then lit the candles. We started playing a drinking game called 'Moose', very popular with Scooter and I from back home. Andres and Jessica were awful and drank the lion's share. It was a fun night and 4 of us slept on his futon (after turning it over for all the good it probably did) and Andres ended up in the closet. The next day we went to Valley Fair and again had an amazing time. Jessica and I really got to know each other, nothing happened though, she had a boyfriend, but we really clicked none the less. We spent two hours going through the lazy river just talking. The whole day was great again though.
The other day was session. Myself and some others really wanted a great session break since there weren't as many big group days off. So we planned to those Duluth Spirit Mountain cabins. We got 4 of them which meant we were completely isolated. We invited everyone, though not without charging money. Everyone came too. It was packed. It was a night of rejoicing and debaucheries (not myself, others) that I will not mention in this family friendly (well semi- family friendly) blog. It was the party that everyone wanted, and maybe deserved though. It was still in my 5 years the largest single gathering of staff I think there has been. It was inclusive and there was something for everyone. It was everything you could ever want in a camp party. For me my greatest pleasure just came out of seeing everyone have so much fun. It wasn't really quite my scene but I was happy none the less.
The end of my second year was really the end of the time at camp where my time off would be a significant part of my experience instead of a background thing. Moving to the admin team my third year changed that a lot. There were some nice days off during my third and 4th year but they don't make for especially good stories. I stayed on camp most nights aside from a few outings. Days off became about relaxing not going out and having the time of my life. Camp became about work and learning, not as much friends and parties. It didn't happen all at once, my third year I still got my crazy on a little, but it diminished rapidly through that year and my 4th to a point now where even my admin friends make fun of me for being such a loner on my time off.
The truth of the matter is that what camp means to me has changed as well as who I am here. My first two years on admin I felt like I was really a counselor who was now on admin. Now as weird of a thought as it is to me, I have spent more time on admin then on staff. I'm not a counselor who is now a division director, I am a division director who was once a counselor. I have the best relationships with the staff that I have had since joining the admin team but it is different. I have friends but I am still peoples supervisor first and friend second. I get invited to hang out a pretty good amount, but I like to give people there space. I don't want them to have to worry about what they say around me. I want them to be able to vent and gossip and I don't want the burden of knowing about it. When I hang out with staff they think its cool, but a part of the reason that it is cool is the novelty of hanging out with Joey.
So I spend most of my time just reading, sometimes I go out to eat with staff, sometimes I eat with myself. The admin time off is a little different so partially because of that and bad luck I haven't had any time off with any other admin. I went to the cities with staff once, but I just can't really be myself, at the least not the me that I would want to be. So I read, and I've read a lot. And its nice. But it gets a bit lonely sometimes. Don't worry about me though, I'm good at being lonely. Just like anything I take the good with the bad, and I'm happy. Just like everything else though, it is a different happy then it once was. Not worse, just different.
Joey
My second year at camp the time off situation changed a little. A small change was made in that it evenings out went from 1015pm-1230am. This was a fairly small change, but in showing how everything is relative at the time time we didn't know how we were going to be able to go anywhere in just 2 hours. Now I don't know what we ever did with 3. The biggest change was that instead of screwing around in the parking lot from 1015-1045, you left at 1015 now. You had to have plans when you got there or make them quick.
The more significant change was related to a change in special day. Camp went from having 6 special days a session to 4. It makes sense and I understand why they did it. They tried though for that summer to keep it to 3 days off per session, there was no EE now and all the days off were 28.5 hours. That presented a problem with the present system. So the solution was that you had special days off with half the staff and you had just regular camp days off with 4-7 other staff. The system had its good points and faults. Its primary good was that it kept three days off. However there was a long list of bad points. From a programming aspect having certain staff pretty much randomly off, meant staffing activities was much more complicated. From a staff perspective you didn't have a group of people you always had time off with so it made it harder to build strong relationships. Plus you have a day off with 4 other people who might be alright but you didn't really want to spend a long block of time with.
For me it was pretty good relatively speaking. My time off that year was defiantly not as good as my first year. Still I was generally lucky. I only had day off with a small group that wasn't that good. It was still nice, just didn't do that much. It was my first day off that I ever slept on camp. The days off except for two are generally less memorable. There was no more Molly so no more Molly's cabin and consistency that that meant. There was no more clique, at least not nearly so defined a one. Molly did come up once and a few of us that had come back that year did go to her place but it was not the same. Time off was good that year but did not have the meaning to me it did my first year. I think every year at camp so far there has been something that has made love this place. But it is always different. My first year it was my friends, my second year it was the kids and the job.
I will tell you about two that stand out though. During first session on one of the small days off there were 4 of us off, Scooter, Scotty O, Andres, and myself. but it was a great 4. There was also a girl I had met from girls camp, Jessica who came with us. Jessica is a bit of a story all to herself so if you've never heard you can ask me sometime. I will always remember this day off for a few reasons. One of the staff in my cabin apparently had a studio appt. that he loaned out for people on days off if they wanted. He warned me that is was really messy and there was no power right now, but a free place is a free place. So we left camp with 5 people in my 4 seater car and somehow Andres (the Colombian) was elected to drive. It made sense at the time. We stopped at wal-mart and bought 200 tea candles so we would have light. The drive there was fun, though cramped. We had some trouble finding the place and Andres was driving in true Latin-American fashion, we were a mix of terrified and in fits of laughter. We eventually got there though. Messy is my room at college, this was just disgusting. There was crap everywhere, you could hardly walk. We took a broom and swept all of his possessions to one side of the room. We then lit the candles. We started playing a drinking game called 'Moose', very popular with Scooter and I from back home. Andres and Jessica were awful and drank the lion's share. It was a fun night and 4 of us slept on his futon (after turning it over for all the good it probably did) and Andres ended up in the closet. The next day we went to Valley Fair and again had an amazing time. Jessica and I really got to know each other, nothing happened though, she had a boyfriend, but we really clicked none the less. We spent two hours going through the lazy river just talking. The whole day was great again though.
The other day was session. Myself and some others really wanted a great session break since there weren't as many big group days off. So we planned to those Duluth Spirit Mountain cabins. We got 4 of them which meant we were completely isolated. We invited everyone, though not without charging money. Everyone came too. It was packed. It was a night of rejoicing and debaucheries (not myself, others) that I will not mention in this family friendly (well semi- family friendly) blog. It was the party that everyone wanted, and maybe deserved though. It was still in my 5 years the largest single gathering of staff I think there has been. It was inclusive and there was something for everyone. It was everything you could ever want in a camp party. For me my greatest pleasure just came out of seeing everyone have so much fun. It wasn't really quite my scene but I was happy none the less.
The end of my second year was really the end of the time at camp where my time off would be a significant part of my experience instead of a background thing. Moving to the admin team my third year changed that a lot. There were some nice days off during my third and 4th year but they don't make for especially good stories. I stayed on camp most nights aside from a few outings. Days off became about relaxing not going out and having the time of my life. Camp became about work and learning, not as much friends and parties. It didn't happen all at once, my third year I still got my crazy on a little, but it diminished rapidly through that year and my 4th to a point now where even my admin friends make fun of me for being such a loner on my time off.
The truth of the matter is that what camp means to me has changed as well as who I am here. My first two years on admin I felt like I was really a counselor who was now on admin. Now as weird of a thought as it is to me, I have spent more time on admin then on staff. I'm not a counselor who is now a division director, I am a division director who was once a counselor. I have the best relationships with the staff that I have had since joining the admin team but it is different. I have friends but I am still peoples supervisor first and friend second. I get invited to hang out a pretty good amount, but I like to give people there space. I don't want them to have to worry about what they say around me. I want them to be able to vent and gossip and I don't want the burden of knowing about it. When I hang out with staff they think its cool, but a part of the reason that it is cool is the novelty of hanging out with Joey.
So I spend most of my time just reading, sometimes I go out to eat with staff, sometimes I eat with myself. The admin time off is a little different so partially because of that and bad luck I haven't had any time off with any other admin. I went to the cities with staff once, but I just can't really be myself, at the least not the me that I would want to be. So I read, and I've read a lot. And its nice. But it gets a bit lonely sometimes. Don't worry about me though, I'm good at being lonely. Just like anything I take the good with the bad, and I'm happy. Just like everything else though, it is a different happy then it once was. Not worse, just different.
Joey
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Time OFF Part 1
So it is 539pm on Saturday. This means that officially I have been off for the last 9 minutes on my day off. Woot. Time off is an enormous part of camp. It has a unique importance because there is so little of it. In a normal full time job in this country you get two days off for every 5 you work. In addition, you are only at work for 8 hours a day. At camp you there are only 2 days every two weeks that you can leave for more than about 1-3 hours the entire day. Time off is scarce, therefore coveted, and therefore can some of the most memorable parts of the summer. There are 3 important categories of time off. Technically there are a couple of times throughout the day where if you are not on duty you can go off camp but it is for such a short time as to not be that significant.
The first of these is the day off. As it stands now days off are from 530pm to 1000pm the next day so 28.5 hours. You get two of these each 4 week session. There is also a ~25 hour day off between the sessions.
The next is early evenings or EEs. These are from 530pm-1230am the same day or 7 hours. You get two of these every 4 week session.
The last is nights out. These are from 1015pm-1230am the same night or about 2 hours. You get these about every other night.
That is the way it stands now, but it wasn't always like that. Back in the day (before I was here) on nights out you didn't have to be back until flag raising so you could go out all night it you wanted. This was changed for obviously reasons as it did not exactly promote good staff behavior. I suppose I'll get to what my time is like now but that is the boring part and I would hate to start with the boring part. So instead I'll start by talking about what my time off was like 4 years ago my first year as a counselor. My time off that year was without question the overall best and a big part of the reason why I fell in love with camp and came back for a second year.
I still remember my first ever day off fairly vividly. Back then you had 3 days off per session, the first two were only 24 hours though. I had no car, was still making friends but defiantly did not have a crew yet. I had heard though that one of the returning counselors, a guy named SK had some cabins in Duluth. I managed to secure a ride with someone. I think we all went out to dinner somewhere first. We stopped at liquor store and myself and four others in the car all bought different twelve packs of beer and mixed them up. The drive up was fun, I had never been to Duluth but that wasn't really it. Back then every day off seemed like an adventure. You felt like anything could happen. You were with young like minded people as excited as you were with some money to burn.
We got to the cabins, they were called 'Spirit Mountain Cabins'. Apparently they were ski cabins in the winter and rented cheap in the summer. We had three and they were big. Still no where near big enough to accommodate the number of people there in a traditional ways. I don't know how many there were but it must have been at least 40 or so. It was great. It was drinking and dancing and girls and guys and the type of camaraderie you can only get with a bunch of young drunk people that don't yet truly know each other but are all convinced they like each other.
As the night went on and I kept drinking all 140 pounds of me became pretty intoxicated and things get pretty fuzzy. However at one point I was sitting down and a girl who I had noticed early but who's name I did not know. Despite the complete lack of charm I must have be exhibiting I somehow managed to convince her to sit down and we started kissing. From what I understand we weren't exactly pretty about it but hey, I was young, drunk, and it was camp time off. With only 24 hours at a time there isn't exactly a lot of time for romance. That isn't to say that romance can't come. I've known people who married their camp girlfriend. But it doesn't tend to start that way. Eventually myself the girl found a nice spot of floor and passed out just like many other people, though there were certainly others who were still going strong. In the morning one of us awkwardly left first and at some point I came to terms with the fact that I still didn't know her name or just about anything about her.
My car along with some others ate breakfast at the nearby Perkins and drove back to the Brainerd Lakes Area. We caught a movie with a bunch of the other staff. The girl was there, we clearly avoided each other. In our now sober and embarrassed states we both just felt awkward. Not regretful, just awkward. I don't remember what the movie was but shortly after we went back to camp.
I eventually found out what the girl's name was and a day or so later decided to write her a letter via 'Lincoln Mail', (staff and campers can write letters to the girls camp without postage). We got to know each other a bit and it was good. Please though let me right now disabuse you of the notion that this is going to be a story with a romantic ending, happy or tragic. Eventually she invited me to go to the cabin of a friend of hers for the next day off. As it happened this was the cabin of Blake's (I was just getting to know Blake) friend Molly. So some people I had been becoming friends with would be going. It was nice to go on time off knowing what I would be doing. A lot of people would just kind of show up at the parking lot and try to figure it out. Once again we got dinner, got beer, and headed to the cabin. This cabin was much closer (~30 min. away) but much harder to find. We did eventually make it though. We got there a lot early than the last time. This was much different experience than the last time though. It was a private cabin on a long narrow lake. Pretty nice, 3 bedrooms, a good sized living room and kitchen, a dock with a pontoon boat and some wave runners. Much less people was also a nice change. There were about 10ish guys and about the same number of girls.
It was a much more relaxed time and I wouldn't say I enjoyed it more or less but it was great. By this time I was really starting to realize that I had fallen in with a great group. At one point a couple of us went into the basement (I seem to remember it being Hans and I, but I don't know) and saw that it was filled mostly with tools, boating equipment and beer. So we named it the man room. The man room at Molly's cabin would become a thing of legend amongst us. At any point during the party and of the guys could yell out, 'Man Room' and all the guys would have to go downstairs and drink beer and talk about Man stuff. It was hilarious. The rest of the night was just drinking, more camaraderie, and in the end myself and the girl hilariously though it may be, ended up sleeping on a futon in the man room. The morning was nice, people came too eventually and we hung out, did some waverunnering, and got breakfast eventually.
After that the order of exactly when days off happened gets a little fuzzy. There were a number more at Molly's Cabin and they were always great. The best and worst part of those days is that although I wouldn't have put it in those terms at the time they were incredibly cliquey. We had a group and we stuck pretty closely to it. There were some exceptions but we really didn't go out inviting people. A big part of this is that it wasn't our cabin, we were guests and it wasn't really our place to invite people. However, if I'm honest they aren't that many people I would have really wanted to invite. It was nice to have a consistent tight nit group to really get to know and spend time with.
There were other days off too though. I think there were three that we didn't spend at Molly's, and two were great, one was alright. The first was a trip to the twin cities. This was a more diverse group and we were all kind of split up the night before which wasn't that much fun. We had trouble finding hotel rooms because of a huge soccer tournament but eventually found a place to crash. The next day though was amazing. We went to Valley Fair (an amusement park in the Twin Cities) and we had a blast. We were with a huge group that would congregate and split off at times but it was all great. There were running jokes, amazing coincidences, hilarious events, some fun rides and a convenient water park. It was perfect. What makes days off great is the necessity of making the most of your time.
During session break when everyone was off there was a huge party at a hotel. There were three rooms on three floors, one was mine. I was lucky that another room became the party room. I was also lucky that I left that room to go to sleep right before the cops showed up. A few people got caught for underage drinking and had to go to court, though in the end they got off with a slap on the wrist. There was one final memorable day off a different friends cabin. This person had a cabin on the same lake as camp. 4 off us decided to walk through the lake to get there. It was a whim, but a funny whim. It was good size party and had a theme which for confidentiality's sake I wont disclose.
We also had one early evening per session that year but no one really cared. You were with a small group and they weren't that fun. What was important though were evenings out. Back then they were from 1015pm-115am. It didn't seem like that much time then but when I think back I don't know what we did with all that time. We would consistently stay our till 1245 or 100 though. Most of my friends were under 21 which meant that we would spend most of our time going to Applebees. One of only two places open late that you could go to if you weren't of age. It was great though. They had 2 for 1 appetizers so you could eat a lot of okay food (which was much better than camp food) for pretty cheap. Every night we would pile into this old green minivan Blake had and for the 15 minutes there we would just bitch. Mostly we just bitched about staff we didn't like. We were all solid hardworking staff that 'got' camp. It bothered us to have to deal with the slackers and the idiots. So we would just vent and get it off our chests and it was great. Then there would be a huge crew at applebees and we all just mixed in. It was a good community building experience actually. I miss it a lot. Then afterwords we might go kill some time at the 24-hour walmart and buy stuff that we may or may not have needed. Really it was just an excuse to hang out more. We just liked each other. I do agree with the decision to change it to 1230am back on camp though. That extra 45 minutes of sleep makes a difference. There are some people that can preform on 6 hours of sleep and some that can't.
I don't think I'll ever forget my time off from that first year. It was such a huge part of what made me love camp. I can't describe quite what it was like but the nearest thing I can come up with is this; it was like being on one of those great trips where your with amazing people you love and everyday is an adventure no matter what you are doing. In the end me and that girl just kind of fizzled out as those things often do. To this day I think my first summer at camp was the best one of my life and I questions whether that will ever change. It is amazing though what a huge impact just 7 of those days and a few late night hours had on my summer.
Joey
The first of these is the day off. As it stands now days off are from 530pm to 1000pm the next day so 28.5 hours. You get two of these each 4 week session. There is also a ~25 hour day off between the sessions.
The next is early evenings or EEs. These are from 530pm-1230am the same day or 7 hours. You get two of these every 4 week session.
The last is nights out. These are from 1015pm-1230am the same night or about 2 hours. You get these about every other night.
That is the way it stands now, but it wasn't always like that. Back in the day (before I was here) on nights out you didn't have to be back until flag raising so you could go out all night it you wanted. This was changed for obviously reasons as it did not exactly promote good staff behavior. I suppose I'll get to what my time is like now but that is the boring part and I would hate to start with the boring part. So instead I'll start by talking about what my time off was like 4 years ago my first year as a counselor. My time off that year was without question the overall best and a big part of the reason why I fell in love with camp and came back for a second year.
I still remember my first ever day off fairly vividly. Back then you had 3 days off per session, the first two were only 24 hours though. I had no car, was still making friends but defiantly did not have a crew yet. I had heard though that one of the returning counselors, a guy named SK had some cabins in Duluth. I managed to secure a ride with someone. I think we all went out to dinner somewhere first. We stopped at liquor store and myself and four others in the car all bought different twelve packs of beer and mixed them up. The drive up was fun, I had never been to Duluth but that wasn't really it. Back then every day off seemed like an adventure. You felt like anything could happen. You were with young like minded people as excited as you were with some money to burn.
We got to the cabins, they were called 'Spirit Mountain Cabins'. Apparently they were ski cabins in the winter and rented cheap in the summer. We had three and they were big. Still no where near big enough to accommodate the number of people there in a traditional ways. I don't know how many there were but it must have been at least 40 or so. It was great. It was drinking and dancing and girls and guys and the type of camaraderie you can only get with a bunch of young drunk people that don't yet truly know each other but are all convinced they like each other.
As the night went on and I kept drinking all 140 pounds of me became pretty intoxicated and things get pretty fuzzy. However at one point I was sitting down and a girl who I had noticed early but who's name I did not know. Despite the complete lack of charm I must have be exhibiting I somehow managed to convince her to sit down and we started kissing. From what I understand we weren't exactly pretty about it but hey, I was young, drunk, and it was camp time off. With only 24 hours at a time there isn't exactly a lot of time for romance. That isn't to say that romance can't come. I've known people who married their camp girlfriend. But it doesn't tend to start that way. Eventually myself the girl found a nice spot of floor and passed out just like many other people, though there were certainly others who were still going strong. In the morning one of us awkwardly left first and at some point I came to terms with the fact that I still didn't know her name or just about anything about her.
My car along with some others ate breakfast at the nearby Perkins and drove back to the Brainerd Lakes Area. We caught a movie with a bunch of the other staff. The girl was there, we clearly avoided each other. In our now sober and embarrassed states we both just felt awkward. Not regretful, just awkward. I don't remember what the movie was but shortly after we went back to camp.
I eventually found out what the girl's name was and a day or so later decided to write her a letter via 'Lincoln Mail', (staff and campers can write letters to the girls camp without postage). We got to know each other a bit and it was good. Please though let me right now disabuse you of the notion that this is going to be a story with a romantic ending, happy or tragic. Eventually she invited me to go to the cabin of a friend of hers for the next day off. As it happened this was the cabin of Blake's (I was just getting to know Blake) friend Molly. So some people I had been becoming friends with would be going. It was nice to go on time off knowing what I would be doing. A lot of people would just kind of show up at the parking lot and try to figure it out. Once again we got dinner, got beer, and headed to the cabin. This cabin was much closer (~30 min. away) but much harder to find. We did eventually make it though. We got there a lot early than the last time. This was much different experience than the last time though. It was a private cabin on a long narrow lake. Pretty nice, 3 bedrooms, a good sized living room and kitchen, a dock with a pontoon boat and some wave runners. Much less people was also a nice change. There were about 10ish guys and about the same number of girls.
It was a much more relaxed time and I wouldn't say I enjoyed it more or less but it was great. By this time I was really starting to realize that I had fallen in with a great group. At one point a couple of us went into the basement (I seem to remember it being Hans and I, but I don't know) and saw that it was filled mostly with tools, boating equipment and beer. So we named it the man room. The man room at Molly's cabin would become a thing of legend amongst us. At any point during the party and of the guys could yell out, 'Man Room' and all the guys would have to go downstairs and drink beer and talk about Man stuff. It was hilarious. The rest of the night was just drinking, more camaraderie, and in the end myself and the girl hilariously though it may be, ended up sleeping on a futon in the man room. The morning was nice, people came too eventually and we hung out, did some waverunnering, and got breakfast eventually.
After that the order of exactly when days off happened gets a little fuzzy. There were a number more at Molly's Cabin and they were always great. The best and worst part of those days is that although I wouldn't have put it in those terms at the time they were incredibly cliquey. We had a group and we stuck pretty closely to it. There were some exceptions but we really didn't go out inviting people. A big part of this is that it wasn't our cabin, we were guests and it wasn't really our place to invite people. However, if I'm honest they aren't that many people I would have really wanted to invite. It was nice to have a consistent tight nit group to really get to know and spend time with.
There were other days off too though. I think there were three that we didn't spend at Molly's, and two were great, one was alright. The first was a trip to the twin cities. This was a more diverse group and we were all kind of split up the night before which wasn't that much fun. We had trouble finding hotel rooms because of a huge soccer tournament but eventually found a place to crash. The next day though was amazing. We went to Valley Fair (an amusement park in the Twin Cities) and we had a blast. We were with a huge group that would congregate and split off at times but it was all great. There were running jokes, amazing coincidences, hilarious events, some fun rides and a convenient water park. It was perfect. What makes days off great is the necessity of making the most of your time.
During session break when everyone was off there was a huge party at a hotel. There were three rooms on three floors, one was mine. I was lucky that another room became the party room. I was also lucky that I left that room to go to sleep right before the cops showed up. A few people got caught for underage drinking and had to go to court, though in the end they got off with a slap on the wrist. There was one final memorable day off a different friends cabin. This person had a cabin on the same lake as camp. 4 off us decided to walk through the lake to get there. It was a whim, but a funny whim. It was good size party and had a theme which for confidentiality's sake I wont disclose.
We also had one early evening per session that year but no one really cared. You were with a small group and they weren't that fun. What was important though were evenings out. Back then they were from 1015pm-115am. It didn't seem like that much time then but when I think back I don't know what we did with all that time. We would consistently stay our till 1245 or 100 though. Most of my friends were under 21 which meant that we would spend most of our time going to Applebees. One of only two places open late that you could go to if you weren't of age. It was great though. They had 2 for 1 appetizers so you could eat a lot of okay food (which was much better than camp food) for pretty cheap. Every night we would pile into this old green minivan Blake had and for the 15 minutes there we would just bitch. Mostly we just bitched about staff we didn't like. We were all solid hardworking staff that 'got' camp. It bothered us to have to deal with the slackers and the idiots. So we would just vent and get it off our chests and it was great. Then there would be a huge crew at applebees and we all just mixed in. It was a good community building experience actually. I miss it a lot. Then afterwords we might go kill some time at the 24-hour walmart and buy stuff that we may or may not have needed. Really it was just an excuse to hang out more. We just liked each other. I do agree with the decision to change it to 1230am back on camp though. That extra 45 minutes of sleep makes a difference. There are some people that can preform on 6 hours of sleep and some that can't.
I don't think I'll ever forget my time off from that first year. It was such a huge part of what made me love camp. I can't describe quite what it was like but the nearest thing I can come up with is this; it was like being on one of those great trips where your with amazing people you love and everyday is an adventure no matter what you are doing. In the end me and that girl just kind of fizzled out as those things often do. To this day I think my first summer at camp was the best one of my life and I questions whether that will ever change. It is amazing though what a huge impact just 7 of those days and a few late night hours had on my summer.
Joey
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Today Was Strange.
Today was a strange day for a number of reasons. Here's one. One of our Program Directors, Anthony, whom I've worked with for 5 years had to leave camp for policy violations. Anthony was in my very first cabin was the out of the other 3 staff the one I got to know the best. He was a returner that year so I learned a lot from him and really admired him early on. Two years ago Anthony and I were partners as division directors. We didn't make great partners but not terrible either and were still friends during and after. Anthony had 6 staff that he directly supervised. I have volunteered to take on three of his staff; the Archery director and two waterfront directors. It was my choice and it's the right one but it will make the next couple of weeks really tough. I had been downshifting the last week and taking it a little easier. That is pretty much over now. I know have 12 staff I directly supervise which is the most I have ever had. Currently the next closest is 9. I also hold myself to a pretty high standard when it comes to staff I oversee so it will mean a fair amount of effort. I will also be trying to support Wig, the remaining program director, as well as Laura the program assistant as I am the only other person on camp who has done the job. I was looking for ways to push myself this second session and I've found it.
Today was strange for another reason. Our evening activity in Prep tonight was "Wake Up America". When we plan what the evening activities are going to be I like to come up with the name first and then figure out what to do with it. It is seems counterintuitive but I've found just having a good name focuses the creative process. This name was derived about 10 days ago (when were planning for session 2) when I said that I wanted to name as activity after a song on the upcoming Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) Album. We saw the name "Wake Up America" and it was an easy choice. Wheras Miss Cyrus' song is a political ballad about enviromentalism our activity was more from the prespective of "Wake Up America, and Get Patriotic". We decided to theme it with over the top patriotism.
I wasn't in charge of it but those who were tried to encourage staff to dress up as figures from America's actual or folk history. I decided to be Johnny Appleseed. So all day today I pretended to be Johnny Appleseed. I even made a nametag that said it. I've done this before, I'm pretty good at playing charecters at camp because I can think quick. It's the same reason I can make up stories as I go along and am such a good liar when I want to be. It becomes a game of them constantly asking me questions to find a hole in my Johnny Appleseed story and 'prove' that I am actually Joey (who I claimed was my cousin, in St. Paul for a doctors appt. and asked me to fill it). For every question I had an answer, sometimes rational and sometimes not, but always an answer. It is kinda tough to be in character all the time. It is like being one of the people in one of those 'pioneer towns' where everyone pretends it's 1750.
The last reason today was strange: Around 900pm there were around 20ish horses on the athletic field and in the parking lot. To clarify we don't play polo at camp and actually prefer to keep the horses away from moving cars. So this was not good. This isn't the most uncommon thing for the horses to escape but they usually just go down the road not into camp. At one point they were a little too close for comfort to Gopher cabin (8 year olds). Not closer than 100 meters but still too close. I always feel akward in these situations. Most times at camp I know more about what to do and how to do it then anyone else save a few sometimes. This is not one of those situations. I can ride a horse just fine but a bonafide wrangler I am not. I'm mostly good to stand in an area to passively dissuade the horse from going there; a sometimes neccesary job but being a poor substitute for a fence isn't my idea of a good time. Eventually we worked together and got them back where they needed to go.
Then I did rounds (walking through camp) for Wig because he was busy with having to do some extra work now that he is by himself. He'll be fine though. Wig remains in my opinion the most competent person I have had the pleasure of knowing and if anyone can handle it its him. Plus I'll be there to help along with others. Tommorow will be a long day. That is okay.
I miss people. As much as I love camp, these days it can be a strangly lonely place. I'm off to bed now. Goodnight and God Bless (take that Palmer).
Joey
Today was strange for another reason. Our evening activity in Prep tonight was "Wake Up America". When we plan what the evening activities are going to be I like to come up with the name first and then figure out what to do with it. It is seems counterintuitive but I've found just having a good name focuses the creative process. This name was derived about 10 days ago (when were planning for session 2) when I said that I wanted to name as activity after a song on the upcoming Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) Album. We saw the name "Wake Up America" and it was an easy choice. Wheras Miss Cyrus' song is a political ballad about enviromentalism our activity was more from the prespective of "Wake Up America, and Get Patriotic". We decided to theme it with over the top patriotism.
I wasn't in charge of it but those who were tried to encourage staff to dress up as figures from America's actual or folk history. I decided to be Johnny Appleseed. So all day today I pretended to be Johnny Appleseed. I even made a nametag that said it. I've done this before, I'm pretty good at playing charecters at camp because I can think quick. It's the same reason I can make up stories as I go along and am such a good liar when I want to be. It becomes a game of them constantly asking me questions to find a hole in my Johnny Appleseed story and 'prove' that I am actually Joey (who I claimed was my cousin, in St. Paul for a doctors appt. and asked me to fill it). For every question I had an answer, sometimes rational and sometimes not, but always an answer. It is kinda tough to be in character all the time. It is like being one of the people in one of those 'pioneer towns' where everyone pretends it's 1750.
The last reason today was strange: Around 900pm there were around 20ish horses on the athletic field and in the parking lot. To clarify we don't play polo at camp and actually prefer to keep the horses away from moving cars. So this was not good. This isn't the most uncommon thing for the horses to escape but they usually just go down the road not into camp. At one point they were a little too close for comfort to Gopher cabin (8 year olds). Not closer than 100 meters but still too close. I always feel akward in these situations. Most times at camp I know more about what to do and how to do it then anyone else save a few sometimes. This is not one of those situations. I can ride a horse just fine but a bonafide wrangler I am not. I'm mostly good to stand in an area to passively dissuade the horse from going there; a sometimes neccesary job but being a poor substitute for a fence isn't my idea of a good time. Eventually we worked together and got them back where they needed to go.
Then I did rounds (walking through camp) for Wig because he was busy with having to do some extra work now that he is by himself. He'll be fine though. Wig remains in my opinion the most competent person I have had the pleasure of knowing and if anyone can handle it its him. Plus I'll be there to help along with others. Tommorow will be a long day. That is okay.
I miss people. As much as I love camp, these days it can be a strangly lonely place. I'm off to bed now. Goodnight and God Bless (take that Palmer).
Joey
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Time Marches On
So my original plan of actually detailing all my time here failed. I just don't have to the time and theres too much to explain. Plus I reached a point where I was so behind that my memory just wasn't that clear. So my new plan for the rest of the time I am here is to just talk about whatever just happened even if I skip stuff. At the same time I will go off on tangents about certain things.
As of right now we are about 5 days into the third 2-week session and the second 4-week session. We just had session break which is generally speaking the halfway point. Things are rollin'. I had my evaluation yesterday. It sounds like there are going to keep me around. Some good feedback on stuff to push myself on. It was long, both myself and my boss are talkers so we talked a lot though. It was good, I got a chance to verbalize some of the things I've been doing and thinking which is sometimes hard here. But let us not dwell on that, because that was yesterday and thats not how I roll anymore.
Today was a special day. Some backround on special days first then. Special days around to serve two purposes. One is to mix things up from the regular schedule. However the much more significant reason is that we do them when we have days off. The way it works is that half the staff are off at once. So special days are days designed to be run half staff. You just can't do regular activities half staff. That doesn't mean they are less fun, but it does mean that they are more work for the staff that is there, usually. One thing that is interesting about a special day as opposed to a regular day is how big the quality range is. In a normal day of camp (assuming it doesn't rain) the difference between a bad day and a good day from a programming admistrative perspective is small. Maybe Riflery was not quite as fun today, but everything else was fine. Maybe lunch ran too long or something. In the end most individual regular days are very similar. This is not the case with special days. Special days can be amazing or awful. The are often the highlights and lowlights of a campers entire session. I remember my first summer, back then there were 6 special days per 4-week session, it is now 4. This is in great part because that campers complained en masse that there were too many. This is partially related to the number but also to the consumate crappiness of special days that year. In retrospect (I lacked the experience to full appreciate this at the time, though even then I somewhat knew) they were poorly concieved, run, and plan. In general it seemed like the goal of special days was mearly to get through them rather for them to be particularly enjoyable.
Since then there has been 4 which has had time off related implications (I am planning on going into detail about time off at a later post). Some used to change every year but over the past two years CL is trying to keep the same ones each year. They are:
Carnival Day: It can be tweeked each time but the general concept is that we mix carnival type games (some of which we rent and others we just do ourselves) with some small carnival attractions we rent: Big blow up slide, inflatable jousting, bungee run, dunk tank, cotton candy and snow cone machines and sometimes some others.
Rally Day: We do some sort of division activity in the morning and then in the afternoon the girl camp comes over and we play some games with our 'sister' cabins, eat dinner and have a dance.
The Great Escape: Basically a camp field trip. Different cabins go do different places in Minnesota. Has ranged from water parks, to a baseball game, a forest history center, aquarium/boat trip, and other stuff.
Color Wars: A tradition around many camps in the country. It was done a long time ago at Lincoln and then stopped. It was brought back 7ish years ago. There are two colors, red and blue. Once you are on a team you are that team forever along with any brothers, fathers, or sons. I am on the red team.
Today was Carnival Day. CD is possibly my favorite special day primarly for one reason. Most of the day is 'free roaming' meaning the campers don't have to go do a specific thing at a time. They can choose how to spend their time as long as they stay in the correct general area. The day started with me waking up at 650am to go sit by a fire. This is part of the once a sessin tradition of 'firewatch' at camp. The general idea is that each cabin takes turns watching and maintaining a large fire in a fire pit which heats up rocks below. There is a campfire/ceremony beforehand and then from about 1000pm to 730am someone is at the fire. The admin team always has the last shift so we were at 655am. I sat by the fire for 30 minutes and then went to set up for the morning.
We did something a little different this time. We often have a "lazy breakfast" on these days where campers can got to breakfast anytime they want from 815-845. The idea is they can sleep in a little. The one problem with this is that it is also the campers favorite breakfast; donuts, bacon, and many other nice things. So many of the younger campers especially will get there too early which isn't the idea. This time we pushed it back to 830-930am so campers could sleep in more and told them they couldn't come before 830am. I had a quick breakfast then went back to work. It started raining a lot which was worriesome and set me back from setting up. As it was Sunday at 1000am we had camp church. I didn't go to church (normally I would) because due to the rain I was behind on set up and I had the best handle on what needed to be done.
We got started with the morning portion of the activities around 1100am. It was a little later then I would have liked to had started but it was the earliest we could. Our catholic campers have the option (or I should say their parents have the option of sending them) of going to catholic mass in town. Normally they have to wake up early and go so they are back in time for activities. Today though because we were doing the lazy breakfast they went to the second mass which did not get them back until 11. While Wig explained to the campers how the morning would work I talked to the staff seperately and made sure they understood their roles and what was expected of them.
The general concept for the morning was this. There were a number of games set up such as: Football toss, Golf Shot, accuracy throw, bingo, and other games of skill. Each camper starts with 10 tickets and the goal is to build up more tickets from playing the games to use in the afternoon. Campers can play any game they want. My role in this time was to the play the part of 'Johnny Lucky'. I wore a sweet vest and walked around with a deck of cards. I had two roles, most importantly just roaming around and making sure everything was copacetic. I also would entertain kids in line by giving them a chance to pick certain cards for tickets; teh jack of hearts was always worth the most, it's my favorite card. The kids were into it and it left them wanting more so it was good.
We had a regular lunch then rest hour. The campers came back at 230. Wig and I teamed up to explain the afternoon to the campers and staff all at the same time. There would be some of the games from the morning along with some other things. The bigger stuff like jousting et cetera would be out for the kids to spend their tickets on. They also could enter different raffles. I also ran two scavenger hunts the kids could complete to earn tickets. One was based on things they could learn about camp in the area, the other was things about the staff that they had to find out.
The afternoon was fun but hectic with me overseeing the scavenger hunts and raffles. They were both very popular and the kids sometimes lacked patience. Still it wa was fun to see the kids succeed as well as see th entire day go on. It was popular to the very end. Towards the end some but not that many of the kids started losing interest. Some of the staff as well started to kind of check out as many had been doing the same thing for 2 hours. We probobly should have mixed it up. I worked for about an hour afterwards cleaning up the area then went to the field meal.
Field meals are meals where we eat primarly on the baseball field. We usually have them on special days. Unfortunatly they usually involve some form of Hot Dog which I detest. Tonight is was Bagel Dogs (gross). There was also some delicious turkey though, or as we claim it to be "Alaskan Humingbird". It is a tradition that I won't explain here but ask me about it sometime.
In the evening we had a 'circus' which was basically a talent show. It was a mix of talents, some stupid, some impressive, most entertaining as well as the raffle drawings and some skits. Wig ran it and it went well. I did the raffles as well as showing off some talents of mine (towel tossing, spining one plate on another, and spinning a 18inX36in sheet pan on my finger) as my friend Cheezy played 'The Entertainer" on the piano. It was good.
I finished the night handing out snacks in the division. It was a good day.
Joey
Recently Finished: Shadow of the Giant
Currently Reading: Clash on Kings and Comanche Moon
On Deck: The Drunkards Walk: How Randomness rules our lives.
As of right now we are about 5 days into the third 2-week session and the second 4-week session. We just had session break which is generally speaking the halfway point. Things are rollin'. I had my evaluation yesterday. It sounds like there are going to keep me around. Some good feedback on stuff to push myself on. It was long, both myself and my boss are talkers so we talked a lot though. It was good, I got a chance to verbalize some of the things I've been doing and thinking which is sometimes hard here. But let us not dwell on that, because that was yesterday and thats not how I roll anymore.
Today was a special day. Some backround on special days first then. Special days around to serve two purposes. One is to mix things up from the regular schedule. However the much more significant reason is that we do them when we have days off. The way it works is that half the staff are off at once. So special days are days designed to be run half staff. You just can't do regular activities half staff. That doesn't mean they are less fun, but it does mean that they are more work for the staff that is there, usually. One thing that is interesting about a special day as opposed to a regular day is how big the quality range is. In a normal day of camp (assuming it doesn't rain) the difference between a bad day and a good day from a programming admistrative perspective is small. Maybe Riflery was not quite as fun today, but everything else was fine. Maybe lunch ran too long or something. In the end most individual regular days are very similar. This is not the case with special days. Special days can be amazing or awful. The are often the highlights and lowlights of a campers entire session. I remember my first summer, back then there were 6 special days per 4-week session, it is now 4. This is in great part because that campers complained en masse that there were too many. This is partially related to the number but also to the consumate crappiness of special days that year. In retrospect (I lacked the experience to full appreciate this at the time, though even then I somewhat knew) they were poorly concieved, run, and plan. In general it seemed like the goal of special days was mearly to get through them rather for them to be particularly enjoyable.
Since then there has been 4 which has had time off related implications (I am planning on going into detail about time off at a later post). Some used to change every year but over the past two years CL is trying to keep the same ones each year. They are:
Carnival Day: It can be tweeked each time but the general concept is that we mix carnival type games (some of which we rent and others we just do ourselves) with some small carnival attractions we rent: Big blow up slide, inflatable jousting, bungee run, dunk tank, cotton candy and snow cone machines and sometimes some others.
Rally Day: We do some sort of division activity in the morning and then in the afternoon the girl camp comes over and we play some games with our 'sister' cabins, eat dinner and have a dance.
The Great Escape: Basically a camp field trip. Different cabins go do different places in Minnesota. Has ranged from water parks, to a baseball game, a forest history center, aquarium/boat trip, and other stuff.
Color Wars: A tradition around many camps in the country. It was done a long time ago at Lincoln and then stopped. It was brought back 7ish years ago. There are two colors, red and blue. Once you are on a team you are that team forever along with any brothers, fathers, or sons. I am on the red team.
Today was Carnival Day. CD is possibly my favorite special day primarly for one reason. Most of the day is 'free roaming' meaning the campers don't have to go do a specific thing at a time. They can choose how to spend their time as long as they stay in the correct general area. The day started with me waking up at 650am to go sit by a fire. This is part of the once a sessin tradition of 'firewatch' at camp. The general idea is that each cabin takes turns watching and maintaining a large fire in a fire pit which heats up rocks below. There is a campfire/ceremony beforehand and then from about 1000pm to 730am someone is at the fire. The admin team always has the last shift so we were at 655am. I sat by the fire for 30 minutes and then went to set up for the morning.
We did something a little different this time. We often have a "lazy breakfast" on these days where campers can got to breakfast anytime they want from 815-845. The idea is they can sleep in a little. The one problem with this is that it is also the campers favorite breakfast; donuts, bacon, and many other nice things. So many of the younger campers especially will get there too early which isn't the idea. This time we pushed it back to 830-930am so campers could sleep in more and told them they couldn't come before 830am. I had a quick breakfast then went back to work. It started raining a lot which was worriesome and set me back from setting up. As it was Sunday at 1000am we had camp church. I didn't go to church (normally I would) because due to the rain I was behind on set up and I had the best handle on what needed to be done.
We got started with the morning portion of the activities around 1100am. It was a little later then I would have liked to had started but it was the earliest we could. Our catholic campers have the option (or I should say their parents have the option of sending them) of going to catholic mass in town. Normally they have to wake up early and go so they are back in time for activities. Today though because we were doing the lazy breakfast they went to the second mass which did not get them back until 11. While Wig explained to the campers how the morning would work I talked to the staff seperately and made sure they understood their roles and what was expected of them.
The general concept for the morning was this. There were a number of games set up such as: Football toss, Golf Shot, accuracy throw, bingo, and other games of skill. Each camper starts with 10 tickets and the goal is to build up more tickets from playing the games to use in the afternoon. Campers can play any game they want. My role in this time was to the play the part of 'Johnny Lucky'. I wore a sweet vest and walked around with a deck of cards. I had two roles, most importantly just roaming around and making sure everything was copacetic. I also would entertain kids in line by giving them a chance to pick certain cards for tickets; teh jack of hearts was always worth the most, it's my favorite card. The kids were into it and it left them wanting more so it was good.
We had a regular lunch then rest hour. The campers came back at 230. Wig and I teamed up to explain the afternoon to the campers and staff all at the same time. There would be some of the games from the morning along with some other things. The bigger stuff like jousting et cetera would be out for the kids to spend their tickets on. They also could enter different raffles. I also ran two scavenger hunts the kids could complete to earn tickets. One was based on things they could learn about camp in the area, the other was things about the staff that they had to find out.
The afternoon was fun but hectic with me overseeing the scavenger hunts and raffles. They were both very popular and the kids sometimes lacked patience. Still it wa was fun to see the kids succeed as well as see th entire day go on. It was popular to the very end. Towards the end some but not that many of the kids started losing interest. Some of the staff as well started to kind of check out as many had been doing the same thing for 2 hours. We probobly should have mixed it up. I worked for about an hour afterwards cleaning up the area then went to the field meal.
Field meals are meals where we eat primarly on the baseball field. We usually have them on special days. Unfortunatly they usually involve some form of Hot Dog which I detest. Tonight is was Bagel Dogs (gross). There was also some delicious turkey though, or as we claim it to be "Alaskan Humingbird". It is a tradition that I won't explain here but ask me about it sometime.
In the evening we had a 'circus' which was basically a talent show. It was a mix of talents, some stupid, some impressive, most entertaining as well as the raffle drawings and some skits. Wig ran it and it went well. I did the raffles as well as showing off some talents of mine (towel tossing, spining one plate on another, and spinning a 18inX36in sheet pan on my finger) as my friend Cheezy played 'The Entertainer" on the piano. It was good.
I finished the night handing out snacks in the division. It was a good day.
Joey
Recently Finished: Shadow of the Giant
Currently Reading: Clash on Kings and Comanche Moon
On Deck: The Drunkards Walk: How Randomness rules our lives.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
One of the Boys Part 3-
So the session was underway. At this point I am not going to go day by day but instead speak in terms of a few days at a time. As camp started I was in full gear from day one. I had decided a long time ago that I was going to push myself and throw myself completely into this job. I was going to work harder then I ever had before. I was going to work hard enough that there would be no doubt to my staff that I worked harder then they do and however much I expect of them, I expect more of myself. In the past one of the big complaints that the admin team gets from the staff is that they are lazy, sometimes this was unwarrented as the staff cannot always see all the work that admin do, and sometimes it has been quite warrented. I knew that the way I would get my staff to respect me was to let them see me working hard every second of every day. So I did.
To help make sense of some of this here is a typical day at camp.
730am - Wake up Bell
750am- Flag Raising
800am- Breakfast
840am- Cabin Clean Up
930am- 1st Activity Period
1040am- 2nd Activity Period
1140am- A little free time
1215pm- Lunch
100pm-Rest Hour
230pm- 3rd Activity Period
340pm-4th Activity Period
445pm- Free Swim (Free time where you can swim if you want)
545pm- Dinner
700pm- Evening Activity
815pm- Snack
830pm- Showers, getting ready for bed
900pm- Vespers (evening conversation in cabins)
930pm- Lights Out (For younger campers, a little later for older)
My first focus was above all presence. I was going to be around the cabins all the time, something that is not always done enough in this job. Me being present and visiable is important for a lot of reason. The one I mentioned above, that it lets the staff see how hard I am working. In the beginning most of the staff don't really know exactly what they are doing so it is good to be at an arms reach to be there answer questions as well as get a feel for what you staff need to be doing differently and what they are doing well. If you want to makes things run the way you want them early you had better be there to see it first hand. I have an expression that I say, though mostly to myself, "trust no one, even if you trust them". Never assume anyone is doing what they should, find out. You can only truly know if something is getting done if you check. Many times in the past I have regretted not doing that. Maybe the most important part of presence in the beginning is role modeling. The best way for me too teach staff the way I think they should be doing things. It's amazing how much better you can make yourself at something if you think you are always being watched.
Joey
Currently Reading: Comanche Moon and Shadow of the Giant
On Deck: A Clash of Kings and The Drunkards walk : How Randomness Rules Our Lives
To help make sense of some of this here is a typical day at camp.
730am - Wake up Bell
750am- Flag Raising
800am- Breakfast
840am- Cabin Clean Up
930am- 1st Activity Period
1040am- 2nd Activity Period
1140am- A little free time
1215pm- Lunch
100pm-Rest Hour
230pm- 3rd Activity Period
340pm-4th Activity Period
445pm- Free Swim (Free time where you can swim if you want)
545pm- Dinner
700pm- Evening Activity
815pm- Snack
830pm- Showers, getting ready for bed
900pm- Vespers (evening conversation in cabins)
930pm- Lights Out (For younger campers, a little later for older)
My first focus was above all presence. I was going to be around the cabins all the time, something that is not always done enough in this job. Me being present and visiable is important for a lot of reason. The one I mentioned above, that it lets the staff see how hard I am working. In the beginning most of the staff don't really know exactly what they are doing so it is good to be at an arms reach to be there answer questions as well as get a feel for what you staff need to be doing differently and what they are doing well. If you want to makes things run the way you want them early you had better be there to see it first hand. I have an expression that I say, though mostly to myself, "trust no one, even if you trust them". Never assume anyone is doing what they should, find out. You can only truly know if something is getting done if you check. Many times in the past I have regretted not doing that. Maybe the most important part of presence in the beginning is role modeling. The best way for me too teach staff the way I think they should be doing things. It's amazing how much better you can make yourself at something if you think you are always being watched.
Joey
Currently Reading: Comanche Moon and Shadow of the Giant
On Deck: A Clash of Kings and The Drunkards walk : How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
One of the Boys Part 2-Arrival Day
And away they go. So camp was finally here and it started with our first arrival day. Some of our staff headed to the airport to help pick up kids there. I personally love airport duty. You have to wake up very early but you get to sleep on the van and once you're their it's really cool. You get a badge that lets you go through the fast security line and you just run around picking up campers. For many of the campers you are the first staff member they ever meet and that is kind of fun.
If you are on camp arrival day is kind of strange, at least the beginning. Everyone wakes up pumped and ready to go. But nothing really happens at first. Arrival day morning is incredibly slow. Campers aren't supposed to show up until 100pm but some inevitably show up early. Because of that we have to be ready and all the staff has to be ready. Still it isn't many campers and there isn't that much to do. So it is a lot of awkward down time where you can't go leave to do anything, but there is nothing to do. When the first few campers do arrive it is hilarious and awesome to see the staff all immediatly start to work with those 2 or 3 campers. Each one has 3 staff just to himself.
However when the afternoon comes that quickly changes. In addition to a rush of campers coming with their parents there are a couple hours when we get busload after busload of campers from the airport. Usually in a span of about 2-3 hours camp goes from 5% full to 85% full. Then it becomes a crazy rush of meeting parents, helping with luggage, getting to know kids, doing paperwork and so many other things. On these days I can be doing a number of things. I could be assigned to the bus welcome area which is pretty easy and fun. I could be assigned to phone calls which is the worst. All kids not dropped off by their parents call home to let them know that they are here and safe. The thing that is bad about helping with this is names. So many of the kids remember you from the previous summer and of course your name, there aren't that many division directors. For you though you may remember them, but you can't remember every camper's name, there are 500 each summer. It can be incredibly awkward and you try hide the fact by pretending you only don't remember their last name and that is what you need. If I an ever doing phones I spend about an hour reviewing the yearbook from last year to help me with names.
This year I was pretty much just responsible for attending to my division and staff. I was there to greet parents and campers as they came to my division. The night before I looked through all the folders for my campers and memorized something about each of them. It was not particularly useful in helping me to get to know the campers though. They are too overwhelmed or excited to register things like that at first. What it did help me to do was learn the camper's names though I didn't realize this until later when I did not do it for Prep 2 (the second two weeks) and it took me way longer to learn everyones name. Probobly the most important thing I was doing was interacting with parents, arrival day is an important PR time for us. Most of the kids fly or take the bus but a number of campers, particularly the young ones which I have, are dropped off by their parents. It is important especially for the first arrival day that I am there to great parents, the model of the upstanding clean cut all-American young man that parents want to see in staff. I am also there to answer all the questions that many of the staff may not know the answers to yet. I enjoy the entire process actually.
If I had to define a moment in which camp has truly started it would be at the start of the first meal. Most of the campers are now here save a few later arrivals, usually from Mexico. Camp meals are one of the quintessentially defining aspects of any camp. The campers come and line up and because it is the first meal of the session me and Eric do pretty much all of the talking to the group. There is a surpisingly large amount to explain. What makes the first meal of the first session unique is that I am not only teaching the campers, I am teaching the staff. Much of what I say to the group during the first session even though it is often ostensibly directed to the counselorsm, is in actuality my way of conveying something to the staff. Before we go into the meal we explain how we line up, how we know when we have to be quiet (a staff member raises their hand), what we need to do once we are inside. I also say things line, "Your counselors are going to be explaining how ______ works as the meal is going on". Although I say it to the campers it is the counselors I am really teaching.
I am planning on doing a number of posts after I finish posting about Prep 1 that will be focused on an aspect of camp, one of them will be on meals so I won't go into details about how they work now. The first meal is always a little crazy but I love it. We welcome the campers to camp by singing the Camp Lincoln Welcome Song. Afterwards they go back to their cabins and have a little free time to finish unpacking and such. After that they have a cabin meeting. The staff go over expectations as well as doing 'get to know you' stuff. My role during this time is not particularly challenging. It is however tedious. I have to collect valuable envelopes (where the campers put any valuable items or things they aren't allowed to have at camp, i.e. cell phones, video games) and check them to make sure they have been done correctly (signed with the items inside correctly written on the front) and lastly to pull any travel documents to send to our office. I also have to collect some other paperwork and pass out treats for the campers. This is the first example of a long list of things which are the worst parts of my job. There is a general catagory of responsibilities I have which are not fun. They are simply logistical things that have to be done by someone so they are my responsibility. It makes sense and I am not complaining, but they are the least appealing things I do. Most of them present little challenge and could be done by someone who lacks my experience, acumen, or intelligience, though my work ethic does help. Lastly I just am around making sure what needs to be happening in the cabin is and supporting if it isn't.
On this first arrival day everything went rather smooth. Both of the cabins I oversee Gopher and Badger (the two youngest cabins in prep and therefor 2 or the 3 youngest in camp) were in bed with lights out by their bed time, 930pm. An auspicious start I felt. I finished my valuables and helped some of the intermediate DD's with theirs as they have more than I do. All and all a succesful first day for myself, my partner, and my staff.
Joey
Just Read: A Game of Thrones
Reading: Comanche Moon
On Deck: Shadow of the Giant.
If you are on camp arrival day is kind of strange, at least the beginning. Everyone wakes up pumped and ready to go. But nothing really happens at first. Arrival day morning is incredibly slow. Campers aren't supposed to show up until 100pm but some inevitably show up early. Because of that we have to be ready and all the staff has to be ready. Still it isn't many campers and there isn't that much to do. So it is a lot of awkward down time where you can't go leave to do anything, but there is nothing to do. When the first few campers do arrive it is hilarious and awesome to see the staff all immediatly start to work with those 2 or 3 campers. Each one has 3 staff just to himself.
However when the afternoon comes that quickly changes. In addition to a rush of campers coming with their parents there are a couple hours when we get busload after busload of campers from the airport. Usually in a span of about 2-3 hours camp goes from 5% full to 85% full. Then it becomes a crazy rush of meeting parents, helping with luggage, getting to know kids, doing paperwork and so many other things. On these days I can be doing a number of things. I could be assigned to the bus welcome area which is pretty easy and fun. I could be assigned to phone calls which is the worst. All kids not dropped off by their parents call home to let them know that they are here and safe. The thing that is bad about helping with this is names. So many of the kids remember you from the previous summer and of course your name, there aren't that many division directors. For you though you may remember them, but you can't remember every camper's name, there are 500 each summer. It can be incredibly awkward and you try hide the fact by pretending you only don't remember their last name and that is what you need. If I an ever doing phones I spend about an hour reviewing the yearbook from last year to help me with names.
This year I was pretty much just responsible for attending to my division and staff. I was there to greet parents and campers as they came to my division. The night before I looked through all the folders for my campers and memorized something about each of them. It was not particularly useful in helping me to get to know the campers though. They are too overwhelmed or excited to register things like that at first. What it did help me to do was learn the camper's names though I didn't realize this until later when I did not do it for Prep 2 (the second two weeks) and it took me way longer to learn everyones name. Probobly the most important thing I was doing was interacting with parents, arrival day is an important PR time for us. Most of the kids fly or take the bus but a number of campers, particularly the young ones which I have, are dropped off by their parents. It is important especially for the first arrival day that I am there to great parents, the model of the upstanding clean cut all-American young man that parents want to see in staff. I am also there to answer all the questions that many of the staff may not know the answers to yet. I enjoy the entire process actually.
If I had to define a moment in which camp has truly started it would be at the start of the first meal. Most of the campers are now here save a few later arrivals, usually from Mexico. Camp meals are one of the quintessentially defining aspects of any camp. The campers come and line up and because it is the first meal of the session me and Eric do pretty much all of the talking to the group. There is a surpisingly large amount to explain. What makes the first meal of the first session unique is that I am not only teaching the campers, I am teaching the staff. Much of what I say to the group during the first session even though it is often ostensibly directed to the counselorsm, is in actuality my way of conveying something to the staff. Before we go into the meal we explain how we line up, how we know when we have to be quiet (a staff member raises their hand), what we need to do once we are inside. I also say things line, "Your counselors are going to be explaining how ______ works as the meal is going on". Although I say it to the campers it is the counselors I am really teaching.
I am planning on doing a number of posts after I finish posting about Prep 1 that will be focused on an aspect of camp, one of them will be on meals so I won't go into details about how they work now. The first meal is always a little crazy but I love it. We welcome the campers to camp by singing the Camp Lincoln Welcome Song. Afterwards they go back to their cabins and have a little free time to finish unpacking and such. After that they have a cabin meeting. The staff go over expectations as well as doing 'get to know you' stuff. My role during this time is not particularly challenging. It is however tedious. I have to collect valuable envelopes (where the campers put any valuable items or things they aren't allowed to have at camp, i.e. cell phones, video games) and check them to make sure they have been done correctly (signed with the items inside correctly written on the front) and lastly to pull any travel documents to send to our office. I also have to collect some other paperwork and pass out treats for the campers. This is the first example of a long list of things which are the worst parts of my job. There is a general catagory of responsibilities I have which are not fun. They are simply logistical things that have to be done by someone so they are my responsibility. It makes sense and I am not complaining, but they are the least appealing things I do. Most of them present little challenge and could be done by someone who lacks my experience, acumen, or intelligience, though my work ethic does help. Lastly I just am around making sure what needs to be happening in the cabin is and supporting if it isn't.
On this first arrival day everything went rather smooth. Both of the cabins I oversee Gopher and Badger (the two youngest cabins in prep and therefor 2 or the 3 youngest in camp) were in bed with lights out by their bed time, 930pm. An auspicious start I felt. I finished my valuables and helped some of the intermediate DD's with theirs as they have more than I do. All and all a succesful first day for myself, my partner, and my staff.
Joey
Just Read: A Game of Thrones
Reading: Comanche Moon
On Deck: Shadow of the Giant.
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