Hey people
So my first season at Summer Camp has come to a regretful however somewhat needed end. My last cabin, Charlie Charlie (a group of 4 junior girls) was absolutely wicked. They were well behaved, tonnes of fun and were up for anything despite the 2 days of pouring rain we (finally!) had at camp. Plus my co-counsellor was Kate HB, so we pretty much had the easiest week ever. Kids just about counselled themselves, which was awesome.
The last few days of camp were probably the most hectic of my life. The day our kids left we were put in groups to organise our station for the staff party, handed in our feedback forms then headed straight to town to buy all our necessary preparations. We then headed back, set up for and had staff party, which was an absolute blast! The next day we cleaned camp for about 6 hours and sort of wrapped up the season with dinner and a movie all together. (Quick note, G.I. Joe = Hilariously awful). The following morning we were all meant to be on the bus for 10am to head down to Vancouver, I found out about 15 mins beforehand that I had to move all my gear to my staff cabin for Fall. Managed to get that finished in time so I booked it to the bus with nothing but a small daypack, thinking I was going to spend a couple of days in Van before heading back to camp. As I was about to hop on the bus I spied Tyler with rather a bit more luggage than myself. When I asked him about he said "Yeah, we're going to Seattle, remember?" I had in fact, forgotten. Thankfully Parky made the bus wait for me so I didn't have to survive a week with one pair of jeans and a waterbottle. Never have I packed so fast in all my life. Threw whatever into my pack, booked it back to the bus and we managed to roll out only a bit late. Spent the rest of that day hanging out with the staff, we went to a Vancouver Canadien's baseball game (they won 2-1) then to Eddie's house for a BBQ before Alex, Anna, Ely, Tyler and I headed to the airport where we met Billy and Crumbles. Alex was flying out that night, then Anna and Ely the following morning. Spent alot of time racing trolleys, drinking caffeine and eating cookies, finding trippy bathrooms, spilling things, sleeping in a sort of home we made from two rows of chairs and just general aiport-related tomfoolery. We had plenty of time to fill, we were there from 8pm that night until 2pm the following day when Tyler, Billy, Crumbles and I caught a bus to Seattle. Had about 3 hours sleep, we were all already totally spent by the end of summer, and all this hectic-ness has left us with a rather large sleep deficit.
So right now I am staying in a hostel in Seattle. It is the nicest hostel ever, pretty much new and as there are 4 of us we have filled a whole room so its basically a hotel. Plus the bunks are bigger than camps, the water is hotter and the showers huge. And you don't have to worry about/listen to 8 kids, so this place is pretty much heaven right now. Seattle is a cool city, we spent today wandering, seeing some sights like the Pike Place markets (where they throw fish) and perusing a mall or two. Free samples = godly/lunch. Getting my thrift on in a big way.
When we were in Westlake mall today the most amazing thing of life happened. I was just walking along, minding my own business as I perused and I saw this chick in one of the shops. She had cool clothes and shoes and I was like I dig that look. As I continued to walk, I noticed she was super tall. And blonde. And strangely familiar looking. Then it hit me. It was Lauren Jackson!!!! Yes THE Lauren Jackson, star player of the Seattle Storm, best Aussie in the business, Captain of the Opals, my like life hero! I freaked out big time, and told Billy and Crumbles. We scouted for a few minutes just to make absolutely sure it was her. They managed to talk me into getting an autograph, I was too scared at first. So I got to speak to Lauren Jackson (who noticed I was an Aussie and said cool when I said I had tickets to the next game) after only being in Seattle for 1 day!!! Best day ever!!! So stoked! So I am guarding the paper with my life and can't wait to go by my jersey.
Anyway these communal computers need to be just that so I better quit hogging the machine and share the love. Just thought you needed a little update from the road. Am heading back to camp around the 23rd... Will try and write one more time before I leave.
Catchya on the flipside
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Minioning
Hey team
Apologies for the last post being so short. I will try to sort of make up for it with this one, I have arisen early so as to use the phone and found myself with a bit of time to jot down a few things.
So the 2 week session was an absolute ball. I had a wicked cabin of 8 9-12 yo girls who were pretty much self sufficient by the end of the first week so my LIT Tricia and I just lived the good life, unlike some of our colleagues who had less than agreeable cabins shall we say. I loved the longer session, I felt I got to know the kids alot better, and it was fun to have things like trip where we could all just hang out and you could just chat to them. Cheakamus Lake was a beautiful place to stay for a few days, nothing quite like a glacier fed lake for a bit of refreshment.
After the 2 weeker we had 2.5 days off. This was much anticipated as we had been working pretty much 3 weeks straight (we had 3 hours off one evening... we took off to Brohm Lake and lay on the rocks after a quick Walmart run). The majority of the staff headed up to Whistler to hang out, shop and have a bit of fun. We had a pretty sweet time, playing soccer in the main square at night, staying in hotel rooms and eating ridiculously priced supermarket food. I'm reasonably sure all I ate that weekend was peanut butter, oreos, honey nut cheerios and cinnamon bagels.... healthy? no. But delicious.
Now we are back at work, everyone returning from Whistler more tired than when they left camp, but I suppose that just shows we had a good time. The scary thing is there's only 2 weeks left of summer camp and then half the staff pack up and leave! 2 one week sessions remain. This session running now is probably one of the smaller ones camper wise, so Tyler, Crumbles and I have been swapped out from being counsellors and are on site work, or 'Special Ops' as Parky likes to call it. We're giving Trevor a hand with some of the maintenance around the site/being the kitchen hand. It's super fun, we get evenings and rest hour off and we get to listen to music all day and pretend to be council workers. Yesterday we painted some protective stuff on the fresh plywood around the base of all the wooden buildings. Being the smallest minion, I did all the parts underneath the porches, so I spent most of the day trying to keep spiders out of my hair. Good fun though. Today I think we are staining everything we sealed yesterday.... and after that who knows what wonderful jobs are in store for us. I also went on the bus run with Aaron yesterday to pick up the fresh campers from Vancouver. Always a good time, Tim Hortons from brekky and then listening to tunes through the bus speakers. Ah it's a hard life I lead!
In the upcoming break I am planning on hiking Garibaldi to see the mountain lake that is up there for a few days and then maybe a trip to Seattle with the other gappers/anyone who is still hanging around. Will try not to spend too much moolah... will hopefully get one more paycheck before the break starts.
Just wanted to shout out to Grantie and Grandpa, who I understand are in the UK at the moment so might not be able to read this, and say thankyou for the letter and the newspaper articles. I love getting mail so much, it totally makes my day when Shannie or Parky hands me a letter. Kicks email any day. But yeah, thanks again guys!
Hope everything is well in the big smoke of Perth... it has been hottttt here, like 37 degrees plus. It is cooling down this week to high 20s, low 30s which is like ultimately awesome perfect-ness. Summer should finish off amazingly.
Am semi freakin out not being able to go surfing/even buy an Aussie surf mag. American surf mags suck even more when it comes to equality between men and women in surfing. I just get frustrated every time I read it so I have given up. If I ever see an ASL I am hitting that up in a big way. Planning a trip to Tofino in the Fall when its meant to be super chill and less people and all that so should satisfy the craving which by then will be a fever pitch.
Here are a couple of shots from the 2 week session:
This is the view from the campsite we stayed in at Cheakamus Lake. That's my and Tricia's tent on the left and yes those are sweet glacier topped mountains on the right.
Here is Serratus, the tent cabin which is now pretty much mine as I will have lived in it for a month by the end of this week. Been there 2nd session for one week as an instructor, had it when I was a counsellor for the 2 week and now as a minion I have had it for another week.
A shot I took one evening when there were some sweet thunderclouds and the sky changed colour from golden to purple to red... And just to cap it off there was a double rainbow!
Tacky Tourist Dinner (one of our many themed dinners where everyone has to dress up), it was so hot in the lodge that butter melted off my face. Gross.
I think I will go listen to the humourous bingo game that is currently occuring in the Lodge and make a cup of tea... finally got myself some English Breakfast. Take care y'all have a good time til next we meet/vicariously meet through the world wide web..........
Apologies for the last post being so short. I will try to sort of make up for it with this one, I have arisen early so as to use the phone and found myself with a bit of time to jot down a few things.
So the 2 week session was an absolute ball. I had a wicked cabin of 8 9-12 yo girls who were pretty much self sufficient by the end of the first week so my LIT Tricia and I just lived the good life, unlike some of our colleagues who had less than agreeable cabins shall we say. I loved the longer session, I felt I got to know the kids alot better, and it was fun to have things like trip where we could all just hang out and you could just chat to them. Cheakamus Lake was a beautiful place to stay for a few days, nothing quite like a glacier fed lake for a bit of refreshment.
After the 2 weeker we had 2.5 days off. This was much anticipated as we had been working pretty much 3 weeks straight (we had 3 hours off one evening... we took off to Brohm Lake and lay on the rocks after a quick Walmart run). The majority of the staff headed up to Whistler to hang out, shop and have a bit of fun. We had a pretty sweet time, playing soccer in the main square at night, staying in hotel rooms and eating ridiculously priced supermarket food. I'm reasonably sure all I ate that weekend was peanut butter, oreos, honey nut cheerios and cinnamon bagels.... healthy? no. But delicious.
Now we are back at work, everyone returning from Whistler more tired than when they left camp, but I suppose that just shows we had a good time. The scary thing is there's only 2 weeks left of summer camp and then half the staff pack up and leave! 2 one week sessions remain. This session running now is probably one of the smaller ones camper wise, so Tyler, Crumbles and I have been swapped out from being counsellors and are on site work, or 'Special Ops' as Parky likes to call it. We're giving Trevor a hand with some of the maintenance around the site/being the kitchen hand. It's super fun, we get evenings and rest hour off and we get to listen to music all day and pretend to be council workers. Yesterday we painted some protective stuff on the fresh plywood around the base of all the wooden buildings. Being the smallest minion, I did all the parts underneath the porches, so I spent most of the day trying to keep spiders out of my hair. Good fun though. Today I think we are staining everything we sealed yesterday.... and after that who knows what wonderful jobs are in store for us. I also went on the bus run with Aaron yesterday to pick up the fresh campers from Vancouver. Always a good time, Tim Hortons from brekky and then listening to tunes through the bus speakers. Ah it's a hard life I lead!
In the upcoming break I am planning on hiking Garibaldi to see the mountain lake that is up there for a few days and then maybe a trip to Seattle with the other gappers/anyone who is still hanging around. Will try not to spend too much moolah... will hopefully get one more paycheck before the break starts.
Just wanted to shout out to Grantie and Grandpa, who I understand are in the UK at the moment so might not be able to read this, and say thankyou for the letter and the newspaper articles. I love getting mail so much, it totally makes my day when Shannie or Parky hands me a letter. Kicks email any day. But yeah, thanks again guys!
Hope everything is well in the big smoke of Perth... it has been hottttt here, like 37 degrees plus. It is cooling down this week to high 20s, low 30s which is like ultimately awesome perfect-ness. Summer should finish off amazingly.
Am semi freakin out not being able to go surfing/even buy an Aussie surf mag. American surf mags suck even more when it comes to equality between men and women in surfing. I just get frustrated every time I read it so I have given up. If I ever see an ASL I am hitting that up in a big way. Planning a trip to Tofino in the Fall when its meant to be super chill and less people and all that so should satisfy the craving which by then will be a fever pitch.
Here are a couple of shots from the 2 week session:
This is the view from the campsite we stayed in at Cheakamus Lake. That's my and Tricia's tent on the left and yes those are sweet glacier topped mountains on the right.
Here is Serratus, the tent cabin which is now pretty much mine as I will have lived in it for a month by the end of this week. Been there 2nd session for one week as an instructor, had it when I was a counsellor for the 2 week and now as a minion I have had it for another week.
A shot I took one evening when there were some sweet thunderclouds and the sky changed colour from golden to purple to red... And just to cap it off there was a double rainbow!
Tacky Tourist Dinner (one of our many themed dinners where everyone has to dress up), it was so hot in the lodge that butter melted off my face. Gross.
I think I will go listen to the humourous bingo game that is currently occuring in the Lodge and make a cup of tea... finally got myself some English Breakfast. Take care y'all have a good time til next we meet/vicariously meet through the world wide web..........
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