Updates

Went to an indoor climbing gym with the kids last week!


Hello all!
I guess that epic blog entry from my trip to New York wore me out because I've been super lazy with updating this since then. Sigh. I'll make amends now. Pretty much what's new these past two weeks is work and more work. We haven't had a camping trip for a couple weeks with the camp, but we're going on one next week. For now though I am currently concentrating on the promise of sleep ahead this evening. Mmmmm sleep. This week has completely exhausted me. It's been fun, but I feel like I could probably sleep all weekend straight through until Monday. Hmm.

This week we got a new group of kids (lots of the same ones returned though) it's a really great bunch of kids and I'm getting to know the ones who have been coming all summer a lot better and that's fun. This week we started out going to the beach, then we went to a lake, then paintball yesterday, and today we went to an amusement park in New Hampshire. Today was SUCH a fun day! I love amusement parks. Sadly I find myself turning more and more into an old person where spinning rides make me sick, but in an ultimate act of defiance against old age I went on those rides anyways. Mostly out of a desire to be deemed cool by my 12, 13, and 14-year old campers. We did go on some awesomely fun rides and I had a great time and only felt horribly ill once, after a spinning ride called Turkish Twist where you go inside a circular room and stand against the wall, it spins you around so fast you stick to the wall and then they drop the floor out from under you and you remain stuck to the wall, spinning at ridiculous speeds that the kids said "feels like a facelift" (maybe that's what I needed anyways at the ripe old age of 23...?)

Lately the things going through my mind have been some small struggles at work. The kids are great and my coworkers are really nice but it's all the politics that get in the way. I try not to let it bring me down, I remind myself that I'm getting paid to do some really fun stuff and you can't ask for a much cooler job than that! I'm still working on finding my place with this staff of people who have all grown up in this camp since they were 4 years old. My coworkers and I in our program with the older kids are still working out the bugs to our program. Organization is the goal and it's tough for someone like me who needs to be organized to feel comfortable in some situations - such as taking 25 kids on a field trip every day - so I'm trying to be helpful in getting us organized without overstepping a line of hierarchy within our staff and hopefully not offending anyone. In an effort to get to know one another better (something we probably should have done before the summer was half over!) the four of us had a really awesome get together of making sushi which was really fun. We're getting there. By the end of the summer we should have the program down perfectly, haha. In the meantime though we're still having a lot of fun and most importantly, so are the kids!!

Bug update: the mosquitos are ridiculous and quite relentless. The june bugs are pretty much all dead now, thankfully! I'm now partaking in an involuntary, ongoing battle with an army of large spiders for the rights to Jess and Ben's garage. The spiders foolishly think they live here. They're mistaken though. For now, it's my garage and I will trap and throw outside every last one of them.

Book update: still working my way through Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love. I'm on the last third of the book, about Indonesia and determined to make my way through it to the end. I have a hard time reading a book all the way through, no matter how interesting it is. I am enjoying this book though, so I'm fairly confident that eventually I will make it to the end. I do enjoy a good travel book. If anyone is ever looking for a good gift for me, go to the travel section of a bookstore :-)

In addition to work I've been slaving away at something resembling work but is actually developing into quite a hobby for me, and that is editing photos and putting together various photo projects. I've been working on a photo project for me mom in addition to putting together CDs with photos from each session of camp for the parents to purchase. Although I'm going this work without pay, I don't mind because I enjoy going through all my photos from each day of camp, editing them and organizing them into folders and burning them onto discs. Is there a job that involves these things? I think I might be good at that. I love actually going out and taking the photos, but in addition to that I love the processing part. Hm. Anways lately I feel like I've been constantly shutting myself into my little garage-apartment room and "photo-ing" as I like to call it to try and catch up and get these various projects finished. I'm getting there.

So.....that's about all I've got for now. More again soon!
*Peace*