Day Off, New Session

Session 1 has now ended for the summer. Overall, I was fairly impressed with how we worked and how the kids were. There are several different types of sessions at camp. The main ones that we like to get people for are the two week sessions. These are the ones that we try and put the best of our programming into, mainly because we have more time and energy for it. It's also the times when we have the most returning campers, campers who have attended camp before, and have returned for more time here. One Week sessions are the opposite. We mainly have younger, newer campers who are usually coming for the first time. Because we want people to come for the two week sessions, we don't put many of our specialized programs into these weeks. Two specialized camping sessions are First Timer's camp, which is a one week session in the middle of a two week session, designed expecially for first timers. They have slightly different programing than the rest of the camp during that time. In the week that that is not taking up, we have mini-camp, which is designed for very young kids, who only come for three days. Finally, we have Champ Camp, a special program that is designed to bring kids with severe asthma to camp, where they can be educated about their conditions, and to teach them that they can do anything that they want in life, not being limited by asthma. This is the only time during the summer that we have a co-ed portion to the camp. We're going into Session IB, which is going to be our busiest session this summer, with 153 kids coming at last count. It's going to be either a fun or horrible week, with so many people. We have four additional staff volunteers coming back, some of our best former counselors, to help us with the work load. Hopefully, we'll be able to hire a couple of the CITs who are going through the program right now to help when they leave. I really hope that some do, they're outstanding fellows. One was kicked out today, mainly because he was getting too close to the kids, and not maintaining a certain amount of professionalism, and really wasn't good at listening to directions.
I was kinda saddened to see this last session go. There are several kids that I've seen coming for several years now that I'm really going to miss having around. They're well behaved and take a certain amount of leadership in the village, something that's great to see. I was told by one parent of one kid that as long as I was at camp, they were sure that their kid would have a great time. I was kinda shocked that they place this much faith in my work here, but honored by it. I'm glad that their son had an outstanding time, as he has for the past couple years.
Staff are on time off now. I got off and into Burlington, did a bit of shopping, and got some things that I needed. A USB stick, replacing the one that I lost, 84 cans of soda, a bottle of Cranberry Juice, which will vanish within the week, mark my words, a book called Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross, whom I've read in Asimov's. The book's good thus far, although I'm not terribly far into it yet. I'm also ammasing a small collection of comics: 3 issues of The Amazing Spiderman, written by J. Michael Straczynski, 1 issue of Astonishing X-Men by Joss Weadon, Fantastic Four by JMS and the first issue of Serenity by Joss Weadon. Of all of them, Serenity I is my favorite. I wasn't able to find the cover that I was looking for, Jayne's, but I picked up Inara's, which looks pretty cool. The story's good, dialog is fun, art is outstanding. I can't wait until #2 and #3 are out. Should be a fun trip, and it's awesome to read some new Firefly material. It's been far too long.
Found some awesome news today: The John Butler Trio is going to be playing at the Higher Ground, a local concert venue here in Burlington. I'm excited. I picked up their CD last week, and have listened to their stuff for a little while. They're a newer band from Australia, and when talking with Rhet, our Australian representative on staff, he knew of them, and also enjoys their music. Looking at the ad in the paper, tickets are $3 at the door and advance, which is more than amazing, and I hope that it's not a typo. Their show is the 20th of August, and I'm definently going to that. I told Rhet about it and his jaw dropped. First words out of his mouth was 'I'm going'.