Forget "Summer Lovin"; I'm lovin' summer!

I've been at Camp Kamaji for just over a week now, and I am infinitely impressed by it. I am boring my fellow counselors with accounts of how "my camp" did things differently. It's not that I thought the Language Villages were better but actually that they were not quite as good! Don't get me wrong; I loved my El Lago del Bosque and Al Waha days (I should mention, too, that the two serve different purposed and aim to achieve different things), but I already think Kamaji is so much better...and campers aren't even here yet!

The many ways in which Kamaji has impressed me so far:

1. I will be a counselor in a cabin of seven 12-year olds and I have two - yes two! - co-counselors. I still can't get over that ratio. The cabin group right next to us also has three counselors with only six campers! Over as a camper at the language villages, I was perfectly pleased with the 8 to 1 camper: counselor ratio; I can only imagine how great it must be for campers here.

2. I was hired as a tennis instructor and cabin counselor, not as a we'll-put-you-in-whatever-activity-we-feel-like-whether-or-not-you're-qualified-to-teach-it instructor and cabin counselor. The counselors for each activity know enough about it and love it enough to have been comfortable applying for a job that has teaching that activity. This severely reduces the chances that a camper will know more about an activity than the counselor teaching it. It also almost eliminates the possibility that a camper would be more enthused about an activity than the counselor teaching it. Oh and did I mention that there are four tennis instructors? Yeah - you should be impressed. I doubt most of Kamaji's girls know just how valuable the activity program here is.

3. Windsurfing, canoeing, kayaking, climbing wall, low ropes course, sailing, water skiing, horseback riding, archery. All things I had never done before arriving here last week. All things campers get the chance to do while here at Kamaji. The activities here aren't your run-of-the-mill activities that most girls already take part in gym class. These are activities that you can't go to your local rec center and sign up for. Kamaji really does give girls the chance to experience something they couldn't experience at home.

4. The support system. Not only is the camper to counselor ratio great, there is an amazing support system in place. Counselors aren't expected to fix every problem that might cross their path. There are people here whose job is to help counselors problem solve, brain storm and be better at their jobs in general.

5. The days off system. Counselors have a full day and a full night off every week! Okay. I guess I don't really know if that's unusual, but it seems pretty darn great to me. That's 36/168 hours in a week; 21.4 percent of the summer; 3/14 of the contracted period. You get the point; it's a lot of time off. You get the sense that the directors of Kamaji really understand that, in order for campers to be happy, counselors have to be happy, and I'm definitely happy.

If you haven't picked up on it yet, the point of this post is that I'm already loving Kamaji. I feel like this is a place that is set up in a way that it can really influence young girls' lives. One more thing I haven't mentioned is that the camp is privately owned, meaning that the owners are the directors, meaning that the "head honchos" at camp have a vested interest in making it a good place. I would have loved to come here myself as a kid, but I'm equally - if not more - excited to be a part of what makes this place so special for girls.

Summer is around the corner...

...and I can't wait! I'll be teaching tennis at an all-girls summer camp this year. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm really looking forward to it. The camp looks like a great place, and it'll be nice to spend time on the tennis court this summer. I'm getting really nervous for India too. I have a pre-travel orientation coming up in a couple of weeks.

In other news, I played on my college's tennis team this year. I didn't really enjoy it at the beginning of the year. I only stayed with it because I thought it would be rude to quit mid-season. I've started to really enjoy it now though. I love the girls on the team, and I'll really miss them. We also have the best team in 15 years or something like that. We're 12 and 6 right now and by the end of the day we'll hopefully be 13 and 6. If we win today we will most likely be going on to the conference tournament which will be fun. I started the season at 4 singles, but then I switched mid-way to 3 singles. My record is 11 and 6 right now - not horrible, but it could have been better. I've played 2 doubles the entire season with Ashley, and we're 12 and 6. I'm pretty happy about that that one.

Back to Blogging

I've had a really hard time deciding whether or not I want to have a blog. There was never anything I'm not proud of on this blog, but I always worry about having any piece of myself or my thoughts on the internet. I've deleted this blog and then re-created it four times now. I'm a little sad that I got rid of my Egypt posts, but they're gone now so there's no point in whining.

I'm really excited for the next couple of years. I will be spending the fall 2009 semester in India on a Social Justice, Peace and Development program and then I'll head over to Chicago for an Urban Studies program in the spring of 2010. After that, I hope to transition to a political internship in D.C. for the fall 2010 semester before I return in the spring of 2011 for my final semester of college at Concordia. If my plans work out as I hope they do, by the time I graduate I will have spent four semesters on campus and four semesters off of it. This summer I've been hired to work as a cabin counselor and tennis instructor at a really great looking camp for girls called Camp Kamaji. I loved my camp experiences when I was younger and this one looks even better than the ones I went, so I can't wait. I figure I'll have lots of experiences over the next few years that I'll want to share so now is as good a time as any to revive my blog.

In case anyone actually reads this and is interested in the rest of my future goals, after graduation I'm hoping to go on to law school. As you probably know, law school is expensive. I've already decided I'll apply for a Rhodes scholarship, but those are hard to get, so I'm doing everything I can to prepare myself. After law school I'm hoping to be able to worm my way into politics somehow. I don't actually want to be a politican though; I'd like to be a foreign policy advisor or analyst. My dream job is secretary of state...we'll see how that goes...