4:30am

The title of this post, 4:30am, is what time my campers woke me up last night. They'd woken up three hours early and decided it'd be a great idea to be screaming and laughing and playing. Keep in mind there are at least ten other tents around them, all of which can hear them, and two of which contain ten VERY exhausted counselors. My partner did not hear them and did not wake up, and by the time 5:30 rolled around and I was STILL having to get up and tell at them to be quiet, it was very tempting to tell her it was her turn and she needed to get up. :-P I didn't, though. And it kind of evened out because I accidentally overslept on my break today, leaving her alone with the kids for an extra half hour, after having already been alone with them fir an hour and a half. Sorry staff partner. :(

These girls are leaving tomorrow, and then I have two amazingly wonderful days off. And then the 5 day overnight campers get here. Everything up to this point--the training, the day campers, the 3 day overnight campers--has been leading up to this. It's crazy to think that we haven't really even gotten started yet. I feel like I've been here a year. And although it's technically still early and there's plenty of time for me to change my mind, I think I'm really going to be sad to leave here. Especially knowing I won't be able to come back next summer because I'll be in school. If I wasn't so exhausted right now I'd talk a little about the amazing lessons I've learned in my time here, things that truly change the way I look at life and dealing with other people. I also have learned a LOT more about dealing with kids than I expected I would. I guess if kind of been thinking I knew it all, but I can tell already that my thoughts and interactions with the kids are actually changing, in a positive way. I feel a lot more equipped, like I have much more in my arsenal now.

I will catch up more tomorrow, right now I am going to take advantage of the fact that my campers are all asleep MUCH earlier than they were last night, and fall asleep myself.