Monday, July 07, 2008
Week four: Transition
As my years at camp increase, I have found that my attention level at all-staff meetings has waned, particularly when the meetings are long and late at night. This became particularly clear to me on Thursday night, after the first day of Yom Sport. Counter to the usual Lail Mukdam, that happens on YS, this meeting was called for 11:00 pm (an omen if there ever was one) and did not let out until 12:30 am. It was the standard end-of-session meeting, with some free t-shirts thrown in, but while my mind wandered, I remembered the rapt attention which I had given these same meetings my first years on staff.
Yom Sport (Thursday) itself went fairly smoothly, if unexcitingly. I played my role in helping start the Apache Relay, and while we did our best to make it last as long as possible, the whole thing was over in under 75 minutes.
The previous day (Wednesday) I saw Hancock, which was everything I expected from a Will Smith summer flick, plus one absolutely insane plot twist. At Habersham Hills, the movie theater does not start selling tickets until 1:30 pm, which makes for a bit of a line for the 2:10 movies in the unshaded, heat-radiating parking lot.
For Yom Pack (Sunday) we ran the tower inspection, a process that takes all of our human resources. We have to go over the tower, wall, swing and Odyssey individually, making sure that every nut and bolt is tight and that there are no irregularities in any piece of equipment. Ropes, biners, trangos, harnesses helmets and shoes are also checked, with the last two receiving healthy sprays of Lysol. Rope washing attracts a lot of attention, but is not all that fun unless it is very sunny.
All-camp Peulat Erev went as usual, with singing alternating with video, slide show, five year t-shirts, the time-change and more singing. I went to bed immediately afterwards, slept for a solid six hours, then proceeded to move bags from the U-haul (where I had placed them Sunday) onto buses one through four. Having finished that an hour ahead of schedule, I treated myself to a shower and a 90-minute nap.
Now, intersession has officially begun, I am in the Mercaz waiting for my family to arrive, so that they can take up the rest of my day. In theory, Jason is coming too, but we have yet to install a third bed in our room, so he might just sleep in the bathtub.
Finally, we have gotten rain more than once a week. We actually had three separate thunderstorms on three different days this past week, which is much more similar to what camp is, as opposed to the last two summers of drought. Everyone is hoping that the rains will keep up to raise the lake and to provide excellent picture-taking opportunities (and because droughts are bad and cause fires).
No great pictures this time, they are mostly of the blurry night Odyssey variety.
Yom Sport (Thursday) itself went fairly smoothly, if unexcitingly. I played my role in helping start the Apache Relay, and while we did our best to make it last as long as possible, the whole thing was over in under 75 minutes.
The previous day (Wednesday) I saw Hancock, which was everything I expected from a Will Smith summer flick, plus one absolutely insane plot twist. At Habersham Hills, the movie theater does not start selling tickets until 1:30 pm, which makes for a bit of a line for the 2:10 movies in the unshaded, heat-radiating parking lot.
For Yom Pack (Sunday) we ran the tower inspection, a process that takes all of our human resources. We have to go over the tower, wall, swing and Odyssey individually, making sure that every nut and bolt is tight and that there are no irregularities in any piece of equipment. Ropes, biners, trangos, harnesses helmets and shoes are also checked, with the last two receiving healthy sprays of Lysol. Rope washing attracts a lot of attention, but is not all that fun unless it is very sunny.
All-camp Peulat Erev went as usual, with singing alternating with video, slide show, five year t-shirts, the time-change and more singing. I went to bed immediately afterwards, slept for a solid six hours, then proceeded to move bags from the U-haul (where I had placed them Sunday) onto buses one through four. Having finished that an hour ahead of schedule, I treated myself to a shower and a 90-minute nap.
Now, intersession has officially begun, I am in the Mercaz waiting for my family to arrive, so that they can take up the rest of my day. In theory, Jason is coming too, but we have yet to install a third bed in our room, so he might just sleep in the bathtub.
Finally, we have gotten rain more than once a week. We actually had three separate thunderstorms on three different days this past week, which is much more similar to what camp is, as opposed to the last two summers of drought. Everyone is hoping that the rains will keep up to raise the lake and to provide excellent picture-taking opportunities (and because droughts are bad and cause fires).
No great pictures this time, they are mostly of the blurry night Odyssey variety.
# posted by Daniel @ 12:24 PM 
