Guys, camp wrapped up last week. I'm pretty distraught about that. As you may have noticed, my posts had become less common throughout the summer. Consequently, I have a few things about which I have wanted to write on queue. This post is about one of those things - LOL (Lord Of Life) Week. LOL Week is when Lord Of Life, a church located near the Twin Cities (or in that direction, anyway. I can't really tell you where it is. I mean, I know the town but I'm not going to say it. I'm not sure why), rents out the camp and sends it's kids there. For Lord Of Life Week, all of the counselors ride a bus to the church, which is about two and a half hours away, to pick up the kids. During LOL Week, we have the regular campers who stay for the whole week, and we have two groups of half-blast campers who each stay for only half the week. During LOL Week, I was assigned to double half-blast, which meant I would have one group of kids for the first half of the week and a different group of kids for the second half. Since it was LOL week, this meant I got to ride the bus four times. Once on Sunday with all of the counselors who were picking up their full week's worth of campers (even though I wasn't getting any campers on Sunday. Please tell me how that makes sense. I served no purpose. However, I did get a pretty good lunch at the church. Still wasn't worth the 5 hours of bus riding, though), again on Monday to go get my first batch of half-blasters, back again on Wednesday to drop off my first group and pick up my second, and then lastly on Friday, again with everybody, to drop off the campers. Let me tell you, riding on a bus full of kids is not something I would volunteer to do. Fun fact: kids love the song, "Call Me Maybe" so much, that they sing it almost continuously for over an hour sometimes. One of those times was on the bus. Of my eight bus rides (I said four earlier, but I just now decided to count each trip back as a bus ride, too), the first one was the only one during which I did not fall asleep. That was one without kids. I'm pretty much pro when it comes to sleeping. Is it irresponsible to fall asleep when I'm supposed to be supervising kids? Debatable. On one hand, I am supposed to be supervising children, and that's pretty hard to do when I'm asleep. On the other hand, we were on a bus, and who supervises children when they're on the bus to school? Nobody. I think it was acceptable for me to fall asleep.
Unfortunately, since I waited so long to write this (LOL week was like four weeks ago. Maybe five), I can't remember much about my first batch of half-blasters. One thing I do remember, though, is that I had two kids who looked very similar. Almost all of the staff, including myself, was fairly certain that they were brothers. "Nope. Everyone always says that, though. We're just neighbors." The "We're just neighbors," part lead us all to the same conclusion - one child's father had an affair with the other child's mother. Inappropriate to jump to such a dramatic conclusion? Possibly, especially considering we all work at a Bible camp. But come on - it was scary how much like brothers they looked.
My second half-blast, though, I remember very vividly. Well, I remember one kid very vividly. He was quite obnoxious. When everyone else was trying to sleep, he would just sit in his bed and talk. Not necessarily to anyone in particular, either. One time he woke me up at 6:52. "Joe? Joe? ...Joe? Hey, Joe?"
"........What."
"It's 7:00"
"No it's not - it's 6:52."
"I was rounding up."
"Oh. Wait, why does it matter if it's 7:00? We don't get up until 7:20."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. Now go back to bed."
On Friday, after we had gotten back to camp from dropping off all of the campers, Micayla, the other counselor who had double half blast with me, and whom I like to call "Mic-Mac," informed me that this kid had autism. Not severe autism; it was more like asperger's. Still, though, the kid's parents did not tell me this. I feel like that is something that you would want the person who is in charge of your kid to know. What's worse, I think, is that the kid didn't even know. Are you kidding me, parents? I was appalled, to say the least.
Also during LOL Week, Mic-Mac and I made up a sweet game. It's similar to Rock/Paper/Scissors but way more awesome. What happens is you and your opponent do a double knuck bump and explode. When you explode your knucks, though, you form a word using your hands and your mouth, one hand on each side of your mouth, which makes an "O." The three words you can form are "LOL" (for LOL week), "WOW," and "MOM." "LOL" beats "WOW," "WOW" beats "MOM," and "MOM" beats "LOL." I encourage you all to play. I hear it's going to be in the Olympics in 2016. Train up!
No comments:
Post a Comment