What Keeps us Going

Sometimes I feel like I've spent the past two years in a constant state of "stressed out" with living in the real world.  But it's always nice when something happens to remind me that for now, I'm in the right place.

Ask anyone who works at a summer camp and you will be told that we "don't have favorites" when it comes to campers.  But it's all a load of crap.  We all have our favorite kids over the years.  Some are lifers at camp, and others only come once but manage to leave a strong enough impression that they make the list.  One of my favorites is here at New Year's Camp this week.  

Tonight, at the big NYE bash, he was sipping sparkling grape juice from a plastic champagne flute with his pinky finger extended.  I told him that I liked how he was holding his cup like that, to which he responded, "I don't know why I do that I just have this problem with my hands."  I told him that in fact, he did not have a problem, that it was the classy way to hold a fancy drinking glass, and that his hands were perfectly normal.

He then proceeded to thank me...for calling him normal.  

It kind of broke my heart that being called normal seemed to make his day better.  It's really ironic, though, because around here, nobody is normal, and that's what makes us all our very own kind of normal.  

...but I digress...

Okay so it's a couple of days later and I don't have anything major to show for my efforts at getting my house in shape, but it's coming along nicely. It's not like I'm not otherwise busy. If we are being completely honest, my job is more like full-time-and-a-half. Mostly because while I am trying to get my house sorted out, I am attempting to do the same with my office, only without the lofty 40-bags-in-40-days goal.

The last couple days have been mostly focused on laundry and preparing myself to be away from home for a few days as we round up the gang from work and head to the alleged Las Vegas of the East Coast. (Atlantic City, NJ, for those of you who didn't get the reference.) It's that time of year again for the annual American Camp Association Tri-State Conference. This conference is where, six years ago, I made up my mind to change my career plans. At the time, I was in the second semester of my junior year on my way to a degree in English secondary education. English was never really what I had planned on doing (through high school I was set on either music or microbiology, but we see how well those two panned out...) but when it came time to declare a major, it just made sense. I love reading. I love writing. I love grammar. I love words. I love proofreading. It made perfect sense.

I often wonder what my parents thought when I called and told them that I, like my sister, was making a switch so late in college. I know they told me that whatever I wanted to do was fine with them. But I'm sure they also had a few omg-not-her-too moments. I had reached a point in my education degree where I realized I was almost three years in, but really hadn't learned anything about teaching. It was all about dealing with "the system" and what it required from teachers these days. I got really jaded when all my professors were telling me what I couldn't do in the classroom instead of what I could.

I had only worked at CGT for one summer when I went to my first Tri-State Conference. 2005 was the last year the conference was held in New York City and has been at the Atlantic City Convention Center ever since. It is the largest gathering of camp people...probably in the world. And when I saw thousands of people who were making a career out of amazing summers, I knew I had finally found what I was looking for. So I look forward to this conference every year..not to mention it always falls over St. Patrick's Day, which is always a good time! No green jello for me, thanks!

...but I digress.

The only thing I've rid my house of since my last post is one bag of trash that accumulated from sorting through several boxes of junk. One box of recycling is almost full and the box for the thrift store is slowly filling. It's a process, and it's no secret that I tend to move slowly. Baby steps, my friends, baby steps!

Days till Easter: 40

Number of Bags/Boxes Gone: 2