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