Camp Week One Review

Here is a highlight reel for the first week of camp:

Dinner campers from hell.

Not much is worse than a bunch of picky and snobby campers. I will admit I don't really have any management skills and I don't deal well with children, but these kids were still awful. Most of the meal, all seven of these little snots were screaming to me what they wanted, then screaming when they didn't like it. Oh, AND, they didn't like any of it. I spent so much of the meal dealing with it, that I barely ate anything myself and what I did eat, was just left over side dishes. Good night.

Also the hive mind.

There are two different groups here at camp that seem to combine brain power using telepathy in order to make up their "minds." I know it's pretty normal for middle school, but it still drives me crazy. I'm going to assume that there will be at least one group of girls like that for every week here.

Oh, imagine that, break is over.

The huge downside to this job, is the lack of leisure time. Seriously, I have never been so busy in my life. Most days I am up by 7 am and then busy all day until about 10:30 pm. Then there are usually more things I need to take care of, outside of my campers and that lasts until 11 or so. Then it takes up to an hours to fall asleep. So most nights I have getting less than 7 hours of sleep for days that last 16 or 17 hours. That's a definite first for me.

Perhaps more soon. Until then, take care.

First Camp Weekend

I wrote this on saturday so. . .. copy/paste




The Weekend of Vacation from Vacation

Last night was the first night that I had slept in the "new cabin." By new cabin I mean that it was the first night all the guy counselors had not slept in the same cabin as part of the staff training.

Oh, I should preface this by explaining how this situation occurred exactly.

In February, I decided I wanted to just go away for the summer. The first place that came to mind was Vietnam. I had heard you could just go and live on the beach for around $10 a week. So I started planning a trip to vietnam for the summer. I wouldn't take anything except clothes, money, a notebook, and a camera. But then I soon realized that the cost of the a roundtrip to Vietnam could cost over $2,000. So, I wouldn't be going to Vietnam anytime soon. Then I talked to a friend from school and she told me about how she was going to be a camp counselor. (Terrific!) So then I spent about two hours online looking around for types of camps and camp accreditations etc. Then I found campfire USA camps and decided to search by state. I found the camp I'm working at now by deciding that six hours was a pretty good distance from home.

I would just run away for the summer. Submerge myself entirely in a regimented life filled with new worries and anxieties. I would trade physical comforts for mental comforts. At 300+ miles from home, busy from sunup to sundown when would I have a thought about my parents, or my ex girlfriend, the helpless and immovable future of the world, or even my own life? The perfect plan I thought.

But, what has actually happened is quite the opposite. Instead of just running from my current issues, I have only magnified them. Meeting all the other counselors begged me to compare myself and my experiences to them and theirs. I have had to explain over a dozen times where I go to school, what I study, and why. Each time, I find myself giving a slightly difference answer. Lately, I have even admitted I don't know.

I took this job to make the money to get new deejay equipment and avoid figuring out who I am. What I am experiencing this weekend, is not what I bargained for.

So, in my assuming and ignorant thoughts about camp, it never crossed my mind that other counselors wouldn't be there on the weekends! Really!? So, when I showed up and everyone was talking about what their weekend plans were, I was baffled. I figured I would just hang out in the camp alone and read and walk around and sleep and write. But then as I thought about doing that for two nights in the middle of the woods alone, I became horrified. A few people offered their nearby homes to me on the lake. But that felt imposing and too advantageous to accept.

So instead, I took the offer of one of the junior counselors to hang out with him and his family. Thus, I am here now, writing from the comfort of his family's camper.

Hmmm, this is where it gets tricky. I never considered that I would ever want to write about someone who would actually read this. Hopefully, the person I am talking about will not find this.

Anyway, I'll sugar coat things and write as professionally as possible rather than an emotional conviction about him. He's fucking smart and fucking ignorant. While I have only known him for a few days now, I get the distinct impression academics bore him. I have heard him say he got in trouble in school a ton. His knowledge and skills lie in the practical and rational; mechanical and electrical. His knowledge of these things seems endless. But, at the same time, he is childish and naive. Perhaps this helps him solve his engineering issues and abstract technical puzzles.

I am totally against his entire lifestyle. I have lived my entire life in a conservative medium sized city with rich history and political significance. To me, this place I am in now (which I will describe shortly) and the people I am with are the definition of hillbilly's or rednecks, whichever you feel more inclined to accept.

Which, would explain why right now I am camping out with them, yet simultaneously in an air conditioned, fully furnished, and fully wired room with all the amenities of a normal house. Really? Like what is the point. Guys let's go camping in a fully modern and operational house in the middle of the woods. I'm just confused. I enjoy camping because you not only become grateful of all the things that give your life more comfort, but you also realize how dependent your schedule and life are on those comforts. You also get to experience the raw power of nature and the intricate systems of life that exist within it, that we have managed to somewhat separate ourselves from.

Anyway. . . So I got invited to a camp out for the weekend. I said "Yeah, sure, it sounds like fun," with enough fake enthusiasm to win an academy award if I was saying the same quote just before the start of a porno. But I definitely imagined hiking/tenting or something like that. Rather, what "camp out" actually meant was "A bunch of grown men hauling thousands of pounds worth of home with their wives and children into the middle of a field with their ford pickups, and making a mobile trailer park for the weekend in order to properly drink four kegs of bud light with the pig they just roasted from the back while comparing how many tv stations they get in their campers. My favorite quote so far has been, "Two doors on this bitch? You've come a long way." Seriously? No wonder people in the city make fun of this culture. . .

At the same time, I guess people of the country like to see the prospects of freedom in material goods rather than in traditional ideals and I can give some kudos to that. It's rather wasteful, but whatever.

I think for now, I am done being such an esoteric, arrogant, elitist bastard. You would think with all my lacking and knowledge of my own shortcomings and failure I could manage to at least sometimes not be a prick. Sadly, my greatest shortcoming is ironically not getting over myself. Maybe I just pretend to be interested in people, or perhaps I only deem some people worthy of being interested in. Yeah, that's it. Well, I'll work on that. Until then, I'll let karma take it's toll.

Elasticity of Time

Tonight marks the fifth full night that I will have been at camp. But, it feels like I have been here for years, it is as if this is all I have ever known. Here is the routine that has solidified: (roughly?)

8:17 - I wake
8:20 - flag
8:30 - Breakfast
9:15 - Activity 1
10:00 - Activity 2
10:45 - Activity 3
12:00 - Lunch
12:45 - Quiet Time
2:00 - Activitity 4
2:45 - Activity 5
3:30 - Activity 6
4:15 - Activity 7
5:00 - Dinner
6:00 - Whole Group Activity
8:00 - Camp Council
9:00 - Cabin Commitee
10:00ish - 10:30ish lights out (at counselors descretion)

Repeat.
Again.
Again.
And again.

I'm fairly happy with the selection of the group of kids I'm with, the other counselors in my cabin, and the location of the cabin) So all, in all, I can't complain yet. There are a few people here I could build good friendships with and let foudations for friendships form. But, in contrast, more people I would rather not become close with. Hell, honestly there are people I don't want to be as close as "far" from them.

Unfortunately, a handful of people here are far too self involved to ever even consider the thoughts that other people may have, unless those thoughts were with themselves as the targeted of those thoughts. I can certainly be totally agreeable to people who are narcissistic and/or self-obsessed when they somewhat blend socially with the people around them. My big problem is when you get swaggering, egomaniacal type, who not only boast being in love with themselves in the way they walk and appear, but, ALWAYS (by always I mean talking every second spent awake) talk about themselves whenever they talk. It might even be tolerable if the stories were told once. But they are told over again and again incessantly without failing to use the pronoun "I," in mythical proportions. The self proclaimations seem to tour through the camp as if campaigning for the office of cool. The thing is, I remember people doing this in middle school, hell maybe even a tiny bit in highschool. But, really? You're in college? Jesus H. F. C. grow up. By the end of this time in camp, you will hear these words from my mouth - "You cannot possibly hear me now, over the sound of your own arrogance, which muffles the sights and sounds of the world around you like the fog and the wind. I do not hope for bad things to come to you, but I do hope for your sake that you have not yet blinded yourself of others by only having sight for yourself." But then I remember why I would have to say it at all, and I realize the irony. More this weekend, as I will be all alone out here in the wild.

I think I just got a spider bite

I never really laid out the timeline of this job. The first week is just staff training. Campers won't show up for about another week. So, yesterday which was day one (but more of a half day really) was mostly spent just hanging out with people getting to know everyone, touring the camp, and getting generally acquainted with "the flow" of everything.

Currently, I am sitting under a maple tree, while on my laptop, listening to Shawn Mitiska's remix of Andy Moor's 'So Much More". It's totally ironic of course. Here I am in the beautiful and protected outdoor woods of Michigan tuning out the sights and sounds around me for something less complex, less meaningful, and
less scenic.

Perhaps I was too harsh about Day 1? As fair as it was to consider it "shallow" as I stated, I do think that should be taken as a negative judgement towards people. Many of the people here are already friends. I do think I am mostly in the minority when it comes to wanting to know people based on their beliefs and experiences. Should I have really expected most people to want to just jump right in and go at it on the first day? Probably not.

Regardless, second chances are deserved.

Last night, a few hours after the first post, I came back to the cabin and looked up at the clearing in the sky which revealed the stars in as many and as bright as I have ever seen. The whole sky was filled with light. Being from a city that has massive air and light pollution, it's not something that I see every day. Whatever bad that could have come from yesterday could never outweigh just one minute of watching the sky and looking at the stars in all their awe and beauty.

It turned out to be a good night, in retrospect. But today is less than half over, we'll soon find what it could hold as well. Anyway, off to swim testing, so, signing out.

Camp

So, here I am. . .

It's like 9:00 or something. I am sitting next to an area that looks designated for camp fires. Here is a crappy picture of where I am with no relevance to anyone or anything, oh well.

I woke today around 6am, after falling asleep shortly after 4am. I had packed all my things the night before, but out of anxiety of forgetting, I unpacked everything and repacked it just after I woke. Then we (by we I mean my parents and I) drove here. The drive was estimated at about six hours but it ended up only taking around five. I ended up being here an hour early, which being with my parents, became a miniature stroke catalyst. Both of my parents walked around (my dad can't hear very well) talking very loudly/yelling, both of them seemingly oblivious to common courtesy or decency.

I unpacked my things from the car eventually and put them in the cabin. I looked around curiously and ominous knowing this would be the heaven or hell (most likely to be more like a limbo) where I wold remain for the next eight weeks.

Then two people came into the cabin, they would be fellow counselors. . .

They were talking together, clearly with an already structured friendship. I felt awkward and somewhat ignored. They were, afterall, talking about newcomers. I walked into the room and they both looked at me without any real look, and then continued talking. How rude, I thought to myself. Seriously, not that I am important, but wouldn't it be good to be respectful and friendly to another person you will be spending your time and space with?

Oh well, I imagined all the other possible counselors that would show up. At least one of them I would have to instantly have some kind of friendship with. Who knew expecations could be so dangerous. I now feel naive thinking I could just be myself to get along with people at a fucking summer camp.

Obivously, I brought my laptop. But instantly, before everyone had even arrived, people were checking the wi-fi and more interested in the amenities of the new lounge than the people who would be ACTUALLY in it. Perhaps I just expected to come here and build relationships with people out of "teambuilding" exercises and community hardships. Maybe it is because I only got two hours of sleep. Maybe it's because I'm only doing this to run away. But maybe, just maybe, I really am the trulycynically corrupted judgemental egotistical ignoramass that I have been told I am (not by people here). I suppose when I meet new people, it is strange and foreign that I would want to want to really meet them. You know, find out what they like, what they dislike and why, etc.

Mosquitos are killing me. To wrap up. The first day has been shallow and a letdown.

Off to Camp

Hey, I leave in about 4 hours. So I should get some sleep and actually finish packing or whatever. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to describe my new two-month home tomorrow nightish?

cool, that's all for now, I know you're sorry for that too.

-Fife