Ollie / Inka

So today was possibly the funniest day i've had since i've been at camp.
It was my first day off having worked 10 days straight, and as expected, i tried to make the most of it.
As the nights off begin the previous night past 8.30pm usually, we (Me, Joanna, Peter and James) had planned to go to Boston for Peters birthday as he turned 21. As soon as the time hit 8.30pm and even before, we had been excited the entire week for it come about and naturally got slightly frustrated at how long the evening activity lasted, despite it being pretty boring for us counsellors as we just sat in 1 place waiting for the kids to walk in. The evening activity was Zombie Invasion and consisted of all the counsellors walking round camp like zombies and attempting to turn the humans aka the campers, to zombies as well by grabbing socks from their waists.
Anyway, after escaping from the activity and going to the liquor store (my attempt at remembering not to say Offy or Off Licence) , we parted with a considerable amount of liquid substances for consumption later that evening and arriving into Boston and sipping our first drink was a relief to say the least.
After meeting the housemates and throwing a few back without forgetting Mr Cuervo in between, we headed out to a bar and subsequently drank more and basically fed Peter with various concoctions.




We retired pretty early (I only bought 2 drinks) but were greeted to an awesome party back at the house with some grub to satisfy our drink induced hunger. Waking up in the basement the next morning, I felt like I had slept in the most awkward position and no matter where I moved, I couldn't find a comfy place to sleep. Then I realised it wasn't where I was sleeping, it was the dam heat! stupid hot countries!
Anyway after waking up and getting some breakfast whilst talking about the previous nights antics, we all headed back home and it started to piss down with rain.
This is where it got interesting..
So basically there have been problems down the street before with rain, and whilst they were never as bad as this, they still caused damage to various houses including the one we were in. The rain started to get worse and the thunder and lightning broke out which is notoriously more violent in America compared to England. It actually sounded like a gunshot right on the porch. I was enjoying myself with the cool temperature (which would probably be britain's hottest summer back home haha) but little did I know the events that were about to unfold.
Outside the back door, a fair amount of water had gathered and we were all talking about how deep it was (came up to the rims on the car).
All of a sudden the drains in the road had blocked and water was rising at an alarming rate and started to reach the garden. Whilst this wouldnt normally prove much of a problem for a typical english home, American houses out here tend to house cellars which lead up into the garden. After realising that there was a strong, if not inevitable, possibility of water going into the basement, we all run down into the cellar and were faced with water gushing through the doors. The first instinct was to find anything that needed saving (the guys who lived here had books, clothes, and unfortunately housed couches down there as a further chillout room) and to bring it upstairs to safety, but unfortunately as the water rose further, the couches were beyond saving and started to happily bob about the room whilst we went back and forth moving whatever was worth saving.
After the water level reached its peak, we decided to make the most of a bad situation and play out in the rain. First we decided to walk about in the road which came up to over our knees as shown here:





Followed by riding bikes:




Followed by, my favourite, canoeing:




In between we were performing some sort of public rescue service and pushing cars up hills to safety due to idiots thinking they are invulnerable to water with their stupid small cars. Whilst some people may think they can float on water, maybe checking the big ass Escalade in the road and realising the water comes up the grill might give you some idea that it isn't possible..



After the street was drained a few hours later, we then proceeded to head out into town and went round Harvard campus:


I also learn that the feet of this statue are pissed on by frat boys as part of initiation.. nice..




Random photos












Lila pretty pissed off with a haircut that cost her 50 dollaaaaassssss. Or should I say blowdry:



Bow to the indian chief!


Me using a parking meter


Showing Lila how high her 'pants' are


Pete on a slack line (giving him some credit he turned round earlier and walked back - he wasnt in the best state of mind to be doing it at this point






Right its now 1.22am and i gotta get up at 7.30am so ima hit the sack and will post up some more jazz sometime soon
PEACE!

/Ollie

So its another day and another rest period.
This week has been pretty eventful and a lot of fun! Most of the days I’m coaching at least 2 hours of tennis to the kids and the other 2 periods consist of something random (like in an hour I’m assisting a guy teaching kids but have never fished myself haha). Although for the forth hour of coaching I am taking a swim group which is now set in stone, so I only have 1 period to play around with.

Yesterday I decided to do kayaking and the day before I did a basketball period with Sara.
Sara’s an awesome girl who is into her basketball a lot and comes from NYC. I’m always teasing her about how she’s constantly asleep until 10.30 (not literally) but we are always having a laugh and get along pretty easy.
Without forgetting to mention Tara (also lives in NYC ) she’s also another awesome girl and in my opinion is about 1000 times smarter than I am. She has a very broad knowledge of things and is my agony aunt if I ever have a mental crisis =)

Lila is also amongst the girls and from the NYC again. She teaches dance at camp and has a lovely personality and is really easy to get along with. She always walks up to me with funny stories during the day and we both share the same stupid experiences haha . We have both started quotebooks at the random crap we all say and its building quite well =P
Amongst my other close friends at camp is a guy from Ted – your stereotypical frat boy American =D (just kidding Teddybear! =P). He’s sound as a pound, has a super nice car (Bluetooth to ipod music syncher, outside code sequence on the door in case you lock your keys in) and always has good banter when we are off shift.

Arturo the eye-tie is quite a funny guy. Always keepin’ it gangsta! We run tennis like no other and are usually on the same wavelength when it comes to humour. He never fails to make me laugh and is pretty quick off the ball – pun intended.

James aka North is another Brit here at camp and is pretty laid back. He is ALWAYS late when going out and loves to immerse himself in layer after layer of baby oil (pretty gay). However we share the same ideas and are always amased at the same things that we discover – the other day we found out americans call McDonalds Miccy D’s, pretty stupid if you ask us! And when we found fireflies we were absolutely amazed for about 30 minutes…Ok I still am I’ll admit it.
Hope to get more pictures up soon!

/Ollie

So Wednesday the 30th June the campers arrived! After a short motivational speech from the directors, we all ran over to the bus where the kids were getting off and greeted them with silly chants and lots of cheering to ‘get pumped’ as so commonly put here.
After a couple of hours all of our campers had arrived and we were introduced to 8 funny, small and intuitive kids.
The first one we met was Nicholas. Such a cool kid! Really open and down to earth with just about anything. Always a pleasant one to talk to when the opportunity arises.

The second kid to arrive is Gustavo. He lives next to camp and is always talking. Somehow, most of the talk always relates back to shooting or FBI or guns but I guess that’s just how he is. He’s the troublemaker of the bunk and has a bit of a tendency to disobey as much as possible. On the other hand, he’s a perfectly nice kid and always has something to say so you can rely on him to get some conversation going if need be.

A kid named August is the third one to arrive and is usually a bit quiet but again a very nice kid to talk to. He likes to keep things calm and doesn’t usually cause any problems (so far).

The forth called Nate H is a very outspoken person and has an obsession with high 5’s. Just yesterday we were at staff meeting and were telling funny stories when someone stood up to mention one about Nate H. Apparently one of the counsellors had walked up to him for a high 5 and had changed to a closed palm and said ‘Acorn’!, Nate then said ‘I got one I got one’, repeated the same high five and replied ‘Paper covers rock bitch!’ hahahahaha. Such a funny lad but very welcoming to the outsider in the bunk who I will mention later.

The fifth known as Nate W is the smallest of them all and looks fairly athletic. My director mentions how he is one of the top gymnasts in MA and straight away I ask him about it when first meeting him. Later in the week I challenged him to a handstand contest for a laugh. He had no problems shooting me out of the water with that one. Perfect handstand with both feet pointed upwards and clasped together. So far I think he’s one of those kids who is good at just about anything. Give him a sport and he will give it his all.

Rafa (Rafael) is the sixth to arrive and is from Spain! His Spanish accent is strong and without sounding creepy is the cutest kid of the bunk. You could almost fit him in your pocket! => I love to speak Spanish to him randomly and at dinner he tells me about how the Americans think he is good at football when in fact he says that ‘The americans are just a low standard’ which I sort of agree with haha.

The seventh kid to arrive is Josh. He is an awesome individual and talks the most out of everyone. He enjoys classical music and also likes to compose it…although maybe needs some guidance in how to write it but he tries which is always the first step! =) He is the slowest eater in the world (literally) and is always the last left at the breakfast/lunch/dinner table. I usually stay with him to motivate him to eat faster but its always quite difficult as he has a habit of wandering off mid-bite.
The last to mention was initially the most problematic as all the other kids had known each other before this year’s camp. His name is Aaron and is a rather interesting individual who I could write an essay on. When he first arrives he is understandably quiet and we all try our best to integrate him from the moment he arrives, into the rest of the group. For the first day he remains sceptical and the difficulty remains even throughout the evening. As the week has gone on, he has definitely shown signs of opening up to the other campers and loves the place more than he could of imagined. His ideals are adult in nature and his maturity exceeds his age significantly. Constantly he is giving opinions on things, which I find interesting, and sometimes bewildering how he could know so much about topics which I don’t. He likes to read the newspaper and his favourite sections are the business and stock market. Whilst I respect this highly, I myself have no opinion or knowledge on the matter and sometimes have questioned if I should too, read these sections to reach the level of the maturity that he has! Haha. I have formed a friendly bond with him and we still teach each other new things day in day out and I look forward to what the months bring ahead.

So that’s the overview of my campers but what is coaching really like?

So the day is split into various stages which are:
Wake up 7.30 and cleaning until 8am.
8am Breakfast until 8.45
8.45 planning session and period (refers to each hour of activity provided to the kids) presentation – you can present a small skit to make the kids laugh to entice them to attend your session and sign ups will follow.
9.45 – First period until 10.45
10.45 – Second period until 11.45
11.45 – 1st General – The idea is to make sure kids are doing something and you are involved with helping them in some way or continuing to develop their skills whilst at camp.
12.45 – Lunch until 1.30
1.30 Rest period until 2.45 (pretty much the only time to sit down or rest in the day) with the kids in the bunk but the rules are strictly to keep things quiet (which is where I am right now writing this as they are in bed reading or listening to music)
2.45 – Period 3 until 3.45
3.45 – Period 4 until 4.45
4.45 – 2nd General until 5.45
6pm – Dinner
6.45 – Evening forum (a meeting with all the staff and campers to discuss the day and any announcements such as someone scoring a bullseye in Archery or a birthday etc
7.30 – Evening activity – this ranges from building a boat with a load of materials in order to fetch something from the lake in groups for a laugh – pictures to follow which was very fun, to a campfire night which is where the whole camp silently meets up (emphasis on silent) and walks to the campfire whereby we all sing songs and have a laugh and are all read a story. Quite an emotional time if im being honest and emotions can run wild (as I found out). A very spiritual experience like no other and im very grateful to have some thinking time with soothing songs in the background with the whole camp singing along.
The evening activity can range in times from 8.30 finish to 10.30pm finish.

So theres a general overview of the day to day camp however Tuesday and Sundays are slightly different and revolve around inter-camp games and competitions and an extra 30 minutes sleep on Sunday (woohoo).
I will finish with saying, I have never treasured my free time as much as I have at camp. Every minute I get off is like a golden pearl and I treasure it whilst it lasts =P
Not to say I don’t love camp though! Haha.

Right.. time to get changed. I have tennis coaching in 5 minutes and then an hour of swim group teaching which will be nice to cool down with as its around 33 degrees today. So not used to this..

Peace!
/Ollie