I’ve been avoiding this blog, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because this month I haven’t been a Negative Nelly™.
Real talk? I love my job as a camp counselor. Yesterday I spent a good 30 minutes looking up new friendship bracelet patterns partially so I can find new stitches to teach the kids and partially because I just rediscovered my bag of friendship bracelet string and there’s nothing like the ego boost of when a camper sees something you made and goes “Woah, can you teach me how to make that?” I spent an hour of so half-watching “Marvel: Agents of SHIELD” with my dad and making the confetti bracelet.
I’ve been working at a day camp with the 5 and 6-year-old girls ever since the summer before my senior year of high school. My love for it steadily grew as I got older, wiser, more clear with boundaries, and more understanding of co-counselors—maybe they don’t have to adore every second of hanging out with children to be a good counselor. I’ve gotten to the point where I have my routines: I spend the drop-off time coloring on the floor, trying to make conversation with the new kids, then I transition to doing the 7 different activities with the kids and honing in on the quiet ones or the more troublesome ones, and at the end of the day I play cards with the 5-year-old boy who sat on the floor and cried quietly the first day he was in after-camp care. I get beat by middle school girls at Egyptian Rat Slap, I lose my voice yelling to get kids to listen to information about after-camp care, I say hi to the Badgers (5/6-year-old boys) during morning snack, and I go home and watch TV rather than read the library books that I keep renewing.
This job has been instrumental in me recognizing that I want to be a teacher, which is a tad ironic since it also made me realize there is no way on God’s Green Earth that I would want to be an elementary school teacher. It’s the relationships—even the ones with campers who after 3 years of being out of my group have finally stopped thinking I’m cool and have stopped hanging out with me and with campers whose names I cannot remember for the life of me. I know now that teaching is all about relationships, and I know I love having relationships with kids because I work this job. I love that I can invest deeply for a summer and then skim the surface of that relationship as time goes on as campers get older and remember less about their crazy 5-year-old antics. Now that I really think about it, it’s taught me to let go of campers who I really loved and allow them to grow into someone who doesn’t need me to stand inside the bathroom just in case they can’t get their wet swimsuit on their body again. Even though I still have some doubts about my professional path (as does nearly everyone except for my two parents—thanks guys), being a counselor shows me that I’m aiming in the correct general direction.
It’s also just plain fun to be a counselor. Messing around with 5-year-olds is an art; whenever I go swimming in the pool, all my campers go, “ALEX IS THAT YOUR SWIMSUIT?!?!” and I get to say, “Maybe” or “No, I’ve been wearing this all day” or “What are you talking about?” I get to make a camper giggle and say a few sentences, a camper who at the beginning of the summer the counselors questioned if she could speak English at all. I get to play card games (mostly War because they are 5) and eat chicken nugget and tater tot leftovers. Sure, when kids talk over me I get frustrated and sometimes I get sick of repeatedly telling kids to not touch the wrestling mats or cross a line close to the rock wall and I don’t like all of my campers, but it’s overall good.
I’m already sad that in all likelihood I probably won’t be working at this camp again. RIP Alex, Gazelle Counselor Extraordinaire.
Recs: If you like romance novels (I mean, this is like pure romance with nothing else), The Hating Game is great and I’m insanely late to its hype train. Here’s the friendship bracelet tutorial playlist that I curated yesterday; the “Rag rug” or confetti pattern is the one I’m working on now. Chef R Paul and I will be trying out this Grilled Zucchini Taco (scroll for a bit) recipe for Bachelorette Men-Tell-All night tomorrow, so my resident vegetarian Sarah will let you know how it goes.
P.S. This is weird and unplanned, but this post parallels the themes I wrote about exactly a year ago in "Hand Holding & Bracelets." The camper who I said wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore is the same camper I'm talking about who actually stopped hanging out with me. AND I watched Brooklyn 99 today. The universe is pranking me or something.
P.P.S I got accepted to write on the post calvin, so I'll be posting an essay there every month or so! I'm not planning on giving up this blog or letting it go completely public, but I honestly have no idea how next year is going to go so stay tuned for the fate of this blog.
Real talk? I love my job as a camp counselor. Yesterday I spent a good 30 minutes looking up new friendship bracelet patterns partially so I can find new stitches to teach the kids and partially because I just rediscovered my bag of friendship bracelet string and there’s nothing like the ego boost of when a camper sees something you made and goes “Woah, can you teach me how to make that?” I spent an hour of so half-watching “Marvel: Agents of SHIELD” with my dad and making the confetti bracelet.
I’ve been working at a day camp with the 5 and 6-year-old girls ever since the summer before my senior year of high school. My love for it steadily grew as I got older, wiser, more clear with boundaries, and more understanding of co-counselors—maybe they don’t have to adore every second of hanging out with children to be a good counselor. I’ve gotten to the point where I have my routines: I spend the drop-off time coloring on the floor, trying to make conversation with the new kids, then I transition to doing the 7 different activities with the kids and honing in on the quiet ones or the more troublesome ones, and at the end of the day I play cards with the 5-year-old boy who sat on the floor and cried quietly the first day he was in after-camp care. I get beat by middle school girls at Egyptian Rat Slap, I lose my voice yelling to get kids to listen to information about after-camp care, I say hi to the Badgers (5/6-year-old boys) during morning snack, and I go home and watch TV rather than read the library books that I keep renewing.
This job has been instrumental in me recognizing that I want to be a teacher, which is a tad ironic since it also made me realize there is no way on God’s Green Earth that I would want to be an elementary school teacher. It’s the relationships—even the ones with campers who after 3 years of being out of my group have finally stopped thinking I’m cool and have stopped hanging out with me and with campers whose names I cannot remember for the life of me. I know now that teaching is all about relationships, and I know I love having relationships with kids because I work this job. I love that I can invest deeply for a summer and then skim the surface of that relationship as time goes on as campers get older and remember less about their crazy 5-year-old antics. Now that I really think about it, it’s taught me to let go of campers who I really loved and allow them to grow into someone who doesn’t need me to stand inside the bathroom just in case they can’t get their wet swimsuit on their body again. Even though I still have some doubts about my professional path (as does nearly everyone except for my two parents—thanks guys), being a counselor shows me that I’m aiming in the correct general direction.
It’s also just plain fun to be a counselor. Messing around with 5-year-olds is an art; whenever I go swimming in the pool, all my campers go, “ALEX IS THAT YOUR SWIMSUIT?!?!” and I get to say, “Maybe” or “No, I’ve been wearing this all day” or “What are you talking about?” I get to make a camper giggle and say a few sentences, a camper who at the beginning of the summer the counselors questioned if she could speak English at all. I get to play card games (mostly War because they are 5) and eat chicken nugget and tater tot leftovers. Sure, when kids talk over me I get frustrated and sometimes I get sick of repeatedly telling kids to not touch the wrestling mats or cross a line close to the rock wall and I don’t like all of my campers, but it’s overall good.
I’m already sad that in all likelihood I probably won’t be working at this camp again. RIP Alex, Gazelle Counselor Extraordinaire.
Recs: If you like romance novels (I mean, this is like pure romance with nothing else), The Hating Game is great and I’m insanely late to its hype train. Here’s the friendship bracelet tutorial playlist that I curated yesterday; the “Rag rug” or confetti pattern is the one I’m working on now. Chef R Paul and I will be trying out this Grilled Zucchini Taco (scroll for a bit) recipe for Bachelorette Men-Tell-All night tomorrow, so my resident vegetarian Sarah will let you know how it goes.
P.S. This is weird and unplanned, but this post parallels the themes I wrote about exactly a year ago in "Hand Holding & Bracelets." The camper who I said wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore is the same camper I'm talking about who actually stopped hanging out with me. AND I watched Brooklyn 99 today. The universe is pranking me or something.
P.P.S I got accepted to write on the post calvin, so I'll be posting an essay there every month or so! I'm not planning on giving up this blog or letting it go completely public, but I honestly have no idea how next year is going to go so stay tuned for the fate of this blog.