* tiny but powerful *

I'm done! More later. :) (Sorry for all the one-liner posts...)

Happy Birthday, Melisa!

Conversation with one of my kids today:

Nick: "Tina, were you a tomboy when you were a girl?"
Me: "You mean, when I was younger? No, not really."
Nick: "Then WHY ARE YOU A CAMP COUNSELOR??"

God is good. All the time.

Thanks for your prayers, everyone. My mom should be out of the hospital later tonight.

GUESS WHAT?! I HAVE HOUSING FOR NEXT YEAR!!! The waiting list round was announced today and I got into SOTO! I am SO AMAZED. I was totally not expecting to get housing from this round. I'd thought, MAYBE I'll get something in an unofficial round later in the summer, but most likely I'll have to wait until walk-ons. Now I don't have to wonder anymore! AND I might even still be able to get Early Arrival housing for Orientation Week! *AND* I already got the two things I really wanted for housing next year: 1) being on East campus, and 2) still being on points for my meal plan! I'm going to accept this assignment and then also ask to stay on waitlist for Castano, just on the off-chance that someone switches out later in the summer, which would be UNBELIEVABLY awesome and amazing (and totally unlikely, but worth a shot since I don't doubt that God could make it happen if he wanted to!). So anyway. Praise God - I HAVE HOUSING!!! :-D

Happy Birthday, Scott!

Today was also a crazy up-and-down day. Short version: I felt like I had a breakthrough day personally (first time I actually felt more enthused than bogged down with problems), but I discovered that I still have issues with not being loud enough (which is affecting my self-esteem as a staff member). Yay and boo.

"Hey, it's not okay to make fun of injured people. That's not nice." - Chi-En
"Well, is your speech injured?" - Tina

---
On a different but related note:
Chi-En: 1
Tina: 2

That's the score for "Number of Phrases Transfected Into the Other's Vocabulary."

On a brighter note, Rob (still) absolutely cracks me up.

Week 1 = 8 boys + 4 girls.
Week 2 = 10 boys + 3 girls.
Week 3 = 11 boys + 5 girls.

Why are there so many boys??! None of my girls are any trouble. :-P

This afternoon, we had a special staff meeting solely dedicated to figuring out how to handle my group for the rest of this week. Does that tell you anything? (Gillian only called it for the 3rd-5th people, but nearly the whole staff stayed to help troubleshoot the situations. My goodness...)

Week 3 = 16 kids. New challenges. Tonight I did nothing except eat (a little), read (a little), and sleep (a lot). Back to bed soon. Mondays are crazy.

"The yogurts are now categorized by weirdness level. Okay?" - Chi-En

Quick post. My kids were better today. The kid who cried 5 times yesterday only cried once today, and the kid who was silent for 45 minutes yesterday only did that for 10 minutes today. (Talk about polar opposites for expression mechanisms.) Tonight, Chi-En and I had a superfun evening at David and Mindi's place -- dinner (yummm), chatting, and Mexican Train. Now it's time for bed!

Also, ANTS SUCK. They're STUPID too, because they're not even going after our food.

Ohhh man. I spoke too soon. Overall group dynamics were still pretty good, but individual sensitivity levels were, wow, through the roof. Today was...whooooboy. One kid broke down into crying fits FIVE times, and that's only part of the story.

Tina = pooped.

My kids this week are AWESOME! Today was sooo much better than last week. The group dynamics are just WAY better. And I think I did a much better job laying down rules and expectations right away, since the opening ceremony went infinitely more smoothly and we weren't running super late (which always gets me flustered). Out of my 14 kids this week, four of them were in my group last week (Marie, Kevin, Eli, Garrett), and another four are also repeat campers who were with a different team leader. I got one of the main troublemakers from Varina's group, but the AMAZING thing is that she gets along wonderfully with the main troublemaker from my group! Like, not in a destructive way, but a GOOD way! It's AMAZING. Gillian dropped her jaw when I told her that.

Anyway, I'm stoked about this week. I think it's going to be great. Our Art theme this week is "Cartooning and Animation," and our Science theme is "Mars Explorers." Both are more interesting to me than last week's, which is nice. Some of these kids are real brainiacs -- they know more about Mars than I do! And camper management looks like it'll be so much easier (though, of course, you never really know). The group actually sticks together when we travel from place to place, which was a MAJOR challenge last week. Plus, I started this new thing (which I used to do with my 6th graders at Outdoor School, but wasn't sure would work with this age group) where I assign each of them a number, and then when I call out "Where are the WOOFERS?!" (can you believe they wanted that as their team name?), they respond by counting off in order so that we know everyone's there! SO USEFUL when it works. And today it worked! YAYYY.

I'm still pretty tired today, but I feel way better about camp than I did last week. Our Monday procedures just went so much more smoothly, and our kids are awesome, and the curriculum is awesome. I'm also super glad I opted out of seeing fireworks last night so that I could go to bed early (10:15). Totally worth it. (I had to be up at 6:30 so I could leave around 7:00 to get to work by 7:30. The early arrival time for Monday prep makes Mondays even more painful, especially right after a holiday!)

Happy Birthday, Felix!

And for yesterday (sorry I missed the timestamp!):
Happy Birthday, Cammie!

I decided yesterday that I would go visit Grace Pres. these next two Sundays (David Jones will be speaking) but I am up way too early. I woke up even before Chi-En started getting ready to leave for The River, and I couldn't fall back asleep. I started thinking about church and then I started REALLY wanting to go back to The River, because I haven't been to church at all the past four Sundays (finals, graduation, Waltz Weekend, and camp setup day) and I miss it!! I feel like a little kid who's been dropped off by her parents and wants to run back to them before they leave. (I really have kids on the brain.) The River is home to me, you know? And I actually miss my church kids too (even after camp), because I've known some of them for two years. So I was really tempted just to leave for church with Chi-En, especially since I'm awake anyway... but I get the sense that I'm supposed to go to Grace today. Sigh. :-/ This church decision process this summer is going to be really hard.

"You pooper." - Chi-En

"You are a D-O-R-C-K!" - Chi-En

Day 5 was definitely better than the rest of the week, despite a couple incidents of tears. I think the improvement was partly because they started to build up a sense of loyalty to me by the end of the week, and also because I knew what to watch out for, given their individual quirks and tendencies. Overall, they were a great bunch of kids -- smart and enthusiastic and really creative. It was just that the group dynamics were...definitely challenging. At least I didn't have any of the majorly problematic kids (like Varina's group--oof!). Our staff is totally exhausted now, but we made it through the first week! I hope it'll be easier next week since we'll have been through the logistics of each day and can learn from our mistakes. Difficulties notwithstanding, I think we really pulled together an awesome week for our campers. Gooo Hillsborough!!

Today was Crazy Hair Day. I have my hair up in really high pigtails, with purple/orange/yellow pipecleaners twisted into curly decorations. This morning I'd actually forgotten about Crazy Hair Day, but Courtney saved me from the sad fate of being a lame Team Leader. I'm thinking I might keep my hair like this for FNW tonight (if I have the energy to go... we'll see).

Today we also had our "graduation" ceremonies for the end of camp (our programs are organized by the week). This week's diplomas certified them as "Artistic Masters of Ancient Egypt, Environmental Engineers, and Outdoor Adventurers." I only had one parent attend my group's ceremony (sad!) and I was really nervous because EVERYTHING was so hectic at the end of the day (cleaning up, collecting all of their art and science project, filling out their camper surveys, etc.), but I winged it and I hope I do better next time. :-P I think the kids left excited about all the work they did, which was the main goal. Let me tell you a bit about my kids...

Lena was the oldest of the four girls, and I could tell she was very detail-oriented. She was neat with her work and came up with unique ideas for her art projects. Aimee and Mallory know each other from school, and they're going to all their camps together this summer. Aimee refused to participate in the earthworm dissection this morning. Mallory almost backed out too, but eventually she agreed to observe. Marie was the sweetest, most cooperative and enthusiastic kid out of the entire group. She and her older brother, Kevin, got along great with each other, but they also made a pointed effort to spend time with other kids. Kevin is nearly as tall as I am, and he's only 9 1/2 years old! David and Merritt are best friends, and they were determined to learn how to juggle this week. Eli and Garrett are also best friends, and they're really smart and perceptive. They had a great time with worm-habitat design and origami. Elyh is adorable, easy-going, and a totally wacky bundle of energy. (Can you believe I had two kids named Eli and Elyh?!) Elyh attends the Nueva School (where our camp is located) along with Lena, Rohit, and Yusef. Rohit and Yusef are best friends, too. Yusef is half-Egyptian, which was fun for our unit on Egyptian art. Rohit and Eli really don't get along; they're both really sensitive and tend to provoke each other. Elyh was awesome about encouraging Rohit when he got frustrated. Marie and Kevin were awesome with everyone -- yay!

Other highlights::
- Our team mascot was the Koala. Originally they wanted either a Turtle, Sponge-Bob Square-Pants, or Fluffy (yes, from Harry Potter), but they couldn't agree on one. Everyone insisted they would be unhappy with the one they didn't want, so I made an executive decision. Hence, Team Koala.
- During check-out, Eli and Garrett liked to parade around with my name sign, singing, "Three cheers for the T-I-N-A... three cheers for the T-I-N-A..." while waiting for their parents to pick them up.
- Elyh ate his nametag on Wednesday morning. Chrissy made him sing a song to get a replacement.
- Mallory and Lena wore Stanford sweatshirts all week.
- Merritt: "This worm has dirt inside his organs! He didn't poop before he died!"
- Marie painted me a thank-you poster!
- Their favorite game (similar to "Down by the banks...") goes like this: "Quack-diddly-osa quack quack quack! Santa Rica, rica rica rica! Dolor, dolor, dolor dolor dolor! Dolor! Dolor! 1-2-3-4!!" (I have no idea...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRIAN!
(Chickens...HEEHEE)

Disclaimer: I kind of have chickens on the brain. Camp Galileo's mascot is a rubber chicken. YEAH RUBBER CHICKEN!

Day 4 was better than Day 3, which unfortunately was not as good as Day 2. Is tomorrow really Day 5?

I'm getting really good at speed-counting to 12 every 30 seconds or so.