damn.

it's the end of the summer. and i haven't posted since june. essentially, this matters to no one but myself, as all my crazy adventures have mostly been lived and, as we all know, memories don't live like people do.

as a brief recap, i suppose, i made some of the most amaaaazing friends. ever. again. i've learned who i can trust. blah blah blah. working at camp has been a really great, humbling experience. kids with special needs will hold a special place in my heart forevaaaa...maybe i'll want to work with them sometime in the future? there were a special few that really made an impact on my life...

that being said, one of the most memorable parts of my summer was my week off after 5 weeks of Handicap camp.

one of the first weeks of camp, maybe after H2 or H3, one of the counselors got fired because he just wasn't...right for the job? i guess that's what they told him. sadly, for so many of us at camp, he was an amaaazing person and friend, so much fun, and i was finally just getting to know him during his last week as a counselor. O was his name, and he is from egypt but goes to school at a huuuuge important school in east texas.

well, when he got fired he decided to go back and live at his apartment for the rest of the summer, rather than go immediately back to egypt. so, during our week off my friend E and i went to east texas to visit our friend. we partied every night, slept all day, and ate free birds like it was going out of style (hint: it's not. midwest, you do not know what you are missing out on. this food is bombbb.)

well, my friend E and i had an interesting relationship this summer..? he was the wing leader of my brother unit, so my...wing leader brother i guess, since i was the wing leader of my...wing. right. so, we hung out a lot, on all our nights off and on the weekend. our friendship took a turn...if you get what i'm saying. if not, that's fine too. but people quickly caught on to the idea that we were really close, and had just about the weirdest friendship they had ever witnessed. "no one understandsss usss" was uttered more than once a day when people made comments about our interactions, and lack of interactions during camp hours. ha. so anyway.

the thing about E is that he has a gf back home, that i did not initially know about. well, it maybe wouldn't have made that much of a difference, as we were really only going to be spending this summer together and quite possibly never see each other again. ouch. except, that when his gf found out he had decided to spend his week off with two of his faaaavorite people in the world and not her, pleased she was not. possibly also because less than a week earlier he had informed her of the less-than-socially-acceptable relationship we were engaged in.

so, gf came to O's apartment one afternoon, giving her unfaithful bf an ultimatum: come with me and live, stay with them and die. or something. he made it sound that dramatic. so he left. O and i were sad, but we drank away our sorrows...and such and the next day E came back, feeling sorry for what he had done and acting like such a pussalia i almost couldn't look him in the eyes.

needless to say, E and i's relationship hasn't been the same since then, and as much as i care about him and as important of a person he was in my life for 8 or so weeks...8 or so weeks is only 8 or so weeks of my life. the struggle that i am faced with now is whether or not such a friendship is worth the one-sided effort to keep up, or if giving up and letting go is the healthiest and smartest thing to do. for once, i would like the decision i make when i follow my heart to be the smart decision.

maybe happiness is too much to ask for.

'teach people to be different. that's all!' i shouted after her as the taxi moved off. that is joy. happiness would be feeling satisfied with everything she already had - a lover, a son, a job. and Athena, like me, wasn't born for that kind of life." - paulo coelho, the witch of portabello

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...

never never land

i start training for camp today! woo! i'm nervous, but so excited. it's time for a new adventure. x