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.