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.
Sunday 29 June 2008
Sunday 22 June 2008
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.
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.
Sunday 15 June 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday 10 June 2008
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.
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.
Monday 9 June 2008
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.
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.
Saturday 7 June 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday 4 June 2008
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.
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.
Sunday 1 June 2008
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).
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).
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