New Job P1

Yet again one of those things I can only talk about vaguelly. All I can say is that I'm working in an infants school, so no names and no specifics, which is a bit shit. I've been working there for a month now which is largely speaking why I haven't posted during that time. Naughty, naughty. Interestingly it was the Camp America experience that got me the job. So, what can I talk about without incriminating myself? Well, it's an Infants School and I'm working in the year two class as an 'learning support officer', which sounds far more trumped up than it is. I'm a classroom assistant, which basically means I'm a jack-of-all-trades. The school caters for main stream and a lot of SEN kids too. The class is quite diverse and the ability range is fairly broad.

A typical day consists of getting in at around quarter to nine and making a cup of coffee. The kids arrive at nine and mull around until the teacher does the register. Usually during this time I'm mulling around doing little tasks like getting things ready, preparing activities etc. At the moment we're up to our eyes in Christmas play rehearsals, so that chews up the morning until break time. Break time duty consists of standing on the yard and stamping out fires, not literally of course. Those pesky kids enjoy their metaphorical fires. After break we carry on with different activities/lessons. The teacher always has lessons planned yonks in advance so it's just a case of getting on with it. The different ability groups do variations on the same task. Lunch is at midday and consists of two sittings. In the afternoon we try and do group reading, finishing work or Busy Time, which includes practising writing/drawing etc. Then they all go home at half three.

More to follow.

The Bug

Got in touch with a few friends the other day, totally unrelated people, both of whom told me they were going to America next Summer to work at camps. One of them has been to the U.S. before and travelled extensively throughout, the other hasn't been. The added excitement factor of people I know being there while I am is awesome. The one who hasn't been to America before is dead keen on travelling to Alaska and along the West Coast, coincidentally the bit I'd like to visit the most. Plans are beginning to form in my mind. I'd love to see San Francisco. Alaska would be awesome too - this may need some careful planning...

Oh, and one of the English guys from camp is definitely going back next summer. An awesome summer 2009 is simmering away nicely in potential. In other news, the prospects of a job are looking better and better. Fingers crossed.

Contract Signed

I've committed myself to next summer. The contract is signed and sent. Now all I need to do is get a job. You know, to pay for the ticket to get there, etc. Sigh.

Ambition 2

Finally (for now), you mention that you saw your degree as a step closer to being published. How true is this? Have you always wanted to be published as your primary goal? Is that what you personally got out of education? Is this something you discussed at camp at all, either with the counsellors or the kids? In the case of your comics, for instance, to what extent did anyone mention their potential to be published?

Getting published has aways been the dream if not always the literal goal. It has always simmered at the back of my head, particularly now as the more I write the more it seems possible. When I was younger I wanted to be a comic artist and to a certain extent I still do. At camp, whenever I drew or did anything I got the response I always get which is "You should try and get those published," or similar.

Ambition

"I suppose you've seen a lot of ambitious kids, particularly in the second four. Has this influenced your understanding of ambition? Was it all great, or was there an unsavoury side to it? Do you think ambition to win a competition is similar / different to ambition to be published? Are ambitious kids more attracted to camp?"

Camp does attract the fairly ambitious, but it manifests itself in different ways. Self-motivation is the general vibe, particularly among the older kids who're involved with varsity/junior varsity fun and games. It doesn't really affect the younger kids so much, however they do spend a lot of time running around and doing things - it's only at night that they spend time playing DS or PSP (and even then the games tend to be sports related). When I saw the kids playing with their dads they spent a lot of time throwing/catching baseballs - their coordination and hand/eye coordination is very, very good. Mostly the kids are very able, quite bodily aware and competent, lending themselves to all manner of physical exercise.

In terms of ambition though, and I did have a chat with one of the counselors about this, it's very difficult to actually become a professional sports person in the US, particularly in the most glossy things like football. Having said that their ambitions are adjusted to what they know they can achieve - so most kids try out for sports that they like. The thing I found the most interesting was that there was a wider variety of sports to do/be interested in. Sports get a much wider degree of coverage in the US - Basketball is very aerobic and physically demanding; Football is tactical and physical in bursts; Soccer (or real football) is a bit of a damp squib as far as they're concerned, but they are very good at it because most of the skills they're good at in other sports are transferable; hockey, voleyball, tennis, swimming etc. are all variations. I don't think there's as much enthusiasm for all of the sports in the UK in the same way, or at least not that I've seen. In school it only seemed to be football and rugby that got the attention, but then again our sports department wasn't that big and therein lies the problem. TV and national leagues play a great part in the American attitude towards sport. Basically, there's plenty of support for sporting ambition in the US.

There were several kids there who were hard core all rounders who basically swept certain competitions (prompting the chant "Serrrrrrrr-weep! ". The attitudes of the kids was generally quite supportive to the extent that it draws a lot of overweight but well-adjusted kids who just enjoy being there. In some cases their attitudes were bad but overall it was very encouraging. In terms of The Week however it was as good as it could be considering it was a super intense competition that involved drafting everybody. Is it different from wanting to be published? Yes and no. It's a much more physical and personal ambition as compared to a mental, personality based ambition. None of the kids had actual ambitions of being actual sportsmen. At least I don't they do. They probably do.

Zeitgeist

"The credit crunch didn't touch you in camp, but what external influences were there? You mentioned in another entry that music was a big thing, but what else sneaked into camp? Computer games? Books? Knowledge of films? How sealed off are the counsellors? What about the kids?"

No. Well, basically I was blissfully cut off from the rest of the world. I was dimly aware of the credit crunch but it didn't literally affect me while I was there - how could it? I was in the middle of nowhere? Wasn't I? Well, of course I wasn't, silly me. I wasn't just in the middle of nowhere, I was in America. I remember thinking this at the time, that Americans (anyone really, but in this instance) can get complacent quite easily because the geography and scale of the place is so large. How does what happens on Wall Street with the "fat cats" really affect small town America? In the way all Americans get paid/pay for things, as it turns out. The psychology of fingers-in-ears, la la la - I can't hear you! logic applied quite heavily.

In terms of the zeitgeist of the kids and the counselors, well they basically brought the whole thing with them. Kids for the most part have fads and general interests, so even though the boys weren't into Miley Cyrus and High School Musical that kind of thing came with them in essence. It was strange hearing Coldpay and Bleeding Love being played ad nauseum because apart from being anachronistic, they seemed very British to me and very out of place. Computer games and that kind of thing played a big role in the general background noise - Mario Kart on the DS in particular; GTA IV. The biggest thing really was The Dark Knight. Obviously, Batman is cool, but this film was already legendary in statues before anyone had seen it. When it finally came out we were all clamouring to go and see it. Entire cabins geared up for Honour Cabin just so that they could go into town, plans were made in advance and many a conversation began with "Have you seen it yet?"

Everyone, what with it being a sports camp, was particularly in all the sporting events. The baseball was an ongoing interest, of course all the counselors have laptops and access to the wireless (lag, laggity, lag, lag, lag), so they were all keeping tabs on their teams. Towards the beginning there was the NBA final, which I think I've mentioned re: the drafting process. The big thing towards the end was the Olympics. All of these things flavoured the atmosphere.

Working

"Did anyone at camp build a career out of it? That is, how many people there worked in camp with no other means of supporting themselves? Is that possible? What happens to the camp when it isn't summer? Still operational? Do the employers spend all that time preparing for the following year?"

The only ones who come close to having made a career out of Camp are the Directors, particularly the older Directors. There are two sets, the Older Directors include the boss and his wife, the younger ones include the boss's daughter and her husband. The boss started at camp in the late fifties and has returned every summer bar one. In the eighties he and his wife took over as Directors. In addition to this though both had off-season jobs, as does everyone who works at Camp. The boss and his wife are now retired and spend more time, I'd imagine, planning long term things like new-builds, repairs etc., or liaising between staff, customers and the share-holders. It's not a full time job for anyone apart from them.

The young Directors handle all the high energy stuff during Camp's eight week duration. Both the boss and his younger male counterpart were/are teachers, so that's what they did/do during the off-season. Ultimately the boss will fully retire, I'd imagine, but I can only see that happening when he's physically incapable of doing the job anymore. He really loves Camp.

There is a caretaker who lives at the site all year around, his job is to look after the books for the logistical stuff - making sure everything's stocked up, for example. One of the things he does is go to bed at around seven in the evening and wake up at four in the morning to go and get fresh fruit and veg every day. The other domestic staff either live in the surrounding area, like the cleaners, or they travel up for the summer - the doctors and domestic nurses etc. The site itself closes down for the winter. The area actually gets a stupid amount of snowfall every winter, so the whole place changes dramatically in the off-season (it would be interesting to do a winter camp there, seeing as you could do ice skating on the lake and snow mobile fun and games - I doubt they'd ever want to actually do that though). Also, during the winter, that's when big things get done - they do a lot of subtle changes and upgrades each year and one big cosmetic one for the kids - for example, last year they added a new building and changed the basketball hoops for the kids. The undeniably adult staff (people who aren't like me, people with dependents/families/lives in the world beyond) who have worked there for years come from far and wide. Some come from Israel, most others come from out of state, all see camp as a part of their lives as opposed to jobs.

Books

"You mention refusing to feel guilty about buying books. Do you value books over, say, DVDs? Is this because you personally prefer them, or because books are cheaper, or because you feel books are inherently more valuable?"

I'll admit I was being a bit silly when I mentioned the whole "feeling guilty about buying books" but it is something I'm aware of, if whenever I'm in somewhere like Waterstones. There have been times when I've spent hours browsing for a new book, nothing has immediately inspired me so I've walked out happier not having bought anything. I go through periods of being very frivolous about spending and periods of extreme thriftiness. My mother once said, (in response to me saying something along the lines of: "Mam, we've got too many books,"), "You can never have too many books." I must admit I've taken that little saying to heart. In terms of DVDs and CDs I feel a bit more cheap. I love films and I love music, but not as much as I like books.

Without books at camp I'd probably have enjoyed it far less. There's a lot of down time which can get spent in a variety of ways. The American staff have their laptops - I don't have one ergo I need something to keep me going. I brought a small library of books with me, which on several occasions the international and American staff dipped into because there wasn't much of the way of books at camp. I'd anticipated not having access to a decent bookstore so I brought things that I'd intended to read for a while, for example the Ian Fleming tripe bill of From Russia with Love, Doctor No and Goldfinger; or things I knew I wouldn't be able to get with ease. I think I chunked through six or seven novels while I was out there, which is pretty good going really.

Summer Soundtrack

Shameless Summer reminiscences. There may be a quite a few of these as and when I remember them. They seemed a bit pointless to mention at the time but these particular songs have stayed with me (partly because the British music scene gets punctured by American Pop two months later). Effectively these songs have followed me home and I can't help but like them, largely due to their associations with the "socials" that the camp held with other camps. Seeing, what were effectively school discos from an outsider's perspective is weird and cool. Cool insofar as they're instantly nostalgic because they're EXACTLY the same abroad as they are at home. Kids are brilliant.

So, here are the shameless songs:

1) See you again, by Miley Cyrus, (the girls really liked this one).
2) I kissed a girl, by Katy Perry (the boys in particular went a bit bonkers for this one because of the "kissing girls and liking it factor", apart from the youngest ones who didn't get it and the younger ones from Texas in particular who didn't like the homosexual overtones - we tickled that out of them though - seriously, Camp is shamelessly and knowingly "camp" - they haven't actually heard of the phrase "camp" in its cultural Boy George kind of way - there's an irony there somewhere).
3) Pocketful of Sunshine, by Natasha Beddingfield (like I say, stupidly camp. Loved every second).
4) Disturbia, Rihanna.

Where am I again?

Those three words: credit, crunch and recession got me thinking, as I imagine they're getting everybody thinking, about money. Camp doesn't pay that well. I could have earned double what I made at Camp by working at home. Admittedly, I probably would have spent more that half of that on miscellaneous rubbish. "Oooh Look!" Says I, looking at all the pretty things on sale in HMV, "I've got twenty quid burning a hole in my pocket!". Of course, in a practical sense we have to still spend money on these kinds of things because it's what keeps an economy strong: healthy spending. Which is what I told myself when I was in uni, spending casually on shit I didn't really need, frittering away my student loan on lining the pockets of Virgin Megastore and Waterstones. (Small aside: I will never feel guilty about buying books. I refuse to. Come hell or high water I will get my literary fix. So there.).

So, at the moment I'm looking for a job, without a car, with a lot of debt and the job market stubbornly refuses to employ me! The bastards! I got a degree, and a diploma, I've done everything the government, society and my family/peers expected/wanted of me. And now, I'm either "over qualified" or a bit of a liability because I "may not stick around" (as if! Like I know what I want to do with my life in a practical and sensible capacity!), more than that though, half the time you need an additional qualification to do anything even remotely interesting.

So, like the proverbial Crazy Diamond I have "signed on" with the jolly-old Job Centre for the time being. This also got me thinking about living in little bubbles. Throughout the summer I paid little to no attention to the gathering storm that was to become the big three words. In fact, I had to go out of my way to hear anything because it was such a busy, all-encompassing experience. To be honest though, I wanted to shut the world out a little bit. While I was there I spoke to my parents... twice? I did keep a blog and stay in contact via email, but I have to admit to relishing the experience of severing all ties. After the Art Foundation finished everything was a bit hectic (I pulled down the exhibition two days before flying out(?)), because I knew I was going away I found myself not committing myself as much to the world around me. Now that I'm back though I'm absolutely engaged and getting about 75% of what I wanted to get done, done.

Which brings me to the conclusion that there are real world pressures and personal pressures. In an ideal world I'd be a published author/comic artist and that would be that. In an ideal world I'd be paid to do exactly what I'm good at, but for the time being I have to make do and do inbetweeny things like build up a portfolio. I had this image in my head the other day of me in a teaching capacity, wondering what I'd say about the subject of ambition. Society and acquired knowledge tells us that ambition isn't a good thing. Even JK Rowling puts ambition in the unlikeable Slytherin category, but in reality she needed a fair old whack of bloody-minded ambition to get a book published while she was living on the bread line. To me, ambition has never been a bad thing, there is, after all a difference between an ambitious person and a selfish person. While ambition is a symptom of selfishness, they aren't mutually dependent. I would say that a healthy amount of ambition is a good thing - it means that you will pursue the things that interest you - as far as I'm concerned, settling for second best isn't ideal for anybody. In many cases I'm quite lazy and I can see myself in a year's time applying for a PGCE because it'd be an easy "second best" option. The past summer has proved to me that I love working with kids, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I became a teacher, but I'd feel like a bit of a hypocrite.

Ultimately the secondary education system lulls us into a false sense of security. Sheep-like I followed the path to university, where I was told I'd increase my chances of getting a good job afterwards and that everything would be greener on the other side. I'm not trying to belittle my degree, academia or anybody's academic ambitions, but I sometimes get the nagging sensation that I may not have gone to university had I not been steered towards it. This may sound contradictory, but I never had any ambitions of getting a degree, really, I just knew that it would probably help facilitate getting published.

Hmm Sweet Hmm

I've kind of needed a bit of space to be able to write this, seeing as having come home things have been a little strange. The programme actually warns you that the re-adjustment is often stranger than the adjustment in America. You aren't expecting to have to re-adjust in coming home. It's a bit of a touchy subject really insofar as I'm not sure of a) how big of a deal I'm making of things, and b) time will tell how well I settle back into the rhythm.

So far I've noticed that the patters of my life at home are totally different to what they were abroad. I write more. I mope more. I watch more TV. And I'm embarrassed how much later I seem to be waking up every day. The fact that I haven't got a job yet is another cause for concern.

Upon returning home, and on my first official UK drive, my car promptly kicked the bucket. I was on my way to re-unite with mates and it died. So, I'm without a car. Which is probably okay for some people but I feel restricted. I don't have wander lust by any stretch of the imagination, I'll go as far as to say that I found the touristy side of visiting America to be tiresome in the extreme. But not having the ability to go wherever I need to be with ease is a real pain in the arse. It was bad enough at camp, trying to negotiate lifts and plan things WELL in advance, but that was understandable - the most exciting thing to do in the middle of nowhere is go to the movies; at home I have friends who live miiiiilllllllleeeeeeeeesssssss away. And now I can't see them as easily and if I do go, I need to pay, which sucks, because I don't have any money.

So. Some news. I'm waiting to hear back from the Camp Director re: an invitiation for next summer (it's an official piece of mumbo jumbo the agency needs), but when that comes through I'll be able to sign up for next summer officially. Oh yes. I have every intention of returning. At the purely mercenary level it's two and a bit months of guaranteed work which doesn't come with the hang up of me spending it all on incidental crap. Also, I want to by a Macbook. But at the moment the lack of income is a serious issue, particularly considering there'll be a flight to pay for in May and rent to pay in the meantime. Things may get better. But three specific words are making me feel a bit five-pence-fifty-pence: Credit. Crunch. Recession.

Long term plans for the blog include filling in the gaps. Several people have mentioned wanting to know more so I'm inviting questions from my small but interested audience. Inquire away.

To sum up...

Things are better now. A point of the shagging was made and for the most part it has stopped. I've taken to exhausting myself during the days to make sure that I sleep. Sounds unhealthy? Well, there are only too more days left. Speaking of two days left, I feel compelled to do a bit of a Jerry Springer and sum things up.

Before I came here I had no real idea of what it was going to be like. America gets a lot of coverage, so I knew some things, but like having a vague idea of what softball is, I didn't know all the rules. I'm bringing a dvd of the camp home with me and I'm going to make a point of showing it to all who'll watch it. It's basically a soundbyte documentary of what happened this summer - every kid, cabin, sport and occasion is featured. I remember watching similar videos before coming and all left me feeling intimidated and a bit freaked out - after all it's a completely different culture - but now having lived it for three months I feel as if in some way it's my culture too.

Cut grass smells exactly the same here as it does anywhere else and by that, in a roundabout kind of way, I mean that it's not as weird or strange as it looks or sounds because things are
the ultimately same. Mint ice cream and strawberry ice cream taste different, but they're still ice cream. Once you get past the funny accents and the occasional baffled look before you repeat yourself, the people are all the same. It's why I want to come back next year, basically. I heard a London accent randomly the other day and it just felt weird.

In the next couple of days we'll be closing up shop and moving on to Chica-Chica-go-go (don't ask - these guys'll chant anything). A family have offered to let me stay and they are the most amazing people. Two of their kids were my campers so it's going to be cool to see them again. This second week of post-camp has been better because several of my campers' families have come up. I'm such a sap - I can't believed I missed them that much. Ah well.

All in all it's been a long and tiring summer and I've had an incredible time. It's been an interesting experience trying to carry on doing what I normally do but taking into consideration the spartan nature of living out of a rucksack. I've decided that I could live without most things, but I couldn't live without paper. My next post will likely be from a different computer.

I am seriously looking forward to coming home.

Flipside

I find it increasingly baffling how a summer that has been so amazing can change to the complete opposite almost over night. It has been seven days since the kids left and I find myself now counting down the remaining seven days to the day that I leave this place for Chicago. In principle not much has changed. The kids and American staff have gone, certainly, and a bunch of ex-camper families have come up for what's called Post-Camp. The soured heart of the problem is twofold, firstly I am now forced to occupy my spare and night time with people who's behaviour I find increasingly reprehensible. Secondly, the emphasis at Post-Camp is on working for tips, which can be fairly large so I'm told - the effect this has had on the staff is to turn those prone to brown nosing into overdrive.

With regards to the first point, problems have been simmering all summer. While the campers were here I had the Cabin as a retreat, but now I'm forced to live in the midst of the problem. To begin with things were quite affable, we got on well and there were no problems. Slowly, as these things happen, egos started to emerge and things began to unravel. On the one hand you have people like myself, quiet, unassuming, committed to doing the job and putting the campers first. On the other hand you have the staff who don't see this as a job but a vacation. Not only this, but for the most part they share some awful personal characteristics - they're all obnoxious, loud, vindictive, wholly selfish and completely un-interesting. This wouldn't be a problem if I could escape their poisonous company, but I can't because I'm forced to sleep in the same cabin as them. Oh, and another thing, they don't like sleeping, they like getting pissed every single night because they're boring and have no other way of sustaining their entertainment. Oh and another thing, they insist on invading everyone else's privacy by having sex - loudly, frequently and in the same room as the rest of us - until the early hours of the morning. By which I mean 5 AfriggingM. Not only that though, these aren't the same partners every night, these are different women (and I use that term loosely). Imagine my rage, my abhorrence, my absolute hatred of these people. Then imagine me having to listen to the pithy way in which they brush aside my concerns - "Ah well, anything can happen when twelve lads get together in a room!"

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK YYYYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And breathe.

The second point. The brown-nosing. After a long summer of being an authority figure, a mentor, a friend etc. (basically all the psychologically rewarding bits), I'm finding it hard to adjust to the job I came to America to escape - i.e. waitoring (or, picking up other people's shit because they're rich). Luckily, I'm being paid a healthy rate for these extra days and I don't have to "depend" on whatever these people are prepared to give me based on how much I suck up. If you don't like the service I provide, then you can go swivel. I'm not a bad waitor, I'd go as far as to say I'm a pretty good waitor, so the implication that there's something I'm not doing, I find slightly offensive. On top of all this I have far more free time than I had before, and far from making me happier, these periods are dragging the days out, swelling my least favourite of all human conditions: boredom. All this equals an extremely frustrated Jom.

Ultimately I have two choices, suffer in silence or snitch, and seeing as I have to spend most of my time in the company of these people even though they're making my life a misery, I'm not really inclined to do the latter. Suffice it to say the Director will be hearing my views on the subject and it will be affecting whatever contract he decides to draw up for next year. Fortunately there are three others who share my misery so I'm not suffering in silence. Eight weeks of blissful work and satisfaction far outweighs the irritating mire I find myself in, so my intention to return next year still stands. But by God, there are going to be conditions.

Are we tight?

So. Camp is kind of winding up and winding down. The massive all-week competition is rattling along steadily and my duties have been drastically reduced, which has basically left me in a small lurch. The free-time is nice but I find myself getting really stir-crazy - all I want to do is spend more time with the kids but they're always off doing competitiony stuff. I do get to see them at archery, which is cool but a little bit hectic.

So, mixed feelings. It's hard to get excited when you aren't on a team and everyone else is. It is an interesting lesson in American male psychology though. The little kids' moods have been reduced to overjoyed or uber-bummed out. I went on a little sojourn to the other cabins last night and hung out with a bunch of kids I normally only see in the day. They'd started a club called the Moobies - mostly composed of all the arty kids with wacky personalities - based on a conversation we'd had the previous day concerning Man Boobs, M-oobs or Moobies. I hope you find this as funny as we do. Anyway, it hadn't occurred to me that I could actually hang out with these kids in a non-responsible adult kind of way. One of the kids asked me "Are we tight?", as in to say "Are we cool/mates?" etc. He didn't really need to ask. Genuinely one of the most uplifting moments of the summer. It's gutting that this frighteningly obvious conclusion came to me five days before camp ends. Ah well, c'est la vie, there's always next summer.

The One One

Some people might call this place a sausage-fest. It's an all-male camp after all. You may be wondering why the majority of the people here abscond from any major female company for eight weeks (well, half of them are pre-pubescent and couldn't give a monkeys). Today I witnessed a camp tradition, the picking of the teams for the last eight days of camp. Twelve team coaches adopt the names of twelve American Colleges (universities for the condused/foreign) and Draft the entire camp. For those unfamiliar with Drafting it's worth looking up. Most major American sports teams don't "buy" their players, they get awarded their position in a draft by what position they end up in at the end of the season. So, the Celtics just won the Basketball jobbie a month ago - they got to pick, from the pool of players on the transfer list first.

In our case the position in the draft is awarded randomly. In the first pick they basically pick the twelve best athletes in camp. The team who get the first pick effectively pick the Best Athlete in Camp. Okay. Let me put this in perspective. Everyone at camp is an athlete. Most of the kids don't arrive until second four because they're off playing varsity baseball or whatever. For the second four there are hundreds of City X's richest young athletes. The award of being a first round pick is an incredible one. Bear in mind this isn't an "OMG I'm so much better than you " thing - maybe it's hard to explain that there isn't anything elitist or braggy about being a first round pick, it's more like a recognition of dedication. The other thing is, in preparation for the draft the camp undergoes a mass scouting binge. For the last two weeks everyone has been extensively researching everyone else. I don't jest. In fact, to everyone else around here it's deadly serious. My point is, everyone knows who the One One is going to be before he's picked, either that or they have an extremely good idea. There are no real surprises, ergo there are no tears.

Okay, back to my original point. Everyone I have ever met (back home), bar a small minority of very settled and comfortable individuals, who has had any kind of sporty inclinations has been an arsehole. I'm not saying tempers don't fray or that this place is some kind of sports paradise... but it's pretty good. And the great thing is I don't have to do any sports! It's basically the atmosphere and the company - devoid of cynicism this place actually works as a competitive and supportive community. The only kids who cry about losing here are in my cabin and they soon grow out of it.

Head Space

Yesterday we went to Walmart. Wow, not only does it sell everything (guns included), it also sells everything at ridiculously cheap prices. I'm not talking Tesco is two pence cheaper on bananas than Asda cheap, I'm talking a flat screen HD TV is thousands of dollars cheaper than anywhere else. Walmart isn't just beating the competition, it's undercutting the competition to the extent that there is no competition. Walmart has won. They even have leaflets dotted around the store aimed at people who don't have that much money - for example, you've got a five year old who goes through clothes at a rate of knots, "Do the math!" the headline screams - then it lists everything you need to buy for that child and how much you're saving. These aren't just empty boasts with pennies to save, they are literally offering a stupidly cheaper alternative.

Scarily, Walmart was in a large industrial estate on the outskirts of a larger town, much like the ones you see anywhere in the UK, but, whether by karma or intention, opposite Walmart on the highway was a trailer park, full of Walmart's target demographic. A brisk drive down the highway and everything that Walmart didn't sell (or did, they do, after all sell "everything") was sold here. We even passed a hospital which had more in common with a superstore than a place of medical emergency and rest. Sweeping out before it was an enormous car park and it occurred to me that everything here is for sale. Health care is a commodity. I even saw drive-thru ATMs. You might be forgiven for thinking that it was at this point that I lost my mind, sloppy grey-matter dribbling out of my ears like microwaved porridge. Fortunately, my sanity stayed intact. Just.

Everything is for sale. Someone mentioned tipping in a comment, but this is, again, a culture where everything is paid for, even service and courtesy, and this isn't in a grudging kind of way, it's just par for the course. They want to give you their money, there is not point in being chivalrous and refusing because they don't seem to get why you'd refuse. The preverbial you has offered a service, that service is then repayed in gratitude and a twenty dollar bill. It's just business, it's just the way the world works. In the UK people begrudge having to give up their cash. If you tip someone out of desire, more than courtesy, you are going out of your way to acknowledge extraordinary service, above and beyond that which is just expected. Money makes things work. Work makes money. It's simple... what other system works better...???

Cough. Sorry - drifted off into a world of capitalist bliss. And I'm back in the room! Okay. Head Space. I don't really talk about these things out loud, which is why I blog them instead. What I was originally going to write about was how, without regular and personal access to a PC, ideas are slopping around in my head blending into one another. I bought a notebook the other day with dividers built into it - now I can keep notes and keep things seperate! Isn't it amazing how paper is still the best way of keeping track of things? For thousands of years humankind has been writing things down and the concept is still going strong. Wonderful. I love paper.

Amlen y teclyn sy'n glanhau'r gotsan

So. New kids, halfway through the great American experience and everything's all quiet. They say no news is good news, but it's also boring to Blog about. The truth is I could blog every little detail and in twenty years time I could look back and think "Shit! I remember that!", but that isn't quite the point. The blog medium seems to me to be about the here and now, the immediate, and then have people respond. It's a soundboard for the little details that are interesting. So, it's not really that interesting that my excitement levels are peaking for The Dark Knight next monday and the trip to the next largest town for comfy seats and a big screen. Some may say my priorities are misplaced.

How about this then smart-guy - one of my campers ate beef today for the first time since he was five. The other day he was upset at dinner because, in his words, "there wasn't any food for him". I tried convincing him that eating beef wasn't the end of the world but he was having none of it. This evening, with only hamburgers to eat he happily gave it a try and actually liked it. I was very proud. All of my new kids are amazing. Visiting weekend came and went like a breath of fresh air, plus I made eighty dollars in tips! It's nice to actually meet the people who normally look after these kids. The parents were a grateful bunch and not just in a financial sense. One actually gave me a business card. I was stunned. Some of the kids had such a good time first four that their parents agreed to let them stay for second four. It was incredible seeing the kid's excitement and the parents' appreciation.

Fourth of July

So, I got to experience The American Holiday the other day. For the past week there have been fireworks going off all around the lake. The day itself dawned bright and early, just like most other days. I keep expecting it to rain but it never does. I can't quite understand how there can't be overcast days... it just doesn't make sense! How can a place be sunny pretty much constantly? One of the Aussies was funny - on the one day that it did rain he was actually shocked, he couldn't understand how much water could fall from the air. I told him he had no idea and never to visit the UK, the shock may be too much for him.

Anyway, July Fourth/Fourth of July. It started off pretty badly actually. The Director's been breathing down my neck to get the totem-pole finished when there's around six weeks left to get it done. The implication that I was doing nothing got to me a little bit. Not only that but the kids were being little snots when it came to morning clean-up, so I wasn't in the best of moods. But when lunch time rolled around the kitchen staff set up tables on the lawn and served foot-long hotdogs with luminous green relish, a pasta salad and cookies decorated in red, white and blue. The sheer American-ness of the whole thing cheered me up, it was wonderful. So, we ate outside in the sunshine, the kids played and I took some pictures.

Later that evening they had a social with a local girls' camp. A bunch of DJs came with an enormous PA system, decks, a stage - the whole kit and caboodle. One of them was a big fat white guy who held his headphones at a jaunty angle, another was a skinny black guy who had a baseball cap at a jaunty angle and the third was another white guy who thought he was Justin Timberlake. They put on a good show, but my oh my did my cynical British self laugh at them. What a bunch of wallies. In the end the international staff hogged the dance floor. Despite the fact that four-hundred horny teens were about to combust with excitement, they just couldn't keep up with our moves. Ha ha ha, says I.

In general though life dribbles by as ever. The days still go by fairly quickly, today is Sunday and despite the hair-loss over super-cabin-cleanup it'll go by pretty quickly too. Last night was awesome, Cabin Nine came in and helped out the little guys with clean-up. I know they were going for Honour Cabin again and were sucking up a bit, but they were really nice about it. Yesterday was a bit trying in another way. One of our campers got caught going through our stuff. We weren't surprised, to be honest, but we knew that our reaction to this incident had to be more serious than normal so we took the offender to the office to see the Director. He's a strange kid. His maturity is about a year off his age - he's eight but he acts like a seven year-old at times. His default reaction is to cry whenever he doesn't get his way. My default reaction is to be stern. It's one of those strange situations where he isn't ready for camp yet, but what he needs is to stay here and get all his bad home habits replaced. The tragic thing is he can be really nice, generous, thoughtful etc. but his default reaction is to lash out. I may as well mention the letters situation while I'm on the subject. In the end I managed to write positive stuff about all of the kids I was writing for. I sat them down, asked them what they were enjoying and concentrated on those. The truth is there isn't a single nasty kid in the cabin, as such. I think a few of them have the potential to become nasty, but on the whole they're just young and a little spoiled.

Looking forward to the week ahead - well, this is the last week of First Four - which basically means I'm pretty much halfway through the American adventure. A lot of the kids in my cabin will be going home next weekend, many of their parents will be coming up to either collect them or stay for the weekend. The following week the ones that have left will be replaced and then the fun starts all over again. I think we're losing a hundred kids but gaining a hundred and fifty for second four. About five or six from my cabin will be staying, which is nice.

Yay-rah-rah

Okay, so the camp Olympics have been going on this week, which meant I was responsible for officiating the archery and track meet events and it got met thinking about competition. I like to think of myself as not very competitive, but secretly I can go a bit mad at times and get really wound up. I don't like getting wound up about competitions because I think it's, personally, unhealthy, ergo I don't get excited about competitions, be they in game form or otherwise. I can only play about half an hours worth of four-player Goldeneye before I go a little bit mad. But that may just be because of the DK and paintball cheats. So, it was interesting watching three hundred men and boys go nuts over a re-enactment of the Olympics. I am faithfully told that Collegiate Week (the then day uber-competition at the end of the Summer) is far more competitive.

From the archery range I didn't hear much of what was happening elsewhere. After all, I had ten eager eight to ten year olds waiting to face-off in a gruelling battle to see who was the least shit at hitting the target. Five arrows each, two kids, starting with the youngest. You won't be surprised to learn that this was the real test of my patience. In fairness the kids didn't get that wound up, they were a bit competitive, they were also good little sportsmen so there were no fall-outs. On the obstacle course however, where I was officiating the horse-shoe tossing competition things were a bit different. I have never seen people get more wound up about getting a horse-shoe around a pole. The significance of it just went straight over my head.

This weekend is the weekend of writing letters home to the parents. We mimicked the NBA draft in order to pick our particular children to write about. The unfortunate thing is that the more you get to know a fairly diverse group of kids the more their personalities come out and flavour the way you see them. Luckily, most of the kids are great but a handful are a trifle difficult to like at times. I hate actually putting that in writing, but it's true and it's something that I see as a professional challenge. My name came out of the draft first so I got to pick my "favourite" camper. The others had made it fairly clear who they wanted but I felt, at the time, that I was capable of writing something nice, constructive and positive about all of the kids. Now I have writer's block.

It's not even as if this is a big, serious thing - all I have to do is write a little bit about myself, a little about the kids and how they're getting on etcetera, etcetera. But it's proving difficult. The biggest problem really isn't finding positive things to say, it's more that two weeks isn't really enough time to appraise anything, let alone a person. Besides, I'm meant to have a vague idea of what sports they're good at - between archery, waterfront and arts and crafts I don't really know. The biggest, biggest problem I have is that I don't like the idea of a placatory letter - where the parents read it, worried that they're child is not having a good time, anxious about this, that and the other and I just tell them they're having a gay 'ol time and everything's fine and dandy. I'd rather something constructive, positive but honest. That isn't my job though, I realise that, I'm not here to tell them that their kid is spoiled, selfish and doesn't care that other kids have noticed. I'm here to reassure the parents that their kids are having a good time and everything is fine, which is fairly true. However, I've decided I'm not going to lie; in some cases this limits my list of positive adjectives somewhat.

Now, I'm going to tell a short story about how a dispute over showering led to the flood-gates opening. One of the kids in the cabin is a bit of an outcast and not from lack of effort. He's boisterous, a bit rough at times and has a tough attitude - but he is a nice kid when you get past the bravado. Also, he doesn't like showering and I get the impression daily cleanliness isn't a priority back home. There's an unofficial policy here that there are home rules and Camp rules. Regardless of whether you shower at home, daily or otherwise, you shower at Camp. Lots of kids come from spoiled backgrounds, others come from broken, braking or unsteady homes. Camp needs to be a different place, a second home where different rules apply. Anyway, this kid came back late from movie night and everyone else had showered. When we told him that he had to shower, when it hadn't really been an issue since the first couple of days, he started crying. At first I thought he was being a tired little brat, then he started talking about how he was being left out and suddenly a dispute over cleanliness had become something else. It's weird how these kids bottle up their anxieties. Their day to day behaviour is pretty consistent, play, eat and act on every impulse they have until all energy is spent. I hadn't realised that this was a fairly effective way of hiding the things that worry them. I'll let you know how that story ends if and when it does.

Nature Break

Whenever a Bald Eagle flies over, the Campers, cynically or whimsically (you take your pick), all yell "Nature Break!". It's becoming an every day occurrence to see a bloody enormous bird fly over like the lord of the manner. You should see the mess these things make too - they put seagulls to shame. Then again, they are three times as large.

Week One of kids is over. It's Sunday and we're having what's known as a Sleep-in - it basically means that the campers get to sleep until 10, if they want to. Obviously, I'm not having a sleep-in. The rest of the counselors are all students though and would happily sleep until two in the afternoon. All of my campers are awake, bless them. It's been a good week overall. As it turns out my artistic skills aren't really that necessary, all I do is supervise the kids while they paint and pootle around in the arts and crafts room - either that or I supervise them doing archery. We have the Father & Son crowd here this weekend - basically it means younger boys and their "Pas" are staying the weekend, mostly so the Pas can relive their childhoods. The generations of men and boys at this place is staggering. There's a plaque in my cabin from the Director's first year as a Counselor back in 1959. It looks like it was painted yesterday.

You'll be happy to know my work on the totem-pole is progressing nicely. One of the carpenters is helping me make it. Have I mentioned the totem-pole? It's basically a plaque for the big competition at the end of the summer. I'm documenting the whole thing, so there'll be explanatory pictures eventually. The weather has actually turned up too! We've finally had a string of uninterrupted sunny days and last night the stars were all out. It's nice to be able to see the same stars as back home. It's weird really, the sky looks exactly the same - I may only have gone two miles down the road, maybe this is just a surreal dream. You know those summers you had when you were a kid when the sun didn't stop shining and everything was brilliant, it's a bit like watching that happen to other people, and by proxy re-experiencing it yourself.

So, here are some top tips for dealing with eight year-olds:
1) Throw your normal framework of patience out of the window and start again. They don't play by your rules, so make up some new ones.
2) Don't believe them when they say they're okay when they clearly aren't. Keep asking until the tears come then make them feel better and move on. Don't make a big deal out of anything remotely negative.
3) Just because they have straightforward needs (eat, sleep, play, potty etc.) doesn't mean they are straightforward. The naughtiest and rowdiest ones in my cabin are the first ones to go to sleep and actually want to be in bed and get a good night's sleep. For some bizarre reason the quiet ones want to stay up late playing Pokemon.

I'm getting a lot of reading done. The amount of Unassigned periods I'm getting during the day guarantees that I'm reading at least sixty pages a day, which is pretty cool. I do have a lot of books with me (and of course I've bought more - who could resist buying books?). I'm required for one hour a day's "work" per day (arts and crafts or archery) the rest of the time the other counselors supervise the sports and activities - occasionally I help out on the waterfront, but it's rare. Obviously, I have to supervise fifteen kids when they aren't playing sports, but it's a nice, steady rate of work. By ten in the evening I can relax and do more reading. This is definitely the easiest and most rewarding job I've ever done. It's a bit like being paid for your presence and the skills you come with are a bonus. No complaints here.

House Elves

It's the day before the big arrival. Tomorrow, the kids finally get here. It's been a fortnight now and the work has been pretty laid back, well, it's been up and down - a bit like the weather, boiling one second and freezing cold the next. We spent this morning depositing the kids' enormous duffel bags in the Cabins. You wouldn't believe how much these kids bring. And the stupid thing is they don't even bring it, the UPS man drives it all up in a truck and we give ourselves hernias dragging it all across the quad. We are house elves.

The other day my Arts and Crafts partner arrived. Since then we've been getting some stuff ready and things are finally looking ship-shape and ready to go. All the pressure I was talking about before is gone - turns out a lot has been lifting off my shoulders, however, I did make the mistake of putting down on a questionnaire that I kind-of wanted to help out with archery. Guess who got lumped with the responsibility of running the archery? Luckily, there are only four targets and they're ten yards away from the firing line. Not exactly a chore. The timetable looks pretty sweet too, because I can't coach/officiate the sports I don't have to do a huge amount during the day - it's not like I've got six arts and crafts/archery lessons a day. I do have to make the Collegiate Week winners/players bill-board. I've got an elaborate plan to build a totem pole around one of the columns in the Mess Hall. Well, it is the eightieth anniversary of the place.

The American staff also turned up this week and we've moved into our cabins. I was apprehensive about meeting them at first, but it turns out they're great. They're all younger than me by about two or three years and they have a very silly energy about them. They think my accent is the best thing ever and constantly spout pearls of wisdom like "You're a bloody wanker!" and "Bo-llocks!". If you've ever wondered what American youth culture is like in comparison with British youth culture? Different. Very different. There's a whole fake-ID underground scene that makes British fake IDs look like a joke. I keep trying to tell them the difference between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but they just don't get it. America isn't just a country, it's an entire microcosm. The rest of the world seems very, very far away, but it's not a problem because in America you can do anything - it's a self-supporting, economic behemoth. It's like a big, safe pillow.

A description of what my co-counselors describe as "Bumblefuck USA" (that's small-town America to the rest of us). You're driving into town in a really big car. Imagine the biggest car you've ever seen. This one is bigger. I haven't seen a Ford car I recognise yet. I don't even want to describe the KA to them, they may think I'm joking - "Bro, why do you drive shoes?". On both sides of the road are big Stores, bars and Chapels - the speed limit in town is thirty five mph, but on the Highway it goes up to fifty-five, the nutters. Everyone drives slowly, you don't need to drive fast, apparently enormous distances take care of themselves when you're driving like a slug. The town is divided neatly into square blocks, like Milton Keynes but infinitely nicer. The street lamps are old-fashioned ones and the pavements are nice and high - pearly white too, no chewing gum and no litter. On every other lamp is an American flag.

The design of the buildings is old-fashioned, but nothing is older than about fifty years. It's like they want it to look aged and cultured but don't want the hassle of having to maintain old buildings. Having said that the Camp's buildings have been around since the twenties and they're still in top form. The cinema on the main drag through the town has one of those over-hanging porches covered in lights and inside it smells like popcorn. Every now and then a group of bikers drive past on Harleys. I have never felt more safe in the middle of nowhere. AND I haven't seen any guns.

In other news I went out on the lake today, it's huuuuge! Some of the waterfront guys were practicing water-skiing - it was very cool. All the houses along the waterfront are enormous - most are three storeys with at least twenty-odd rooms, maybe more. Every now and then a bald eagle glides by. Bonkers.

So, tomorrow the kids are coming. We got an email from one of the mothers about one of the kids sleep walking, it's dawning on me now that we are actually going to be looking after a group of young kids for the next eight weeks. Looking after, as in their parents aren't going to be there to pick up the pieces if it all gets too much. I feel homesick for them. Anyway, the email was painfully sweet and fairly long, you could tell she was putting a lot of faith and hope in us. It's a strange honour to be trusted so much by someone you haven't met before.

In more other news: I've taken the weekend off from the gym. A bugle calls every morning at ten to eight, I shit you not. I'm trying to stock up on sleep before the kids arrive - I didn't understand the meaning of the word "lie-in" until I was in my teens, so imagine what a bunch of seven/eight year olds are going to be like at six in the morning. At least they go to bed early. I may not get the chance to blog again for a while - I'm constantly in competition with the other staff for the computer.

Stuff you don't normally do

The thing about doing things you don't normally do is that they surprise you when you actually like them. Take getting up at quarter past six. In a place that has no curtains, where afternoon naps are not only encouraged but necessary, quarter past six in the morning doesn't seem that bad. Why am I getting up that early? I hear you cry. To go to the gym. That's why. Yet another thing I don't normally do but am actually liking. The next question you might be asking is why again... Well, when you're surrounded by people who do things you don't normally do there are two fairly clear options, you either do or don't do. "Don't do" is a dangerous option when you're six thousand odd miles away from home and living in a different time zone. Don't get me wrong, I'm with some excellent people, they just don't sit around and talk about nerdy stuff/art/anything else I like. So, I'm picking "do", or applying to the "just say yes" school of social politics. So. What else am I doing that I don't normally do? How about football and touch rugby. Impressed? I can tell you are.

In other news I've been put in a cabin with the youngest age group - the seven/eight year olds. The Camp Director spent a week getting to know us before settling on where he thought our interest/skills/energy levels lay. His reasoning was that he thought my temperament, slightly more diverse range of skills and lack of skills in the sports department would stand me in good stead. I don't have a problem with this. Although I am fully expecting to get far less sleep than I normally do.

It's the Camp Director's sixty-eighth birthday today and he looks it, but he has the energy of someone half his age. He has one of those American personalities which seems very intense and personal but at the same time a little stand-offish. This entire experience so far has been an exercise in stuff I don't normally do, the bizarre thing is it's a bit like an "exercise" in that I'm extending myself a bit more every day. I'm so glad that I've had a week to get used to the place. I feel like I've been here for months, I don't know if time has dragged for everybody else but it really has for me. On a slight tangent I'm still getting eaten alive by bugs. As it turns out, not only am I getting bitten by mozzies but spiders too! Isn't that nice? I bloody hate spiders. Oh, and the ants here are double the size of normal ants. They're called Bull-ants, proving beyond all doubt that everything is bigger in America.

A Day

6:15am - wake up for a trip to the gym (less of a gym, more of a garage full of gym equipment).
7:00am - jump in the shower and then breakfast. Breakfast consists of pancakes and syrup, the crispiest bacon and a platter of fruit. Or cereal. They have that too.
8:00am - work starts - for the last week it's mainly been raking sand, putting up sports equipment, cleaning and general odd jobs.
11:30am - lunch. Club sandwiches (which basically means make you're own), or some sort of stodgy meal. After that, more work.
4:30pm - dinner. Even more stodgy food. Although the beefburgers are amazing.
5:00pm onwards = time off. Usually one of four things happens - 1) time off in the Counselors lodge, 2) a camp fire, 3) a trip to the cinema, or 4) the Pub. More often than not it's a trip to the pub where they sell cheap, awful beer for pennies. Although they do have Newcastle Brown Ale there, which is a bit of a novelty.

All in all I'm getting about four hours of sleep a night, but when the kids arrive I imagine it'll be more. Today is, I believe, the first of two days off I get this summer. During camp I'll have three nights off a week, but it's not really the same. Today includes a trip to Wal-Mart, which I'm told is bigger than space itself, or at the very least the Tesco Extras we have at home.

Oh, and for the record, nobody's allowed to mention Doctor Who.

Bug Bites

I am a mosquito farm. I'm thinking about ad-hoc constructing a mosquito trap. Imagine a UV lamp hanging over a balloon filled with blood laced with a deadly poison, then imagine me sitting to one side with a cocktail and a panama hat laughing my arse off.

While we're in the business of imagining, I invite you to imagine the camp. On the western side of the camp is a big freshwater lake and on every other side are trees. Lots of them. Pine and birch for the most part. At the southern end of the camp in a very tall tree is a family of bald eagles. I've been trying to catch one diving into the water with my phone but no such luck yet. The buildings are all twenties style timber cabins, painted white with green roofs. The place does have quite a bit in common with the Adams Family Values vision of the American Summer Camp, only there's a little less overt 'camp'ness about the place.

Inside there are plaques and photos on every wall, from the twenties to present. The place oozes tradition and history. One of my jobs for the summer is to make a plaque for the games weeks/competitions. I've already decided what I want to do. More on that at a later date.

(The morning trumpet has just sounded. I'm trying to bite my fist lest I make a cynical remark).

As it turns out I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew. Unofficially I'm programme director for the arts and crafts section and there's only one other person doing it with me. Eeek.

Surreal

Okay. So literally speaking there isn't much to report, however I feel it's necessary to report how little there is to report, if you see what I mean. The season hasn't really started yet and even though I'm sticking to my guns with the shorts it hasn't actually warmed up yet.

The camp itself is beautiful. On one side is a pretty big lake, part of, I'm told, the biggest chain of lakes in the world. The sense of scale in America is mind-boggling. Everything seems to be in wide-screen, the landscape, the roads, the cars, the food and the people. Despite The enormous distances between "stuff" everyone still drives really slow. The pace of life here is leisurely, but that may just be in the countryside. The cities, of which I have seen two (New York and Minneapolis), are bizarre too. Why on earth do they have to be so tall? Minneapolis juts out of the ground like a cluster of shiny nails in an enormous sea of green from the air. Why build up when there is so much land to build out? Having said that, it is nice that there is so much greenery to see.

Despite what I was expecting of the Americans and America in general, it feels like I haven't actually gone that far. Every effort has been made to help us settle in. Oddly, I don't feel as if I'm in a different country, it kind of feels like I've stepped into a television programme - making the experience of watching American TV infinitely more weird.

Soundbytes: This week is a weird one, there's barely anybody here and we're just doing the heavy duty clearing up before all the kids arrive. On the weekend we have a bah mitzvah(?), so that should be interesting. Also, the food is stodgy, sweet and abundant. More on that later.

Time Travel

So. I haven't slept properly in days. Bizarrely, I feel pretty good. Although last night was one of the worst experiences of my life. Having arrived from across the pond to a drizzly and dark New York I was informed at 11 o'clock local time (two/three in the morning brain time) that I had to get up at half two local time to catch a plane at six. Suffice it to say I'm a bit surprised I made it one piece.

The Saturday on the plane was actually a bit euphoric, I watched three films on the trot. Specifically, No Country For Old Men, a superb thriller; the second was Ratatouille, also superb and the third was America Unchained by a certain Dave Gorman, which was excellent, but wasn't so much a comedy as it was an extremely Dave Gorman experiment. Hit and miss. However it did give me an interesting insight into America.

First overall impressions? Big. Very big. The sense of scale in this place is ridiculous. The cities are packed so tight you can barely breath and the rural bits are so rural they make Wales look ridiculous in comparison, proving if anything that rural is a state of mind.

So. It's now one o'clock in the pm local time and at some point I'm going to crash and burn. I've already got the jitters. At some point I'll flesh out some ideas I had on the plane, including a fairly funny gag about "off-setting your carbon footprint". It's a bit like Karma, I'm told. Plus, in Economy Class on the plane they treat you like a King. I had a five course meal! (admittedly a spartan five course meal, but still).

Pre-packing Blog

The night before the morning after the day that never was and might still be if we all cross our fingers and squint to the horizon. The nerves are setting in, can you tell?

It's bizarre. I'm not nervous about going, getting or being - I'm more nervous about what I'm leaving behind. The last year has been very good and everything seems to be coming to a neat conclusion, in a sense. Ignore the grim sense of finality in that last sentence, I haven't been chipping my way through a list of things to do before the inevitable happens. What I mean is, last summer I made plan of what I was going to do for the next year - I joined an art course and I signed up for a nameless agency which sends people to America to work in Summer Camps. A little history: it's something I've meant to do for yonks but have never got around to (I say that, what I really mean is this is the time I haven't chickened out - and what's great about that is I haven't wanted to chicken out).

The course I've been doing since last September officially ended today and I'm really gutted that all the people I've met and got to know for the past howevermany months are all going off to uni. I spent a great day today staving off the inevitable goodbyes talking about nonsense and hanging around in shops and cafes. Wonderful. I've been very lucky with my groups of friends over the years, all of them have been diverse, intelligent people with interesting and funny personalities. Bizarrely, they've all been really good-looking as well but I'm 70% certain that's coincidental. Since Christmas though, I've been working day-in and day-out with very talented people who have fed my imagination and thirst for what I love doing. People have always told me art is my calling but these people made me believe it. I don't care how naff and cheesy that sounds.

Not only has my brain been well looked after but everyone around seems to have settled into a nice swing. It feels really weird to be leaving at a time when things are just settling down nicely. However, there's a lot of cobwebs that need blowing out of my head, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.

With regards to packing, which I freely admit I'm procrastinating from (?), I've got some fairly strange suggestions. The most re-assuring one so far has been from someone who has already been at camp for a bit. Flip-flops were something I hadn't considered, but which I'm told are essential (for showering etc.). I'm not entirely sure I feel comfortable with the idea of being naked except for flip-flops, shower or nay. Ah well, better that than verrucas and the like. On the subject of sunglasses, (for, of all things, "glare off the lake"), I was disappointed to find out this morning that my prescription sunglasses won't be ready until tomorrow. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow kids? Flying. That's right. I said a very rude swear word at the top of my voice, luckily it was voicemail and not a real person breaking the bad news. My oh my was I tee-d off. Despite what they say, you're better off NOT going to Specsavers.

The overall gist seems to be "pack light and practical", but what's practical when you aren't entirely sure what you're going to be doing? I wonder whether I'll really need running shorts? Would it, in fact, be easier to buy them out there if and when I need them? I think that question just answered itself really.

So. For the morbidly curious, the following couple of days looks like this: up at 7 tomorrow to drive to Heathrow, arrive at around mid day and meet up with agency chappy. Mooch around until four when the plane goes, fly to America which may take anything from six to a million hours. When arrived meet up with more agency peeps who will then drive me/us to a university staging area. I imagine at this point, feeling bewildered and a little overwhelmed, I'll try and eat something before catching an early night. The following day will be split between a morning orientation session and an afternoon of more travelling, the details of which have yet to be revealed. Ultimately, I imagine, I'll arrive at camp after another internal flight and more car journey-age. Take a moment to consider that the post that follows this one will be after a lot of travelling. It's funny how time and space get reduced by writing.

On Blogging

Without this getting a bit too meta I thought it would be interesting to discuss Blogging in general because the topic's been on my mind. For somebody who is only scraping the surface of computer literacy the medium of blogging via websites like Blogger is one of the best ways of getting your point across, ranting or just scratching a whimsical itch. It's a bit like talking to yourself in a crowd, most people aren't going to notice you doing it, some people might and pass comment and a small amount might actually be interested. In terms of readership and attracting interest it's a drop in the ocean, unless you're affiliated with the media in some other way or you're writing something new and exciting which snowballs into a phenomenon. Blogging can be private, intimate or just a day to day account of your life, but if you don't use any specific names or details it remains as anonymous and private as a physical diary/journal.

It's an outlet. The fact that there are so many people who feel the need to contribute suggests to me that we're a species that likes to be heard. I know I do. I have no illusions about my motivations for writing this, firstly I want to think out my opinion on something and secondly I want somebody to read it. Normally I blog stories (does it require a capital letter? I think it does), short fiction, comics, written/drawn doodles and scraps; ideas which normally would have stayed in my head have been expressed in some way and digested. For the last year or so it's been one of the things keeping me sane and I think in a wider sense the Internet and the process of interacting with it is playing a vital role in keeping others sane. In an article I'm going on to talk about in a minute, the writer refers to the hoards of people she imagines sitting at their desks reading her blog on their lunch breaks or cheekily between jobs. Here's a fact that doesn't get stated enough - working in an office is a completely unnatural yet entirely necessary human function. In a day to day, slightly pre-historic sense we're designed to run, live off the land and survive in all manner of environments. Snow, heat, rain, jungles. I think in creating the office space we, as a species, have finally stumped our capacity to adapt. Our bodies turn to mush, leaving us lethargic and prone to obesity and our minds wander like nobody's business. If the Internet collapsed on itself tomorrow you'd hear the collective screams of millions of office workers as they throw themselves from their fifth storey departments.

Anyway, I digress. I was going to talk about an article I read in the Independent Extra on the train earlier about Gawker, a site/Blog I hadn't come across until the article. Gawker in the words of the Indy is "New York's bitchiest, most successful gossip website,". Its author discusses how she came to work for the site, how she became its most popular bitchy commentator and how she ultimately came under the scrutiny of its own standards, was left wanting and collapsed in a pit of misery and prophetic irony. Suffice it to say my sympathy for the woman only extends so far. She gets egg on her face basically, starting off as a proponent of proto-stalking, really bitchy commentary and generally fuelling her own fire, she makes the mistake of going on a chat show to talk about the site, doesn't realise she's there to defend it and ends up making a fool of herself in front of millions. Unfortunately she doesn't realise that this has turned the commentary away from celebrities and onto her, having effectively made herself a celebrity and fair game for attack. (If you're interested - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-avakrRUaU).

What did I take away from this? Well, basically the uncertain and unpredictable nature of such an ephemeral mistress as the web and the billions of minds who lurk there. It made me kind of wonder whether we were on the edge of a new revolution in communication and expression. From messages on cave walls to letters to telephones to SMS to Blogging. There's such a need to contribute and at the same time such a want to consume - you only have to look at the attention seekers on MySpace and Facebook to realise that at some point they aren't going to be as pretty as they were, they're a little bit older and a little bit wiser and suddenly they're all blogging their personal lives. Don't worry, the irony isn't lost on me.

As a species we like secrets, discovering other people's and secretly hoping other people will discover ours. Why do people take their diaries to school if not to be found? If it was that awful you'd leave it under the bed, surely. As the owner of a diary one should, I feel, be responsible enough to expect people to want to look in it. Luckily for me, I don't own a diary but if I did I probably would leave it lying around and then get upset if someone read it. I'm not really judging the hypocrisy, I'm just wondering vaguely whether the diary, for some people, was a stopover medium for the Blog.

Less than a week to go.

Anticipation is a strange thing.

I'm trying to break down the logistics of what lies ahead in my mind and I'm having a hard time reconciling my expectations and the reality. The reality is that on Saturday I'm getting on a plane for the US and I'm going to be spending two and a half months doing something I've never done before. This should be scary but it isn't, quite.

American Summer Camps mean different things to two key demographics. To the Americans, (I'm assuming, seeing as I haven't actually spoken to one yet regarding the subject, but I'm drawing upon what I've been told/read), it's part of their culture, it's something they do and they consider it a fairly important part of growing up. To the other demographic I'm counting, i.e. the thousands of people who fly out to the States every summer from all over the world, it's a unique opportunity to take part in and contribute to something that they've invariably seen on the telly or read about somewhere. The reputation of Summer Camps precedes them; everyone has some kind of idea about what their like (I'm sure Adams Family Values has a lot to answer for - I saw that again recently, it may have been a mistake). Apart from anything else it's just an accepted part of "what students do", along with half-inching trolleys, road trips etc.. For some strange reason the idea of going abroad and doing something as barmy and stressful as looking after kids for a Summer seems appealing, and I'm not just being sarcastic, I do genuinely believe it sounds appealing. I think it may have something to do with the Number X of Important Things You Should Do Before You Die factor.

Cynical running commentary aside I'm really looking forward to it. It's strange, I have all these assumptions about what it might be like, what it's probably like and then there's the part of me reserved for the unexpected. I know it's not going to be like what I think it's going to be like. The first time I looked at the videos on the Camp website scared me witless - I couldn't believe that these people I hadn't met yet all existed in a strange bubble, it was a bit too much like glimpsing into an alien future, it was very uncomfortable yet strangely thrilling at the same time.

Logistically speaking there's not much left to do now and that feels a bit scary - surely I've forgotten something. I have a friend who likes lists and I seem to have caught the bug - with so much stuff to organise all at once there simply isn't enough room in my brain, and there's nothing more satisfying than ticking off something on a list. Apart from anything else there are the things I hadn't quite considered until recently regarding what's going to happen to my life where I am now. After all, I may be away for up to three months, that's a fairly long time. My bedroom, for example, is a complete mess and it needs to be sorted while I'm away - guess what I'm doing tomorrow. Then there's the small matter of an exhibition that needs to be brought down on Tuesday, clothes and stuff need to be bought on wednesday - thursday will probably involve more tidying and Friday... I'm not sure I can think that far ahead. I know exactly what's happening on the weekend though. More travelling than I have ever done. Ever.

There's also the small matter of what exactly I'm going to do when I come back, but there's no point in worrying about that now. I wonder whether I'm giving the impression of being a bit neurotic.