An Hour Off

Korrin B.

June 30, 2009 - 12:00 PM

The children showed up yesterday!!!! Finally! I feel like I have been at camp forever, waiting for them. Yesterday four busloads of girls showed up. One hundred camp counselors, including myself, were there waiting for them. We were singing and chanting and telling them how excited we were for them to be there. It was such an incredible energy!

We did a quick tour for them around the camp and then moved onto swim tests and check-ins with the nurse. It was a day full of paperwork and camper orientation, so it was exhausting and not the most fun, but underneath my tired, dehydrated headache was pure excitement and joy. When we finally went to sleep that night, I was smiling. In my cabin were six beautiful, peaceful, sleeping girls that were so happy to be at camp!

Today, I taught my first art class to one of the camper groups! It is now my hour off, so I can tell you all about it! I never knew how much I would need an hour off. This job is a 24/7 commitment that takes a lot of concentration and energy. It is great though! My class today was amazing!

My art classroom is all decorated and has a really nice energy to it. I put large white posters on the walls so that kids who finish early can draw on them and we can create community art! One poster is where they write and draw what they love most about camp, one is for their gratitude's, one is for random doodles, and another is for their signatures. My mom also sent me some posters of where I live in California, so I put those up on the walls too. It helps remind me that home is still with me while I'm away. My room is full of color!

I was fully expecting my first group of campers to come into my classroom and be loud and not want to participate, but neither of those things actually happened. They came in and were quiet and so into the activity. My first group was the eleven-year-olds from the Arrowhead Village. We all made gratitude journals.

Gratitude journals are where you write down five things each day that you are thankful for. Each camper made their own gratitude journal with colorful construction paper and ribbon and then decorated them with glitter, magazine clippings, crayons, and more! Each camper made a journal that was really unique to them, which was what the point was. Then, the campers creatively wrote their five gratitude's in the journals. They wrote them in all different colors or wrote them in the shape of a flower or sun. I was really impressed with their creations.

I teach two more classes today and they are with the ten-year-olds of the Lakeview Village and the nine-year-olds of the Overlook Village. I am going to have them make collages that represent them and then share their stories. It should be exciting!

I am so inspired now that the kids are here. When I went around and looked at all of their gratitude journals, I was filled with warm fuzzies! This job is absolutely exhausting and I still have moments where I just wish I were home, but I also realize how great it is. I'm happy to be here. I think this experience will really help me improve the after school program I work in back home, as well as point me in a good direction of where I want to go with my studies in school now and grad school later.

Ok, well, I need to go enjoy the rest of this time off. More on the wonders of camp coming soon!