Third session. If it wasn't for third session, I could have this thing wrapped up so easily. I would have finished my blogging about Blue Lake more then a month ago. But yet, I couldn't get my brain to work itself around third session. And even now, third session is a crazy blur, that really wiped itself out of my memory, along with fourth session. I'm wondering if it is one of those psychological things, to where, when you have so many tramatic incidents happen at once, your brain erases it all from your memory as a defense mechanism. I think it's something like that, plus add in getting absolutely no sleep for those two weeks that has made it so hard to remember.
I've decided I'm going to have to do this in stages. One camper or counselor incident at a time.
So I guess the best place to start is the beginning. The night before session 3 started. So that day, I had found out about Bernie Dave's firing, and I had just finished up Harry Potter. I was ready to call it an evening. As I was finishing up my last minute paperwork, my associate came to my door. I let her in, not thinking much about it. She usually would stop by, telling me about campers who had ADHD or a severe peanut allergy, and she would just want to make sure I was aware of the situation, as well as fill me in on any information she had learned about it.
Well, that's what she came to do, but it turned out to be a little more then just your basic "yeah this camper has ADHD, I talked to the mom, she said this, make sure you talk to the camper tomorrow and then get back with me, okay" type of conversation. Of course I can't be very specific, but let's just say she was telling me about a camper who had recently gotten in the middle of a sensitive situation with a friend. Basically the friend said a guy had assulted her, and this camper, innocent in the whole situation, was basically a witness in the whole situation. To make it worse, this had just happened within the last week, and to make it even more worse, the camper (let's call her Tina) was being blamed for the whole incident. The whole thing was just extremely complicated, the camper Tina was understandably upset, and there was a looming police investigation into the whole thing.
So basically, not only did we have to keep constant tabs on this girl to make sure she wasn't overly upset, we also had to make sure she wasn't sharing the details of her incident with other campers, plus we had to be descrete with the counseling staff. That meant that when Tina was on the phone with her mom, crying or angry or scared, I had to keep my counselors out of the hut, as well as try to come up with ideas for why it was I "needed" Tina to call home. This would have been do-able, except for one small detail. She was in Counselor D's cabin.
Oh yes, oh yes, she had to be put into my drama queen's cabin, full of the session's drama queen campers. Tina might have come to camp with a whole lot of problems, but let me tell you, by the end of the session, she was one of the most normal, best behaved campers in that cabin.
And now this takes on to the story of a camper I'll call Bertha. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm calling her Bertha because I hate the name Bertha, and in the end, I hated this kid. Very few and far inbetween have I ever came across a camper that I can literally say I hated. But this kid was one of them. If it had been allowed, I, as well as two of the three associates would have slapped her.
Bertha, or course, had to be in the drama queen's cabin, along with Tina. On the first day of camp, I knew this kid was going to become known to me quickly, in either a good or bad way. It started at our opening day unit meeting. I run a big meeting with all the girls, welcoming them to camp, introducing the counselors, and then the counselors and I go over some of the basics of camp. I always let the girls know if they have any questions, feel free to raise their hand and ask. Well, I was sorry very quickly that I had given them that option, because Bertha immediately took full advantage of it. I could barely get a word out, without Bertha raising her hand and trying to get everyone's attention with some sarcastic comment. I really thought I might throttle her then and there.
After the meeting, camper Jane (as you might recall from the first post I wrote about Session 2, Jane was our resident 19 year old camper that was staying for two sessions because she was a dancer) came up to me and said something about "Wow, that kid Bertha, she doesn't shut her trap much, does she?" I just gave her a quick smile. Jane had summed up in one sentence what I didn't want to say. Bertha, for better or for worse, was already proving to be quite the handful.
*******
Coming up next time, more on Bertha (Oh, there is so much more about Bertha!), and the introduction of another memorable camper.
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Thursday, November 16, 2006
Summer at Blue Lake 2006: Session 3, only the beginning!
Third session. If it wasn't for third session, I could have this thing wrapped up so easily. I would have finished my blogging about Blue Lake more then a month ago. But yet, I couldn't get my brain to work itself around third session. And even now, third session is a crazy blur, that really wiped itself out of my memory, along with fourth session. I'm wondering if it is one of those psychological things, to where, when you have so many tramatic incidents happen at once, your brain erases it all from your memory as a defense mechanism. I think it's something like that, plus add in getting absolutely no sleep for those two weeks that has made it so hard to remember.
I've decided I'm going to have to do this in stages. One camper or counselor incident at a time.
So I guess the best place to start is the beginning. The night before session 3 started. So that day, I had found out about Bernie Dave's firing, and I had just finished up Harry Potter. I was ready to call it an evening. As I was finishing up my last minute paperwork, my associate came to my door. I let her in, not thinking much about it. She usually would stop by, telling me about campers who had ADHD or a severe peanut allergy, and she would just want to make sure I was aware of the situation, as well as fill me in on any information she had learned about it.
Well, that's what she came to do, but it turned out to be a little more then just your basic "yeah this camper has ADHD, I talked to the mom, she said this, make sure you talk to the camper tomorrow and then get back with me, okay" type of conversation. Of course I can't be very specific, but let's just say she was telling me about a camper who had recently gotten in the middle of a sensitive situation with a friend. Basically the friend said a guy had assulted her, and this camper, innocent in the whole situation, was basically a witness in the whole situation. To make it worse, this had just happened within the last week, and to make it even more worse, the camper (let's call her Tina) was being blamed for the whole incident. The whole thing was just extremely complicated, the camper Tina was understandably upset, and there was a looming police investigation into the whole thing.
So basically, not only did we have to keep constant tabs on this girl to make sure she wasn't overly upset, we also had to make sure she wasn't sharing the details of her incident with other campers, plus we had to be descrete with the counseling staff. That meant that when Tina was on the phone with her mom, crying or angry or scared, I had to keep my counselors out of the hut, as well as try to come up with ideas for why it was I "needed" Tina to call home. This would have been do-able, except for one small detail. She was in Counselor D's cabin.
Oh yes, oh yes, she had to be put into my drama queen's cabin, full of the session's drama queen campers. Tina might have come to camp with a whole lot of problems, but let me tell you, by the end of the session, she was one of the most normal, best behaved campers in that cabin.
And now this takes on to the story of a camper I'll call Bertha. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm calling her Bertha because I hate the name Bertha, and in the end, I hated this kid. Very few and far inbetween have I ever came across a camper that I can literally say I hated. But this kid was one of them. If it had been allowed, I, as well as two of the three associates would have slapped her.
Bertha, or course, had to be in the drama queen's cabin, along with Tina. On the first day of camp, I knew this kid was going to become known to me quickly, in either a good or bad way. It started at our opening day unit meeting. I run a big meeting with all the girls, welcoming them to camp, introducing the counselors, and then the counselors and I go over some of the basics of camp. I always let the girls know if they have any questions, feel free to raise their hand and ask. Well, I was sorry very quickly that I had given them that option, because Bertha immediately took full advantage of it. I could barely get a word out, without Bertha raising her hand and trying to get everyone's attention with some sarcastic comment. I really thought I might throttle her then and there.
After the meeting, camper Jane (as you might recall from the first post I wrote about Session 2, Jane was our resident 19 year old camper that was staying for two sessions because she was a dancer) came up to me and said something about "Wow, that kid Bertha, she doesn't shut her trap much, does she?" I just gave her a quick smile. Jane had summed up in one sentence what I didn't want to say. Bertha, for better or for worse, was already proving to be quite the handful.
*******
Coming up next time, more on Bertha (Oh, there is so much more about Bertha!), and the introduction of another memorable camper.
I've decided I'm going to have to do this in stages. One camper or counselor incident at a time.
So I guess the best place to start is the beginning. The night before session 3 started. So that day, I had found out about Bernie Dave's firing, and I had just finished up Harry Potter. I was ready to call it an evening. As I was finishing up my last minute paperwork, my associate came to my door. I let her in, not thinking much about it. She usually would stop by, telling me about campers who had ADHD or a severe peanut allergy, and she would just want to make sure I was aware of the situation, as well as fill me in on any information she had learned about it.
Well, that's what she came to do, but it turned out to be a little more then just your basic "yeah this camper has ADHD, I talked to the mom, she said this, make sure you talk to the camper tomorrow and then get back with me, okay" type of conversation. Of course I can't be very specific, but let's just say she was telling me about a camper who had recently gotten in the middle of a sensitive situation with a friend. Basically the friend said a guy had assulted her, and this camper, innocent in the whole situation, was basically a witness in the whole situation. To make it worse, this had just happened within the last week, and to make it even more worse, the camper (let's call her Tina) was being blamed for the whole incident. The whole thing was just extremely complicated, the camper Tina was understandably upset, and there was a looming police investigation into the whole thing.
So basically, not only did we have to keep constant tabs on this girl to make sure she wasn't overly upset, we also had to make sure she wasn't sharing the details of her incident with other campers, plus we had to be descrete with the counseling staff. That meant that when Tina was on the phone with her mom, crying or angry or scared, I had to keep my counselors out of the hut, as well as try to come up with ideas for why it was I "needed" Tina to call home. This would have been do-able, except for one small detail. She was in Counselor D's cabin.
Oh yes, oh yes, she had to be put into my drama queen's cabin, full of the session's drama queen campers. Tina might have come to camp with a whole lot of problems, but let me tell you, by the end of the session, she was one of the most normal, best behaved campers in that cabin.
And now this takes on to the story of a camper I'll call Bertha. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm calling her Bertha because I hate the name Bertha, and in the end, I hated this kid. Very few and far inbetween have I ever came across a camper that I can literally say I hated. But this kid was one of them. If it had been allowed, I, as well as two of the three associates would have slapped her.
Bertha, or course, had to be in the drama queen's cabin, along with Tina. On the first day of camp, I knew this kid was going to become known to me quickly, in either a good or bad way. It started at our opening day unit meeting. I run a big meeting with all the girls, welcoming them to camp, introducing the counselors, and then the counselors and I go over some of the basics of camp. I always let the girls know if they have any questions, feel free to raise their hand and ask. Well, I was sorry very quickly that I had given them that option, because Bertha immediately took full advantage of it. I could barely get a word out, without Bertha raising her hand and trying to get everyone's attention with some sarcastic comment. I really thought I might throttle her then and there.
After the meeting, camper Jane (as you might recall from the first post I wrote about Session 2, Jane was our resident 19 year old camper that was staying for two sessions because she was a dancer) came up to me and said something about "Wow, that kid Bertha, she doesn't shut her trap much, does she?" I just gave her a quick smile. Jane had summed up in one sentence what I didn't want to say. Bertha, for better or for worse, was already proving to be quite the handful.
*******
Coming up next time, more on Bertha (Oh, there is so much more about Bertha!), and the introduction of another memorable camper.
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