Bra Makers Fear Zero Gravity Will Put Them Out of Business

So, first week of camp done.

Way harder than I thought it would be and a huge thanks to those folks who helped me out, you know who you are.

Despite the fact that I was on the verge of tears at a few points, I did manage to catch quite a few good moments with my campers and even remember several amusing things that I'll relate presently.

One kid looked almost exactly like Gary Coleman, which was just too funny for words a lot of the time. I always wanted to try to get him to say something about Willis but I thought better of it.

We had this other kid whose parents literally had him on an assload of meds. I mean this kid was doped to the gills all day long and he'd maybe have 6 or 8 lucid moments each day. This made travel or anything that required focus or critical thinking fairly difficult. The upside was that the kid would do some truly bizarre shit. One day we got a trophy for having a fairly clean cabin. The trophy itself is a dustpan that has a piece of twine running through the top of it so the kids can wear it around their neck. Well one of the kids took it from the doped up kid. The doped up kid decides he wants it back, so he strolls over, puts his head into the same loop as the other kid's head is, and begins sprinting. The kid doesn't realize what's going on until he's being dragged behind the doped up kid with his glasses lying broken on the ground. Later on in the week someone stole a cup from the doped up kid at lunch... kid dives after the cup thief, onto the table, sending cups, plates and fruit cocktail EVERYWHERE. It was amazing.

At the beginning of the week I told my cabin group that if they behaved well (ahhh to be 9 years old and able to embrace the ambiguous once again) I'd have my head. The idea was to have a concrete reward for their good behavior and for me to get a free haircut. No prob, right? Well I talked to a lifeguard about it and she said she'd handle it. I head up there on the last night in front of all the kids to get it done and out she comes with clippers... no... not clippers... a pair of scissors and a ladies razor... yeah, those last two things. Pictures of this will likely be on facebook by tomorrow if they aren't already. Luckily I still have both my ears and I managed to clean up my head today so it looks alright.

New session starts Tuesday morning and our beginning of session meeting is tomorrow night at 6pm which puts me out of commission and contact with the outside world until the afternoon of July 3. I'll try to get a new post up in between now and then if I have some time during a night off but there's always the chance I may not have the time and also the likelihood that I'll be too busy over the 4th so it may be some time before I'm able to update again, but fear not, I'll return with more amusing stories.

The Secret Lives of Vegans

Having a great time at camp, it seems as though Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" song will be this summer's "Hollaback Girl". I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

Some interesting things about our training here; this morning our director informed us he used to use a sock-puppet that spoke only spanish to wake up the kids in the morning, I'm not sure if that's the funniest thing ever or just really frightening. He also gave us a quote from a 5th grader he had once, "I'm really angry so I'm gonna burn this bitch down". Ahhh... camp.

We get kids on Friday so I'm totally excited and scared like crazy in alternating moments. It's like getting ready to jump off a cliff and not knowing if you're gonna fly or fall. I've decided I'm going to fly, taken ownership of that, so hopefully I've figured out how to properly flap my metaphorical wings by the time I need to.

Big props here to all the camp staff I've worked with so far. The most incredible, non-judgemental individuals I've met in my entire life. I got up on stage and performed in a central role for the first time in almost 5 years, something I would've told you two weeks ago I would've been freaked out about but I did it with barely a thought. I feel like I've reclaimed my life and confidence, I've lost some weight and am getting a tan. Miracles and wonders abound. Thank you, my friends.

Burning Ovaries of Desire!

The above title a nice quotation by yours truly while out with nearly half the camp staff (and all of the camp bosses) last night.

The buzzword over here is, "Safe" so I thought I'd write about it, as it's been re-defined for me over the last 4 days. When I used to think of 'safe' I used to think of being physically safe from harm and being safe was being cautious (so as to ensure that no physical harm would come to me). Safe means those things here, but it means a good deal more too. Because we're taking kids who are in circumstances that put them in the most extreme categories of 'at-risk' (the application that must be filled out is weighted HEAVILLY in favor of those children who have insanely difficult circumstances, one example is that any child with a parent in jail gets an automatic acceptance) the biggest part of our job is to let them be real kids... kids like we were. That means they have to be more than just physically safe, they have to be emotionally safe and secure, perhaps even moreso. And that puts my job into a new light. Because the camp is secluded and because I'm a pretty big guy, I have no doubts about keeping these kids physically safe. I can put them in lifejackets, ensure their harnesses are secure for the ropes course and I can typically spot a fist-fight long before it ever breaks out, but I'll be damned if I can spot a kid's feelings getting hurt. One more emotional scar.

Maybe I'll learn some ways during training, before camp actually starts. I certainly hope so. I hope to update again sometime this weekend or possibly early next week. We're going camping tonight so that should be interesting and we're supposed to be meeting up in about 10 minutes to get packing lists so I need to wind this up.

Take care guys, and may you all be... safe.