Time for a talk...

Last night was the craziest storm I have ever been seen in my entire life! The thunder was so loud and crazy it woke me up in a dead sleep and I swear it sounded like bombs going off! Our room totally shook! And when the lightning flashed, everything whited out for a few seconds! It was so bright! And the rain! Oh my god you would think we had a loud ac unit running next to us or that a fire hydrant broke open! It was pouring! I could not believe how loud it was! I thought for sure that our area would flood and then we wouldn’t be able to get to work. Sadly, that dream didn’t come true at all!

But this morning work started off pretty well. All this kids were actually happy with singing and dancing at Blitz and we were all able to have a lot of fun and start the morning off right. I was also able to talk to a child about behavior and he spoke to me about how he really doesn’t even realize he is being a bully until it goes too far. It was nice to feel like he was actually opening up to me as well as listening to my advice. I worked out a deal about coming and just venting and talking to me whenever he needs someone and that I will never judge or get mad about what he says, as long as we are finding better and nice solutions to his problems than verbal and physical bullying.

On my split I went down to the train station and got my Eurorail pass activated so that I can go to Belgium this weekend! I was also even brave enough to ask for an itinerary for the weekend we want to go to Switzerland! I feel like I am gaining a lot more confidence and independence here, especially in a really intimidating place! Germans don’t really smile or say please and thank you a lot. It makes them seem rude and harsh, but I know that don’t mean it that way. But yeah to be able to ask for help and figure out what certain words mean in German is really cool.

Then this afternoon was so draining. Two of the staff members got sick so the Camp Adventure staff needed to take over large group activity. No one really had any ideas, so I thought it would be fun to try and play apples with them but I couldn’t even get a word in. It was so bad and everyone was yelling and frustrated and cheating. Anneke tried to switch it up with elbow tag, but she couldn’t even get them to partner up. So we finally had to have them sit and have a talk with them about how we are here to have fun with them, but that we can’t do that if they keep acting like this. I think they kind of understood what we were trying to get at, so hopefully now they will respect us and will have fun when we plan things (that way we can actually enjoy work as well… because right now… we are not enjoying it at all). But right after that talk I got moved to the Kinder room and they too were a disaster! It was screaming and throwing things… literally like a scene from Kindergarten cop. I thought I was going to snap! And I almost did! This one girl who just cries for attention and thinks she’ll be catered to if she cried, I told her she whimpers one more time and I am talking to whoever picks her up…. She straightened up real quick. It was such a trying day. It really drained me. I am looking forward to just relaxing tonight and sleeping in tomorrow because it’s field trip day. Tomorrow is going to be extremely hard too because it’s another amusement park and now I will have a group by myself.  There’s also a rumor I won’t have split shift anymore… I am kind of sad if that’s true because then I will have to try to fit in gym time again =( Well now it’s time to rest. Thank goodness the day is over!