Jenga

Hey hey, so one thing I forgot to mention from my time at Impeesa is that me and a couple other people managed to play a perfect game of Jenga. For anyone that doesn't know, Jenga is a game where a tower of wooden pieces is made on a 3x3 grid is built, and then players are required to remove pieces from the body and transport them to the top until the tower falls. Whoever made the last move loses. It's a pretty pessimistic game, because in most games there is only one winner, whereas in Jenga there is only one loser. Jenga is a game where you can't win, you can only lose.

At Impeesa, they have a giant Jenga set, where the pieces are set 5x5 instead of 3x3 and the pieces are heavy and huge. I played with a couple of people, and when the idea of a perfect game came up, things became more about facilitating this possibility than defeating one another. In the end, we managed to create a tower built entirely on a 2x2 grid. We were further validated when an external member challenged us when we claimed this was the best game. He offered to show us we were wrong, he spilled the tower, and so no one in the team that competed had to make the shameful final move.

I watched Suicide Squad a second time in theaters. The nature of my work puts me in a very advantageous position, in which I see movies for free regularly, but because the people I serve are the ones calling the shots, I often see movies several times if they're trending. I saw Minions three or four times in theaters because of this.

I don't understand Snap Chat people. For the longest time, all I knew about it was that my friends would make really exaggerated expressions into their phones about whatever it was they were doing, and then point their phones at me and tell me to react. I would never react, which would make them react even more strangely into their phones in response to my non-reaction. Eventually one of my friends made me get it, and I promptly forgot I had it.

So I'm complaining about Snap Chatters to my friends, and they're like "But you are on Snap Chat. We all added you." Then I remember my friend making me get it nine months earlier, so they snap chat a picture of me with the text "When you forget you have Snap Chat" and send it out. That's not funny. My expression did not convey an emotion that implied I'd forgotten Snap Chat, it's just an image with the context added on. Then that Snap got a return Snap of my friends laughing. I just don't get it.

27

Well, as of yesterday, I am 27. First year of my late twenties (21, 22, 23 are early twenties, 24, 25, 26 are mid twenties, 27, 28, 29 are my late twenties, with the rounded 20 just being what it is). Still the youngest you can be while in your late twenties, though!

I don't know if I really feel like celebrating my twenty-sixth year of life. During this year I moved, I changed roommates, I left Facile, I did another round of Summer Program, arguably the most successful, and I got past my one year anniversary working with two of my contracts. It wasn't really a bunk year, there were some successes, but there was a lot of struggle.

I remember last year on my birthday, I had to be in Kitchener for work but I arranged so I had nothing going on on that day specifically. Kinda tried to avoid people. One of my old roommates made some tickets that were good for a homemade meal of my choosing and stuff like that. Never used those. Should maybe see if they're still good, haha.

Went to a Tim Horton's and there were a couple of elderly women having an existential chat about the concept of mortality. Felt applicable to my own contemplation of the passage of time that day. Had a chat with a coworker about a fairly intense topic, didn't mention my birthday, she found out later through Facebook and said she'd've sung me Happy Birthday if she'd known.

This year I'm in Guelph, actually took a few days off. First time in Guelph since the Summer Program ended.

Got 67 Facebook birthday messages this year, 3 emails, and 4 texts.

You remember how I said my luck was sided against me before the start of the summer, and then it went in my favour for the summer? Then, I knew my charmed season was over when that flood hit. But I don't really know what my luck is looking like right now. My hot water heater got knocked out, but then when I called to ask for it fixed, it turns out there was going to be an inspector later that week so my landlord was eager to fix it as soon as possible. Last Monday, I lost my phone, but yesterday it was found and returned to me.

It's so satisfying to have a shower after you've been living without hot water.

New Furniture

So I had two roommates move out, and soon I'll have two more moving in. Don't expect much more explanation.

I've been living on my own for about a month and a half now, and I've bought a stupid amount of new furniture. I'm a pretty cheap person, and having spent as much as I have makes me feel nauseous, especially since I'm minimally employed at the moment. But most of the furnishings left with my old roommates, and I wanted to make a strong first impression for the people moving in. Give the place an impression that somebody lives here.

Finally got my standing lamp. The living room doesn't have an overhead light, closest one is in the connecting hallway. New lamp spreads out light exactly like an overhead would. Got my bookshelf for the living room, which is something I've wanted since moving in. I actually bought a 5-drawer for my bedroom since my 3-shelf was full. Moved the 3-shelf to the living room and put my board games on it. I've got a standing coat rack for the front hall. These three items were what I've been wanting for the living space for a while.

I have a dresser now. Ever since I moved into student housing, I've not had a dresser. I had a 2-drawer nightstand that I inherited from the previous owner, which I put my socks, underwear, shorts, undershirts, bathing suit etc. Then I hung my pants in my closet with my shirts. I abandoned the nightstand when moving, because I got sick of moving things (but then wound up helping a roommate with much more stuff). I got a another nightstand, but it wasn't as big. Turned into a situation where I never had quite enough room to fit everything.

But now I have a dresser. My pants can go in it, my socks, my shirts, my undershirts, my shorts, my bathing suit all have a place where they belong. My closet can be reserved for my shirts.

My old nightstand is in the kitchen, filled with a collection of cook books I somehow developed, and supporting my microwave. Now that's a move that made me feel peculiar, like I was trying to step into a class I didn't belong. But I found it at only $50, when my impression was that microwaves usually cost several hundred. I'm worried I'll feel the need to branch into other household conveniences from here. But the microwave is useful for heating leftover pasta and stirfry.

I feel like everything's cheaper than usual right now, which has helped encourage my spending.

I got a shoe rack, bath rug, floor mat, curtains... Curtains have always been something I've been a bit particular about. When I was in Katimavik, me and another guy puzzled out a way to create a "secret language" where we described curtains, but it actually meant women. And it seemed to work, since the females in the group would become frustrated because they couldn't understand what we were talking about, and al their attempts to interpret our conversations were completely off-base.

Of course, since then, I've learned you can take pretty much any topic and twist it around that way. Still weird that I'm weird about curtains. None of the curtains at any of the generic stores were thick enough. You can see a silhouette of the person from the outside with those, which to me, doesn't really allow for privacy. There was one value store that sold curtains that I'd been satisfied with before. But last time, I'd bought two single-panels that seemed to have the same pattern, but wound up being asymmetrical. Drove me crazy. This time, I found that they had two-panel sets with a price that equaled what two of their one-panels would be. Thought this would be a good way to get thick, symmetrical curtains.

But the inside lining was like, a bubble gum pink. I really don't understand why curtains will have different patterns on either side. I mean, if they were used as a wall hanging, you might put the more decorative side facing the public, with the more plain side against the wall, where nobody is meant to see. But if you hang your curtain against, say, a window, then it is probably meant to be seen from both sides.

So I had to go back and get two single-panels with confirmed symmetrical patterns on both sides. So yeah, now you know I like my curtains thick, patterned the same on both sides, front and back. If you don't know what I'm talking about YOU ARE NOT A MAN.

I went to a Katimavik Alumni Meet yesterday. There were only 4 of us, and I wound up knowing two of the people there. One was someone I've hung out with before, and the other one was someone I've had a professional overlap with, but I didn't know he had done Katimavik. Fourth person was someone new.

We were at Beertown (uninspired name). I got the fish and chips. They asked me if I wanted it with fries. I'd thought that since it's "fish and chips" the "chips" would be half the dish, and you couldn't replace it. Whereas with another meal, if fries were a side, you could swap it out. But I swapped out the chips for sweet potato fries and got a whole bed of them, at the same quantity as if they were chips. Much than if they were a side,  but at the same price.

I got rejected to become a member of the Katimavik Board of Directors. They're feeling confident enough that Katimavik may get new funding that they are taking on new board members. I applied, and they sent me a really nice rejection notice. Said they were grateful for my participation in the program and my willingness to volunteer my time, that they were impressed by my resume and cover letter, and that they hoped I would continue to serve, but that they had narrowed the applicants down to a very small number, and that I hadn't made it.

Could have been a copy-paste email since it had no identifying characteristics about me, and it sounds like I didn't even get into the final round of people being considered. Bummer. I felt pretty confident in my application, since they were looking for members who had done the program. I was in the last program to have fully completed it, so I felt that I had more experience than others, and they asked for volunteer history, how the Katimavik program had impacted our lives, how our values corresponded with the organization, and what our proficiency was with French. I was able to say that Katimavik offered me my first opportunity to work with population I would choose tom follow a career with, I was able to state a number of volunteer opportunities I'd taken on, including the Respect Campaign, which reached out to all vulnerable populations which coincides with the values of Katimavik, and I even became a Respect Leader. I was able to say that Katimavik inspired me to do Canada World Youth, which put me in a full French immersion scenario, where it was the dominant language in La Pocatiere, and the language of trade in Karadje. But apparently there's a list of people who finished the program when I did, with more applicable experience.

Chore Day

So the Extend-a-Family chore day wasn't all that exciting. I moved some stuff in the morning, then weeded their garden, then spent the rest of the day filing.

I had one of the strangest experiences of my life when I was weeding the garden, though. Some woman stopped her car next to me, got out, walked up to me, said "Excuse me, can I have one of those?" I was holding a bunch of thistles and cattails, so I offered her a thistle. She said "No, the other one" and took a cattail. She hesitated, then said "Could I have some more?" So I gave her a handful of cattails. She said "Thank you so much!" got in her car, and left.

Huh.

Next day, I was filling in for a guy who supports someone during the day. Circumstances had me meeting the person at the Cambridge Centre. Now, Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge comprise the Tri-City that I live in, and each city has a major mall. Kitchener's is Fairview Mall, Waterloo has Conestoga Mall, and Cambridge has the Cambridge Mall. In the almost-four years I've lived in this area, I've been to Fairview and Conestoga Mall more times than I can count, but this was the first time I'd been to Cambridge Centre. It was pretty typical.

I gotta say, the name "Cambridge Centre" seems pretty uninspired when Kitchener and Waterloo were able to come up with names that weren't the same as their city's.

I went to a Mongolian Buffet a while ago. It was build your own stirfry, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. They have a buffet of raw material that you put into a bowl, and then they have a chef prepare it. The chef stands in the centre of a circular grill with two huge metal paddles. He puts everyone's stirfries in piles around him and proceeds to chop, flip, and shift your stuff as it cooks, moving from serving to serving.

On one hand, I really like stirfries, and getting to choose your own material is fun. On the other hand, when I'm building my own stuff, I feel like it's one step away from leaving me with the paddles and a set of instructions until the only thing I'm paying for is the material. I also thought that the way the chef prepared the food was super awesome and very unique. A number of the chefs were young and since it's a University area, I figured they might be students, and I just had to imagine what training might have looked like, and couldn't imagine having a cooler entry-level position.

On the other hand, they weren't washing their paddles before going to the next meal, and I could see them getting sauce and bits of other meals stuck to them. Everyone gets a bit of everyone's meal. They had vegetarian options at the front, but if you're a vegetarian, you're definitely getting someone else's meat juice in your stirfry. Even for people with food sensitivities or allergies, I can't say the place is safe for them. I wasn't even sure if they should be having raw vegetables and meats together. I remember something from my Safe Food Handling course about cross contamination, where raw material should be separated and different tools should be used or sanitized between uses for different food groups.  But my certificate is expired, so maybe I'm forgetting something.

Really undecided about how I felt about the whole experience.

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.