Holdplacer

I am so busy- I can't wait to tell you about it, but I'm too busy.

It's another day here in paradise- the last of Junior High #4. Highlights of the week include getting up at 6:30 in the morning to move 400 or so chairs in order to sweep and then carefully placing them back in perfectly straight rows, as well as spraying down and wiping a ton of bathrooms with hydroxy (a sanitizer). Thus my mother's prophecy has been fulfilled- I did indeed have to clean toilets at Q.

More highlights include taking a group of 4 kids mountain biking up 2 different mountains, made possible only by this week's amazing speaker. Allow me to explain:

He is a mountain biker. I knew it within a few seconds of looking at him. He just had that look about him; the "I'm wearing a Kona hat look". Yeah. Sweet. It get's better. He talked to me, and I told him that I was the mountain bike leader, and that I hadn't done much biking in a while because I'd been at Briercrest.

I didn't think he was that hardcore though until I saw him give his first talk to the campers... about mountain biking! He talked about how he was teaching his 6 year old son to ride skinnies at a mountain bike park. He used it as an example, he said that he's teaching his son how to take risks, because when he grows up he wants him to not hesitate to do what he knows is right. That's a hardcore mountain biker.

It still get's better though. Let me tell you a bit about my job as the mountain bike leader first though: I take kids mountain biking- all kinds of them. I have this group of kids who come biking with me every day, and I have some that only come once because they have to, and I have some that beg me to take them to the jumps during a time section when I am clearly not allowed to. My hardcore group, the "Peak Experience" campers, are the ones who bike every day. The brochure is very clear that it is for "people who want to ride up one side of maple mountain and down the other" however there are always at least 2 girls who have never ridden a mountain bike before (I believe this situation exists because the Peak Experience option is one of the last options to fill up, and the girls waiting list for camp is always longer than the dudes) This phenomenon was visitted in a previous blog post. Which you should keep in mind as you read this one.

Ever since the day of that previous blog post I have been somewhat less merciful on little girls who have never mountain biked, simply because I wanted to discourage them from coming with us up a mountain. There are other things they can do, and I've been telling them that. Due to the fact that I was planning to continue getting up at 6:00AM all this week, I was not planning on being especially enthusiastic as a mountain bike leader this week. I really didn't have any high hopes.

However, on the second day of Mountain biking with my "Peakers" Sid, the speaker came along. At the time, I was very glad about this because my assistant was out with a broken toe and his replacement was complaining about the concusion he thought he'd gotten that morning and about how hungry he was, and how his head hurt and... ugh! So Sid (the speaker) came, it was great, he was super enthusiastic so I didn't have to be, he helped the little girls by holding onto thir seats while they road the skinnies in the bike park, just like he talked about doing for his 6 year old son. Then we just went to the jumps I think because the four other guys were into them. They were good friends, but hard on eachother- rough around the edges you might say.
Sid was enthusastic while they were jumping, and the girls were content to watch. ...I forgot to mention that I had been planning to do a really difficult ride in order to discourage the girls, what I thought was "being honest" about how difficult it "would be" for them later. Sid dashed that plan though- he's the speaker, you can't drag little girls all over the forest when the speaker is with you, it's unchivalrous, it's unidealistic, it's mean.

When the ride was over and the kids left, Sid talked to me. He said I did a good job, and I have a cool gig here. We talked about Briercrest, and he said he'd been their too. He did that thing adults do where they ask you what your career plans are.

But then he said some amazing things. He more or less said "Evan, you've got to love on these kids, especially the girls. Don't worry about the guys, they already think you're awesome, but you've got to love the girls. Tomorrow (day 3 of 4 days of biking) we have these kids for 2 hours, and if after 2 hours of mountain biking these girls say that they've had a good time, then we will have accomplished something amazing. Let's make those 2 hours the best time ever for these girls, I'll come with you."

I agreed.

The next day a 5th guy showed up for the first time that week. I thought he'd be ok because he's a guy and he signed up for mountain biking. As we got ready to ride that day, everyone was asking me where we were going, and I kept saying I didn't know. I felt dumb, I felt like I wasn't leading, I felt like I should know what to do, where to go. I didn't know though. I didn't know how to give those girls the best time ever. I didn't know if it meant I should forget about the guys and just do easy stuff, or if it meant I should make the girls do something really hard, but just enocurage them and wait for them so much that they would be able to do it, to help them get over obstacles they couldn't get their bikes over, to be chivalrous- Maybe then they'll have a good time, and a sense of accomplishment as well. So in the end I said "we're going to head up the mountain, but I don't know how far we're going to go" and we went.

It was slow going. I knew it would be, I had to be in the front as always so I couldn't help the girls that much. Sid was in the back and doing a great job as usual. I had an assigned assistant who was hanging with the guys, and was doing a great job of joking with them and generally being cool. It soon became clear that the one knew boy was slow, and he was wearing pants on a hot day, and he fell into a hole and got dirt down his pants, and he wasn't wearing any socks.

This is going to be anticlimactic. Sid talked to me, and he said that me and my assistant should keep going up the mountain and that him and the girls and the slow boy should go at their own pace. I said that there was a trail that we would have been going down that they could take, but that since we were now able, the rest of us were going to push up to the top of the mountain.

So we did. Me and the 4 rough guys and my cool assistant went up to the top of the mountain- the same mountain from my other blog post 6 weeks ago. We did it on day 3, not day 4. We did it in 2 hours as though it was just a normal thing, and while we were up, the girls and the boy and Sid went back down to the bike park and rode skinnies, and Sid did his regular amazing encouraging thing and they had a great time, they even did some of the hard stuff that most of the boys don't do, because Sid helped them learn and get confidence to do it. Later on, their counselor came up and told me how much fun they had had, and she thanked me. Last night, the 2 girls wanted to get their picture taken with me. Sid and I shook hands and congratulated eachother, and then the next day, Sid and I both individually went out of our way to make sure the girls were signed up for a different activity, because they choose not to come on our final ride, of their own volition, because they knew it wasn't really for them.

So we climbed another mountain, a mountain I climbed last week with the boys of my last group. It was hard. It was crazy. It was intense. It was mountain biking, and this time I wasn't sick so it was actually fun. We had a good time and the kids did great. It took all afternoon and the guy with the broken toe ended up coming and doing it, which made me happy because he's a super great guy and just perfect for anything with kids.

Yeah so now I'm kindof lost, and staff meeting is starting. That was a long story, I hope I didn't bore you. I guess I should just sum it up by saying that this week was very challenging for me, but that I learned a lot, and now I am very tired. Next week I have decided to counsel the final juniors camp, an oppurtunity which came up suddenly. I had the option of doing something much easier, but it seems like I'm supposed to council. One of the deciding factors was that I saw one of my old campers today because he came with his dad to pick up his older brother from this camp. I know have an oppurtunity to have that kind of bond with 10 more kids, and I'm going to take it, even though the girl I like a lot isn't councilling next week and so I was really hoping to get to know her better. Oh well.

Topical Moisturizer

One of the bikes has a flat tire, I already fixed it once today, but I must not have done a good enough job. Today has been the first full day of Junior High #3, which brings me back to my old routine, the routine where I feel like I'm most doing my job as mountain bike leader. It means that I do three group rides a day, each about an hour, including the time it takes to get all the kids ready. Groups vary in size from 5 to 11, (the amount, not the age) both guys and girls. I like it when the girls get into biking, sometimes I have groups of girls who are super-hardcore, and that makes me happy. Sometimes little girls scare me though, like when they ride through trails sitting on their seats and with their feet dragging on the ground- it's just not safe, they can hit their shins on the pedals and they don't have their weight centered very well for maneuvering. So, in conclusion, girls who come mountain biking provide a mostly pleasant challenge.

Today we had some crazy dudes. Most of the crazies come out in open activities, not in the scheduled blocks. They can be scary to, and they're kindof hard on eachother. Often there will be one who thinks he's bigger, stronger, older, tougher, or better than some of the others, and who likes to criticize.

It's all fun though- It's just taking kids mountain biking. Some of them have never tried it before, and some of them speak broken English; other kids remind me more of myself. It's special.

Bed time.

What I think I know

Mountain biking is intrinsically good, materialism is intrinsically bad, therefore: mountain biking is true when it brings contentment, not discontentment.

Sunshine brings happiness; rain a spirit of melancholy.

Heat enables and cold paralyzes.

Mountains hide the sunset while plains leave you with nowhere to hide.

Friends have the power to influence you. If you want to be influenced positively, develop positive relationships.

Negative relationships will necessarily have a negative effect on you. This may come in the form of negative attitudes or the reinforcement of negative behaviour.

It may not always be possible to control your influences, therefore choose your friends carefully and your close friends even more carefully. If you feel certain people are negatively influencing you, concentrate on positively influencing them. Rather than moving down to their level so that you can be with them, set your bar high and show them what you expect of them.

Children depend on their parents to break down logic problems for them. They will often miss hidden premises or the personal implications of what is said. This is evident in the inability of a group of children to respond when told to form a straight line without each individual receiving specific instruction on how to do so.

When an 18 year old demonstrates an apparent inability to understand the implications of the statement “we need to leave by 9:00am tomorrow” it is a mark of his youth, demonstrative that he expects someone else to provide him with more specific instructions. This problem can be easily avoided so long as the instructor does not act like the teenager’s parents. 18 year olds are capable of taking responsibility for themselves but, like children, they will avoid it if they think they don’t have to.

You say goodbye, but I say

Hello. I am not in any way confident that I have anything to say right now. Today marked the end of Juniors 2, and my second week of counseling. My cabin left and I don't miss them. Perhaps I don't form attachments easily, perhaps I am not emotional. perhaps I am only not sentimental, but then again, I think I am all of those things.

Yesterday someone asked me if I love my kids, and I said "I don't know". She said "Will you miss them when they are gone?".

I am supposed to love these kids. The concept is "loving kids to Christ". Do I love them? I think so.

I told her I thought I loved them, and she asked them if I love them like Jesus does. I suppose she was trying to motivate me, she was a head counselor after all.

I don't love them like Jesus does, I love them because Jesus does. I value them because Jesus values them. It makes me sad when I see them hurting eachother because I know it makes God sad. My job is to love these kids, and I do, but I don't miss them. I am genuinely glad that my influence on their life has come to an end, or at least diminished. It is a lot of pressure to know that God is working through you.

Not that I should have to do the work, right? I mean, if God's working through me, what do I have to worry about, right? Yeah, uhuh, whatever.

Now I have to be right with God; now I have to be asking for his help so that I can recieve it, I have to be constantly making sure to ask God for help so that I'm relying on him and not my own adequacy, qualifications, or prerequisites. I have to be sure I'm depending on God otherwise I'm only giving myself, and I'm not enough.

When I think past on the last week, I wish I'd had more chances to rub off on (influence)the kids, but If I could do it again, I wouldn't be more outgoing, I'd be more prayerful.




I want to store up my treasures in heaven, and the last thing I want to do is brag to you, so I'm not going to tell you any stories from the past 2 weeks. I think what I have said so far is very much what I needed to say. Please pray with my during the rest of the summer. If you do not know, I will be counseling a total of three weeks this summer, and other 7 I will be the mountain bike leader. This means that I am not going to be sleeping in a cabin again for another 4 weeks, which will give me plenty of time to prepare myself for my third and final week of counseling this summer, which I'm sure will be altogether different.

Director Clearance Acquired

Snarls Darkly

Firstly I wish to state that the title of this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with it's content whatsoever.

So I'm a Junior Counselor or "Cabin Leader" if you don't like the misleading nomenclature of "Counselor". Chris is my Senior Counselor, he does everything and I do everything I can to help. The head counselor just came and told me that he watches everyone, and that he thinks I've been doing a good job. I spilled all my concerns to him, all the things I've had to deal with and am still dealing with. He says that next week he wants to make me a Senior Counselor, with my own Junior Counselor to be mentored by me and to help me. That would shift a lot of responsibility onto myself. Most notably, I would have to actually keep track of whether these kids are wearing sunscreen, drinking enough water, eating enough, taking their medication, etc. - things Chris takes car of. I would feel even more responsible when these kids show absolutely no interest in talking about God, and when it seems impossible to have a serious descussion at all. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have dealt with that, and figured out just what exactly the signs of spiritual growth in a 9 year old are.

There's this one kid who just lays in his bed at night shouting the most ridiculous things- "Potty humour" as my mom would say, and there's no way to control him. It seems to get worse and worse, yesterday I stood right next to him and prayed softly while he shouted, but I eventually just left him alone. There is no way to make this kid sleep when you want him to, there is no way to control him. I'm past the point of being angry at him and now I'm just trying to do my best to love him, and it's getting easier.

They say that at camp the quiet, the darkness, the long nights can force a kid to be alone with his thoughts, and that God can speak to them then. Sometimes I wish we could tie this kid to a tree and come back for him in the morning. I just want something good to take place inside of him, but it's the quiet times that he becomes the most unreasonable. Please pray that God would work in him through us.

IWTM4SB

Today I got my bikers to climb a mountain. A girl came along, she must have been 12. My Brazilian assistant had to push both her and his bikes up the entire mountain. She walked as slow as any person you've ever seen. We made it somehow though. Girls sign up for Mountain biking even though they've never mountain biked before, because the regular camp group is totally full. It makes it hard, I often wish they would quit biking and do something else, but we have to go at their pace, so it made it a little hard on my assistant, but he's a tank, so it worked. The guys complained the whole way, but I'm just so happy we made it. A few days ago they complained whenever we had to ride up a hill, but now they have that actual mountain biking experience, that actual adventure and sense of accomplishment. When I was in biking at Q in 2003ish, we did way more adventure stuff, and I thought these kids were just lame because they complained so much, but I think from now on I'm going to do more with them, that way they'll get over their complaining faster, and the girls might decide not to come on the big ride (it's ok, I swear, they'll have more fun playing volleyball or something, I'm not being mean)

Tonight is the weekly concert of secular songs, in addition to the regular Christian stuff. There's a lot of pressure put on it from the campers, it could be really lame because it's our first time playing through the set.

IT'S TODAY!

It's today, it's today! It's 30 degrees and it's today! The kids are coming in 2 hours! IT STARTS TODAY!

Glob

The other day I talked to Marv Penner, Youth Ministries professor at Briercrest and also the speaker during this week’s staff training at Q. He had just finished giving a great talk on love and relationships to us. Through the week he’s spoken to us several times, and at first I was very disappointed, because the first time he talked to us he told us that after being in ministry for 40 years, he’d come to realize that he’d never loved Jesus… or something. It frustrated me. I know there’s this notion of the church being the bride of Christ. I can confidently say that I can understand God the father as my father, and Jesus as my brother, teacher, and a sacrifice for my sin, but I struggle a little bit more to say “I need to be in love with Jesus”. Jesus loves me, yes, I love Jesus too, but “in Love?” The girl who said she’s beginning to understand what it means to “fall in love with Jesus” needs to try to explain it to me in more concrete terms I think.

So I talked to Marv Penner. I didn’t really know what I was going to say. I asked my question, but I do a better job writing my question here than I did when I said it to him. My question was, in a much more direct way: Why doesn’t the bible talk about chivalry? Why doesn’t God command men to let women go ahead of them in line? Why does it seem like the bible has no useful information on how to meet the love of your life? A prayer, a well, some camels, 2 gold bracelets and a nose ring?

I decided all on my own that if the Jesus himself didn’t tell me how to fall in love with the right person, then it must be simple; it must be intuitive; it must be something you learn from your parents- like how to talk; Something that people don’t forget how to do, but that they can always do when they have to. I decided that there must be some natural way of things which makes fat people fall in love with people less shallow than I am. I came up with a solution that fit my mind, and then I started to forget I’d even thought about it.

But then Marv Penner came along and told me things I didn’t know. Things about relationships that are based in an overall understanding of the scripture’s teachings on how we ought to live. He said (for example) that the decision to not have premarital Sex in order to avoid the consequences, such as pregnancy or simply emotional hurt, is not enough to keep Christians abstinent, and that the only good enough reason for abstinence is a love for God. Don’t ask me why, but that wasn’t something I’d spent enough time considering.

But Marv didn’t completely answer my question, but then I didn’t completely ask it, I didn’t make a whole lot of sense when I started trying to talk to him. But I said that the story of Isaac and Sarah didn’t help me, and neither did the gospels. He told me that chivalry is in the bible, that it’s just part of treating others how we would like to be treated. He asked me if I was familiar with the story of Hosea, and when I said “no” he told me a little bit about it, and I’m excited to try and read the whole book (when I get the time, I’m scheduled straight from 8:30am to 10:00pm these days and I’m not feeling able to start reading the bible in another place as well as the places I’m already slowly reading from) He also told me that he knew a guy in India who’s marriage was arranged by his parents with excellent result.

So yeah, I actually felt pretty dumb, pretty unprepared with my question. It seemed very foolish as I was asking it, but what I took from my talk with Marv most of all is that I need to develop my character. He said that if I’m the man that God wants me to be then I’ll be the husband God wants me to be, and the Father God wants me to be. If the only good enough reason to avoid the pitfalls of relationships is a love for God, I’d say I need to work on that.

So now I’m still confused; what about the female counselor who mountain bikes? Do I focus inward on my own character, outwards at the pretty girls, or both? What’s my objective?

Oh yeah, the campers, they’re coming on Saturday. I guess they’re the reason God’s placed me here.

Liftoff

Wow.

48 hours ago I returned to my room to grab my computer, and found that the shelf it was sitting on was retaining a large amount of water, because I had placed it under a plastic kettle, which I had believed to be empty, but which was not. I then proceeded to grab my computer and a towel, and I wiped the bottom and top, and then I opened it. I was dismayed to find that the entire screen was covered in condensation and that ever key was wet. I concluded however, that it would probably be alright, and that the water had only run off the lid and inside of it on it's way to the shelf it sat on. I then dabbed out all the water from the various plugs, then attempted to shake any water out of the computer fan, and then put it down open and on it's side to try to dry it out over night.

In the morning, it seemed dry, so I decided to open up the cd drive, but I realized that I would have to turn it on first. I turned on my compter as usual, and quickly popped out the cd drive. The cd in the cd drive was covered in little water droplets, and every surface of the disc tray was wet. I dryed it with a towel and pushed it in, as my computer continued to boot. everything seemed to be working fine, and I got to the point of reading a facebook message when suddenly my computer's power went out completely. Thinking that maybe it had just been low on batteries, I plugged in the power cord and turned it on again. It made it to the login screen but then powered down once again. I thus concluded that it was still wet and left it until that evening.
That evening (yesterday) it powered down three times when I tryed to boot it, and then stopped even turning on. I kept hoping that if I just held it still it would stay on long enough to dry itself because of the air circulation. At this point I also removed my battery and one of the panels on the bottom to see if it was still wet inside. It was. My battery was wet, and so was my hard drive. I went to bed immediately- at 7:00 at night, I just didn't feel like being conscious.

This morning I woke up and prayed for my laptop. I prayed the best prayer I could pray. I itterated my need for my laptop, and explained that, although I new that God was capable of providing for my needs even if my laptop was destroyed, I really and very strongly wanted God to supply my need by healing my laptop.

Then I turned it on. It worked. It stayed booted. I logged in and left it to hopefully continue drying itself during the day. Now I'm using it. Yes, I'm using it. I am using my resurrected laptop.

Today was open house here at Q. Over a thousand people came on this beautiful day. After my sound check (oooh a sound check?) this morning I grabbed some quick lunch at 11:15 and then went up to be in charge of archery for 5 hours. Although it started out slow, people began to gather, and so there were a lot of people for me to show how to shoot a bow. I showed a kid who was almost too short to shoot over the bench. After awhile there was a guy who showed up who enjoyed telling people what to do more than I did, and so I let him do most of the teaching for the last little bit, since I was kindof tired of it. The guy was very nice and very helpful, but he told people things they didn't need to know, which is somewhat less tactful, and made me think he just liked to show off what he knew, but still, he was helpful.

At 5:15 I grabbed a quick dinner by cutting in line, although there was almost no food because there were so many people the kitchen could barely keep up, and then I went to Q-Town (big white tent, it's the chapel) to get ready for the show. I played bass in the band up on stage as we played the camps songs, which are written by the lead singer and dedicated full-time staff member for music at Q.

We played a cover of One Thousand Miles, which is a staple here at Q ever since I went as a camper in 2004. It was however the last time we will play it this summer, as it is being retired.

When I go out, well I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the one who's going out with you
When I hang out...
When I pray out...
When I sing out...
Well I would walk 500 hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more just to be the one who walks a thousand miles to fall down at your door DA-DA-DA!!

Anyway, good times, and kindof stressfull. You can't imagine just how good these songs are, and although the audince wasn't as into it as they would be during a camp, and although I barely looked up from my music, I really enjoyed it. You can't imagine the way I feel about these songs that I haven't heard since i was at camp 4 years ago, and how cool it is to be helping the to provide them to a new generation of campers by playing in the band. Also, the whole band vibe is absolutely great, I just dropped right into their mostly seemless collaboration of continuity. We rock.

No more band playing for awhile though, this next week we have to finish off absolutely everything before staff training begins next friday. Staff training is when our band is going to do most of our practicing. By that time, all the staff will be here. There's a bass player coming, so Russ is thinking of getting me to play guitar some of the time, it will be good, I can't wait to play some more songs, since I've only played the 6 that we practiced for tonight. (LIFTOFFF!!!!)


OOOOOhhhhhhh dear. Time to do something normal. I feel like running around and jumping up and down.


Instead, I took pictures:

\

Until next time...

Experience

Josh-roomate, Sean-Kiwi, Richard-boat driver
Doorstop-monster, Steve-Biceps,
Lewis-eyebrow, Evan, Tyler-boss

Batteries have cells too,

I remember hanging out in the basement with the rest of the Q crew all evening, I remember that Tim F was there playing foosball. I remember that before that I had been out riding a unicycle, and that before that I had been riding a bike, and that before that I had been drinking a Grape Crush. I remember going on a bike ride with a hardcore XC guy, and I remember that he beat me up all the hills, but I beat him down because I was so hard up. I remember that we had left for our ride immediately after dinner, which, as I recall, consisted of pork, potatoes, salad, cooked vegetables and apple crisp. I remember drinking lots of pink lemonade. Before that I remember putting the tire back on the rim of one of my bikes, and before that- peeling the stickers off of 7 mountain bike forks because they had half-naked women on them. I remember that when I did that I had just finished painting a certain section of the skatepark black, and that I had decided not to start on the next part until tomorrow. I remember that Paul and I had been painting the skatepark for most of the day. I remember that Paul was from New Zealand, and I remember that in NZ "hard up" means flat out. I remember using peices of wood and heavy equipment to lift a 23 foot aluminum skiff onto an 18 foot trailer. I remember that it weighed about as much as a car. I remember that it was an extremely difficult task, which required a lot of thought and engineering. I remember that my my two much older coworkers who I was helping listened to my suggestions and explained things to me instead of just telling me what to do, and that I was glad to feel so respected. I remember that the time I spent with the skiff was more or less a side project in the overall project of the day, which was to paint the skatepark. I remember that this morning we had a staff meeting. I remember that this staff meeting started with a pastor from an inner city church explaining to us how glad he was that we accept inner city children, and explaining to us what to expect from them, and what we should do to help them. I remember that I showed up for this meeting late because it started at nine and I didn't wake up until 8:59. I remeber that that was the first time I've ever missed breakfast since I came here.

the cost of freedom

It's been a weekend here in Gold River. With Trevor graduating this weekend, I took a van ride up Island from camp. I got the sense it cost the bus line more to move me than I paid. But yeeees, I went to grad, saw Trevor do some walking to his song, which was "for reasons unkown" by the killers, and I enjoyed seeing the whole grad class in their night as the center of attention. After grad there was a live band of local 50 year old men, who tore the place right up. They played all covers, and I knew about half of them, some old rock and some newer stuff including a song by Weezer, and the ever popular "Joker and the Thief" by Wolfmother. Me, Trev and CJ rocked it. It was great that it was a concert rather than a dance, everybody was just having fun and jumping around and there was none of that weird stuff that dances are known for. It was good times, Trev and CJ both had dates, so I was the only free man, CJ asked his date out again, confirming our suspicions of him.















Saturday afternoon Trev came over and picked me up in his jeep, with the hardtop and doors taken off, so we drove out to muchalate lake in style to go make an appearance among the boozers. It was alright, we picked up a few more boys and went 4x4ing up a logging road that my dad says he's hauled many logs down in his logging truck. Dad and I agree that the switchbacks would be sketchy to descend in a truck loaded down with 130 tons of logs. Then after we'd stayed around until we felt awkward, Trev and I headed back to town. Trev let me drive his jeep because he's such a good buddy, and I scared him by trying to accelerate out of corners, which apparently doesn't work in a rear wheel drive vehicle on a gravel road. The front wheels felt more like rudders- not what I'm used to.














Saturday night I found an extremely crumpled 20 dollar bill near one of the local bars, so me and trev and CJ went to the deli and got ourselves a couple chicken burgers and some carbonated beverages. It was by far the easiest money I've ever made. Trevor had walked right by it, I might point out. It looked almost surreal on the ground- in my mind I thought "that peice of garbage paper looks just like a 20 dollar bill" - very surreal.

Today I return to Q, I'm driving to Nanaimo and leaving the car for my parents, who are on their way from Vancouver, where they've been all weekend, then I'll catch a bus and stuff and bam- welcome to camp Q.

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Today I used an angle grinder for a little while to grind some steel railing in the skate park, it was pretty manly of me, really. Then it started to rain so I did some other stuff. I talked to Julie Bailey, who is the wife of the the executive director of Qwanoes, and has some kind of position which means I answer to her- I think she's the activities director. Anyway, she told me some stuff nobody had ever bothered to explain to me, yesterday I was mad because nobody seemed to care about what I need, but she explained everything to me. It looks like I get some say in what kind of bike helmets we buy, and how many we need, and that kind of stuff, and she wants me to update the inventory list by removing items from the list that we don't need and adding items I think we need. I was just happy that somebody actually has a sheet of paper that says what I'm supposed to have, because I quite clearly do not have it all, and I felt like nobody cared. I still have a bit of a problem though, because it's hard to decide what's really necessary when I haven't started the job yet. I'm supposed to start the year with 10 spare tubes and 2 patch kits, instead for the moment I have 7 tubes that all snake bites, and one that's been patched. Do I ask for a ton of patch kits so that I can patch all the tubes or do I just replace them? I basically couldn't decide what to do when I was dealing with it this afternoon and so I decided to tinker in the shop for the rest of the afternoon. I straightened a wheel that must have been previously replaced, which involved considerable violence as well as technique and care. All in all, I feel fulfilled.

After dinner I played my guitar and played soccer for a while, then worked up the energy to blog about my day.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Today I woke up late, but made it to breakfast only a few minutes late, then left to go to the Rec Office with Tyler, wince I will now be working on "Program" I.E., Things pertaining directly to my department, which is Land Activities. As such, today it was Tyler's job to get the treehouses ready for a guest group who "might" have used them tonight, and now "might" use them tomorrow, since it started raining this afternoon and it would seem to have dampened their enthusiasm for slepping outside. Anyway, tyler and I spent the morning spraying and rubbing a bunch of dirty, pitch-covered foam mattresses with dirty, pitch-covered cloths. Then, once we had cleaned both sides of all 30 or so of them, (they were about 1 cm thick, blue, easily rolled- we have them at home) we had lunch (chili and baked potatoes, yum) and then went back out. The rest of the afternoon we spent scraping sap out of the treehouses, removing spiderwebs, sweeping pine needles, but first searching for ladders and risking Tyler's life to get into the stupid things. Yes, we were the first people to enter the dreaded treehouses since last summer, it would seem, and so we had to figure out the scary ladder arrangements that were necesary. Ladders hung as if by magic as Tyler climbed above the safety net to insert the two pins that we would be hanging from as we climbed. Add to this the compounded uncertainty of a swinging suspension bridge and you may or may not get the idea. Here, I will draw you a picture:



















As You can see, it was just a little bit silly, leading me to conclude that Qwanoes operates through the use of magical power. Nothing goes wrong here, despite the fact that ladders are hung from cotter pins and douglas fir trees support the grandest of architectural marvels. Unfortunately there is nothing magical about sap, which I saw a lot of today. Oh well.

Tim's gone. I played guitar tonight. I started writing a rock opera, but honestly I don't have much to show for it. I didn't go to floor hockey but I talked to both Sarah and Trevor online. Trevor is doing his best to break my expectations of him, or so it would seem.

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Today was my day off, so I slept through breakfast and missed my chance to go to church, so I started my day with lunch, after which I began to read "The Christian Camp Counselor" which is a book written by the director of the Counselor training program here at Qwanoes. The first chapter said that as tools that God is going to use to Christ, we need to be sanctified, because God won't use dirty tools. As such, it challenged me to raise my standards for my own righteousness. It also Challenged me to spend 45 minutes in prayer, which is something I don't do, but it was good.

After that I headed out with a group of people to watch the new Indiana Jones movie in Nanaimo. I rode in a truck with a couple and another girl, who are the maintenance assistant, staffing director and some kind of administrator. It was fun to get to know a few of the older people around here- about 28 years old they were. The movie was good, and afterward we met up with the rest of the entire Qwanoes staff, because SUNDAY NIGHT IS DAIRY QUEEN NIGHT! Qwanoes payed for my blizzard. Which reminds me, Tim F, my sister's x is here. He came for the staff leadership orientation weekend that just ended. I'm not sure if he's staying from now until the end of the summer or he might have even left straight from dairy queen to go back home- that's kindof what I'm hoping. I talked to him when he first got here but I had been avoiding him until dairy queen, when he instigated some small talk and did a few nice, friendly things for me. I'm feeling better about it now, I had been feeling guilty for not talking to him.

Well now that I've told you about that...

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Blogging is a self-centered thing to do--- self-centered and out-dated. I'm pretty sure nobody gets cooler when they start a blog, they probably get less cool, actually.

I don't want to justify starting a blog, so I'm not going to. I don't want to explain what you should expect to read here, because I don't have a clue either. Perhaps though, it would suffice to say that I am far from my friends and family, and that perhaps when I wish to tell one person something, but can't because of communicative limitations, I will simply tell everyone who would read this blog... harmless.

I am staying at a summer camp. The actual camps do not start until the end of june, but in the mean time there are many guest groups here, such as churches and elementary schools. We are operating in a very scaled down state, while simultaneously trying to prepare the camp area to have 2000 kids (or something ridiculous like that) come through here this summer. My job, once the summer begins, will be to take kids out on mountain bike rides during two different scheduled activity blocks during the day. In the mean time though, I have my life schedule written on a piece of paper- one day I might work in the kitchen, another I might be on maintenance, raking the forest or washing a dirty cabin, some days a little of both, and some days something completely different.

I'm coming up on completing my first week here at camp. Today was my 5 day of work and tomorrow is my first day off. As of the day after tomorrow (monday) my schedule changes to put me on "Program" instead of the other random stuff, which (by definition) should have more to do with my position as Mountain Bike Leader. With the change in occupation comes new unknowns and new challenges, my primary concern is whether or not the staffing dept. is planning to put me back on maintenance after next week or to keep me on "Program" for the rest of the summer.

But that's all background information. It's only background information for the things I'm likely to say, which I would have said in this post except for that now I'm feeling restless, and I don't much feel like forcing myself to go on just to keep you from thinking that I lack determination or the capacity for abstract thought.

I'm going to have fun telling you about my daily life, I promise.