Day 18

Haven't posted in a good few days, so time for an update!

On Wednesday I was starting to feel a little frustrated because we had a group of kids in the First Grade and I was used to Spotlight's army of young teenagers. They are a completely different ball game, for starters they're at the age where they're still mispronouncing words and missing numbers when they count! But luckily there was a bit of a turnaround on Wednesday which I think helped - In the Arena there is a big notice board with a little slip of paper pinned up for each activity, and you basically schedule an activity for your group by putting your group name on the slip in the necessary time, day etc. When swimming was cancelled on Wednesday, for the afternoon swim session they asked everyone just to sign up for an extra activity, and on the sign-up sheet under some activities they'd put certain specialists' names down in the empty boxes, meaning that those specialists would be leading those sessions. Activities such as music, magic, gym, photography and - woop! - drama. The morning swim session had Jenni's name on and the afternoon one had mine.

A fourth or fifth grade (I forget) group of girls signed up for the drama period that had my name on it, so during that period on Wednesday I left my normal group and went off to lead a drama session. It went really well and was just the pick-me-up that was needed. The group were really lively and up for it and they bounced right off everything I gave them to do. So then for the last period of the day when I went back to my normal group I was slightly happier and thus I think I was better with the kids.

Wednesday evenings are babysitting nights, and the kids were incredibly well behaved and I was back downstairs after putting them to bed by 8:15!

Thursday and Friday were like one long day. On Thursday swimming was cancelled once again and I was given another drama session to take; this one was second grade boys. They were alot more like I was expecting the Wednesday group to be like really, I mean they did well, but obviously there's only so much you can do with a group of 9 year old boys who more often than not won't have that much of an interest in drama! But I managed to get them going on acting out one of the Willoway songs, The Willoway Goat, which is a repeat-after-me song that is pretty much the Willoway theme tune! They did well with that, probably due to the fact that the goat dies at the end of the song and they seemed to love a bit of death!

The Overnight went well. The kids had to go to bed at 10pm and all counsellors had to stay with their campers until 10:30. After that it was a rotating system with three or four counsellors on watch at a time until 1am. This week the boys were in the tents (one tent to a group) and the girls in the gym. I wasn't given a watch slot this week but me and a few others were put down to clean up the FDA area once all the counsellors had gone to bed at 1:00. Didn't take long really and we were sorted by 1:10. Slept not too badly, only one kid needed the loo in the middle of the night!

Friday was another normal camp day, so it felt quite long but it did go fairly quickly. On Fridays they have this Friday Show thing where groups or bus groups or whatever can just show everyone else something that they've done during the week. The Cool Kids group, who I worked with on Wednesday, showed their skit that they did during their session with me, and the Spartans, who I worked with on Thursday, did their performance of Willoway Goat!!

Yesterday [Saturday] was quite busy. We had a meeting in the morning to discuss the four-week session which starts tomorrow. I'm still in the Tigers group, same as this week, only with some kids added and some removed. We're up from 9 to 12 in our group this session, and Andy's been moved elsewhere so it's just me and Steve. Because there's more than 300 kids now the pool sessions have been split. Of the four periods in the day, half the camp will swim 1st and 3rd period, and the other half will swim 2nd and 4th period. Our Tigers are down for 1st and 3rd, but on Tuesday and Thursday 3rd period I've been put down on the Drama activity sheet to be available to lead a session. I don't think any groups signed up for the Tuesday one but I'm going to have Reception age kids on Thursday. What drama I'm going to do with Reception age kids I have no idea, so I'm going to have a look on the net for some ideas and speak to Jenni, the other drama specialist, tomorrow.

The meeting finished at about 1pm but we were given the option of staying a bit longer to help out around camp and earn some cash in hand. Mark, our driver, fancied staying, and we didn't mind it for the sake of an extra paid hour or so. At first I was helping to spread wood chips on the ground outside with Luke and Chris. Luke [who you'll remember as the Brummie Villa fan from a previous blog entry!] suggested a post-camp trip down to Florida and then a flight home from there, as me and him both have to be back home at similar times. I think after-camp plans are starting to get put into motion now; several people were already sorted before they even flew out but others are starting to make their plans now. It's good that there are a few options on the table with certain people.

We were provided lunch and then we stayed an extra half hour, and me, Amy and Chris made these dream-catcher things for an Arts And Crafts project which will be done this week, and Holly soon joined us. We left camp at about 2:45 and were paid $20. Not bad considering he sold it to us as a $7/hour deal! Back home that would be peanuts but out here that more or less sorts you out for a night out.

Amy and I hung out for the rest of the afternoon, and came up with a plan for a possible activity for the Selective period to pitch to the senior staff this week. We went back to Amy and Leanne's host family's place on a nearby street at about 6ish [Leanne had gone with Sarah to this party at an up-state university] and she cooked for the whole family! We then left just before 8ish to go to Adam K's birthday thing. There were a fair few of us, like 15, and we met at Champps, then went over to a cinema to watch new Mike Myers film The Love Guru. It was a late showing at gone 10 so we killed the extra hour and a bit by going to a Hooters, which was right across the road, for a bit. It was cool to mingle with a few people, it was a laugh. The film wasn't that great really but it did have some hilarious one-liners in it. Following that we went back to Champps and left at about 1am.

Tonight the Cohens, the family who are housing Sarah, are coming over for dinner [with Sarah], but other than that it's a quiet Sunday before the real hard work begins tomorrow!