Last Days

I know, I know, I haven't really talked about a lot of things that happened during camp. But have no fear, this is not the last blog post. I'm going to do a Last Days post and then go back with specialized blog posts that recount some of the memorable things that went on at camp.

So... here we go...

The last days of camp were crazy. Both the campers and counselors were antsy about camp being over, and there was also a lot to do after the campers left before we could leave.

You could start to really see how hard the camp had been on the counselors during the last few days, almost all of the counselors were completely exhausted, frustrated, and sick of dealing with the constant problems. However, one of the most amazing things about these last days was the love and support that the staff gave to each other. 

The last days for me were filled with never ending problems, whether it be personal or professional. I felt like I could barely catch up, and I honestly don't think I ever did fully catch up. However, on the very last day, I was so excited and full of energy because the kids were leaving that night and it really helped me get through the last day, which was pretty hard. The last day was mainly hard because the kids had so much down time and weren't constantly occupied. A huge chunk of the day is spent in the dorms packing, cleaning, and exchanging contact info for after camp. Unfortunately, Megabytes (13-14 year olds) do even worse with downtime than the Gigabytes. The Gigabytes got bored, but the Megabytes create serious trouble. We had pranking, kids disappearing, and other general shenanigans that kids do when they're bored.

That part of the day was hard, but I think the hardest part was dealing with the constant changes in my group as the day went on. I had kids leaving early, late, crying, screaming, and just general insanity.

By the end of the day I was so sick of kids that being involved in the checkout process was something I didn't think I could handle. Even before checkout I had kids tackling me and hugging me saying that they would miss me (which was shocking because I had thought that they all hated me). Thankfully, I didn't actually have to participate in checkout because I was the Lego Robotics counselor. This meant that I had to reorganize all of the Lego kits and make sure they were ready to go. Basically, as soon as the closing ceremony started, I immediately went to my workshop room and got to organizing. I had a few short spurts when I'd have to go find one of my kids in the ceremony to bring them to their parents who were picking them up early. Those were my only breaks in about 7 hours of just organizing thousands of little Lego pieces. By the end I got some help from some really amazing ladies who made the last bit of organizing go so much faster.

In all, the last few days were hard, but they were worth it.