Rotation Camp

So, here I am...in Alma, Quebec
Changes are already occuring. For example, the keyboard I am using has a bunch of weird buttons and French accents. But hey, I am managing so far...apart from the fact that I can`t make apostrophes, haha.
On the plus side, the computer is now actually in a computer room, which means I don`t need peer over my shoulders everytime I write a blog.
However, the house in Alma still has the stupid CPU that the Blind River has...hopefully this computer doesn`t crash as easily as the other one...some things never change.

But before I indulge in my life in Alma (which hasn`t really started yet) I am going to try and quickly summarize the 2 days of Rotation Camp (by that I mean write 3-4 pages of things, haha).

The camp we went to (called Galiean Bible Camp, haha) is in the bushes of Blind River, which was convenient for us (hence the whole Blind River group decide to arrive late and sang our homemade Katimavik songs with Emilie as our last goodbye...

...Somthing on top of my head: that same day I was sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine. Maxime was sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine. Maxime came in and was like, "Angel why are you reading this old magazine? There are new magazines there. In fact she was so insistent with me reading the new magazines that I pretty much went with it just to please her...and I found a "Global Warming" magazine (a Playgirl magazine). Maxime had a great time looking for asian guys inside and asked me whether I was turned on by them...ew. So for you Castlegar (now the Blind River) kids, if you guys found that magazine this would explain why.

So anyways we get there, and we settle down. Originally I shared a room with Stephanie and Rebecca, but I decided to get a room all by myself (once I found out there are lots of empty frooms) because really, how often can I get a room to myself in Katimavik? Then Emilie had to leave for good, so we gathered around her and each of us gave her a long hug, then a group hug...we sang some more, and then we carried Emilie out to the van. Well to be precise we threw her into the snow, and then she got up and climbed into the van...we then form a human chain and blocked her from driving away...but eventually we let her go and she drove away...It was a bittersweet moment, and many of us had different degrees of sadness with the situation. Maxime and Cheryl were tearing for a little bit (although Maxime was more obvious about it). Which brings me to another event in the night...

The Elliot Lake group got lost coming to camp and their van broke down, so Beth (the PL from Sault Ste Marie) had to rescue them...this delayed dinner to around 7:00 pm, when everyone finally settled down for dinner (Pizza, pasta salad, bread, and assorted fruit juice by Blind River crew...I must say we did a great job). Beth and Brie (the two other PLs) stayed around for dinner, which is technically not allowed and our group were wondering "why are they allowed here when Emilie isn`t"...Maxime and Cheryl got rather upset and summoned Cara (the PC who was in charge of rotation camp) for explanation, which ended up with them venting their frustration with her (at one point Cara tried to explain something, and she said something like "do you understand what I am saying?"...and Cheryl was like, "yes I understand English perfectly fine" which I was kind of shocked by. Zach ended up going to Cara later and apologizing for Maxime and Cheryl and saying he understood that what happened was just bad luck and that both Brie and Bethany are tired and they need to eat something and say their goodbyes before they leave their groups for good. I think Cheryl and Maxime (Cheryl more so) were irritated that Zach did that, but deep down and later on they probably felt bad about what they did.

Hmm let me try to recap the major events that happened over the 2 days:
1) On the first night, each group had to present their final presentation and perform a skit on their PL. For our final presentation, because Maxime lost a lot of files and her moviemaker (which she made her slideshow) didn`t work properly, she ended up showing clips the kids doing the polar dip and whatever she had of the actual slideshow. Then we sang our song. I am going to type up the lyrics and post it here when I have time. We also made a skit on the way we see Emilie, and I must say it`s pretty good even though we only have 15 minutes to plan it. We jazzed ours up with props we found in a storage room...in my opinion (although I could be biased) our performances were the best, haha. Although I am slightly annoyed that Cara made us do so much performance while she just sit and relax and laugh...

Day 2: Each group had to lead a debriefing activity - something that makes us reflect on our experiences in the past 3 months. I liked the one Sault Ste. Marie had, although it was really simple (by the way I think Cara is rather harsh to the SSM group, she kept talking to them in a slightly fustrated tone when the kids have questions for her): each person has a sheet of paper where they write their name on top, and everyone in the group has to write a nice comment about the person. In the end, there will be a sheet of positive comments from everyone in the group (I will see if I have time to post mine up). The Elliot Lake one was ok...they gave each of us a sheet of questions which consists of things such as "How has Katimavik change you?", plus a ball of yarn which we were supposed to tie one end to a tree and bring it with us as we contemplate the answers of the questions. Meh. Our activity was probably the coolest of all, as we did it after dark and supper. What we did: a bonfire where we did meditation (in honor of Emilie), and then each person wrote something negative about their experience, and they threw the note into the fire. We end the night with roasted marshmallows and singing (although that was a bit difficult because there is the division between the French and English, and people weren`t very energetic about it).

The whole camp experience was ok...but I did re-learn an old lesson from this. You really can`t judge a book by its cover. What do I mean by that? I will take Thom (from Sault Ste. Marie) and Travis (from Elliot Lake) as examples. At the beginning, Thom strikes me as a pothead who isn`t very responsible, while Travis looks like a skinhead who could kill you if you do something wrong to him. However I kind of got to know them, and they are not really like that...they are quite interesting and easy to approach. If anything they could be nicer than some of the "normal" guys and girls there (i.e. Nina from Elliot Lake, very cute looking girl but carry a bitch vibe to her).

Moving on to the long journey to Alma, Quebec...

Emilie where are you? Leave some comments!