Things to do when i get home

1.Skid more

2.Get drunk and fuck to Led Zepplin (possible chat up line)

3.Wallow in porn

Neon plastic cord

O.D. is when you look after the sleeping children while your co-councillor enjoys an evening of sanity elsewhere. What it basically amounts too is, your left sitting outside in the dark for three hours just in case a cabin wakes up for an impromptu sumo match. This is not as bad as it sounds, after spending a day with children round you every second, shouting, teasing, cajoling, moaning, laughing, negotiating, and whining, you learn to appreciate the peace.

Not that there is quiet, at the moment I can hear; a barrage of squick squick sounds that the consensus agree are insects (although I think they sound a little like magpies that live in my loft back home), the hum of the light above the steps, the collective sound of thirty boys sleeping and the lake lapping at the rocks

I am both amazed and cynically unsurprised that a group of growns complete lack of ability too get on when put in a confined space. I am starting to feel like a freak because I like and get on everyone here (and am well liked if people are to be believed). *sigh* maybe I should pick a fight too fit in? Nah fitting in was never really my style. I like everyone and if they don't like that, screw em,

sidenote; The Steves have gone and I miss them

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Today I stopped an eight year old from hanging herself, she had tied on end of a skipping rope to the monkey bars and the other round her neck announcing to a gathering crowd that she was sick of people picking on her. Now I'm pretty sure it was just an extravagant gesture, more for the crowds' benefit. My mind cant help fast forward to the possible future where she trips and I am too late. I have the image stuck in my head of her struggling at the tightening neon cord. Why would an eight-year-old do that? Afterwards she clung to my leg and sobbed, shaking like a beaten dog, pleading not to be sent home scared of being with her mom, I'll say that again scared of being with her mom.

Sometimes in this job you have to go out of sight of the kids so they cant see you cry, I am aware that this may seem a little melodramatic but fuck you.

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In other news, I got called "the best international male councillor we've ever had" the other day and I am staggered by the compliment especially as I comes from a lady I respect so much. I though I was doing just an ok job nothing more but I suppose sometimes ok is a lot to expect.

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I have finally started to bond with the kids of this session; it started when doing their laundry (one of the five fucking thousand jobs I do per day). I looked at their little shorts and tiny socks and forgot about their big mouths and bigger attitude and realise how fragile these kids actually are, despite there egos and front. Its hard to stay mad at a child for being silly at dinner when you remember he is a ten year old in Power Ranger underwear and being silly at dinner is in his job description.

54 mg

New arrivals! Yep third session begins, not a bad bunch again but remember Ibn? The one that got sent home? Well his brother is here now, in my cabin, he is on even more meds than his malevolent sibling- 54 mgs of Concetia twice a day (to put things in perspective 18 mgs is a strong dose). This does not bode well.

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I also have a bunch of wild kittens move in under the rocks on my archery range, they seem completely indifferant to the screaming banshees with pointed projectiles and spend most of there time staring at us with feline indifferance, to save confusion I have decided to name them all Steve.

not being able too read

I feel bloated and dirty but a major buying jag hangover normally feels worse- guilt headaches, lethargy jitters and existential depression. I spent yesterday on south street in Philly, it has the same sort of vibe as Camden in London and I bought a bunch of stuff (see below) including a badly needed but poorly executed hair cut.

A new session starts tomorrow and things need to start getting easier, the burnout I had about Thursday last week has left an empty echo whenever I try to think about it and a feeling of dread I can't shake.

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Today I understand why they call dyslexia "word blindness". I was at a bookstore, not truly savouring the experience as usual because I was being picked up but I knew what I wanted. Rushing round I came to the appropriate section, first I scan the books looking for the authors names but I realise I cant focus on any of the text, I try again slower this time, but the words are too small or packed together too close because my eyes wont stay on any of them, it was just a fucking blur. All at once feeling frustrated and humiliated I call Harry for help fighting back tears, call it bullshit macho pride if you must, that shit stings like a dry slap on a cold day.

Stuff

2 x 25 packs of helium quality 9" round balloon
4oz Net Wt of Pixy Stix
7oz Net Wt of Jolly Rancher
Non-Aspirin extra strength 500 mg
12 AA Energizer Max batteries
Colgate MaxFresh cinnamint with breath strips
A white and black truckers cap
Clairol Herbal Essences maximum blond XLI
Garnier 100% couler BlueBlack
2x Hello Kitty PEZ dispensers
silver and blue lucha wrestling mask
Right Guard xtreme sport-chill with power caps
Purple Posterman paint pen
6 smiley rave face fridge magnets
Teenage hipster in a modern world by Mark Jacobson
Tuck everlasting by Natile Babbit
Penguin caffinated peppermints 1.75 oz
A mystery CD- Chromeo, she's in control (v cheap)
CD Black by popular demand, various (vvv cheap)
CD Warped tour '05, various
Wired magazine July '05

Bow spree

The kids finally left today which is a day and a half after my patience, another day of them and it would of ended up me losing my shit altogether. In my dark fantasies I'm painting the kid's faces to look like apples and going on a William Tell-esque bow spree.

I'm feeling grotty and unwashed on a train to Newark surrounded by a variety of commuters who, like most American's, are looking less and less foreign every time I wake up here.

Bloody kids

My patience ran out about an hour ago, I just want rid of these bloody kids, they go home tomorrow and I think they sense that we don't have anything else to threaten them with. The evil little sharks can smell the blood in the water any wrong move or sign of weakness will set off a feeding frenzy that I don't have the energy to survive.

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TG is vexing me again she runs hot and cold as randomly as the showers here, but her life is a little more *cough* complicated shall we say, so I guess all I can do is wait.

Beaten spleen

The days are getting quicker as things are getting easier, pity I have to start again with a fresh batch of Ritalin munching ghetto monsters Monday

My friend, Harry, is on antibiotics because of a bad reaction to a spider bite, pretty much his entire triceps has swollen and red like a beaten spleen. Being the concerned friend that I am, I'm trying to convince him he has lymes disease, telling him he will soon be incontinent and be so brain damaged he will have the working memory of an old lamp.

The weekend is so close I can almost taste the Jack Daniels, I'm planning to buy a big bottle, about the size of a boat, crawl inside and not come out until Monday.

can i just say, it turns out he DID have lymes disease, despite being told by the nurse and the hospital it wasnt. He only found this out a month later when he passed out in Washington DC.

28 stings

Today I heard a group of six year old girls being attacked by a swarm of hornets, it sounded like….., well there's no other way of describing it, it sounded exactly how you imagine a group of six year olds being attacked hornets would sound. One of the sounds I hope I will forget in time but really know I never will.

P.S. the girls are ok we got to them quickly, between eight girls a total of 28 stings.

Small pond

Everything is sorted now (last post) I wont bore you or myself with typing the details, I will say that this is a very small pond with some very big fish and emotion are running x20 because of the stress of the job.

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One of my kids got sent home last night. Drove away at eleven, Ibn was determined to run away from camp and because this camp is situated in the middle of the type of forest that would eat a child dead within 20 minutes we had no choice but to take him home.

I've been constantly reassured that it's not my fault but I'm not so sure. I suppose its knocking the Robin Williams-dead-poets-society-perfect-teacher fantasy I had before meeting the kids. Ibn is one of seven, being looked after by an elderly aunt, he is on twice as many meds as any human needs to be on (which is probably half as many as he needs).

Skanky

"Everytime you touch me I feel skanky" That Girl (TG) I have been seeing told me that last night, I don't really want to talk about it I just wanted it on record somewhere..

the best councilor in the fucking world

This happened today, I see a young girl crying, seven maybe eight years old. Not just scraped-my-knee crying I mean really sobbing (you remember the ones as a kid where you crying so hard you didn't know where to put the breaths so you end up hyper-ventilating? No? Me neither, I never cried like that, I think my sister did yeah that's it my sister, but defiantly not me crying is for girls). Anyway this child was crying
"what's the matter, darling?" I ask (I called all the girls darling, cos I never remembered there names), she looks up and says "all the other girls are teasing me because I miss my mom"
"that's ok" I say suddenly becoming supercounciller, I give a little cuddle (the side to side US government ok'ed cuddle, not the deviant front to front kind forbidden at camp)
"lots of people miss there mommys, that's probley why there teasing you because they miss there mommys too, we all get to see them real soon though." *yes* I think *I am the best councilor in the fucking world, I wonder if there is a trophy?*
" I wont" and she starts to sob again "my mommy is in prison and I'm worried I wont see her again"

Shit

What do you say to that? Feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, I cuddle a bit harder and try not to cry myself. Nothing worse than having to cash a reality cheque written by a 8 year old.
Working with these kids is hard hard work, but that's ok, they deserve it, most of they live hard hard lives.

Furry sports car

New set of kids now, they appear to be better this time but I'm sure they will start acting all crazy like as soon as they have settled in and got there bearings. I've also gained a bat living in our shed's roof, we've called him Steve.

Last night wasn't a bad one compared with the first night of last session, mind you I wouldn't call most nights during the blitz bad after the first night of last session. Something did happen though, in the middle of the night about 2pm, a dense but energetic child called Elliot needed to go to the bathroom, shaking me awake I told him to "just go" so he promptly did, in the wrong direction.

Now its worth bearing in mind that the bathroom block is a long and menacing walk away and its not uncommon for kids to nip round the back of the cabin and pee on a tree, a practice strictly frowned on by most as the cabin end up smelling like piss in the sun. So I, being the child loving Mary Poppins-esque character that I am, decide to teach our erstwhile micrinator a lesson by sneaking up on him and scaring the bejeezus out of him. So, using all the ninja techniques I've gained from poorly dubbed films, I start my sneaking, on my way a buck runs past me so fast and close that I only know what happened by the smell, the glimpse of antler and the echo of hooves, that bastard jugganuat could have hit me so I stay hurt, it would have like being hit by a furry sports car.

Elloit took it completely in his stride as only a half dreaming 10 year old boy can and escorted me back. I swear the bat squeaking coming from Steve sounded like giggling.

Mammon

"Another rant about American consumerism- how original" says Harry, somewhat scathingly I feel, but to be fair to the man, he had just had to put up with me calling a passer-by a "bloated worshiper of Mammon" for the third time. But its not my fault you see, I was in the third ring of hell on the hottest day of the season. The sign out side called it a "outlet village" but you cant blag a blagger, I was full of Starbucks coffee and self loathing (mainly for give that green bitch my money), but the coffee was sharpening me up and I was externalising my self-disgust quite nicely.

basically this place is a consumerist theme park, each ride a name brand retailer with discount prices, a place where parents can teach there fat kids the joys of needing shit they don't really want, these bloated bastards were actually treating it like a day out. Its as soul-less and contrived as a theme park with painted borders, bland pop piped in through tinny speakers, coke machine on every corner, and a fucking shuttle bus to carry you to the car you parked no further than 50 meters away.

In a futile effort to stop me losing my mind, I found a bookstore (the only one) the staff were as surprised to have a customer as I wasn't by their lack of trade.

When did shopping become a day out? Take this mediated, contrived, soul-less shopping "experience" food court and all burn the place to the fucking ground and blow the ashes up your arse.

grimindifferancists

Someone has just told me there has been terrorist attacks in London, the power is out here so I cant get anymore news and its making me sick, I have gone from reading 2-3 newspapers a day and full internet access to nothing, total information blackout. Some of my freinds and family could be dead and I'm sitting here in the fucking woods worrying about a ten year olds insect bite.

I'm not really a betting man, but as a long shot, the French wouldn't have been a bad shout for responsabilty, they really wanted that Olympic cheese.

I feel like I'm thirteen again right now, we had a bomb scare every week at school then, no real explanation, just an uneasy sense of danger, images of nailbomb attacks in the news, and my dad going white and still if the conversation ever mentions the Birmingham pub bombings, he has told me since that he was supposed to be there that night, the pub was a local of his, only a fluke saved him and his friends lives because they met somewhere else.

Sometimes when in a pub or bar, if I let my mind wander, I try to imagine what it would be like, I see a flash, I see bits of wood and bone in the air, I imagine a deafening bang being the last sound I hear, dead limbs and a cloud of dust.

So who to blame this time? The Irish? I don't think so, those guys turn professional long ago, protection rackets and arms, forgot "the cause" and took up "the cash". Who blows up a bus? And the top deck at that? Not the Irish, they were good at what they did, Christ that almost sounded like praise, I suppose if we are to be terrorized the least we could ask for is competence.

don't we actually have to be scared of them for them to be classed as terrorists, knowing the British public the most these jokers could hope to be called is grimindifferancists.

this, as all of these posts, was written on the dates indicated and typed-up later.

a little less satanic possession

"I wish we had Harry", I laughed it off at the time but those words hit me like a kick to the ovaries. Harry is the other councilor for the bunk age and those words where said by one of the attitude filled, ritalin dependent, mouth monsters I had just spent the last two days trying to "bond" with.

I feel like the worse counselors in the world right now, if Gary glitter met Michael Jackson at a John Wayne Gacy themed party I would still pick thoses guys to look after the kids over me. Getting them to act like civilised human beings is a uphill struggle *sigh* I don't know what I was expecting, maybe I was counting on a cool accent and a good sense of humour to bluff me through, maybe I presumed a little less satanic possession of the kids.

Even the thing I was confident on is hard work. Khalid Mohammad is the name of my first and only archery injury in three years of teaching, I'm thankful that it was just a scratch on the knee rather than a chest piercing or eye kebab.

Last night one of my kids was pretending to cough (after a lights out funny noise rebellion) so hard that it made him puke. i dutyfully cleaned it up, took him to wash his mouth out and put him back to bed making sure he was ok.

2 minutes later i hear *cough*

bastard