Evaluation Week

Well, it's over. We just finished the last day of the Evaluation Week. During this time we wrote an article for the Extend-a-Family newsletter, we sorted through photos and selected a top 50 to be used in promotional material, we overviewed the year and offered suggestions on potential changes, we did peer evaluations, had performance evaluations done, and wrote personal reflections on the year.

I have to go in tomorrow though, with one other person from the team. I took a day off, and if you miss a day you have to make up for it by spending a day doing chores in the office. I don't really mind. I've never done it before, so I'm excited. I get to move stuff, weed the garden, do filing, and do Ball Hockey flyers. If I finish early, I get to work at WALES for the rest of the day!

Got a free lunch yesterday from a Chinese restaurant called Cameron Seafood. Same place we've ordered from the past two years. Remember how I said that luck had been against me, but had turned in my favour for the summer? Well, looks like my charm's warn off. At the beginning of the year, I went to this Chinese restaurant, and these small children offered me a seat and menu. Thought I might do a full financial transaction from them, but then their mom showed up. At the end of the meal, the kids gave me and the person I was with fortune cookies. Then the mother gave us cookies with our cheque. Then she gave both of us two more.

My fortunes read "Your finances will change for the better"   "You will make an advance in your career", "You can conquer all obstacles", "People envy you". Usually I don't like it when fortune cookies compliment you since they're supposed to be fortune cookies, not compliment cookies, but considering the placement of that last fortune, I was okay with it.

With Cameron Seafood, my initial fortune said "Avoid scattering your energies". That's not even a compliment, that's a criticism! Then I got to take home some leftovers, there was another cookie and it said "Kind acts are rewarded". The cookies are like "Concentrate and be nicer".

I baked bread for the team, which I've done the previous two years on the last day. This year the batch came out better than last, I think. Last year, it didn't rise as much as I would have liked. It took a long time to bake, since the hot water is busted in my unit, so I had to boil water and wait for it to cool enough to be warm. Then I found out I'm missing two of my six bread pans, so I had to do two batches instead of one.

I just found out my hot water's busted yesterday. Apparently there was a flood and I wasn't around for it. Like, a serious-business one which caused someone's ceiling to cave in. There's no water damage in my unit, but maybe the hot water malfunctioning lines up with this event.

I was talking to a woman at the bus stop, and she said "That was the worst flood I've seen in this area in the 31 years I've lived here. Of course, there was one some years back that caught a five year old kid in the undertow, dragged him out and drowned him."

I'm just like, "Is this reality?" I've got a host of fears now that I would never have considered otherwise. My complex doesn't feel like a dangerous flood zone.

Also, apparently when somebody was trying to get my landlord to fix some flood damage, my landlord strangled him. I was around to see the police get involved, but came in after the incidence took place.

Yup... My charmed summer is over. I'm half-afraid I'm going to get strangled when I notify someone about my hot water problem now.

Today, my supervisor gave out some "Most likely to" awards. I got "Most likely to become a best-selling author based on stories from his own life".

I dropped some of my better Malian stories. Ones better than I could say on this blog. So that's where that comes from.

Also got a little stand-up glass frame with a photo on either side. One has a picture of us in our original team photo, which says "2016 Extend-a-Family Summer Program" and on the other side it's us after Reverse Paintball, and it says "Through Thick & Thin, Messy & Clean, Together You're Strong, as an Incredible Team". So frickin' cute. I've got one similar from my first year, where the team is doing a pyramid pose, and on the other side I'm getting painted in Reverse Paintball.

Hey, you know that Tree Face  painting I showed in my last update? I realized it looks way too much like a variant of the classic "Troll Face", which is used by someone pestering someone else. Even the name sounds like a variant.

Check it,

Noooooo, he looks like a South American troll face that's suffered a stroke! And I was so proud of Tree Face too! I put the painting up over my router and wanted to change the domain name to Tree Face, but I'm letting my neighbours use my Wifi, and I don't feel like explaining why I'd make that change.

Impeesa Weeks 1 & 2, Year 3

So I've been gone for the two week overnight camp. I had a weekend off in the middle, but I worked both days and had a few other obligations which distracted me from updating my blog.

Both weeks were at Impeesa, which was the location I did both overnight weeks in my first year, and I did one week there last year as well.

I spoke on this last year, but "Impeesa" is pronounced "Im-pess-ah" and was the nickname of Robert Baden-Powell, who was the founder of Boy Scouts when he was fighting in Southern Africa. His enemies called him this, and he told his friends it meant "The Wolf That Never Sleeps". However, in the Ashanti language, which was the language of the people that named him, it means "Hyena" and is a derogatory term. It's probably still an honour to receive such an insult from your enemy, however. You don't want your enemy cheering for you, right?

Our activities were pretty standard. We had campfires on Tuesday and Thursday nights, movie night on Wednesdays, and a formal dance on Thursdays. We had groups go out on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for swimming at a pool in Paris, Ontario, and we had a reflection painting activity on Thursday. Otherwise, time was pretty free. We ran nature walks, played chess, checkers, othello, did a puzzle (failed to finish it this year), played frisbee, football, soccer, volley ball, etc.

First week, one of our participants brought her collection of DVDs and offered them for movie nights. Our official night was voted in for Wreck It Ralph, which is about a video game villain who would like recognition for his participation in the game he's been involved in for the past thirty years. When he is not accepted, he moves onto other games and the people who took him for granted struggle to find a replacement for him.

It came across as a weird, cartoon, tech-based version of the Hindu mythology surrounding Shiva, the god of destruction, and Parvati, the goddess of creation in Hindu mythology. One participant made the situation more ironic by pointing out that the "Fix It" guy wants to break free, while the "Wreck It" guy wants to build a place for himself.

We also watched Tangled since Wednesday was an indoor camp fire due to weather. Didn't watch most of it since I had other obligations, but I've seen it before. It's based on the "Rapunzel" story, it's animation style, title, and the time of release are similar to the more famous Frozen so the two often get compared.

My cousin visited during this time. She got to meet all the participants, we played the President card game, and she got to meet my coworkers

On my day off, me and the other guy I was spending it with watched Suicide Squad. Like a Superhero flick with the protagonists being former villains. I can appreciate using former villains as heroes, as the path to villainy is more complex than the path to heroism, and thus seems to inspire more creativity for writers. But it felt like there was too much content to be covered in the time length of the movie, and so the Squad members and their relationships with one another felt underdeveloped. I feel like that's the criticism I give every team-based superhero flick. I guess the length of a movie just isn't sufficient to fully develop an entire team. Sucks because I like teams better than standalone heroes. I like the team dynamic, clashing personalities, more specified abilities.

In Suicide Squad, I really wasn't feeling Captain Boomerang, and I wanted more of a psychological break from El Diablo when he first cut loose.

Back at the camp, despite having two dances yearly, I've only been to one. First year, my break was on Thursday evening, night of the dance, both weeks. Next year, I got one dance in but the other was canceled. Third year, one dance was on a scheduled break, and then the next week I was free on the night of the dance but another pair had some errands to run and wanted to trade with us.

There's an established tradition that staff on their night off bring a treat for the rest of the staff after hours. In the first two years, I've been the one tasked with the finishing treat. Because we switched nights off, I got to close the year for the third time in a row.

On our nature trails, I tended to get lost, and therefor we wandered off the beaten trail and came upon a giant ornamental face fixed to a tree. We named this discovery "Tree Face" and it became a regular walking destination. My phone camera wouldn't upload a photo, but here's a painting, done by yours truly.

I'm afraid I turned Tree Face into a bit of a false idol. I asked everyone to tell Tree Face something they were thankful for.

I said "Thank you Tree Face, for the harvest of bagels we dined on this morning"

A participant said "That wasn't Tree Face, that was you!" I said "I am simply a humble servant of Tree Face. Thank you Tree Face, for helping me guide this camp!"

I also thanked Tree Face for protecting us from Drumbo Dan, which is a ghost that supposedly haunts Impeesa because he lost his feet, and St. Pete says he's incomplete (story is told as a rhyming poem). So he needs to cut off someone's feet at night that are the right size so he can attach them and cross the pearly gates. I really think that heaven is inaccessible based on these rules, calling certain people "incomplete" and not letting them in based on a mobility issue. It's like the same people that run Wild Water Works also run Heaven. 

I painted the above image of Tree Face during our reflection painting exercise. I have two other paintings from my first year hung on my wall.

During my second break, we went to The Works which is a pretty infamous Ontario-based chain of gourmet burger restaurants. They pride themselves in their bizarre menu options. For example, several options come with peanutbutter as a topping, there's a Kraft Dinner topped burger, they had the infamous Reese Cup burger.

Menu's kind of judgemental. There are "Right" and "Wrong" options. For example, there's a "Plain Jane" burger, "Ho Hum #1", and "Ho Hum #2" which get made fun of in their descriptions. I'd be intimidated to order the "First Date" burger, too. Patties come in beef, chicken breast, ground turkey breast, veggie, mushroom cap, crispy chicken, cheese stuffed beef, bacon & beef, and elk.

I got the Man O' War (onion, horseradish, dijon, and gouda) with an elk patty. It was pretty good.

The treat we brought back was a bottle of non-alcohol champagne and some cream puffs and mini cheese cakes that we plated like hor d'oeurves. We toasted a successful year. Remember how at the beginning I said the year was too easy? Well, it really never got much harder. Aside from a few rough spots, everything went smooth. We championed this year.

Wacky Water Week/Prep Week 3

So I haven't updated since Wacky Water Week, and since then, we've finished with our Prep Week for the Overnight Camp.

Our first day was at WALES, since it was a civic holiday and the school can't host us on holidays. In years previous, we've had a day at WALES for Canada Day during Around the World Week, but this year that fell in one of our Training Weeks, so our WALES day got put off until Wacky Water Week.

We played Water Balloon Toss, where people paired up and threw a water balloon between each other. If you caught it without it breaking, you made it to the next round. If it exploded, you stepped out of the competition.With every successful attempt, contestants had to take steps away from each other to increase difficulty. Of the three rounds, I managed to take one win with my partner.

We did water gun painting this day as well. For this activity, we lined up canvases and participants shot paint at them with water guns. First we had the group make a collaborative effort to donate to Extend-a-Family, then everyone got to make their own individual work to take home with them.

We had a water relay race this day as well. The staff member's team that won this competition had a bucket of water poured over them. For some reason, we found an excuse to pour a bucket of water over another staff member as well.

A number of participants missed this day, since it was technically a holiday, When one member asked what she missed, I said "It was the most fun that Summer Program has ever been, or ever will be" to tease her. When she asked for specifics, I mentioned the water balloon toss, the water gun paintings, and the staff getting soaked with buckets of water. This was enough to convince her I wasn't joking when I said this day was the most fun ever.

We got a lot of paint on the area we did our craft. As we were cleaning up, I jokingly mentioned that it was a good thing that we had forgotten to include "Respect school/organization's property" in our Program Guidelines that week. Of course we cleaned up our paint anyway.

Next day we had Sponge Capture the Flag, which was split into four teams, with bean bags representing flags Sponges and water guns were made available to tag people with. This year, we limited the safe zone to a small area around the flag and made most of the playing area No Man's Land to discourage people from guarding their flags.Staff were given water guns to discourage people from playing safely.

Somehow, participants got ahold of water guns and started shooting staff. Everyone started firing on everyone. Some rules continued to be observed, such as some people shouting "SAFE ZONE" when they were in the area that they were not allowed to be fired on. But otherwise, people seemed to generally forget about the objective of stealing bean bags, and fell on the prerogative of soaking opposing teams even without a point system.

Partway through, I had to refill the water buckets and put the temperature on full cold without thinking about it. After a few complaints, people decided to demonstrate their misery by unloading on to me! So most of the formal rules fell away, but the game was still ridiculously fun. Not sure if that makes it a win or a fail.

Wednesday we had Drum Fit, which is usually our Get Your Game On visitor, but this year we had X-Movement so Drum Fit came at this time. We had a fire drill though, which set things back a bit. When we were outside waiting for things to be sorted out, we decided to play a circle game. Asked the participants what they wanted to play, and someone said "Darling If You Love Me" which received  a murmur of praise around the circle. Us staff thought we knew all the circle games, but none of us had heard of it.

Super fun. You have someone in the centre of the circle. They choose someone and say "Darling if you love me won't you please, please smile" The person being spoken to must reply "Darling, you know I love you, but I just can't smile." If the person being spoken to smiles, they must replace the person in the circle and attempt to make someone else smile.

Double edged sword because I wanted to go around telling people to tell me they love me, but I also didn't want to lose. I was a pretty cold hearted snake, with only one person able to make me smile.

Drum Fit was fun, as always. It was a bit shorter because of the fire drill. If you don't remember what Drum Fit is, it's an activity where an instructor guides you through practices including an exercise ball and a set of drum sticks. It just seems fun at first, but slowly weans you into more intensive exercises.

Later on that day  we played Air Raid, which is basically Mission Impossible with water guns (how can you go wrong?) and we had a tie dye craft. Tie dye was facilitated by two other program leaders while me and another leader were inside hosting games for the group waiting. We played Huckle Buckle, Crocodile's Treasure, and What Time is it Mr. Wolf.

Thursday I got to host the event of the year, Reverse Paintball! This is another annual event in which participants get to paint the staff, then shoot water guns and throw sponges at us to knock the paint off. In years past, participants have just gone crazy with the paint. This year, I basically had to give them permission to put paint in my hair, beard and on my clothes.

I've got my Reverse Paintball shirts from years previous hung up on my wall. First year I wore a white shirt, second year I sacrificed a staff shirt. I had a big dilemma regarding whether or not I should use an orange staff shirt this year. If I used an orange shirt, it would look different from years previous and sort of complete the collection. But I thought the end result had looked better on the white shirt than the staff one. Of course, we were using orange instead of green this year, and I thought orange might make the colours "pop" more than the green ones. But no way orange beats white. White is basically a canvas waiting to be painted on. And I feel there's something fun and disarming for the participants to see us out of our staff shirts.

So I opted to use white. And now that the shirt is dried, I think it looks too much like my Year 1 shirt to display. Kind of regret not using orange.

Our special Friday trip was to Wild Water Works in Hamilton. This is the third time we've been, you might remember me mentioning they have a wave pool, water slides, and a lazy river. I didn't touch the lazy river or water slides this year, I just supported people in the wave pool. Which is fine, it's a pretty amazing wave pool.

Wacky Water Week was crazy fun.

I got Monday and Tuesday off for Prep Week. During the remaining three days, we developed a meal plan, scheduled activities for the Overnight, went grocery shopping, wrote receipts, looked at client files, and did some team building stuff.

During the past two years, one of my breaks has been on the last night of the year. Since we bring a treat back to the team on the night off, I've had to deal with the pressure of delivering the final treat. Not this year.

Grocery shopping is always so much fun, because you get to buy in bulk. Last year I was on the meat cart, which just made me and the person I was with look like massive carnivores. This year I was on grains which just isn't as exciting. We did a lot better with the budget this year.

Last year we let the new people develop the meal plan without being allowed to see the old one, and they basically replicated it exactly. This year we did the same thing, and it's still pretty similar but we did turn out a few new ideas.

Our team building stuff included a lip sync battle, which was super uncomfortable, they made me be Barbie from Barbie Girl and perform in front of one of the Extend-a-Family higher ups. Sadistic. Then we played a game where you are given the name of someone significant from the Summer Program, but you don't get to see it and everyone else is. Then you go around the table asking questions and see if you can figure it out.

Excited for the Overnight. This year both weeks are at Impeesa. They've got a more accessible ramp this year (inconsequential to us since we don't have anyone in wheelchairs, but it's still nice to see) and they put in a new roof. Looks good.