Day 54

The downer of not blogging for so long is having to remember back ages ago! Umm okay so last time I left it Aaron and Leanne were round for the night. On the Sunday we lounged around in the sun quite alot, then in the evening we met up with Luke, Oli, Adam M, Joe, Brigitte and Amy to see The Dark Knight. It was really good, Heath Ledger is blatently getting an Oscar for that.

Had an awesome day at camp on Monday at the start of the third session. It actually was a well good week at camp. I had alot of fun with it, plus on Tuesday Arnie, one of the camp directors, said to me in the Lodge when I went to get our bus clipboard "How's it going big guy? You're always smiling, it's good to see someone smiling all the time!" and I actually was in an inexplicably extreme happy mood for ages after that. I ran up to Sam and was like "SAM! I HAVE TO TELL SOMEONE!" and when I told her she was like to Holly and Ilyssa "SHAUN HAS BIG NEWS!" Arnie is quite feared at camp so to have something nice said to me, something that indicates that he knows who I am, was quite a big deal! Whenever Arnie is pleased with someone for something or other he gives them a $2 bill, which are quite rare, and on the Overnight meeting on Thursday Jason passed on from him a $2 to me cos he [Arnie] saw me picking up trash about camp. Oh yes!! Anyway yeah at camp I had a well good week because I was more fun with the kids and our group has a really nice balance and athmosphere to it this session. Steve and I have been joined by a new co-counsellor... we were going to have Andy but in the eleventh hour they switched it to Rob. I think Rob is still finding his feet with us a bit because he's used to Kindergarten age kids, but yeah he's a nice guy but I'm worried that he and Steve are going to have a bit of a clash! Nicole has been moved back on to our bus after a temporary move; the reason being that Katie has quit. I don't think she was ever really enjoying it but she was quite good for a talk on the bus so it's kinda sad I suppose.

Monday night soccer last week was alot of fun. Leanne and Amy didn't come in the end and all the guys except me and Oli and Jacob were actually playing the damn game, but Brigitte and Jenni came this week and it was hilarious hanging out with them for a while; then at Champps afterwards we sat on a table along with Luke and Lyndia [the "i" is irrelevant, it's essentially Linda haha].

The Overnight theme this week was Goldrush, which is where all the campers roam around camp trying to find popsicle sticks, and each colour stick is worth a different amount of points. They then get back into their groups and total their points, then there's an auction. A handful of counsellors were lined up and groups had to bid for them. If they won the counsellor, the counsellor had to lie down on the floor and be covered, smothered and pummelled with whatever was in store for them. Brigitte got jelly sandwiches, Darren got hamburgers (burgers, buns, ketchup, mustard...), Lauren got ice water, Amy and Alida got raw eggs, Rob got s'mores, Joe got ice cream sundae, Michael got banana split... very funny, and very grateful not to be one of the counsellors! Me and Jenni had our turn at kitchen duty on the overnight and was actually quite cool and strangely relaxing having a talk whilst washing and wiping an array of juice pitchers and barbeque stuff for an hour or so. Because only three Tigers stayed on the overnight, me and Rob both got moved to different groups for the night. I was put with the Celtics, with Mark H. Mark is a very good counsellor and he's one of those people to whom there is literally nothing but pure cool and pure nice. Good guy and a great counsellor.

On Friday night me and Amy took off for the weekend to Canada! Her host family were going up there anyway and asked if she and Leanne wanted to go, but Leanne didn't fancy it so I was asked to go! It was like a four hour journey but it was quite nice with the iPod on shuffle. Toronto, the Canadian capital, is so, so, so cool. It's so much different from ghost-town Detroit. It's reminiscent of London and New York but also has a uniqueness about it. Me and Amy were dropped at this pretty average hotel (but all we needed was a bed, right?) and then on Saturday we went up the CN Tower which was, until last year, the tallest free-standing building in the world. At the top of the tower there is a very famous (and very posh) revolving restaurant, which we had lunch in! Then we went for a walk up Yonge Street, which is Canada's answer to Oxford Street and is apparently one of the longest streets in the world. We stopped at a pub-type-thing and had a drink (because the drinking age is 19 in Canada!) and walked all the way back down to the seafront (which is actually a really really really really really big lake) and took a boat cruise thing to see the city lit up at night. I bloody love a good city skyline at night so that was awesome. We then began the long walk back to the hotel, calling off en route at Chinatown for a bit of a Chinese!

On Sunday we then got picked up by Amy's "host aunt and grandma" and went to this town called Stratford, an hour or so away, which is such a nice town. It's how you'd expect a town to be more in England than in the USA. I know it wasn't the USA at all but just to explain. There was a Shakespeare festival on but we saw a show called The Music Man; it was in a really nice and really professional theatre and was such a good show! "One Grecian urn! Two Grecian urns!" I wish I'd have seen it when Spotlight was still a definite constant because it's actually available for licensing as a Junior show and we would have done so good with it!

Anyway today was really good too. Mondays are well fun. We hung out on the soccer field again while some of the guys played; at one point me, Sam, Aaron, Oli, Sam, Nicole, Anna and Alison went for a bit of a walk around the fields. A few of us even engaged in some childish rolling down hills haha. Funny stuff. Champps was good - Amy has found out she has had a few of her poems published in a poetry magazine back home so she was very happy. Leanne has re-dyed her hair because the brown from before was starting to go blonde in the pool/sun but she's gone darker this time. Brigitte and Jenni are planning a trip to London in December so I'm really excited about that right now. Even the car on the way home was quite fun; Aaron, Oli and I were introducing Jacob to some of the Kate Nash on my iPod - very English! I love how my iPod is actually quite liked out here, no matter who takes a look at it they always find a load of stuff they like! Love itttt.

So yeah I'm continuing to savour every moment cos it's gonna be over in a heartbeat. I love being so social with so many people, whereas at home I only have a small social circle since school ended. I love how there's never a dull moment, I love how many awesome people I've met who are exactly on my level, I love having so much more confidence in myself because, except for maybe the first fortnight, I've been the same person I am back home and I'm actually doing quite well with it! So yeah, I do miss people back home quite a bit, but I'm really settled and really happy here. Best thing I ever did maybs?