So I've been under-rested since I got here. Tonight's dinner was corn dogs, which I don't eat (I'm still hungry). Tomorrow I have to wake up at 645am. Today I worked virtually without break except to eat from 800am to 930pm. I made about 40 dollars. By all logic I should be miserable but instead I think I'm the happiest I've been since I left Denver. Here's why:
Early on my own accord I spoke with a staff member. He was a nice guy and I genuinely like him but I was worried that he was at camp for the wrong reasons and wasn't really getting into it, particularly some of the songs and other silliness. I as I always am, was blunt about what I thought. I told him that if he wanted to be a great staff member which I thought he could be I would help him and if he was hear just to have fun, get drunk, and get laid, that I wanted to know that too so that at least I wouldn't waste our time. He said how he didn't realize that he had been putting off a bad vibe and said that he did want to be a good staff member and role model. We talked about some things that he didn't neccesarly love about camp and I was frank with him and told I felt the same way about some of those things, but it is a package, and the package is worth it. It was a great conversation and he seemed genuinely happy we had it with a desire to work on his attitude. Still, it could have just been lipservice, I've had many staff that will say one thing to your face and another behind your back.
Later that night we had 'songfest' where we learn a number of songs all at once. I noticed that the staff member was noticably more into and seemed to be having fun, a big change. He wasn't the craziest or most energetic but he was participating and having fun. Then just 20 minutes ago as I was walking to my office to work on a different topic for my blog he came up to me. He said I was just the man he was looking for. He wanted to thank me the conversation we had earlier. He said it couldn't have come at a better time. He had fun tonight and credited it to me. He then said the nicest thing that any staff member has said to me since I joined the leadership team two years ago, "I think my summer is going to better because of you". And it was all worth it.
Joey
Monday, June 9, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Camp and the retreat part 1
So I am officially at camp, actually I have been for a number of days now but this is literally the first time since I've been here that I have the time to sit down and start a post. It has been a hectic 5 days and I haven't gotten more than 5 hours of sleep in a night since two nights before I arrived (the night before I was too excited to sleep). So lets start on the day I arrived.
Coming back to camp for me is like coming home, it feels like I never left. It's weird to think that a I am about 6 weeks away from having spent a year of my life at this place. When I arrived I saw some familiar faces, people I've known for anywhere from 1 to 4 summers. We arrived right at lunch and as soon as I arrived I was on. I was downright giddy. It is amazing how quickly though I got into work mode. I started to look around and activiley get to know people right away. It is weird to think that meeting new people and getting a a good rapport with them as work. I enjoy it and like it but it also my responsibility as a member of our leadership team.
Currently what is called "work camp" is going. This is the time where some of the staff come early and physically prepare camp. This can be a laundry list of things from raking to cleaning, to setting up the archery range. It is also the only time until co-ed camp starts that a substantive number of women are on camp as all the staff that are at work camp originally stay at Lincoln. It is amazing how different the dynamic is when there are women around. I enjoy it but it makes me realize how much less effective our staff would be if this was a co-ed camp. I couldn't really get settled in the first night, I was staying in Gopher cabin with a number of the staff that are doing work camp, but would only be sleeping there one night.
The next day we had breakfast and then started to prepare for our admin "retreat". The admin retreat is not really that much of a retreat in that we don't really go anywhere. We just go to the other side of camp where no is at that time. It is effectively a 3 day meeting where we separate ourselves from the staff to focus on our issues. To prepare Andre one of our two directors and my direct supervisor this summer gave us different tasks. Mine was to get materials from around camp that we would need, i.e. office supplies, sleeping bags, and other items. Like many things at camp this is a little more tricky then it sounds for reasons of office politics that I will not go into, Andre asked me to do it because I would know when discretion is the better part of valor.
That afternoon we had lunch with the rest of the staff and I used that time to learn a few more names and hometowns of people before we temporarily departed. To make sense of the situation a brief description of the hierarchy of camp is in order. At the top is the executive director of both camps, Sam Cote (the camps are privately owned by the Cote family). Sam is not as active in the day to day runnings of the camps as he used to be (he is in his 60's) but there is no question that the final decision making power rests with him and he still does a great deal. Below Sam is Andre and Ruggs Cote, Sam's son and the only one of Sam's children that has chosen to work with the camps full time. Andre and Ruggs have the same title, director, but somewhat different responsibilities. Ruggs deals with more of the business end of things and deals with issues at both camps, he would seem to be the heir-apparent to Sam's position when he retires. Ruggs also oversees the program or activities at camp and those who are in charge of them, he was my supervisor the past two years. Andre deals more with people and oversees all the people that do my job, division director, and is very camper focused dealing with camper recruitment during the winter. Below them is my best camp friend and the only one whom I put on the same level as my close Tucson friends, Blake Holman. Blake was a camper for many years and started on staff the same year I did, 2004. Over the past year he has been working full time for camp as their staff coordinator, a new position for him. This summer his job revolves around working with the staff and supporting them, it is basically camp human resources. Working in the winter office puts him above me and my colleagues though he is not anyones supervisor. Next is the Camp Lincoln leadership team which consists of 7 people, 5 division directors and 2 program directors. There are three divisions: Prep (our two week campers), intermediate (most of our 4-week campers), and Senior/LT (our oldest 4-week campers). Prep and intermediate both have two division directors and senior/lt has one. The program directors don't have a group of campers but oversee the activities at camp. Two years ago I was program director, and last year I was one of the Prep camp division directors, this year I will doing the same. Within the group of seven there is no established hierarchy, however because of experience there is an effective one. Myself and one of the program directors, Anthony have been on the leadership team 3 years now (Anthony has been at camp one more year then me as he was a regular staff member for 3 years to my 2). All the other members are new to the team this year so are stepping into new jobs, so we inevetably seen as the leaders of the group.
The retreat was held in the house where the camp doctor will live, we pretty much just hang out in the living room. It started off with some goals from Andre and Ruggs for the retreat as well as us making goals for the retreat itself for each one of us. Alas the retreat is a lot of listening which is fine. For me, the retreat had a few purposes; a refresher on things I've heard, a place for me to teach new staff and learn myself through that teaching, and most importantly fit into my new role as a leader on the team and learn how best to work with my new colleagues. With the departure of Blake, Red, and Kevin (three members from last year's team) my role on the team has changed significantly and I now need to focus on not only how to support the staff under me but the staff at my level, a unique challenge.
Over the next few days we talked about a long list of topics. We talked about what a well known writer/speaker in the camping named Micheal Brandwein industry calls the six pathways. It is six paths towards being a succesful camp administrator. They are:
1. Add creative twist to Program
2. Praise Positive Staff Behavior
3. Support Staff & Help them grow
4. Manage undesired behavior in positive ways
5. Help campers who need extra support
6. Keep Camp Safe
I like his writing a lot and I presented two of the pathways to the group, 1 and 5. Andre did the most speaking but Anthony, myself and Blake had a number of speaking portions. We discussed the nuts and bolts of job and talked about a lot of specific expectations. A huge expectation is loyalty. As you will hopefully come to understand as the summer goes on there will inevitably be people that don't like people on the admin team or the team in general. There are a lot of reasons for this but because of that loyalty is paramount. We cannot have one member being the "good guy" claiming that he doesn't agree with a particular policy making everyone else look bad. We talked a lot about our role as mentors and how to best fit that role. We made some decisions about some things most importantly evalulations. We had what has become an annual debate on whether to have scored or non-scored evals from the staff. In these conversations I mostly stayed quiet. I knew where I stood but I didn't really feel like influencing anyone, plus I didn't particularly care. In the end the quality of an evaluation isn't about the format it is about the content and the knowledge of the supervisor. A quality eval is predicated on credibility which you gain by truly knowing the staff member and giving them consistant feedback about their performance so that they aren't surprised when the evaluation comes.
When we aren't working we eat a bunch of junk food, go out to eat, and sometimes play some quick games to wake us up. It is really tough to stay awake and focused through 12 hours a day of meetings. Caffiene helps. I never was into caffiene until I joined the admin team, now it is part of my summer. At some point we did some personal goal setting for the summer and I'll let you know what my major one was I suppose:
1. Go overboard with organization. My biggest difficulty working at camp, and in many things is my absent mindedness. I have very poor short term memory. I just need to do a better job of reminding myself what I need to do each day so I am planning it out with all the things I will know I have to do. I am keeping to a strict timeline of doing everything so that way I can plan now. For example if the staff are planning an activity I have on my calender when I am going to give them their first written reminder, then their 1st verbal reminder, then when we have to have a 5 conversation about it, then their next written reminder, then when they have to have their plan drafted up, then when I have to give it back with comments, then when the final draft is due or I take over planning, and then finally the event itself. Ridiculous I know but camp is crazy and you don't have a lot of time to think about things once it gets going and you want to give yourself every chance to succeed.
There was one eventfull evening though. The staff had a day off during the retreat that goes from 530pm one day until 1230am the next (30 hours). To make sense of the following story let me tell you two of our policies. One is that if you are staying on camp on a day off you have to be back by 1230 am. Another is that "cohabitation" or men sleeping with women one camp is against camp policy (that doesn't have to mean sex). At 1230am we do a round to lock up the gates and basically close down camp. Myself and Anthony did it because we were the only ones with experience doing it yet and we thought it could be an eventul night. This early in the summer some staff believe that as they say the rules are made to be broken, usually someone tests that theory and they soon find out the rules are very much made to be followed.
So Anthony and I finish rounds and for confidentialities sake (one never knows who might read this) I won't say how, but we came to believe that two of our staff who were openly in a relationship might be breaking the cohabitation policy. Anthony and I searched around for a while and unfortunatly found them. I say unfortunatly because although I was looking for them and would have looked pretty much everywhere as it is my job and I was hoping we were wrong. I don't like to see anyone get in trouble, I don't get any jollies from it. Still it is a commitment I make and part of my job. So we found them and then got in touch with the directors and they handled it from there. We have a few policies that are zero tolerance and this is one of them so they were asked to leave. Luckily we were able to give them a good reference and helped get them placed at another camp in Massachusettes. I was really happy about that, I would have hated to see them have to go home (England). So in the end it was alright. Still it is the worst part of my job. I come here to help people. Still, I understand why the policies are there and I support them completely and have a very strong sense of loyalty to both camp and my supervisors.
So we did all that and much more. When it was over everyone was very ready for it to be over. Its fun, useful, and interesting often. It can also be boring, grueling, tiring, and frustrating sometimes. In the end though I met my goals. Most significantly I gained a lot of confidence in my interaction with my colleagues and am finding my place well I think, though that will continue to remain a challenge.
That was a lot. If you read that, wow you must be bored or I must be interesting. In a little bit I'll come out with another post about how the post-retreat pre-staff training period is for me. Hope you are well and I miss you all.
Joey
Coming back to camp for me is like coming home, it feels like I never left. It's weird to think that a I am about 6 weeks away from having spent a year of my life at this place. When I arrived I saw some familiar faces, people I've known for anywhere from 1 to 4 summers. We arrived right at lunch and as soon as I arrived I was on. I was downright giddy. It is amazing how quickly though I got into work mode. I started to look around and activiley get to know people right away. It is weird to think that meeting new people and getting a a good rapport with them as work. I enjoy it and like it but it also my responsibility as a member of our leadership team.
Currently what is called "work camp" is going. This is the time where some of the staff come early and physically prepare camp. This can be a laundry list of things from raking to cleaning, to setting up the archery range. It is also the only time until co-ed camp starts that a substantive number of women are on camp as all the staff that are at work camp originally stay at Lincoln. It is amazing how different the dynamic is when there are women around. I enjoy it but it makes me realize how much less effective our staff would be if this was a co-ed camp. I couldn't really get settled in the first night, I was staying in Gopher cabin with a number of the staff that are doing work camp, but would only be sleeping there one night.
The next day we had breakfast and then started to prepare for our admin "retreat". The admin retreat is not really that much of a retreat in that we don't really go anywhere. We just go to the other side of camp where no is at that time. It is effectively a 3 day meeting where we separate ourselves from the staff to focus on our issues. To prepare Andre one of our two directors and my direct supervisor this summer gave us different tasks. Mine was to get materials from around camp that we would need, i.e. office supplies, sleeping bags, and other items. Like many things at camp this is a little more tricky then it sounds for reasons of office politics that I will not go into, Andre asked me to do it because I would know when discretion is the better part of valor.
That afternoon we had lunch with the rest of the staff and I used that time to learn a few more names and hometowns of people before we temporarily departed. To make sense of the situation a brief description of the hierarchy of camp is in order. At the top is the executive director of both camps, Sam Cote (the camps are privately owned by the Cote family). Sam is not as active in the day to day runnings of the camps as he used to be (he is in his 60's) but there is no question that the final decision making power rests with him and he still does a great deal. Below Sam is Andre and Ruggs Cote, Sam's son and the only one of Sam's children that has chosen to work with the camps full time. Andre and Ruggs have the same title, director, but somewhat different responsibilities. Ruggs deals with more of the business end of things and deals with issues at both camps, he would seem to be the heir-apparent to Sam's position when he retires. Ruggs also oversees the program or activities at camp and those who are in charge of them, he was my supervisor the past two years. Andre deals more with people and oversees all the people that do my job, division director, and is very camper focused dealing with camper recruitment during the winter. Below them is my best camp friend and the only one whom I put on the same level as my close Tucson friends, Blake Holman. Blake was a camper for many years and started on staff the same year I did, 2004. Over the past year he has been working full time for camp as their staff coordinator, a new position for him. This summer his job revolves around working with the staff and supporting them, it is basically camp human resources. Working in the winter office puts him above me and my colleagues though he is not anyones supervisor. Next is the Camp Lincoln leadership team which consists of 7 people, 5 division directors and 2 program directors. There are three divisions: Prep (our two week campers), intermediate (most of our 4-week campers), and Senior/LT (our oldest 4-week campers). Prep and intermediate both have two division directors and senior/lt has one. The program directors don't have a group of campers but oversee the activities at camp. Two years ago I was program director, and last year I was one of the Prep camp division directors, this year I will doing the same. Within the group of seven there is no established hierarchy, however because of experience there is an effective one. Myself and one of the program directors, Anthony have been on the leadership team 3 years now (Anthony has been at camp one more year then me as he was a regular staff member for 3 years to my 2). All the other members are new to the team this year so are stepping into new jobs, so we inevetably seen as the leaders of the group.
The retreat was held in the house where the camp doctor will live, we pretty much just hang out in the living room. It started off with some goals from Andre and Ruggs for the retreat as well as us making goals for the retreat itself for each one of us. Alas the retreat is a lot of listening which is fine. For me, the retreat had a few purposes; a refresher on things I've heard, a place for me to teach new staff and learn myself through that teaching, and most importantly fit into my new role as a leader on the team and learn how best to work with my new colleagues. With the departure of Blake, Red, and Kevin (three members from last year's team) my role on the team has changed significantly and I now need to focus on not only how to support the staff under me but the staff at my level, a unique challenge.
Over the next few days we talked about a long list of topics. We talked about what a well known writer/speaker in the camping named Micheal Brandwein industry calls the six pathways. It is six paths towards being a succesful camp administrator. They are:
1. Add creative twist to Program
2. Praise Positive Staff Behavior
3. Support Staff & Help them grow
4. Manage undesired behavior in positive ways
5. Help campers who need extra support
6. Keep Camp Safe
I like his writing a lot and I presented two of the pathways to the group, 1 and 5. Andre did the most speaking but Anthony, myself and Blake had a number of speaking portions. We discussed the nuts and bolts of job and talked about a lot of specific expectations. A huge expectation is loyalty. As you will hopefully come to understand as the summer goes on there will inevitably be people that don't like people on the admin team or the team in general. There are a lot of reasons for this but because of that loyalty is paramount. We cannot have one member being the "good guy" claiming that he doesn't agree with a particular policy making everyone else look bad. We talked a lot about our role as mentors and how to best fit that role. We made some decisions about some things most importantly evalulations. We had what has become an annual debate on whether to have scored or non-scored evals from the staff. In these conversations I mostly stayed quiet. I knew where I stood but I didn't really feel like influencing anyone, plus I didn't particularly care. In the end the quality of an evaluation isn't about the format it is about the content and the knowledge of the supervisor. A quality eval is predicated on credibility which you gain by truly knowing the staff member and giving them consistant feedback about their performance so that they aren't surprised when the evaluation comes.
When we aren't working we eat a bunch of junk food, go out to eat, and sometimes play some quick games to wake us up. It is really tough to stay awake and focused through 12 hours a day of meetings. Caffiene helps. I never was into caffiene until I joined the admin team, now it is part of my summer. At some point we did some personal goal setting for the summer and I'll let you know what my major one was I suppose:
1. Go overboard with organization. My biggest difficulty working at camp, and in many things is my absent mindedness. I have very poor short term memory. I just need to do a better job of reminding myself what I need to do each day so I am planning it out with all the things I will know I have to do. I am keeping to a strict timeline of doing everything so that way I can plan now. For example if the staff are planning an activity I have on my calender when I am going to give them their first written reminder, then their 1st verbal reminder, then when we have to have a 5 conversation about it, then their next written reminder, then when they have to have their plan drafted up, then when I have to give it back with comments, then when the final draft is due or I take over planning, and then finally the event itself. Ridiculous I know but camp is crazy and you don't have a lot of time to think about things once it gets going and you want to give yourself every chance to succeed.
There was one eventfull evening though. The staff had a day off during the retreat that goes from 530pm one day until 1230am the next (30 hours). To make sense of the following story let me tell you two of our policies. One is that if you are staying on camp on a day off you have to be back by 1230 am. Another is that "cohabitation" or men sleeping with women one camp is against camp policy (that doesn't have to mean sex). At 1230am we do a round to lock up the gates and basically close down camp. Myself and Anthony did it because we were the only ones with experience doing it yet and we thought it could be an eventul night. This early in the summer some staff believe that as they say the rules are made to be broken, usually someone tests that theory and they soon find out the rules are very much made to be followed.
So Anthony and I finish rounds and for confidentialities sake (one never knows who might read this) I won't say how, but we came to believe that two of our staff who were openly in a relationship might be breaking the cohabitation policy. Anthony and I searched around for a while and unfortunatly found them. I say unfortunatly because although I was looking for them and would have looked pretty much everywhere as it is my job and I was hoping we were wrong. I don't like to see anyone get in trouble, I don't get any jollies from it. Still it is a commitment I make and part of my job. So we found them and then got in touch with the directors and they handled it from there. We have a few policies that are zero tolerance and this is one of them so they were asked to leave. Luckily we were able to give them a good reference and helped get them placed at another camp in Massachusettes. I was really happy about that, I would have hated to see them have to go home (England). So in the end it was alright. Still it is the worst part of my job. I come here to help people. Still, I understand why the policies are there and I support them completely and have a very strong sense of loyalty to both camp and my supervisors.
So we did all that and much more. When it was over everyone was very ready for it to be over. Its fun, useful, and interesting often. It can also be boring, grueling, tiring, and frustrating sometimes. In the end though I met my goals. Most significantly I gained a lot of confidence in my interaction with my colleagues and am finding my place well I think, though that will continue to remain a challenge.
That was a lot. If you read that, wow you must be bored or I must be interesting. In a little bit I'll come out with another post about how the post-retreat pre-staff training period is for me. Hope you are well and I miss you all.
Joey
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Pre-Camp mode
So tonight is the night before I go to camp. I am staying in St. Paul at Mike 'Ice' Eckberg's house. I'm so excited I can't really go sleep yet, and I've been having so much fun with this blog so far I thought I would get started on my quest to make sense of camp for myself and the masses. Speaking of the masses, I have no idea if anyone is really even reading this. I feel like Happy Harry Hard-on in the move "Pump Up the Volume" (great movie) when he is talking about his early radio days and had no idea if anyone was listening. Then again, I'm listening and that's what counts.
When people find out that I am working at a summer camp this summer, I get a wide range of responses. Some think that it is great that I am doing something I love, some think I should get a 'real job', and some are jealous. In general though few people really understand why I am doing it. Most think I am doing it because it will be fun. That isn't necessarily untrue, however there are lots of fun jobs out there, and in fact I would say I have reached a point where there are more fun things I could do out there. So I had an idea. Each summer I have to "re-apply". I have to fill out an application and do an interview. At this point the process is somewhat of a formality in that they directors know me well enough to know if they would like to hire me or not. However, it is a good opportunity to touch base and let them know of my ideas for the summer and where I see myself. There are 8 questions you are supposed to answer on the application for returnign staff members but I really just answered the ones that I felt applied to me. The question I spent the most time answering was: "Why do you want to come back to Camp Lincoln this summer"? I felt like by letting you read that, maybe you woudl have an idea what it has become about for me. It may not all make sense though hopefully throughout the summer some of it will make more sense. Here it is:
I am looking forward to coming back for a few reasons. Recently I had been debating whether or not to re-apply and I was trying to figure out what I was getting from camp at this point. Realistically I have sacrificed a lot to work at camp. I’ve passed up opportunities to work less, make more money, have more time for fun, and travel. I also recognize that in the past I have gained many things; learned new activities, met loads of friends from all over the world, got away from AZ for the summer, had amazing days off, got to work with some great kids and really get to know them, and made a little scratch in between. However as time has gone on many of the negatives have become more pronounced; I could be making a significant amount of money SAT tutoring or doing a math related internship, the work has become inherently harder and more demanding, and every year is one more consecutive summer that I haven’t been able to do anything else. Likewise many of the original things I got from camp don’t apply anymore; I don’t really get to do activities, I don’t get to know kids that well, days off are okay at best, although I am making more than I used to as I come on graduation I need money more than ever, lastly for the first time last summer I didn’t really make any single new friends, not real ones anyway and most of the friends I have left seem to be moving on.
So why have I decided to reapply? While I have been thinking about this I have also for the first time started to recognize is a real way what I have gotten in the long term from camp. Even though I had talked about this before and thought I knew it, I hadn’t really had myself as convinced. Based on some experiences I’ve had in the past summer and the recent months I have started to realize just how many skills I have really learned from camp and where those skills are leading me. Partially through observing others and partially through my own experiences I have seen how good I have gotten at leading a group of people, adults or children. I have realized how much better of a public speaker I am than almost any of my friends and probably all of them. I’ve realized how much it has helped my teaching skills which among other things has helped me become a successful tutor (at least in terms of results and client satisfaction). I’ve also realized that honestly I’ve never been anything but successful at a job or program that I have tried to succeed in. The difference however is that camp is the only long term job that I have managed to stay motivated and passionate about. Because of these things I have been thinking that as I start thinking about future careers I want to look at positions that combine the skills and as well as things I like about working at camp. I have become increasingly interested in some form of youth, adult, or family recreation.
The other big motivating factor is the appeal of finally doing the same job for a 2nd consecutive year. In my first four years I had 4 different positions. I always felt like by the time I really learned how to do the job the summer was over and I found myself doing something different next time. This has had its appeals as I learned a lot fast but it never gave me the chance to really excel at a position, at least this is how I’ve felt. I’ve spent 4 years doing good and none doing great. The closest I came was as a head counselor but even then I still had enough adjustments to make that it took me a session. I really want to for once just hit the ground running and really do well the entire summer because I’ll actually know what I am doing for a change. I feel like I was pretty prepared to be a DD last year but still had some things to work on. I focused on some of my mentoring skills as well as just learning the ropes and came a long way. I’d like to apply that this summer and take real ownership of a division, something I wasn’t able to do mentally last year because I knew Kevin was there. I knew that even if I failed that really the buck stopped with him, not me, I was his responsibility. For me knowing that my I lack ownership of my failures makes me lack pride in my accomplishments, it doesn’t feel like they count. This year I think I will be great and I will be able to take pride in that. I feel like it has been a four year process but my view of why I want to come back to camp has been changing over time. At this point it is coming from a very professional point of view, camp will always be fun for me, but now more than every I see it as a job on the path toward a future career.
So hopefully that will add some level of insight. I hope what you get out of it is this: what camp means to me has changed every year I have been there and likely will continue to. Thinking back to my first summer at this time seems so long ago. I was a very different person then and camp has been a big part of that. As a child and into early adulthood the quality of summer is defined by two things; how much fun you have and the friends you make. If that is the metric then that first summer was the best summer of my life. I had the time of my life, met amazing people who despite the fact that I don't keep in touch with these days I will never forget, and I was pretty good at my job. What I want now in my position at camp is so much based on that summer. As a division director I want above all two things; I want my staff to have at least close to as much fun as I had and I want them to be better at their job then I was. I want so badly for them to look back years from now and think that it was the best summer of their life and that they did a good job. I imagine the next couple months of this blog will revolve around me trying to do that.
Jo27ey
When people find out that I am working at a summer camp this summer, I get a wide range of responses. Some think that it is great that I am doing something I love, some think I should get a 'real job', and some are jealous. In general though few people really understand why I am doing it. Most think I am doing it because it will be fun. That isn't necessarily untrue, however there are lots of fun jobs out there, and in fact I would say I have reached a point where there are more fun things I could do out there. So I had an idea. Each summer I have to "re-apply". I have to fill out an application and do an interview. At this point the process is somewhat of a formality in that they directors know me well enough to know if they would like to hire me or not. However, it is a good opportunity to touch base and let them know of my ideas for the summer and where I see myself. There are 8 questions you are supposed to answer on the application for returnign staff members but I really just answered the ones that I felt applied to me. The question I spent the most time answering was: "Why do you want to come back to Camp Lincoln this summer"? I felt like by letting you read that, maybe you woudl have an idea what it has become about for me. It may not all make sense though hopefully throughout the summer some of it will make more sense. Here it is:
I am looking forward to coming back for a few reasons. Recently I had been debating whether or not to re-apply and I was trying to figure out what I was getting from camp at this point. Realistically I have sacrificed a lot to work at camp. I’ve passed up opportunities to work less, make more money, have more time for fun, and travel. I also recognize that in the past I have gained many things; learned new activities, met loads of friends from all over the world, got away from AZ for the summer, had amazing days off, got to work with some great kids and really get to know them, and made a little scratch in between. However as time has gone on many of the negatives have become more pronounced; I could be making a significant amount of money SAT tutoring or doing a math related internship, the work has become inherently harder and more demanding, and every year is one more consecutive summer that I haven’t been able to do anything else. Likewise many of the original things I got from camp don’t apply anymore; I don’t really get to do activities, I don’t get to know kids that well, days off are okay at best, although I am making more than I used to as I come on graduation I need money more than ever, lastly for the first time last summer I didn’t really make any single new friends, not real ones anyway and most of the friends I have left seem to be moving on.
So why have I decided to reapply? While I have been thinking about this I have also for the first time started to recognize is a real way what I have gotten in the long term from camp. Even though I had talked about this before and thought I knew it, I hadn’t really had myself as convinced. Based on some experiences I’ve had in the past summer and the recent months I have started to realize just how many skills I have really learned from camp and where those skills are leading me. Partially through observing others and partially through my own experiences I have seen how good I have gotten at leading a group of people, adults or children. I have realized how much better of a public speaker I am than almost any of my friends and probably all of them. I’ve realized how much it has helped my teaching skills which among other things has helped me become a successful tutor (at least in terms of results and client satisfaction). I’ve also realized that honestly I’ve never been anything but successful at a job or program that I have tried to succeed in. The difference however is that camp is the only long term job that I have managed to stay motivated and passionate about. Because of these things I have been thinking that as I start thinking about future careers I want to look at positions that combine the skills and as well as things I like about working at camp. I have become increasingly interested in some form of youth, adult, or family recreation.
The other big motivating factor is the appeal of finally doing the same job for a 2nd consecutive year. In my first four years I had 4 different positions. I always felt like by the time I really learned how to do the job the summer was over and I found myself doing something different next time. This has had its appeals as I learned a lot fast but it never gave me the chance to really excel at a position, at least this is how I’ve felt. I’ve spent 4 years doing good and none doing great. The closest I came was as a head counselor but even then I still had enough adjustments to make that it took me a session. I really want to for once just hit the ground running and really do well the entire summer because I’ll actually know what I am doing for a change. I feel like I was pretty prepared to be a DD last year but still had some things to work on. I focused on some of my mentoring skills as well as just learning the ropes and came a long way. I’d like to apply that this summer and take real ownership of a division, something I wasn’t able to do mentally last year because I knew Kevin was there. I knew that even if I failed that really the buck stopped with him, not me, I was his responsibility. For me knowing that my I lack ownership of my failures makes me lack pride in my accomplishments, it doesn’t feel like they count. This year I think I will be great and I will be able to take pride in that. I feel like it has been a four year process but my view of why I want to come back to camp has been changing over time. At this point it is coming from a very professional point of view, camp will always be fun for me, but now more than every I see it as a job on the path toward a future career.
So hopefully that will add some level of insight. I hope what you get out of it is this: what camp means to me has changed every year I have been there and likely will continue to. Thinking back to my first summer at this time seems so long ago. I was a very different person then and camp has been a big part of that. As a child and into early adulthood the quality of summer is defined by two things; how much fun you have and the friends you make. If that is the metric then that first summer was the best summer of my life. I had the time of my life, met amazing people who despite the fact that I don't keep in touch with these days I will never forget, and I was pretty good at my job. What I want now in my position at camp is so much based on that summer. As a division director I want above all two things; I want my staff to have at least close to as much fun as I had and I want them to be better at their job then I was. I want so badly for them to look back years from now and think that it was the best summer of their life and that they did a good job. I imagine the next couple months of this blog will revolve around me trying to do that.
Jo27ey
Mad-town part 2 and the future
So it is Tuesday morning and I've got a bus for St. Paul soon. Yesterday was again all sweet, my life rocks. Yesterday Palmer and I went into town and just kind of walked around. UW-Madison sits next to a lake and there were a bunch of people hanging out by their student union as it was memorial day. We chillaxed and I consumed a brat. Palmer had a "Paul Bunyan Burger", they love that guy up here. Personally I don't think you can call such a tiny burger a Paul Bunyan but apparently you can. It was an ideal memorial day, at least during the day and the people of Madison seemed to be out in droves to enjoy it. That I think is one of the biggest differences between cold and warm weather places. On a nice day in Arizona you won't really see that many people out and about, it just isn't a big deal. But on one of the first great summer days in the midwest, people feel silly staying inside. I think parks and other recreational areas in the end get a lot more use actually.
We walked down State St., the main drag of this town of 500,000 toward the capital building. We went inside and had a drink at one of the nicest water fountains I've seen. We then walked to the second biggest lake in Madison (Madison is the only major american city to lie on an ismuth, in this case between two lakes. I called Pjay and we talked for a while. Missing my friends is already starting to kick in. That is going to be really hard for me. But I digress. Eventually we bummed our way back to the Hodag house and played some more washers (Palmer trashed me).
That evening we went out to a bar called the vintage known for it's 1 dollar Wisconsin local draft beers on Mondays. Unfortunatly I had misplaced my id earlier in the trip so I didn't have it. This being a college town they are pretty strict with checking id's so I was kind of screwed. However Drew Mahowald, who doesn't look entirely different than I do (similar hair, face shape, though he does have blue eyes and is 6'2") offered to try to give me his id after he was inside and see if it worked for me. So after they were in Palmer slyly gave me the id over the fence. I had to wait in a pretty good line outside but by the time I was in there was a good size crowd of Hodags,Belladonnas (the women's team), and other folk who were hoping the operation would be succesful. I memorized the id pretty well just in case he got wise and asked questions. In the end though it all hinged on one thing. If he looked at the height. I could pass for the dreamy facial features of Drew Mahowald but even on my tip toes, I'm no six foot two. After a quick look the portly bouncer waved me through. Dollar beers was great and I got reasonably drunk once again, though not as bad as the night before. Eventually it got really windy and cold (we were outside) and I moseyed on back.
Overall my tour of the upper widwest has been great, I'm not sure what city I liked the best, they were all really different. Chicago is certainly the best city to be a tourist in, there is just a lot to see, but I wouldn't want to live there I think. Just a little too big, too crowded, too big city like for me. Milwaukee worked out really well. I couch surfed for the first time and that was an excellent experience, one I expect to repeat. It was a nice town and it I could stand the cold, a place I could imagine settling down one day, just like the twin cities. Madison was exactly what I heard it was, a great college town, an awesome place to party. The fact that I had such a great group of locals to connect with quickly made it a unique experience on my trip.
It made me wonder how my life would be different if I had come to Wisconsin (not that I ever planned too). Would I still have played ultimate? Would I have a Hodag tat? Would Drew, Riley, and Will Lokke be my best friends? Would I hate snow? Who knows, but I bet it would have been good. Still it also made me realize that as sweet as it may or may not have been, I would trade the last 5 years of my life for anything. I was so happy for so long in a way that I didn't even know I could be. Still my goals now can't be about trying to maintain that kind of happiness. That is gone forever, I need to try to find my new life, and figure out what it will take to make me happy now. Maybe I'll mull over that few days and get back to y'all.
The posts will probably come with less frequency soon, once I'm at camp. I'll be very busy but I want to try to write a good deal. I'd like to try to make people understand what my life is like there and what it is all about. It is interested to me that the two biggest things in my adult life, camp and ultimate, I am never able to make people on the outside understand. I've never been able to really convey to my mom why ultimate is so important to me, there on so many people on sunburn who I am convinced could have had their lives changed by camp if I could make them understand it. But I can't, or at least haven't been able to. So maybe that is too lofty a goal. Instead of trying to explain camp, maybe I just need to explain what my experience is like and perhaps that will help people get it, maybe even me.
Joey
We walked down State St., the main drag of this town of 500,000 toward the capital building. We went inside and had a drink at one of the nicest water fountains I've seen. We then walked to the second biggest lake in Madison (Madison is the only major american city to lie on an ismuth, in this case between two lakes. I called Pjay and we talked for a while. Missing my friends is already starting to kick in. That is going to be really hard for me. But I digress. Eventually we bummed our way back to the Hodag house and played some more washers (Palmer trashed me).
That evening we went out to a bar called the vintage known for it's 1 dollar Wisconsin local draft beers on Mondays. Unfortunatly I had misplaced my id earlier in the trip so I didn't have it. This being a college town they are pretty strict with checking id's so I was kind of screwed. However Drew Mahowald, who doesn't look entirely different than I do (similar hair, face shape, though he does have blue eyes and is 6'2") offered to try to give me his id after he was inside and see if it worked for me. So after they were in Palmer slyly gave me the id over the fence. I had to wait in a pretty good line outside but by the time I was in there was a good size crowd of Hodags,Belladonnas (the women's team), and other folk who were hoping the operation would be succesful. I memorized the id pretty well just in case he got wise and asked questions. In the end though it all hinged on one thing. If he looked at the height. I could pass for the dreamy facial features of Drew Mahowald but even on my tip toes, I'm no six foot two. After a quick look the portly bouncer waved me through. Dollar beers was great and I got reasonably drunk once again, though not as bad as the night before. Eventually it got really windy and cold (we were outside) and I moseyed on back.
Overall my tour of the upper widwest has been great, I'm not sure what city I liked the best, they were all really different. Chicago is certainly the best city to be a tourist in, there is just a lot to see, but I wouldn't want to live there I think. Just a little too big, too crowded, too big city like for me. Milwaukee worked out really well. I couch surfed for the first time and that was an excellent experience, one I expect to repeat. It was a nice town and it I could stand the cold, a place I could imagine settling down one day, just like the twin cities. Madison was exactly what I heard it was, a great college town, an awesome place to party. The fact that I had such a great group of locals to connect with quickly made it a unique experience on my trip.
It made me wonder how my life would be different if I had come to Wisconsin (not that I ever planned too). Would I still have played ultimate? Would I have a Hodag tat? Would Drew, Riley, and Will Lokke be my best friends? Would I hate snow? Who knows, but I bet it would have been good. Still it also made me realize that as sweet as it may or may not have been, I would trade the last 5 years of my life for anything. I was so happy for so long in a way that I didn't even know I could be. Still my goals now can't be about trying to maintain that kind of happiness. That is gone forever, I need to try to find my new life, and figure out what it will take to make me happy now. Maybe I'll mull over that few days and get back to y'all.
The posts will probably come with less frequency soon, once I'm at camp. I'll be very busy but I want to try to write a good deal. I'd like to try to make people understand what my life is like there and what it is all about. It is interested to me that the two biggest things in my adult life, camp and ultimate, I am never able to make people on the outside understand. I've never been able to really convey to my mom why ultimate is so important to me, there on so many people on sunburn who I am convinced could have had their lives changed by camp if I could make them understand it. But I can't, or at least haven't been able to. So maybe that is too lofty a goal. Instead of trying to explain camp, maybe I just need to explain what my experience is like and perhaps that will help people get it, maybe even me.
Joey
Monday, May 26, 2008
Mil-Rocky and MADison
So I'm in Madison now but I thought I'd write about my short trip to Milwaukee. Let me first say that I think Milwaukee is a really underrated city. I'd say it is like a way more laid back version of Chicago but that isn't quite right. It definitely has it's own flavor. I'd say it is a lot like Tucson in that it doesn't seem to know that it is a city of 2,000,000 people. It's a big city with a small city feel, especially after just being in Chicago.
I took Megabus in from Chicago, by myself actually because Palmer had to take a later bus. I got in around 5 and then I got picked up by Courtney, my couchsurfing host. If you don't know, couchsurfing is a website/community of people that allow people to stay at their homes when they are traveling. The idea is to not only save people money who are traveling but for the hosts to be ambassadors for their cities as well as friends. If you're curious about learning more check out couchsurfing.com. Courtney was really cool, she had a place a good bit south of the city and went there right away. I got settled in and I offered to cook dinner. She apparently doesn't know how to cook so was excited that I offered. We went to buy groceries and as we went started to share some of our best stories of love and loss. She was too generous not letting me help pay for the groceries, we then picked up Palmer and soon he too was forced to tell his own story. Dinner was really nice and we were tired so we just stayed in and watched Edward Scissorhands, great movie.
Unfortunately we could only stay with Courtney one night so I had scrambled and found someone else, Carl to let us stay the second. That morning we drove to the other side of town, said goodbye to Courtney and hello to Carl. Carl was also really nice and extremely well traveled for his 19 years. He joined Palmer and and I and we walked the couple of miles into the city and he gave us the tour. I really enjoyed it, Milwaukee had some nice stuff to see including one of the coolest buildings I have ever seen, their art museum. picture
We went to some crazy used bookstores and I found a bunch of copies of the book I had been looking for, Guns Germs and Steel as well as another book. Milwaukee which has a rich German heritage even has a small sort of Little Germany town complete with it's own Hofbrau of Munich restaurant. After a while Carl had to go to take care of some stuff and Palmer and I were tired so we took a nap in a park for a couple hours.
When we woke up we went to take the bus the Brewers baseball game that I was sure was going on. We waited for the 90 bus which was supposedly the bus that only ran on days when the Brewers were playing and went right to the station. It didn't come so we took another bus that didn't go all the way to the stadium instead. We got off a bit too early and had to make an awkward trek through neighbourhoods, over fences, over train tracks, and under highways to get there but we did. Unfortunately we were the only ones, the parking lot was empty. We quickly realized I was wrong about the time of the game and were a bit disappointed. However all was not lost, there was still baseball to be seen. Near the stadium was this ultra nice little league stadium they had erected. It was the Brewers v. Cubs and it seemed like it would be cheaper and more entertaining the MLB anyway. So we stayed and watched, it was great. I sometimes forget how uncoordinated children are. Palmer and I announced the game to ourselves making up the names of the kids, including star picture, "Scott Osterrich" who was not to be trifled with. After the game (Brew-Crew over the Cubbies 5-2) we went to the Fridays front row restaurant to check our the stadium, watch some sports, and let me settle up by buying an appetizer for losing the bet we had made on the LL game.
We took the bus back to Carl's and hung out there the rest of the evening. We met his roommates and a friend of his and we all played music on instruments only one person, the owner of all of them knew how to. Myself, Palmer and Carl's friend who missed the last bus all slept in the living room on some extra mattresses.
The next day we overslept and missed the bus we were originally going to take but made the 300pm bus to Madison. We got there and walked with our luggage. I am getting so sick of walking with my stuff. I hate traveling heavy and the only reason I am doing it is because I have to got camp after this and I don't want to laundry all the time. Still my duffel bag is both heavy and a piece of shit. I'm going to burn it at camp. We did eventually make our way to the "Hodag House" where six members of the University of Wisconsin ultimate team lives. At nationals I had asked one of their members, and one of my top ultimate man-crushes (platonic) Andrew Mahowald is we could stay with him. When we got there, Drew and Shane, another member of the team were already there. We got the tour, its a pretty crazy house, but in a nice neighborhood. We then went to the house where Drew's sister, a member of the women's team lived because there was some free beer to be had. We played a game called "washers" which is similar to bags but played with large metal washers. It was really fun and we started to get drunk.
It started to rain to we went back the Hodag house and some people came over and we got more drunk, playing some beer pong as well as a game called shoulders I just learned. It is always fun meeting an ultimate team in a non-ultimate setting and seeing how they interact. I would say Wisconsin is the team most like us out of any I have hung out with (though better at disc, they did just with the national championship). They are clearly great friends and I think just have a very similar energy about them, especially their older players. Palmer and I had an epic overtime beerpong match against Drew and Muffin (another player) trying to avenge our embarrassing nationals loss. It came down to one cup v. one cup in overtime and we lost on their house rule that if you overshoot the table you lose a cup. It really changes the game a lot. Eventually I got really tired and passed out in one of the rooms of a player who isn't here right now, Kevin Riley. I'm actually typing this on his computer right now. So far it has been really fun getting to know the Hodags, especially Drew and Shane. I think whenever Palmer wakes up we will go check out Madison.
As a new feature of this every improving Blog I will be saying at the end of each post what books I'm reading.
Just Finished : Dead Man's Walk - Larry McMurtry
Currently Reading: Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
On Deck: Shadow Puppets- Orson Scott Card
XOXOXOXO
Joey
I took Megabus in from Chicago, by myself actually because Palmer had to take a later bus. I got in around 5 and then I got picked up by Courtney, my couchsurfing host. If you don't know, couchsurfing is a website/community of people that allow people to stay at their homes when they are traveling. The idea is to not only save people money who are traveling but for the hosts to be ambassadors for their cities as well as friends. If you're curious about learning more check out couchsurfing.com. Courtney was really cool, she had a place a good bit south of the city and went there right away. I got settled in and I offered to cook dinner. She apparently doesn't know how to cook so was excited that I offered. We went to buy groceries and as we went started to share some of our best stories of love and loss. She was too generous not letting me help pay for the groceries, we then picked up Palmer and soon he too was forced to tell his own story. Dinner was really nice and we were tired so we just stayed in and watched Edward Scissorhands, great movie.
Unfortunately we could only stay with Courtney one night so I had scrambled and found someone else, Carl to let us stay the second. That morning we drove to the other side of town, said goodbye to Courtney and hello to Carl. Carl was also really nice and extremely well traveled for his 19 years. He joined Palmer and and I and we walked the couple of miles into the city and he gave us the tour. I really enjoyed it, Milwaukee had some nice stuff to see including one of the coolest buildings I have ever seen, their art museum. picture
We went to some crazy used bookstores and I found a bunch of copies of the book I had been looking for, Guns Germs and Steel as well as another book. Milwaukee which has a rich German heritage even has a small sort of Little Germany town complete with it's own Hofbrau of Munich restaurant. After a while Carl had to go to take care of some stuff and Palmer and I were tired so we took a nap in a park for a couple hours.
When we woke up we went to take the bus the Brewers baseball game that I was sure was going on. We waited for the 90 bus which was supposedly the bus that only ran on days when the Brewers were playing and went right to the station. It didn't come so we took another bus that didn't go all the way to the stadium instead. We got off a bit too early and had to make an awkward trek through neighbourhoods, over fences, over train tracks, and under highways to get there but we did. Unfortunately we were the only ones, the parking lot was empty. We quickly realized I was wrong about the time of the game and were a bit disappointed. However all was not lost, there was still baseball to be seen. Near the stadium was this ultra nice little league stadium they had erected. It was the Brewers v. Cubs and it seemed like it would be cheaper and more entertaining the MLB anyway. So we stayed and watched, it was great. I sometimes forget how uncoordinated children are. Palmer and I announced the game to ourselves making up the names of the kids, including star picture, "Scott Osterrich" who was not to be trifled with. After the game (Brew-Crew over the Cubbies 5-2) we went to the Fridays front row restaurant to check our the stadium, watch some sports, and let me settle up by buying an appetizer for losing the bet we had made on the LL game.
We took the bus back to Carl's and hung out there the rest of the evening. We met his roommates and a friend of his and we all played music on instruments only one person, the owner of all of them knew how to. Myself, Palmer and Carl's friend who missed the last bus all slept in the living room on some extra mattresses.
The next day we overslept and missed the bus we were originally going to take but made the 300pm bus to Madison. We got there and walked with our luggage. I am getting so sick of walking with my stuff. I hate traveling heavy and the only reason I am doing it is because I have to got camp after this and I don't want to laundry all the time. Still my duffel bag is both heavy and a piece of shit. I'm going to burn it at camp. We did eventually make our way to the "Hodag House" where six members of the University of Wisconsin ultimate team lives. At nationals I had asked one of their members, and one of my top ultimate man-crushes (platonic) Andrew Mahowald is we could stay with him. When we got there, Drew and Shane, another member of the team were already there. We got the tour, its a pretty crazy house, but in a nice neighborhood. We then went to the house where Drew's sister, a member of the women's team lived because there was some free beer to be had. We played a game called "washers" which is similar to bags but played with large metal washers. It was really fun and we started to get drunk.
It started to rain to we went back the Hodag house and some people came over and we got more drunk, playing some beer pong as well as a game called shoulders I just learned. It is always fun meeting an ultimate team in a non-ultimate setting and seeing how they interact. I would say Wisconsin is the team most like us out of any I have hung out with (though better at disc, they did just with the national championship). They are clearly great friends and I think just have a very similar energy about them, especially their older players. Palmer and I had an epic overtime beerpong match against Drew and Muffin (another player) trying to avenge our embarrassing nationals loss. It came down to one cup v. one cup in overtime and we lost on their house rule that if you overshoot the table you lose a cup. It really changes the game a lot. Eventually I got really tired and passed out in one of the rooms of a player who isn't here right now, Kevin Riley. I'm actually typing this on his computer right now. So far it has been really fun getting to know the Hodags, especially Drew and Shane. I think whenever Palmer wakes up we will go check out Madison.
As a new feature of this every improving Blog I will be saying at the end of each post what books I'm reading.
Just Finished : Dead Man's Walk - Larry McMurtry
Currently Reading: Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
On Deck: Shadow Puppets- Orson Scott Card
XOXOXOXO
Joey
Friday, May 23, 2008
The Second City
After Natties I got on an Amtrak train with my buddies Palmer and Shep. I had never ridden a train in the states and was pumped. After so much time in the hectic world of the American air travel industry it was refreshing to take a step back and just relax on our under appreciated railways. It was an 19 hour train form Denver to Chicago. It was totally full in Coach and we couldn't even find seats right next to each other. It didn't really matter though because we spent most of our time in the lounge car. We stayed up late that night playing a board game we're now addicted to called Pente as well as hearts and getting drunk on a bottle of Rum we smuggled aboard. We shared our games and and our Rum with a guy we met named Dan who was quite the character. He was later caught stealing expired microwavable hotdogs from the train. He claimed he had everything stolen from him in San Francisco. He also lied, a lot. In fact there wasn't a whole lot redeeming about Dan. But we road the rails and had a nice time.
Some observations about Amtrak-
-There are some characters on the train. Besides Dan we met there two crazy girls who had to go to Ohio to deal with an outstanding warrant for Marijuana possession and who had some Angel based taro cards.
-The service staff was predominantly black. I know that the porter and rail service industry was historically dominated by African Americans but I was surprised to see how much it had persisted after all this time. Not unlike sky-caps at airports I suppose.
-Wow, there are so many fat people on Amtrak. I guess the seats are bigger and since they aren't assigned they can often get away with having two. Still it was ridiculous. I don't know if I have every seen such a concentration of overweight people in my life.
So we got to Chicago and took and took the bus to my friend Jesse 'Sheriff' Marshall's apartment. The bus system in Chicago incidentally is amazing. It goes everywhere you could want to go and does so often. I hope to live in a city with such a great system someday. It was lame carrying all my stuff around, I've got a lot seeing as how I had to back for over 4 months. We didn't do much other then down some deep dish pizza the first night. The second day was fun. We slept in (we didn't get a bunch of sleep on the train) and had a nice brunch. I walked around the city for a while, while Shep and Palmer watched Soccer. We then walked around together and had a drink at the top of the Hancock building (96th floor) which was cool. Then we saw a play called the "The Ballad of Emmitt Till" a retelling of the story that sparked the American civil rights movement. It was good but not great.
The next day we went to the Field museum which was awesome. Not as good as the natural history museum in London but very impressive. They had a great exhibit on the evolution of life on earth. I love museums, especially natural history museums so I really enjoyed it. Then we went down to Navy Pier because Shep and I had never been there before. After that we went to the Chicago Institute of Art which is free Thursday evenings. It was nice but they were doing a lot of renovations. They had a good modern/contemporary section but I was hoping they would have some Stuart Davis or Botero and they had neither. Still they had some neat Picassos and cool Dali plus one by Tanguy that I really liked. The highlight for me was actually the miniature rooms. Kinda nerdy I know, but I liked 'em They had an section on 1in:1ft scale rooms that were done by one artist. They were mostly American and European drawing rooms but there were others as well. The detail was amazing. I highly recommend anyone that the museum taking the time to see it. The guys went back to Sherriff's but I wanted to see this other show I had heard about. It was called Boys and Girls and it was two separate one act plays. It was in this tiny theater, there couldn't have been more than 100 people. I loved it, especially the first one. I won't try to describe it now, but ask me about it later, it was great. That evening we partied with the University of Chicago ultimate teams whom Sheriff plays for. They play this crazy version of beer die which was pretty fun if quite slow. My friends got drunker then I did but it was fun.
The next day Shep went back west and Palmer went to have lunch with a friend. I was waiting for my bus for Minneapolis and I got yelled about for sleeping on concrete. Apparently someone owned that particular piece of concrete. I got on the bus eventually and headed to Milwaukee where Palmer would meet me off of a later bus.
Some observations about Amtrak-
-There are some characters on the train. Besides Dan we met there two crazy girls who had to go to Ohio to deal with an outstanding warrant for Marijuana possession and who had some Angel based taro cards.
-The service staff was predominantly black. I know that the porter and rail service industry was historically dominated by African Americans but I was surprised to see how much it had persisted after all this time. Not unlike sky-caps at airports I suppose.
-Wow, there are so many fat people on Amtrak. I guess the seats are bigger and since they aren't assigned they can often get away with having two. Still it was ridiculous. I don't know if I have every seen such a concentration of overweight people in my life.
So we got to Chicago and took and took the bus to my friend Jesse 'Sheriff' Marshall's apartment. The bus system in Chicago incidentally is amazing. It goes everywhere you could want to go and does so often. I hope to live in a city with such a great system someday. It was lame carrying all my stuff around, I've got a lot seeing as how I had to back for over 4 months. We didn't do much other then down some deep dish pizza the first night. The second day was fun. We slept in (we didn't get a bunch of sleep on the train) and had a nice brunch. I walked around the city for a while, while Shep and Palmer watched Soccer. We then walked around together and had a drink at the top of the Hancock building (96th floor) which was cool. Then we saw a play called the "The Ballad of Emmitt Till" a retelling of the story that sparked the American civil rights movement. It was good but not great.
The next day we went to the Field museum which was awesome. Not as good as the natural history museum in London but very impressive. They had a great exhibit on the evolution of life on earth. I love museums, especially natural history museums so I really enjoyed it. Then we went down to Navy Pier because Shep and I had never been there before. After that we went to the Chicago Institute of Art which is free Thursday evenings. It was nice but they were doing a lot of renovations. They had a good modern/contemporary section but I was hoping they would have some Stuart Davis or Botero and they had neither. Still they had some neat Picassos and cool Dali plus one by Tanguy that I really liked. The highlight for me was actually the miniature rooms. Kinda nerdy I know, but I liked 'em They had an section on 1in:1ft scale rooms that were done by one artist. They were mostly American and European drawing rooms but there were others as well. The detail was amazing. I highly recommend anyone that the museum taking the time to see it. The guys went back to Sherriff's but I wanted to see this other show I had heard about. It was called Boys and Girls and it was two separate one act plays. It was in this tiny theater, there couldn't have been more than 100 people. I loved it, especially the first one. I won't try to describe it now, but ask me about it later, it was great. That evening we partied with the University of Chicago ultimate teams whom Sheriff plays for. They play this crazy version of beer die which was pretty fun if quite slow. My friends got drunker then I did but it was fun.
The next day Shep went back west and Palmer went to have lunch with a friend. I was waiting for my bus for Minneapolis and I got yelled about for sleeping on concrete. Apparently someone owned that particular piece of concrete. I got on the bus eventually and headed to Milwaukee where Palmer would meet me off of a later bus.
Nationals
So my first stop on the way to life was a trip to Boulder, Colorado and more importantly, the national collegiate ultimate championships. For those of you who do not know, this was a big deal for me. This was the first time in the history of the team I play for that we have qualified for this tournament (link). It's been a pretty big season for our team as we were kind of the Cinderella story of college ultimate. We came out of seemingly no where to be one of the top teams in the nation. It would be hard for me to impart on you how good it has felt to be able to have this kind of accomplishment after so many years of hard work stricken down by bad luck. Not that I would have regretted any of it, even without this nationals birth but it just feels good to have this tangible accomplishment to look back on for both us and the people that have supported us.
For a little perspective, there are 400 men's teams that enter to the UPA championship series. Of those 16 qualify for nationals. Of those 16 we entered as the #7 seed. The consensus is that we deserved 6 but were switched with Carleton College so as to avoid two rematches from earlier in the series. The tournament was amazing. It was so cool to have all these great teams on one location and way more photographers and videographers then I had seen at an ultimate tournament before. It was also the last time I would play college ultimate and the last time so many of my friends would be together.
Flying in after graduation was rough, especially dealing with rental cars and stuff later but no big. I got to sleep at 230am and woke up at 615am. Our first game was against Pittsburgh. It was a pretty fun game. I played solid defense and quiet offense as I would most of the tournament. I had a nice layout d on the goal line which was pretty fun. Unfortunately while defending a deep cut I got kicked in the leg pretty good. I was alright but for the rest of the weekend my leg would get tighter and tighter and it hurt a good deal between games. We stayed in control of the game the whole time and then opened it up at the end for our most decisive win of the weekend, 15-10. The next game was against Stanford. This was a really fun game, close the entire time. Nothing much to say we just worked hard, didn't play great, but played good enough to hold onto a 15-12 win and guarantee that we would get at least 2nd in our pool. Our last game was against the #2 seed Wisconsin. We played them in what was perhaps the highlight game of the year coming into nationals, losing to them by 1 point at Vegas. I wish I could say this game went better. They simply outclassed us up and down the field. There were a lot of people there to watch expecting it to be a good game so it was pretty embarrassing. Still they earned it and Drew Mahowald on their team said I could stay with him while in Madison, sweet. Friday evening was some pasta at the house we were staying at and sleep.
On Saturday we had our first game against Dartmouth. This was pre-quarters, so it was an elimination game. I had never played them before and had heard that they had some of the best spirit in ultimate. They were real fun to play against. I guarded up mostly on this guy who used to play for Carleton. He was a lot like me, short, quick, blue collar workhorse sort of player. I enjoyed guarding him. We came out strong going up in the beginning but then they started to outplay us. They were playing a very conservative offense (which we struggle against) and doing it well. Our offense was also making some big mistakes. At one point they were up 12-8 in a game to 15. At this level that almost always means the game is over. Then we just started to claw back. Our defense was great and I got to play ever D point. The entire weekend I felt like I was playing the best defense of my career. There were ups and downs and in the end in it was 16-16 with them starting on offense, next point wins. There was a huge crowd. I had played almost all the D points until then but I wasn't called onto that line, maybe I looked tired or something. I'll admit it was disappointing but I have a lot of confidence in my teammates and though they could take care it. That they did, we scored the point in our stylistic fashion. I felt like the win gave something back to the fans that were disappointed yesterday. That win was so important, without it our season looks like so much less, and nationals would not have been the same. We would have failed. Instead we were given one last piece of glory.
That led us to a quarterfinals game against Florida, the highest ranked team at the tournament. In fact they were undefeated this season except for one loss, to us. They didn't have to play a first round game and were fresh. We on the other hand let a game that should have been manageable be one that we had to give everything to win. It took a lot out of us. I wasn't sure if we could beat Florida as wrecked as we were, but I thought we had a shot and would make a game of it. I knew this could be my last game so I tried to take some things in; the pregame cheer, looking at my team, the whole deal. Then it started. Our offense line came out and score well. Then I came on with our defensive line. Their star player Kurt Gibson threw a turnover. I got the disc on an up the line cut and saw a player on the team cutting deep. Although not a thrown I would usually make it felt right and I new we would have to take some chances to win this game on defense. It was a good look but a little long and I threw my only turnover of the tournament. We held on for a little which but soon it became clear we were not going to win this one. We were just too tired. Credit to Florida they played well. Even with a number of points left the writing was on the wall and I knew it was coming too an end. It was hard to watch us get beat by much. I was playing so hard but I couldn't do enough. At one point I had my man burned deep and Joe threw it to me. Unfortunately it was very far away and someone else's defender was closing in on it. I put everything I had into that bid for the disc but I just couldn't get there. It would have been great. I think at that moment I finally understood the expression, "died a little inside", because as I got myself up off the ground I think I did. As the game closed I kept playing hard but the emotion was starting to well up inside. On the last point I came in sprinting down the field 1st among my teamates as I had been doing a good deal that weekend and marked up on my guy. They threw it to their star and scored in one throw. I stopped fighting it, knelt down and started crying to myself. It was over.
Other people took it better then I did, they seemed to be able to feel good and have fun faster. It took me a while, but I got there. We took pictures, did a promo for CBS college sports channel (which will feature the finals as well as highlights in a couple weeks) and did some team stuff. I was okay. The rest of the weekend was fun, we watched games still being played, traded jerseys with other teams (teams really wanted ours because there are cool and people love us). My allergies were really bothering me which made it less fun for me but it was still a really good time. One of our players Joe won the MVP award which is voted on by all the players so that was really exciting. Also as a team we won the spirit award, which is like a sportsmanship award which is decided by the other teams. All season we managed to maintain a balance of competitiveness with sportsmanship and unstoppable likability. It was nice to see that continue to the end. And end it did. The magic season of Arizona and my personal career were over. I could say a lot things about Ultimate but it comes down to a simple truth. The decision to play ultimate in college was no more and no less then the best decision of my life. I regret nothing and cherish my time spent in the pursuit of acumen, fun, glory and above all friendship.
For a little perspective, there are 400 men's teams that enter to the UPA championship series. Of those 16 qualify for nationals. Of those 16 we entered as the #7 seed. The consensus is that we deserved 6 but were switched with Carleton College so as to avoid two rematches from earlier in the series. The tournament was amazing. It was so cool to have all these great teams on one location and way more photographers and videographers then I had seen at an ultimate tournament before. It was also the last time I would play college ultimate and the last time so many of my friends would be together.
Flying in after graduation was rough, especially dealing with rental cars and stuff later but no big. I got to sleep at 230am and woke up at 615am. Our first game was against Pittsburgh. It was a pretty fun game. I played solid defense and quiet offense as I would most of the tournament. I had a nice layout d on the goal line which was pretty fun. Unfortunately while defending a deep cut I got kicked in the leg pretty good. I was alright but for the rest of the weekend my leg would get tighter and tighter and it hurt a good deal between games. We stayed in control of the game the whole time and then opened it up at the end for our most decisive win of the weekend, 15-10. The next game was against Stanford. This was a really fun game, close the entire time. Nothing much to say we just worked hard, didn't play great, but played good enough to hold onto a 15-12 win and guarantee that we would get at least 2nd in our pool. Our last game was against the #2 seed Wisconsin. We played them in what was perhaps the highlight game of the year coming into nationals, losing to them by 1 point at Vegas. I wish I could say this game went better. They simply outclassed us up and down the field. There were a lot of people there to watch expecting it to be a good game so it was pretty embarrassing. Still they earned it and Drew Mahowald on their team said I could stay with him while in Madison, sweet. Friday evening was some pasta at the house we were staying at and sleep.
On Saturday we had our first game against Dartmouth. This was pre-quarters, so it was an elimination game. I had never played them before and had heard that they had some of the best spirit in ultimate. They were real fun to play against. I guarded up mostly on this guy who used to play for Carleton. He was a lot like me, short, quick, blue collar workhorse sort of player. I enjoyed guarding him. We came out strong going up in the beginning but then they started to outplay us. They were playing a very conservative offense (which we struggle against) and doing it well. Our offense was also making some big mistakes. At one point they were up 12-8 in a game to 15. At this level that almost always means the game is over. Then we just started to claw back. Our defense was great and I got to play ever D point. The entire weekend I felt like I was playing the best defense of my career. There were ups and downs and in the end in it was 16-16 with them starting on offense, next point wins. There was a huge crowd. I had played almost all the D points until then but I wasn't called onto that line, maybe I looked tired or something. I'll admit it was disappointing but I have a lot of confidence in my teammates and though they could take care it. That they did, we scored the point in our stylistic fashion. I felt like the win gave something back to the fans that were disappointed yesterday. That win was so important, without it our season looks like so much less, and nationals would not have been the same. We would have failed. Instead we were given one last piece of glory.
That led us to a quarterfinals game against Florida, the highest ranked team at the tournament. In fact they were undefeated this season except for one loss, to us. They didn't have to play a first round game and were fresh. We on the other hand let a game that should have been manageable be one that we had to give everything to win. It took a lot out of us. I wasn't sure if we could beat Florida as wrecked as we were, but I thought we had a shot and would make a game of it. I knew this could be my last game so I tried to take some things in; the pregame cheer, looking at my team, the whole deal. Then it started. Our offense line came out and score well. Then I came on with our defensive line. Their star player Kurt Gibson threw a turnover. I got the disc on an up the line cut and saw a player on the team cutting deep. Although not a thrown I would usually make it felt right and I new we would have to take some chances to win this game on defense. It was a good look but a little long and I threw my only turnover of the tournament. We held on for a little which but soon it became clear we were not going to win this one. We were just too tired. Credit to Florida they played well. Even with a number of points left the writing was on the wall and I knew it was coming too an end. It was hard to watch us get beat by much. I was playing so hard but I couldn't do enough. At one point I had my man burned deep and Joe threw it to me. Unfortunately it was very far away and someone else's defender was closing in on it. I put everything I had into that bid for the disc but I just couldn't get there. It would have been great. I think at that moment I finally understood the expression, "died a little inside", because as I got myself up off the ground I think I did. As the game closed I kept playing hard but the emotion was starting to well up inside. On the last point I came in sprinting down the field 1st among my teamates as I had been doing a good deal that weekend and marked up on my guy. They threw it to their star and scored in one throw. I stopped fighting it, knelt down and started crying to myself. It was over.
Other people took it better then I did, they seemed to be able to feel good and have fun faster. It took me a while, but I got there. We took pictures, did a promo for CBS college sports channel (which will feature the finals as well as highlights in a couple weeks) and did some team stuff. I was okay. The rest of the weekend was fun, we watched games still being played, traded jerseys with other teams (teams really wanted ours because there are cool and people love us). My allergies were really bothering me which made it less fun for me but it was still a really good time. One of our players Joe won the MVP award which is voted on by all the players so that was really exciting. Also as a team we won the spirit award, which is like a sportsmanship award which is decided by the other teams. All season we managed to maintain a balance of competitiveness with sportsmanship and unstoppable likability. It was nice to see that continue to the end. And end it did. The magic season of Arizona and my personal career were over. I could say a lot things about Ultimate but it comes down to a simple truth. The decision to play ultimate in college was no more and no less then the best decision of my life. I regret nothing and cherish my time spent in the pursuit of acumen, fun, glory and above all friendship.
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