Session 7: Friday Afternoon Off

so i'm having my 2nd pm off period in as many days. just went for lunch at rudi's deli with erin and carrie. it was somewhat interesting to eat with both of them since just a month ago they were CITs(counsellor-in-training) and we treated them as campers. but they're both really nice and carrie is to'm's(camper from sessions 5 & 6)older sister and they super duper look alike siah! anyway we had abit to talk about. they ask alot about the gossip in camp and what's going on. apparently they think i know alot but always act blur(its true) so they were trying to weed alot of shit outta me. erin was bitching alot about the CIT program and which of the staff she liked and who she absolutely dispised, then she was telling us about herself and brandon having a brief fling and blah. carrie was like the listener most of the time while i constantly chomped on my chicken salad sandwich when i was pretending not to know what she was talking about. haha. damn baguah.

anyhow i had my mandarin and chopsticks appreciation class this morning. it was my biggest class ever with 15 campers in all. i'm glad they all enjoyed it and everyone brought their disposable chopsticks that i gave them to lunch. luckily no one was really good at chopsticks when i organized the chopsticks championships this time round(last week i was trashed by andrea the sushi queen).

last night was dance night. i think it was the most horrible night i've seen in regards to girls and boys getting dumped. i had at least 5 campers coming up to me face full of tears sobbing about how they'd just been dumped by whoever who asked them to the dance prior. i mean wah lao eh its only a dance lor!! but these kids really take it so seriously, especially the girls. if their 'date' dances with another guy, they cry. 'date' goes play sproutball, they cry. 'date' goes toilet, they cry. wah lau. sibeh kua zhang. like their whole life has been ruined liaoz. somehow i don't remember myself ever being in sucha scenario before. still there i was sitting on the picnic benches pretty often with a sobbing camper beside me asking me dumb questions like "why doesn't he like me?" or "why is she so mean?". thankfully i occasionally had andy kolby and brandie(together we called ourselves the heartbreakers club) to listen to those sob stories as well.

my very own cherokee cabin did vespers last night. it was really good. i would think it would've been one of the better cabin vespers yet. our chosen topic was perseverance. dylan and grant spoke of lance armstrong, brodie spoke about james stewart, roby and cary read inspirational quotes that i found for them, ryan told tyler's story about the boy whose father was blind, brent told a fisherman's tale and finally i sang the song 'ming2 tian1 hui4 geng4 hao3'. so that went well.

this is perhaps my closest cabin yet. in terms of togetherness, this cabin is really champion. somemore we could win the cleanest cabin this week*fingers crossed* so thats gonna be quite sweet. last night, in celebration of what a good vespers we did, i did girl devotion with the kids. campers are enamoured by the concept of girl devotions. its devotion whereby campers get to ask any question they want pertaining to the opposite sex. they love it and by golly do they have alot of questions or what. so there i was alone(it was tyler's night off) giving my take and advice on everything from "how do you make a girl like you?" to " what if i like my best friend's girlfriend?". feels like aunt aggie live in person, but then again it was uber fun.

guess thats about it for now. rockies game tomorrow. whoooooooo!!!!!

oh yah i also got my second batch of pix burnt into cd liaoz(thanks james!), too bad i don't have it with me now else i would definitely post them up. anyway time to clean up my messy mailbox and then its back to camp for closing vespers liaoz...sobz, time passes so fast...especially when you're enjoying yourself so much...

Session 7: Beast From the East

so we were playing the all-camp game yesterday and i was bringing my cabin as well as miami cabin around the west village to try and 'capture shamoo and keiko the whale'. thats what the game was all about and it involved alot of running and chasing and catching and dragging(thats essentially the no-brainers that the kids love). so i'm the really nuah counsellor who just wants to walk and only run when we see a whale(other cabins just jog everywhere they go which is dumb). we had already caught 2 whales and were on our way back when suddenly we see k-bizzle(he's keiko) and the kids go into a mad frenzy and start chasing and screaming at him. k--bizzle starts running and he's about to get away and the kids albeit being quite fast(some are real fast), almost but can't catch up to him. so i decide to start running. i sprinted through the forest onto the path and fly past those kids and before you know it k-bizzle is lying on the floor heaving and huffing and he's screaming "argh! i've been defeated by the beast from the east!" and the kids finally catch up, they're surprised by my superman sudden burst of speed(i never had to do that prior to this) and begin chanting "beast from the east! beast from the east!" haha.

now thats was funny. its a really good feeling when the kids are all over you telling how good and how fast you re. and then as we walk back to the swingsets my kids go around showing off to the other kids "my counsellor is the beast from the east!", or "my counsellor flies so fast!". and it really helped that my cabin actually won the all-camp game with a grand total of 3 whales caught! haha. afterthat i whipped out a pack of oreos in the cabin and shared with everyone as part of a 'mini-celebration'. those kids really love me!

to think i actually had bad vibes about them the first day they arrived. now i regret volunteering for bus duty for next week. just cause i wanna meet their parents and tell them what wonderful kids they've got and what great fun we had! haiz...

okie apart from that, i didn't end up touching my hair at all. maybe will do it over this coming weekend. brandie forgot to bring her cutters to camp. boo.

aside from that campout tuesday was just okayish. it wasn't the best nor was it hte worst. chris b shared with us about his family. his dad's first wife was mugged and shot in the head, his mom who's his dad's second wife divorced his dad a few years ago and he was facing the greatest pits of his life until he found solace in the Y. good for him i can see that he really is a happier person that the one he spoke of during hte campfire. my heart erally goes out to him and i'm grateful he shared all that with us. i guess sometimes you really cannot tell a person's past one bit from the outlook they portray now. then again props to him for recovering so well. ah yes the wonders of faith.

aside from that zaq spoke of his dad and the life he led. its so so so interesting that we all thought he was making it up! haha. it almost sounded like it were off the book big fish where his dad was edward bloom! haha. still it was a hilarious tale of his dad's life and it seemed like something i wanted to lead haha.

thats about it. really looking forward to this coming weekend. there're 15 of us who're going to the colorado rockies game against cincinnati. everyone seems really excited about the game cause they all wanna watch ken griffey jr play in his last season. i'm just pumped to go for a major league baseball game. haha. afterthat we're going to andy's house in denver to party for the night! woohoo!!

next week's gonna be my last week as a cabin counsellor for kids. summer camp will end afterthat. that's followed by a short girl scouts camp and an active older adults camp in camp cheif ouray before i'm done with my time here. these are exciting times and i'm really excited. i think i'll be very sad that everything's coming to an end next week and so many staff will leave. just hope it will be as good a week as the last few. got tom's pm activity off too. woohoo!!!

Session 7: Through Broken Glasses

boo hoo. i broke my lovely glasses. happened while i was playing sproutball(its a really fun game that requires abit of explanation - abit like dodgeball) anyway this kid ran his knee into my face while i was sitting down(you really need to know the game to imagine this). so yeah. luckily i wasn't really hurt except for a slightly bruised eye and i had brought my spare lousy plastic nerdy glasses along! hooray! i look nerdy, but otherwise i'd be handicapped without it.

okie so this week i've got an okayish cabin so far(its only monday, god knows what théy've got up their sleeves), its been pretty nice. this morning without myself or tyler getting out of bed htey actually cleaned the whole cabin themselves. which was awesome.

i missed hayday because i overslept. haha.

my kids are sproutball fanatics in camp. they've been playing together since yesterday when they arrived and even today during the morning period and cabin activity time. i think its great because it somehow bonds the cabin together and i can tell from experience that the kids fight less when they play something together as a cabin. so there. sproutball champs we are. just like in week 5.

think thats all i can update for a monday night off. its my first ever, and its lousy because it means that i don't have wednesday or thursday off. though i get thursday morning and friday afternoon off this week too.

oh and i got invited to play in the snow mountain ranch international tourney, which is a small soccer tournement organised for the staff. the staff play in groups of continents from which they come from(cos there's such a large amount of international staff here). so apparently someone from smr reccommended me(i happen to be the only one from cco who got the callup) to represent asia in the tournement. but the sad news is that its held tomorrow which is campout night. so i can't go. boo. what a bummer.

okie thats all for now.

Alli 'Oop

this weekend was definitely one to remember. alli and travis invited me and deseray to go downtown denver shoppping with them. it was so so so fun.

for starters deseray and i volunteered for the saturday bus ride yesterday, its where we have to accompany the bus of campers whose parents are too lazy to fetch them from camp and just wanna pick them up from denver. its a really good deal(i dunno why more staff don't volunteer for it), because on a normal saturday we get to leave camp early(meaning we don't have to wait till noon by the swingsets till all the kids have gone) and we get a nice ride to town(change of scenary is always a good thing) and we get an extra morning off during the next work week!. wah so good hor?

so deseray and i went for the bus ride. the kids' parents came pretty early and we got rid of those kids by 12noon. which meant that we had another 2hrs to wait till travis and alli reach to pick us up. funnily enough we found ourselves wanting to suntan in the baking hot denver sun. so there we both were lying in the middle of an open field(they're everywhere) and reading our books and listening to music. funny how enjoyable is really was more than it sounds.

so travis and alli came around 2+ smelling really good(having had time to take a bath in camp), while deseray and i smelled like horse crap, and we went over to alli's house. lemme state here first that if anyone thought andy brown's was bloody rich, alli's family was super uber rich man. no kidding. her house was not only bigger and more impressive but it was also located in this district in suburbia denver that has this superior air of money smell. aiyah can't describe further lah but its damn fucking rich lah. so anyway we get to stay at her place for the night.

funny point to note is that she has a guest bedroom(which looks splendid) and the basement(which i don't mind) and she suggested both can sleep two people. alli asks who wants where. travis says he "wants to sleep with me in the bedroom". i almost freak out(if you've read my blog enough you know which way he sways) and suggests that deseray should get the nice warm bed instead. travis sulks. we sleep separate in the basement that night. bozo 1, travis 0.

okie besides that we went to castle rock outlet arcade. its this huge mega shopping area where they sell overstocked items of alot of famous brands. travis deseray and myself have a ball of a time shopping. i spend us$90 in all
(don't ask what i bought) which was the least amongst us three and we had to settle for mcdonald's for dinner.

at night we went down to colfax(yah that same shady place) where travis wanted to get his first-ever ear piercings while alli gets a tattoo on her lower back just above her bum. we all hang around to "be there for her" never knew it'd be so painful(i think she's a strong girl). but anyway piercings and tattoos are so much more expensive here than in singapore. i think if i want a tattoo i will come back then only get one.

by the time we got back to alli's place. wait, alli's parents are really very very nice!!! so when we got back her mom had prepared the shower for us and beds and all that *altogether now* awwwwww....so sweet!!! had the best shower in a long time. travis sleeps on floor, i sleep on couch.

the past week has been pretty good. thankfully apart from the harrowing early week experiences, the week has been steadily improving. this is the week when i've actually had a cabin become so close to another cabin(miami) and i really adore the little girls there too. my kids were great espec the stayover conner cooper and tom. they all love me alot. cooper gave me all his candy that he's left behind(thats 3 showboxes worth of sugar) while conner gave me his bubba shrimp mini soft-toy which i always say its damn bloody cute!!! haha.

aside from that dance night was pretty memorable for me only because they played 80s cheong music that night!!! yay. really miss the clubbing days back home.

sang 'tian hei hei' by sun yan zi during closing vespers. the kids really loved it(they always come up to tell me so) and hans gave out the wishsticks. he cried while doing so because he was leaving the next morning. really sad that he had to leave, wished we had more time together. he brought the concept of hooray for pig into my life and i will never forget that. goodbye dear friend.

learnt that travis lost his virginity at the tender age of 14. wonder if it was to a boy or girl?

so anyway i've gotta go collect my laundry now and we're gonna start session 7 soon, its amazing how time flies over here. i'm staying in cherokee cabin and tyler will be my co again(yay!). my apologies for all of you whose emails i haven't yet replied, will reply them asap during my next morning off. and to those who helped entertain/distract/gossip with/update me just now thanks a whole bunch!

Session 6: Horrid Tide

geez. as if a reminder that things never stay perpetually rosy. knn this week so far hasn't been as good as it could possibly have been. xianz...

the presence of the pm riders(brodie james and nicholas) is really a pain because it means the cabin doesn't have much of a chance to bond. so in the end james and nicholas(who're best friends in the real world) always seem to be in a world of their own and hardly mixing with the rest of the kids. brodies is just moronic. i can't conprehend how a 12yr-old can be so dumb sometimes, regardless i still treat him nice, often at the expense of my own patience. sean is plain weird. i've never seen anyone so young, so lame before. wah lao eh, its so lame even myself don't find it funny. argh. and i always happen to catch his lame shite. so that leaves the saving grace to tom cooper and conner. the good things is that conner still thinks i'm a god. he's even thought of flying over to singapore to look for me when i'm back. haha.

the really down side started on monday lah knn. our cabin got paired with jake howard's cabin, cheyenne and i totally dislike that guy. i don't like he's showiness and his attention seeking ways. i find it really hypocrytical that he only shouts from across the field that 'he loves me(everyone says that to everybody in camp - haiz)' when i'm having alot of fun with kids while he hardly even bats an eyelid my direction when i'm alone. so anyway pairing us up while our co-counsellors were away was a sore-ass for me just because i had nothing good to say to him and i think he can tell too. the fact that the game sucked made it doubly worse. nao hiah.

the worst was to come on tuesday. i had swimming during am activity period. and one of our kids nearly drowned. wah xianz. she had to be pulled out of the pool and given chest compressions before she threw all the water out. it was really really scary. scary beyond any description now just because i don't wanna think about it anymore. but we(deseray and myself) who were in the pool, unlike certain other irresponsible counsellors(there should have been 4 counsellors each time) had to go through alot of paperwork and give our accounts to mike, marty and blah lah. my whole tuesday morning stank like bloody 3 day-old cow shite. it sucked real bad. the only consolation was that our efforts to help the poor girl(her name was precious) were overly commended. but the true heroines were these two litle girls in her cabin who alerted the lifeguard(who was nuahing somewhere instead of doing her job)  who subsequently pumped the water out of her. i do feel really responsible for that scary incident and it really could've ended more tragic. so thank god thangs ended up okie. and life still has to go on.

so i soldiered on for the rest of the day trying not to look too down. i got alot of hugs from alot of staff the rest of the day and i really thank deseray for being so strong and being there to share the hurt(we happened to be talking and entertaining some other kids in the pool when the incident happened). and then we had campout. which sucked once more because cherokee was paired with cheyenne yet again(at parthenon pines like last week). i really loathe him and he's only 18 and speaks like he knows alot(enhanced by his sexcapades) so i really didn't like being where i was all night even though i kept a pretty jovial face the whole campout. it turned out to be the best campout ever for alot of campers and even some of the staff(travis - poor guy always kenna lousy cabins till i came along), though i'd beg to differ if only due to the presence
of jake the muthafucker. well whatever lah even the worse shit pile will one day decompose and flowers will bloom upon it(now that's one helluva rotten analogy). still i expected today to be better.

it really couldn't get any worse lah today. things went by pretty smoothly, i don't have any activities with jake no more but he still came over at breakfast to tell me he loved me(wtf?!) and gave me a hug(at these times i just wrap my arms around him and his bag with no sincere emotion for htat pimp). argh. the next fella is dan the man. i mean i kinda like that guy but he's openly bi-sexual(meaning he's not afraid to admit it, as he did to me) so sometimes abit scared lah. i had both am(swimming) and pm(arts n crafts) with him and we chatted quite alot. tom we also have am(archery) together. he's really into soccer so there's much to talk about. and like today the swimming pool ended up being closed so we went to the kiva to play sports and games. i ended up playing basketball with him, and then subsequently whooped his bootie in table tennis. haha.

the final bright spark the last few days was the presence of miami cabin. its a girl cabin who's campers are around 11 and 12, like my boys, and they totally adore our cabin, especially me. haha. its all because two of their girls(katie and beca) were stayovers who ended up playing soccer with me and the boys who ended up being stayovers in my cabin(tom conner and cooper). and since meredith remained counsellor of that cabin both of us also got along real well and extended that to this week. this week they adopted us as their older brother cabin haha. so he hang out alot together and i'm trying to hook up their girls with my boys for the dance tomorrow too!. haha.

okie, see, (self-consolatory) bright spark, so life isn't so bad. other highlights include travis being a pretty good co(he agrees to everything i say and i've got SO MUCH control over the cabin this week i'm sure he's jealous of that sometimes). also i received another birthday package!!! so happy. receiving packages in camp is like that episode in survivor when the survivors get to meet their family members lidat. but not that drama thats all. the whole world stops and you don't give a flying squirrel about anything anymore and just wanna get to your package as fast as you possibly can. haha.

guess thats so much for the week thus far lah. will probably blog later again. meanwhile going to the grill to chill awhile first...

Nothing Like Talking to Home

to all those who spent so much time chatting with me on icq during my morning off, i salute you.

thank you for helping me feel like i were so close to home even though i'm still so far.

thank you for updating me about all there is to know about what's happening in your lives and those of our friends.

and thank you for helping me remember what a wonderful life i still have back home.

my day has become so much brighter if it hasn't already been. take care and stay in touch always!

bozo

Session 6: PM Riders

this week is the first week since week 1 that i've got pm riding campers(james nocholas brodie). these campers are in the horse program in the camp which mean they ride horses everyday instead of doing the normal activities that the other kids do. i've got travis as co and am still in cherokee. kids are conner cooper tom brodie james nicholas sean and casey. casey is a splitting image of rollie last week and plays most games as well too. he's also the colorado state basketball player of the year last year. impressive.

but what matters are that conner cooper and tom are still around. they're a god-send to have in the cabin and just like most of yesterday, they were like my lieutenents. everytime i need a rule explained i just tell them to explain it. they revel in teh leadership opportunities given to them and they eally like me for offering them this opportunity. even andy says he wished he stayed back in cherokee(he's in blackfoot this week) just so he could be with the kids. conner follows me like a shadow and is always trying to talk to me about different things and asking me about things i do back in singapore. it was alright at first but its starting to get irritating but yet i really like him alot so i can't bare to tell him to fuck off. anyway i bought candy for them while they were on stayover and from the looks of it they were really grateful.

yesterday i performed my first ever rowdie performance. i taught the whole camp the "titanic song" beforewhich i made up a hilarious tale about how singapore is an island and surrounded by water and ships and i got interested in ships and therefore liked the titanic alot and was sad because it sunk and henceforth made that song up(its a camp thing to always tell a funny story before you begin a song!). glad everyone enjoyed the song.

apart from that i don't have anymore highlights about this week. time's passing so fast aorund here its virtually flying man. week six liaoz. after this week its down to the last two weeks and then almost all the staff will leave. haiz will really be quite sad when they all have to go especially all the good friends. shall try not to let that get me down.

everyday is an adventure.

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

this is just an informative piece of writing of my observations here.

the american lifestyle is one whereby at an early age one has to start earning his own money to survive in the real world. usually the parents help by offering the labour opportunities. menial tasks like mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, setting the tables turn into paying jobs. the pay is naturally absurdly high when working at home like mowing the lawn for half an hour would get you us$15, which makes out to be us$30/hr(??!!) . which happens to sound crazy but thats really how things work around here.

by the time they turn 16 and up they go out of home to work doing jobs like baby-sitting, waittressing and stuff. the money usually goes towards their college education because the parents arn't expected to pay for their tertiary education. and it can really get expensive depending on which colleges they go to. they also strive to earn their basic amenities like a car, celphone, computer and blah. of course sometimes the parents help them out. in instances like birthdays and all its a really big thin in their culture because they get to demand practically the world(important birthdays are usually the 18th and 21st).

by the time all the kids hit teens, they're expected to pay for themselves. even during family outings. everyone goes dutch. so its like the younger kids get an allowance while the older have to go work for money and when they go out to eat everyone's gotta pay for their own dinner. and that's why they're very calculative about money. yet they absurdly spend the most money on the silliest things.

and thats why there is a very strong tipping culture here because alot of the waittresses are college students paying their way through and they rely on tips alot. the pay in the restaurants are miserable(usually us$3+) but they get to keep all the tips. and its a tradition thats been going on for a very long time liao which is why the patrons tip heavily too because they once went through the same pridicament. then again this really helps to improve service and the workers are really motivated when serving.

most move out by the time they graduate from high school(18yrs old) they tend to share an apartment with a few friends and since they usually have to move out of town to attend college(chances are that its in another state), they make their college state their new home. which is why americans tend to have family all over the country as compared to everyone and their cousin's cousins staying all nearby. the extended location doesn't bother them alot because its really easy to get around by car and its really easy to commute around in the country too(then again i've heard it being easier in europe).

the sibling rivalry in american culture is a rough one. the oldest sibling almost always bullies the younger ones to bits, if not will love the younger too much. which leads to alot of pent up hatred from the younger poor dude and the relationship is really sour in their teens to the extent that they openly shun each other and declare their hatred for each other. it is only in their late teens that they come to appreciate family and its resourcefulness and thereby make amends. by then the love starts to transcend and siblings become very close knit(provide the level of abuse from years gone wasn't too severe!)

apart from thet i think there're also alot of little things. alot of kids in camp still come from good families(two parents) but there's a significant number with multiple parents and step-siblings. so their families are really huge with lotsa extended family.

hmm, think that's about what i can think of now. will take note of more.

You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore

you never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips
and there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips.
you're trying hard not to show it, (baby).
but baby, baby I know it...
you've lost that lovin' feeling,
whoa, that lovin' feeling,
you've lost that lovin' feeling,
now it's gone...gone...gone...wooooooh.
 
argh. there's a fucker right beside me playing music on the pc next to mine that its irritating me. argh. so hard to concentrate.

so this week has been a blast. i dunno how to better describe the week other than its been the best yet. and i've got 3 stayovers conner tom and cooper and they all love me to bits (conner follows me around wherever i go just because). and i'm still staying in cherokee next week. but i got travis as my co. apparently he's got a long list of people he doesn't want to co with and mike asked during my mid-season eval if i could co with him again cos he requested for me so i said i would as long as i don't have to move cabins. so hmm, hopefully it'll be another good week. let's see what highlights i can think of...

thursday i went rafting. it was crazily awesome. the bus trip to the colorado river was fun enough because we were singing so much the whole trip(they begged me to sing those songs!). then my kids all saboed me to get on the same raft with them(i was trying to help out a younger cabin without a counsellor) and we had so much fun! the water levels have risen since the staff rafting trip, and the rapids are way more fun than before. we got into alot of waterfights where we would splash water with our paddles and throw water at other boats. me being the strongest obviously monopolised the water bucket, but i got so involved during one of the fights that i accidentally threw the bucket out along with the water as i flung it and it was so embaressing cos my kids all screamed "noooooooooooooo!" in unison. subsequently we had to outpaddle other boats just so we don't get soaked by them(since we were powerless) haha. we ended up being the fastest boat among the m.a.d. rafters. ha.

it was the dance that night as well. the highlight was conner being punched by another bigger kid. i got really  mad over it(it was my favourite camper!) and was threatening to send the kid home. in the end he was a crying heap and spent most of the dance night in tears. i guess on hindsight i was abit too emotional then, but none of hte other counselors stepped in to stop me so i guess i wasn't that harsh lah. but still feel abit bad considering how much he was crying just from me scolding him. haiz.

friday the best thing in the world happened to me. i received a package from home!!! thanks y'all! ma sent me a copy of 8days, the sunday times and bak kwa. i can now certify that there is no better feeling in camp than to receive a package from a loved one after so long away from home. i was so shocked when christy told me i got something. so, along those lines i happily scooted to the swing sets to go through my stash. while halfway through the 8days magazine cooper sneaks over, sees michelle chong on the bloody cover and screams,"its korean porno!". no kidding, that was such a bad move. within seconds i had 3 cabins of kids surrounded around me watching in glee my flip of every page, and everytime there's a girl on the page, everyone would go,"whoooooooo". sibeh siah suay. luckily most of the counsellors know its a joke.

hmm lets see...what else...

just the other day there was a best-of counsellor imitation session by some of the counsellors!! and i got imitated!! argh. apparently my two most famous lines in camp thus far are "c'mon guys let's take a picture", a parody of how i love to take pictures in the midst of everything, and "i'm not korean/japanese! stop insulting me!", since kids often liken me to a japanese or korean(nao hiah). sheesh.

today i was quite sad to see the kids go. really quite sad.

went to estes park today! its a 2hr drive from here and tyler offered to bring me there. yay. so along with his brother kevin, the three of us drove there. the main highlight was the mountain pass which was so bloody beautiful. got lotsa good pictures, and it was snowing at the top of the mountain. estes park is a small town only thats thriving on the resorts surrounding it so there isn't much to crow about but the scenary around it is really beautiful(lotsa pix once again). anyway it costs like us$15 to enter the rocky mountain range which is really cut-throat, so tyler and i posed as staff at the ymca there(using our staff ids) while we stuffed kevin into the back of his trunk(yes he fit just nice).

okie lah abit tired writing today. gonna continue tomorrow...

night all.

Session 5: Better Than Ever

so i happened to be at the smr admin building toilet just this evening taking the biggest dump. i'm happily sitting on my throne and clearing my bowels when i hear the toiler door burst open and someone runs into the cubicle beside mine. i hear him hurriedly sitting down and releasing an enormous avalaunche of crap followed by splatters of wet farts, all the while swearing "oh my god, oh my god!", this was getting messy. i maintain my silence and try to focus on my own task at hand. somewhere along the way that guy stops all that and proceeds to pant and whizz. and then he starts talking to himself, "this room is so hot", "i think i'm sweating". whoa. this guy better not be talking to me. suddenly my watch beeps the hour beep. i freeze, choking whatever's still inside of me. the guy hears it(the beep, not the choke), and hollers over, "what time is it?". somehow i imagine myself shouting back, "its tiger time!" and then breaking into a little jiggy, but then only managed a really weak "eight!" back to him. and then we actually began this conversation...   

messed up dude: hot here init?
me: erm, yeah.
messed up dude: wished there was a fan right by me now.
me: yeah.
messed up dude: god, this is bad. pretty messed up.
me: uh-huh.
messed up dude: i'm marco.
me: *in shock* huh?
messed up dude: i'm marco.me: chris here.
messed up dude: nice to meet you, chris. i'm almost done.
me: good for you.
*his toilet cubicle flushes*
messed up dude: i'm outta here.
*silence*
messed up dude: seeya chris!
me: yeah.

geez. that just happened awhile ago. okie maybe its me, but are the people TOO friendly around here?

so back to my original post. its session 5! yay. so happy. i'm back in cherokee cabin with andy as my co. we;re doing great and our kids are the best yet. better than session 4! there's jim the jaguar steven the snake cooper the cougar conner the crocodile tom the turtle brandon the bear rollie the rolly-polly and parker the python. haha. i'm chris the cheetah while andy is andy the armadillo. and thats the first name game i've played with the kids all summer. the cabin is so awesome, they're into two main things: sproutball and hemp. really shouldn't have introduced hemp to them on monday, they're exhausting my whole roll as each day goes by. everyone loves to make that and they're all damn good at sproutball. the catalyst? on monday morning we had an impromptu game of sproutball against 3 other cabins(just cos we thought we were good), and we creamed them all! so the kids are forever talking about strategies to play other cabins eversince.

its a really good thing when kids find something to bind and bond them together. the chances of them bickering which leads to argueing which leads to quarrelling which leads to fighting gets really slim, and they tend to have so much more respect for us as counsellors. so slowly my quest to learn more and more about handling kids is bearing fruit. lotsa little secrets and methods here and there, but sometimes its really the little things that count the most.
 
so far we've had a really great time as a cabin. the whole lot of them are damn spontaneous and enthusiastic and they know the tasks they need to do in order to have fun. and thats the good thing about having kids who've been coming to camp for 2 or 3 summers liao. the cleanliness of our cabin is the top-scoring yet of all the cabins i've been in so far(and i'm really particular about cleanliness) and we actually have a legit chance of bagging the cleanest cabin award this week! yay.

not many problems with the campers so far with the exception of cooper puking his dinner monday night. i could see the carrots and peas from the chicken pot pies we had for dinner. it smelled bad and it made me wanna puke and yet i still found strentgh to hang out with him outside the cabin for a good hour. also jim is turning out to be a top-notch whiner. no one can beat him. he goes from one extreme to the other with the snap of the fingers. "this game sucks!", "i hate camp!", "we're so gonna lose this game!", "camp is fun!", "this game rocks!" and "we won!" were all actual quotes from this little dude ALL IN THE SPAN OF 1 HOUR during all camp game on tuesday. we're starting to call him 'whining jim' now...

last night was campout night. we were at parthenon pines with cheyenne, just along the perimeter of sage field, its SO good not to have to walk to waterfall and beyond! it was good fun, we had 7 staff, steve dan andy myself jeff jason and james. and we were talkng so late into the night, all the while earlier we were lying to the kids that it was getting really late(they arn't allowed to wear watches), haha. steve has got this big thing about all things regarding the opposite sex. he talks about the female staff and how hot they are(he actually went skinny-dipping with emily, eeks!) and then talk about his sexual experiences and blah. wah lao eh, super detail overload man. i mean really, there're alot of things of this man of 25 that we do not need to know. AND he's engaged to be married in december somemore. asshole. so i just sit there and listen and give an occasional smirk. the rest of the guys are fine, i especially like jeff, one of the camp drivers, and james, one of the camp dishwashers, because they're one of the nicest people in camp. 

also i'm playing the role of data from 'the goonies' movie. its the asian guy and he's like some really good inventor of rubbish. and so i got a standing ovation from everyone today for my really stupid and clownish impression when i wore a trenchcoat and whipped out an entension plastic fist and wanked it at the cheering kids and talked in really broken english. geez, everyone laps up the asian stereotype...

swimming today was hilarious too. the kids decided they wanted to play "let's climb chris". its a really fun game that i like to play with the younger kids who're too young for water-polo. they just attempt to climb all over me while throw them all over the pool. then i do dips, swirls, drags and flips with kids all over me. feels like carrying weights around your body except these weights scream too loud. its really fun and zaq told me today i'm the only counsellor who can make climbing another person so fun for the kids. what a compliments! haha.

apart from all that its my birthday today! and james too(he turns 20)! the camp celebrated my birthday this morning during the breakfast after campout in the dining hall. all the girl staff formed a huge circle in the centre of the hall and i was made to stand on a chair and they sang this love song(that i definitely must go find when i get back home) and then dragged me out(these girls are strong and pumped!) and proceeded to splash me with jugs of water. and all this while the kids(my kids especially) are cheering like mad. outside of the dining hall this morning it was like 10deg c. almost dieded with my whole self drenched. had to quickly rush back to the cabin to get changed.

tomorrow going rafting!!! yay!!! finally get a chance to raft with the kids. really looking forward to it. and saturday will be going estes park with tyler!!! yay!!! so excited! haha.

also thank you everyone for the birthday wishes,  cheers and emails!