Day Two of the 2nd Half

Made it to camp again today, which was quite exciting. On the whole I felt much better ... I finally felt alive again and while I had moments of being a little uneasy in the stomach or some minor nausea, 'twas a good day indeed.

Check-In: Made it to work right at 8am. Brilliant. Today was sort of my day to help round up the loners (the kids sittign by themselves) and help them feel included. Helped two boys join in the kickball game, and stayed long enough to watch Walter kick the ball into the tree and amazingly, had it get stuck there. The kids appealed to me and we called him out as the tree did make a legal catch. Tough luck Walter. One of the boys followed me from the game into the shelter where there were two girls sitting by themselves. One of them got up and walked away when I tried to sit down and the other just sat with her head in her arms on top of the table ... she absolutely refused to recognize my existence (very sad), but the kid that followed me and I had a good time. I felt exceptionally goofy at this stage of the morning.

1st Period--Swim: Okay, so I am like waaaay gross, but last night I definitely forgot to wash my towel and trunks and I knew my towel stunk soooooooooooooo bad, but I didn't care ... so I threw the stinky trunks on and went in the pool anyway. The water felt great but it was a pretty lazy day. Sat poolside with Carley a lot, walked around with campers, etc. Not much going on. It was also a gold-bond day, and gold-bond days are always great days!

2nd Period--Pow-Wow: Birds nest again. The kids loves it even more than the Monday campers, especially since we had a championship round. Sadly, one girl in particular was a terribly sore loser and with every Tuesday she's around I realize how much she's a little snot and I can't stand her.

3rd Period--Games: It was hot and I was bored, as were most of the kids. Lots of time spent in the shade, or supervising from a sitting position. Normally I am hardcore into a game, so I felt like sometimes I can be the one sitting with the campers who dont want to play in the shade/shelter.

Lunch/Quiet Time: Had to sit with the campers, but thankfully it was an uneventful day. It was also the most food I have had since Sat. evening. I tried to hold myself back as I am still unsure if the nausea will return. I also had a salad for the first time all summer. It was really good ... so that was sweet. During Quiet time I learned that just because it feels like something is crawling on you doesn't mean that anything actually is. That and I learned grass up one's nose is a most uncomfortable feeling and I don't recommend.

4th Period--Tribal Treat: Oddly enough, both counselors were needed for tribal treat. It was actually good times, except the campers were terrible. It set a horrible tone for the afternoon. Although on a positive note, I would like to declare that while many tribes had terrible campers you can't expect to control and many counselors had their kids well under control, I was most proud of my Choctaw tribe. They were very quiet and well-behaved, and major props to the campers, but more so to Kimbo for making the tribe a model of behavior. Sadly, we got fourth int he game (how well you know your counselor), as one tribe got 11/12 questions right, two groups got 10/12 and our tribe got 9/12. Good times...

5th Period--Games: All the counselors got either games or crafts off and as it turns out, most of my pod, save one tribe, has a boy and girl counselor and without exception all the girls took games off and all the boys took crafts off. It was just Katie and the boys for games ... which were pretty boring overall and felt like they lasted for an eternity. Except I did have to sit one boy out ... he was causing trouble by harassing some girl and then some kid came up balling to me (way overacting btw) about how the trouble kid had totally whacked him in the stomach to tag him out. I talked to the trouble kid with my big boy voice and then sat him out of the game, in the sun, looking away from the game for like 5 minutes ... i thought it was mildly creative.
MORE EXCITING. As I was in the shelter with some counselors while the kids were on a water break, some kid yells about how someone is bleeding (generally means like something the size of a papercut), and as we look at the kid yelling that some kid comes up to us holding his short leg above his knee and saying something about someone sucking his blood ..... right below the knee the kid had like a seriously huge stain of blood from a pretty good sized cut that was bleeding pretty darned good. Like three counselors, WENT UGH ... I think it was especially shocking as the kid was so non-chalant about it.
There were also obvious blood stains on his shorts, clear up this thigh and his shirt (don't ask me how). The kid is wearing shorts clear down to his calves, so I make him roll up and hike up his shorts against his will ont he walk over in an attempt to not dirty his clothing anymore. I sit him down and Keystaff Sarah helps me out. For the first time ever at camp I had to put on a rubber glove to deal with stuff ... Woot woot ... I was actually mildly excited as I have never had need for a rubber glove during clean-up. Sarah put on her gloves, I wetted down some towels and then put a glove on my right hand as she and I went to cleaning it up. At first it almost looked like something was in the cut ... Ed used a peroxide spray, which foamed like crazy and then I would clean off the foam between each spray. I totally felt like doctor or nurse half the time. After we got everything cleaned up all it needed was one band-aid.
The craziest thing about it, was how this kid, who was really not that big, played total tough guy. Nothing ever hurt, even when Ed sprayed peroxide on it or when I pulled back from dead skin to see if something was lodged in the cut. He didn't even flinch, like he wasn't acting. And he didn't know much about what happened. We wer elike what happened, when, how, etc. All he had was, I dont know and I thinkI fell. I mean, the kid was so non-chalant ... like he got some dirt on his shoes and didnt care or have any idea when/how it happened, nor cared too. It also looked especially bad because the blood was mixed with dirt and smeared so much that it looked almost like a gaping wound. But really, with the glove and all the wound clean-up, I way felt like a medical professional!

6th period--Crafts: Had crafts off, so I crashed on the Iroqouis blanket and slept like the entire time. I was out cold, and whent he period ended it definitely felt like it wasn;t long enough ... like the period was cut short. Every counselor, whether at crafts or on break said that they felt like it was a shorter period than any of the others ... but the nap felt amazingly good.

Check-Out: Before I went up to the shelter I had a nice chat with ex-counselor, and old neighbor/friend, Dustin Fornoff. Very good times. Then it was up to the shelter where I actually sat at the table with the binders next to Kelly (very rare). Kelly made me a really sweet key ring thing (that was almost long enough to be an anklet, but not quite), which has my name Jungle Jim on it! It was soooo awesome, so I definitely attached it to my camp back-up and that was rockin'. At one point there were like three campers at the shelter so I got part of the way through a solitaire game when more campers and wind pushed me back to my job. Overall, good ending to a good day.

-Jungle Jim-