The End of a Year

It's been a year . . .

Seasonal staff and my time at Barakel - already fairly documented. 

I left Barakel. I miss it a lot. I miss the people a lot. I miss the forest.

I left Michigan. Never having lived outside of the state before has led to some moments of frustration and unexpected culture shock.

I moved to Milwaukee. Now I know why their sports team is called the Brewers. Lots of beer. I guess it goes with the cheese? Also, cheese curds are delicious and apparently an essential part of any party platter. There's a cheese castle about half an hour away from Milwaukee. I hope to journey there at some point in the upcoming year.

I started grad school. It's crazy, busy, and a mess of stress. I kind of love it. Most of the time. It's been challenging and different and unexpected.

I began teaching rhetoric and composition to freshmen. Freshmen are a frustrating breed. They're excited, nervous, and occasionally incoherent. I loved teaching them, even when they emailed me several times a day with questions. I'll miss that first class. I suspect that no group of students ever quite has the same impact as your first.

Coming up . . .

This next semester I will be teaching two sections of the second semester of rhetoric and composition. Grad school will continue. Being in Milwaukee will continue. Basically, more of the same. Does it ever stop being an adventure?

Christmas and grades

It's over. I've turned in their grades, ruined their GPAs (probably not as much as they thought I would), and fled the state. Technically I left the state before doing those other things. I'm home now and loving being able to watch small children dance around the room wearing antlers.

Yesterday Toby and I spent the day together in Ann Arbor. We went to two stores and then I was tired. His energy remained boundless, as did his commitment to singing Christmas carols. Deck the Halls was a particular favorite. Sadly for me, he only knows the fa la la bits.

During our drive home, we saw a deer in the road. 
Toby: "Where did the deer go?"
Me: "It ran off the road."
Toby: "But reindeer fly!"
Involved explanation about how there are actually different kinds of deer.

Later we passed a reindeer made out of Christmas lights and he exclaimed, "We'll call that one Rudolph!" It was a good day. I'm glad to be home.

One semester nearly over

I have one more class period with my students. It's odd to look back at how nervous we were with each other only a couple of months ago. Today, there was laughter and joking in the classroom that none of us would have been comfortable with. I hope that I can cultivate relaxed class atmospheres next semester as well.

I presented at my first poster conference this week. I hesitate to say that it was a complete waste of time since I at least gained a few free books. As an experience, however, it was underwhelming. The attendees had difficulties negotiating the limited space, so it was difficult for them to see the posters and engage individual presenters.

One more week and I'll be back in Michigan. That week contains many tasks. And at the end of that week, I'll still have a stack of portfolios to grade. But I'm still clinging to the thought of change being only a week away.

I was observed this week. The director of the program came to watch me teach. I was nervous. Then I was terrible. I blame my students. Under normal circumstances, it's difficult to keep them from talking the entire time. But when I needed them to participate in class discussions as part of my displayed lesson plan . . . dead silence. It's discouraging, but I'm trying not to dwell. There's always next semester's observation.

Deadlines pile up at the end of the semester. I'm currently trying to stay at least a couple of hours ahead of them. My day today has been spent watching scenes of violence from American films and attempting an amateur dissection of the film techniques displayed. Hurray for the study of Medieval British Literature? It's the most random final assignment ever.

Grading

Grading has become a regular part of my life. Students turn in free writes, short writes, and essays. I read them. I assign more. They turn in more. It's a cycle.

I just returned my students' third major paper to them. This means I have graded 57 papers for this class. I then realized that I am a hard grader. Out of those 57, only two earned A grades.

It's a difficult process. A single paper can take me from forty minutes to an hour-and-a-half to grade. It's time consuming. It forces me to reflect on myself as a teacher and the things that I prioritize in writing, which is a good thing, I think. But sometimes I feel as though I've failed them as a teacher - I start to internalize the grade I am giving them. Then I have to stop.

The line between caring about the performance of my students and assuming responsibility for it is a fuzzy one. Ultimately, they are the owners of their writing. I can offer support and guidance, but I can't write their papers for them. I'll try to hang on to that scrap of knowledge as I finish out the semester. Only a couple more rounds of the cycle and I'll be assigning them their final grades - the grades that will stay with them for the rest of their college years. No pressure.

So, this blog was last updated nearly two months ago. Sorry about that. You can all breathe a sigh of relief; I am alive. Milwaukee has not yet swallowed me whole.

I am teaching one lucky group of nineteen students how to write as college freshmen. As far as I can tell, it's going well. There appears to be improvement from paper to paper and none of them openly hate me. The director of the First Year English program will be observing my classroom on Friday. That observation will give me some feedback from a third-party. I'm only mildly terrified.

Classes proceed apace. As the end of the semester nears, so do the due dates for my various papers and presentations. There's time enough to complete everything if I can avoid the trap of easy procrastination. In other news, I've developed a coffee-habit. This habit is particularly useful on nights before major projects are due. I plan to break it again over Christmas.

Here is where I would normally put some kind of conclusive or summative paragraph. Not today. I'm breaking the mold. Insert your own conclusion here.

Titles are Important

It's hard to believe that I'm in my fourth week as a student and instructor at Marquette. Time is travelling at the speed of light (metaphorically, not literally - it's an important distinction, I'm an English teacher).

As a TA, I have not yet earned the right to be called Professor. So when my students asked me in class yesterday (I'm not sure why they didn't wonder before) whether to call me "Miss Hendrickson" or "Professor Hendrickson," my answer was clear. Miss is the way to go. In a nice affirmation of our student-teacher rapport, one of my students immediately piped up with an explanation. He said that "Professor Hendrickson" was very solemn and stern and that "that isn't you."

I offered to become solemn and stern. Students immediately asked that it not happen on Friday, which is when they are all turning in their first major assignment. I agreed not to "lower the hammer" (their words, not mine) on Friday and we all continued about our business.

It's nice to get a glimpse, however small, into what they think of me.

I have taught for two weeks.
I'm spending my nights buried in notes and lesson plans. 

This blog post draft has been open on my computer for several days. I can't find the words in which to wrap my experiences.

Moments of exhilaration and moments of exhaustion alternate flooding my system. Teaching, for me, has been a swingset, catapulting me from one apogee to the next and then whooshing back to the first. I love it - most of the time.

I met a man from Michigan. He misses the trees too.

Tomorrow I stand in front of twenty students and attempt to convince them that I am a qualified instructor, ready to assist them with any questions or problems they may have. I'm only mildly terrified.

Tomorrow.

Hmmm.

It's August 18th - the official end of the summer for Camp Barakel's summer staff. The end of my first week in Wisconsin. The midway point of orientation.

I feel as though so much has happened, yet so little of it is interesting to anyone not involved. I've spent hours learning what my job is to be this fall, but there's nothing terribly exciting about that for you. My weekend is absorbed in syllabus-writing and the construction of a unit one calendar for my students. Again, not very exciting for anyone besides myself.

Now that I'm writing it, there doesn't seem to be any reason for this blog update. So, I'll give you a random list of things that have happened.

I dreamed about bobcats, foxes, and panthers last night. And forests.

I had a new friend over last night. Pretty exciting.

My music tastes seem to have expanded over the summer. Depending on which friend influenced me, I have different levels of gratitude for that.

Finished the Annie Dillard book that was waiting for me when I arrived in Milwaukee. Now I need to read it a few more times.

Still haven't used Skype.

Thought about doing laundry today then realized I have no laundry detergent.

Haven't made the time change. Not too worried about it. Getting up early is fine.

And that's all that springs to mind right now. Time for a return to planning for the semester of students.

I went to church yesterday. The first time going to a normal church service after leaving Barakel is always odd. There's a sense of "outsiderness" that is completely foreign to a chapel at Barakel. And it isn't the church's fault. It was a nice church.

The man wearing Rob Bell glasses greeted me cheerily and handed me a bulletin. I was immediately greeted by several people. They were all very friendly in a non-smothery way, just the way I like it (none of them randomly hugged me, I was relieved). I love singing with others. I'm glad I went. I might go back.

Today was the first day of orientation. Katie Cupcake and I arose early, dressed, and left the house twenty minutes before we needed to. We talked about our military fathers and how they trained us from a young age to arrive everywhere early.

Campus is less than a mile away down a well-traveled street, so the daily walk promises to be fairly safe and fun. We had a good time walking this morning. After orientation, we took a bit of a detour and stopped by our offices. Thrillingly, I have an office all to myself, which is not so common. I'm pretty excited. There may have been exclamations of joy and excitement among the three of us who were there as we ran up and down the hallways comparing offices.

More orientation tomorrow. (I'm doing homework tonight - and loving it!)

People (the second reflective post)

I miss the people at camp.

I worked with a wide variety of people and met even more. One of my favorite parts of the summer was being able to spend time with the campers and get to know them – be a part of their Barakel experience. Love God, live with the campers. They weren't my campers the way that they belonged to the counselors, but I loved them anyway.

The summer staff bonded quickly. We bonded firmly. We shared.

I was assigned a roommate for the summer and she astonished me with how amazing she was. Also amazing was the number of times in our lives we had been at the same place/event and still not met each other. I'm coming away from the summer with a myriad of new friends and a couple of friendships that have grown even stronger. Maintaining and growing these while living in a different state is the next challenge.

It's weird for it to be ten o'clock at night and not be able to share cereal and conversation.

I hate goodbyes. 

 “Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”  - J.M. Barrie

I live in a cute little apartment in Milwaukee. Two days ago, I didn't. It's small and old and beige, but it already feels home-like. 

It's a weird blog right now, I know. I'm trying to reflect on my summer while also living in the present and looking ahead to the future. Today is one of those days where I can't imagine existence without time - linear time. I just can't. I'm feeling in sequence. 

Sometimes I find myself stopping and focusing on the feeling: not focused on the emotion, but on the action. My being, caught in verb form. 

Sometimes I am trapped betwixt and between emotions: a house bisected, out of proportion. I feel the joy and the sorrow. Unbalanced. I am a being distinct from my feelings but they are wholly a part of me. 

I keep waiting to cry.

"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." - Tolkien 

The first reflective post . . .

I left Barakel. For real. And it hurts.

I'm asked how it was – did I have a good time.

Yes.

But it was more than a good time.

Words aren't large enough, and aren't precise enough to capture the inflections of thoughts and feelings. PG and I talked once about English having only one word for love – the inflexibility of that structure. I loved being at Barakel – I can say it, but what does it really mean?

I enjoyed being there.

I felt useful.

I felt loved.

I served.

Some days I raged and cried.

But always I loved being.

Always it was the place I was meant to be.

And now I'm supposed to sum it up in a couple of paragraphs.

I don't have any paragraphs today - just snippets. 

Maybe tomorrow.

today is a day

The middle of high school week isn't an ideal time for a blog post, but there never seems to be one. So, here is a very abbreviated note on what I've been doing.

Programing is crazy, but fun. This week is especially exhausting because of the amount of work that gets put into a high school week. The campers are older, so everything is different. But at the same time, everything is camp. My list of projects seems unending, but everything (so far) has worked out at the time it needed to. Hopefully that will continue.

It's Thursday, so everyone is looking forward to the overnight. I'll be helping host the East Side chapel-in-the-woods and then spending the rest of my night cutting blockhouses out of pieces of paper. That's the kind of randomness that programming brings to my schedule.

Camp is fun!

Week 2

We're neck deep in week two of summer camp. The first week flew by incredibly fast. With only fifty campers on East Side (my summer home) it was fairly quiet, but everyone managed to have a good time, I think. I was too busy to not have a wonderful time. Programming consists mostly, I've found, of running from one place to another (camera in hand) and solving problems that pop up. Kind of like Whack-a-mole. A problem? Whack! Another one? Whack! It's certainly an adventure. My sister camped last week and sent a postcard home saying it was really fun to see me "hopping" around.

The summer staff appears to be thriving. I haven't seen anyone fleeing the property in floods of tears. Most seem relaxed and enthusiastic about another week. It's certainly fun meeting a new set of campers and getting to know them. One of my former campers is here on East Side this week! It is great to see her. Maybe we'll have another air hockey battle.

Thanks to my wonderful roommate, I now go around humming songs about pink, fluffy unicorns.

And that is my life, currently

Workshop update

We're into the second week of workshop and time is flying. But at the same time it feels like workshop has been going on forever.

Getting to know the new summer staff has been great. I'm trying to keep a balance between reconnecting with old friends and welcoming new ones. This includes tearing myself away from Lydia, much to her dismay. She doesn't always believe me when I tell her that things are good for her.

Sadly, we were less than successful at convincing people that we were twins - mostly due to the unhelpful people around us who kept betraying our trust by actually telling the truth.

Other snippets:
I heard the bobcat in the woods.
I learned to drive a tractor and not hit trees
Lee Brown has replaced me with a newer model
Video editing and I are becoming friends

Chapel tonight - Papa Dave gave his testimony. God endlessly amazes.

Tribes and races

Today is tribe day . . . The one day in the summer that counselors spend gleefully pretending to be the worst junior campers ever encountered.

More visits

My family came to visit and exchange Lydia for Naomi. Lydia is beginning her summer as a YAP.

We spent a lovely evening in the RV park. We were "being hobos" according to Lee Brown. Tons of fun. Gardner girls even showed up for s'mores and a rousing game of something that resembled baseball.

Lines

Kevin and I painted lines on the East Side ballfield. Some of the lines are straight.

This afternoon we're being trusted with more lines - these lines are not meant to be straight. I'm not sure whether that means we'll be more or less successful.

titles are for normal people

Today I feel like a stalker. I'm sneaking around Facebook, stealing pictures from unsuspecting summer staffers to use for my own nefarious purposes. And the poor souls haven't a clue. Until now. If they read my blog. Hey, guys! Thanks for the pictures?

I may also have just pretended to be simultaneously Lee Brown and Jeremy Linsley.

In other news, the mighty hunter cat in our family has met his match. It's a squirrel about the size of a chipmunk and it has thrown Algie completely off balance by following him everywhere and refusing to be intimidated. He's been adopted and has no clue what to do.

.

Buckets

I spent some time over the past couple of days wrapping paper around yogurt containers in an effort to make them look less like yogurt containers and more like an exciting discovery that could be part of one's Blockhouse hunt. They now look like yogurt containers with paper taped around them.

A visit

Naomi came to Camp with me thinking it would be a party. Now she's playing checkers by herself.

A Visitor

We had a friend visit us in our house. He seemed stunned to be there. We enjoyed his brief time with us and then gently transported him a safe distance away from the cats, who are very poor hosts.

Co-Labor: It Happened

The first Co-labour flew past in a haze of leaves and tarps. I missed hearing the number of people who made the trip to Barakel to rake our forest, but I do know, randomly, that it was the exact same number as the year before. If you know how many came last year, you now know more than I do about the numbers last weekend.

I led a raking crew from Graham on a mighty journey across West Side. They were an amazing crew, impressing me with their relentless enthusiasm and dedication. By the end of the day, we were all fairly exhausted, but a lot had been accomplished.

I prayed with my crew, waved farewell, and hopped in my car for a trek south. I had the privilege of speaking in the college-age Sunday school class at Five Points – my home church – with Dan and Sarah who are resident staff at Barakel. I loved hearing things from their perspective.

This week is my last visit home before I leave Barakel in August. I'm spending my time going through my boxes of stuff, eliminating the unnecessary and packing the needed for the fall. My TA orientation begins August 13^th, so I need to be moved in to wherever I am living by then. I spent some time looking for apartments this week and now I may have been providentially supplied with a roommate.

By the time I return to Barakel, there will be only two more weeks remaining before summer workshop. I am now officially an east side programer, so expect to spend much of that time doing prep work – whether this work involves painting, counting flagbelts, shooting videos, or formatting documents I'm not certain. Probably, it will include all of these things along with other tasks I haven't thought of yet.

I'm excited for this summer. It will be my fourth on summer staff but my first time doing two consecutive summers. It will be another new position for me, so another grand adventure. I'll be busy. This will definitely mean less writing on the blog. But have no fear! I'm planning to post pictures frequently (I have a magic, new phone) and hopefully they will keep you all fairly updated.

A Picture = One Thousand Words?

This is a test of the emergency photo broadcasting system. Don't be alarmed.

Updating is strangely hard

Ah, my admirers, here is a new blog post of joy, just for you.

I babysat for a family last week. It was the second time I have watched all of their children and it was definitely an adventure. The adventure really began when it was time to clean up. One of the children, we'll call her Azalea, stepped on a toy that was left on the floor. A piercing shriek. She then swaddled her foot in a blanket cast and hopped her way around. Until she stubbed her toes on the wall. More shrieking. She sat on the foot of the stairs so she could better focus her attention on screaming. She seemed to be calming down and then there was yet another sudden increase in volume. She claimed that it felt like someone had stepped on her hand and dug their shoe into her foot. I would have been more concerned except that no one was near enough to her to have actually stepped on her. Azalea then crawled up the stairs and laid on the couch with an ice pack for half an hour until it was time to go to bed. She insisted that she could only crawl to the bathroom to brush her teeth and then promptly forgot that she was supposed to be injured and spent the rest of her bedroom prep time walking normally. I love kids.

Hopefully I will soon be registering for classes. Professor Curran has informed me that I need to take Studies in Rhetoric and Composition Theory since I have an assistantship. The class sounds . . . thrilling. Seriously, though, I am very excited about heading back to school. There have been a couple of snags so I haven't yet been able to register, but that should happen soon.

This weekend the trustees will be pouring in and embarking on a weekend of meetings. I won't be involved in any of the actual meetings, but I will spend some time doing kitchen prep and possibly dishes. Then the next two weekends are co-labor weekends. Work groups and individuals come from all over to help Camp rake leaves and get the grounds ship-shape. I will be here for the first co-labor, and then I am heading south for a week. I will be speaking at my home church, reclaiming Lydia from the goat farm, and squeezing in some packing/planning for the fall.

Summer is almost here! Everyone is immersed in prep work. Ambushes are being created and refined, equipment is being ordered and set up, and Lee Brown gave his yearly nature talk during staff fellowship today. All West Side campers are in for a wonderful time as he is planning to teach about the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. It was great to hear.

Educational Developments

Well, as some of you know, I have been applying to grad schools for the second time this year. I went into the process already a little discouraged after having been accepted to exactly zero schools last year. I reluctantly emptied my bank account of the money earned during my December break, revamped my personal statement, and waited.

Then I waited some more.

I got my first rejection of the year.

Then I waited some more.

I got my first acceptance! There was much rejoicing. And surprise.

The next month, I got another acceptance. Secure in the knowledge that I now had a choice of schools, Marquette University or Michigan State, I started quietly panicking about how I was going to pay for whichever school I chose. Marquette had indicated that, if they were going to offer me an assistantship, they would make the offer before April fifteenth.

On April twelfth, I still had not heard anything from either school about financials - other than MI state confirming that they would not be offering me any departmental aid. That's when I got my third acceptance letter - from Northeastern University. I began a frantic emailing of my professors asking for advice.Dithering happened. How would I ever choose between these schools?

April fourteenth. A Saturday. A day on which I normally do not come in and check my email. But I had been told by MI state that I would have my financial aid packet by the end of the week and I did want to see it, so I came into the program center. I read my email. I read one of them a few times.

Marquette University offered me an assistantship. This assistantship will cover my tuition, give me health insurance, and provide a stipend for the two years it will take to complete my Masters degree. I may have cried a little bit. With joy. Then I called my mother.

Wisconsin, here I come. There are still a lot of details to figure out, but I am amazed at the way God has led and provided through this process. I couldn't at first reconcile my acceptance rate last year with this year's, but as my mother pointed out, God must have wanted me to spend a year at Barakel.

And yes, these pictures are old. Remember, my camera is old and cranky. It didn't want to come out and play.

and another post finally appears

I'm sure at some point I will get back in the habit of regular posting. Good intentions abound, but good follow-through is still hiding in the woods.

The cleaning weeks are over. This does not mean an end to cleaning, as there are still a few more cleaning days scheduled. But it does give a chance to shift focus to other things. Summer prep is in full swing. Jeremy likes to pop his head out of his office and give us the official countdown to workshop. Yesterday he informed me that there were fifty days remaining - using my superior homeschooled counting skills and deductive reasoning, I would infer that this means there are forty-nine days left now. It's not a lot of time.

Last week my family surprised me by appearing on my doorstep in the middle of the night. Three of them spent the week with me. I say spent the week, I mean that they worked the week. They did amazing things like clear trash out of the rink areas (they found forty-two hockey pucks in the woods) and number wristbands.

In even more exciting news: today I got to ride in Camp's new Caddy which Kevin has tricked into running. Here are a couple of pictures which I have shamelessly stolen from Kevin's facebook.

You must look serious while driving the Caddy - it's a rule.

quick review of many events

A lot has happened during the past couple of weeks. I went home and visited my family. I went to my Auburn Hills home and visited that family. I mixed up Gaylord and Grayling in my head. I made it safely back to Camp.

We are now midway through the second week of spring cleaning here. Both weeks I have been assigned to the chapels. This means that I get to clean some of my favorite places at camp and that I have an overwhelming, and unexpected, desire to play ping-pong. I blame it on the fumes from the Murphy's Oil Soap.

This weekend was stuffed with guests and good times. Amanda, Nathan, Claire, and Zeke all made the journey up to see me. Well, me and The Hunger Games. We also went shooting early Saturday morning to celebrate Nathan's new pistol and Kevin's birthday.

Obviously, I was taking this picture very seriously.

I will leave you with a brief story. Today I was washing the East Side Chapel platform when LB came to join our crew. He looked at me, "We've been trying to get you on your knees at the front of chapel for years!"

Home for Birthdays

The last weekend retreat of the fall season was cut short by an enormous snowfall which took out the power at camp. While the Dining Halls have generators, none of the cabins have a secondary power source and the temperature was predicted to drop to nearly zero on Saturday night. The difficult decision to end early was made when the power still had not returned by three-thirty Saturday afternoon. The campers were understandably disappointed but my family seemed delighted when I walked into the house on Saturday night rather than Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon we celebrated Zeke and Toby's joint birthdays. Toby enjoyed his birthday greatly - you can read more about it here. Zeke also seemed to have a good time, but he was understandably less vocal and less enthusiastic in his devouring of orange finger jello. I didn't manage to snag any pictures of Zeke - he cleverly distracted me with games - but here are some of four-year-old Toby.

He unexpectedly took a nap as part of his birthday.

He was exhausted.

When Toby woke up, he seemed rejuvenated.

Toby's energy gets transferred to his new bear - apparently it can't sit still for pictures.

Terrariums with Cherry

This afternoon, Cherry and I embarked on a terrarium-creating adventure. I embarked with a modicum of trepidation, as I am known neither for my craftiness nor my neatness. And terrariums have dirt as a main element - dirt, moss, and lizards (no reptiles were harmed in the making of these terrariums.)

Our ingredients await.

Dirt is amazing stuff. It's amazing how quickly it spreads.

We placed the dirt, more or less carefully, in the glasses.
One of us was more successful with the tidiness factor.
One of us scattered dirt across the counter.
I was the messy one.

We then took the moss and laid it gently on top of our soil.

Cherry's lizards lay peacefully on top of their moss, secure in their new homes.

My lizards tried to make a break for it.

Finally, all was completed. Pieces of springtime rest on the counter.

PG arrived home to be greeted by our terrariums.
He was intrigued, "Is this what's for dinner? Lizard pie?"

Cherry and I both, I believe, enjoyed our adventure greatly. The dirt resides within its boundaries, the lizards remain where placed, and all is well. All photo credit goes to Cherry. Read her blog post about our time at http://chirpchirpcherry.blogspot.com/2012/03/fun-with-friends.html
photo credit: Cherry

Mail Snippet

On Wednesday, I get the mail from town and then sort it into the staff boxes. Today I had a piece of mail addressed to :

Lee Brown

or Current Senior Pastor

I was fortunate enough to still be in the office when Lee came for his mail. He laughed delightedly.

Now he's on the phone across the hall telling someone about his mail and saying, "Look out, Paul Gardner!"

What do you do when you're home alone?

I don't really have much to say this week. It's been a fairly normal week. I cleaned, did the laundry, and said goodbye to Lydia. It was great fun having her visit for a week and very sad to see her go. Now my life looks like this:

This is me sitting all alone in my bare living room.

The Dalek and I notice an enemy in the distance . . .

Exterminate!

Ok, so my life is not quite like that, but doesn't that look fun? Living alone this season has been a little different, and often, a little too quiet. However, I do leave the house occasionally and socialize with others. And sometimes people come and stay with me on the weekends. The past two weekends have been packed with friends, fun, and very late nights. This upcoming weekend brings two friends - Claire and Clara (yeah, that won't be confusing) - so the fun continues.

There are only two winter retreats remaining, so thoughts have begun to turn to summer and summer preparations. HIS-Ability week is already completely full and Lee Brown has had me start to work on the oodles of necessary paperwork.

Staffing interviews for summer are in full swing. I believe we have over fifty applications that have been submitted. We're still praying for male counselors - we only have about eight applications - and piano players - zero applications. However, yesterday at Staff Fellowship, we were told that the need for female counselors has been met by an influx of applications and that need has about been filled at this point :)

Where on Barakel property can you spot this fellow?

an assortment of stories

My apologies for the lack of a post last week. As a traditional procrastinator, I kept putting it off from day to day until I ran out of days. Since this was brought to my attention, I have kept careful track of my weekend in order to have the maximum number of amusing incidents to relate to you.

My Friday evening in the Skate Hut was brightened both by the arrival of my sister, Lydia, and the amusing statements of a staff kid who has asked to remain anonymous. I offered a name change and the offer was eagerly accepted, so for the purpose of this blog post, the staff kid in question shall be known as Wendell.

Wendell eagerly informed the Skate Hut occupants of the susceptibility of Native Americans to our diseases. At first, we were in complete agreement with this. Then, we realized that Wendell meant their current susceptibility, not their historical - i.e. when European settlers brought over smallpox. We attempted to explain that the reason for the vulnerability was due to the isolation of the Native Americans from the Europeans.

Wendell apparently accepted this, but then queried, “What about in Montana?”

Laughter.

Wendell waited for the laughter to die down. “Canada?”

Saturday afternoon brought guests to my house. Having been trained in proper hostess behaviour, I offered them beverages and snacks. Kevin accepted a muffin. We carried merrily on with our conversation until it was interrupted by gagging sounds from Kevin.

I spun.

He held out the muffin, missing a single bite. The bite was missing both from the muffin and the surrounding wrapper.

My failures as a hostess instantly became clear. Always remove the muffin papers. It will help your unwary guests.

As mentioned earlier, my sister is visiting me for the week. She, Naomi, and I enjoyed a cosy sleepover on Sunday night. A regularly intermittent beep provided the only strident interruption. We endured it throughout the night. However, when morning brought no cessation, our sanity became threatened.

The great beep hunt began.

The first suspect was the smoke alarm conspicuously situated, white against the knotty pine, on the paneled ceiling. It demonstrated its silence quite convincingly.

We spread throughout the house, and even into the connecting hall of the triplex. Nothing. The beep continued. We listened intently, casting about for the source and finally met by the back wall. Nothing was there. No sign of anything that could beep.

Inspiration flashed across Naomi's face. She reached out and opened a cabinet, formerly hidden, disguised by the pattern of the paneling. She rooted through the cabinet and brought out the culprit - another smoke alarm. There was much rejoicing.

And that was pretty much my weekend. I did the usual work. Campers had the usual amount of fun. A good time was had by all.

Teen retreats this weekend!

As of approximately ten o'clock this morning, I am ServSafe certified. Everyone who eats my food can now rest comfortably knowing that I am aware of food safety regulations.

Also, I have been gently informed that I must blog about my birthday. Last Thursday was my birthday. My friends, Nathan and Amanda, made the trek from Auburn Hills to shower me with cake, magnets, and broken TARDIS mugs. The brokenness of the mugs, I should say, was no fault of theirs. The mugs were shipped improperly and rightly protested such rough treatment. I missed being home for my birthday and being with my family. But Nathan and Amanda are family - generous, loving family that remembers my fondness for tiramisu. It was wonderful to have them here - I am so grateful for them.

This is a delicious tiramisu cake.

I won't specify my age - that would be unlady-like. But if you pay attention to the pictures, you just might be able to figure it out.

Title

Teen retreats were a ton of fun. I split my time between the Skate Hut and the Ski Haus. The heater in the Ski Haus is broken. I was going to hope it would be fixed by this weekend, but now I am too busy hoping that there will be snow for this weekend. We are experiencing a bit of a thaw. Only a bit of one. It's basically taking away the snow and leaving behind sheets of ice.

Fun story involving ice. Today I drove to Bake Day. Many other people also drove to Bake Day. I parked my car in the parking lot. So did other people. So far, all is normal. After Bake Day, I looked out the window and saw that my car was now snuggled up to the silver car next to it. And the silver car was being quite friendly with the blue car on its other side. We have the kind of ice that parked cars slide across.

In other news, Lydia Baker cut my hair.

My apologies for the photo quality and the expression. I am unable to look unironic when taking my own picture. I tried to get pictures from different angles, but my camera firmly expressed its disinterest.

Snow and Friends

Camp's plethora of snow meant that it was the inaugural weekend for the ski trails, and the Ski Haus. I spent a busy saturday stacking skis and knotting boots back together. The morning was quiet, but the after lunch rush was insane.

If you are interested in skiing here, I would recommend renting in the morning - then you'll be set for the rest of the day and not have to wait in line with the ninety other people who decided to rent skis right after lunch. Just a friendly hint.

I really enjoyed the Ski Haus. Fortunately. I'm scheduled to spend my entire Saturday there again this weekend.

This weekend, I also enjoyed a visit from Amanda and Claire. We frolicked together in the snow. None of us had ever been snowshoing before, so Amanda and Claire convinced me that it would be a grand adventure and that we all needed to go together. They are persuasive people.

This is Claire, buckling on snowshoes for the very first time.

This is Amanda. It looks like she's putting snowshoes on but she's actually taking them off.


Claire and me not falling over.

Three snowshoes! And snow!

I can now cheerfully recommend snowshoing to any eager inquirers.
We had a great weekend together.

I can hardly wait for them to come back.

Wait.

Amanda is already back.

I have good friends.

Yes, I'm the shortest.

A couple of weeks ago, the seasonal staff was stripped of their coats and bundled into the cold outdoors. Tthe amazing BAM (check out her site http://bamphotography.zenfolio.com/) snapped her shots of our frozen smiles. PG has now passed along one of the pictures taken on that fateful day. This is it . . . the official group shot of Camp Barakel's current seasonal staff . . .

Note: we did not deliberately dress to match. We are naturally that co-ordinated.

Just a short update today. Faithful readers will notice that, on the right side of the page, I've added links to the blogs of the other seasonal staff people. Read away!

More snow fell this morning. This means that I will finally be redeeming the time spent training me for work in the ski haus. There is also much excitement, at least I am excited, because Amanda and Claire are going to be working/visiting for the weekend. Such fun!

More Snow

It's snowing!

We are currently being blessed once more with an abundance of snow.

My adventure for the day was when my car, despite being in park, decided that it would slide backwards down the icy hill. Naturally, this worried me. I hopped back into the car, having partially disembarked, and attempted to insert some control into the slide. Reuben and Dave Douglas rushed out of the house to assist and guided me in backing the car safely down the rest of the hill. Good times were had by all.

The Directors' meeting was today. In the conference room at the program center, there is now taking place the after-directors' meeting meeting. Lee Brown, Jeremy, and Jon Ford are all squeezed in there together, clustered around the one small table. In the words of Kevin Pierpont, a fellow seasonal staffer, "It looks like they're having a meeting about the paper-cutter" You can read more words from Kevin at http://kpont.com/

The Snow is Here! And so are the ovens!

Ignore my last post about the lack of snow. The snow decided to start sticking. This morning I woke up to a world dripping in white. I slogged my way to the East Side kitchen for food prep, thrilled with the prospect of tubing and skiing. Well, I would like to go tubing. Probably not skiing. I feel like that takes more coordination that I possess.

For those that don't know, there was a small electrical fire issue on East Side last week and the old ovens had to go. New ones were ordered but did not arrive until this morning. Once they did, a highly entertaining scene ensued:

For the first hour, a few men stood around looking serious and discussing strategy in low voices. The members of the group changed every once in a while, perhaps so they could include every possible male perspective. The in-depth discussion eventually concluded and they moved on to the next step.

This involved recalling some of the previously departed group members so that as many people as possible could squish around the ovens as they lifted them, one at a time, and squeezed through the door into the kitchen. I counted seven gathered around the oven, but only five supporting the weight. The other two orbited around the group, offering supervision and advice.

The two ovens made it safely into the kitchen and the group dissolved. Hopefully at least one of them is planning to come back to hook the ovens up.

I made it back home after food prep and was delighted to find that someone had kindly shoveled off my porch for me. That's one of the wonderful things about Camp; people caring for each other.

Snow, but no snow

Snowflakes fall gently from the sky, land on the mud and grass, and then disappear. It's a disappointing sight for any who were hoping to tube this weekend, but even with no snow, a fun schedule is all set. Ask the retreaters last weekend. They didn't have snow either, but they seemed to be having a good time.

Currently, I am wrestling with a spreadsheet that someone tried to update - unsuccessfully. And they did it in the most unsuccessful way possible, sorting only the second column alphabetically so that now people's first names are no longer with their last names or their other information. I'm not sure what else they did, but the information is only sometimes with the last name. This means I have to go through line by line and make corrections. Barakel jobs are always glamourous.

Speaking of glamour, I'm off to mail these awards. I will package them glamourously into their envelopes and send them glamourously on their way.

An Exciting Day

Twenty-four hours into the winter retreat season, I have managed to consistently display my habitual dainty grace. I walked my leg into a trailer-hitch, tried to cut my eye with a seatbelt, and did a complete wipe-out -- of course with a witness -- on the hill down from the office. Thankfully, I have a protective as well as sovereign God and I remain unhurt - with only a bit of healthy embarrasment and a slight limp.