Born to be...

Hey world

While technically speaking the title of this stays consistent with being a song lyric, it is intended to be more of a reference to a t-shirt I got in my first year at camp. Orientation is coming to an end, ive been out of Australia for a month, and before I get into last night and the shirt reference, ill go back to the start.

Our ‘small’ group of precamp was inevitably going to explode into the big group of orientation. Unlike previous years, it wasn’t quite as big a jump in population thanks to there already being 80ish people at camp by the time the buses were arriving. However it was still filled with the hectic jobs of getting people to fill out paperwork and finding temporary homes until the permanent ones of camp were sorted out – which happened last night. Im still not sure if seeing new people/being at a new place was the cause for all the excitement or if the first lucas speech of orientation got everyone pumped up but either way I enjoyed having new faces around the place, even if it feels like the UK is giving the usa a challenge for making up majority of the staff population.

For returners not a lot changes for parts of orientation since we still do a lot of precamp jobs given we don’t need a tour, plus I even managed to get out of some of the meetings they have. What does feel very weird is the lack of returners. When we have 150-200 people here and so many of them are new faces it makes the place feel very different. However being the world camp is, after 2 days it was back to feeling like a giant family with most people knowing each other.

This has definitely been the most separated from the staff I have felt during orientation, not for bad reasons of course, but due to being part of a group of four people that have been getting trained to be American red cross lifeguard instructors. Yep that’s right, learning how to train people to be lifeguards hoping I don’t get mixed up between the Australian and American courses. It went rather well but with all the interruptions we wont have time to do a full course with the rest of the waterfront staff unfortunately. Its still nice knowing how to do it since it could come in handy.

The waterfront has a new head and assistant head this year. They are two new people, which so far seem like they will be really good. I was told that I was going to be level with the assistant head given my experience at camp, which is pretty cool. We have been learning different ways to teach swimming and he seems determined to make a better swim teach program – hopefully that means we can win back the greylock swim meet after losing the last 2 years. The biggest down side about not being around the waterfront a lot so far is that the raking the leaves and sticks out of the shallow end hasn’t been done so fingers crossed they let me and some of the others that have been in the course at it soon so we can make it look nice.

Apart from waterfront stuff the orientation has been just like any other year. People want to throw fish around thanks to the fish video – anyone who hasn’t seen it will have no idea what im on about but I assure you if you’d watched it you would feel that same cause it looks like fun! – and the closer to finding out our bunk assignments and the kids arriving we get, the more nervous and excited people are getting.

That brings me back to last night. It was the night where we all find out where we will be for the summer and move home into our bunks for the summer. I do not remember a time in the last two years that has been filled with more excitement and noise. I am very happy to say that I am SO happy with where I am. I find out more about my kids tonight but I really did get everything I could of hoped for. For all the non returners the jnr side group heads are as follows…

hill

head – lisa seigel

assistants – dan eickhoff, Julia Pelosi

brave

head – sam momber

assistant – Scottish andy

chief

head – ben dixon

assistant – jenn leveille

as for where I ended up… well I’ve spent the last two years in this division, im very happy to call the people who run my division ‘boss’ and as my tshirt said at the end of my first year, im still ‘born to be brave’

so after 6 months living with me in Australia and jokingly saying she would be my boss on more than one occasion for the upcoming summer in America, last night confirmed that sam actually made it happen. every announcement of groups heads and assistant was met with cheering and banging of tables. Some even got standing ovations from a few of us. Perhaps a little over the top but I like to think they enjoyed the reception.

The brave division this year is very small with just 42 kids! Really strange but maybe ill remember all of their names this year! History tells me its unlikely but it’s a nice thought.

Take care all