Girl You're Fi-i-ine!!

Almost a month to the day since my last entry and so much has happened I'm not sure what to include, leave out or even where to start.

My last entry was made at the beginning of session 3 shortly after I had my tooth pulled. Near the middle to end of that session there was a bout of theft and other suspicious stuff (including two laptops found under a mattress in one of the 'counselor' rooms in the staff house) that includes $80 and a laptop all vanishing and possibly other things that leadership staff and the police have decided to keep to themselves. Since then the entire camp, including our personal belongings and vehicles, has been searched. We've had to fill out a written interview form and, as if all that wasn't enough, they are, to my knowledge, no closer to figuring out who the fuck the thief is. As you may have guessed this whole thing has ripped the group apart. The trust-bond I was so happy to have developed amongst so many different individuals, the ingrained support system one really relies upon when dealing with difficult kids - torn asunder.

Despite that, I had my best session of the summer thus far during session 4. I had an amazing group of kids. The only really tough part of that session was saying goodbye, especially when one of the kids, a foster child, asked if he could move in with me. A highlight of session 4 was 'Fantasy Day' which coincided with the release of the 7th Harry Potter book. Our idea was to dress all our kids up in "Wizard's Robes" which were really bed sheets and in truth the kids' costumes more closely resembled those worn by a certain hate group than actual wizard robes which, believe it or not, is funnier than it sounds.

The break between 4 and 5 consisted almost entirely of reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" which was a wonderful book and a solid conclusion to the entire HP series, at least in my opinion.

Last session, session 5, has been my toughest since session 1. I was moved back into cabin 4 after having spent the previous 2 sessions in cabin 5. Looking back on it now, I see I was hoping to turn cabin 4 into cabin 5 instead of preparing myself for the usual cabin 4 shenanigans. The session started poorly but ended pretty well which I attribute to my co-counselors patience with me and my ability to back-pedal like a madman when I realize I've been a dumbass. Highlights of the session include a kid dropping his swim trunks into a toilet, parading around the cabin with them until I told him to throw them out on the porch. Another kid then picked them up and began waving them around and managed to hit someone in the eye with what I have now dubbed, "The Toilet Trunks". Another fun story involves our "Camping Night" where we actually go out into the woods and camp for a night. A kid runs up to me yelling, "So-and-so crapped his pants!!!" so I go to check things out, look down the road and I see, much to my shock and amusement, a kid with his shorts down around his knees and his bare ass hanging out in the road. Here's the gross part: I then see him reach down into his shorts, pull out a turd and hurl it into the woods. Needless to say, I sent him back into camp after directing the counselor taking him that he needed new underwear, shorts, a shower and probably some hand sanitizer.

That's all for now. I'll be all done with camp here on the evening of the 14th. Then it's back to the real world. Hope to see some of you guys there. Here's to an amazing session 6.