bubbly and lovely: i'm too poor for therapy.
been there and back again. too many thoughts and opinions and hormones get me in trouble.
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7.24.2002
a requested summary of camp
You asked about a brief summary of camp and funny things that happened. I
can't think of any good funny anecdotes, but there were plenty of funny
moments. There were also plenty of memorable things that happened that
involved the kids, so I thought I'd share some of them with you and everyone
else.
I realized this summer, possibly more than during any previous summer, just
what a great experience camp is for the girls. One girl, Taylor, absolutely
hated swimming in the lake because she was deathly afraid of fish. One day
during the first week, I managed to convince her to go in and after much
freaking out and pushing and prodding, she finally did and swam to the
floating dock and back in quite a hurry. The same week, she also tackled
her fear of heights while horseback riding. When Taylor came back the
second week, she went in the lake again and managed to swim a few laps for a
swim test. And she knew that she was psyching herself out and would say,
"This time, I'm just going to jump in and not think about the fish!" This
girl is extremely bright and has a lot of problems but during her time at
camp it seemed like she was self-aware and learned a lot about mind over
matter. And overcoming fears is always great to see in kids!
We also held two talent shows this summer, when the kids get to come up and
perform skits or songs or dances or anything their little hearts desire.
During the first show, a girl completely choked and left the stage in tears.
After many tears and talking to some counselors, she came back on stage and
did her song, and the crowd cheered very loudly for her. These girls were
so supportive of each other, even when they sang horribly off key! The
environment just seemed really nurturing and supportive for the girls and I
only hope they take these experiences away with them and build on them and
can grow their self-esteem even just the tiniest bit.
There are endless stories like these about girls and being challenged and
whatnot. The summer went very smoothly. No medical emergencies though we
had a few scares. The first week with the girls was stiflingly hot and
humid and the mosquitoes had quite a feast, but once the weather broke,
everyone was happier. The parent evaluations came back "95% positive" with
all complaints requiring only minor adjustments to fix. Apparently, this is
one of the best results ever (YEAY!). A lot of it had to do with the
unusually competent staff.
One little annoying story: One of the parents of a girl who was at camp
during session two is also a cadette/senior troop leader for her daughter
and a few other girls who were at camp. Every year after camp, apparently,
she grills her troop members who went to camp on what they did to earn the
badges/patches they take home. This year, she took home to IPPs, one of
which was VERY loosely fulfilled. So we wrote back and told her what the
girls had done and how, because we were at camp, we had to have loose
interpretations of the badge requirements, etc. We haven't heard back from
her yet so she must have been satisfied but boy oh boy did my heart jump
into my throat. I thought I was in a TON of trouble but actually, she's
just a over-bearing, controlling troop leader.
So that's that. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them.
And if you need songs about anything, I'm sure they're in my head. We spend
A LOT of time singing!
01:30
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