i am relaxing on the weekend after a slightly stressful first week with a rowdy group of 6th graders at high trails. we had monday off, so i spent that day finishing up my materials, working on my bow drill and hanging out with people.
tuesday morning found me preparing to take on a group of 14 students for the week. after morning chores to get our site ready, i waited at the bus turn around (also called the "helipad" since a helicopter could land on it) with the rest of the field instructors. there were lots of rules explained and even more names called for on attendance lists. at that point, i'm pretty sure i was more nervous than any of the campers about being at camp.
but, i welcomed my dancing dodos (that was their team name. later in the week i accidently started calling them dingos. remnant of a game from my last job) to a fun trail group. we went to lunch and then had an enjoyable team discovery hike to introduce them to some of the concepts we would be discussing throughout their time at camp. it was good! i managed to get through everything in the lesson plan, so i was happy. i fumbled my way through sitting at a "happy table" (i get to make polite conversation and make sure that only one student is up from the table at a time, yay!) at dinner and then cozied up in my cute cabin for the evening.
on wednesday, my group was doing a long hike around camp while learning about decomposers, plants, and outdoor survival. the morning was pretty chaotic with having to make around 200 sandwiches for our picnic lunches AND make sure we had everything set for all of our classes. the day did not go perfect. one student twisted his ankle during a tag game in the first lesson forcing us to remain in the same location for about an hour (not fun for active kids). there were a good share of behavioral issues...and then a bunch of bumps and scrapes during our shelter building activity. but, i'm learning a lot about how to handle a difficult group of kids, so i'm thankful for the challenging experiences and the chance to use my first aid training.
thursday gave me the opportunity to delve into what happens when southern california gets rain. the kids are definitely not used to that sort of weather and the minute it started raining they were all complaining of being cold and begging to go inside. i had a flashback to when i pulled a 13 hour day in a torrential downpour doing trail work and just wanted to tell the kids to toughen up, but we did end up going inside. we made it through our adventure course alright and managed to get through archery without anyone getting hurt, so that was great. by then, the sun came out and it was beautiful again! we had a long lunch including a game of camouflage (hide and seek). our next stop was the climbing wall, something i wasn't excited about, but my kids were. all of the new instructors are being observed during our first archery and climbing classes to become certified. i passed my archery certification, but i didn't make my climbing certification. i felt good on the content, but my delivery of the lesson and management of the kids was definitely sub par. they all had a lot of fun and no one got hurt, so it was great, but i was definitely anxious the whole time. it'll be good to try for my certification again.
we finished the day with a short environmental awareness class. i was looking forward to this class the whole week, but because the climbing wall was delayed, i had to scrunch an hour and a half lesson into less than an hour. not ideal. but...we made it! i was very happy to hand my kids off at the end of the day...
on thursday nights, the kids have a cookout instead of dinner inside so they cook their own hot dogs and make s'mores. it was pretty great to end the day with marshmallow gunk all over my gloves. kind of nice.
friday was our last day with the kids. i helped out with breakfast, did some work in the teacher housing (my "project area" that i am in charge of with 3 other staff), acted out the part of the hummingfish in our rendition of the lorax, had my final 10 minute lesson with the dancing dingos and then waved their buses off as they left to go home. we spent the afternoon in a downpour. i ended up being stuck in the laundry room much of the time because the rain was so bad. there were intermittent bouts of hail, lots of lightning and thunder, and stormwater runoff like i've never seen before. within about 5 minutes of the first downpour there were rivers of water streaming through the parking lot. it was incredible!
what wasn't incredible was having some of the buildings start to flood and to come home and find that my own cabin had flooded. luckily nothing of mine was damaged and within 24 hours the weather has returned to its warm and sunny self.
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