"Days off are like gold"

Molly and I during a day off last session

"Days off are like gold."

-Molly H. (aka Spit)


And today is one of mine. I've been working at camp now for just about 3 weeks near a little town called Venansault in NW France. And even though I've had 2 days off and one free day between sessions already, this is the first time I've gotten around to updating my blog. In the course of 3 weeks, answering to Shades, my camp name, has become as natural as responding to Kristen.

Hopefully I will have a chance retroblog a bit later today, but in case my nap runs longer than I anticipate or I just don't feel like it, here's a quick post to confirm that I'm still alive and still in France.

My days are full and very long, especially compared to my life in Spain this past year, but now that we are in the second session, preparing activities and ESL lessons and evening programs doesn't take as much planning as when we did it all for the first time. Sessions are 13 days long, and I'll be working for 4 sessions total. Even though it's draining sometimes, having so many responsibilities every day and working non-stop is in some ways a welcome change. I wouldn't want to work here for more than 2 months, but there's something exciting and challenging and even fun about such a fast-paced, non-stop, always "on" type of environment.


A few pictures of who I'm working and what we do in the few moments when we aren't with campers: walking into town to go to the grocery store (first picture), hanging out our room (second picture), and cutting people's hair (third picture).

And even though I don't have much free time to write e-mails, read books, call home, blog, or even think, I'm getting pretty good at a fake French accent, developing my ideas of education and teaching style, getting used to being on stage again, and thinking a little bit about effective (and ineffective) leadership/organization/communication as I see ways that definitely do work and others that do not. And, since the camp is an English language immersion camp, I'm continuing to dabble in ESL and (hopefully) building a bit on what I did this past year in Spain working as an Auxiliar de conversacion (language and cultural assistant) in a bilingual program in Andalucia. Plus, I really like the people that I'm working with. I'm working with Molly (whose camp name is Spit), who I met in Estepa this past year while we were both auxiliares. It's so nice to have here here. We're roommates, and our room is by far of all the rooms in the staff building.

In any case, those are the ways I justify my decision to work here this summer in the moments (sometimes several in a day) when I ask myself how I ever ended up here, running around like a crazy person, exhausted after 4 straight days of less than 6 hours of sleep a night and extremely full days, covered in green face paint (which actually ended up being a different type of paint that is MUCH more difficult to get off), or wearing a blue onesie and acting like an ox in front of 60 people, or inventing a cheer about shoes, or trying to make a lesson about the future tense "engaging", or pretending to be a marshmallow tree, or trying to explain the rules of baseball to a group of kids who get confused between "How are you?" and "How old are you?"

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One thing I remember wanting to think about and play with during camp this summer is controlled chaos. I like it. I want to develop my ability to create and manage it. Both by myself and with a team. And I want to be able to see the balance between chaos and control in situations.

And since a summer camp is in many ways the epitome of controlled chaos, it's not a bad place to try it out.

Now back to enjoying my day off .....

A photo of one of the buildings at Les Hermitans, the site where I am working