Having a very BSC Super Special Like Summer... Claudia style

I've said it several times, and I'll say it again. I suck at updating.
Anyway, long story short, at the end of April, there was a Hailpocalypse that hit St. Louis and the surrounding areas, including where I live 25 minutes east of the city. I lived in a basement apartment, and the hail broke open the door to the basement area, and flooded the entire space with a foot of hail. Except for the two apartments that were down there, ironically, those doors held. However, the apartments did get flooded with at least six inches of water. (Thus subermging my laptop which by some miracle it survived).
So I had to get out, and moved in with my father and stepmother temporarily.

So, I didn't have enough money for a new apartment, and I was looking for a job anyway, so I started filling out job applications. And I landed one.

I'm now working at a Girl Scout Camp in northern Minnesota smack dab in the middle of the Chippewa National Forest.

What's my position?

The arts and crafts "specialist". Pays more a week than a regualar counselor, however, when there's no scheduled craft time, and there's not a lot of preparation that needs to be done, i find myself tagging along with one of the groups to make myself appear like I'm doing something. We do get 2 hours off each day, and a day off every 2 weeks, and a night off at some point.

It's really pretty here. We have a lot of turnover, so we're constantly getting new girls, and there's a specialized program that they sign up for. THis week there's S'mores,which consisted of making s'mores...or something. THey were the youngest ones, and they left yesterday. There are program and camp aides which are older girls (middle schoolish) that help around camp with different areas (crafts, swimming, food, etc), or interact more one on one with the girls. There are the night owls, which is our largest group (11 of them). They're allowed to stay up until 2am and sleep in until about 10am or so. There's a lot of nighttime activities that take place for them at night. They're upper elementary school ages. The last group we have this week consists of a whopping 2 campers. Trail Mix. Last night they went on a campout, that consisted of a 3 hour hike, camping, and eating over a fire along with other such things that I don't know about because I wasn't there. They're coming back this morning. They're late elementary as well.

The rest of the groups leave tomorrow, and we have another session starting tomorrow evening (we do get a few hours off in between sessions after clean up is done, and that usually takes about an hour or two). There's going to be about 52 people this weekend (Not quite as bad as two weeks ago when there was nearly 100). I'm stll not sure what exactly is taking place, or whether I"m going to have to move again. Starting on Sunday and going through Tuesday, we're going to have a whopping 9 girls total, and then we have the fourth of July off.

So far I've had one night, one day (last Wednesday during the week where we had 11 girls), and last weekend off. Last Wednesday consisted of driving over to Bimidji and going to goodwill, and various other stores including Wal-Mart.
Last Saturday night we went to Paul Bunyan days and to the Paul Bunyan dance in Akeley. Apparently they're kind of obsessed with Paul Bunyan up here.

We sleep in bunk beds. Currently I'm in a room with one other person, and in the program center there are two bunk beds per room (PC has 40 beds, Loon Ridge has 16, and Porkies has 32. THere are also places to pitch tents).

It's definitely different being here. I was never one for summer camp really. The closest I ever got was fifth grade camp, and by the end of the week I was dying to go home. I hated girl scout camp, which was "Here we are in platform tents (Or A Frames), with our troop and cooking outside". It wasn't ANYTHING like this... although that is an option for some troops.

Tonight is the last night of the Night Owl's big art project. We're making Papier Mache Owls. Totally something Claudia would do. I really wasn't sure how they're going to turn out, but the balloons that have popped, the papier mache form has held... so we did something right. Tonight they're going to be painted and there are owl faces that we have that can be attached.


Anyway, that's the big news from Camp Shingobee Timbers. I get paid tomorrow, wahoo! I"m hoping on one of the days or weekends off we go to Grand Rapids, MN, the birthplace of Judy Garland......

Day 11: Favorite Sitting Charge

Okay, took a few days off...or forgot to post...whatever. At least it wasn't three months.

As an OT shoutout kind of thing: If any of you are fans of the TV Show "The Voice" a guy I've known for over 20 years (off and on) was on tonight. He didn't get picked, but man the judges seemed to be kicking their own asses pretty good about it, so that made up for it (a little bit.). Unfortunately, I didn't get home from my night class in time to see the entire thing. I drove home as quickly as i could, ran into the living room, turned on the tv, and there he was.

Dammit.

Apparently people thought he was kind of douchey. Whatever...he's mega confident. You shoulda seen him in middle school. I think most of us thought he was nuts. He'd go around singing all the freaking time.

But, hell, we all have our quirks. I remember one time during our freshman year of high school, during solo ensemble contest, we were hanging out together with another friend just passing time, ...and I think dancing? Or something.

So, that makes the second person I know who made it on a reality show, but didn't quite make it. (Another friend of mine that I know from doing a couple of shows with down in Texas was on America's Next Top Model, Cycle 14. She got eliminated at the very end before the actual competition began. Aimee Beyers.)

So, here's a shoutout, using a picture of us from the third grade music program 19 years ago. Cameron Novack, aka Novackaine.

In case anyone can't figure it out. He's in the black sweatshirt, and yellow guide hat thing behind me.

Anywho,back to the 30 day challenge.

Favorite Sitting Charge: Charlotte Johanssen

Why? Not entirely 100% sure. I loved her relationship with Stacey, and it made me wish even more that I had a little sister. I did have a Stacey/Char type bond with a girl that was a few years younger than me when I was in elementary school. Except that she wasn't really that shy, and wasn't in an extreme need of friends, and I wasn't all cool and sophisticated like Stacey...but whatever. That was kind of a rough age for me, and looking back on it now, I really appreciated her friendship. It's kinda nice when someone looks up to you and thinks you're kind of awesome when your peers and/or yourself don't.

Anyway, I went on to middle school, and she moved (I think to Seattle I heard) halfway through that next year. A couple of years ago when I was randomly looking up old names on the internet of people I had known once in a blue yonder, I stumbled upon a wedding page for her and her then fiance. There's like no one else...a in the country ...or anywhere... with her name. (well, with maiden name.)

She's not on facebook, (at least not publically) though I'm not sure if I would ever contact her if she ever got on. 1. Because it was so long ago, I'm not sure that she'd even remember me, and

2. My 11 year old self somehow never picked up on the fact that she was a Jehovah's Witness and that was why she never celebrated her birthday or other holidays. What little i do know of them, I know that many don't really converse with people that aren't JW..... However, I'd like her to know that as silly as our friendship might seem now, it really did mean a lot to me.

And now I've rambled COMPLETELY OT.

But those are just a couple of reasons that Charlotte is my favorite kid. Sweet, shy, made me wish I had a little sister (though I did pick up lots of surrogates.), and hello childhood flashback.

100th Post. Day 10. Oops

Wow, I suck at this.

Anyway, Nikki over at Are You There Youth, it's Me Nikki (http://whatireadbackthen.wordpress.com/baby-sitters-club/ since I completely suck at hyperlinks on here) plugged in a nod for this blog a couple of weeks ago, which I just now saw because she said something about it on the BSC Livejournal Group, I realized I really needed to get back to this.

Especially considering she said I didn't update very often. Whoops.

But I appreciate the advertisement. I hope it will garner some attention back to this thing. (insert Dory from Finding Nemo saying just keep posting posting posting...)

Anyway, school and everything kind of kept me busy, and I'm very easily distracted.

So Day 10.

Least Favorite Minor Character.

I'm going to go with Mark Jaffe, Claudia's boyfriend from when she was back in the seventh grade and Josh Rocker from the Friends Forever Books. I can't really remember anything significant about Mark (I REALLY need to go back and reread those books)... and Josh... well, the whole Stacey/Claudia situation wouldn't exactly make him look favorable to anyone in their right mind.

And that wraps up post #100. Been doing this over 3 1/2 years now. Even with all the lapses in time I manage to do about 20-25 posts a year. I guess that's not TOO horrible.