Sunday, June 13, 2010

i'm feeling rough, i'm feeling raw in the prime of my liiifffeee

whoa, i meant to post a new blog at the end of last week, but now it's been two weeks of events that i've missed updating!

well, i went into camp last monday morning to help set do some set up, a.k.a. folding staff and camper tshirts. while there i met some of the leadership staff who was there already, preparing for training of the rest of the staff. i also met D, a 20 year old from the same town where camp was being held. he wasn't really supposed to be there yet either, so one of our bosses had us start folding tshirts with some of the other volunteers. he was officially the first person i "met", and the first friend i made.

well...fast forward about a week and a half to training week for the rest of the staff. i met a ton of awesome people, the kind of people i love for the fact that we are all there for the same thing. we love to help people, we want to see kids who don't feel like they deserve to be happy have the BEST summer of their lives. it's really amazing to see that there are actually good people in the world, and i work with a whole mess of them.

there are staff at camp from australia and new zealand (which of looooovvvveee, of course), egypt, etc. so great. and all over texas and the south (except for me, haha). there are a whole lot of girls in my unit that i love. anyway...so back to D. apparantlyyy he said some hurtful things about his AL (his boss, essentially) and word got back to her, she told our bosses, and they thought it would be better that he just not be around any more this summer. so he got fired. but not before we (well, he because no one knew it was me) caused the first scandallll of the summer because people saw him and some "mystery girl" walking around camp late at night. hahaha. go me.

so then the first campers came and it was a learninggg experience to say the least. we had 6 girls; 2 with scoliosis, 1 with cp, 1 hearing impaired, 1 double amputee, and 1 girl with the craziest disease i have ever heard of. she was essentially a quad - no use of any of her appendages. she wore diapers and rode around in a wheelchair, which was uncomfortable for her so she was always in pain. it was a challenge with her more than anything, to say the least, and i learned A LOT about myself, my bunkhouse, and what we're going to be able to do this summer which, turns out, is pretty much anything.

last night, on our 24-hour night off, i hung out with some of my co-staff. it was dramatic. there is so much drama between the 150 people who work there than the 4 years that i was in college. good thing i'm used to it. haha. but i heard a lotttt about the drama from last year, got all caught up, and heard about what's already been going on this summer. i still wonder if anyone has heard about me, the "mystery girl", but i don't want to ask. i'm just pretending it's my little secret. haha. speaking of which, i got to chat with D for a bit before bed...