Camp Quotes!

During my time at camp, I was collecting memorable quotes that I overheard. Most of them are from my fellow counsellors, a lot of them are from me (because I find myself hilarious), and some are from the campers. I thought I'd make a list of them here, to keep them safe.

"We've got a tree fallen down, there's a fire in the unit shelter, and we've lost our socks."
~ Sunny, on the radio to the office during the disastrous staff overnight

"What are they gonna make us do?"
~ London, in a panicked way, after seeing our supervisors putting bits of paper on a table

"I was in Team Moose. I have dyslexia and so for the longest time I thought I was in team MOSES."
~ Starry

Tim-Tam: Knock knock-
Tink: I'm taller than you!

"All my weight is on this back wheel, baby, this truck's not goin' anywhere!"
~ Pugs, sitting calmly in the back of a pick up truck at night, in the pouring rain, on an almost vertical road

"We worked well together, but we also played well together."
~ Sunny

"We should be in a fucking Hilton!"
~ Smiley, disgruntled during staff overnight

(playing Apples to Apples)
Tink: So, for boring..?
Smiley: I put William Shakespeare-
London: Ugh, he's long.

"You're beautiful on the... Everything!"
~ Burnzy tries to compliment me

"I can shout at your kids if you want me to - no one'll fuck with this accent."
~ Jen, when Smiley was complaining that her kids never listen

"Is it weird if I put my bra in my cubby?"
~ Nibbles

"Abraham Lincoln cause he's boring."
~ Tink playing Apples to Apples

"My Stussy is better than your pussy!"
~ Dappy when Nibbles (who was wearing leggings with cats on) laughed at her Stussy hat

Nemo: Brownie's just in her own world-
Brownie: I was thinking about Crocs.

(while playing Mafia)
Camper #1: You were the Mafia last time-
Camper #2: Yes I was, and I killed many innocent people.

(out of nowhere)
Luna: I had a green neck!
Me: ... That's not even the weirdest thing I've heard at camp.

"Luna, do clouds rub together? And do they make a sound when they do?"
~ Ducky, asking important science questions

"Yeah, I just want to laugh myself into a coma."
~ Me

"Stupid ankles! What's the point in having them if they never work!?"
~ Me, after twisting my ankle

"I'm not scared of bears or anything, I'm scared of ghosts."
~ Indi, explaining why she didn't want to walk up to Sky Meadow alone in the dark

"All I know about Stephen King is that he's scary and that he watched his best friend die."
~ Squirrel

(during a human knot exercise)
Camper: There's an odd number of people!
Squirrel: There's an even number of hands!

"Remember when Luna's hair was a volcano."
~ Me

"Whose taco did Hailey put her arm in?"
~ Me to a camper

(at lunch)
Camper #1: What's that smell?
Camper #2: Probably me.

Camper #1: Someone should wake Pepper up - it's time for lunch.
Camper #2: No, that's not a good idea! Let her sleep!

"Why are you stroking a packet of biscuits?"
~ Starry

"My dad is the cutest little fucker going around."
~ Jen, after getting a nice text from her dad

(at lunch)
Camper: Are you vegetarian?
Me: You just saw me eat a pepperoni pizza!

"The headlines will be: Old Woman Kills Herself on Portable Climbing Wall."
~ Pugs, climbing on the wall the National Guard lent us

"Don't poke me with a hard taco shell!"
~ Me to a camper (who was in fact poking me with a hard taco shell)

"I'm a wise little Buddha, sitting here on my pretzel legs."
~ Me, for no reason

"She thinks she's the best thing since sliced lesbian."
~ Tink

"I'm all hot flushes from saying goodbye to Kiwi, I feel like I'm going through the menopause."
~ Starry

"It better not be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, because tHAT'S GOT AN I IN IT."
~ Pugs, trying to guess a word in Wheel of Fortune

"It better not be a vegetable, 'cause I won't know it."
~ Pugs, still trying to guess the word

"Is Piranha using her bra as a pillow?"
(She was)

A Trip To Boston, Ben & Jerry's Part 3 & Leaving Camp

On Sunday, we (Cookie, Pugs, Tink, London, Osprey, Smiley, Starry, J Crew, Piranha, Nibbles, and myself) took a trip down to Boston; the primary reason was that we were dropping off J Crew, Piranha, and Nibbles at the airport *sob sob* We got the whole afternoon before they left though, and it was really nice. We wandered around and Cookie was telling us all sorts of things about the city (she's from there) and it was all so interesting. The weather was gorgeous and everyone was in a nice mood.

When we went to eat, Cookie took us to a place called Faneuil Hall, and I'm not kidding when I say it's a half-mile of different food stands. You could literally buy anything there; as well as the vast array of different cultural cuisines there were also loads of sweet stalls where you could buy gorgeous cakes and pastries and ice cream and candy. I had a home made lasagne from an Italian-American stall and a strawberry and cream cake from one of the sweet stands; I spent the rest of the day in a satisfied food coma.

Saying goodbye to J Crew, Piranha and Nibbles was awful :( But they've gone off to Miami so they're going to have a really good time!

On Monday, I had my third outing to the Ben & Jerry's factory. I am so spoiled! It was really fun this time, though, because I wasn't working; before, I had a group of girls that I was responsible for. The tour was still good (made even better by some hilarious French guys who - when the tour girl talked about how we can't get all of their flavours in Europe - shouted "Discrimination!" in their really French accents, cracking all of us up), and this time the sample was Strawberry Cheesecake. I got a leaf-shaped bottle of maple syrup to take home for my family to taste, and a Ben & Jerry's t-shirt. What really stood out about this visit, though, was the Vermonster. "What's a Vermonster?" I hear you all ask (probably). Well.. This is a Vermonster:

I'll break it down - that bucket is filled with 20 scoops of Ben & Jerry's (you can pick a few flavours - we had Vanilla Caramel Fudge, Cookie Dough, Milk & Cookies and Strawberry Cheesecake), walnuts, M&Ms, hot fudge, cookies, a huge brownie, sprinkles and a massive mound of whipped cream on top. Between the seven of us, we managed to eat the whole lot and it was bloody glorious. I mean, we all immediately got diabetes afterwards, but it was still amazing. We also looked at the flavour graveyard and I laughed for about 10 minutes over the fact that Ben & Jerry's used to have a flavour called 'Vermonty Python'. No, seriously.

Tuesday was the day we (Tink, London, Osprey and I) left camp; technically our contract didn't end until Wednesday, but because we had to leave Boston in the morning, we went to stay at Cookie's house (she lives about an hour out of the city). She has the cutest house ever, and it was really nice to be in a Real Building. We played Uno and nearly died laughing, it was a lot of fun. We got up at 5am, which was gross, but we had to because Tink's flight was at 10am, and London and I wanted to be there to say goodbye.

It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone at camp - before we left on Tuesday we said goodbye to Alex & Ben (our barn director, Reins, brought them with her for the summer and they are the nicest, cutest, most well-behaved boys ever), Smiley and Starry (who I will be seeing at the end of my New York trip - we all fly home on the same day but at different times, so we're just going to get a cab to JFK together), and Pugs. Pugs was a really difficult one, because she was basically everyone's mum at camp, and she took care of me so much over the summer, as well as always cheering me up with her hilarity. She cried a bit, and Osprey, Tink and London were crying - I felt bad that I didn't. I only usually cry if I'm angry or stressed, not from sadness. I'm not a hollow shell I promise. It was crap saying goodbye, but I've made everyone promise to stay in touch.

And thus, my camp contract ended, and I was unleashed upon the real world.

Post Camp

It is 8 days until I go to New York, and it's so surreal that it's come around so fast. This is my first solitary holiday, my first time in NYC, and it's all really exciting. I can't wait to explore!

Here at camp, we're cleaning, taking inventory, and doing general upkeep. There's not much to be done now, as we got the kids to clean on the last day of Week 6, and we did a lot of cleaning on Sunday. Yesterday, I finally got to ride Jet, my favourite of all our horses! He was great, and Judge was leading so that was great too. I had so much fun, here's a couple of photos:

I'm nice and chilled out now (even though I think I'm coming down with some kind of lurgy), and I cannot wait for next Wednesday!

Singin' In The Rain (In The Lake) - Weekly Roundup 6

The final week of resident camp arrived. I was still living with Nemo and Phelps in Tall Timbers, except this week our program was Saddle, Paddle & Arrows, which is exactly as it sounds. I also had my lowest number of girls ever - 12. It made a nice change. I was a bit of a slacker when it came to keeping a record of the highlights - week 6 was when everyone was tired and just getting through the last days, so I found myself being quite lazy with this. Regardless, here are the highlights I do have:

• My kids were having their swimming time in the lake when it started to rain. Instead of getting grumpy or squealing and getting out of the lake (as I thought they would), they immediately and simultaneously started singing/shouting Singin' In The Rain.
• The girls were obsessed with my accent, which I'm kind of used to now. What I wasn't expecting was for one of my girls to turn around and say, "Tell me stories so I can listen to your accent". They also started using British words for things, in extremely over-the-top accents.
• I learned to make 'chevron' style friendship bracelets and felt very accomplished.
• The kids were a lot more cheerful this week (as well as being super sassy, which was 50% frustrating and 50% hilarious).
• I was writing a Bill of Rights with the girls when Judge walked over and told us to tell her some jokes. My girls immediately stepped up and told some, including gems like: Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill? To get to the bottom. They continued on this vein until Judge was sufficiently amused and left as randomly as she came.
• The National Guard brought their climbing wall over for us to use, and Pugs had a go at climbing it. As usual, hilarity ensued when she said, "The headlines will be: Old Woman Kills Herself On Portable Climbing Wall."
• Our staff skit was cool as it was completely improvised but people still loved it! We got loads of laughs and I heard one kid say that ours had been 'the best one yet'. A lot of staff also said they loved it, and seemed impressed when we told them it was improvised. We were very pleased with ourselves!
• Phelps and I were walking up to Tall Timbers and she was telling me about a big rustling sound she'd heard while walking up there at night; she attempted to demonstrate the noise by crashing into the ferns but immediately fell over. It was hilarious and I laughed until I couldn't breathe. Here is a picture of the squashed ferns at the site of Phelps' crash landing:

• I was sitting in the barn while my kids were having a riding lesson - Judge pointed a flashing light thing at me and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" at me. I immediately threw my phone.
• One of my kids, CJ, was trying to bring her paddleboard back after boating. It was not cooperating, and kept floating away from her and towards the centre of the lake. CJ immediately lunged after it, shouting, "NO. BAD PADDLEBOARD." and it inexplicably cracked me up.
• Judge was chasing Rica with a jug of ice. Rica retaliated by brandishing a broom.
• I had another successful overnight (what is happening to the world?). We went to the old yurt site, where I thought the ancient portaloo was a fridge. I was soon corrected and warned never to open it. I didn't need to be told twice. We made another dessert pizza (which was a hit, of course) but had a small catastrophe when Phelps managed to drop her flashlight into it. That night, I also had to say to one of my girls, "Don't poke me with a hard taco shell." and that's not even the weirdest command I've given this summer.
• The camp's 106th birthday was on the Wednesday of Week 6. Every month of the year got a birthday cake, and the April one was magnificent, thanks. We also sang Happy Birthday to all the months of the year, so we all got a bit of a birthday celebration!
• I was in the Anakoosh (health centre cabin, where nurse Hiccup lives), and I opened up the freezer to grab an ice pack for Nemo's bad ankle. Inside, among the ice packs and Ben & Jerry's, was a rubber chicken. I'm not kidding. I asked Hiccup about it and she couldn't provide an answer.
• I remembered something hilarious from session 2 - one of the girls was sick, so I took her and a buddy over to Hiccup. Only halfway there did I notice that Catie (the buddy) had one sneaker on and one riding boot on. I asked her about it through my tears of mirth, and she said, "Well, I couldn't find my other sneaker!" I refrained from asking why she didn't just put both of her riding boots on.
• I also remembered from session 1, when Omega drove us to the beach; my kids were asking how long it would take to get there literally every five minutes, so Omega threatened to deliberately take a wrong turn for every time they asked that question.
• Phelps had her birthday the day after camp birthday, so the girls and I decided to throw a little party for her with streamers and snacklets. I told the girls to go and distract her for five minutes so we could finish setting up; they promptly took Phelps to Hiccup, where she was forced to ice a minor bruise for five minutes. I laughed so hard when I found out. They also adorned her with many bead necklaces and like three crowns. Anton (our chef, who is Russian) also let me have a Boston cream pie to use as a birthday cake. Here's Phelps cutting her cake (my girls look so miserable in this photo):

• One of my kids threw bright pink paint on me. Enough said.
• A random girl (I think she was in London's unit) sat with me at dinner one evening and ate five corn on the cobs. I was amazed. Later, I tried to get her attention to make her clean up her plate, and said, "Excuse me? Excuse me? ... OY, SWEETCORN." and she actually responded. 
• On Saturday, we had our staff party after all the kids had gone. The food was Mediterranean themed (and delicious!), and everyone dolled up. It was nice - we were all in a good mood and got to chat about everything without the fear of campers overhearing. It was a lovely evening, and the staff closing campfire was nice too; we all shared memories from our summers and thanked each other for support and friendship.

We're now in the post-camp part of the summer, and I'm really looking forward to my New York trip! I'm staying in the cutest hotel in Manhattan, and my rooms and flights are all ready and sorted - I am so excited to explore the city, and to remember what civilisation is.

Road Trips & Astronaut Food - Weekly Roundup 5

Week 5 marked the beginning of the third, and final, session of summer camp; I was moved out to Tall Timbers, a set of adorable blue cabins just off of main camp.

I am working with Nemo and Phelps, both of whom I've already been in a unit with. We were joined by Trout, who is a live-in; I'm really happy with the staff I've been put with!

The reason that there are only three unit staff is because we had one program and sixteen girls. Compared to the horrors of Week 3 (31 girls, 3 programs, 4 staff, 2 interns and a live-in, and a partridge in a pear tree), these numbers were a piece of cake! I was also happy because my Week 5 program was Road Trip, which I did in Week 1 and really enjoyed.

I also like Tall Timbers because I'm getting really good at walking around camp at night without a flashlight, and there's a dark path through the woods to the unit which is good practice for my new night vision skills. As for the highlights of Week 5:

• My second trip to the Ben & Jerry's factory! It was a hit, obviously, and we got plenty of ice cream. As well as a sample (sweet cream and cookies), I had a Milk & Cookies shake, and bought myself a tub of ice cream and a pin that says 'Body by Ben & Jerry's'. We had a lot of fun and an especially funny moment was when Phelps' ice cream scoops fell off of her cone and she epically caught it in her hand.

• My kids made me laugh on a couple of occasions. At lunch one day, one of them asked me if I was a vegetarian after watching me eat a slice of pepperoni pizza. Another day I had just woken up from a nap and I heard one of the girls say, "We should wake Pepper up, it's nearly lunchtime." then another girl hurriedly said, "No no, that's not a good idea. Let her sleep!"
• Our second trip was the Montshire Museum of Science (YEAH, SCIENCE!). It was such a cool place, it even had a T-Rex skeleton. There was also a scale model of a human skeleton and a moose. It was a really interactive museum with lots of stuff to do - I think we counsellors had even more fun than the kids. I especially enjoyed the fog room, the bubble place, and the area dedicated to weather systems in space! I was in my element at the museum, and bought some penguin stickers and a pack of astronaut food (freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream).

•  A short stop at Hanover, which is a college town not too far from camp. I accidentally bought three books at Barnes & Noble - a book of Grimm's fairy tales, Dante's Inferno, and a cute book called The Book of Myself, which has prompts for parts of life spanning from early, middle and later years - it's like a DIY autobiography!

• Rivir's coffee disaster - she went to pour a little sugar into her coffee and the top of the container fell off, spilling loads of sugar into her cup. Nemo and I couldn't stop laughing, but Rivir got a laugh herself when she told me to take a sip of the resulting beverage. I sipped, sat there in shock, and then informed Rivir that I now had diabetes.
• Splash Week occurred during this week (and as of the end of Week 5, there are still some survivors, so it will continue into Week 6). Basically, a bunch of counsellors signed up to be part of it and each of them were given the name of one of the other participants to be their victim. They have to splash their victims with a cup of water, and the splashee's victim becomes the splasher's new target. This continues until the last counsellor standing. Victims can protect themselves by having their campers in a circle around them, and splashes can't occur indoors or at program areas like the waterfront or barn. It was funny to watch the dwindling number of counsellors get more jumpy and paranoid as the week went on. The funniest thing was Trout managing to splash Tim Tam four seconds after Splash Week officially began. Trout is now out of the running, but Phelps is still standing, so we're supporting her - it was funny to see her with a constant orbit of kids whenever we went anywhere.
• Luna has a couple of hermit crabs and Phelps and I were playing with one while our kids were doing Ecology. She was so cute and kept retreating back into her shell if we moved too suddenly ♥

• Our last trip was to Quechee Gorge. On the drive there, Pugs produced a huuuuuge bag of Starburst for me and the girls to snack on, which was a promising start. She lobbed a handful over her shoulder for the girls when they weren't expecting it, and they were baffled by the sudden Starburst missiles flying through the van. They went to the climbing centre, and had a lot of fun there - there was also a cute dog belonging to the owner that we all fawned over.
  After climbing, we went to the Gorge itself - it was a lovely walk down, and the view at the bottom was beautiful. The weather was really bright and warm, and we basked for a while before the long climb back up (that was knackering).
  We also popped to the village, where there was a Cabot store selling all sorts of Vermont-made goodness; I sampled a lot of cheese and some lovely fudge - I ended up buying some fudge (raspberry and chocolate swirl), real maple syrup, a postcard with a photo of Quechee Gorge on it, some jellybeans, Pepsi, and a glass bottle of grape soda. Nemo and I also took a turn around an adjacent antique store and cried over all the beautiful old things.
  Pugs made me laugh yet again when three of my girls were sitting on those rides where you put a quarter in and they move. They thought, because they were antique, the rides wouldn't work. Pugs came along and stuck a quarter in all three of them, and they did work, which scared my girls to death. It was hilarious!

• We got tired of our girls asking constant questions about what we were doing next during the day, so I began to reply with "Stuff and things." - Phelps and Nemo quickly caught on to this habit and we are now stuck saying this whenever questions occur.
• I tried my first sample of genuine Vermont-made maple syrup. Nemo had been nagging me for two weeks to try it, and all of my girls had egged me on, and I can say I'm glad I tried it. It is heaven.
• I finally had a successful overnight! We cooked dinner at Tall Timbers, and our dessert was a s'mores pizza after how well it was received the previous week. It was ridiculously melty and sugary and delicious, and the kids loved it. We then went over to the Lakeside site and put up tents in the dark, which was a palava. But it didn't rain, and we managed to stay out there all night! I was very pleased, even though I ached all over from lying on the rather rocky ground all night. I was also pleased with my campfire that I made back at Tall Timbers:

• I finally made a successful tie-dyed shirt. It's pink and purple, in a spiral pattern, and I haven't yet managed to take a photo of it. But it's amazing, and I'm rather proud of myself.
• At the weekend, we popped to Applebee's for dinner, and to Walmart to forage for snacks, and London and Tink were really impressed on the way back to camp, when I rapped the entirety of Party Up by DMX (a very un-camperrific song indeed).

A Cookie Dough Party & Squirrel's Checkered Feet - Weekly Roundup 4

This one's coming a bit late because I simply haven't had time to make a blog so far this week! I was still in Tovariche last week, and we still had Wranglers and Saddle Up, but this time we also had Chocolate Chef! I've been very busy indeed, but I'm finally here with all the highlights of Week 4 of camp.

• We took the girls who were still at camp over the weekend to a park down the road from camp, and sprawled on the grass while they played. It was really relaxing and I got to catch up with Tink and London, which is nice as I barely see them at work, we're all so busy! We also demonstrated to all the arriving parents that we are very responsible counsellors by walking along the side of the main road as there was no pavement. SuPeR sTaFf.

• One of my kids asked me: "Are England years the same as ours?" - I was baffled and told her to go read up on basic astronomy.
• The kids loved the way that I speak, and I got called an awesome counsellor all week. It was great! My kids always wanted to sit with me at meals, and Coral said I was her favourite counsellor ever. I felt good about myself and my job.
• Luna set up a crime scene and did experiments with the girls to find out who had stolen all the hula hoops from the sports shed - the girls had so much fun working with the clues and doing different tests to find the culprit. My favourite part was when the girls realised that the perpetrator had tried to frame us for the crime and Olivia said, "THEY FRAMED US THE big weenies.." and it was so funny.
• Squirrel's feet tanned through the holes in her sandals; when she took her shoes off, her feet were checkered and all of us laughed for ages because of it.
• Late one evening, Piranha was stalling about going to bed because she was afraid to walk up to Sky Meadow in the dark. She was holding her flashlight under her chin and pulling a stupid face, saying, "Tell me I'm beautiful." over and over. It was, I have to say, incredibly funny.
• I wore my Markiplier shirt one day, and loads of the girls around camp high fived, hugged, and called to me because they like him too! It was very cool, even if he's not the most 'camperific' of people.
• One of our kids, Sam, accidentally broke her glasses and was horrified at what her mum might say - she promptly wrote her mum a letter saying "I'm really sorry" but with 30 'really's. Nemo fixed the glasses with pirate duct tape.
• Our cookout was amazing - we had it in the dining hall because there was a thunderstorm (surprise, surprise - a thunderstorm on the night I planned an overnight camp out!), and we ate tacos. Then for dessert, Kiwi came up with the idea to make a s'mores pizza! We took some dough, and put pieces of chocolate and marshmallows onto it, then cooked it so it all melted together, and sprinkled some broken graham crackers on the top. It was absolutely gorgeous and we all went into collective sugar comas when we were done eating it. 
• One of our units this week was Chocolate Chef, which Kiwi and I were leading. We made so many sweet treats that we were all stuffed by the end of the week. We made ice cream from scratch, cookies and chocolate brownies!
• At the end of the week, about half of my girls wanted me to sign their t-shirts. I felt really cool for a minute! I also got told I'm the best counsellor, and that I'm amazing. It's times like these that I feel most satisfied with my job.
• My kids decided that when I'm grumpy I am a ghost pepper because "they're the really spicy, evil ones!" - so if I was threatening to be mad at them, they would say, "No guys, be good! We want Dr Pepper, not Ghost Pepper!"
• As well as the two(!!) mice that lived in our staff cabin, occasionally some chipmunks would run in and attempt to steal chocolate or a potato chip. We soon saw them off, but they were kind of cute - if I'd have had my way I would've left them to it.
• Nemo got hired for third session! I was so pleased because I recommended her repeatedly to admin staff, saying that she was fab (she really is). In celebration, Squirrel nicked some cookie dough from the kitchen and we had a cookie dough party in her honour. Needless to say, we all felt a bit sick by the end of it.
• On Saturday Tink, London, Starry, Kiwi and I went to Burlington, which is the most populated city in Vermont. It's the most adorable, quaint place, and we spent all day wandering around and having a laugh amongst ourselves. There was a Ben & Jerry's shop (in fact, it's the first shop Ben and Jerry ever set up when they were starting out!) that we took full advantage of. We also tried out all the perfumes in Victoria's Secret, and had lunch at an Italian-American pub.
• London, Tink and Kiwi got crepes from a guy who London dubbed 'Pancake Man' and insisted on having a selfie with him - Tink then also had a selfie with him, and decided his name was 'Crepe Guy'. He was hilarious and just went along with how silly we were being, and we laughed for ages about it.
• We accidentally crashed a wedding. Tink, London and I were in an art gallery in Burlington and decided to go up to the second floor; two hot guys got into the elevator and were making loads of jokes (that we laughed very heartily at). Then one of them turned around to us and said, "So, are you going to the wedding?" and we giggled away, thinking it was another silly joke. Then we walked out of the elevator and... Well, it was a wedding. 

Week 4 was a blast, and now Week 5 is in full swing and we're having a lot of fun! Hopefully my update will be more on time next time.

Minion Band Aids, Kitchen Raids & Six Flags - Weekly Roundup 2

It's been another hectic week that has flown by. I've been here for around three weeks now, and I simultaneously feel like I've been here forever and for no time at all. I feel like I'm getting the hang of the job a little bit more, though I'm still not used to having basically no time off ever. It is, however, only 38 days until I finish here and go to New York City for a week! Here's some highlights from this week (our programs were Saddle Up and Just Coastin':

• We had another amazing staff skit, thanks to Sunny. This week she re-wrote 'Do You Want To Build A Snowman' from Frozen to be about our unit and camp, and it was even better than last week, as we also had Ducky accompanying us on her ukulele.
• Our overnight was rained out AgAiN - honestly, it's getting silly now. However, we were outside for longer than the previous times, so I consider it a partial success. We put the tents up while it was still dry, and had an outdoor fire on which we cooked some delicious tacos and doughboys. The kids were all happy and enjoying themselves, even if they did get a bit nervous about sleeping in the middle of the woods. Us staff had just started to settle down, when the sky opened up and it was suddenly torrential out of nowhere. Thus followed a panicked gathering of our girls and our stuff, and a mad dash in the pouring rain, across the docks on the lake, and into a van Squeaky drove some of the way. We'd only just gotten everyone back and in their tents when the thunder and lightning started - it was so mad, but so much fun. Maybe one day I will actually complete an overnight.
• I managed to convince some of my girls (and Burnzy) that I had Prince Harry's phone number and that we were good mates. I kept up this charade for a good ten minutes before I let them know it was a complete lie.
• We have a secret buddy system where you give your buddy gifts and notes during the session, and my buddy cheered me up so much! I first got a nice written note from her, with smiley face confetti that fell out when I unfolded it. Then I found some Despicable Me minions band aids in my mailbox, and was given a pair of purple floral sunglasses on behalf of my buddy later the same day. I found out today that Rivir was my secret buddy, when she walked up to me and handed me a pack of colourful scrunchies, and I gave her the biggest hug because she made life a little brighter this week.
• On Wednesday, Static, Lux, Burnzy and I took the Just Coastin' girls to Six Flags New England! That was a hilarious day; the staff got to ride coasters, we all ate loads of junk, I convinced one of my girls to face her fears of rollercoasters and go on the Batman ride (she loved it!), and I got photobombed by Scrappy Doo.

• London, Ducky and I spent our kids' swim time with our feet dipped in the lake - because the day was so boiling hot, the cold water was heavenly. We spent the whole time sitting that way and just talking and looking out at the lake.
• On Thursday night, we organised a spa night/kitchen raid with our kids. We had stuff for them to do their nails, bath salt making, face masks, and hair braiding. Then, having convinced our kids that no one knew we were in there and that we would be in Big Trouble if we were caught, we did our kitchen raid - we took ice lollies, orange juice, pink lemonade, chocolate chips, Fritos and marshmallows and had a mini feast. We then decided to leave a message from the pirates who had been spotted on the lake that morning, effectively blaming them for our kitchen raid. It was so hilarious because our kids actually thought that we were tricking everyone.
• A huge group hug from 17 of my girls at a time when a hug was most welcome.
• It was sad to say goodbye to our kids again because they were really great this week, and made me laugh a lot. It was a bit of a relief to not have any kids on camp for a minute, but strange after all the non-stop activity of the week.

Here's a photo of the lovely ladies of Ojakle:

Back (L-R): Burnzy, Sunny, Phelps, me
Front (L-R): Zenny, Ducky, Luna

This evening we found out our new units (I'm moving back to the unit I was in during pre-camp), and London, Tink, Smiley, Starry, Dré, Bing, and I went out for a meal to celebrate surviving the first session of camp.

Speaking of which, there are only 38 days left of camp, and I cannot believe it. I'm almost halfway done already, it's absolute madness. At the moment, I'm happy to be having this experience and to have met such wonderful people here.

Paid To Sit On The Beach - Weekly Roundup 1

This was the first week of 'actual' camp, when I got my first group of girls. We had moved up to Ojakle, another unit on camp property:

The programs we were in charge of were Saddle Up, which is a horse-riding program, and Road Trip, which is exactly as it sounds. We had 18 girls overall and, as well as me, the unit staff was Sunny, Phelps, Zenny, Ducky, Burnzy and Luna, a truly great bunch ♥ The highlights from this week included:

• On the first morning, Sunny had to wake up one of our campers, who was a heavy sleeper. She did so by going into her tent and singing opera.
• One of my campers handed me some cute purple flowers that she'd found. I wore them in my buttonhole all day. Three of them always wanted to sit with me at meals, and one liked to hold my hand as we walked to different activities.
• Staff skits - This was a lot of fun; the staff all had to come up with something to introduce our units to the kids. The waterfront staff ran through the audience with squeeze bottles and soaked all of us. My unit re-wrote Justin Bieber's 'Baby' (Sunny's idea) to be about the programs we were running. At the end of it, all the staff sang the staff song (the Friends theme); the whole thing was so much fun.
• Ducky and I were 'on taps' on Tuesday, which means that we're responsible if the kids need us between 9pm and midnight. We were sitting in the pitch dark unit shelter with an eerie red glow coming from the lantern we had under a towel. We ended up scaring ourselves talking about the 'Lady with the Lamp', camp's resident ghost. The night before I had seen something weird in the Sky Meadow, so we were both so jumpy!
• On Wednesday, I was paid to go to Hampton Beach with my road trip girls. Omega drove us as she's a lifeguard; she and I sat on the beach and watched the girls play in the sea for ages. It was so warm and relaxing, even if there was a thunderstorm on the way back. Also I got Dunkin' Donuts, wahoooo!

• The Ben & Jerry's factory - I couldn't be in Vermont without visiting the birthplace of my favourite ice cream. The tour was interesting, and made even better at the end when we got to sample a prototype flavour. We also visited the 'Flavor Graveyard' and mourned the discontinued flavours.

• Our overnight being a washout again. I'm convinced some higher power doesn't want me to have a successful campout. We cooked dinner in the fireplace in one of the cabins, I saw a cute mouse scurrying around, and we had to be rescued again by Cookie as there was a big thunderstorm. We spent the night in the Ev - Sunny sang and played guitar for us and we were all bundled up in our sleeping bags. It was like a huge slumber party.
• July 4th was a bit rubbish for me because I was unwell in the morning - Cookie (my boss) maintained that I was bitter over America gaining independence. I told her that the English are still cross about them throwing all our teabags into the ocean. The day picked up in the afternoon when we had an indoor footie game between the USA and international staff - it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen because everyone was scooting around on their hands and feet, the audience got really into it, and Jen scored the most epic goal for the Internationals without even looking.
• Helping Luna and Judge weed one of the campfire sites for our closing campfire - this involved us just uprooting weeds and lobbing them into the nearby bushes. Luna made me take a bite of a plant, which turned out to be lemongrass - it was actually really nice!
• Saying goodnight to my kids for the last time; I was actually pretty sad about it! I didn't think I'd miss any kids this summer but you do end up becoming fond of them.

That's it for the weekly roundup. I hope that I will get to write another one next weekend, when I should be getting a 24-hour break - in this job, 24 hours feels like a huge break because this is literally a 24/7 job. There's basically no such thing as being 'off the clock' here, which might explain why the days went so quickly.

Pre-Camp

I arrived safely in Vermont after 15 hours of travel - a car ride to London Heathrow, an Airbus to Frankfurt, a Boeing to Boston, and a four hour van ride through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont to camp. It was an incredibly long journey, but it was made easier by the two girls I met, Rianne (camp name: London) and Kirsty (camp name: Tink) - we quickly became friends and helped each other through the journey and the subsequent crushing despair on our first night. I also met two other English girls a couple of days later, Smiley and Starry, who are also good friends of mine here. My camp name is Pepper. I have since met loads of really nice, friendly people.

The weather here is ridiculously sunny and warm, but it's very humid and prone to storms. Predictably, I'm sunburnt already. As well as the beautiful weather, the food here is amazing - because we're not allowed artificial flavours or colours in England, all the synthetic goodness in America has been great!

Some highlights from pre-camp include:

• Random people in Walmart loving our accents
• Indi teaching us how to make ice cream from scratch
• Swimming in the lake
• Learning how to make friendship bracelets, and loads of camp songs
• Getting good at swiping spiders out of tents
• The staff overnight - we put up tents in a rainstorm, but made an excellent campfire under the unit shelter and cooked a really nice dinner on it. Sunny radioed the office saying, "A tree has fallen down, there's a fire in the unit shelter, and we've lost our Socks." ('socks' has grammatical status as she is in fact one of the other counsellors here). Later, when the rain was worse, Dappy used my phone torch, which has an SOS feature, to flash over to the unit shelter for the rest of the staff to save us. We soon splashed through the swamp that the campsite had become and curled up next to the fire for a while. Unfortunately Sunny got really sick, and we had to be rescued by Cookie in a pick-up truck. That was bizarre - sitting in the back of a pick-up truck in the middle of the night as the rain hammered down, driving up a huge hill with hairpin bends.
• Funfest - We had a few groups of Girl Scouts at camp for the night, and Tink, London and I organised a drama game activity for some of them to sign up to. We got a full class, and the kids were really into it and seemed to really enjoy themselves. We were so pleased with ourselves! Also, I got two gifts from two of the campers and that was a lovely ego boost.
• The staff having a movie night in the Ev (main building at camp). We watched Pitch Perfect and it was fun because we were all sprawled out with snacks and sleeping bags:

• Getting qualified in First Aid and CPR with the American Red Cross. I was so pleased with myself.
• I also became a member of the American Girl Scouts, which is bizarre.

For the next fortnight, I'm going to have a horse-riding program, and two travel programs. I'm pretty excited for it, but nervous. I am going to attempt to do weekly round ups of highlights, but I'm not making any promises as I am a shoddy, shoddy blogger. I'm also documenting funny quotes from people, and I might put them up at some point, if I can make a substantial post out of them. For now though, I'm going to go and be jittery about the girls arriving TOMORROW. Eeeeek!

London-Frankfurt-Boston-Vermont

I finally got my placement yesterday! I was contacted by Camp Farnsworth in Vermont, asking if I was available for a Skype interview, and they accepted me shortly after, asking if I was able to come to them on Thursday. I will be a 'unit leader' - looking after the girls at the camp and getting to experience all of the activities, instead of just specialising in one.

Since having my placement confirmed, I've just been in a mad dash trying to sort everything out, and I think I've done pretty well so far. I've sorted my flights - I fly from Heathrow at 8:30am on Thursday, which is gross, but I touch down for an hour and a half in Frankfurt before carrying on to Boston. YIS GERMANY. From the airport at Boston, I will be picked up by camp staff, as camp is about a three hour drive away. I've had a little look at where it is and it's literally in the middle of nowhere; it looks gorgeous and I'm so excited to get there and get stuck in!

I'm slowly but surely sorting everything out, but it still feels like I have a million other things that need to be done. I guess I'm just stressing because I've never travelled out of country on my own before. And it’s not like I'm just skipping across the English Channel to France - I'm going halfway around the world to work in the United States.

I am at camp in Vermont until August 20th, then I'm going on an adventure to New York until August 27th. I've already had a look at hotels and travel from Boston, and I'm compiling a list of things I want to pack into the six full days I'll be spending in NYC. Obviously nothing is set in stone until I know what my finances are like after camp. On August 27th, I fly back to Heathrow (hopefully from JFK airport!), again with a short stop in Frankfurt.

I am so ridiculously excited and nervous, and feeling ill over the fact I will have minimal/no internet for the next couple of months, but looking forward to all the fun and new experiences I will have. I can't believe I'm actually going to America in less than 48 hours, it's all happened so fast!