What a glorious Friday the 13th =)

So last night I booked my reservation for canyoning in Switzerland and I am so excited for it! If you look up Saxeten canyoning there are some great videos! It was a little pricey but so worth it… I consider it a birthday present to myself since we are doing it August 11^th! Last night I also booked our hostel for Paris… it’s about 4 miles from the Eiffel Tower and you either have to rbing your own sheets or rent them for 2 Euro… but it was really the only place left with availability for 5 people.

Today is Friday the 13^th and I can just see things going so bad today. It started off that this morning it was raining and I didn’t really want to bike in the rain (because today I did not have a spilt shift, I worked 9-5:30 so I figured I would still get up at 6 and go to them gym beforehand). But I made some adjustments, and since my roommate already left, I did an insanity workout in my room. It was only 30 minutes of abs… but it’s better than nothing I guess.

So I was actually surprised how amazing today went. It was a training holiday today so only 33 kids in total showed up. Because the numbers were so low, most of the permanent staff went home. I ended up running the technology camp, but because of the malfunction they couldn’t finish their real project. So with the 6 kids in the camp, I had them do 30 minutes of computer game time and then 30 minutes of games and team building activities. That kid I talked about, the one who wouldn’t realize he was being a bully until it was too late, he gave me a hug today and it was awesome. He was in such a good mood and was having a really good day… and at least with me there were no behavior problems. All six of the kids even had a lot more fun playing the games than being on the computer, which I think is great. I think what really helped was after the permanent staff gave them a huge lecture about respecting me and telling me I can just ignore the bad kids and all that stuff, I gave them a talk about how I respect everything the staff says but they should know with me every day is a new day, they can mess up yesterday and I won’t hold it against them today and that I rather solve the problems going on than sit people out and ignore them. So I got really close with that group and had a lot of fun with them. Anneke and I even gave them a great run for their money with the game called Black Magic. In this game tow people can “read each other’s minds” and we told the kids this is a special trick we learn to do at Camp Adventure training… so any camp counselor can read another camp A staff’s mind. One leaves the room and then all the kids pick an object in the room. When the staff comes back, the other counselor asks them “is it this? Is it this?” and keeps asking and the counselor finally says yes it’s the object after a black one is asked about (hence the reason it’s called black magic…. If that description makes any sense). The kids were starting to catch on so they asked us to do it without asking the questions… that if I am really that good I should be able to close my eyes and think of an object and Anneke will just know it. Well with a few quick glances of Anneke looking at something I knew what to “think about and send to her using telepathy” and I would whisper in the kids ears what object I had in mind. When Anneke guessed right more than a few times, the kids were absolutely amazed! It was funny and really cool to start getting close to the kids.

Today I also had my first Bratwurst. It was chicken instead of pork and I had it on the cool brea doyu put it in (I forget what it’s called) and it was really good. Once again I am so amazed at the food they eat at the center! We also had fresh baked cookies for snack… Omg did I ruin the workout I did this morning! They were so good!

I am also now taking over large group activity every Friday for the rest of my time here and I havr to say, I was really nervous… but today went really well. I first had them play a game I learned in my PE class. It’s a tag game, but when they get tagged, instead of being out, they do some sort of exercise like 25 jumping jack, 10 sit ups, etc. They kids loved it! And it kept the game going for a really long time (because you have to get tagged three times before you are actually out). Then I had the play TNT (yes SNC… I am stealing all of our camp games... and songs) and it actually went great. I was worried about playing this dodge ball type game and worried about all the fighting and cheating going on, but when I actually joined the game and played with them, the kids didn’t cheat or complain or fight at all. It was amazing! And everyone said it was their new favorite game (I mean come on… it’s everyone’s favorite game). It was overall such a wonderful Friday the 13^th. I haven’t decided if I am doing anything tonight because I really just want to sleep since we are leaving for Belgium at 5:00 am! So have an amazing weekend everyone! I will update you on Sunday night (for me… Sunday morningish for you). =)