Cool Off-Season Things About Working At Camp

First off, there are fall retreats, where you can help out and be at Camp, soaking up a different side of Camp life while still eating awesome food, hanging out with awesome friends, and having someplace to sleep - and yet not have the intense responsibility of being a counselor. While I love being a counselor, it's not something I'd care to mix in with all the other chaos of things I'm responsible for during the school year.

Also, if you are a ropes course instructor, you get to help out with groups that are learning cool team-building stuff. Most of these are from Rochester. You meet some pretty cool people. A very unexpected and unpredictable method of networking, but you're also watching adults go through the same challenges that you've had campers go through all summer, and you learn new ways of loooking at problems.

(I am unfortunately something of a snob here. I consider the ropes course to be the most worthwhile "activity" at Camp, because I don't have any decent application for mountain-boarding or paintballing outside of the sports themselves, but they're REALLY about trust/ team-building/ leadership/ problem-solving stuff on the low ropes.)

The support. People pray for you and interact with you (we completely abuse Facebook for this) through the whole year. You've got awesome friends, and they don't just stay at Camp. Shortly before Finals week, you get a package from Spud and his wife (former camper/counselor, they've been involved with Camp since the 50s, I think.) of brain-helping goodies (or, y'know, fudge and trail mix and various other chocolatey things). I just got mine the other day. Every staff member has someone on the board of directors praying for and kind of looking out for them - this is separate from the head counselors and leadership team, who are there for you all summer.

Knowing what you're going to do next summer. I originally started, planning to only work one summer, I think. For three years, I've been saying, "This is going to be my last summer," because it really takes a lot out of you. But then, over the next five months or so, you realize how much it gives back, too. Thanks to moving plans, I know that this is going to be my last summer for awhile, and by the time I'm back in MN I might be too old to be a cabin counselor, but I've given up predicting when I'm going to be done.

Getting to be in a Rocket Summer video. Okay, that's unrelated. But Leaf, who's an awesome counselor, is indeed in their latest video, rockin' out on the drums (which he plays at Camp) from about 2:16 to 2:20.

Suddenly having your family be five times larger.
These guys were the first ones (outside of the four I live with) to learn that I was going to be moving. I should say that the girls were, and it trickled through to the guys, and then it came out in a staff meeting one morning, so everyone knew. But it made sense, because everyone does sort of become family. Rockstar's like my little brother (which explains why I was freaked so badly when he fell off the deck this summer). Three of the girls are as close as my own sisters are to me. Even a couple of the guys whose counseling methods I disagree with - yeah, they drive me crazy, but in an obnoxious cousin kind of way. I still love them. And cooler than that, they love me. They know me on a level that nobody from school ever will, and possibly my immediate family hasn't even seen, they know all the ways I come up short, and there's no doubt that they love me.
They're family.

And, coming up, one rocking Staff Reunion (usually the first weekend in January - it's going to be sweet, and likely at least three people will get injured between broomball, snow tubing, and other randomness), and not one, but this year, two camper retreats (we actually get to be counselors again for these). One of them's even before I move, so I'm doing that instead of any kind of farewell party.

Also, come spring, pre-camp work. I can't explain why I get excited about this - nobody can. It's hard, and usually filthy, and tough, and you don't get any outside recognition for it (though the gratitude of the permanent staff is evident), but I love going out and doing it. It's the stuff like clearing trails, and repairing fences, making sure that things are livable and in order - all the invisible stuff that people assume just happens, and usually nobody in the summer will know that you did it, but it feels so good to be able to do it. Take a friend or two, take a random Saturday that you have free, and do it as many times as you can before May.

And then, in May, there's official pre-camp work, which I might (hopefully) end up doing again when I move back. That's where there's four to eight of you, you're living on camp property, which gets you kind of getting used to the community there again, and working regular 8 or 10 hour days, but it's outside work, in the sun and the trees and the mud (working in mud is frustrating yet oddly satisfying), or building new stuff, and you're getting paid about what you do for counseling. And it's great! You get SO much done, and you can really take pride in it because you can see how what you're doing is worthwhile, and then in just a few weeks all the rest of staff are there for training!

Actually, all of this was just because I got my Finals Week package (it takes a lot of work to send out forty of these!), and I saw the new Rocket Summer video. :) But now I'm excited for Camp again!

...not that that ever takes much.