Camp

You all will be glad to know that I survived my week at Camp Cheery. For the first few days it looked as though my lack of sorority-ness would doom me to failure, but I actually had a really great week. Orientation was the hardest part. I was staying with 9 girls who were my exact opposites or at least led very different lives from mine. I felt like I did when I was that weirdo at school. I was not at in a sorority, and the only intense parties I attended this year were study parties. By the end of the first day I was ready to leave. But things looked up pretty quickly, I bonded with the 2 other non-sorority counselors, and we had a really great, really dorky time during orientation.

Once the campers arrived, things really started to look up. My co-counselor and I had the best cabin! They went to bed early; none of them were homesick, and we only had one small behavior issue. By the end of the week my ego was so inflated it was insane. I was basically skipping around camp going, "Who's a great counselor?  This kid! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!" In my head that is. I really try not to be blatantly prideful/obnoxious. 

Anyway, being a camp counselor has a whole lot of job satisfaction. All my little girls were very sweet. One day they brought me a slightly squashed day lily because they knew it was my favorite. They hastened to explain that they had found it on the ground, so it was okay, right? Even my one behavior problem turned out to be a very sweet, albeit very sad, little girl. In fact, when I had the chance to talk to her one on one, I found that she was a very smart, thoughtful kid who just needed a little more attention. 

This same girl, whom I'll call Becky, was probably the kid who made my job seem really important. At all the meetings before camp opened, the directors would say things like, "You will never know the impact you will have on these girls' lives." And I thought, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But Becky made me realize that what they said was true. From the start, Becky was a handful. She was loud, never listened, and seemed to have a knack for riling up the other girls. I was about to lose patience with her when something happened. The ringtennis coach (I'm not 100% sure what ringtennis is either), came up to my co-counselor and me and told us that she had had the girls going around the circle saying their names, where they were from, and why they had come to camp. Becky, after giving her name, had informed the group that she was there because her parents "needed a break." 

Immediately Becky's behavior became understandable to me. If her parents had that attitude about sending her to camp  no wonder she was trying to attract attention. This is the only part of  camp that truly made me unhappy: I had a week to prove to these girls that they are loved, something which their parents are not willing to show them in a lifetime.  Honestly getting the chance to treat Becky like the intelligent, sweet little girl that she is made my week-long job (and puny paycheck), seem worth it. 

Well, That Was a Rather Epic Fail.

I know, I know! I said I would write everyday starting last week, but as you may have figured out, that hasn't really happened. I was in a really bad mood, and I didn't want to inflict it upon the world at large, so I kept away from the blog. I have no excuse for slacking off this week; unless my need to sleep till noon counts as an excuse. Who knows, maybe this post will make up for two weeks of silence. Maybe.

I had the chance to see my two bestest buds from high school while I was not blogging, and oh my goodness, it was great! My pal, James, and I were notorious for skipping things like Legion of Mary meetings to get ice cream and Bojangles, Senior year. So, although he was only here for a day and a half, we found time to get ice cream and have a great chat. I realized that even though I love all my college friends dearly, there is no replacement for old buddies. I also got to spend a day with Lauren and her fool... I mean boyfriend. We saw The Avengers, which, ordinarily, is not really my kind of movie, but I really liked it. Then we went to this tiny little BBQ place which was way out in the country. This part was probably the closest I'll get to having an adventure for a while so  I really enjoyed it. The food was served on paper plates; you went along the buffet, and stereotypical old southern ladies dished meat on to your plate. Lauren and I drank about a gallon of sweet tea between us. Then we stayed for a while to enjoy the bluegrass and clogging.

I'm currently packing up to go to camp tomorrow. I'm really excited, but I'm also a little nervous. Never having gone to camp as a kid, this will be a whole new experience for me, but I'm glad I'll be starting off with the little girls who won't care if I make some mistakes. You're going to laugh, but I actually purchased a hula skirt and Lei as well as a plastic tiara for this week. The list of "things to bring" was very adement about bringing costumes, and the last time I dressed up was about 10 years ago, so I had to make an emergency run to the dollar store. Honestly I've probably spent more money on this week than I will earn from it, but oh well. I know it's going to be fun. Let me rephrase that: I really really hope it's going to be fun.

I also got a haircut. It seems that every summer I got absolutely insane for about two or three weeks. This is enough time to chop all my hair off.  Well, not all of it, but a goodly amount. So I tripped into the salon with long luscious curls and came out with, well bad 80's hair. It's okay though, I promise! My hair actually looks horrible right after it has been cut, but it has settled down very nicely. Apparently it looks very good because I posted a few pictures on facebook, and my internet popularity went up quite a bit, which is always kind of exciting. Kind of.

I'm in a bit of a panic right now because one of my summer jobs seems to have fallen through. In addition to my camp job a lady and I had exchanged emails about a steady babysitting job several times a week.  She had promised to call me and didn't, so I emailed her again, and again she promised to call me but didn't. I am very frustrated because I really needed that job because other jobs are so hard to come by around here. I guess I will call her- getting her phone number off the bottom of her email, which seems just a bit creepy to me, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I've also done some more work on the novel I sort of started this past semester. I've run the plot by a few friends, and they seem to think it's pretty cool, so I'm going to keep plugging away at it. One of my major goals this summer is to finish a writing project- something I haven't done in years. So whether it's this one or the one I worked on throughout much of high school, I really want to finish something.

You may have also noticed that there are now adds on the blog. Should you care to click them, that would be wonderful. If not, I won't ban you from reading. They're just... there.

Well, I hope that makes up for my laziness. I will see all of you next week!

So I'm babysitting the siblings while my parents are out of town... I swear I am the model babysitter with other people's kids. I come armed with educational games and books. I encourage playing outside. Heck, I've even let kids squirt me with super soakers, but when it comes to my siblings... Honestly things started off really well, I had everyone up, dressed, and at Mass by 7:50. I brought them home and was getting breakfast ready when the dentist called. There are just somethings I really don't want to handle before I've had my coffee and unexpected family dentist appointments are one of those things. So, basically, today was a charming roller coaster of yelling, then being sweet, then more arguing.

It is so hard to be the authority to people who know you don't really have any authority, and it is also really really hard not to ring the necks of those people you are supposed to be the nicest to. Father's homily today was all about how we should always give to others, but I'm just not sure how this applies if you are thiiiis close to throttling those sitting next to you. So I bought them ice cream. It was a sort of "I-can't-think-of-anything-nice-so-I'll-bribe-you" kind of move, but, hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.

On a happier note I finished The Prime of Miss Jane Brodie by Muriel Sparks. One of my parent's professor friends told me to read more Muriel Sparks over the break, so I have promptly set to work on it. He told me especially to read one story about a guy who's dressed up as a seraph for a Christmas play, but then a real seraph shows up.. Sound familiar to anyone? I can't for the life of me remember the title. But anyway he told me to read that one, so if I happen upon it, I will. My next selection is another one of Dr. B's recommendations: Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy. I'm planning to start that one either tomorrow or Thursday, depending on the babysitting gigs I've got lined up.

It's now 12:15, so I don't know whether this counts as today's post or yesterday's, but I'm thinking I should get off the internet before my eyeballs fall out. 

Goooooaaaaaaaaaaaals!

Well, I've been home for a whopping three and a half days. Since I have been home, I've done absolutely nothing. Do you want to know how bored I am? I am so bored that I have watched The Vow twice in the past twenty-four hours. Y'know it's not half bad if you just look at Channing Tatum's abdomen through the whole thing. Anyway, I was inspired first by Emmy and then by Charlie to challenge myself to blog everyday. I'll start with doing it for a week, and who knows maybe I can do it everyday all summer. Maybe.

Okay, well, that's a lie. I won't be able to do it for a week because I am going off to work at an all-girls summer camp, but perhaps for most of the summer. I don't know. Basically this is my refusal to do nothing all summer. Goodness knows what I'll find to write about, but I think it will be a good discipline to have. So there you have it. 

Oh hi, Ohio....

Except I'm not in Ohio. I'm not in Wyoming either, which is apparently where this picture was taken. No,  I'm in North Carolina, in a teeny weeny town I like to call Littleton. I'm sure there actually is a Littleton, NC, but I'm not there. I'm in the hypothetical Littleton. Frankly I would love to run screaming back to TX, which as we know, is so much less country. Not that I don't like Littleton, but my first impression of it has never really worn off.

My first impression was formed at a small, incredibly greasy, unbelievably local lunch counter on Main St. My family, house-hunting before we moved, was standing behind a woman who was discussing the pros and cons of having her boyfriend do her tattoo with anyone who would talk to her. Now, to fully appreciate this situation you must understand that my father was probably wearing a tie. To put it mildly, my family looked really weird, weirder than we did in the big city in which we were currently living. And I vaguely remember my fourteen year old self saying, "No, no not happening, not happening" over and over again.

To cut along story short, I'm back from college for the summer, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I don't want to be in class, but I'd rather not be here in Littleton, charming as it may be. We'll see how this one goes. 

Dead Day

Things are pretty dead around here, but that has nothing to do with the fact that it is 9:45 am the day before finals start. Yeah, nothing to do with that. I think I was the first person up on campus this morning, and for the past hour and a half I've had my favorite study spot to myself. My advisor came up about an hour ago and left his office door open for awhile. He and his classes are taking on my favorite English professor and his classes in an epic soccer showdown on Wednesday night. We are out to prove to my advisor that Raphael in Paradise Lost is an ironic character, anything to keep my professor from slipping hemlock into his coffee for corrupting the English majors. Technically I'm supposed to be studying Economics, but the cafeteria will open in seven minutes, and I'm staving. Maybe I'll spring for a warm caffeinated beverage too. 

My first semester at college was hard, to say the least. I was a billion miles from home, had two very difficult classes (which I was close to failing), and a brand new boyfriend who I had no idea what to do with. To make matters worse, the chapel on our campus makes me want to shrivel up and die. I was used to my beautiful home parish and my confessor who always gave good advice. At school our chapel is ugly and going to confession takes an hour at which point the priest gives you your penance and absolution, and you leave (if you got in at all that is). So one day I was a little surprised when my RA approached me and said,

"Not to be creepy, but were you waiting for confession the other day? You know it's a lot faster to go to the dominican priory, just ring the door bell, and Fr. Matt will let you in."

So my good friend and I trotted on over to the priory, where we were greeted by the oldest priest I've ever seen. He had a great big smile on his face, and in his quavery voice he asked us if today wasn't a beautiful day. We went into the little white chapel, and as he told us to, we took our time. Then I made the best confession I think I have ever made, and from then on I went to the priory frequently.

Fr. Matt really made me feel the love of Christ when I was very lost. He gave the church 76 years of service as a Dominican and 70 years as a priest. He was 97, and he would still hurry to open the door for me, even as he became more frail. I have never seen anyone so selfless and dedicated. Apparently the hundreds of people who attended his funeral thought so too.  He seems to have touched everyone from the wisest professors to the most socially awkward freshmen.

I never really realized what an amazing man Fr. Matt was. He was interested in everything: physics, biology, poetry. He could have been anything he wanted to be, but he chose to be a priest.

I think I will always miss Fr. Matt's big smile and soft voice. I will never be able to say 3 hail Marys without remembering him. I will miss having a friend to go to, but at the same time, Fr. Matt was a "straight to heaven" kind of man.