My life the past five weeks...
National Camp School: COPE course, raps about nature, plant identification up the wazoo, and officially certified as an Ecology and Conservation Director for the Boy Scouts of America.
Staff Week: Work work work... and more work. It's kind of a blur to be honest.
Week 1 of scouts: Signed 563 merit badge cards, got thrown in the lake, found a message in a bottle on the beach, and crash landed while being a plane during hullabaloo.
Week 2: Sonic booms, name tag, Severus the Snake, most awkward hullabaloos ever, "and I was just sitting in the corner with a megaphone making circus music noises...," done with blue cards before dinner, and almost zero Saturday morning complaints.
Week 3: Got in a fight with some barnacles, slept with my lacrosse stick within reach every night in case of rats, and helped save the entire staff from being thrown in the lake by being Chief Kilchis. There was probably some other stuff, too.
I've been hangin out with boy scouts for over a month now, with NCS plus the first few weeks of camp, and I have to say, I'm exhausted. I love teaching, the kids are hilarious, and having a director position is awesome. But it's all very stressful, too. I am lucky that I don't have any safety concerns in the area aside from paper cuts and boredom, but I do have more a ton more merit badges, more blue cards, less staff, and no assistant. I'm also teaching the biggest merit badge in camp (oceanography) by about 60 kids... I'm getting really burnt out, but I'm halfway through the summer, and I'm excited to see the sun when I get back to Utah in the fall.