Session 1: Complete

I have never been so exhausted in my entire life. The past two weeks have felt like years, but have also gone by so quickly.

The day before the session was supposed to start, I met my co-counselor for the session. He was one of the guys that I hadn't interacted with at all during staff orientation, so I pretty much knew nothing about him besides the fact that he seemed like a cool dude.

The first day was chaos, it was full of moving , getting campers checked in, and meeting our group of campers that we would be in charge of for the session. It's important to note that I am both a group and workshop counselor. Basically, I lead workshops during the day with any kids in that specific workshop (could be from any age group) and I also lead a group with my co-counselor that contains campers from a specific age group. In this case, my age group this session was gigabyte, which is ages 14-17.

Our group of gigabytes (we were group 15), was interesting on the first few days. My co and I were still trying to get to know them and trying to get them to know each other, so it was a bit chaotic. Another important thing to mention: the only time that counselors see their group is during meals and at "circle of friends" in the evening. Circle of friends is basically a time to do a small relaxing activity to bond the group (and the counselors of the group) as well as address any problems that campers may be having. I really like it because it's the only time of the day that I actually got to see my whole group interacting together.

The first week of the first session was pretty difficult. I wound up getting sick about 3 days in. My energy was next to nothing for almost the entire first week due to coughing, a fever, and sniffles. I powered through as much as I could, but I was still worried that I was putting a burden on my co-counslor because of my lack of energy. Most of the time I can fake energy, but I didn't even have enough energy to fake having lots of energy. Apparently I did a good enough job that not many people knew I was sick.

Anyways, the session was absolutely crazy. The counselors barely got 5 hours of sleep every night, we constantly had to deal with campers who were crying, having problems, or who just weren't interested in camp. The first week of workshops was so hard. I had one really good period and the other two were full of crying kids. I also had a few campers that didn't speak a lick of English. Google translate has become my new best friend. During the 2nd week of camp, workshops got a lot better, I got to know my group 15 pretty well, and my co-counslor and I were really starting to click as co-counslors. My co-counselor is so incredibly supportive, energetic, and just generally amazing with the kids. He can also read me pretty well and balances out my craziness with his zen attitude. I really couldn't have asked for a better co-counselor to start out with and I really hope that we are able to continue on together next session to provide a really great time for our campers. My fellow gigabyte lady counselors and I have also grown really close. It's so nice to have girls who are close friends that can bitch and gossip together. Being an introverted engineering nerd hasn't really given me many opportunities to have a lot of girlfriends and I'm so glad that we are all so close and that we don't have problems.

Most of you must be wondering why I haven't been complaining so much. Well, trust me, there are plenty of this to complain about. But instead of going on and on about those things, I'll just list them quickly. So... Disorganization, campers who don't listen or misbehave, crying campers, the food, COCKROACHS IN MY ROOM (one of the girls in my room has killed 8 cockroaches in the past 2 weeks, we call her the cockroach queen), dirty dorms, annoying girls, no sleep, the food again, and little to no free time.

There, now that I got that out of the way, I can say something good about the campers. I had some amazingly smart campers in my Lego Robotics workshop, and they loved me. One day, a little nanobyte told me that "today was the best day in robotics workshop ever". I was so surprised and shocked because campers don't usually say that kind of stuff. My campers in my workshop also represented the workshop really well at our final project presentation for the whole camp. They all came up on stage with me without having to be asked and they were all very respectful and said some amazing things about me and the workshop. Also, with today being closing day, I had so many of my workshop campers come up to me and ask for pictures, high fives, and hugs. My campers from group 15 also gave me lots of hugs and brought their parents to meet me.

So, no matter how unruly the campers are, the staff is always there for one another. We support each other when we're exhausted, we help each other if there is something wrong, and we are all just super close knit. We party on our nights and days off, we have out in between sessions, and when we go back to camp we go together as one big team. Today was our last day of the first session which means that staff is supposed to leave camp unless they want to stay in shitty rooms and have no food. Being an international counselor, I didn't have anywhere to go. About an hour before everyone was about to leave, after looking and talking to people, my unit head found me a place to stay for both nights this weekend. And even though it was shirt notice, all of the people I'm staying with are so welcoming and kind. Also, my co-counselor has been ready to call people if I get stuck anywhere for any reason while not at camp. Honestly, I have never met a group of people who were so kind and welcoming and I think it really helps with all of the hard times that we have to go through with campers.

Anyways, that was first session. I have today, tomorrow, and Sunday morning off until we have to be at the camp again. I'm really looking forward to sleeping in a real bed as well as partying with my friends without the pressure of having to go back to camp immediately.