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......