A View from Page

Hey all. Checking in from camp again. Things are going great and it is now a week until half-season here at camp. Soon new campers will be arriving and things will really pick up again.

Anyway… I sat down for lunch today and was thinking about what might be interesting to blog about when I realized the answer was sitting on the plate directly in front of me. Food. Bates food and camp food are not very similar. In fact, there is no doubt that the quality of the food,  the variety of options at every meal, and the diversity of cousine is better at Bates than here at camp. However there is one striking similarity. The love of chicken patties.

At Bates we have chicken patties every Saturday for lunch. At camp we have chicken patties once a week too (although here they are called ‘chicken bombers’), The ‘bombers’ are the one food that truly reminds me of food back at Bates. It makes me miss the new dining hall and the delicious food that we are lucky to have every day. Last year at camp, the summer before I attended Bates, a counselor here who was already at Bates excitedly told me of the chicken patty tradition on campus. It wasn’t until this summer that I truly understood the connection.

I guess camp food has been getting to me a little bit and I am looking for an excuse to think of the amazing Bates food. Either way I can’t wait to get back to campus to enjoy some more excellent chicken patties. Until next time…

I hope everyone’s summer has been going well. I forgot to post the pictures earlier but here are the ones that I promised about a week ago. It is pretty nice to wake up to this every morning and to watch the sunset every evening. Until next time…

Hey all. Sorry for the lack of posts of late. Getting access to the internet to post blogs at an outdoor summer camp has proved to be just as difficult as it sounds. Anyway here goes…

Camp has been beyond great. The campers in my tent are all friendly, helpful, funny, active kids from all over the world. Teaching the campers baseball and soccer has been a lot of fun. It can be a bit challenging when the kids only want to play games and not work on skills and do drills but other than that working with the kids has been a blast. They are energetic and willing to learn.

Everything else about camp has been great too. The staff are all excellent at teaching their respective activities and are fun people to hang out with. The food has been great (not Bates great but as good as camp food can be) and I helped coach some campers to a 4-3 soccer victory against another camp just the other day.

The weather has been a bit unstable. Rain and thunderstorms have cancelled a few of the activity periods and evening programs but the weather has been getting better the last day or two. And as they say in Maine, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

Until next time…

Hey all. Orientation and camp training came to an end today and tomorrow the campers will arrive. The last couple of days were filled with more physical work and staff training to prepare us counselors how to deal with the campers in all situations.

I am very excited for the campers to come. It has been fun hanging out with all the counselors but it will be even more fun once the campers arrive and activitiy teaching begins. Once the kids arrive the dining hall here is going to get kind of wild… much like the dining hall at Bates around lunch time. I will keep you all posted of the happenings here at camp. Hope everyone is enjoying summer! Until next time…

Hey all. I have now been up at camp for about a week and everything is in full swing. The campers arrive on Wednesday so everyone is working hard to get the camp up and ready for opening day.  My days have been filled with CPR/AED training and physical labor (hanging banners, moving trunks, etc.). 

Readjusting to living in Maine again has been fairly easy. I am only about an hour from the Bates campus so in some ways I feel like I never left. It has been awesome catching up with the other counselors. I have known many of them for years and it is great to be able to see them again and pick up from where we left off. The staff at Winona comes from all over the world so it is really cool to be able to chat with counselors about the cultural, social, and political differences between our respective countries. Already I have had conversations with staff from Sweden, Australia, Ireland, England, and Colombia. Being exposed to so many people from different countries reminds me of Bates where I have met so many great people from all over the world.

The fun will continue in the next couple days and soon the campers will arrive. Until then I will continue to enjoy my down time and will hang out with the other counselors, play pick-up games of basketball and soccer, swim in the lake, and run. I took some great pictures looking out over beautiful Moose Pond. Unfortunately the internet at camp is not allowing me to upload them but I will get them up as soon as possible. Until next time…

Hey all. Some of you might remember my blog about the spring clambake and my day at Popham Beach. Well, a few days ago I went to the coast again to enjoy the sun and sand. This time I headed to Jones Beach, a huge state park beach in Wantagh, NY in Long Island. I went with a group of 4 of my friends and we enjoyed a day of fun and relaxation in the sun. We packed a lunch and spent the day hanging out. It was nice catching up with friends and just being able to chill out before I head up to Maine for my job.

Speaking of heading up to camp, I am leaving tomorrow. Of course I haven’t packed yet… once again I am putting things off until the last minute. I am going to bring my computer up to camp and will use it when I can. I should still be able to blog at least once a week and probably twice a week so stay tuned.

Until then here are some pictures from the beach that my friend’s Janine and Michelle took!

(Me Sleeping on the beach)

CHECK OUT THE PICTURES PAGE ABOVE FOR MORE PICTURES FROM THE DAY!

Hey all. I’m back for another update. The weather in NY the past few days has been a bit of a mixed blessing. I am loving the beautiful, sunny weather (it was more than 90°F the past 2 days) but the humidity has been killer. It makes me miss the cooler and drier weather at Bates. Weather aside, I had a great weekend. Matt, my friend from Bates whose pictures can often be seen on this blog, came down from New England for a few days. It was nice hanging out with a fellow Batesie and we also met up with another mutual friend from school for a little Bates reunion.

Other than that, everything has been pretty calm and relaxed around here. I have been catching up with some reading, dealing with some final preparations for camp, and of course spending quality time with family and friends.

A week from tomorrow I head back up to Maine to start my summer job as a counselor at Camp Winona and I am getting very excited… I am enjoying my time home before I head back to the great state of Maine. Until next time…

Be on the lookout for some summer pictures in the next few days!

Hey all. Not too much news to report but I did want to keep you all updated with my summer plans. I head back up to Maine in about 2 weeks to begin my summer job as a counselor at a camping/sports camp. It will be my 9th summer (2nd as a counselor) at the camp in Bridgton, about an hour drive from Bates. I will be working with campers ranging in age between 11-13 which should be a blast.

Until then I am just trying to enjoy home. My extended family was here last weekend and it was great to see them. I have been spending a great deal of time with my family and friends and of course have been sleeping copious amounts. Yesterday I went back to my high school with a friend to visit one of my former teachers and to roam the hallways and reminisce. The whole experience was strange. It was weird being back in a place that was so familiar just a year ago but to now feel so out of place. Still it was nice to go back and see some friendly faces.

It is great to be back home but of course I am missing Bates and my friends there. Until next time…

I can’t believe my first year at Bates is over. The year was incredible. I met tons of new people, learned more than I could have imagined, and took advantage of as many activities and events as was possible. I can’t wait until next year when the college journey continues. Until then check out my new updated ‘Pictures from Bates‘ page which is now more organized and should be much easier to navigate.

I will continue to blog regularly over the summer so stay tuned. As I explained in my last blog, I will be working at a summer camp about an hour from campus this summer. Bates will still be on the brain and I will try to keep you up to date with my summer adventures and relate them to everything I have learned and experienced at Bates this year.

I have only been home for a few days and although I am missing Bates already it has been great to be back home with my family and hanging out with my high school friends. My mom has been on my case about unpacking all my bags and college stuff but it is tough to motivate myself. Until next time… 

Picture that my mom took of my unpacked bags:

Hey all. Can’t believe short term is coming to an end. I will be heading home in 2 days. Short term has flown by. It seems like just yesterday I was writing that short term was halfway through. Even though this amazing time is coming to an end I have no regrets. I feel like I took advantage of everything short term had to offer: I went skiing, went to the beach, enjoyed outdoor concerts, took an interesting class, hung out with friends on the quad, went camping, watched fireworks, and relaxed.

I will miss Bates but I am excited to go home and tell all my friends about school. I will be back up in Maine just 3 weeks after I leave to work as a counselor at summer camp about an hour from Bates. It will be nice to be close by Bates and before I know it I will be back on campus. As this incredible year comes to an end I am already looking forward to next year. I guess rather than looking too far ahead I should enjoy my last 2 days. I should really get packing though…