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.