The Kids Are Alright

It's been a week since the kids arrived at camp and this is the first opportunity I've had not only to sit down and blog, but sit down and write my unloved mother an email. I've been a little side-tracked by all things camp.

After spending seven days with the 2011 staff, it can feel like camp is just going to consist of the counselors and no one else. But once the kids arrive, the whole camp suddenly comes alive and it feels like the summer is really in full swing.

The girls in my bunk are an absolute riot and a completely different batch of girls from last year. Most of them are returners and feel more comfortable at camp than they do in their own homes. They like to talk about boys and Justin Bieber and their favourite brands of make-up and they try to unsuccessfully pry details about our personal lives out of us. They've created a completely different bunk vibe from my girls last year, which has helped in distinguishing one summer from another. Sometimes, they're so on the go that just watching them, let alone counseling them, sucks the energy right out of me. But for the most part, I love each of them and  will be very sad when they leave me at the end of the first four-week session.

This week has been all about the bonding. Having campers move into your bunk is like giving birth to a baby. You have to spend as much time as possible with them in those first few days of camp  in order to truly establish a relationship. Because my girls are desperate to know every single thing about me, that hasn't been a problem. We've made music together, talked about boys together, braided each other's hair and talked about the economical benefits of buying cheap nail polish versus the physical benefit of using expensive nail polish when the cheap nail polish cracks your cuticals.

But this first week hasn't just been about the campers. In my downtime, those couple of minutes where I find myself suddenly free, I head straight to the baby-grand and let some of the summer stress loosen on the ivories. I played in the counselor concert and despite having played so many gigs in the last eight months, I felt strangely nervous about being back on the Appel Farm stage, playing my own music. Somehow, that stage represents so much more to me than any other stage I've performed on this year.

After two weeks of being at camp, I finally had the day off today. A few friends (some old, some new) and I went to Philadelphia for the night, a trip which has left me more tired than when I left. But it was nice to be back in the city and feeling like a person with her own life, rather than being immersed in the lives of her campers.

Almost makes me a little homesick for Sydney.

Ciao for now. xo

Off With His Head!

There are a few great things about being a counsellor at a performing arts camp.

1. As an artist, you are continually inspired by the young creative minds around you.

2. As an artist, you are continually terrified that when the young creative minds around you become older, they may kick you out of a job.

3. There is a constant supply of arts and crafts to be consumed (a creative station like none other)

4. There are constant opportunities to wield one’s creative abilities with the arts and crafts supplies

5. Everyone flaunts their eccentricity

6. Nothing is done by halves

And when you add all these things together you get Saturday night’s Dinner Dance, themed ‘Fairy Tales’. Not since college (and even then, this barely compares) have I seen such gusto and detail applied to the costuming and decorations behind a party. But what do you expect when you put 50 of the world’s most hopeful artists in one place and ask them to throw a dinner dance no camper will forget.

We had Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandmother Wolf. We had the Gingerbread Man, Peter Pan, Rapunzel and Belle. We had Sleeping Beauty, the Fairy Godmother and enough dancing princesses to probably make up the 12. And then me – the Queen of Hearts – in a costume made courtesy of Appel Farm’s Art Barn.

I’ve got to admit, playing the role of the Queen of Hearts does come with certain perks. There’s really no other character you can play who gives you the opportunity to run around screaming “OFF WITH HIS HEAD” and just genuinely be a lofty, snooty, ‘heart’less bi-atch.

Saturday night’s Dinner Dance was followed by Sunday and Staff B’s last day off of camp. Feeling a little nostalgic, we decided to return to Philadelphia – the scene of our first time off together – where we once again crammed 12 people into our camp director’s studio apartment. After a very comfortable night’s sleep on the wooden floor directly in front of the toilet (which is a great place to park yourself after 12 people have just drunk a few cartons of beer), we enjoyed our last day in Philly by shopping and eating and later slumming it in the car park of Tokyo Mandarin as we stuffed ourselves with Chinese.

On the trip home, it started to occur to me that this was the end. The five people I was squished into a car with and who I had seen every day for the last 8 weeks would soon be going their separate ways, heading off on their grand adventures. Some of them I would see on my own travels, but others, I may never see again. This world I am a part of, this family I am a member in, only exists over the summer and soon the summer will be gone.

Until 2011 that is.

It’s tempting....very tempting.

Ciao for now. xo

Atlantic City, Baby!

What do Sex In The City, Gilmore Girls and Beaches have in common?

At one point or another, they've all featured Atlantic City as a destination.

And yesterday, it became a feature destination for six very satisfied camp counselors.

I've heard Atlantic City described as Las Vegas' cheap and dirty second-cousin and like most cities, there are areas which put the ass in classless (our motel being in one of them). But in the bright light of day (and the casino lights) Atlantic City can certainly hold its own. The boardwalk boasts all the goodies we are denied in Elmer, New Jersey - beach, bars and boys - so for six female counselors who were in great need of a girls' weekend away, we could not have asked for a better destination.

Once we survived the Martinique Motel from Hell, Sunday was spent doing...well, nothing... and it was fantastic. We ate, we shopped and we spent two hours in Claires having ears pierced (don't worry Mum, I haven't got any additional holes anywhere on my body... yet). Not to mention visiting possibly the BEST shoe store ever known to women (and yes Meudell, that includes the Brazillian shore store on Bourke St). I have never seen so many shoes in one place and. all. on. sale. For those of us not backpacking and who don't have to consider space and weight with every purchase made, the girls went a little crazy. Let's just say there were quite a few pairs of shoes which returned to Appel Farm that evening.

While I didn't win it big on the slot machines or meet Donald Trump or see Smash Mouth and Counting Crows who were both performing that evening, I did get to see a lot of old ladies playing the pokies in sequined hats, and that was good enough for me.

Oh, and spending 36 hours with six of the best blondes (and one brunette) in the world.

Ciao for now. xo

Home Is Where The Roast Is

When days off are so few and far between, deciding what one is going to do with their precious free-time requires consideration. Usually, a big group of us would spend the day (and night) touring around the two-hour radius beyond Elmer, New Jersey.

 But this week, all I wanted to do was feel like a non-counsellor. So I returned to the world I once loved – a place of shopping and quality coffee and real food – and was invited ‘home’ with fellow counsellor, Kate.


Kate lives in Delran, a suburb which lies between two suburbs in New Jersey – Camden and Moorestown. If we were in Sydney, this would be like comparing Silverwater with Potts Point. Camden is an industrial wasteland with a crime-rate going through the roof, while Moorestown boasts acreage, architecture and country clubs. Yet they exist side by side.

Having not been in the vicinity of a shopping complex in weeks and not having physically shopped in months, getting my first hit of spending in the USA left my travel savings considerably depleted. I'd forgotten the sheer bliss that comes with purchasing new clothes and having something to wear that you haven't been kicking around in for the last  4 weeks.

I'd also forgotten the sheer bliss of being in a home, with a bathroom and bedrooms and a kitchen which produces real food. We were treated to a fully-blown roast dinner with carrots and beans and gravy and mash, all topped off with one hearty slice of peanut butter pie.

And served alongside the food were plenty of licks from Kate's dog, Kira - a golden ball of lovin' who had just as much right at the dinner table as the humans.

And so we returned to camp full of food, licked to death and recharged with all the goodness of home.

Ciao for now. xo