Why I hate Christmas

It's shocking to most people when I say I hate Christmas. I go to church and get the whole Jesus thing, everyone loves gifts so it's not unusual for pretty much everyone to think I'm crazy. I hate Christmas so much because of my my Parents make it. The next five-ish weeks will be like pulling teeth for me. It's going to be a never ending stream of fights and pouting that I've witnessed annually for all of my memory. I honestly can't remember one truly happy Christmas season in all of my 23 years.

The official kick off of holiday hell is going on now. The Annual 'let bring up your dead parents fight'. This isn't an unusual fight for my Parents to have. When my Grandparents died my Dad had a lot of stuff he needed to work though. I think it's pretty understandable for the holiday season to be a hard time for him. My Mother in her infinite wisdom(crazy) likes to really poke at it this time of year. The quote from tonight 'What do you think your parents would have to say about that?'. This has been brought on with my mother being let go from her job. She'd upset so she must go an hurt everyone around her. This is also not unusual for her. Like I said this isn't an unusual fight but at holiday time it launches my Dad into a downward spiral of hurt and general grumpiness which I can understand. There's nothing like being depressed at Christmas missing those who have passed away.

I can honestly say much of my childhood and my current adult(ish) life would be much happier if my Parents would have (or would) separate. No child should have to see their parents threatening each other with knives in the kitchen. No kid should have to be a messenger from one room to another mid fight. I shouldn't have had to explain to my younger sister that things were OK when they weren't.

I should clarify that my Parents aren't abusive in a physical way. They like to go for the emotional and mental side of things where no one can see what's going on under the surface. Growing up there was no regulation for this kind of abuse in Ohio for spouses or children, especially when you have food to eat and the heat is on.

So why does all this happen at Christmas? I'm not 100% sure. I think it might have something to do with attempts at buying affection or making up for a whole year of hurting both of which never work out.

This is a bit of a ramble and I'm sorry for the emo. I'll try and let go of it soon and make the best of Christmas this year.

Black Friday + Random

Seriously I never ever want to work retail on black Friday EVER again. True, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated but my cheeks hurt from the fake smiles and grinding my teeth when people were rude, grumpy or were pissed they missed they missed the sale. I honestly didn't leave my resister aside from the tiny break, the unpaid lunch and the 10 mins I helped an old lady look for dinosaurs. Looking for dinosaurs with old people is kinda fun in a manic black Friday kind of way. They call it 'green Friday' at the 'r us' which I find really annoying.

Drake & Josh is one my my favorite 'new nick' shows. I know, I know it isn't exactly new but it's new when compared to the 'Hey Dude' and 'Salute Your Shorts' I grew up on. I some how find Drake and Josh attractive even though they're about 17ish in the show I think. Drake & Josh is marathoning in a thanksgiving 'Bromntic' marathon. ... yes that sentence is awful.

In other news I've started working on the show Manda and I will be doing in our next video. We've come to the conclusion it should be a Trock song. This would be time lord rock like wizard rock fro Harry Potter but Time Lord for Doctor Who. If you look it up on YouTube you'll find out more about it. There's also a forum out there you can find through google (or linked to the YouTube video by nerimon.).

My sister is going to Europe for the next 20 days. Yes, I bitter because my Parents are paying for it for her. I am however slightly pleased that she left her plant in the car over night and it's pretty much dead.

I know, picture Friday... but it would have only been pictures at work which I didn't have time to do.

Random 5: Current Kids tv shows I love
1. Wonder Pets
2. Wizards of Waverly Place
3. Drake and Josh
4. iCarly

And back to the regularly scheduled program

So when I said there would be picture Friday I had intended to do it every Friday. What I didn't anticipate was not taking any pictures till I left work and it was dark and nothing was interesting. I decided to do picture Friday and Saturday... but then I didn't. Monday I took a great picture of the power plant and accidentally deleted it (isn't that always the way). I just decided to go for it today and post what I had... which isn't much.

This would be the traffic from my drive home on Friday night. The car had some 'special' bumper stickers but you can't really see them in the picture or read them. They were really contradictory things about the war in Iraq though. One was support the troops and the other was about killing innocent people. I couldn't help but think those two opinions would make for a complicated marriage.

Once again in the car and in the dark. Yes, it's that dark at 5:30pm in Ohio. It sucks and I hate it.

This would be the yummy cheese and blueberry danish I got a Tim Horton's the other day. Manda and I had lunch talking of Justin Timberlake and the crazy that is holiday time with y family. There's one quote (not by Manda) that a friend told me that will forever stay with me. "Considering your up bringing and family life it's a wonder you're a normal as you are." So yes, that sums up my family.

And because I suck I added a bonus picture of myself making several bad fashion choices.

I know I've also forgotten the random 5 lately so that's back today too.

Random 5 Favorite Thanksgiving foods:

1. Sweet Potatoes (which I made this year)

2. Mashed Potatoes

3. Turkey

4. Pudding Pie

5. .... I don't really have a fifth. I actually don't care for thanksgiving that much.

Accidental Thursday

UGH. On my way home from work I was hit by a car. Well my car was hit by a car. Thankfully no one was hurt but this still sucks like woah. My car was just fixed YESTERDAY and was running all nice and awesome like.. Now there's a big dent and broken light up front and lots of red paint on my purple car. It cracked my purple paint and everything. At least it still runs and I can use it to go to work and everything. It just sucks really bad. I know I complained about it on twitter already but it really sucks.

Love The Office. Toby is back which is amazing. Toby is one of my favorites with his morose attitude. Jim and Pam are love though. I know it's weird/stupid but I honestly feel like Pam is someone I would know and be friends with all normal like.


I had more to write but I can't remember now. I'm sure it had to do with work but maybe it'll come back to me tomorrow.

Cheddar Dogs & Vlogs

Today was an interesting day. I didn't really do much till about 2ish. I finally got my Secret Diaries of a London Call Girl book in the mail! I know I'm way behind the times but I got it for $4 by holding out this long... and I won't have known about it if there hadn't been a show. So I have that book lined up t read next after I finish Pillars of the Earth. Speaking of Pillars I'm a bit irked with it at the moment but I won't say why since I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I'll just say if you've read it I'm 3/4 of the way though.

Then I got called for an interview for another job! This isn't just part time seasonal retail oh no it's a real job! I don't want to get to excited about it but from what I understand it's something I would really love to do. Again though, I don't want to get to excited. More on that after Monday.

Finally it was down to EL where my car is being fixed. I hope the serious vibrations in the front end are going to be fixed and the brakes are getting done and an oil change. Thankfully this is all getting done now so I don't have to worry about it to much this winter. Please don't let me have jinxed myself saying that.

My first ever vlog went up on YouTube last night. It's not all that special but I had fun making it. If you want to check it out I use the same name as on here for my channel just takeout the '.' . The really great news about the vlog though is I've already started on my next one. I convinced or conned my best friend into doing it with me. She also 'forced' me to eat a cheddar dog and a chocolate malt. We taped 25 mins. of hilarity so lets hope I can find 3 mins or so of it that's usable and not just us laughing or making no sense at all. I can't wait to get working on editing this one!

I think that's about it. Dancing with the stars is completely useless even if Lance is on it and I had my first ever celeb. crush on him.

Random: My alarm went off meaning I set it for 10pm not 10am I'm obviously a genius.

Not so manic monday

Honestly not much has happened today. I stayed up really late last night and then slept in till about ten am which is unusual for me. I like to be up by nine and functioning on a normal schedule. Alas the Sunday nap I usually take got delayed till late so I was just out of sync from the norm.

So a few things I wanted to brig up.

WTF snow. I know it's November in Ohio and snow is not something shocking for this time of the year. However I wasn't expecting it... well I was since I saw the weather but I didn't want it to happen. I hate the snow. What I hate the most about it is that people put down salt. I'm quite short so my pants generally hit the ground even when I get them in 'short' size. When people put down salt you can see it when the water dries! It's such a pain in the ass because it looks gross and I can't get two wears out of them and need to do laundry more frequently. Which I don't like because it's in the basement and it's scary down there with all the locked storage. That picture was at about ... five hours ago. The ground is now completely covered and I'm not happy.

In weekend randomness I got new shoes! I got new sneakers this summer because camp murders shoes and I needed new ones while I was there. Then I went to Scotland and came home and... lost them. How does one lose shoes? I'm not exactly sure all I know is when we got home from Scotland I took them off in the living room of my parents house and then never saw them again. This happen to a lot of stuff at my parents house. Usually they'll put something in my old bedroom in some place I would never put them like in the closet. But I looked in all these places they might put shoes and they weren't there or in any of the places I would put shoes (like lined up at the end of my bed). I have a theory on them having ended up with my sister's stuff and she took them back to school with her. However she hasn't mentioned finding any shoes that are to small for her.

Back to the shoes. I got the sneakers which are uninteresting. What is awesome is I got CROCS. I know crocks have been around for awhile but I've never had real one. Better yet I got pink ones! I've worn sad wal-mart crocs in the rain and in general found my feet didn't get wet. I had the crocs on when I got the mail today and snow doesn't do the same thing. Here's my crocs and my to long jeans because I felt like taking another picture.

In addition to the other candy we made this weekend I baked 7 doz. cookies and helped make two batches of fudge. Yes, it was a productive cooking weekend indeed. I also burned the first batch of cookies so it doesn't count. I guess it was really 8.

I went back to whitening my teeth this week. I took the summer off because it's a pain in the ass to do when you're on a feeding schedule at camp. I didn't have the hour after I take them off to go before eating and avoiding specific foods that are known to stain since we didn't have choices about food at all. So back at it, and I'll do my best not to complain about it making them sensitive.

Last thing really. I got more hours added at work. WOOT.

Picture Friday!

I've been having fun posting pictures so I decided to do a project I've done on a number of past crappy blogs (lj) I've had. So I take my camera (really my black berry because I'm to lazy to carry my real camera it's to big) around and take random photos throughout the day. It's been a pretty chill day and here's the proof.

It was about 65 degrees today with tons of sunshine. This is one of the many sunflowers we have outside my building. This is me looking up at the flower which are all about to the second floor windows. That's 10ft-ish.

Some of the craft ribbon I had on my desk from working on Christmas/birthday presents I'll be giving. If I don't' start now I'll never get them done. Yes, the ribbon says 'smile'.

An apple for lunch. I had a big breakfast so it was a nice choice. It was actually a really great apple. Something it's nice to just crunch into one when that's what you're really craving. The tape there is a new converter for the tape deck in my car so I can listen to my i-pod in all the speakers again!

The view from the drivers seat of my car trying to help my drag queen neighbor jump his car. I'm pretty sure he hooked it up wrong and blew his engine with a big ol' pop and a black puff of smoke. If he had blown mine I would have cried because neither of us have the money to get it fixed.

The i-pod connected and sitting on the passenger seat of my car. I really hate the radio (aside from NPR news) because of all the commercials and generally dislike a lot of the music they play.

Candy making! This would be white chocolate melting in the pot. We made white, yellow, red and gingerbread colored chocolate molds tonight. Renee our pastor's daughter helped out making a big mess but she was enthusiastic and fun and glad I brought music which I always do.

This is Renee's hand print in the hard tack candy we made. I think this was the watermelon batch. We made peppermint, peach, watermelon, root beer and strawberry.

Finished hard tack coated with powdered sugar so it doesn't stick together in the bags. It's pretty cool when it's hard in a flat sheet you hit it with pretty much anything and it shatters like crazy. It always makes me thing of the sugar art people do on the food network.

All the candy we made is going to be sold for the church. Usually most churches have old ladies that do the work but our old ladies are to old so my Mom and Aunt do it. I got roped in yet again this year. I was also signed up to make 10 dozen cookies. That's a crazy amount of cookies and all of one kind. I'm making basic sugar with chocolate drizzle on top. Simple and pretty.

To be filed under random and funny: I changed my face book status the other day to 'Going to Mexico with Manda' (Manda is my best friend since pre-school). I got all kinds of comments from people saying 'to have fun on my trip'. I'm not going to Mexico. We were at the Mexican restaurant in town that we all call 'Mexico'. I in no way have money to go to Mexico and if I had money for a trip I can think of 10 places I would go before Mexico.

Random 5: Places I would go before Mexico.

-Amsterdam. I always thought it looked like an interesting place for relatively obvious reasons.

-Ireland. I've heard lovely things and would love to check it out for myself.

-Egypt. I've never been to the desert so I need to go... and they have Pyramids.

-Greece. Ancient things look so amazing and I've been told the people of the Greek islands are lovely.

-Bar Harbor, Maine. I've been before. It's really beautiful and I would love to visit again. You can see whales from the road!

Neighbors

This is an introduction to my neighbors. I don't know if it's just me or this building that attracts the crazy. I'm slowly starting to think it's me.

Shawn & Michelle live right next door. Shawn is a big ol' queen who does drag. He's a recovering addict with Hep. C. Michelle is his twice ex wife and room mate. She has no front teeth and the concept of work is beyond her. They have three dogs. Inky, Fabio and Peaches. Inky and Fabio are Chinese crested and Peaches is a long haired chihuahua (seriously that's unnecessarily hard to spell.). They're all yippy dogs and just ugly. I'm sorry if you're a fan of those breeds but they're gross. Here's the real kicker though. The boys (Inky & Fabio) wear diapers so they don't have to take them outside or train them not to lift their leg. Peachy uses a puppy pad so the whole apartment always smells nasty. He's also home bound due to his medical issues. This means he can't go anywhere so I take him to his doctors appointments. I'm seriously to nice for my own good. I've spent so much money on gas and got nothing back it's crazy. This is not the end though we did 3 emergency room visits in one week. We hit Walgreen's at least once a week and he'll have at least two doctors appointments a week. They're also on food stamps and spend their food money on chocolate. I know for a fact they haven't bought anything for thanksgiving yet and only have $18 left on their card. It seriously baffles me. They also have me over to hang out all the time. Which is nice but weird to sit in their pee and poo house because of the dogs. I've introduced them to Doctor Who so they've been watching that and leaving me be lately. Thanks for taking that hit Doctor Who.

Stacey. He lived across the hall. I don't know much about him other than when he broke up with his girlfriend who lived with him their Parents got into a fight in the parking lot when she moved out. I also know he's over $800 in the rear on rent. At least that's what the note on his door said.

Amanda & Matt. They live upstairs with their 2 year old daughter Katie. They like to sit in their bathroom and smoke weed with the fan on because 'that won't hurt Katie'. They're really nice though they're pretty cool. By all means smoke what you want just don't make me worry about your baby.

Rose, her Mom and her Son. He's a sweet kid who's good at not getting hit by car in the parking lot when he's on his bike. Rose works really hard to keep them healthy and happy. They're normal but for her Mom. Her Mom is dating Mickey.

Mickey. He's a Vet and will tell you everything, much of which you don't want to know. He also says he's a pastor which is why he put cross like stakes in the yard. He also looks at all the women real weird like. He's told me to go put on more clothes when I had shorts on. Trust me when I say my clothes are far from skimpy so extremely far. He's also attempted to touch my hair which freaks me out. He's started feeding stray cats. Now I like cats but my apartment is to small to keep a pet. I really don't like pregnant cats running all around out building being fed till they have their kittens and the number of strays triples. And I really afraid of running one over when I back out of my spot or something.

These are all current neighbors. I had a vampire neighbor in the past who was really scary. He would skulk around on the roof not using the door to his apartment but the window. He was finally removed my mental services because he was getting dangerous with his golf clubs and constant screaming at all hours. The people who moved in there I haven't really bet yet but they seem to have a dog that looks like a pit bull. I LOVE dogs but not so much ones that can be seriously dangerous and cause renters insurance to go up.

Random 5: The next few songs on my i-pod that come up on shuffle. I promise not to cheat.
-The Wizard & I - Wicked (who doesn't love Wicked?)
-Mony Mony - Billy Idol (for all your 80's party needs!)
-Gap - The Kooks (really cool band. You should know this.)
-Navy Taxi - Kate Nash (I haven't come across one of her songs I didn't like or couldn't relate to.)
-The Guterati? - The Fratellis (They got a lot of attention when the i-pod commercial came out. Their newer album isn't quite as good but I still like it.)

Scotland!

First things first, Scotland is my favorite country I've visited so far. Honestly I would move there tomorrow. Well not tomorrow because I don't even have enough money to get there let alone live and Barack Obama WON so I don't feel the urge to flee at the moment. I did get to flee this summer though and that's what this is about.

Going anywhere with my family is like a ticking time bomb of extremely bad doom and nothing good can come from it. I learned this at the age of oh I'll go with seven. I went into this trip with hope, hope I would make it though with my sanity in tact. That might be questionable.

Our trip started off OK. Cleveland to Newark and everything was running pretty on time. You can't really beat that. The flight to Edinburgh was long as to be expected but I managed to sleep some which was nice. We arrived to a city under construction. I hadn't anticipated that because I was at camp and couldn't do my usual crazy intense pre-travel research. Though I did manage to book all the hotels and such we stayed in but one. Anyways, Edinburgh is making it's transit system all fancy which is really cool. I hope to go back and try it out when it's all done. The other big thing going on was the Fringe (and about 3 other festivals I think.). We planned this being the theater nuts we are. While there we went to see two shows. I would have loved to see more but time and such wouldn't allow for it. We saw a great show called 'Crossing the Rubicon' that was about young people and the dangers of drinking. It sounds stupid but it was actually really good and was presented well. Just my sister and I went to see it so it was nice to be without the Parents for a bit. They went down to see the palace. We met up then to see 'The Last 5 Years' which is a musical I've been a fan of for awhile. It was really great and I sat in the front row making it even more awesome. You just can't ever sit that close here. While in Edinburgh we also went to see the Castle which is a must and completely awesome. Generally if there's a plaque around I'll be reading it. This kills my family and everyone around me because they just skip these things. The whole experience is a lot more historic and educational if you read them (yes, I'm a nerd like that). The other big highlight of Edinburgh was hurting my back. Don't ask me how I did it because I have no idea. I just know it made the rest of the trip seriously painful. So off to a great start right?

That's my sister with something in her teeth. I tried to tell her where it was but she didn't get it. SO I took a picture so she could see...and said I deleted it. I didn't. Yes, I'm evil.

Up next was Glasgow. It doesn't make sense to really be next but like I said I didn't get the choice of order. This was also where I didn't book the hotel. From what I understand Glasgow gets a bad wrap with the whole being 'glassed' thing. It reminds me of Pittsburgh and Youngstown near where I live. They have grossly high murder rates so I guess I felt at home even though everyone told me to be afraid of people with knives. I think I liked it so much because I have a friend there! She's also the first 'Internet friend' I've ever met. Let me tell you it was freaking awesome to actually walk around with someone I've been e-mailing and writing with for over a year. In Glasgow we did the city and went to church. It sounds like a weird thing to do on vacation but it's pretty freaking sweet going to church in a giant cathedral. My home church is 100 years old but Glasgow Cathedral is pretty sweet. I also got to go t a sci-fi convention and pick up a bunch of Doctor Who stuff. I can't get it in America and that makes me sad inside. We also partied it up with a Sontaran. No that isn't an insult to short people. So coming back from the bar which was just a block from our hotel my sister stops walking half way there (on a big hill) and in her drunken stupidity demanded I call a cab to take her the rest of the way. You could see the hotel from where we were so I had to push her up the hill. Fun times. When we get there things are just magical as the ceiling of our room starts leaking and we have to change rooms. All a great adventure in repacking your stuff while a bit tipsy still and helping my sister who was drunk up the stairs.

Next we headed up North to Inverness! It's a lot colder up there, or at least it was when we were there. Really, really beautiful place and it reminded me a lot of good ol' East Liverpool, Ohio. Only it was bigger, has boats to Loch Ness a cool museum and you could see dolphins from our B&B. That's right dolphins. So we went to the museum and we went to see the soccer stadium. So I have a soccer scarf which is petty awesome in my world. I think the reality is much different but hey I'm cool like that. We also went to their awesome museum and out to loch ness. No monster but it was really beautiful. This was when I got sick of my Mom talking about 'Nessie' and herself being 'kindred spirits'. I'm a little disappointed in all my pictures from Scotland but mostly from Loch Ness. I also went shopping at Lush for the second time in Inverness. It was nice to just walk past one instead of having to drive two hours to get awesome soap. I was also forced to eat pizza and I was annoyed, why have pizza when we could have something new.

Our final stop was Newtonmore. Oh, you don't know where that is? Neither did I till my Dad said we were going to the Clan MacPherson museum. If you asked me to point to Newtonmore on a map I would have to seriously look for it. I know it's on the way from Inverness to Edinburgh. The museum was pretty nice and I learned some random stuff about my family clan. I also got to see the actual fiddle from the 'McPherson's Rant/Lament' song which was pretty cool. There was also a book of 'famous MacPherson's' that included some dude who committed identity theft of the name McPherson. The caption that I'll never forget "Stealing the name McPherson is a serious offense in America". My sister and I also had a great time posing like the angry wild cat that is on the clan crest. Newtonmore itself is tiny and one street. There's all kinds of stuff about Monarch of the Glen around since it was filmed in the area. My Mom loved that because she was the show on BBCAmerica. We were greeted and waved off by the cows in the field across from the train station. I can't really be to snarky about that though because East Liverpool doesn't have a train or bus station to call it's own.

Yes, I look gross and I posted it. I was being a Scottish 'wild cat' it was funny at the time.

The flight home from Edinburgh sucked. It was really late getting in and you have to go through customs even though we hadn't arrived at out destination. Then our flight from Newark to Cleveland was delayed followed by sitting on the plane three hours before we took off. So that put us in Cleveland really late for the two hour drive home. That was a hellish trip in the car with a dead i-pod and crabby people.

Then I slept for two weeks. I never really got to recover from camp so vacation on top of camp was like death and I seriously slept for days. I didn't talk to friends, I didn't do anything. Then I had t go get my car from Buffalo (see previous Camp blog) only to find it was still broken. You could drive it but there was no way of telling how much gas was in it or how fast you were going. So it took another two weeks to get fixed.

To finish up much like I started Scotland is the country I would most love to move to. Even with the rain (though it only rained once when we were there and that was at night.) and generally being much colder I loved it completely.

Random 5: Beverages

-Diet Coke

-Beer

-Cranberry Juice & Diet Sprite mixed together

-Apple Juice

-Chocolate Milk

Camp!

Oh that's right a post of DOOM. Camp wasn't all doom but it's really easy for it to seem so in a blog. The most memorable moments are the dangerous ones. The small moments of personal triumph fall to the side going unnoticed in my memory for individuals but are a big group of things that's hard to put my finger on.

I'm going to be changing a few things and leaving info out. The camp has a strict blogging policy so I won't be mentioning any campers real names or the actual name of the camp. If you think a program like the one I talk about could be helpful for a child you know feel free to comment and we can work out a secure means of getting the information to you. Why so strict of a policy? Many of the kids who come to the camp are part of serious cases in their state's child welfare system. A lot of these kids have been severely abused sexually and physically and giving information on them could lead to their being judged in the present or the future.

So The camp I was was is in New Hampshire. If you've never been there it's quite pretty but I never really got to see much of a city there. The camp was on a lovely lake (that acted as out waterfront where swimming and boating took place) with several islands also being a part of h property. The camp also had several Eco system that could have been a lot o fun to study if the nature people actually knew anything about nature. Seriously it's one of the most picturesque places in the world and seriously having kids around made it so much fun.

While at camp it was my job to live in a cabin of 6 girls and 3-5 other female counselors. I also taught lessons for the majority of the day in an activity called 'Challenge' which was a mixture of team building and non-competitive group games. It's not an easy area to teach and to make matters worse we were combined with Yoga. Most areas have 3 teachers challenge had two and yoga went down to one (due to staffing changes). Now I'm seriously bad at yoga and in general the kids all hated yoga. The girl teaching yoga was never really all about it. I'm sure she would be a great adult yoga teacher who taught adults interested in yoga but kids who were more inclined to punch you in the face than meditate yoga was problematic. In the end yoga kind of got tossed out because it was made of that much fail. Challenge however kept getting better and better with more kids saying they liked it. Generally sports, arts & crafts and swimming where the favorite activities and for good reason.

Camp life is extremely cut off. Hence why blogging from there was next to impossible. There were two computers on camp for use to use.... and 75 stuff members. We got one hour off a day (when it wasn't our day off) making computer time all about e-mails and that's it. Most days I didn't bother with e-mail and just slept. Sleep was hard to come by. You live in the cabin with kids, they wake you up at all hours to go to the bathroom and to keep ourselves safe we can't go anywhere alone with a camper so two counselors have to get up. On top of not sleeping at night you were running around like a nut all day long playing and singing. It's an amazing but exhausting experience. I always wished more people would realize just how important the sleep they weren't getting was. By the end of each session (and especially the end of camp) I saw some many people slacking due to lack of rest. The kids also got extremely tired from all the activity that wasn't just sitting around playing video games.

A few violent instances went down. I had a kid try to punch me in the face with a brick. I got kicked pretty hard in the shin. I was bashed with a toy boat. I had my face grabbed causing a scar that's still hanging out and most likely will be for awhile. Some other things that happened but not to me where a group being held hostage in the arts & crafts building, a kid trying to steal a camp van to go home, a counselor nearly getting strangled by a piece of rope, lots of broken windows from rock throwing and punching. Tables were flipped, doors were ripped off, cabins were trashed and punches were thrown. Thankfully this all didn't happen in one day but over the summer. The camp practiced holds so thankfully I never had to be a part of one of those. I did however get to chase a number of kids around camp though the woods, swamp and along the water front. That's really not fun.

Some of the kids will stick with me forever, not because they were 'bad' but because they were awesome. Kids who didn't have the self esteem to talk to peers, thought they were nothing, were tying to be their best. The kids who found success for the first time were completely amazing. The whole point of these kids coming to camp was to find something they did. These kids are put in special classes and picked last or to afraid to play or not allowed by their parents of teachers. Camp offers them a place where they can be good at things and cheered on no matter what their skill level. There's nothing I love better than seeing one of our more able and active kids cheering on one of the campers with autism who can't even speak but love to throw a ball. Even the kids who break windows and punch counselors have so much compassion for others it's amazing.

Camp friends! I made some great friends while there. It was a bit of a struggle (I'm a bit older than the average which was about 19) but it worked out in the end. I've doe camp before and it's a world of drama and is exactly like a daytime or 'The N' soap. It's so and so is sneaking off to the overnight tents with their sleeping bags, are this and that person dating? Last session break so and so made out! It's drama city and I really don't have patience for that anymore. I'm 23 and pretty much over it. I did come out of camp with one really great friend. She's a total gem and I'm glad we're going to be in contact or a long time. I know the campers get friendships out of this as well. For many of the kids they've never had friends before. Out last session we got a letter from a Mom talking about how her son and his new camp friend were hanging out all the time now and how happy she was to see her son have his first real friend. Camp friend change you even if you only stay Friends for a summer.

Session breaks are amazing. No really the three days between sessions are pure joy. I managed to visit a friend in the area and take a trip out to Cape Cod (with about 1/4 of the staff) for the first break. This was the only night I really drank, mostly because I was one of a few 'of age' to drink. That didn't stop people though. Apparently I give great advice drunk! This advice is followed by assistance in walking. I'm also a million times for likely to talk in my sleep when I go to bed drunk. At least I didn't destroy my ankle like I did the last camp crinkling experience. Thankfully no one made me go to the beach either. I hate sand... and fish. Yes, the lake swimming at camp was an issue but one I faced when necessary. Th second session break I went to New York with my camp friend. We didn't go into the city but went to visit her family whom she hadn't been in contact with for years. They were really great and offered a much needed home environment I was missing (12 hour drive to Ohio isn't worth it on breaks to come home).

The end of camp is always emotional. The last much for kids, we're exhausted and just sad to be leaving the place we called 'home' for so long. It was hard to leave but I had a trip to look forward to. Three days after camp I was taking off for Scotland! (more about that in my next post.) The most shitty part of the summer, driving home. My car's transmition went out ... in Buffalo, NY. So my car was stuck there till after I got back from Scotland.

So that's camp. It's an adventure and so worth it. I honestly thing it's something everyone should consider in their life. You don't have to work at the kind of camp I did but it's something everyone should consider doing no matter what your age.

Random 5 (something I hope to do in every blog)

Favorites of Fall TV

-Chuck

-Criminal Minds

-Top Chef

-The Office

-30 Rock

Right.... I kind of suck at keeping a blog. I hope to fix this soon. Over the summer and this fall I've been randomly busy or to sick and tired to update. So what I'm going to do is give a quick rundown of everything that happened in a list and then go back and d entries about them... if I feel like it.


-Camp. Went to camp, loved it. I had a kid try to punch me in the face with a brick, got a nice scar on my face (not from said brick) and made a great friend.

-Scotland. Seriously one of the best places I've ever been. Aside from the whole destroying my back when I was there and the whole going with my family bit.

-Home. Insane family, even more insane neighbor and being poor. Oh and having a sometimes shitty friend.

Really I think those are the highlights of my life right now which is pretty sad. I hope to get back in the habit of updating this thing because I really want to do it. I think I have a story even if it is quite boring and silly most of the time. I never really expect anyone to read it but I want to put it out there because each human experience is unique and I want to share mine.