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.

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.