Summer Time

Annnnnnd here we go again.....

So for me, this will be my 7th summer in a row. Not that that's a record by any means (some ex-CCUSA'ers have seen a HEAP more that that!) But it's still crazy nonetheless!

I never used to like summer at all. It gets hot, i sweat, it just makes me feel like i'm inside this ginormous oven and no. I preferred the winter, where my face didn't look like a red, puffy, sweaty bloatation.

Then i went to summer camp. Still, i hated the heat.

Then i'd go back again and again and before i knew it, i was becoming accustomed to hot weather and not minding it so much.

So as a result, next year will be my first winter in three years and i am NOT looking forward to it, it is just going to be intense, i just know it!

I think i've blogged this before, but the summer at camp is a lot different to our summer here, at least in Nevada City anyways! At about 6 or 7pm, the sun starts going down and hence so does the weather! The nights are cooler, so cool in fact that you must wear sweat pants and sweaters to bed plus about 2 blankets!!! This is the middle of summer remember! Also, the mornings are cooler too and the heat doesn't start setting in til about 10am. It's the way summer SHOULD be!!!!

For those of you reading this who AREN'T Australian, the summer here, well at least in Sydney anyway, is just hot all season round! Summer hasn't even started here yet and already, it's 9am and 81 degrees fahrenheit (27c)!!!! Same goes for the evenings, in the middle of summer, it can be 3am and a blistering 83 degrees fahrenheit (30c) - AT 3AM!!!!!

I guess i'm just sold on the idea of cooler mornings and evenings, hot during the day!

Being Back Home

I woke up this morning completely confused and out of place! I was wondering why i was still asleep and what activities i was late for and why no-one had come to see where i was. I felt bad that i'd actually slept in past 7am.

This seems to be the kind of joys post-camp life is all about.

In the past 48 hours, so much has happened and i seem to be walking around like a zombie now. Having nothing to do is so boring. It is a stupefying feeling.

At camp, life is always on the go. There is always something to do, something to take somewhere, something to pick up, something to clean or put away, someone to talk to, something to be organised.

Here....well...um....i have to pack away camp life, both literally and emotionally.

I spent my last weekend in the USA at a friends house that I'd known from camp for the last 3 years. She was starting college in LA that coming week and so I'd agreed to help her get her stuff to LA. So she rented a car and i drove her car from Stockton to LA (a 5/6ish hour drive). It was a really nice drive. We arrived at the hotel, freshened up and went out for dinner.

I felt really sad having my last dinner with her. Normally, I will fly from Sacramento to LA and spend a night in a hotel by myself but as sad as it was, it was nice having her there.

She then drove me to the airport and we said our goodbyes. It was super sad. As i was checking in to VAustralia, i was trying so hard not to let the tears fall but they did anyway, i think they thought i was weird, but surely they've seen it all before!

The flight home was pretty good, i slept a good solid 7 hours of the trip which is unusual for me!

And so now here I am. Campless again. It's sad and i miss everyone a lot but that's typical post camp life. Thank goodness for Facebook and email and Skype and all that kinda thing. I'd be lost without modern technology!!!

Last Week, Clean Ups & Goodbyes

The last camp is always the most stressful in my opinion and not because of the campers but just because of the 10 or so weeks that we're at camp, the last one is the one we are most sleep and rest deprived. Child safety is something we all have to pay extra attention to.

I really enjoyed the campers company this week. Like i said in a previous blog, we lost a lot of staff last week and so were supposed to have replacements but unfortunately that didn't work out so camp was harder than usual.

We were lucky it wasn't a full camp but we still had lots of campers and few staff but we managed!

It was a great week of returnees too, gotta love the returnees!

At teen camp, the campers walk a 7 mile hike which is approximately 14ish km's. We always go to the same usual spot but, go figure, the last week we go, there were some nudists camped in 'our spot' with tents and tarpolines etc. It was so stupid coz seriously, it was our last week and i just wished they would've held off for one more week. But whatever, we found another spot to swim along the river and it was all good.

A lot of times during the week i found it super hard keeping my eyes open!

The last night of camp, the campers always have a big sleep out on the ball field and this year was no exception. I had a tshirt, a sweatshirt, two sweaters and my beloved twilight blanket around me and could still feel the cold.

All the staff take turns at one hour shifts of supervion and i was on the last shift of 1am - 2am. It wasn't as bad as i thought it'd be but it was hecka cold, that's for sure! And when i woke up at 7am the next day, the outside of my sleeping bag was covered with mildew and yet the inside of my sleeping bag was perfectly dry. Crazy!

It's a bitter sweet feeling really. Because on one hand, you're hating the cold and the sleep depravity but then on the other hand, you're spending the last hours of camp with the people you've come to love over the summer. The nightsky is also really pretty with all the stars and things.

Clean up day aka the end of camp was just as stupid as usual, it's when all the staff pitch in and help get the camp looking crystal clean. By the end of the day, my legs were covered in dirt and my tshirt was all messed up. After that we had a wrap up meeting and finished up camp.

One thing we did during the week is we all wrote on posters that had all our names on it. It was a nice little encouraging exercise and so reading them on the last day was really touching but super emotional considering the circumstances.

Once everything was cleaned and wrapped up, then came the hugs and goodbyes. I'm so done with this whole 'half way round the world' thing. It's so painful to say goodbye and no matter how many times you do camp, the goodbyes just never get any easier! So then came the tears and the painful way of breaking ourselves away from each other!

Right now, i am spending the weekend with one of my closest camp friends and then heading back to Australia tomorrow night (Monday). Then will come the painful hundred hour plane ride, hoping for some good movies at least! ha!

Anyways, before long, i will be on that plane and arriving home.

Second Last Week of Camp

As I'm sure i've said before, weekends here at camp are extremely sacred and being the second last week of camp this weekend is definitely no exception!!!

The group of campers we had here at camp this week were a delight to have and yet they were sooo unusual!!! Teenagers aren't supposed to be so respectful and polite but ALL these campers this week were and i think it just makes camp that much more pleasant and fun hence the reason there were no really big dramas!

Probably the biggest drama we had was on the zipline on Friday morning - oh gosh i was laughing pretty hard but at the same time i was pretty annoyed - think it's some kind of end of camp emotional problem hehe....

When a camper flies down the zipline, they fly back up to us and we unclip them and they climb off. But there's a rope that we have to clip on to another rope which they walk back to the belaying person and bring back again. If we lose one of those clips, the one that hangs from the zipling, we pretty much fail. And yep, you guessed it, we failed! We let go of the rope and it slid all the way to a place in the zipline that we can't reach. I'm pretty sure we spent an hour trying to lasoo this stupid rope and drag it back up to us. But somehow we managed to get all the campers to zip down that wanted to - we all, staff and campers, had a good time, despite the mishap! ha!

I guess the dramatic difference was just how liked i was compared to the previous week. One girl was giving me random sidehugs every hour and another day as i was leaving to put breakfast away from our outdoor cookout, one of the girls said to me, 'please don't leave us!' i just laughed it off and said i'd be back! it was a really nice difference!

Discovery and Teen Camp lost about 12 staff in total this week. They all went to a Christian Youth Conference in Seattle, Washington. In some ways I'm kind of against it because i strongly believe in finishing something that you start and i think that if you sign a contract to work at camp you should work there until the very end of that contract but in other ways i understand how important a conference like that is.

I guess i was also against it because i felt like i had loose ends i hadn't tied up. It's hard having to say goodbye to some staff now and other staff again at the end of camp. It just seems so disjointed, it also has made this weekend seem a little weird.

But they return the day camp finishes, so i will definitely get to say another goodbye hehe...

In the meantime though, our staff is short people and we are making do with what we have. I think a couple of new 49ers are coming in, one or two female Discovery Counselors and we have 1 male counselor coming out to teen camp. So it's a little stressful but i'm praying for another stress free week like this week to come around - it would be such a blessing!

A full camp of teenagers is expected for teen camp in the last week but as always, alot of campers drop out due to school being so close to going back. I guess that's one thing i've always found so odd about this country's schooling, is that they start the new grade half way through the year and then graduate half way through the next year - it's bizarre!

Bring on the last week - so sad and yet there is just that little part of me that misses some things back home - it's a very small part, believe me!

Music Camp, Teen Camp & The Banquet

I know i haven't blogged for a little while but life at camp can get really crazy!

Music camp was really great - very different to our normal teen camp schedule and in fact it seemed a bit different to past years even but still really great.

There's something about the campers being on stage performing what they'd learnt that week causing a pang in the heart - i dunno!

In case i forgot to say, our music camp here is a 10 day affair. It comes right after our 5 day break (which doesn't particularly make any sense!) and then the weekend is definitely a well-deserved break!

Just as a side note, friendships during the middle of the summer are often strained and pushed to their limits as everyone is starting to wear thin on each other. Music camp is also very intense because of the duration of the camp. The campers are also older than a normal discovery camp so the ages range from 7 - 17, like i said, it's intense.

But enough about music camp!

After music camp started our own regular camps again. So last week all our staff returned out to teen camp. I for one was so excited about this but i think there was a lot of mixed feelings about leaving the Discovery camp staff - we do share some meals together but for the most part, we don't see them.

The group of campers that came through teen camp last week were a very roudy bunch of campers! They all came with their own agenda's and for the most part they all seemed to have the same mindset about things in life. When you have a group of campers that are hard to settle down and grab their attention, it makes for a very interesting week to see the least! I guess, in all honesty, i, myself, just found it to be a trying and stressful week. The other staff seemed to be ok though so that was the main thing. However, on Saturday morning, the day they all left, i was invited to sit with a group of girls that i constantly had a hard time with so it felt somewhat comforting that they'd finally accepted me into some part of their lives - or perhaps it was just that they'd never see me again....hehehe either way, it left me feeling better on the saturday.

DINA SHAW I LOVE YOU!!!!!

Dina is one of the most amazing friends i have ever had, she is my absolute best!!!!! One morning at one of our teen camp cookout breakfasts, when i was really frazzled and super exhausted i was telling the staff out there how nice it would've been if i still had my vegemite which someone had thrown away (it's ok, i understand how fond of vegemite americans AREN'T). Later that day, i received a care package in the mail, oh man, i nearly cried. It had all kinds of crazy things in it, like seriously!!!!! It had not one but FOUR tubes of vegemite, it had koala bear clips, aussie flag toothpicks, umbrella toothpicks, a harmonica, play recorders, clappers - the works!!!! It made my whole summer receiving that. Sometimes it's the little things like that that make such a difference to a stressful week so THANK YOU DINA!!!!!!!!

By this time, alllllllllll the staff were worn down to the absolute core! Not enough sleep, not enough rest, worked into the ground! But this weekend was a weekend so many of us had been waiting for - it's my favourite part of camp - THE BANQUET!!!!

It's not really goodbye as such but it's more of a recognition dinner for the staff to say thanks for all we've done throughout the summer which is really nice. We also participate in this thing called 'secret pals' where everyone gets a name they will encourage for the summer. I love secret pals because you get to encourage people on a daily/weekly basis and do nice things for them. Then at the banquet we all exchange a gift for our secret pal. I bought my secret pal a piano book he really loved which was cool to see him open! It's a little bit like christmas! I love it!!!

This is the part where i get to give a shout out to Nic Smith! I don't really know her, but apparently she commented on this here blog saying she and 4 other aussies were working across the lake from us at Camp Augusta - so a big shout out to you guys too!!! It was such a bizarre thing but really cool!!!

This is the second last week of camp and things here getting a little hard emotionally to keep together. This Friday, a lot of staff are leaving camp early at 6am to go to a youth conference in Washington called WYI - Western Youth Institute. I know they'll all have an excellent time but i will be sad to see them go as they won't be back before i leave. It's gonna be a time where i have to say goodbye twice, once to them and the second time to the rest of the staff next week!

But all good things have to come to an end eventually! Sad face.

Anyway, this week i'll just keep plodding along and let you know how it goes at the end of the week!

Teen Sports Camp

Most of the time, Camp Del Oro has two camps, Discovery and Teen Camp, as I've said previously. But this week saw the very first 'Teen Sports Camp' introduced to Camp Del Oro. So being the first camp of it's kind here, there was a lot of room for improvement but nonetheless, it was a great week and I'm pretty sure the teens loved it!

The days were all the same for the most part. Breakfast, Chapel, Elective1, Lunch, Elective 2, Free Time, Dinner, Night Activity, Campfire. That's just how it went most days. During the days I'd spend on the field helping out with soccer and free time.

But the night activities and the campfire nights were all unique and different.

Monday night we blew up about 500 water balloons to use for some water fight games and afterwards was the usual skit/introduction night where the different sections intruduce themselves via a skit. Because the program staff was so big, we split into two. I was in a skit where the takes were slowed down - i'm not sure what it's called but I've done it a couple of times. The other skit program staff did was a raisin skit which seemed to amuse people for a few days after, including several members of staff.

As a quick side note, teen sports camp saw about 65 campers come to camp and so we had a lot of staff helping out with such a small number. Of that number of campers, 15 of those were girls so there were a lot more boys cabins than girls, two girls cabins in total!

Tuesday night all the campers went to their respective 'towns' as we call them ie. upper girls, lower boys and upper boys and had their own lil campfires up there where they made smores etc.

Wednesday night was skit night. Each cabin was given a bible story which they had 20 minutes to come up with a quick skit about. Some skits were pitiful and others were really well thought out and pretty fun.

Thursday night we didn't have campfire, we had a 'fight night' in the dining hall but before this the campers played dodgeball. It was my first time i'd ever played this game and lucky me got to spend it being the lake keeper! The campers had a great time though and the last game of the night was a staff vs campers which everyone had a lot of fun with! 'Fight Night' was similar to the tv show, 'minute to win it' where people were randomly selected to play games against another cabin. The first game was enough to put me off for the whole night. The campers had to take off their socks (which they'd just sweated through playing dodgeball), place it over the can and skull a soda through it - first to finish won! It was really sick, the other games pretty much followed suit!

Friday night we had circus night. We had lion tamers, mimes, clowns, acrobatics, cotton candy, popcorn, vendors, animals and the best part was that the staff was all of the above! It was a pretty fun night and the night was made complete with the magician (a staff member who'd been an ex-magician's assistant).

It was over really quickly and was a pretty good week. Particularly because i could sleep in a half hour longer than usual and go to bed earlier and also because all the meals were indoors and I was able to be 'dude of the day' (the meal time announcer).

We also have a 'secret pals' program where each staff member gets a secret pal and encourages them by writing notes or buying gifts etc so we're in the middle of that now - it's a lot of fun too.

I am writing this at the end of my 5-day break. Tomorrow camp goes back and we're all in for a long one too as it's the 10 day music camp. So we'll have to see how that goes hehe! The next weekend will be a much needed one!

The weather here just gets hotter and hotter, music camp starts off with 34 degree heat...don't be jealous, ok?!

Until then - peace out! =)

Week 2 & 3

Week two and week three are down. In some ways, it is a welcome relief but in other ways i know that the summer is going super fast and as much as i love sending the campers home at the end of the week, they always leave footprints on your heart!

These last two weeks have been filled with a lot of stress and a lot of change at Teen camp. But i know that the campers enjoyed themselves in both weeks that they came!

We had some changes in staff this last week, including a replacement counselor. One of our Counselors, Shelley, had to go to Texas for the week and we had to borrow a counselor from the Discovery camp. Both counselors are equally amazing but it was definitely interesting seeing their different counselling styles!

This week certainly didn't come without it's dramas, but that's how most weeks go i suppose. On Thursday, the day of our hike, one of the girls didn't mention her mum was coming to pick her up early and so she left for the 5 mile hike. We tried to catch her where the trail meets the road but we'd just missed the group. So me and the other program assistant director, Jessica hiked in to get the camper and hiked out again to return her to her mum.

Carnival is definitely a favourite part of my week. The teens assist with games that the discovery campers play to win tickets. Their tickets then buy them popcorn and cotton candy and other prizes that get donated to the camp. The teens love the responsibilty and it's just a fun way to end the week.

The camp has a resident bear, who shows up every year but this week i came closer to the bear than i ever have. Jessica and i were getting ready to go to bed and we heard snorting and growling outside the wall. A quick fact about our cabins at teen camp. They have three walls and are enclosed by a fourth screen and latchable door. So we heard the bear crystal clear. I think our loud talking and rummaging, got ride of it in the end but our hearts were racing to say the very least.

We are lucky at Teen Camp because we have closable doors, Discovery cabins are completely open. They have three walls and a closable vinyl flap on the outside but the flaps never really get used.

Trash is a bit of a problem at camp. It can't be left out over night because of the racoons and because of the bear. We even had a skunk stroll around our cabin which was new for me.

This next week will see the first time a teen sports camp is held. We'll have 65 campers, of which will only be 15 girls, so that will be interesting.

Will write more next week! =)