When they said Camp Mendocino was going to be cold they meant it. I woke up frozen to the core underneath all my layers, until I learned the beauty of a mummy sleeping bag. The trick is wear fewer layers and zip your sleeping bag all the way, by my third night there I slept in a sweat shirt, and pajama pants. I was happy to get back to Sunny Sacramento, although I do miss the peace and quiet of Camp Mendocino. I have mixed feelings about my experience there as I feel it was a lot like summer camp, where you have your good and bad moments. At summer camp, and in live/work environments a day is never all good or all bad. The days are too long and the experiences too diverse for anyone’s mood to be consistent.
When we got there I was wearing shorts and already freezing. I had packed all my long BDU’s (Battle Dress Uniform, they’re cargo pants) so that they would be clean. Long story short, there was enough time for me to put my bag in a cabin and get a bottom bunk and change into shorts, but I wasn’t allowed to utilize that time, so I ended up on a top bunk, and in shorts and a sweatshirt in 58 degree weather. In the end it worked out, I didn’t mind sleeping on the top bunk, and I felt tough in my shorts, being from Florida and watching all my of my friends in plenty of layers. I also had time to change after our first meeting.
We learned about the roles of team leader and support team leader and we watched a movie about the Fish Philosophy. It’s based on the Seattle Fish Market, where those guys don’t have the most appetizing job, but they do have the most fun. There are four principles: Play, Make Their Day, Be There, and Choose Your Attitude. I am trying to utilize that philosophy in my own life, and have been pretty successful at it, thus far. Although, I have a little more experience as I’ve been adapting 3 of the four principles marginally successfully for the last few years of my life. Although, I do have to admit, I’m not the best at being present with people, and I’m trying to get better at actually engaging with people.
The next day, I had a pretty awful morning I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, I felt sick during PT, and I tripped and fell twice, I cried twice before 6am, which is not the best way to start off a day. About half way through PT I decided that I could either be miserable or do my best, so I kept that in mind and had as much fun as possible. It worked pretty well, although throughout the day I had moments of negativity. After PT, we had a class on Service Learning Initiatives and how it fits in with the NCCC program. I really like how NCCC incorporates service learning into the projects we do, it makes everything come together, and over all we get more out of the experience. The rest of the day we did team building exercises on the low and high ropes courses.
As a former Camper, I have completed plenty of both low and high ropes so they come second nature to me. So at this point it becomes unfair for me to take charge and add my comments and ideas of how to do it. During my last couple of years at Camp Wewa, I was not allowed to speak when doing these activities, so I tried to do the same thing, I gave few suggestions and just tried to follow. The best part of the day for me was the high ropes. I don’t know what happened but I just kind of let go and I climbed all over the challenge course. Everyone else was done and just wanted to go down the zip line, and I wanted to try all of the different ropes out. So after some convincing the ropes instructor let me go out on the course while everyone else waited in line. I really enjoyed it. Although I did have some moments of insecurity, and so I called back with questions about the stability of the cables, how much weight they can hold on, so on and so forth. My team leader seemed to think that I was letting my weight hold me back, because she commented about it later. The people that know me best, would probably say that I rarely let anything hold me back, and that my weight has never held me back from participating in activities. It’s funny that after two days, someone can make quick and completely off the mark judgments about a person. It’s going to be an interesting and challenging 9 months, and I expect I will be pushed and pulled in directions I’ve never been pulled in before.
The next day we completed a service project for the camp, our team sanded one of the buildings and the other teams will paint it. It was great to get our hands dirty, so I was pretty happy about once again being put to work. I took pictures of me sanding, because I know my brother will never believe half of the things that I’ll do this year. In the afternoon we worked on our Individual Learning Plans (ILP’s). It is basically a piece of paper where you organize your thoughts and lay out a plan of how you are going to accomplish your goals. Although, I liked utilizing the ILP but I didn’t feel comfortable enough with my team leader to talk to her about those goals and plans. I know she has great qualities, but she seems very stand offish and unhappy with the fact that she couldn’t keep her pod. I think a lot of us feel that way, considering at this point we’ve still spent more time with our pod than we have with our team. I hope over time I’ll feel more comfortable talking to her about these things.
After ILP’s and dinner we performed a skit for the rest of our unit. It was a lot of fun seeing each team’s skit, and getting to have more bonding time with out unit as a whole. I really like the Unit I’m in and Blue has the best Unit Leader for sure. Overall, I feel like although challenging the next 9 months will totally be worth it.
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