lunes, junio 06, 2005
And so I have returned.
Fee qhix. All of the campers in my cabin at Forest Glen were so sweet... except for one. There was one bad apple who the staff nicknamed "Butterfly." It's an interesting story really, so I shall tell it to you:
Well, Butterfly apparently had a romantic interest in a boy at summer camp last year; he returned the interest. The boy was from a different church group and was nicknamed this year as "Praying Mantis" for no significant reason. On the first night of camp, I had the girls tell me about themselves; they made me tell them about myself last. Hosers. Anyway, Butterfly announced that she was a "tomboy," even though she said she didn't dress like it. (That just doesn't make sense; it got on my nerves. Majorly.) However, this "tomboy" had a boyfriend. I can't remember his name, but he is a grade below her. I learned the next day (Saturday) at a staff meeting that Butterfly and Praying Mantis had been caught three times... um... "keeping themselves busy"?? THREE TIMES. Butterfly has a boyfriend. Odd. It was just wrong.
So yeah, Angela Gore (other counselor in my cabin) and I had to keep a special eye on Butterfly. Actually, ALL of the staff had to. Mrs. Ondrey (lady in charge) talked to Natalia Montanez (lady in charge of Praying Mantis's group) about keeping an eye on him as well. He was one sneaky guy who apparently looks like Fritz (the Nazi boy) in "The Sound of Music."
Butterfly had NO problem changing her clothes in the room in front of everyone. She was definitely not very modest. I, on the other hand, HAVE to change in the bathroom without ANYONE seeing me. I always had to do that in P.E. at LJI and in soccer class at Brazoswood. I just can't change in front of people. The worst time was when I was doing something with my stuff in the cabin (I can't remember what it was), and Butterfly was changing on my right a few feet away. If I turned my head, I would have been able to see her clearly, but I never moved my eyes in that direction; I kept my hair in the way. I knew she was changing because I knew she was moving up and down, and she was in her area where she always changed. Well, she walked past me (right in front of me) to get to the bathroom for something. I noticed she had a shirt on with her swimsuit covering half of what it needed to cover (the shirt covered the rest). Dude, she halfway stripped a few feet away from me. I am SO glad I didn't look over there. But, I mean, keeping that event and her personality in mind, I just wonder how badly she behaved with Praying Mantis. She would yell at the girls in my cabin to "shut up," especially to the only blonde girl out of the nine people total in the cabin. I can tell she must have some family problems, so I did my best to be nice to her. She honestly drove me crazy, if any of the campers did.
The camp was cool. I did riflery and archery. I stunk up the riflery because my protection glasses were coming off of my face and were right in my line of sight. Meh. Sean Matherne got all but one bullet in the bullseye of his target. I missed my paper completely. Stupid glasses. However, I kicked booty in the archery. That was SO much fun. I really loved it. ^_^
DUDE! The BEST parts of camp were the low ropes and the high ropes. We did low ropes on Saturday, and that was so incredibly fun. Our group did SO well that Forest Glen's leader person in charge of our group took us to the "Trust Fall" or something like that. One in every one-HUNDRED groups that does the low ropes in a year gets taken to the "Trust Fall" thingy, and my group got to go. One of my biggest problems is trusting people. (I don't think my mommy held me enough when I was little. *frowns*) Stephen Curtis encouraged me to do it. We had to stand on a wooden platform thingy attached to a tree and fall backwards onto the hands and arms of our teammates. Ohmygoogles, I was SO scared. I didn't want to do it, but Stephen said it would be perfect for me. I ended up doing it. Oh man, I will never forget how scared I was. I squealed on the way down. Then they dropped me when they were setting me down. Sheesh. But it was okay; at least I didn't fall to the ground from the wooden platform.
On Sunday we did the high ropes, and I had so so so so so much fun doing it. I got to climb a rock wall that was 50 feet high. The guys were saying that it wasn't hard, but it was definitely a workout. It took me, like, two minutes to climb it. I didn't time myself, but I know people were shocked at how quickly I completed it. ^_^ Yays! That was the second thing I did, though.
The first thing I did was where you had to climb a wobbly wooden pole, then put both feet on top of it. After getting both feet on the square with sides of about 7 or 8 inches maximum (I'm guessing), you had to STAND UP. THEN you had to jump out off of that wobbly thing and grab the trapeze pole thingy. Of course, you were attached to a harness, so there was nothing really to worry about. I was the last one in my group to do it. I knew I was too short to make the jump, so my goal was to get to the top of the pole (which I'm guessing was only about twenty feet high or so) and stand up on it. Mrs. Paul was freaked out of her mind. She made it to the top and just SAT on it. She was so so so scared; she was trembling with fear and almost started to cry I think. Poor Mrs. Paul. Godwin, our Nigerian seminarian (AWESOME), talked her through it all. We were cheering her on, but I could see the incredible fear in her eyes and written all over her face. Sadly, we all couldn't help but laugh from time to time. She was up there forever. She finally made it and stood up, but she missed the jump. Angela got her some water, but Mrs. Paul couldn't drink it because her hands were trembling so much that the water was falling from the cup when she held it. Angela had to hold it for her. It was hilarious and sad at the same time, and we all love Mrs. Paul.
I went up the pole in a number of seconds. Again I shocked people. I felt so proud. Oh yeah, after you climbed up the pole, you had to turn around and get to the other side of the pole before you could get on top of it. It was a breeze. Everyone was so freaked out. Angela got down; she didn't make it up to the top because she was just so scared. I felt so bad for her because she cried when she got down 'cause she was so disappointed in herself. But I made it and had a blast. (Angela was comforted by Stephen, and it was all okay. She had a "good" cry and felt better.) I almost had a teensy bit of trouble getting my feet on top of the pole. Once I got them on there (took about ten seconds max), I had absolutely no trouble standing. However, as I predicted, I was too short to reach the trapeze. I still got a bunch of shocked reactions and saw impressed faces when I got down. ^_^ *feels proud*
I thought the zip line would be the best part, but it hurt. I jumped from the platform, and my harness scraped the insides of my thighs. Ouchies. I was in too much pain to FULLY enjoy it, but apparently the guys had it worse. :c/
This is definitely long enough. I'll have to make another post about the camp later because there was so much in just those two full days and two half days. I need to make a post about the night games, Crazy Olympics, the shaving cream fight, the skits, and writing the notes to everyone. Basically, I had a blast. I'm going to be a counselor again next year, but I think we'll need some more people... *hint*
Fee qhix. All of the campers in my cabin at Forest Glen were so sweet... except for one. There was one bad apple who the staff nicknamed "Butterfly." It's an interesting story really, so I shall tell it to you:
Well, Butterfly apparently had a romantic interest in a boy at summer camp last year; he returned the interest. The boy was from a different church group and was nicknamed this year as "Praying Mantis" for no significant reason. On the first night of camp, I had the girls tell me about themselves; they made me tell them about myself last. Hosers. Anyway, Butterfly announced that she was a "tomboy," even though she said she didn't dress like it. (That just doesn't make sense; it got on my nerves. Majorly.) However, this "tomboy" had a boyfriend. I can't remember his name, but he is a grade below her. I learned the next day (Saturday) at a staff meeting that Butterfly and Praying Mantis had been caught three times... um... "keeping themselves busy"?? THREE TIMES. Butterfly has a boyfriend. Odd. It was just wrong.
So yeah, Angela Gore (other counselor in my cabin) and I had to keep a special eye on Butterfly. Actually, ALL of the staff had to. Mrs. Ondrey (lady in charge) talked to Natalia Montanez (lady in charge of Praying Mantis's group) about keeping an eye on him as well. He was one sneaky guy who apparently looks like Fritz (the Nazi boy) in "The Sound of Music."
Butterfly had NO problem changing her clothes in the room in front of everyone. She was definitely not very modest. I, on the other hand, HAVE to change in the bathroom without ANYONE seeing me. I always had to do that in P.E. at LJI and in soccer class at Brazoswood. I just can't change in front of people. The worst time was when I was doing something with my stuff in the cabin (I can't remember what it was), and Butterfly was changing on my right a few feet away. If I turned my head, I would have been able to see her clearly, but I never moved my eyes in that direction; I kept my hair in the way. I knew she was changing because I knew she was moving up and down, and she was in her area where she always changed. Well, she walked past me (right in front of me) to get to the bathroom for something. I noticed she had a shirt on with her swimsuit covering half of what it needed to cover (the shirt covered the rest). Dude, she halfway stripped a few feet away from me. I am SO glad I didn't look over there. But, I mean, keeping that event and her personality in mind, I just wonder how badly she behaved with Praying Mantis. She would yell at the girls in my cabin to "shut up," especially to the only blonde girl out of the nine people total in the cabin. I can tell she must have some family problems, so I did my best to be nice to her. She honestly drove me crazy, if any of the campers did.
The camp was cool. I did riflery and archery. I stunk up the riflery because my protection glasses were coming off of my face and were right in my line of sight. Meh. Sean Matherne got all but one bullet in the bullseye of his target. I missed my paper completely. Stupid glasses. However, I kicked booty in the archery. That was SO much fun. I really loved it. ^_^
DUDE! The BEST parts of camp were the low ropes and the high ropes. We did low ropes on Saturday, and that was so incredibly fun. Our group did SO well that Forest Glen's leader person in charge of our group took us to the "Trust Fall" or something like that. One in every one-HUNDRED groups that does the low ropes in a year gets taken to the "Trust Fall" thingy, and my group got to go. One of my biggest problems is trusting people. (I don't think my mommy held me enough when I was little. *frowns*) Stephen Curtis encouraged me to do it. We had to stand on a wooden platform thingy attached to a tree and fall backwards onto the hands and arms of our teammates. Ohmygoogles, I was SO scared. I didn't want to do it, but Stephen said it would be perfect for me. I ended up doing it. Oh man, I will never forget how scared I was. I squealed on the way down. Then they dropped me when they were setting me down. Sheesh. But it was okay; at least I didn't fall to the ground from the wooden platform.
On Sunday we did the high ropes, and I had so so so so so much fun doing it. I got to climb a rock wall that was 50 feet high. The guys were saying that it wasn't hard, but it was definitely a workout. It took me, like, two minutes to climb it. I didn't time myself, but I know people were shocked at how quickly I completed it. ^_^ Yays! That was the second thing I did, though.
The first thing I did was where you had to climb a wobbly wooden pole, then put both feet on top of it. After getting both feet on the square with sides of about 7 or 8 inches maximum (I'm guessing), you had to STAND UP. THEN you had to jump out off of that wobbly thing and grab the trapeze pole thingy. Of course, you were attached to a harness, so there was nothing really to worry about. I was the last one in my group to do it. I knew I was too short to make the jump, so my goal was to get to the top of the pole (which I'm guessing was only about twenty feet high or so) and stand up on it. Mrs. Paul was freaked out of her mind. She made it to the top and just SAT on it. She was so so so scared; she was trembling with fear and almost started to cry I think. Poor Mrs. Paul. Godwin, our Nigerian seminarian (AWESOME), talked her through it all. We were cheering her on, but I could see the incredible fear in her eyes and written all over her face. Sadly, we all couldn't help but laugh from time to time. She was up there forever. She finally made it and stood up, but she missed the jump. Angela got her some water, but Mrs. Paul couldn't drink it because her hands were trembling so much that the water was falling from the cup when she held it. Angela had to hold it for her. It was hilarious and sad at the same time, and we all love Mrs. Paul.
I went up the pole in a number of seconds. Again I shocked people. I felt so proud. Oh yeah, after you climbed up the pole, you had to turn around and get to the other side of the pole before you could get on top of it. It was a breeze. Everyone was so freaked out. Angela got down; she didn't make it up to the top because she was just so scared. I felt so bad for her because she cried when she got down 'cause she was so disappointed in herself. But I made it and had a blast. (Angela was comforted by Stephen, and it was all okay. She had a "good" cry and felt better.) I almost had a teensy bit of trouble getting my feet on top of the pole. Once I got them on there (took about ten seconds max), I had absolutely no trouble standing. However, as I predicted, I was too short to reach the trapeze. I still got a bunch of shocked reactions and saw impressed faces when I got down. ^_^ *feels proud*
I thought the zip line would be the best part, but it hurt. I jumped from the platform, and my harness scraped the insides of my thighs. Ouchies. I was in too much pain to FULLY enjoy it, but apparently the guys had it worse. :c/
This is definitely long enough. I'll have to make another post about the camp later because there was so much in just those two full days and two half days. I need to make a post about the night games, Crazy Olympics, the shaving cream fight, the skits, and writing the notes to everyone. Basically, I had a blast. I'm going to be a counselor again next year, but I think we'll need some more people... *hint*