A For Real Good Day!

Today was great. Its the day in the middle of our two week camp, so we're switching the theme. To switch the theme we had an in between day today. The theme of our transition day was "backwards day." We switched up the schedule, had a pool party, had a lake party, had a LIFE party. Today was just awesome.

I think my favorite part of today was the pool party. I had tons of fun playing with some of the kids in the pool. One girl was pretending to be a "snapping octo-turtle." She ate my arms and legs. Another kid kept running up to me all day and poking me and since it was such a good day, I wasn't even annoyed by it!

Another "best of" at the pool party was when one boy, the one who is severely autistic, walked up to his ankles in to the pool, dropped his drawers, and peed in to the pool. Win.

I was supposed to have a nature program today. I found out about it about an hour and a half before the program and had to throw it together which took that whole time, because due to weather it had to be an indoor program and not at the nature building because that's a long walk away. I finally put together a beautiful program and found a room to hold the class in and thennn..... The group didn't show up. They decided to go to another program instead and not tell me. *pout*

So yes. July 14 2010 shall go down in history as a good day for Emmi.

Lets talk about my level of irritation at this moment...

That "California Girls" bullcrap is playing ON REPEAT in this computer lab right now. Its on the 4th round. At the same time that, "Nelly I Love You" song from sometime in the early 2000s is playing. So I'm in a GREAT mood at the moment, thanks for asking!

You know when I really WAS in a great mood? Last night. My sister Nicci came for a visit. It was great to see someone from home since this has been such a stressful time for me and I've been really home sick. We enjoyed some BW's, made a target run, and went to Dairy Queen. It was great, and a ton of fun!

Today I'm trying to finish planning tonight's evening activity, put together my lesson plans for this coming week, and trying to keep my lessons for today going. Its hard keeping my mind straight with all of this stuff to think about, its even harder with this music playing!!!

I feel bad for getting so stressed out. I really don't want it to affect the experience for the kids. I feel like, and really really hope, I have been successful in making this a reality and the kids aren't having their lives ruined by my stress. I don't know.

I have funny stuff to write today too! First of all, I finally started to read some of the booklets for "making a successful nature program" I found and then lost and then found again the other day. Let me tell you.... its awful. I actually got a pencil and started marking all of the spelling, grammar, and structure mistakes in this booklet, written by a past nature director here. Its absolutely horrendous the amount of stupid mistakes this guy made.

My personal favorite problem with this book was one of the activities. Not that the grammar and punctuation was bad in this activity, the activity itself was just.... HORRIBLE! Allow me to explain...

In this activity you ask the kids to draw a pretty picture of the natural landscape on which they would like their dream home to be. They should draw the animals in that area and the plants but no man made features. Then you ask them how they get to their house. Pretty much anything they say other than teleportation requires you to build something on that land, so you are to have them rip the paper with their pretty artwork in half. You keep asking questions and for everything they want to build or include, including sinks, toilets, rooms, furniture, ANYTHING they have to rip the paper again. They goes on until the kids' artwork is a bunch of confetti. You then tell them to put it back together because the government is giving them a crap ton of money to turn their land in to a nature reserve. Obviously, they can't. If they do manage to get it somewhat worked out, it will look crappy and rippy. This is when you tell them that no matter what you do to "restore" the land, it will still be messed up. It is here that the writer of this says that he has many kids, "break down crying during this activity," well DUH! You just told a little kid that they ruined bunnies' and foxes' and deers' lives FOREVER and they killed the earth. Horrible. this person clearly had no friends growing up.

Tonight I was in charge of the evening program. Long story short, it was a near disaster and I almost broke down crying because it got so messed up and a few of the boys (the ones known to have a bad attitude, mind you) were complaining a lot saying, "can we be done now?" and "this is boring."

The day was saved with a campfire and songs. It was really fun and I'm glad the kids enjoyed the campfire despite the lack of smores due to the fact they they're having smores tomorrow.

I over came a lot of challenges this last week and I feel like I'm proving to myself that I do belong here and I am a good worker. Not that anyone has told me otherwise, I'm just kind of hard on myself sometimes, but that's a post for another day. Goodnight.

I Must Be In the Right Major...

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. It seems that I'm always trying to find the social connection between demographics and the stereotypes and issues they face on a day to day basis. Since I'm a Sociology major, I figure this is a perfect mindset for me to be in. So what on earth does this have to do with what I've been doing at camp? Well, being the kind of person I am, the kind of person who enjoys just observing social groups and situations, I have been spending a lot of my time here trying to understand why these campers are in the situations they're in.

Ok, so last week's campers were mostly individuals with cerebral palsy. I hadn't started paying much attention to demographics then, so I'm not entirely sure what group I would be looking at. But this week I was able to pay more attention to the kids and the families as they dropped of their kids. I have noticed that these kids (this is the communication disorders camp) seem to come from more working class and poor families. There are a lot of autistic kids among them, and I don't know much about the autism statistics either.

A few of the kids are also illiterate which might have to do with their inability to communicate. Perhaps there's a piece of the learning process that's missing for them in tasks like these which those of us with language and reading abilities might call "routine."

I'm fascinated by observing these social connections, but I'm not quite sure what to make of them quite yet. Perhaps I can try to learn more about these connections as I continue my education.



Anywho, today has been a good day. Its about 80 degrees and partly cloudy (Sven would be proud of my weather vocab skills). It rained a little bit which ALMOST ruined my fishing time with the "Bring Your PCA To Camp" group, but it cleared up quickly, leaving us with a good 15 minutes to fish. The mosquitoes weren't bad on our hike(well in some parts they were, but in clear parts it was totally mosquito free!), two of my last minute programs were canceled, and there was apple snicker salad with lunch today. Score! I actually ate a full meal with some variety at lunch! Chips, a sandwich, apple snicker salad, milk, and a heaping bowl of the happies!!!

Now all I need to do is finish getting my program building ready for classes (I haven't had any programs there yet, but we're doing owl pellets and microscopes tomorrow. EXCITING!!!), this shouldn't take too long, but I think I'll need to wrangle me some more chairs so that everyone can have a seat and just clean the place up cause its a MESS!

Things are looking up. I'm looking forward to a visit from Nicci on Monday and dinner with her as well! It will be good. Life is good.

Epicly Awesome?? Yeah, that's me.

That's right! A camper told me today that I am "epicly awesome" Totally made my day. Other things that made my day include an awesome game of capture the flag (though I got KILLED by mosquitoes), and the hopeful possibility of being able to see SOMEONE (not sure who yet) from outside of camp on my night out.

So I'm very scatter-brained and I just realized that I never told you in what context the camper told me I am "epicly awesome" so here it goes...

I had some time to kill so I thought I would go help Randi out with her busy hour at the store. After working there for a little bit I began talking to some of the Lakeside campers (they're the adults). I don't remember exactly what was said, but I made a "The Shining" reference. One of the guys I was talking to started on a tangent about how he loves the audiobook version of The Shining narrated by so and so, and that the Series of Unfortunate Events narrated by such and such is also really creepy and well read etc. From this I told him that I use audiobooks too and it turns out that he uses a source that I used to use, and I use one that he used to use! Longer-than-necessary story shorter, I told him about how much better Reading For the Blind and Dyslexic is from when he used to use it and he said he wants to try switching back(you're welcome, RFBD). After this lengthy conversation the guy was about to leave, but before he headed out he turned and looked at me and said, "You know, you are epicly awesome!" I beamed with joy and pride. :D

I'm sorry for the lack of variety in this post, the scatter-brained-ness, and the poor punctuation and editing. I am very sleepy.

A New Week, New Challenges, New Frustrations, and... oh wait, did I say a week? I meant two weeks.

Yep. TWO weeks this time. And I'm feeling sick. Cool.

Today was a bad day. It started with me missing my exit to get to camp and arriving 10 minutes late (with a little bit of speeding, but never more than 10 miles over the limit on the highway and 5 off.) Then it got worse when someone took my bed from my room without asking me (and they moved all of my stuff off my bed). I mean I understand that you need an extra bed for the campers but A) my bed is not the only one of that kind on my floor, in fact there are several unoccupied beds of that variety. and B) DON'T EVER TOUCH MY STUFF, ESPECIALLY MY COMPUTER, WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE, EVER AGAIN!!!!!

Note: Firefox just crashed and had I lost all of this, today's blog entry would have been simply a string of profanities.

I'm also just plain irritable. I did have a fun time playing tag with the campers and other staff so that's cool.

But now I haz a grumpy. I wish I had wonderful happy things to write about today, but I am busy wallowing. I'm sorry this entry isn't more interesting. I feel sick and I want to go to bed.

Oh! I thought of something happy and humorous to share with you! This week's camp is a speech and language pathology camp. One of our kids is here to work on his conversation skills. You see, he always sticks to one topic and he needs to learn how to explore other topics he might not be as interested in. I do not think I should be the one to work with this boy as I would also get caught up in a conversation about this particular topic for AGES. The topic we must avoid with him is.... dogs. Yes, its not the best idea for me to work with him. :D

Mom was right again!

I wrote this yesterday on MS Word when I didn't have interwebz connection and only now had time to post it. Enjoi!


When I was going through the hellish week known as training week around here I had a pretty tough time and called my mom in tears almost everyday wondering if I could do this job all summer being I was so homesick and overwhelmed already and the campers hadn’t even arrived yet. In one conversation my mom told me that the when the campers came things would get so much better and I would fall in love with every last one of them. This was kind of true last week, but now that I’m working with the campers so closely no truer words have been said. Ever. At least in the cabin I’m working in, I adore those campers. We had a talent show last night and it was SO great to see the awesome skills these guys have. One kid used his computer that he uses to talk to ask all of the “ladies” to come forward. We did so, and he proceeded to press various buttons on which he had programmed pick-up lines. AWESOME!

I’ve learned a lot about people who are nonverbal in general, like the fact that they are wonderful intelligent people. So many people will meet someone who is nonverbal and just assume that they are stupid or don’t understand you. Please, if you are or have been one of these people, don’t be ashamed or upset about it just don’t do that anymore. Don’t baby talk to a person just because they have problems verbally expressing themselves. I met someone once who did exactly that to a woman with a brain tumor and I was PISSED. I didn’t say anything at the time though, but after this week I think I would given the same situation arose.

I can’t tell you how many times one of our campers has saved either my ass or another worker by telling them that we messed something up or we’re doing something wrong. One girl laughs at us whenever we do something wrong. I think if I was in her position I would do the same. I mean, what else can you do sometimes?


So that was then! I'm having a roller coaster of a week though. Honestly one second its great, the next I'm moments away from throwing myself on the ground kicking and screaming. I'm at the latter point lately (though now that I'm on break I'm doing fine). Everyone is getting frustrated with each other and I'm stressed and therefore not thinking clearly. I'm also over tired and sensitive so that doesn't help. I keep feeling like some people are snapping at me or getting overly impatient. I got scoffed at today because I asked for help transferring an 18-year-old girl who was supposed to be a "one person transfer." Well hello genius. She may be a one person transfer, but that doesn't work so well when that "one person" meant to do the transfer is SMALLER THAN HER!!!! I also get snapped at whenever I ask where something is kept, when ever I ask any question about anything, and when I say that I need to do my other duties other than working in the cabin which is not my main job.

Ok. Venting over. Sorry about that, but I do feel better now :)... a little.

Part of this also comes from guilt. I feel like because everyone is getting so impatient, that means I'm not good at what I do. I'm also feeling really torn between my what my jobs are and how I can prioritize them (I know, surprise, right??)

I love these campers and I'm forming really awesome bonds with all of them, but if this week wasn't coming to an end tomorrow I might drown myself in the lake.



Oh, that was supposed to be the end, but here's a little post script for you all. Happy stuff!

Last night I was hanging out on the dock with some people and there were four fireworks displays going on around the lake! It was awesome! Then someone walked off the dock on accident (don't text and walk on a dock in the dark, kids) which was HILARIOUS! Until I saw that she was holding her computer. I think its fine though, so it goes back to be hilarious. She also dropped her phone in and in the frenzy to get over there one of my friend's flip flops was kicked in to the lake and taken away by the waves.

A Great Fishing Day At Camp!

So yesterday was crappy. Really really really crappy. To make myself feel better I tried to write a list of 100 things that make me happy. I got to 16 and gave up. I don't feel like going in to details of EVERYTHING that went wrong, but there was a lot. Bad day. Near the end it got a little better cause I was hanging out with some cool people.

I also experienced among the greatest guilt I have ever felt. I wanted to cry. I was walking a camper back to the cabin from the archery range and the mosquitoes were BAD. We were almost out of the woods (literally AND figuratively) when she let out a pittiful cry of "Ooowwww..." She doesn't have the best control of her arms so she can't swat away mosquitoes and her chair is about as tall as me so I couldn't see her. So I stopped and walked around to the front of the chair and to my complete and utter HORROR she was COVERED in mosquitoes and crying. I swatted the mosquitoes away saying to her, "oh my god I'm so sorry I'm so sorry! I'll get you out of here!" I went as fast as I could go pushing a heavy chair out of those woods. I still feel awful when I think about it.

So that was yesterday, but today is going quite well. I had my first actual program in a while today. We went fishing and everyone caught at least one little fish. It was great! I've also officially fallen in love with all of the campers in my cabin. Anywho. I WOULD write more, but I'm going to keep it shortish for today. I want to go be free for the rest of my rest hour!