109. - 207. Octet

Laws of the [Hopping Grass] Land:

1. Thou shall not question my eight-day hiatus.

2. Thou shall not question my lack of pictures.

3. Thou shall not question my use of strange, arbitrary laws.

***

Sunday, dad and I explored the UofT Robarts library. It was almost empty. I got to sniff 200-year-old books. It was heavenly.

Monday, a day of work, brought with it some interesting moments:

1. After playing the arm game of "pet store" with one of my campers, she launched her own rendition on me that involved a lonely Jewish man with no wife. Don't ask me where she got the idea from.

2. We played frisbee golf. I can't throw a frisbee, nor can I golf. And nope, I didn't find myself to be a hidden talent at the combination of the two, either.

3. I went on an hour-long subway adventure to the location of my online summer school in-person orientation. I got lost. Multiple times.

4. The royal baby was born! Strictly speaking, this has nothing to do with me. But it's named GEORGE! Just like the orange I won from Playdium. Coincidence? I think not.

Tuesday came with the realization that my attempts at maintaining a penpal from the UK were basically guaranteed for failure. Also, I realized that I might be math dyslexic.

Wednesday, we brought our camp to an area-wide floor-hockey tournament, where we basically crushed everybody. Our kids may be crazy and uncontrollable, but they sure-as-heck are good at sports.

Thursday. Hm. I don't recall much. Maybe I was abducted by aliens and had my memory wiped? Edit: The reason why I don't remember what happened is because my memories of Wednesday are what happened on Thursday, and my memories of indoor trampolining on Wednesday were somehow ommited. *facepalm*

Friday = DRAMA et la natation. Comme d'habitude.

And then these two sacred weekend days [Saturday and Sunday] were spent summer-schoolin' enough to get myself one day ahead of schedule.

I also had a ball freaking out to Mumford and Sons when the realization hit me that this is what I have to get done before school starts:

CAS Journals

Extended Essay first draft

UCAS, COPA, and Blyth Scholarship Applications (along with getting references and writing those blasted essays)

Math, History, and Economics IAs

Find a new AYC

&

Summer school

Work

Family time

Dear oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?

***

Brief explanation of Laws:

1. [Reason unavailable]
2. Monthly internet usage quota at limit.
3. See Summer School - Law Course.

197. Excelsior

Practically eight in the evening now. Eight. eight. 8. 

Another lazy Saturday has but slipped away. Started off productively enough, with my ambitious scheduling of EE research (9 - 12) and CAS journal write-ups (1 - 3) and UCAS essay brainstorming (4 - 6). But then I got sidetracked at around noon by a novel. Not of the junk-food-of-books variety that I read to pass time and generally avoid getting around to Things I Should Be Doing, but rather, one which came off an admired author's recommend list.

It started off innocently enough, but I was soon swept into a five-hour reading marathon that saw any remnants of a productive day shot to hell.

Other snippets of the run-away-hours include the deeply philosophical discussion with grandparents over lunch, on how in the Chinese language, there are melon varieties associated with East, South, and West, but strangely not the North. The conclusion of this serious and insightful conversation was that the North probably did not see to many specialized melons, or much vegetation at all for the matter, growing in its not-exactly-favourable climate. And that was that.

Of course, there was also the hour I wasted trying to find a decent email penpal online. Annoyed by the multitude of websites that turned out to operate like dating agencies, I eventually gave up and amused myself by eating Nutella straight out of the jar. 

I supposed I will try to get on the to-do-list tomorrow, then? Time to go on that run.

192. - 196. Ups and Downs

Not going to lie, Monday and Tuesday this week were a little rough. My tolerance level has never been anything remarkable, and the lack of sleep due to the annoyingly persistent heatwave sweeping through town make me ready to go off like a firecracker.

Ashamed to say that I did a couple of times those first two days.

Wednesday was the day our trip to the beach got cancelled due to lack of accountability owing in part to lack of discipline in our camp. Truthfully, I didn't mind so much as feels-like-40-degrees-weather wasn't that inviting for a whole day outside anyway. Highlight of the day was getting to watch four pre-teen boys playing Just Dance on the Wii, dancing and singing unabashedly in synchronized harmony to Call Me Maybe. I almost died laughing.

It was very hard to "look right at [them]" without cracking up.

Thursday's moment pour mémoriser happened during the weekly literacy workshop. Earlier in the morning, a fellow counsellor gave a serious lecture to the participants warning them not to sit on the benches in the gym, which had been turned on their sides as boundary markers for a game of soccer. He told them that doing so could result in the bench falling over, which would "crack their bones" and "bust their heads open".

This lecture clearly made very deep impressions on certain campers, as it resurfaced during an exercise where campers were asked to rewrite fairy tales with twists into a comic strip. Yes, a group wrote about Humpty Dumpty (though not strictly a fairy tale character but rather one from a nursery rhyme) sitting on a bench, and busting his head open. After the staff member had told him not to. Genius.

Notably, the staff member tells the brain matter of Humpty (dispersed all over the gym floor) "I told you so" in one panel. Oh, and the story concludes with the staff member having made an omelette out of Humpty's remains and eating for dinner, with the caption: "And they all lived happily ever after. Except Humpty of course", followed by the fine print, " Do not try this at home". There are days when I love my job very, very much.

And then there was Friday afternoon in the pool when I had two girls glomp onto me, claiming to be ABC ("already been chewed") pieces of gum on a shoe (me).

*lesigh*

Next week is the halfway point! :D

191. Sour Dreams

[Insert picture of person sleeping and dream bubble encapsulating the above chip can here]

Seriously.

I dreamt about chips last night.

This a noteworthy moment of the tipping point where my intense craving for Pringles Sour Cream and Onion chips has finally become something more: an obsession.

That, or my inner Asian cheapskate has come out to play.

The dream scenario was based off a frustrating real life experience from a couple of days ago, when I was at T&T Supermarket and an ad for $1 chips caught my eye. When I finally located the chip aisle, lo and behold, there were no $1 chips. Of course, this was the day where I forgot to bring my phone to take a picture, and so I went home empty-handed, excitement over getting some sour cream chips completely crushed.

Stupid deceptive marketing practices. >:(

I thought that I had gotten over my squandered chips, but I guess the emotional turmoil impacted me on a much deeper level than I had imagined. 

Indeed, memories of a lost can of chips were etched profoundly in my psyche, for in my dream last night, they made a dramatic reappearance.

Long story short, I got my chips.

***

May 11, 1982 - July 13, 2013

And now to make everything I've written up until this point seem utterly meaningless and trivial, today we mourn the loss of Cory Monteith, who I spent three seasons of Glee lovingly calling "Constipated Face Finn".

He was a true gem of showbiz, but even rarer, seemed to be a genuinely likeable person in real-life. This is a sad day for Gleeks everywhere. We will forever miss your awkward Canadian presence on the show. Nobody will ever be able to replicate The Face.

Rest in Peace.

186. - 190. Straw Analogies

It was a week best summed up as turbulent.

Tuesday was especially bad. Lack of communication amongst staff at camp reached an apex today, and backtalk from that One Persistent Troublemaking Camper was the last straw. I promptly lost it and ran into a washroom crying, while a voice in my head screamed I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO.

After 5 minutes of sobbing in a smelly stall with no toilet paper, I was forced to accept the fact that the decision to quit an easy job with well-behaved kids to work in a priority neighbourhood (made in a moment of ill-thought-out naivete) was exactly that -- already made. So I sucked it up and returned to work.

With Wednesday (trip day), there came a light at the end of that tunnel that I thought was the last straw. Bringing the kids to Playdium, a sort of small-scale Casino for kids, I managed to both enjoy myself as well as begin to find my niche as a camp counsellor. The truth was that I was never going to be the super-cool, silly, or athletic one, but I could be a good friend to the new/quiet/shy kid, which was nice too.

Also, I managed to win myself a prize while playing some arcade games with the kids.

Meet George. He is not impressed. At least, that's what I'm getting from the facial expression.

When Thursday and Friday passed by pretty smoothly, I thought the worse had passed. But alas, the heavens were not yet done with me.

Saturday morning was a lovely episode of Family Feud: Special Wireless Edition with the star couple fighting yet again, via internet correspondence.

Which put me into a bad enough mood to start reading sappy YA. Which is like drugs I tell you: temporary high and now crashing as I realize that YA romance is just another name for repackaged Disney.

:/

184. - 185. Age is Only a Number // Cats and Dogs

Don't hurt your head too much trying to figure out what the above picture has to do with age, because it doesn't.

Am exhausted from crazy day with campers and even crazier weather, but still thought I'd share a funny anecdote.

Due to the fact that I'm slightly younger than most of the camp staff I've met and am working with this summer, a recurrent piece of advice was to keep my age a secret from the kids in order to better assert authority as well as avoid respect problems with older campers.

Today, I finally got the innocent "How old are you?" from a camper, which I had completely anticipated and prepared for. The part I didn't expect were the comments that followed my sly "It's a secret." Her exact words: "I bet you're in college: 19 or 20 years old?" [pause] and then, "Are you married?"

EL OH EL. Kids. *shakes head*

It only occurred to me later that I should have said yes to really mess with her head. >:)

Sidenote: very glad to have power and internet back after an almost 6-hour blackout. Will get ready to sleep now.

182. - 183. A Method to the Madness?

I'm certainly hoping so.

What I've learned in the first four days of being a camp counsellor (that's the mystery of the last post unravelled, FYI) is that sometimes, all the experience and training in the world can't prepare you for what you actually encounter.

When I applied for my current position way back in January, I thought that I would be spending the summer at a location close to home with reasonably well-behaved kids and seasoned staff well-versed with company policies and procedures.

Instead, being a new staff in a district in excess of staff, I was re-located to a community centre an hour away, where I would soon meet a truly impressionable bunch.

Right from the onset, I discovered that this would be no average work experience when a simple google search of the centre revealed that it had been the site of a lock-down a year prior after a suspect fleeing from the police entered the building. Safety of the neighbourhood aside, my second indication that things might not go as expected arrived in the form of a warning from a friend that the kids at the centre liked to punch staff. 

Arriving slightly shaken on the first day of work, a series of events soon confirmed that I would be in for quite the ride:

1) The janitor in charge of opening the centre arrived late, causing another staff member to enter the building from the day care entrance and triggering the building alarm.

2) New camper information sheets were nowhere to be found, thus old ones had to be photocopied and used.

3) The photocopier ran out of paper.

4) Campers started showing up without parents to fill out information sheets.

Things did not improve as the day progressed:

5) A single pack of markers was all we could find for 40 campers to share, as supplies had not yet arrived.

6) Other staff members, being very familiar with kids from the community, spoke and play-fought with the kids in what would probably be considered inappropriate ways at any other camp in my home district.

You get the idea.

And the next four days weren't much better.

Despite the distinct lack of organization and professionalism, I was nonetheless very impressed with the camp's ability to still function somewhat smoothly. This is likely attributable to fact that the other staff have been running this camp in the manner for almost a decade, and have got a system of effective improvising, not to mention an interesting concept of discipline. But that's a story for another time.

Recuperating from first week aside, today brought the joyful news of my first 7 in IB. Though SL French wasn't a particularly difficult struggle, I still appreciate and revel in the fruits of my labour.

That will be all for today.

179. - 181. Crossroads

This, my friend, is a picture that truly speaks a thousand words.

First and foremost, I would like to make an apology to all of my non-existent readers (but I swear there will be some of you, one day. I know it!) for *poofing* for three days without checking in at all.

Secondly, can somebody make sure that if I ever show any sort of inclination towards driving or operating any motorized transport, I am immediately locked up and prescribed thought reassignment?

Okay, maybe not the latter, I might have gotten a little too Superman there, but honestly. I feel like an alien in this world of humans (yet another allusion to Superman) who were born with some internal configuration allowing for orientation and recognition of directions.

The picture at the top of this post brilliantly encapsulates (word choice is strange, I know. It's been two weeks without English. I fear for my ability to communicate in the language by the end of the summer) the precise feeling of terror I experienced at each bus transfer point on my way to work and back on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

It was so bad,  exaggeration could not heighten my tale of woe and calamity. I actually managed to almost get on the wrong bus three times in two days, saved from an exciting joyride across the city each time by a multitude of kind strangers who alerted me that I was heading in the wrong direction. On the plus side, this did give me a chance to hone my ability to make casual conversation with strangers. Which is always an asset, especially when you are as awkward of a turtle as me.

That aside, I don't believe I've actually disclosed what has been keeping me so very busy these couple of days.

Because I like suspense (and also because I'm tired and need to rest), I think I'll leave some clues and do the big reveal tomorrow. Here goes:

1) It involves 30 - 40 of the things I might actually dislike the most in the whole world.

2) It involves 45 - 60 minutes of my morning and evening navigating the city in that metal contraction known as public transit. But you already knew that.

3) It involves watching Man of Steel for free!

4) It involves me collapsing of fatigue everyday at 10 PM or earlier.

and lastly . . . 

5) It involves lots and lots of paperwork.

Good luck, and see ya tomorrow!

163. - 178. Blurry Vision

I never go running with my glasses.

An actual picture.

Practicality aside, this helps, I find, with the difficult task of relinquishing control: giving up that   cumbersome worry about how the critical eyes that surround and constantly judge perceive me. Without the fear of appearing red-faced, sweaty, and ridiculous, or worse, appearing so in front of somebody I know, I am free to lose myself in the trance that is exercise. Rhythmic foot falls on an unending side-walk and an unburdened mind become a daily twenty minute nirvana.

Until I inevitably crash into a tree.

***

I have no idea what I just wrote, but for the sake of not dragging this exam/post-exam hiatus out any longer, I think I'll keep what I have and just keep writing.

Days 163 to 166 passed by in a whirlwind of exams and loose papers all over my bedroom floor.

167 and 168 were short-lived remorse over bombing the math and chemistry exams, with a bit of anxiety thrown in as various mark-lowering scenarios were modelled with a fancy $9.99 calculator.

169 and 170 consisted of me deciding I no longer gave a damn and partying it up (the end of the school year and the beginning of summer, yay) by attending eight hour job training sessions while friends had pool parties.

171 shall not be spoken of. It will suffice to briefly mention a downtown escapade involving 132 minutes of Chris Pine admiration (much too short) and a scrap-out with pigeons. Oh, and less-than-stellar exam resul--but we wil not speak of that.

172 was truly interesting. Job-related, but a story to be saved for tomorrow, if I survive tomorrow.

Which leaves 173, 174, and 175. Two involved lab rats, two involved birthday cakes, three involved movies, and one involved sleeping before 12 AM. Take your pick.

***

I still have no idea what I am talking about.