New-Camp Blues?
I'm here! In fabulous Annandale, MN. It is absolutely gorgeous up here - beautiful weather, sunshine, upper seventies in the degrees department, breeze, beautiful lake, and green grass. Heaven much? Charlotte, one of three program managers, picked me up at the airport right on time. My bag even got there And yet I feel slightly obligated to express what I can only term my "new camp blues." I had these "blues" as a camper, and now as a counselor I'm displaying the same main symptom: paralyzing shyness. I don't know anyone, and I'm not that great around all-female groups. The camp staff is decidedly female-dominated, and I'm not entirely comfortable. I am certainly looking forward to working with the campers this coming week and for the rest of the summer! Sure, I can go and put myself out on a limb, but it takes me a while to warm up to people. Yes, I am most likely just making excuses for being unfriendly and extremely nervous, but hopefully I can snap out of this stage of hesitation in order to go out and actually make new counselor friends. I know I said I would come here with an open heart and an open mind, but I'm finding it a bit difficult to come out of the industrial-strength shell in which I've hunkered down.
The flight from Knoxville to Chicago was relatively uneventful. They crammed us into a tiny airplane, but luckily I had the window seat. It was fabulous. The clouds and mist, fog, and sunrise were absolutely breath-taking. Almost worth getting up at 5am ... almost ... Unfortunately for the woman seated beside me, she was in quite a foul mood, huffing, chugging her vente Starbucks, sipping tomato juice (eesh - just heat it up and eat it like tomato soup), and glaring at the seat in front of her. I'm not sure what got her goat, but she needed to just take a chill pill. I spent the flight doing more thank you notes from birthday presents/cards. Great flight - not too much turbulence!
Amusingly enough, the entire trip up here seemed to be bent upon testing my patience and my ability to just let things slide. It was so refreshing, though, to be able to just say "Hey, it's okay. Take your time!" to see the look on the person's face: astonishment, pity, confusion, etc. There was nothing I could do about the plane being late, and I was in no hurry to get anywhere to see anyone. It was quite relaxing - much like my drive home from Atlanta after finals (or was it during Spring Break?) when I saw all the rainbows. But I digress - here are some of the moments when I just laughed softly to myself and sat back:
- When we first got to Tyson-McGhee airport, we saw an extremely long line for check-in, but it turned out to be Delta. Thank goodness. So we stepped over to the American Airlines counter. And what do you know! There was a whole gang of Asians (Japanese in this case) who didn't understand the concept of waiting turns (they all rushed the counter), what to do, or where to go. It was quite amusing, actually.
- Luggage weighed in at a solid 49.5 pounds. Whew.
- Security line was ridiculously long, but thankfully I didn't wait any longer to get into line. After about five minutes in line, there was a line backed up past the end of the fancy-shmancy Great Smoky Mountain stream fountain thingy.
- Security had to re-scan my bag because of something in it, but luckily they didn't ask me to unpack anything.
- After it was re-scanned, a bag belonging to the man behind me was scanned, re-scanned, scans consulted, re-consulted, scanned once again, and discussed further. Of course my backpack had to be right in front of his, completely inaccessible. And so though my bag was no longer in question, I still had to wait. I just took a deep breath and waited, sighing inside and rolling my eyes everytime a "new superior" sidled over to take a look.
- When coming into the O'Hare airport, we had pulled up to our terminal, but were blocked from pulling up to the actual gate by a line of air craft who were waiting to get the all's-clear sign to taxi out onto the runway. We were within 50 yards of the gate - so close, and yet so far ... The weather was gloomy, rainy, and gross, so I'm guessing the back-up was due to the weather. (I'm a genius, I know. Everyone start clapping.)
- It took forever for people to get off of the plane. I'm not sure why they don't have us exit the same way that they have us board: according to zones. The huffy Starbucks-toting woman grumbled and grouched and griped, but no one would let her in despite her jerky motions (I smiled a little inside).
- Once we were all boarded on the plane headed from O'Hare to Minneapolis, there was a fabulously long wait to for the plane to leave. It took forever! Not sure why. Maybe luggage loading issues?
- On this flight I was on the aisle, but luckily it was a much larger plane, and the center seat was open with a sulky girl listening to screaming metal bands in the window seat. She wasn't very friendly and was down-right surly most of the time. I guess I just have good luck with plane buddies? Haha.
Here's an interesting (true, as far as I can tell) story, called "The Man-with-Nothing." Allow me to introduce you to the Man-with-Nothing. He plops down in the seat right next to me (there were plenty of of other empty seats at the terminal) and begins this fabulous story of how he became the Man-with-Nothing. Calling up whoever, he tells such a fascinating story. "I have nothing. Literally nothing except for what was in my pockets last night." He had gotten apparently 5 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, but it sounds like it was sleep deprivation of choice. Hard nights of partying? Me thinks yes. He and his "buddies" (well, ex-buddies after this incident) had not quite enjoyed an "anti-climatic night." They had gone out to a bar last night and were sitting around wondering what to do next when another buddy called to say that he was having a party over at his house. They all went. Apparently the first group of buddies passed out somewhere and then left the Man-with-Nothing with, well, practically nothing. Interestingly enough, they even had all but one of his credit cards. So this morning he took a "$75 cab" to the airport where he bought a ticket and was making his way ... to wherever ... where they were supposed to "launch some boats" (because they "had to"). Man-with-nothing looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties. Pretty amusing stuff. After the phone convo, he sulkily played games on his iPhone, occasionally picking his phone up as if trying to call his buddies - no answers, apparently.
Chiggers: Northern-style. Instead of being those tiny red dots that drop from Spanish moss (or in the case of our front porch swarm everywhere) in order to feast upon your flesh leaving tiny red bumps that last forever and itch like hell as in the Southern-style chigger, these Northern-chiggers seem to be of a different breed. They live, for all intents and purposes, in the water, specifically the thousands of lakes up here, and burrow beneath the skin to feast, casing horrendous itching and burning sensations for a week or more. Fabulous. They sounds absolutely horrendous, don't they? Good thing camp is situated on a lake ...
For Nalas: Wildlife Spottings. So far, here are the varied species of "Wildlife!" that I have spotted here at camp so far:
- beautiful little blue dragon flies
- one squirrel
- one chipmunk
- various and sundry small brown birds
- one crow, and a great blue heron (that is out on the dock as I type this)
Alright, brave, committed, and slightly insane readers (only insane if you read every word of this tome), that is all for now. More to come as I type furiously trying to avoid making eye contact and friends. Just kidding ... I hope ...
Love!
~ Mei
