blog (July, 2002)
enwhycee
Saturday, the counselors here at camp visited NYC for an afternoon Mets game and an evening in the City. I drove on my own Friday night instead of Saturday morning, and met Andre, from CWRU, at 42nd & West Side Ave for a night out on the town. We strolled around Times Square a bit, then headed over to Greenwich Village for a walk, a burrito, and a drink. Chilled on the stoop of his house for a while, then to bed finally around 5. Good times; catching up on soon-to-be old times.
The next day things didn't work out so well for me. Dre and I drove around trying to find the Internet, finally doing so in a cafe. The email I received shattered my plans of dropping off my car for repair (see why) at a PepBoys where a friend's friend works. Said PepBoy owes my friend a favor, and my friend owes me one. I was going to have my car fixed on the cheap. Dre and I left the Internet where we found it, and followed each other to Shea Stadium. We drove around the stadium, dodging trucks and parking spots, until I finally hit one of the latter, dead on. It was too late to get some food together. We parted, Dre drove off, and I entered the stadium during the bottom of the first. I met the other counselors and we talked and yawned while the Mets met the Reds. They left for the bus after the eighth inning, and we promised to meet, Brendan and I each sporting a walkie talkie. I drove back into downtown, and could talk to Brendan around 57th street & 7th Ave, but lost the signal when I found my parking spot on 71st. Never heard or saw any of the counselors; ended up wandering about on my own, which would've been a great time except that I had hoped to find them all...
A single evening is certainly not long enough to see much of anything in such an enormous place. Much of the time I spent floundering about in Times Square area, still hoping to find my friends. There was some decent jazz outside at Lincoln Center, but that and the hot women didn't balance out all the ass clowns trying to show off their poor swing-dancing skills, so I didn't stick around for long. I walked around Tower Records, from one Listening Station to the next, checking out new releases. Either my appearance or my bag with leftover Pad Thai seemed to mark me as a sure-bet shoplifter, and I had the rental po-po 10 feet away at every turn, so I made sure to spend an extra long time exercising my right to look suspicious. By 8:30 I had Only Little Boy in New York in my head, so, thinking of Simon and Garfunkel, I made my way to Central Park, hoping a good mugging might turn my day around.
The only thing stolen from me was my thoughts of my friends. They were leaving to return to camp at 9:30 and I had stashed the walkie-talkie back in the car and given up on them. The park was friendly. I realized I'd been before, 5 years back, maybe. My ears led me toward a sort-of central gathering area. Couples reserved benches surrounding the large open area, and a few groups were congregated; one of Africans/Jamaicans on congas, another of middle-aged rollerskaters and rollerbladers dancing on their wheels to downtempo lounge music from a boombox. Another of old hippie-looking people tossing a frisbee. Some younger folk were perparing for a performance at the small stone amphitheater. A baby-boomer couple kicked a hollow, white plastic baseball across the ground's stonework, laughing and ooh-ing when the occasional herbal aroma drifted past. Finally, something a bit more innocent and spirited to watch, even if I wasn't allowed to participate.
The performance was Romeo and Juliet, and started at 9pm sharp. The twist was that the performers were the members of St. Mary's Catholic Girls' School English 201 Class, and they decided to dress in their Catholic Schoolgirl outfits for the play. At 9:30, (24 hours after I had left camp for the City,) Romeo left for the masked ball and I for my car to make it back to camp by 12:30 curfew.
rub-a-dub-dub, three men at a pub
Waaaaaaaaah!
pre-lunch crunch
Alan & I have temporarily given up on trying to teach computer skills in our classes. We've done a lot of work in setting up a good computing environment, and we're a bit worn down, ambition-wise. The kids are only interested in games and email for the most part, anyway. The oldest ones are the worst behaving and the youngest the most unaware, so for projects and activities we generally focus on the middle-aged kids; 9-12 year-olds or so. But lately we've been letting them surf the web and play games -- Snood and Marathon are the favorites -- and help them with whatever problems they run into.
This gives us some freedom, though. Alan burns a lot of cd's of music and software that we have at our disposal, and surfs around the topic of Neo-Tech, which seems to outline a strategy for personal happiness through Eastern Thought with a modern twist. I've been looking for a new job; still hoping to stay and work in the UK upon my trip to Ireland (leaving August 9th,) but apprehensive of how I will manage this.
It's nearly time for lunch, and I'm dreading it. Every meal is such a chore; the kids in my bunk are a handfull. So selfish when it comes to the food on our table, so competitive and argumentative, so rude and hurtful. The greediness is not so much an issue to me anymore; it is overshadowed by the bullying and spite. I've run out of ways to ease the tension; taking away their night-time "canteen" (candy and soda) privileges and making them stack the table's dishes don't have much of an effect anymore. I'm trying to figure out and learn new ways to deal with it, but not getting very far.
Here goes...
been a long time
I've been at summer camp. It a good place set in New York's Catskill Mountains, about 2 hours from The City. I'm a counselor/specialist, which means I have a number of kids I live with and look out for, and during the day I teach at the camp. Six 55-minute periods per day. I work five out of six, and have the other one off. Most of the rest of the day's time is spent with my kids in the bunk, playing sports/activities, or in the dining hall. Two nights a week I'm on duty from 9:30-12:30, the other 5 I'm free to do what I please (until the 12:30 curfew.)
I am the Computers specialist, which takes a little of the summer out of summer camp. I'm inside the new (but unfinished) air-conditioned building at camp most of the day; my five periods of work, plus my two on-duty nights, and more. I've pulled a few half-nighters here in the lab; there's so much to set up (apparently curfew doesn't apply if you're working for the camp's benefit...) My job has been frustrating as I'm a counselor, a teacher, and the camp's IT guy. I've had to set up and configure all of the computers and the network, which includes moving the machines into the new building, which still has no flooring, temporary tables, and constant hammering noises from the builders upstairs/in the next room. There is another guy, Alan, working with me in teaching computers, and he is a graphics wiz -- so that helps with teaching the kids, but not with any of the IT stuff... Alan and I moved the computers into the lab the day before camp began, and had to begin teaching the following day. Each period and free time if the computers aren't being used by the campers, the counselors are using them to email, so installing and configuring the machines is quite a difficulty. Which means we don't have adequate tools for the kids to work with. Not that they want to do anything but games and internet anyway. But, to end my bitching, things are steadily coming together; the lab is finally beginning to be quite useful and usable, and we're slowly learning to turn the kids on to things they can do with the computers.
I arrived on the 14th to begin work here. After a terrific at home bbq the night before with my friends, I had a pretty terrible next day. Packing bags with a slight hangover, driving four hours, missing a deer and hitting a guardrail instead, then driving a camp kitchen staff member home and getting lost on the way back really blew my day. Being in an unknown place with unknown people is enough to make life difficult.
Campers didn't come until June 22nd. I arrived early because I'll be leaving early. I felt quite like a stranger in my own country during pre-camp. Of the 80 (guess) or so counselors at pre-camp, there were 4 Americans. The rest were mostly Aussies and Kiwis, and even since the rest of the Americans arrived, the Pacific islanders still make up the majority. I had not expected this, but it's been a terrific experience. I dreaded and now almost regret the day the Americans showed up. Pre-camp was fantastic, though; it was as if we were at our own summer camp. We worked 9-5 during the day, then had the night to do as we pleased. It wasn't until the campers arrived that I realized how nice we had it. Once the little buggers showed up, we were rudely awakened to the fact that we had been living for ourselves, and everything was about to change.