Friday, September 18, 2009

Summer School

As I sit here in the den of my maternal grandparents' house, watching my mother and aunt play Tetris, it just doesn't seem that the past four months actually happened. The summer at camp having gone so quickly, finished by an instant transition to life without it, has got me wondering if it really did. But then I think about everything I learned this summer and am reassured that I did not, in fact, miss out on three whole months of my existence. So here's what I learned, in no particular order:





1. Give credit where credit is due. This one seems pretty obvious on the surface. But all too often I find that people will knowingly take credit for someone else's work. Aside from being an inherently jerky move, it's just not cool. Some would argue that it's better to accept praise from someone for something he or she thought you did than to make it awkward by correcting them. On the contrary....redirecting that praise to the deserving party proves not only politeness, but integrity.


B. Bee stings hurt. And they're annoying. I've been stung by wasps several times before in life. But this summer was the first time I was ever stung by a bee. A cute little fuzzy buzzy BEE. And I wasn't even doing anything to him. In The Secret Life of Bees, Queen Latifah (my wanting-to-be-her-when-I-grow-up aside) told me that no life-loving bee WANTS to sting you. So maybe this little one was suicidal? Alas. The actual wasp stings initially hurt more. They hurt for about a week and that's that. But the thing about bees is that their stings linger. They hurt for a couple of days. The pain goes away. And then they itch like crazy for approximately 2-7 weeks. But bees are just SO CUTE, I can't be mad.


3. Swine Flu really isn't THAT bad. I say this as a supposed survivor. That's right....I'm pretty sure I had the swine. And we're pretty sure Emily had it twice. I got it at the beginning of the summer....around Family Camp/Orientation time. It basically knocks you out for 3-4 days, usually with the middle two days being the worst. Then you cough for a couple of weeks but eventually get back to normal. (Normal, of course, being a relative term) When a gazillion of our staff members got the swine and the VD (vomiting and diarrhea....not to be confused with venereal disease...even though I wouldn't be surprised.....) we had to close camp. It was definitely an interesting few days trying to get the campers picked up, camp cleaned, dealing with the health department(s), and all the while keeping the rest of the staff happy, healthy, and working. So, while the media hype is making swine flu sound super scary, I've had cases of bronchitis that made me feel worse!

4. Facebook rules the world. All joking aside, it's pretty much true. I'd be willing to bet that within a few years we will be able to shop, bank, trade stock, job hunt, make dinner reservations, order pizza, refill prescriptions, book travel, renew driver licenses, and check credit scores on facebook. Well, perhaps that's a tad bit extreme....but you get it. I mean, facebook is so integral to everyday life these days, I find out about things happening in my life from FB before I learn it in real life. It's outta control....but not necessarily in a bad way. With the way it's growing and changing (the average age of users has risen DRASTICALLY over the past two years), there's really no telling what's next! You can also check the Facebook Blog to see what's going on behind the scenes. Mark Zuckerberg may have received a C on his original web design assignment at Yale...but he gets an A in world impact.

5. Opportunities are not for wasting. Sometimes you only get one chance to say or do something. It's not always easy. But you just have to grow a pair or spend years regretting it. Although, it helps if you have nothing to lose.

6. Steve Carell was right when he said, "Plan to be surprised." Basically, just when you think you've seen it all....you learn that you haven't. Like when I thought I'd seen just about every outlandish thing that could possibly be flushed down a toilet (clothes, bedsheets, toothbrushes, pool toys, diapers, and soap dispensers...just to name a few), and plunged a toilet for over an hour only to have the maintenance guys pull a swimsuit out of the pipes. Yes, a swimsuit. One of the campers had stolen his counselor's swimsuit and flushed it. We have no idea why. Or how about the staff members who are so shy and reserved when they first get there that we don't think they'll make it through the day much less the summer, and they end up being some of the best ones we have. And of course there are also those days when nothing goes right, the power goes out, and somebody poops in the pool....but then Rick, the friendly UPS man shows up with a package 0f goodies from your best friend and all of a sudden it's the best day ever. So in the end, I've stopped expecting anything and just wait to see what comes my way.

7. It really sucks when you have to poop and you're wearing a one-piece swimsuit. Just trust me on this one.

8. People will always make assumptions. I had the pleasure of answering the office phone when a particular parent called the office looking to speak to a nurse. When I told him that no nurses were available to speak to him (since it was a day off, after all) and offered to try my best to help in their absence, he told me that while I sounded very eager to help, he doubted I was educated enough to answer his questions. Now, I don't offend easily. In fact, I have a rule: take anything anyone says to you as a compliment and you'll never be offended. When the little guy from Israel tells me that I don't LOOK like someone who likes to eat vegetables...I think, 'Awesome. That must mean I look like a fun person who likes to eat exciting foods.' Or when Emily tells me that I look awful and need to go shower and sleep, I just take it as her looking out for my well being. But when the man on the other end of the line assumed that just because I answered the phone I was uneducated, I was speechless. I guess people will always go on assuming things about people they don't know. That's alright. We'll just go on proving them wrong.

9. Getting people to recycle is harder than you might think. It seems to me that dropping an empty coke can into the recycle bin instead of the trash can RIGHT NEXT TO IT is really not that difficult. Apparently I am mistaken. I'm not sure where I went wrong. Three years ago I talked Jonathon into buying the bright blue recycle bins complete with the hole-in-the-middle white lids that read 'CANS ONLY.' I put paper recycle bins on the sides of all the trash cans in the office. I volunteer to wash dishes to avoid using Styrofoam plates and disposable cups whenever possible. Even though it rarely works out, I try really hard to consolidate trips to town to save on gas. I even did an entire session during orientation on the environment and what we can do to help.....and finished it by sending everyone out to the woods to hug trees. But to no avail. I still found myself picking coke cans and bottles out of the garbage and putting them in the recycle on a daily basis. It's either laziness or apathy and I don't think it really matters which. I'll blame it on the fact that we're dealing with the 'Millennials' and will just wait patiently for the next generation which is being raised on green living.

10. Everything really DOES happen for a reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It's the cliche of cliches. But this summer solidified my belief in fate/karma/destiny/serendipity. No matter what we call it, it's what makes the world go round. I mean there had to be a reason that crazy Tom McDougal (or whatever his name was) from Australia felt the need to "follow his heart" to England, freeing up a spot for Ronan on LT. I'm certain that a higher power was at work when Garrett and I randomly chose to do our evening rounds backwards that one time and came upon a cabin in crisis. The fact that we happened by just as they found a [non-epileptic] camper who had fallen out of bed seizing and [because my blackberry is attached to my hip...literally] were able to call for an ambulance right away is no small miracle. Not to mention the one day I told Barry to go swimming during rest hour instead of staying to work in the office, he was standing in exactly the right place to catch Erica, whose wheelchair drove her straight into the pool (aided by a rogue lifeguard tube). So no, I don't believe that those events were matters of coincidence. Not at all.


I suppose that in the end, it was perhaps the most interesting, educational, stressful, and fun summer on record. It's nice to go out with a bang! :)