Week #2!

Sorry I haven't written in a while... I've been so unbelievably busy and the only time off that I had last week... I used it to take a nap! The only reason I am writing now is because I took a much-needed 3 hour nap today, so I'm not as exhausted as I usually am at 11:30 at night.

Last Sunday, we got a new group of students for Explorations Week #2! Two of my students left on Saturday and I got 2 new students. Since I haven't written in a while, one of those students is already gone. She stayed for a week and left on Saturday. The other student is doing 2 Explorations in a row so he's here this week, too.

When our new students came last Sunday, I was the RA of the Day. That meant I was running around like a crazy person, getting everything set up for the new students and for the big group activities that night. That night, we had a huge activity that we did called "Project Runway" (based off the actual show.) All of the RA groups divided up into teams and picked one person to be the model and they had to design an outfit out of whatever materials they received. It was a blast! The runway looked awesome and we all had a blast!

On Monday, we did tie-dye (which I did for the very first time in my life!) so that was exciting. The only bad thing was that they all turned pink in the washer. But we had fun making them.

Also last week, we started a game called "Assassins." These students get SO intense with this game. Every student gets another student's name on a piece of paper and they have to "kill" that person. They have to tap them on the shoulder and then whisper, "you're dead" without anyone else hearing. We started a new game of Assassins this week and this time... some of the RAs are playing, including myself. It starts at 7:00 am tomorrow and I can honestly say that I'm a little scared. Quite a few students got hurt last week (I don't know why we're playing it again) and students wait outside of other student's rooms, waiting for them to come out so that they can "kill" them.

There is a tradition here at camp (not sure how this started) that if you say a bad word, you have to write a haiku. Last week, one of my students said a bad word and so I told him that he had to write a haiku by the end of the day. He comes up to me with his haiku a couple hours later and hands it to me. It says, "Refrigerator refrigerator up my refrigerator." I asked him why he used the word refrigerator and he said, "because it has 5 syllables." Then another one of my students asked if he could write a haiku "from his heart", just for fun. I said sure, why not? So the next day he comes up to me and gives me a haiku that says, "I like to store milk inside of my massive white refrigerator."

...now tell me that's not inappropriate.

It took me a couple reads to realize that the word, "refrigerator" has a whole different meaning to high school boys.

On Tuesday, I went with the "Fun Aquatic Worlds" class on their field trip to Des Moines as the photographer. We went to a research-type aquarium, where we saw a lot of interesting species of fish, sharks, turtles, eels, iguanas, and snakes. On the way home, the professor, who was driving the 15-passenger van, obviously did not know how to drive the thing, and hit the ticket dispenser and a pole on the way out of the parking lot. He looks at me and says with his Serbian accent, "uhhh... what do I do now?" He left a pretty large dent in the side of the van. When Lindsey asked him what happened, he said he hit the CURB.

On Wednesday, my dad and sister were in Des Moines, so they took a little detour up to Ames to come visit me. I was able to take an hour off to go eat breakfast with them at Perkins. It was so good to see them! I almost forgot what it's like to have a life outside of this job. Seeing them gave me a nice break, but you should have seen some of the looks they gave me while I spoke. I think they could tell that I hadn't been getting enough sleep. Then I somehow managed to order 3 drinks without realizing it... that certainly didn't change their opinions of me.

Later on Wednesday, all of the students and RAs went to a place north of Ames called, "Peterson Pits." There, they have a small lake with a beach so you're allowed to swim. The kids went swimming and we also took a bunch of canoes so we all got to experience canoeing as well. I was brave enough to take my brand new camera out on the canoe with me, but I was basically having a heart attack the entire time. Especially witnessing about 8 of the canoes capsizing.

Thursday afternoon we all tried Zumba for the first time and Thursday night was the Talent Show! We had about 10 different acts, and it was so fun to watch. The best act, though, was the last one. All of the RAs dressed up as old women (even the guys) and stuffed pillows under our old lady dresses that we got at Goodwill. We made a mix of different songs and got out there and shook our booties and made complete fools of ourselves.

Zumba!

Friday night was "Movie Night" and after the movies (The Proposal and Anchorman), we took the kids outside to play "Sardines" which is similar to Hide and Seek.

On Saturday, we tried going to the Aquatic Center. Twice. It was raining so they were closed, but we assumed it would be fine since it wasn't storming. When we got there, they said they were going to "reevaluate" at 4 and maybe open it back up at 5 because it was supposed to be sunny. It WAS sunny at 5, so we took the kids back over there at around 6, and they were still closed. Double fail.

Saturday night, we played "Murder Mystery" then watched "Inception" and ordered some pizza.

Yesterday, we got a new group of students, so I now have 3 more students in my RA group. However, one of my students (the girl with Asperger's and OCD) left today. She had so many issues these past couple of weeks to the point where she could no longer stay here. She moved out of the dorms, but she'll continue to take her Chemistry class this week. She went to go live with her step dad here in Ames and from now on, she'll commute to class.

Last night, we spent some time at the "Underground" on campus, where they have bowling, pool, ping pong, and video games. Today, we made it to the pool! Third time's a charm, right?

Only 5 more days!!!!!!

Haunted Playgrounds, Harry Potter, and Karaoke!

On Thursday evening at supper, some of the RAs were sitting at a table in the dining center, talking about ghost stories because that's what one of our activities was going to be that night. We were going on a "Campus Ghost Tour" and tell the students about some of the ghosts that live on campus and stories that have been told for years. While we were on that subject, Andrea (one of the RAs) was telling us about the "Twisted Playground", a memorial that a man built over his daughter's grave after she got hit by a car. He built it so her spirit could play on the playground and now he's known to be this crazy man who watches from his window with a shotgun to scare away any onlookers. We somehow convinced Lindsey to take us out to this place to see if it existed.

Andrea's freaking out!

So we all came back to the dorm, I looked up which street it was on (there was no exact address), and Lindsey took 3 of us girls out in the big ISU 15 passenger van. We found the street and had to decide whether to go left or right. We chose the right direction, and that road lead us to a small gravel road out to the middle of nowhere. As we approached groves of trees, Andrea said she thought it was coming up because she remember reading that there was a grove of trees on each side of the road. We came up a small hill and as we approached the top, another vehicle was approaching the top of the hill from the other side. As we got closer, we could tell that that vehicle was an old rusty truck who was slowing down. It began to turn as if it was going to turn into the driveway of the house coming up. Instead of completing the turn, he just stopped diagonally in the middle of the road, blocking us from going any farther! We all began to freak out and then he slowly moved his truck into the driveway. As Lindsey SPED past because she was freaking out, we got a good look at the old man who appeared to be about 70, but missed the big memorial thing on the opposite side of the road! As we kept driving, we realized that we were in the middle of nowhere with nothing but old dirt roads around us which lead us to nowhere so we had to turn around. Lindsey was like "there is NO way I'm going back there! I'm gonna puke!" We all finally convinced her to turn around because we wanted to see the memorial and take pictures... plus we had to get back to work somehow! We drove back, I took pictures, Andrea videotaped, Lindsey reached for her phone (in case we needed to call 911?), and Christy laughed. The man was still outside, getting something from the back of his truck with his dog, and we all got a quick glimpse of "The Twisted Playground" as Lindsey was freaking out, driving so fast past the memorial that we only got to see it for a few seconds. We made it safely back to camp, but it was quite the adventure!

The best picture I got of the gate to the Twisted Playground

On the Ghost Tour!

Later that night, we went on the "Iowa State Ghost Tour", which some of the students thought was pretty lame because every time after we told a ghost story, they all had so many questions because they didn't see the "logic" in the ghost story! But then we came back and approached our dorm, we sat them outside and told them about "The Twisted Playground" and our little adventure that we went on earlier that day. They all listened so intently, and when we were done telling the story, it was completely silent. Then we told them we were going to take them out there right now... and half of them freaked and the other half said "AWESOME!" We obviously didn't take them out there, but we did have to show them the video to prove to them that we weren't lying.

"Show me how excited you are for Harry Potter!!!"

Friday was "Harry Potter Day!" For our afternoon activities, we had the students make magic wands and create their own magic spells. Then we quickly went to dinner, and we were off to the new (and final) Harry Potter movie! We took two school buses over to the theater and stood in the long line with out 40-some students for about 45 minutes before we were seated. As we went into the theater and handed all of our tickets out to our students, we realized we had about 10 extra tickets... that's about $100! So we tried giving them away, but everyone had either seen the movie, or had reserved their tickets ahead of time. Then we headed over to Subway and gave a couple away and we both texted a bunch of our friends. Christy gave 3 away to her friends and I gave 2 away to my friend Claire and her friend, Steven. Claire had already seen the premiere the night before, but who wouldn't take a free ticket to Harry Potter?! Plus it was a good reason to get to see her again. The movie was awesome, in case you're wondering. I'm a little sad that they're over now, though.

In line for the movie!

Andrea trying to teach me how to "shuffle"

Dani

Brennan AKA Harry Potter

Yesterday was a busy day! It was the last day for the Exploration students of Week 1. I had to say goodbye to two of my students, Tyler and Keegan. Two of my favorites out of everyone here at camp. I really wish that they would have been here for the 3 week program, but I'm very glad that I got the chance to meet them. The Exploration students had an "Open House" where their parents came to their classrooms and got to see their final projects and what they had been working on and learning all week. Then they came back to the dorm to check out. Except for Keegan, because he was a commuter. He attends class and participates in our activities but he doesn't live in the dorms with us because his grandparents live in Ames. So I invited him to stay for the rest of Saturday afternoon and evening to participate in a couple more activities.

So yesterday afternoon, we had "Cupcake Wars", which I think it on the Food Network channel? We broke into 4 teams and each team had a recipe... Coca-Cola cupcakes, Cheesecake cupcakes, Oreo cupcakes, and S'more Cupcakes. We had fun baking all afternoon and then we invited 3 judges to judge all 4 cupcakes.

My group's Oreo Cupcakes

My group!

Andrea and Lindsey

The Judges!

 After Cupcake Wars, most of the students and most of the RAs went to the Aquatic Center in Ames to hang out for a few hours. A few of us stayed to decorate the den for "Karaoke Night!" When the students came back, the "Karaoke Lounge" was all decked out and looked amazing. Lindsey made her famous smoothies, we hired a DJ who came and hosted our Karaoke party, and a lot of students and RAs participated! It was my favorite activity thus far. Andrea, Christy, and I sang "Baby" by Justin Bieber and then later we sang "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, which we found out that we don't know as well as we thought we did. It was such a fun night! Keegan sang a couple songs, and right before he sang his last song, he had "something to say to everyone." He thanked us all for a great time and was glad he got to meet everyone. It was so cute!

Today is going to be another busy day. Plus I'm the RA of the Day again so that doesn't help. We're getting 15 more students today, then have a full night of activities planned!

You're never too old to do a cartwheel. Oh, wait.

On Tuesday during our morning staff meeting, Jake (one of the RAs) said his arm was hurting. When we asked what happened, he said he did a cartwheel the day before (aka our first real day of camp) and ever since, it had been hurting. We all couldn't help but laugh at his story because you don't know of many college guys who hurt themselves doing a cartwheel. Apparently, it hurt badly enough to go to the Health Center on campus. He went to the doctor at 1:30 while the rest of us cleaned and made some signs for the hallway. An hour later as we were making signs in the den, we were all joking about what would happen if Jake actually did do something serious to his arm. Right as Lindsey (my boss) said this, Jake walked in the door with his arm in a sling and a doctor's note! He had sprained his rotator cuff and now has to do physical therapy every day. It was one of those moments where we all wanted to laugh, but weren't sure whether it was appropriate or not...

Later that afternoon, I was in charge of "Duct Tape Art" where some students made some pretty interesting things out of duct tape. I was amazed at their creativity! One o my students made a hat... another girl made a flower pen... there were bracelets, wallets, purses, bookmarks, headbands, hats, shoes, etc. I never knew you could make so many different things with duct tape.

Duct tape wallet

Ariana's duct tape pen

A new tradition started on Tuesday. Those students who are in improvisation class (just for 1 week) have been performing and practicing their improvs in front of the RAs and other students during "study hour" since they don't have homework. This has become very entertainig and one of the most enjoyable parts of my day. One of my students happens to be one of the best students at improvising, too. He is so creative and thinks of things none of us ever would have thought of... and does it so quickly! They do a lot of skits from the show, "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and it's hilarious!

Later that night after dinner, almost all of the RAs and students watched "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" on the projection screen in the den. We did this as a refresher so everyone remembers what's happening when we go to see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow night!!! Some students ordered pizza, and about an hour into the movie, a student came up to a few of us, asking for a paper towel. We showed him where they were and he beings wiping his ankle. We weren't paying too much attention but then he asked if we had a band-aid. Lauren (my roommate) and I look down and see what looks like blood all over his ankle. We both gasp and as we get up to run to the office to get a first aid kit, the kid says, "just kidding, it's only marinara sauce" and went back to sit down. I think both of us almost had a heart attack.

Yesterday, it was my turn to be the RA of the Day (aka the "RAD.") This meant that I had to wake up before 6am, open the office, watch the halls, and give students their morning meds before they left for breakfast. At our morning meeting, Carmen (our other boss) could tell we were ALL just exhausted. It was only the 4th day and we were walking around like zombies. So Carmen told us that we all needed to take a nap that afternoon, which was wonderful.

Peel the banana!

In the afternoon, everyone (all RAs, all students, and both Lindsey and Carmen) went to central campus to play "Peel the Banana." This is a fun game where everyone stands in a large circle and with a banana in the middle. Then two people have to race to the middle to peel the banana. Whoever peels the banana, wins. I had never heard of this game before, but it was actually really fun to watch. The only bad thing is that it is a very intense game and I think by the end of the game, 3 students were bleeding!

Jake just wanted to eat the bananas.

Quidditch

After dinner, I was with the group that went to play "Muggle Quidditch" on central campus. Yes, Quidditch as  in the game from Harry Potter. It definitely wasn't as cool as it is in the movies... no flying on broomsticks or anything, but it was still fun. At first, it was too easy for some of the students so we had to tell them that they could only play with one hand because normally, you need a broomstick. Well, we didn't have any broomsticks for them to use, so a couple students actually pretended that they had broomsticks and it was hilarious. I especially enjoyed the looks we got from strangers who walked by, just staring at the students who were running around with one hand in the air, and one by their crotch.

More fun activities planned for tonight, and everyone is getting excited about the new HP movie tomorrow night... including myself!

There are fireflies in Iowa?

The rest of yesterday was a blast. I picked my students up from class, went to lunch, then took them back. While they were in class, we got a phone call that "Kil'n Time" was all ready for us at 4:30 pm. My boss was a little confused because she thought we were going to Kil'n Time today instead of yesterday! So we had to change our plans and run over and get 3 15-passenger vans and another mini van in time to pick up the students after class and get them to Kil'n Time on time.

Christy putting on her paint for the "drip"

After we picked everyone up, we let them quickly drop their things off at Martin Hall, then drove to Main Street where Kil'n Time is. Now you're probably thinking, what the heck is Kil'n Time?! Kil'n Time is a small place on Main Street where there is pre-made pottery that you can paint. You have to purchase the pottery, and pay a small fee to use their supplies and then you can sit down and paint the pottery before they fire and glaze it. Once it's fired and glazed a few days later, you can take it home with you. It makes a great gift! They have a wide variety of sculptures, plates, mugs, vases, etc, but we just had all of our students paint tiles. All of the students could use 1 of 3 painting techniques. Drip, Tie-dye, or Splatter. Most of the students at my table chose drip, including myself. We all had a lot of fun painting our tiles, but when it came time for the "drip" part, Juno had a little trouble. We were supposed to shake our tile up and down after we squirted some paint down the middle, but we were supposed to shake it in a certain direction. Well, Juno shook his in the opposite direction that we was "supposed" to so it didn't turn out how the owner wanted it to, but it turned out to be my favorite one just for that reason. After he realized what he did, no one could stop laughing, even Juno. He was such a good sport about it and I told him, "well now when you see this tile, you'll look back and remember this and how much fun you had making it!"

Juno shaking his the "wrong way"

My tile

Playing cards under the Campanile on Central Campus

After Kil'n Time, we went back to eat dinner, and then the students had "study hour." Then we had one more "activity time." During this time, we all decided to go to central campus where we split up into different groups. We had a group of ultimate frisbee, soccer, catch phrase, and cards. I was in charge of the students that wanted to play cards. So we all went and sat in a big circle under the campanile and played a few games of BS and Queens. Juno let everyone use his deck of cards, but didn't want to play. After a while, I quit playing too and just watched and took a few pictures. As Juno and I were standing there, he saw a lightning bug and immediately said, "you have fireflies here?!" At first I thought he was joking, and just said, "yeah..." but then remembered that he was from Nevada. I don't think I had ever seen a high-schooler so excited about fireflies before.

As we were walking back to Martin, Juno was still talking about how cool the fireflies were, and then everyone started talking about them and how they used to catch them when they were younger. Then I told them that when my mom was a kid, she and her friends would go out and pull their little lights off and stick them on their fingers as rings. When Juno and the other boys around me heard this, they were all shocked and started talking about animal cruelty and everything! You would think that if my mom and her friends did it when they were kids, high school boys would have done something similar, but no. I also told Juno that it's funny when you hit them when you're driving at night and the lights stick on the windshield and stay lit up for a while until they completely die out. He thought that was hilarious! Later last night, I had to call my mom and tell her the story and how all of my kids think she's "cruel." Her response: "everyone did it when I was a kid, it wasn't just me!"

Isn't Juno an awesome name? Everyone in my group has a nickname except for Juno because no one wants to call him anything else since it's already "cool." My nickname is "Shea Butter", Tyler goes by "Hupp", Ethan goes by "Ehtan" because apparently I am dyslexic and spelled his name on his name tag like that, and Keegan wants to be called "Troy" (I have no idea why.)

Looking forward to what today will bring!