I LOVE camp!

Seriously, I do. Camp rocks my socks off! It is soooooo much fun. I have a really great group of girls and things are going swimmingly. Since my last update, we've done a lot: forth of July fireworks, two dances (which sadly, I missed because of my days off), trips to boys camps, and overnights at group campsites in the Pisgah forest! Tonight we're doing one of my favorite evening programs...Going to Sliding Rock! It's like, this awesome natural water slide in Pisgah that is so much fun (even though the water is freezing!)! Then afterwards we go to Dolly's Dairy Bar, which has some of the most delicious ice cream I've ever eaten in my life. They even have special camp ice cream flavors, but my camp's ice cream was the original camp flavor. Pretty cool, huh?

A few days ago was "Illahee Idol," which is like Airband for counselors. I worked with my co-counselor and double cabin counselor to perform a Hannah Montana song. We stole the dance moves from this really funny youtube video. If I can figure out a way to put our version of the video up I can, but if you might be able to watch it if you're friends with me on facebook.

Anyway, this afternoon, I'm hoping I might be able to be one of the supervising counselors on a Geocascing trip. It sounds so cool! Basically, you go to their website and type in your location. Then they'll give you the coordinates for various places where they have Geocaching boxes. You can type it into a GPS if you have one and then go search for the boxes. Some boxes have little prizes and things that you can take if you find them, and some just have a little log to record that you've been there. Apparently there are some really cool things in some of them. However if you do take something from the box, you have to put something else of yours back in. Some girls that went earlier brought friendship bracelets and stuff to put in if they found something they wanted. Hopefully I'll get to go. It sounds pretty cool. But yeah, they have this stuff all over the world! How awesome is that? Anyway, I better go because I have to go teach riflery soon. Hopefully I'll remember to update sooner next time. Bye!

Wooooooo camp!

So I've been at camp for several days now, and things are going pretty well. I think I have a great cabin. They're all so full of energy and are super-excited to be here. We won the "Cute as a Button" award at the County Fair on the second night of camp. They dressed up with their "buddy cabin," which is a cabin from the older group of girls, as Holy Cow. They also won the best overall award with their double cabin (the cabin connected to us) for Airband. Airband is basically a lip sync for all of the campers. They did their performance to "Ghostbusters" and it was quite wonderful. They had an amazing performance, if I do say so myself. My July cabin has gotten an award at airband every year since 2001, and this is the 2nd time we've gotten Best Overall! I'm pretty proud. I've Tonight we had a magic show for evening program, and one of my campers got sawed in half. It was pretty cool. So yeah, things are going great, and my day off is this Saturday. I don't really know when I can update next, but hopefully it will be relatively soon. Bye!

Camp!

I'm currently taking a quick break from packing to write this...I'm leaving for camp in the morning and should probably pack up my laptop at some point because I will be taking it with me this year. I decided to bring it because I will need to be able to more readily get internet access to check the news/be able to get e-mail from my study abroad program. They have 3 computers at camp for us to use, but one of them doesn't work, and it's hard to get on the computer because so many other people want to use them.

But anyway, most of my stuff is packed up. I'm just waiting on a few things that were in the laundry and such. I feel like I have a lot of stuff, which is true. But I feel like I have even more stuff than I usually do. I don't really know. I feel like there's a lot of stuff that you need at camp that you might not need when you're going other places. Like costumes, for example. I'm taking an entire box of costume stuff, many things courtesy of my frisbee team. But seriously though, you never know when these costumes might come in handy for various things. I have some stuff of my roommate's in the costume box as well, so I have lots of fun things. But you wouldn't necessarily need costumes on other trips or anything like that. Well, I guess I better get back to packing, so that I can get on the road early! Bye!

Vaccinations

So before I leave for South Africa, there are a certain vaccines and stuff that I'm supposed to have. I already had most of the required ones, except for the required weekly malaria medicine that I have to take (which I now have a prescription for from my doctor). But they also recommend getting vaccines for rabies and typhoid before going. You have to get them a certain amount of time before leaving, I guess so that they're already working properly by the time you get there. But the problem is that I'll be at camp during the times when I would need to get the vaccines, so I don't really know what to do. Also, you have to get 3 rounds of rabies shots. It all sounds like a lot, but I definitely think it's better to be safe than sorry. But still, I need to somehow figure out what exactly I'm going to do about getting these vaccines. Maybe my dad will know what to do.

Today I got an e-mail from my program that said to make sure I went over all the pre-departure information again. So I decided to take a look at it, and discovered that I have to read 4 books about South African history before I get there. And although I kinda wanted to read Nelson Mandela's autobiography anyway, it kinda stinks to have summer reading. Plus one of the books is over 600 pages. I'm not to excited about that one. The info also said that there's a limited amount of bandwidth at the school center, so we're limited to what websites we can use unless we go to internet cafe's and such. But then it warned against going to internet cafes and spending tons of time on the computer because they say you're not making the most of your time there, which is understandable. But still, I think it would be nice to have the blog to update people on where I am and what I'm doing. I mean I wasn't planning on making a ton of novel-length posts anyway. So even though they discourage it, I'm still going to try to update it every once in a while. Maybe I'll start a real journal or something for longer accounts of my travels and use this for shorter versions. We'll see what happens.

Student Visa

Hooray! I'm FINALLY finished acquiring all of my stuff for my student visa application! I sent all of my stuff via UPS this afternoon, and hopefully it won't take too long to get my passport/visa back. I'm not really worried about not getting it in time because they said as long as you send it at least one month before you leave, you should be okay. So with 2 months to go before I leave, I should be fine! I the cost of shipping it was a little ridiculous. If I wanted to get it there before 5:00 on Thursday, it was gonna be like $15, but I asked for something cheaper, and having it delivered most likely by Friday, possibly Monday, it was only $7. I clearly chose the $7 option. One more day isn't gonna make that much of a difference. Anyway, I'm glad I've gotten that out of the way. Soon I'll be ready to go!

I sort of started getting ready for camp today, and by sort of I mean that I got my camp bedding out of the basement and that's it...I'm such a procrastinator. Oh well. I say that getting the application mailed was a big enough accomplishment for the day. I always have so much stuff that I take to camp and never end up using, but you never know what you might need when you get there, so I feel that it's always better to have everything I think I could possibly need. I remember my first year of camp, I had my trunk packed for like a month before I actually went to camp. Now I generally wait until the last minute, i.e. the night before. I'm pretty good at remembering everything I need though, so it works out. Besides, if you pack too early in advance, you have no clothes to wear because they're all in your trunk packed tight. Well I supposed I should go and start figuring out which shirts to bring and such. Bye!

Hello!

Well, although it is a bit early to be starting this, I decided I might as well prepare my blog for my semester in South Africa! I really can't wait until I go! I think it will be an amazing experience! My program is based in Durban, which is on the eastern coast of the country in Kwa-Zulu Natal. However, I will be traveling to other places including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, the Umfolozi game reserves, and some rural areas as well. Right now, however, I'm still working on applying for my student visa. There's all sorts of things I've had to get for my application, like police clearance and proof that I don't have tuberculosis. It's a bit of a hassle, but understandable why they require it(well, at least the police clearance...). I also have to get a bunch of shots (typhoid, rabies, etc) and take anti-malaria medicine. But I think it will definitely be worth it!

On Saturday, I'm leaving for one of my favorite places! My camp in North Carolina! This year is my 10th summer there, and I really can't believe it. I feel pretty old. I even remember after my first summer there plotting out the years until I got the coveted 10-year ring. It's a little surreal, I think. But I figured if I started updating my blog on a fairly regular basis before I left for South Africa, I would be better at updating it while I get there. Anyway, I'm gonna go now because I'm hungry and I need to figure out what my family is going to do for dinner. Bye!