September 2, 2007
In a way, this week was a filler week. We continue to have wonderful, inspiring speakers give lectures on various topics. We continue to have special meals and immunization shots and all sorts of things like that. But I think this week everyone has had NEXT week in the back of their minds. You see.... next week is the scary secret week where they train us in.... well.... we'll call it "initiation" for lack of a better word to use. With that looming on the horizon, I think this week breezed by as we waited in anticipation of the unknown.

We did have some memorable events happen this week, regardless of our distraction. We had our second series of shots this past Tuesday. I thought I was going to get 5, but ended up only requiring 4. I decided to spice up the day for myself and the nurses by seeing if I could go for the "world record of the most shots given at one time". Of course, I have no idea what the record on this is, but it was just a fun thing to joke about. I convinced all of the serious and stressed out nurses to loosen up just enough to join me in my silliness. I had them all gather around me with needles in hand, to give me all of my shots in one exciting moment. At least half of us were getting a good laugh from it, so I think it was well worth it! My left arm definitely got the raw end of the deal, though.

We had another "special meal" this week, giving us a taste of south Asia, apparently. I have named all of the different ingredients we scooped into our bowl. The main dish is kinda hard to read in the bottom corner. It was chicken curry with rice and lots of toppings.

We had another work day of team building via helping the grounds crew with landscaping. I was on mulch duty this week, which I enjoyed. Here is my team as we pose in classic style with our pitch forks.

This past Friday was my roommate's birthday. I heard that her mom was concerned that she get to have gifts to unwrap on her birthday, so I bought a large amount of gourmet chocolates, and wrapped each one with a birthday note on it, for her to wake up to.

Yesterday, Saturday, I went with some of my friends to historic Virginia and we toured George Washington's homestead, Mt.Vernon. You probably know that I am not generally interested in looking at hostoric chairs, tables, beds, desks, etc. I would rather go make new memories than look at someone else's old ones. But the company and the beautiful day made it well worth the $13 entry fee. We had a great time, and took lots of pictures.
     

    

I thought it was pretty funny to see Pat Sajak walk onto the movie screen at the Mt.Vernon theater as the host of the short movie about the history of George Washington. It was very reminiscent of the Simpsons when the same actor narrates ALL the films, and he always starts by saying "Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from other films such as...."

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and I enjoyed the drive as much as our time walking around Mt.Vernon. There was a subtle hint of Fall in the air when we stepped outside, and it made me anticipate the time when I get to go back to Iowa and enjoy the gorgeous weather of an Iowa Autumn for a few weeks.

When we returned from our road trip, we met several friends at The Cheesecake Factory and stuffed ourselves. It is probably no surprise to anyone who knows me, that I ate so much that I found myself repeatedly thinking "I may throw up at any second." Typical, right?

That's pretty much the highlights of my week. I think I will have much more to share next week after we all go through initiation, among other things. Have a great week!

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September 18, 2007
I am sorry that I have taken an extra week in posting. I had some major reconstructive work going on with my computer, so last week I was busy getting the computer back to its good ol' self and didn't want to deal with problems in running my website yet. Now I'm ready, though!

Anyway..........   I have had some great times in the past two weeks. Lots of variety. So many things happen every day here, that by the time two weeks have passed, I feel like it was a REALLY LONG time ago for some of these events. Well, here I go;

We had some flag football fever going on a couple of weeks ago, as the college games began to capture everyone's attention and excitement.  The guys organized an official flag football tournament and a full draft of players with a list of each participant's stats (height / weight / experience playing football / position) and everything! I had fun watching them play, and many people turned out to watch the games.
  
This eventually got girls like me very interested in how I, too, might get to play football. The tournament was co-ed, but there are lots of girls here who don't really know how to play football, who wouldn't dream of entering that level of competition. So we decided to have a "beginner-friendly" women's flag football practice and game. We got together last week and had a great time practicing together. I had no idea how to really play football, although I feel pretty confident about how to CHEER for my Hawkeyes when they are playing.

I learned a lot, and some of the girls there had played in many intramural leagues, so they were used to running drills. They helped us all get more comfortable in throwing, catching, and blocking the receivers. Our women's game got rained out this past Thursday, but we are rescheduled for this coming Thursday, and I really hope I can survive. I got so excited and worked up just during our football practice that I overused some badly neglected muscles, and I had difficulty even walking around for two days after. I didn't realize how many muscles I have NOT been using, even as I go running daily, and have been rock climbing at the gym many times since I've been here. I loved playing, though. The hardest part of learning football for me has been restraining myself from tacking the receiver when they have the gall to catch the ball despite my best efforts to block them. I still need to work on that.....

We have continued to learn about other cultures each Sunday evening, here at camp. Last week we got to learn about Latin American gatherings, and sample their styles of music, teaching, and greeting brothers and sisters in the family. It was really fun. We packed the room in really tight, to get an authentic Latin American experience.
 

Some of the little girls who live in my building, and the buildings right next to mine, have put together a new band. They are called the "Top Rockers" and they gave a concert, open to the public, a couple of weeks ago. They performed one original song and then treated their audience to several cover songs. Our quad was PACKED out with parents and neighbors.
   

One night a while back, many of us wanted to go out for a night on the town. I think this was on a Friday night. We didn't have a plan, and there were many of us in the group, so we packed into a couple vehicles and headed towards Richmond to see what we might find. We came upon a Häagen-Dazs ice cream store, conveniently located next to a Starbucks, so that seemed like a natural place to begin our evening. While we were eating our ice cream, some of the girls in our group started visiting with other people sitting at the tables, and got into a casual conversation.

Although we were in two different vehicles, the driver of my vehicle decided that we must all stay there and wait for these girls to finish their conversation before anyone could move on to the next destination of the night. So we waited and waited and waited. We said "let's leave" many times, but to no avail. Our driver could not be dissuaded. In our boredom and impatience, some of us headed across the street to the CVS to shop a little.

One guy in our group decided to buy some sidewalk chalk, and then some of the girls thought it would be a good idea to lie down in the parking lot and make chalk outlines of themselves, as though they were outlining dead bodies from a murder scene. We were pretty bored.
 

Eventually the girls wrapped up their conversation with their new friends and we were off to explore some cool street in Richmond where all the people are supposed to be hanging out on a Friday night. Well, we didn't really see anyone there, so after doubling back on the road, just to make sure we didn't miss any excitement, we decided to drive aimlessly, looking for fun. (I should mention, incase it's not obvious to you at this point, that the general attitude of our large group of people was one of frustration and confusion, combined wiith apathy and sleepiness.) 

Later that night we came upon a park with a pond in the middle, with a pretty fountain shooting up. We thought it was the best thing we'd seen all night, so we all parked the cars and started doing the funnest thing we could think of; walking in circles around the pond. We did this for quite a while, although in our walking we interrupted many intimate "conversations" that some people were having in their cars, which were also parked in the dark around the pond. Hmmm......
   
Anyway, eventually we had walked around the pond several times, and were able to convince the drivers of the group that it would be okay to call it a night. We got home after midnight and all we had to show for our efforts in seeking adventure in Richmond was some great ice cream, and a legacy of chalk art on sidewalks around the city.

This past week we had an ice cream social with our group of people here at camp that all have similar hobbies - such as travel interests. We meet pretty regularly, and we had a fun time hanging out and talking about our common interests and hopes for our futures.

This past week I have taken up with a dangerous crowd who meet in the evening and stay up late - way past a reasonable bed time. Yes - I have found the card players at this camp, and we are slowly uniting in our happiness for competition, challenge, stimulation, speed, and strategy. I love it! Honestly - I really have had a great time getting to play games like Nerts! and Hand & Foot, because it makes me feel like my old normal self. It is such a fun and familiar thing to do that I am able to act completely naturally, even though I'm playing with people I haven't known very long. We all enjoy it and I am so glad to have some friends here who can get into their card games as much as I do. The picture on the right is from a Nerts! game. Yes - we ALL stand up to play!
    

This past weekend I went to Washington D.C. and explored the city with a great family that is one of my neighbors here at camp. They have three young girls who have a LOT of energy. We had fun walking around the city and visiting with as many new people as we could find. Here are some pictures of China Town near the downtown DC area.
    
One of the little girls in our group was feeling really sad that she couldn't ride the merry-go-round. I thought it was such a perfect picture of dejection, watching her just hang on the bars, wishing she could get in to where all the fun was happening. The pictured definition of "longing."      Did I mention that she had already ridden it once?

Here I am at one of the museums we visited. If you know me at all, you will understand why I have no idea what museum it was.....   Also, I got to see a TON of people riding Segways around as they toured the city. Very cool in a sci-fi futuristic kind of way.
    
Here is the family I spent the day with, at some scenic garden with a lot of cool sculptures. I remembered going to this pool when I was a little kid and had come here with my family on vacation. I liked getting to see it again, and I thought that if I worked in DC, this is where I would want to take my lunch break each day.

The last thing I have for you on this very long catch-up blog is some pictures from this past Sunday night's culture time. This week we learned about African culture. It was my favorite night so far! We learned some of their dances and songs, and acted very silly as we swung our arms and spun around, singing words that were strange and new to us. Then we all went over to a hill and sat on the grass to hear the teacher of the night. He spoke in some African language and they would SOMETIMES translate into English, and sometimes not.      
They presented us with a skit. A story about a guy named Daniel, who gets in trouble by the laws of the king and then he gets thrown in with a pack of hungry lions (played by the children with cut-out paper plates on their heads - who were VERY into their role in the story). I loved the skit and thought it was very well done.

Well, these are the basic high lights from my last two weeks here at camp. It may seem crazy, but these stories and pictures don't even begin to cover all the experiences I am having, but they will have to do for now. You can always contact me if you want MORE.

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September 26, 2007

This past week has been action-packed. I realized this after looking through all the pictures I have taken since last weekend. I won't write much, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.         Last Sunday (which I forgot to mention on my last blog) was the last time for us to go rock climbing before the end of camp. We had a great time, and saw marked improvement in our ability from the beginning of camp to the end.
     

I got my final four shots last Tuesday. I couldn't think of anything creative to do, so I just took my shots and am happy to now be immune to many deadly diseases.
     

During the times when everyone was scheduled to get their last round of shots, we had many activities available to help make it a better experience for the children. I was scheduled to help this past Friday, and got to pass out ice cream and do some face painting - which I really enjoyed. This is my painting of a hippopotamus, although we were only about 30% successful in people correctly guessing what this is was supposed to be. I blame that on inadequate painting tools.

Last week one of my great friends from camp had a birthday, so a group of us went out to eat at Outback steakhouse, and had a wonderful time. Because we had a large group, we ended up waiting an hour and a half for a table, so they gave us many free appetizers to hold us over while we waited. We were happy to accept them.
   

We had a day last week where we were treated to a fancy meal by a national women's organization that sent some representatives who visited us at camp. It was nice to have a change from our normal routine, and to see everyone all dressed up.

We were able to enjoy a monologue performance from an actress portraying a famous traveler who lived over 100 years ago, who we usually remember and honor around Christmastime each year. This lady did a great job of representing this famous woman.
  

We had our final work day of helping with the landscaping around camp. I went out with the weed-whacker crew this time, and it was the most exhausting time ever! After a few hours of this, I could barely lift my arms and went to bed very early that night.
  

Last week a few of us decided to spend a free afternoon playing floor hockey in the gym. We had a GREAT time playing 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 games for several hours. In fact, we had such a great time of high-energy competition that we started playing hockey every free evening we have had since then. We have not played every single day, but it has been almost that often. It is many of the same people each time, and we're getting better each night. What a great work out! I have gotten used to showering twice a day. Once after my 5:40am 2-mile run, and once after each 2-hour hockey game. Both are definitely needed. That gym is hot!
   
We haven't had any major injuries, which is wonderful because our play has been pretty rough and aggressive. I did get popped in the nose by the hockey ball one night, but other than a little bleeding and bruising, I was fine. No one has gotten away without massive cuts and bruises on our legs, though, as we are constantly blocking shots with our legs and feet, and whacking each other with our sticks (unintentionally). It has been one of the most enjoyable things I have done here and I'm so glad to have found such a great group of people who are willing to play hockey! It has renewed my old love I had for this sport back in college when I'd play roller and ice hockey with my old guy friends from high school.
    

On nights when we aren't in the gym playing hockey, we have had a growing number of people who are excited to play cards. Many times we have to break up into smaller groups because we can't fit everyone around one table. Here is a game of Hand and Foot with 14 people crowded around the table together.

This past weekend we had bonfires on Friday and Saturday night. Here are a bunch of the people in my age group hanging out around the fire on Friday night.
  

Later that night a few of us mischievous ladies climbed inside the fountain for a picture to put up in the secret room. (see past blog for a reminder of what this is) We wanted to take pictures on top of this globe but we quickly discovered that the piping could not support any weight, and the whole thing started swinging back and forth as soon as we tested its strength.

On Saturday a group of 6 of us took a road trip to Washington D.C. to do some sight-seeing at the monuments and museums. We parked outside of town and rode the metro all day to get from one place to the next.
   
Here is the new World War II memorial, and the capital building.
   
You can see the capital in the distance behind us.      On the right is the White House.
   
Here is the Arlington cemetery. We're taking a break on the steps to the Lincoln Memorial.
   
The Washington Monument is in the distance beyond the reflective pool.

We went to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum and the Natural History museum.
On the right is the Hope Diamond.
  

On Sunday a group of us went out to lunch at a Thai place. I love spicy Thai food! Red curry dishes are my favorite. This restaurant had a weird "under the sea" theme, but the food was good and it wasn't too expensive.

I have less than one week left of camp. My time here has been unforgettable. I love my friends I have made. I cherish all of the things I have learned and the many ways I have changed and grown. I know I'm going to miss a lot of people and things from this time, and plan on making the most of my last week.