Answers to Camp Questions
1) How long have you been going to your summer camp? Summer 2016 will be my seventh summer at this camp
2) What is your favorite camp memory? My favorite camp memory was my CIT prank. We took kayaks from boating and put them in random places all around camp... It was all fun and games until we got caught by not only our boating instructor but camp director too.
3) How has camp changed you as a person/your view of the world? After going to camp for all these years, it’s made me more adventurous. As for my view of the world, I’ve realized that not everybody is who they seem to be. I learned this during my summer as a CIT. The first day as we all were arriving, my first thought was, “wow, it’s going to be a long four weeks...” but looking back, my first impressions were, for the most part, very off. My CIT group was the first in many years to actually plan a reunion and still stay in contact. We were also the largest group, with 14 of us apposed to the usual 8-10. We all got along incredibly well and other than the occasional sisterly disagreement, there were no fights or drama and I will be forever grateful for those girls.
4) Favorite camp song? My favorite camp songs are Alice (where are you going?) or Sarah The Whale and my favorite slow song is On the Loose and I’m not capable of listening to/singing it without crying
5) Who are your best camp friends and how long have you known them? I go to a girl scout camp so there are only about 80-150 girls each week, therefore once you start going for a few years you start to know most of the people around your age. I started going to camp with my best friend of four years (at the time) and she and I have been going together ever since, so I guess she’s technically my longest and closest camp friend. Other than her, I’ve known some girls who I’m pretty close with for about 4-5 years, but my absolute closest camp friend I actually met this last summer when we were CITs together.
6) Favorite camp food? My favorite camp foods will always be chocolate chip pancakes over the fire and homemade mac and cheese (obviously over the fire as well)
7) What is an obstacle you have overcome at summer camp? Before my CIT year, I always knew I was naturally a leader, but I thought I didn’t have the maturity level to actually be taken seriously. At my camp, CITs are basically seen as counselors to the girls, and it was the little things like them asking me to go to the bathroom or writing letters from “Molly”, the pink and purple whale in our lake/pond who responds to letters homesick kids sent her, that made me feel like I really belonged at camp. There would also be moments where I was put into actual leadership roles, such as leading low-ropes elements or running stations for all-camp activities, that really made me realize how much I matured while being at camp.
8) What’s your absolute favorite thing about camp? There are so many aspects about camp that make it my favorite place in the world, and it’s hard to explain my favorite. It’s the little unorganized, unofficial, unscheduled things that just pop up; I think the only way to describe it would be to give an example. When I was a CIT (I only talk about my CIT year #noregrets) we spent two weeks in training and the other two shadowing counselors in units. It’s a requirement at my camp that each unit spends one night camping out in tents, and the CIT in that unit would camp out with them. My camp has small cabins with only five beds in each. There were 3-4 girls in each of the cabins, so if there was only one person in that cabin that night (because the others were camping out) she had the opportunity to go sleep in another cabin that night so she wouldn’t be alone. One night, there were only four of us, so we all went into one cabin. We all brought loads food so we took that to this cabin; and one of the girls parents sent tons of teen gossip magazines, so we were just having a look through those when our CIT director walked in. We weren’t afraid of getting in trouble or anything (we weren’t doing anything wrong), but we were finding out which pop singer was actually our soulmate (mine was obviously shawn mendes). Instead of joking or poking fun at us, she sat down right in the circle on the floor with us (amongst the oreos, cheeseballs, and animal crackers) and found out what summer hair style was best for her. It’s just the little, spur of the moment, hectic, things at the end of the day (literally in that case) that make camp so fun and make me want to return every year.
9) Why is camp important to you? Gosh... Camp is my home. Camp is everybody's home. Camp is a place where people come together and forget about the outside world. Camp is where people go to be themselves without living in fear of someone else judgment. Camp is where I feel most at home, camp is where I’m the best version of myself, and camp is where I belong.
10) Describe what camp is to you in three words My real home.
11) What are your must haves to bring to camp? Over the years I’ve accumulated a list of “things to bring next year” because every year I wish that I had them, so a few are...
1) Baby wipes and dry shampoo- because you’ll never know when your next shower is
2) My FitBit- because you’re going to rack up TONS of steps with all the walking
3) Extra (cheap) sunglasses- because they break, they get stepped on, they get scratched, and in my case, get thrown into the lake
4) Nail clippers- because everybody forgets them but everybody needs them
5) Aloe Vera gel- Last summer I got sun poisoning on my nose and heat rash on my arms and it was my savior
6) Hand Sanitizer- I’ve dealt with my fair share of empty soap dispensers and dirty brownies to ever forget this stuff
12) Favorite camp activity? Boating
13) Best skit you’ve ever done? Every Sunday night (the day campers arrive) there is opening campfire where all the campers are welcomed with songs and counselors introduce themselves by doing skits that with their units that relate to their units program. As a CIT, I did a skit my my unit’s counselors. The unit was called “secret agent girl” and we did all sorts of cool spy-esque things throughout the week. Now a quick side note; the way CITs were described was “if the counselors were red, and the campers were blue, they’re purple” so ‘being purple’ was a running joke at camp. The basic idea for this skit was that one counselor was a security guard and the rest of us had to be ‘spies’ and sneak around her. Us ‘spies’ started in the brush around the fire circle and one of them said something along the lines of “put on your disguises so we blend in” so we put on sunglasses. We then started just creeping around the fire circle until the ‘body guard’ pointed to me and said “Hey! I see you!” and my reaction was “It’s not my fault I can't blend in! I’m purple!” and we got a good laugh out of the people who understood the joke.
14) Tell an embarrassing camp story when I was doing my CIT prank (as mentioned in question 2), we were split into pairs to drop off kayaks; and since I was a ropes counselor in training, me and my partner were assigned the kayak at the ropes course. There is a very small path through the woods that leads from our dining hall to the sports complex, which is near the ropes course, so we took that path to lessen our chances of being seen. As I’ve previously mentioned, I go to a girl scout camp so there are mostly girls on staff; but there are a few guys each year. Last summer in particular there were four guys on staff, one of which was our boating instructor. I was holding the front of the kayak while my comrade had the back. I was the only one out of the two of us who had a flashlight because I was in the front and the more light we cast, the more likely we were to be seen. As we stealthily snuck down the path, I saw a relatively tall, blonde, guy approaching me and my first thought was: “WHAT IS MY BROTHER DOING AT CAMP!”. As you could imagine, it was not my older brother. It was the boating instructor. Upon being asked what we were doing with “his kayak” I proceeded to tell him that it was actually my kayak and we scurried away. When we got to the clearing at the end of the path, we found two fellow CITs who were also caught by him. Here’s the embarrassing aspect though; When I saw “my brother”, I was so shocked, I peed myself right then and there.
15) Which counselor has had the biggest impact on you (when you were a camper), how/why? I don’t know why but I’ve been trying to avoid using any names in this... Probably because if anybody from my camp finds it I don’t want them to know it’s me (even though if someone reading this was from my camp, it’s a dead give away that it’s me... not to mention my url is my camp but oh well too late) But for this, I didn’t need to think twice before answering this one. As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve always gone to camp with my best friend, and I love high ropes. The only catch is, she does not share that passion. Our third year attending camp, we were twelve, and did one week in separate units. Mine was called tightrope walkers and flying monkeys and it was a ropes program. With most girls in my unit being 8-10 years old (and one eleven year old but I honestly didn’t like her very much), I stood out and I had trouble making friends. There were two CITs shadowing counselors in that unit, and one of them was named Firefly. She was 15, so I was closer to her in age than some of the girls in the unit, and she befriended me when nobody else did. The following summer she was hired as a camp aide (program aide) and she and I were just as close that year and the one following. The next summer was my CIT year; and before our first week of shadowing in units, my CIT director pulled aside 14 counselors, one of which was firefly. She and I had been scheming all week, hoping, praying even that she would be my mentor, and that week she was. What was the unit we were in you may ask? Tightrope walkers and flying monkeys. Now here I am, march of 2016. I will continue following in her footsteps by spending my first summer on staff as a camp aide, and she’s returning as the ropes director, which I aspire to be one day as well. I guess I can’t really put into words why she holds this special place in my heart, but I hope my explanation of how she got it will suffice. Maybe it’s because she’s always acted like the older sister I never had, or maybe it’s because every summer would end with “Where’s your mom? I want to talk to her”. But all I know is that she is hands-down the most influential person I’ve met at camp.
