"what filthy piles of sand our lives make, if we just sit beside the shore and never change."
anyone who has not listened to mike mains and the branches yet should give them a try. they're wonderful, and they're christians(not a christian band; a band where the people in it are christians but their music doesn't fall into the christian genre), and they're poor so you should buy them.
anyways. they wrote that line up there. i was listening to their album for the 14th time(i don't know the exact number but that's probably about right) and heard that, and i thought of how you can never walk on the same beach twice because the sand gets washed around and moved away.
i then started thinking of all the people not coming back to camp next year and a lightbulb went on.
camp is so much like the beach.
i call both the most beautiful place in the world.
they are both my favorite places to be.
both are full of God-metaphors.
and both are always changing.
neither has ever been exactly the same when i've revisited them.
but unlike the beach, i complain all the live long day about this fact about camp. sometimes i want to never go back because of this.
i tried to reason that this is stupid. if it doesn't bother me about the beach, it shouldn't matter at camp either.
but camp is not the beach, and people that i grow to love over two months are not bits of sand.
i've never worked in the same staff twice. no one ever will. it's just a part of camp. instead of getting easier every year, it gets harder. everyone leaves a piece of themselves at camp when they leave it. the ghosts build up a lot over four years.
i've worked with 107 different people. 91 were full-time staff, 14 worked a week or two, and 2 were there for a day and a half. 28 follow me around like laverne from scrubs in that one horrible episode after she dies.
this was the summer that i made more real friends than ever. (usually i make a ton of great just-in-the-summer friends, but it's their camp selves, not their real selves, that i'm friends with. and if we never work together again, we lose each other) even though i know they'll still be in my life a long time, most of them aren't coming back to camp. i've never had this much notice for how sad the beginning of a summer will be; i don't know if that'll make it easier or harder. we'll see.
i still want to go back, and God still wants me there, so this isn't keeping me away. it'll just be harder than ever right at first.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
our own breed.
(anytime i look at my stats and see pageviews today: 0, pageviews yesterday, 0, i have the most overwhelming urge to write something.
but i usually can't think of anything.
i can today.)
there are some things that can only be understood by camp staffers. things only we laugh at, things only we cry about.
sometimes just spilling out camp stories to anyone who will listen is enough to make the missing-ness go away, but then sometimes you just HAVE to see or talk to someone who went through it with you. the phrase "you had to be there" is such an understatement.
being part of something special makes you special;
for instance: we use the same kind of cups at school that we do at camp. just like the ones at camp, they are VERY difficult to pull apart when you stack them. but unlike at camp, no one tells anyone to not stack them; they actually store them stacked up in a big basket. anyways, whenever someone sends a big stack of cups into the dishpit when i'm working, i always want to make some kind of comment on what flory would say if she had to unstack all those, but of course no one i work with would understand.
i love and hate camp for the same reason: it's mine. it's separate from all my friends at home. love it because that makes it special, hate it because i'm so rarely around the people who i shared it with.
a few days ago, hope and kathleen and jenna all started flooding my facebook with links from summercampconfessions.tumblr.com. i hadn't meant to come home until thanksgiving break, but i had to check it out and ciu blocked tumblr, so i caved. i've been on it for an hour copying pictures from it and it is the best blog i have ever read.
through it i found two other blogs(also on tumblr. seriously ciu! 99% of us are NOT using it for porn, stop making us suffer!) like it. and i forget that there are other camps out there. they are also full of people who love what they do, and those people also miss it.
i feel so crazy for missing my camp so much all the time, hate how attached i am, complain about how i wish i was one of those "normal" counselors who goes to camp, loves their time there, then leaves and goes about with life just fine until the next summer.
but now i see that for us, thinking of camp everywhere IS normal. it's a relief to see i'm not the only one. =]
but i usually can't think of anything.
i can today.)
there are some things that can only be understood by camp staffers. things only we laugh at, things only we cry about.
sometimes just spilling out camp stories to anyone who will listen is enough to make the missing-ness go away, but then sometimes you just HAVE to see or talk to someone who went through it with you. the phrase "you had to be there" is such an understatement.
being part of something special makes you special;
for instance: we use the same kind of cups at school that we do at camp. just like the ones at camp, they are VERY difficult to pull apart when you stack them. but unlike at camp, no one tells anyone to not stack them; they actually store them stacked up in a big basket. anyways, whenever someone sends a big stack of cups into the dishpit when i'm working, i always want to make some kind of comment on what flory would say if she had to unstack all those, but of course no one i work with would understand.
i love and hate camp for the same reason: it's mine. it's separate from all my friends at home. love it because that makes it special, hate it because i'm so rarely around the people who i shared it with.
a few days ago, hope and kathleen and jenna all started flooding my facebook with links from summercampconfessions.tumblr.com. i hadn't meant to come home until thanksgiving break, but i had to check it out and ciu blocked tumblr, so i caved. i've been on it for an hour copying pictures from it and it is the best blog i have ever read.
through it i found two other blogs(also on tumblr. seriously ciu! 99% of us are NOT using it for porn, stop making us suffer!) like it. and i forget that there are other camps out there. they are also full of people who love what they do, and those people also miss it.
i feel so crazy for missing my camp so much all the time, hate how attached i am, complain about how i wish i was one of those "normal" counselors who goes to camp, loves their time there, then leaves and goes about with life just fine until the next summer.
but now i see that for us, thinking of camp everywhere IS normal. it's a relief to see i'm not the only one. =]
Sunday, November 6, 2011
top 5 funniest/most ridiculous la vida moments of all time.
all time meaning, of course, from june 2008 to now.
5. "we have a problem in cabin 10...it's regarding the tooth fairy."
4. when we watched a walk to remember, and cindy cried.
3. the time that a mother came to la vida, wanting to pick up her child who was actually over at white oak.
2. the squirrel in cabin 9.
1. me and jenna and brittany and my bed...
5. "we have a problem in cabin 10...it's regarding the tooth fairy."
4. when we watched a walk to remember, and cindy cried.
3. the time that a mother came to la vida, wanting to pick up her child who was actually over at white oak.
2. the squirrel in cabin 9.
1. me and jenna and brittany and my bed...
Thursday, September 29, 2011
jericho and ai.
read the black for the main points.
read the blue for further elaboration on them.
read the red for sidenotes that aren't absolutely necessary.
so you can read just the black, or the black and the blue, or all of it, but not just the blue or just the red.
today was the most amazing chapel message i've heard as long as i've been at ciu. by amazing, i mean spoken-straight-from-God-to-me. i've had a good few of those, but usually those make me kinda mad since they usually are the convicting kind that mean God wants me to start doing something that i kinda don't want to. but this was just the comforting, check-this-out-i'm-bigger-than-you-but-i-love-you-anyways-isn't-that-awesome kind.
dr murray was of course the one speaking; he's my fourth favorite of everybody(after jeremy kingsley, bill jones, and adrien despres).
he talked about jericho and ai, and what we should learn from each.
and he described my past two summers at camp.
jericho is all about joy and victory. everything goes right, you and Jesus are on top of the world together, and you can't wait for the next chance to do something like it again.
that was 2010. i've already written plenty about it, so here i'll just remind you that it was unbelievable. "joy" is always among the first words that come to my mind when i think about that summer, but it was full of victories on victories too, whether camper-wise, friendship-wise, or personal me-and-God-wise.
i left that summer so incredibly excited for the next one.
but i did NOT take away the lesson that we're supposed to learn from jericho experiences.
DON'T PRESUME.
or to put it in more specific terms: no amount of victory in your past assures me of victory in my present.
that was the first great mistake of 2011. it hadn't even begun yet and i was already totally assuming "okay, i've got this, last summer rocked, i'm great at what i do, this won't be difficult at all" and other such big-headed thinking. and i completely expected it to go down just as well, if not better, than 2010. i was constantly comparing the two in my head.
2011 was an ai experience. ai is all about "sadness and defeat." there are no two better words for this summer. "sadness" especially for orientation and week 1, (week 2 was actually a randomly thrown in jericho) "defeat" especially for week 3(i have nightmares about that week. i never ever want to think about that week), but the whole summer was full of good amounts of both.
what are we supposed to take from ai?
DON'T DESPAIR.
narrow it down: no amount of defeat in my past need rob me of victory in my present.
and that is the more important lesson of the two, for me at least. i don't struggle so much with getting prideful about my past victories as i do letting past defeats ruin all my other attempts at anything.
on a less important-to-life note, i do this in soccer too: the first shot that comes at me determines how the entire game goes(or even just a practice). if i block it, i have a great game. if i miss it, i lose all confidence i may have had and let in every single shot after.
after week 3 was when i shut down for the whole summer. all my mistakes from that week just haunted me every single day: i'm a bad cabin leader. i don't know how to love my girls or get them to listen to me anymore. maybe i'm not supposed to be here. and i can't sing.(this horrible child told me she hates it when i sing to them at night, and when she said that, four others agreed and said they just hadn't wanted to say anything)
but while that was definitely the worst week of my career, there wasn't a reason in the world for it to affect the rest of the summer. just because i had one bad week doesn't mean the rest couldn't be great. but i kept letting it ruin me. i had plenty of "good" weeks but i couldn't appreciate them because i was too busy worrying about whether i was a failure or not.
plus i didn't want to tell anybody how bad i was struggling because i was afraid to get everyone freaking out. all summer long i had heard nothing but "linda's been here longer than anyone else" "linda knows everything" etc etc. instead of giving me a big head, like this could very easily do, it terrified me. especially when people kept saying those things after i was having such a hard time, i didn't know how to ask anyone to pray for me. so that just added to all the other stress in my life.
i've said so many times that i wasted my summer. but i didn't realize just how much until today. now i'm that much more excited to go back. i know how to deal, and i know how to tell people when i can't deal. and mostly, because(yes, i do realize i'm a broken record) God wants me there. he made me for that place. that unexplainable, borderline-obsessive love i have for it couldn't come from anywhere but God himself.
in the end, i always choose camp. i may pitch a fit about it sometimes, or say crazy things like referring to future staff as "them" instead of "we", but God always knocks sense into my head somehow; sometimes he has to make me super sick and show me how wrong it feels to not be at camp, or sometimes hope has to yell at me, or sometimes one of my campers has to write me an amazing note. but somehow or another, i remember where my home is.
read the blue for further elaboration on them.
read the red for sidenotes that aren't absolutely necessary.
so you can read just the black, or the black and the blue, or all of it, but not just the blue or just the red.
today was the most amazing chapel message i've heard as long as i've been at ciu. by amazing, i mean spoken-straight-from-God-to-me. i've had a good few of those, but usually those make me kinda mad since they usually are the convicting kind that mean God wants me to start doing something that i kinda don't want to. but this was just the comforting, check-this-out-i'm-bigger-than-you-but-i-love-you-anyways-isn't-that-awesome kind.
dr murray was of course the one speaking; he's my fourth favorite of everybody(after jeremy kingsley, bill jones, and adrien despres).
he talked about jericho and ai, and what we should learn from each.
and he described my past two summers at camp.
jericho is all about joy and victory. everything goes right, you and Jesus are on top of the world together, and you can't wait for the next chance to do something like it again.
that was 2010. i've already written plenty about it, so here i'll just remind you that it was unbelievable. "joy" is always among the first words that come to my mind when i think about that summer, but it was full of victories on victories too, whether camper-wise, friendship-wise, or personal me-and-God-wise.
i left that summer so incredibly excited for the next one.
but i did NOT take away the lesson that we're supposed to learn from jericho experiences.
DON'T PRESUME.
or to put it in more specific terms: no amount of victory in your past assures me of victory in my present.
that was the first great mistake of 2011. it hadn't even begun yet and i was already totally assuming "okay, i've got this, last summer rocked, i'm great at what i do, this won't be difficult at all" and other such big-headed thinking. and i completely expected it to go down just as well, if not better, than 2010. i was constantly comparing the two in my head.
2011 was an ai experience. ai is all about "sadness and defeat." there are no two better words for this summer. "sadness" especially for orientation and week 1, (week 2 was actually a randomly thrown in jericho) "defeat" especially for week 3(i have nightmares about that week. i never ever want to think about that week), but the whole summer was full of good amounts of both.
what are we supposed to take from ai?
DON'T DESPAIR.
narrow it down: no amount of defeat in my past need rob me of victory in my present.
and that is the more important lesson of the two, for me at least. i don't struggle so much with getting prideful about my past victories as i do letting past defeats ruin all my other attempts at anything.
on a less important-to-life note, i do this in soccer too: the first shot that comes at me determines how the entire game goes(or even just a practice). if i block it, i have a great game. if i miss it, i lose all confidence i may have had and let in every single shot after.
after week 3 was when i shut down for the whole summer. all my mistakes from that week just haunted me every single day: i'm a bad cabin leader. i don't know how to love my girls or get them to listen to me anymore. maybe i'm not supposed to be here. and i can't sing.(this horrible child told me she hates it when i sing to them at night, and when she said that, four others agreed and said they just hadn't wanted to say anything)
but while that was definitely the worst week of my career, there wasn't a reason in the world for it to affect the rest of the summer. just because i had one bad week doesn't mean the rest couldn't be great. but i kept letting it ruin me. i had plenty of "good" weeks but i couldn't appreciate them because i was too busy worrying about whether i was a failure or not.
plus i didn't want to tell anybody how bad i was struggling because i was afraid to get everyone freaking out. all summer long i had heard nothing but "linda's been here longer than anyone else" "linda knows everything" etc etc. instead of giving me a big head, like this could very easily do, it terrified me. especially when people kept saying those things after i was having such a hard time, i didn't know how to ask anyone to pray for me. so that just added to all the other stress in my life.
i've said so many times that i wasted my summer. but i didn't realize just how much until today. now i'm that much more excited to go back. i know how to deal, and i know how to tell people when i can't deal. and mostly, because(yes, i do realize i'm a broken record) God wants me there. he made me for that place. that unexplainable, borderline-obsessive love i have for it couldn't come from anywhere but God himself.
in the end, i always choose camp. i may pitch a fit about it sometimes, or say crazy things like referring to future staff as "them" instead of "we", but God always knocks sense into my head somehow; sometimes he has to make me super sick and show me how wrong it feels to not be at camp, or sometimes hope has to yell at me, or sometimes one of my campers has to write me an amazing note. but somehow or another, i remember where my home is.
Monday, September 26, 2011
christmas and camp.
today i just got randomly excited about both these favorite things of mine.
both reasons why semester endings don't make me sad at all.
i miss camp. so much. i just want to be back right now. i miss my girls. i miss singing them to sleep at night. i miss loving on them every day and crying when they leave me. i miss worship. i miss chicken fingers. i miss jenna. i miss chi chi. i miss sam. i miss kathleen. i miss ashley. i miss chana. i miss hope. i miss getting notes. i miss hugs. i miss singing the lazy song, or banana pancakes, or cyclone ;]
i miss all the little things. (i never thought that they'd mean everything to me...no. i'm gonna be original this time.)
but it's okay. we'll be back in about 244 days, give or take a few. for now, i'm gonna try to focus on the school that i spent my summer missing.
i've decided i need to get better at being happy with where i am. i miss too many things. it's like wherever i am, i miss someplace else. once i get to the someplace else, i find something new to miss. but i don't like that. it kinda sucks.
i wonder how you do that? it probably requires a lot of being normal...which i'm not good at. ah well.
and there are 90 days until christmas. i guess that's too early to start shopping. but i WANT to. =]
both reasons why semester endings don't make me sad at all.
i miss camp. so much. i just want to be back right now. i miss my girls. i miss singing them to sleep at night. i miss loving on them every day and crying when they leave me. i miss worship. i miss chicken fingers. i miss jenna. i miss chi chi. i miss sam. i miss kathleen. i miss ashley. i miss chana. i miss hope. i miss getting notes. i miss hugs. i miss singing the lazy song, or banana pancakes, or cyclone ;]
i miss all the little things. (i never thought that they'd mean everything to me...no. i'm gonna be original this time.)
but it's okay. we'll be back in about 244 days, give or take a few. for now, i'm gonna try to focus on the school that i spent my summer missing.
i've decided i need to get better at being happy with where i am. i miss too many things. it's like wherever i am, i miss someplace else. once i get to the someplace else, i find something new to miss. but i don't like that. it kinda sucks.
i wonder how you do that? it probably requires a lot of being normal...which i'm not good at. ah well.
and there are 90 days until christmas. i guess that's too early to start shopping. but i WANT to. =]
Saturday, September 24, 2011
no words.
i've never been good at writing about camp. it's just too big.
but i got much worse this summer.
i think camp is like a little sibling. it'll always be with me, whether i like it or not. when i grow up, it grows with me. when i say i hate it, i still love it. i'm just made to love it.
and i do. i never ever stopped. i hate that i didn't realize until summer ended that it's ok to sometimes not LIKE it. i spent too much time wondering if i still loved it and freaking out about how to like it again, and not half enough time just trusting that loving it and doing my job right.
it's like scott. i love him. (although in his case it's not so much the he's-my-brother-and-i'm-biologically-programmed-to kind, more the he's-my-best-friend-and-the-coolest-person-in-the-world kind) anyways. i love him all the time, but sometimes i don't like him. at all. and when that happens, i don't sit and freak out and think "holy crap what's wrong with me, do i not love him? but i WANT to love him, i am SUPPOSED to love him" blah blah blah. it's just part of life. of course i love him; i'm just sick of him. in time, i'll get un-sick of him.
so why do i not treat camp that way? why is it that when things get hard there, i lose my mind and wonder why i don't like it?
but i got much worse this summer.
i think camp is like a little sibling. it'll always be with me, whether i like it or not. when i grow up, it grows with me. when i say i hate it, i still love it. i'm just made to love it.
and i do. i never ever stopped. i hate that i didn't realize until summer ended that it's ok to sometimes not LIKE it. i spent too much time wondering if i still loved it and freaking out about how to like it again, and not half enough time just trusting that loving it and doing my job right.
it's like scott. i love him. (although in his case it's not so much the he's-my-brother-and-i'm-biologically-programmed-to kind, more the he's-my-best-friend-and-the-coolest-person-in-the-world kind) anyways. i love him all the time, but sometimes i don't like him. at all. and when that happens, i don't sit and freak out and think "holy crap what's wrong with me, do i not love him? but i WANT to love him, i am SUPPOSED to love him" blah blah blah. it's just part of life. of course i love him; i'm just sick of him. in time, i'll get un-sick of him.
so why do i not treat camp that way? why is it that when things get hard there, i lose my mind and wonder why i don't like it?
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