Summer Program 2018 has come to a
close. My coworkers still have two days of evaluation left to do, but
my job at WALES starts tomorrow so I'm cutting out a couple days
early.
Because I had to announce my new job
as well as pay my respects to someone I worked with who passed, I was
unable to update for prep week, both weeks of Overnight, and I guess
this post will cover evaluation week too. Basically a month, wow.
Prep week involved developing a meal
plan, programming activities, grocery shopping, organizing our
equipment, and going over participant files. It was only a three day
week. Buying groceries for 25 people for two weeks is fun. We put
different staff members in charge of different food categories. When
you're in charge of meat, you feel like such a man, pushing a cart
full of bacon, pepperoni, ground beef, deli meats etc. When you're in
charge of produce you feel so healthy. But when you're in charge of
grains, you just feel like a weird bread guy. This year I got produce
and grains. Last year they were stretched pretty thin financially, I
guess because cost of living has gone up and our budget didn't, but
this year we had a budget increase so we were able to spend a bit
more on food. They actually let me make my signature stirfry with
fresh vegetables and vermicelli noodles instead of frozen vegetables
and rice like in years previous. First week we spent about $750 on
groceries, second week I think we spent a bit less because we were
able to buy some stuff for week two in our first week.
This year we were stationed in Camp
Everton, which was a new location. Compared to Impeesa and
Kimbercote, Everton was enormous. The kitchen space was on an
entirely different scale. At the other locations, you could barely
fit two people for meal prep, at Everton you might be able to fit the
entire camp. We had an on site pool which neither of the previous
spots had, and their hiking trail had an obstacle course that
included balance beams, rope ladders, a rock climbing wall, hurdles,
and a few wobbly bridges that went over an actual river at kind of a
high height. They had an archery station and I got to shoot a bow and
arrow for the first time as well.
On the negative side, rooming
accommodations were pretty awkward and the place wasn't maintained as
well as Impeesa. Halfway through our first week we were visited by
some people who told us that they had been testing for bedbugs and
the tests came back positive. They said it was only for a twenty foot
radius and only upstairs. But all the girls had their rooms upstairs,
so they had to move into our section. Our section didn't have rooms
with doors, we had “pods” of bunk beds, and we attempted to build
privacy by tying shower curtains in front of the pods. The results
were less than ideal.
We had to bag everyone's luggage going
home, and everybody had to treat all their stuff as soon as they got
back. Heat kills bed bugs, so I was instructed to put my stuff
through a dryer. I've only got the tiny laundromat at my complex, and
somebody took all my stuff out while my clothes were still sopping
wet from being washed so they could put their stuff in instead. I
really hope that whoever did that got bedbugs.
Besides the bedbugs, we had a bunkbed
break and the water pressure died on us several times. At Impeesa, we
had sort of a lounge area with couches and armchairs. At Everton, our
common area was all hard benches and tables. Everton was like
sacrificing quality for quantity.
Every year, we hold dances on
Overnight Thursdays. On these days, the male staff members usually
get their nails painted by female participants. By some weird
coincidence, even though I've attended six weeks of Overnight
previous to this year, I've only been to one dance. The reason for
that is, my weekly break has been coincidentally scheduled for
Thursday night every week except once. Because of this, I have
refused each year to get my nails painted, as I would be about to
spend four hours in the city. The one time I was able to attend the
dance, I relented to get painted, but we couldn't find the nail
polish.
This year we took a bus to the
Overnight, and because most of us were without vehicles, we took
daily one hour breaks instead of weekly four hour ones. That means no
one got to leave camp, and that meant I was available to get my nails
painted. Had it done each week, and funnily enough, despite my
anxiety to wear nail polish in public, I forgot to get it removed in
my second week and spent several days with my nails painted before I
could get my hands on some remover. Had a lot of conversations with
people, and nobody brought it up. I guess the moral of the story is,
even if you're a man, you can get your nails painted and nobody will
care.
I also let them give me a facial mask.
Here's a pic.
While we're on the topic of skin care,
is my skin... nice? I was hanging out with the female staff one night
and they were going over their nightly skin care routine. They asked
me if I had a routine which I took as a joke. They kept pressing and
I kept taking it as a joke but they were weirdly insistent, saying
things like, “You have better skin than any guy I know”, “It's
so strong and clear”, “You have to be doing something” etc. and
I kept saying things like “You're obviously joking. Nobody has ever
said that to me before” They were persistent enough though that I
eventually said “Well, I have a... tin of shea butter”. Then I
went on my shea butter rant and they were all into it. And then they
asked me if I drink a lot of water because apparently that's good for
your skin. I told them I drink more than twice the recommended water
intake per day easily, which they thought made sense. Then I spent
evenings applying skin care products with the girls for the remainder
of the program.
Every Summer Program, I drop one
F-bomb, and it always happens at the Overnight. One year, the girls
asked me to kill a spider. I went to take care of it, but when I made
my move it jumped on my face and I screamed “F***!” One year, I
was playing chess with another staff member. He advised me not to
sacrifice my bishop as I wouldn't have any diagonal lines. I calmly
said “F*** diagonal lines” before I could think twice. I was
doing well this year until we were making stovetop popcorn from
kernals and the people I was partnered with were hesitant and wanting
to seek help from our on-site director. I responded “No, we're not
calling for help. Now come on, we're F***ING DOING THIS!”
Cooking in bulk is fun, just like
shopping in bulk is fun. I think I've mentioned it, but somewhere
down the line I lost my ability to make pancakes. In Katimavik, I
used to love waking up in the morning and making everyone pancakes,
but where I live now, they fall apart when I try to flip them, or
else they burn before I can. I think I can officially put blame on my
pan or my spatula, because when I was at the griddle, I was making
pancakes nine at a time, and each one was pure pillowy goodness.
Because our kitchen had so much space,
we were able to take participants as volunteers if we wanted. I felt
like a real chef allocating duties to volunteer cooks, especially
because we got to use fresh ingredients this year. The participants
told me that I came across as the team's “Kitchen master”, which
I took to heart.
In the first week, I failed to start a
campfire, so I kicked the metal basin it was supposed to be in and
hurt my foot really bad. For some reason, it causes my calf to cramp
up and so one leg always seems more tired than the other. I haven't
exactly been going easy on it, as I've attended two dance parties,
gone rock climbing, and played soccer with my injured foot. A go-to
fun fact that I always use about myself is that I have never broken,
sprained, or fractured a bone, but realistically speaking, I've
probably fractured multiple bones throughout my life and just walked
it off.
This week, I attended one day of
evaluation week. We wrote up our final reviews of each staff member,
we wrote an overview of how we felt the summer went, we wrote a
newsletter article, we did receipts, and we inventoried our
equipment. I won't be around to receive my final review tomorrow.
During the next two days, I'll miss
out on doing some telemarketing calls to try and get parents and
caregivers to review our services. I'll also miss out on a team
meeting to discuss how the Summer Program should adjust itself in
future years, which I'm actually kind of bummed out. The company is
paying for a free lunch at The Mandarin, a Chinese All You Can Eat
Buffet tomorrow, which I'll miss out on, and then the team usually
goes out for lunch on the last day as well, which I'll also miss out
on. Oh well. I still have to bake them all a loaf of homemade bread,
as it's a tradition of mine to bake all the members bread on the last
day of Summer Program.
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