In a survey of campers and staff, more than 75% of those polled say they have no special birthday traditions.

friday

i know. i'm slacking.
but this is what my life looks like right now:

breakfast. facilitate. ask questions. lunch. nap. facilitate. ask questions. dinner. evening activity. study for GRE for 1.5-2 hours. shower. go to sleep. repeat.

there's not much to say. this week flew by. it was nice to be inside the majority of the time. it was even nicer to sleep in my fluffy bed.. which now consists of 5 pillows, a mattress cover, a down comforter and a quilt. starting tomorrow, i'll be back to one pillow, sheets and a thin quilt while we're traveling all week for the college tour with the second batch of kids.

so the goals are: survive the week. survive the GRE a week from now. then relax at gram and spanky's for a week and have fun at their party! before returning to camp. july will be a breeze. i just need to make it to june 25th.

i won't have my laptop this week, so i'll talk to you post-GRE. cross your fingers!

ladylike

so i am constantly on the hunt for nail polish that lasts more than a day, and i'm happy to report that i've found it. essie in mademoiselle. i painted my nails on saturday. today is tuesday. since then, i've taken many showers, picked up many things, dried my hair, picked up millions of papers, played capture the flag.. all without a single scratch or chip or flake. it is awesome.

like a G6

not a whole lot to report. it is HOT. over 100 all week. luckily, we aren't outside much.

there is so much to learn from a 17 or 18 year old. or 15 or 16, for that matter. they're optimistic and they see things from a different perspective. they haven't been hit with the hard realities yet. they're fun and silly. they define themselves by their talents or lack thereof. they're smart and funny and quick. they're easily inspired. they think outside the box.

i taught a lesson on what community is, how to diagnose a problem a community has, and how to begin to survey stakeholders to figure out root causes. they really got it. and they had to do the model walk if they didn't complete their worksheet. taiwan + preschool teaching experience gives me a unique teaching style.

i learned 10 new GRE words tonight! obsequious.. overly submissive.

in pictures

we watched this video today by onefluence about how young adults can make an impact. it is definitely worth watching. we listened to it with the sound reaaallllyy loud, and it seemed all the more impactful.

so the next round of kids has arrived. it is amazing how much bigger they are than the class we just had. everyone seems taller, and they just look like adults. they're a lot of fun so far.

i have random pictures! this is the counselors sleeping on the bus on the college tour..

 today's leadership challenge: getting a pen from 12 feet away and only your hands can touch the ground.

 ted let us cut his hair. this is the before.

 mid-way through.. i didn't end up getting a picture of the final product, but we did straighten out his bangs.

 and these are the monster cucumbers that have come out of the garden. we keep losing them because they get covered up by the giant leaves and you can't find them. and cucumber plants are really spiky.

home again

it's been 10 days! we went to 7 colleges in 5 days. it was all go go go all the time. lots of fun, but very busy..

the kids are awesome. they learned more about college this week than i knew as a sophomore at UT. hopefully they'll remember it all in a year or two when they start to need it. (they're juniors right now). they were fun and nice and polite. they asked really good questions.

how do you sum up a whole program in one post. we were up from 7 to 2 most days (the staff, not the kids). we did guided tours, we did scavenger hunts. we bought lanyards at the book stores and talked to student panels. i taught them how to do the unicorn call. we all learned how to do the UNT eagle 'ca-caw' + hand sign. we played mafia 100 times. we had sandwiches and pizza.

now we have a week on camp, so i'll be able to update, and then one more college tour. woooo! time for a hair cut. 

to the left, to the left

two stories.

i mentioned earlier how no one talks at meal times, so i've been the designated question asker. one day.. i asked everyone to tell their first kiss stories. we went around the room and told them. all were kind of random and lame.

(i had been waiting for the perfect kiss.. so i was 16 or 17 and had never been kissed. this guy who had a crush on me knew i hadn't been kissed because i was waiting for it to be special. we watched the movie Never Been Kissed and on the way out my front door, he took me by the shoulders, pushed me up against the wall before i knew what was happening and more or less licked across my mouth [or that's what it seemed like]. i was infuriated that he had ruined the first kiss i had been waiting and waiting for.)

so we get to the last guy (who's 23), and he says he has no story. he hasn't been kissed yet. i don't know which one of us was redder. so embarrassing. and then people kept joining the table and wanting us all to go around and tell our stories again. i kept insisting the moment was over and we couldn't do it again.

i told maj and jeff that story tonight, and jeff had a story of his own.

he and matt used to go to this sleepaway camp out in the middle of nowhere, texas. i think they went two or three years. jeff was a CIT (counselor in training) one year.. and he said this one counselor from kerrville (small town, conservative), brandon (or something), admitted he had never been kissed. so jeff was sitting around with some counselors and declared he was going to steal brandon's first kiss.

so the next time they all got together, at a meal time or something, jeff said everyone in the room was looking back and forth between jeff and brandon to see what was going to happen.. so jeff just got up and kissed the guy and said 'i just stole your first kiss!'. naturally, brandon was mortified. he didn't want anyone from his town to know his first kiss had been jeff.

apparently they talk every so often on facebook, and jeff always mentions how he was his first kiss.

and those are my stories of the day.