look who is back

I wish I had the time and energy to blog about the rest of camp, maybe one day I will do, there is literally just so, so much that happened that I could possibly talk about that I could go on forever!

The last few weeks went by really past, I got a lot closer to some people, and further away from others. The thing with camp is that at the start everyone is all shiny and happy and excited, by the end you have spent 9 weeks with people, enduring bonding, bitching, hook ups, break ups, people being either very helpful or very unhelpful with the amount of work they do. It all becomes pretty insane!

The last few days were pretty awesome, we made pancakes on the night we put up the art show. We had an icing tube to put the batter out and make pancakes in the shape of human organs, faces, spongebob squarepants-they were pretty hilarious!

The last day we all put camp away as a team, yay for team bonding! This involved lots of production line style putting away of chairs and dining hall benches. Art staff then had to clear the FAB for the staff party that evening. I went to buttermilk falls with a few people beforehand for some beers so by the time we turned up I was tipsy and finding it all very surreal. Seeing your place of work, where you have been teaching kids for 9 weeks, full of all the staff, boxes of pizza, wine boxes and kegs, with everyone drinking and dancing around-pretty damn strange!

Travelling after camp was awesome, I met up with a lot of people in New York after 2 weeks of travel. Was good to see everyone after a break to see what everyone had been getting up to and how they were finding real life. 

I flew home feeling a little bit sad, I had been homesick and kindof exhausted for a lot of the travelling but when I actually had to go I no longer wanted to. I had the most wonderful 12 weeks, there were times when being in the bubble drove me slightly crazy, but I loved it all the same, so, so many good memories and good people whom I already miss and want all my friends to meet!

I am now sat in my new room back at uni, wearing my bear hat (which got many comments at camp, and kept my head very warm when sat outside the bunk on duty). The last few days have been strange, I came back a little nervous about what this year would have in store. I found it hard to sort my head out and move on from things since camp was so, so far away from real life and the people I am with back here.

I think I have changed a little, I feel louder here, I feel like I want to make friends with and be nice to everyone, whereas before I was a little more shy of people. It is probably a good thing because I am social secretary for trampolining this year, and whilst I won't be standing on a chair to introduce myself as Josie Illustration anymore, I will have to get to know and be friendly to everyone :) 

This was going to be a post about how I just installed Spotify and how awesome it is, I got sidetracked. But anyway, Yellow Ostrich are becoming my absolute favourite band right now, perfect catchy, fun, room cleaning and course work music haha.

Now gonna get some sleep before sports and societies fair tomorrow, gonna be walking around for 6 hours in a leotard hassling the freshers. Apparently last year they all just got drunk, figure I may join in with that. Tipsy rambling about how much fun it is to bounce around will definitely get people involved, plus we have goody bags!

Peace out my lovelies x

FAB day off

So, the camp decided to try something different for our days off this week. They shut the fine arts building entirely so we could all have our day off together so that every station could be open for the rest of the week. This meant the entire FAB crew were off together so we all made plans to hang out for the whole day.

We started going for breakfast at the diner... well, we went to the diner, decided it would be too long to wait and then drove to 3 other places (none of which did breakfast) before going back to the diner-bit of a fail but the food was amazing and totally worth it! Eggs on toast here make me a ridiculous level of happy :)

We then went and bought food and booze from stewarts, $2.99 for 6 cans and $2 frozen cocktails in bags, oh and goldfish crackers and cookies, i cant have a day off without buying goldfish crackers!

A few of our crew knew a path through the woods to a lower part of buttermilk falls where the water is stopped by 3 massive boulders so you can swim and chill out, it is really quiet and gorgeous. I do like the other area too but it was really nice to have a place all to ourselves.

We chilled out there for a few hours drinking cocktails out of bags like the classy people we are and having some beers in the lake. I took my big camera so got some gorgeous photos, we ended up taking some model like shots for shits and giggles since the scenery was so gorgeous and Kevn and Meg both have awesome 80s hair! 

We then all went to Megs holiday home which is about 40 mins away from camp. We cooked up some gorgeous food and had key lime pie for dessert before curling up on the sofas to watch Harry Potter. I fell asleep for a bit and then we had to drive back to camp, seriously did not want to leave! But still, amaaazing day, I do love the FAB crew!

halfway through woop

So as of.. wednesday i think, we are now halfway through camp! It is going crazy fast right now, I am having a great time, but I am starting to feel like the end is just gonna creep up on me!

Second session brought much louder, more mature girls than last session. We just had friday night talent night and four of our girls performed, 3 sang and one did stand up comedy-they were all insanely brilliant!

As far as teaching this session goes, I have had some kids do some really good work, but I feel like I am running out of time to get them doing more. This is mainly to do with the peanut pals project! Peanut Pals is kindof like secret santa but in the summer. You take a peanut with a name in it, and you have to make that persons life good for the next 3 days. This could mean getting someone to take them hot chocolate, giving them candy from canteen, or making something for them in the FAB.

I have been running "peanut pals postcards" for the past two days and I swear if I see another drawing of a dancing peanut with arms and legs I may scream... My desk has been overrun with crazy children leaving half done peanut pal drawings everywhere and leaving no space for the couple who actually want to do good work which is making me sad, its all over tomorrow thank god, I am excited to get back to actual teaching!

I also really want to run some figure drawing classes but I have caught a bug that is going round camp and barely have a voice right now which sucks for telling off kids and trying to teach large groups. I really hope I can run a session next week so I can emulate Dean and get really excited about drawing and make them use some crazy materials.

Last weekend was pretty epic. My day off was on the saturday and my friend drives.We went to the diner in Long Lake for breakfast which was probably my best meal here, hadn't had properly done eggs or toast for 5 weeks! We then took a trip to buttermilk falls, a picnic site with a river to swim in and rocks to lie out on. We sat around with some beers and jumped in the river lots, it it a pretty magical looking place :)

Sunday we had zombie day, each sunday the FAB staff have a different theme. That day we had to go straight after breakfast to put zombie makeup on for morning meeting, where everyone makes announcements for what they are doing that day. We all stood around looking freaky whilst the camp directors daughter ran around pretending to "slay" us with a plastic sword!

The day continued with loads of kids getting zombied up as well as all of the kitchen staff. We went through so much fake blood, mint flavoured, it was weirdly tasty!

They then had a brain eating contest with jello brains that had strange and disgusting things in. The kids had marshmallows and cereal, the councillors had hot sauce, mayonnaise, sausages, and many other gross things... lots of them threw up after as it was rank!

We finished off with a zombie vs human waterballoon fight and I de-zombied for an afternoon of sports and chilling by the lake ;)

behind on blogging cos im knackered!

Gahhh, no idea where all the time went! So last I posted was after our first week of teaching when I was still trying to work out what on earth was going on... We have just finished our first 3 week session and there are 10 new girls currently asleep in the bunk :).

May add pictures to this at some point but for now its just words, sorry.

So, trying to remember all the events that have happened the past few weeks:

• I ran into a bear at 1am leaving the fine arts building and ended up hiding out there with a guy from circus which was pretty hilarious, it left eventually and I sneaked back!
• Celebrated 4th of July a day late because the fireworks got rained out... still, they were pretty good even if they were each 5 minutes apart :p
• I spent around 4 days on a project trying to make a giant papier-mache rock which completely collapsed when we took it off which ended up in a pretty hilarious situation of a load of us hiding inside of it trying to hold it up and failing miserably... I am pretty sure the fine art staff threw it away but I dont have the heart to ask haha.
• Put up my first ever long lake art show, my kids work was mixed in with painting, weaving and photography, we were up until 2.30 am putting everything up but it did look pretty awesome in the end!
• I survived parents weekend, this is basically the weekend where all the parents come to get their kids and watch all of the shows, there were over 20 different shows in the end which is crazy! I saw the circus, Jekyll and Hyde, Legally Blonde and Aida. The kids here are unbelievably talented, we have had a few talent nights and the standard is insane! They are all so confident in their singing and music too, I am secretly a little bit jealous.
• Bastard chipmunk stole my dairymilk :( there was one that kept coming in the bunk and running around on parents weekend and i saw it running out the door, chased it and it dropped 5 chunks of dairymilk!! I looked today and it has managed to get into the rest which sucks cos now I have no more british chocolate!

Now back to today. Second session starts with us all waiting out on the grass, playing guitars, frisbee and generally just chilling and waiting for kids to arrive. Very expensive looking cars start to appear and if a kid is in your bunk you are called to help them with luggage and show them in.

Last time we were all so much more excited, today we were being a lot more lazy with the cheering of cars arriving but ahhh well. Our bunk didn't actually have anyone arrive until the buses arrived at 5pm so we had 10 kids arrive at once with the most insane amounts of luggage you have ever seen! I didn't think they could bring more than the last ones but they proved me wrong! They all bring the 7ft long bags that look like they could store a body, this session one girl has two of these 7ft long bags!! I have 10 weeks worth of stuff in on 65 litre backpack...  

I am now sat in the rec hall where they store all the candy for canteen and theres a load of racoons in there eating crisps and raiding bins! The noises freak me out after th bear incident but they are kinda cute :p

Anywaaay guys, hope you can bear to read this without any visual stimuli, will try and whack some photos in but it may take me till september cos I am feeling crazy busy!

Please comment, I like knowing you guys are actually reading the rubbish I type, Josie xx

first week of camp-the kids arrive

 Before you start reading, this post ended up being crazy long, with lots of pictures so sorry, but I just have a lot to talk about so I put lots of pictures to break up all the writing :p

My god has it been a crazy week. It isn't even over yet and I still feel like it has been forever! The kids arrived sunday, we all got our camp tshirts to wear and chilled out on the grass playing frisbee and waiting to be called when kids in our bunk arrived.

 cleaning ready for the kids arrival

 lovely amount of dust swept up in the bunk ;)

 everyone chilling in their long lake tshirts.



The amount of stuff these kids bring is INSANE, they are here for 3 weeks, we are here 10 yet they have at least double if not triple as many clothes as most of the bunk staff! Spent a lot of time sunday stressing about how little space and how much stuff we had to fit, ours is the cabin with the least storage space and every single spare bit is now filled with clothes, makeup,  balloons and bubbles brought by one girl, and about 5 instruments!

 First day we walked them around all different stations for them to audition if they wanted to do dance, be in a play and to do circus performance. I was extremely jealous of them getting to try hip hop dance and circus as it all looked so much fun, wish they had these kinds of camps in england!

In the evening the FAB (fine arts building) staff had to run a short taster activity to show what kinds of things we will be doing during the summer. I was bricking it a little because we had to stand up on a chair and talk in front of half the kids, introduce yourself etc. and hope that you can get them excited about it. We then went downstairs to our tables and heard a stampede of children running down as they had about 45 mins to try everything!

Mine went pretty well, I got them to cut images out of magazines and illustrate around them, the first day i had a lot of boys drawing blood on celebrity faces and things, it was pretty funny even if they didn't take it seriously.

 my station set up

my example for the kids

printmaking

 one of the slightly creepy people sculptures in the FAB

Tuesday was my first teaching day, I didn't realize this until morning meeting which was a bit panicky but it went well in the end. I had a lot of kids asking how to draw faces accurately which is hard because I stylize every drawing I do and will admit my faces never look how I want them to look! 

I started making folders for everyones drawings and now it is the third day I am noticing the people who keep coming back, this morning I came in to 4 kids running in and grabbing their folders and pencils which made me happy! It is nice to see people get really excited about coming in and drawing, they are going off in their own directions too which is nice to see, I have one girl doing some insane drawings of flowers, lots doing cool abstract patterns, and one who is making a giant map of a fantasy world!

 this girl made two pet rocks and a house for them

 collaborating with danny in improv to make puppets for the kids to improvise with :)

guess which is mine?!

training week at camp

  

So we arrived at camp later afternoon and half the staff were already there. We all gathered on the grass for a motivational speech from Geoff, the guy who hired everyone. He also got us to check ourselves and our bags for bedbugs which was pretty hilarious! Apparently last year they had an infestation and with over 300 people living in bunks I can imagine it was pretty bad!

We then split off to go to the bunks which we would be living in for the next 10 weeks. I have been put in Sunrise which, despite the lovely name, had earned a reputation as "the shit bunk". I was pretty worried, and first impressions weren't wonderful as one light didn't work and my fellow councilors had yet to arrive so I was in there alone for the first day. The bunks are pretty small, and the mattresses are the width of about one and a half people with plastic covers that are pretty loud when you roll over, despite this, they aren't actually that bad to sleep in which I was surprised by!

For evening activity we all got together on the grass for a bonfire, everyone was chatting to everyone which was nice, and whilst you don't remember everyones names, I already feel like I know maybe 70% of over 100 staff here! We had some pretty hilarious safety talks from Geoff with warnings such as "if a child is running at the bonfire, please stop them" "children like to wave around burning marshmallows which could fly off and melt another kids eyeball" and many lessons on how to plunger a toilet that is overflowing without getting covered in crap! 

We have now had 3 days of training,cannot believe how much information we have been given about how the camp runs, how to treat the kids, cope with situations, clean the bunk, relationships at camp, respecting people, helping kids that are homesick and how to sort out kids that are slightly crazy and threatening to kill other campers. It has been mental but pretty funny at the same time and hopefully when the kids get here we can properly work out what on earth is going on. 

The waterfront is gorgeous, even nicer than it looked online and I cannot wait to go out and do some watersports, they have tubing, kayaking, motorboating and alll sorts. We are also allowed to try any activities we want in time off so I am planning on taking advantage of all the amazing art stuff they have going on. In one building they have all sorts including a printmaking studio, jewellry, weaving, textiles and painting plus my two tables for illustration.

I spent the past two afternoons clearing the mess that was my illustration supplies as they were left in a pretty awful mess. Plus the amount of dust and dirt on everything here is crazy. Since the camp is shut up all winter everything is crazy dusty, plus its in the woods so dirt and dust just gets brought into everywhere, the amount in our cabin was mental! 

Tomorrow is our last day preparing for the kids to arrive, I spent the last two nights up chatting till 2am and getting up at 7 so am gonna get an early night before getting up at 6 to go and do an exercise class run by a guy in adventure camp! Everyone seems to be going and though it is crazy early I figured it might be pretty hilarious! Plus I ate loads of fluff tonight and had a massive sugar high so it probably needs to be burnt off (if anyone doesn't know fluff is liquid marshmallow) 

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Only having one computer here is a pain so I figure if I update this with enough information people won't mind if I can't talk to them much! I wish I could ring everyone lots and say how much of a good time I am having, but its so busy there is no time :( comment on this if you read it though as it is always nice to hear from everyone!!! xxx

View over the waterfont

Chilling on the "beach"

My desk midway through sorting through thousands of pens

The music people painting signs to go outside their shacks. They each have a little shed to teach in in the woods which is amazing!

new york new york

Fiiinally got a chance to sit down and write about my journey here. There is only one computer for us to use for emails etc.

So. I met Sophie, one of the girls teaching film here, at Heathrow so we could travel together and make it a little less daunting, would probably have been much more emotional if I had been flying alone but we kept each other company :). We flew Virgin atlantic which was actually to be honest the nicest flight I have ever been on! The food was awesome, we had Gu puddings, then icecream, then afternoon tea with cakes :)

Arrived in Newark and met up with the other 41 people who flew over with BUNAC before we headed to our hostel in central NY. I was in a room of 12 with other people from our camp which was fun, finding out what everyone was teaching and where people were from. 

Woke up at 5am the next day and by 7 everyone was up and having breakfast because of the jetlag. We had over an hour before our bus to camp arrived so we all went to central park to have a good wander and take some photos, getting excited by street names we recognized and running around the place. 

The bus to camp took 5 hours and we stopped on the way for all you can eat pizza hut which was pretty epic! All paid for by camp too which was great! They even had "sweet pizza" which was basically pastry with apple filling and icing drizzled on! I think its the best apple pie I have ever eaten :D