Summer Camp

7-5-12

Fiction-y.
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"Oh, you're the [insert_his_name_here]."

Great first line. Really, now, he's joining the staff after two and a half weeks and you didn't know who he was but it turned out that you did and that's what you said? Really?

But he remembered your name. And your major. And sang songs at you and with you on the way to play practice. And stuck with going to Wal-Mart with you even if there were possibly more attractive options.

What to make of it? You don't know. Of course you don't. But stop kicking yourself over silly things like weird phrases and slightly awkward silences. Sometimes he's the one who filled them in. So maybe you're not sure and maybe it'll go nowhere. But no regrets, right?

So see where it goes. Might be something fun. Might be something worth it. God knows, so leave it up to Him. Well, that, and interact with him whenever you get a chance. After all, he's a counselor and you're general staff. So make the best of it.
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A Summer of Firsts

8-23-11

Okay, so now I finally have some time to write about my summer.

It was definitely a summer of firsts, as my title indicates. Let's see, perhaps a list would be good here:

• First time climbing straight up a mountain (as in, clambering over boulders and picking out footholds, etc.) at Devils Lake, WI. I learned a lot about my fellow staff members during that climb, which, despite being physically intense and long, was healing for me.
• First time at Camp Wakonda, in Westfield, WI. It was my sixth summer at camp, but my first at Wakonda. Suffice it to say, I love Wakonda just as much as I still love Timber Ridge (and that's saying something).
• I learned how to wear makeup. You might not see it on me a lot, but I own some and I know how to put it on now.
• I blobbed others, was blobbed, and was double-blobbed for the first time this summer.
• On my way home from camp, I recalculated my own route (I don't own a GPS) when I took an exit completely instead of taking the first part of the exit and then merging with a different road. I still made it home and I added to the map in my head. Go me.
• I wrote a skit that others performed for the crafts-and-ceramics-run Sabbath School we had at camp. People really enjoyed it, complimented me on the Sabbath School, and even one of the people who had performed in the skit asked me where I had gotten the skit. When I said, "I wrote it," he said, "Really? I didn't know that. It was cool." Talk about verbal warm fuzzies.
• I went to Wisconsin Dells for the first time ever. (It's not that far away from camp.) I went mini-golfing at Pirates Cove, rode the Hades rollercoaster at Mount Olympus, and watched a pastor get kicked out of Starbucks with a paddle being held by the manager (it was a photo scavenger hunt, and the Starbucks manager was very cooperative).
• I had my first pediicure. Boy, are my feet ticklish! 
• I worked at a camp meeting for the first time, which included time in the Youth Tent as a song leader (*GULP*), time in the camp store (*YAWN*), and time in the camp office (*YAY*). Oh, and time cleaning Fireside's restrooms and sweeping the hall.
• I went paintballing for the first time ever, and enjoyed it enough that I spent four dollars to get another 100 rounds of paint so I could keep playing. I got at least five welts.
• I was part of the mime for our Friday night program, which was a first. I was also the personification of Death (or Smoking), which was also a first. For that role, I ended up with cracked glasses, a bruise over my right eye, a jammed left thumb, and good memories. (Happily, I was able to get my glasses replaced for free. If we'd gone a day later to the eye doctor, the warranty would have run out.)
• I made a lot of new and great friends. I got more warm fuzzies this summer than I've gotten in the five previous summers put together. I love my new camp directors, and I love their little boys.
• I read The Hunger Games, which I liked enough that I bought the hardcover copies of Catching Fire and Mockingjay when I got to school and read them the day I bought them. It's the first time I've ever REALLY liked books written in present tense first person.

And I'm sure that there's a lot more that I did for the first time, but I can't think of any more at the moment. This post is long already, so I'll just say: more later.