1 week and 2 days with 26 9-12 year olds.

The kids have arrived. All 350 of them are running around my formerly sacred gardening grounds as I write this. It took me a while to adjust to the change of jobs, change of coworkers and the hundreds of children, but I think I finally have it down.

I absolutely adore my job. I am more tired than ever before at the end of each day, but every minute of exhaustion has been completely worth it. I have been assigned as a counselor in the most beautiful of all the bunks, a hundred year old stone building fittingly titled "Stonehouse." There are 26 hilarious, bratty, sweet, demanding, lovable, obnoxious, darling 9-12 year olds. There are four other counselors alongside me and everyday we struggle to get our girls to do the most simple of tasks. Many of these children come from ridiculously rich households and do not know how to do much of anything for themselves (a few days ago I had to teach a 12 year old how to sweep). I get very frustrated with them, but I cannot ever stay mad because they are so damn adorable.

Sleeping has become a huge luxury. The girls have us check for spiders in their beds several times a night, and often wake us up to ask what they are going to do tomorrow. Their attention spans are all ridiculously small and I believe some of them must have hearing problems, because they rarely listen when we speak.

My job as a creative writing counselor is vastly different. Most days are spent writing collaborative stories or haiku outside in chairs made of tree stumps. I have helped with raps, songwriting, and screenplays (I have to make it up as I go, most of the time I have no idea what I am doing). The only time that I haven't been able to make it up is when I have worked with this incredible 14 year old poetic prodigy. She makes me feel just awful about my own ability every time she comes to write.

It has only been about 2 and a half weeks since I have known my fellow counselors but I already feel very close to a few of them (again, its this strange communal lifestyle that pushes people together so quickly). I was given a nickname by a few of them at pre-camp: Emerson, and it has stuck. The name was given because during the first couple of days of camp I was very adamant about spending time alone, and I was consistently writing and talking about how beautiful all of the nature was here. I didn't mind it when they first teased me with it and I actually quite like it now.

Tomorrow is my first day off and I already have made a number of exciting plans. More later!

Here are some pictures from pre-camp, more to come soon!

Tupper Lake

waiting for our sea-plane ride

Adam and the pilot in the sea plane

Long Lake from above

sky and Laura