Hello to all of my fellow camp counselors!
How I have missed you all! I hope you all had wonderful, adventurous, challenging, successful summers, whether you were a camp counselor, director, or an intern at an accounting firm. I personally had an incredible summer, and I can't wait to share my experience and new lessons with all of you!
So it really happened, I was an assistant director. I'm having a hard time writing this, because it was indescribable. I have never felt so many emotions in one summer. I felt proud, frustrated, energized, exhausted, overwhelmed, confident, and a million other feelings.
I started summer the day after I got home from school. I was the co-on-site director for the after-school program run by the same camp I work at over summer. It's held at a very different kind of school. It's a school that focuses greatly on the emotional safety of its students, calls the teachers by their first names, and gives the children the opportunity to dictate the majority of their curriculum. I wouldn't say I loved the schools philosophy, but I learned more from those students in three weeks than I had in my three summers past. It was intense. (Camping is in tents) There will be several posts in the future that originate from some of the lessons I learned there.
As soon as that ended (overlapping it's end, actually) camp training began. I put on my grey director polo, my name tag, and stood before about 75 staff members, mostly new, scared out of my mind. We ran games, led training sessions, and then it was the moment I was most nervous for. I met my small camp, at that point 5 (it would become 6 after the first camp session) senior counselors, all but one first timers. As we sat in the shady patch of grass, and I told them all about 7-9 year olds (our age group), I tried to imagine what the coming summer would be. Would they be close? Would they want to work there? Would they want to learn from me? Would I be able to help them?
Well I won't answer all of that right now, because that would give away the next few blogs I have planned. I will tell you this, it was nothing like I had imagined, and everything I could have hoped. Those six senior counselors, the rest of the staff, the other four assistant directors, the directors, the campers, it all added up to the best summer yet.
The summer was a blur, a blur that I can't wait to share with all of you. In the meantime, comment and tell me about how your summer went! I want to hear all about it. Also, best of luck for those of you that are currently in transition to the real world again. I know how hard it is, I'm starting my senior year of college and this world is so much different than my beloved camp world.
Try to adjust well,
Samantha
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