Camp Gettinbettaeberityme
Although there are many things that are happening, its seems harder and harder to write these “blogs” that I end up writing a huge one once a week or so which makes it even harder to keep these the blog updated. Anyway the things that happened this past week…
We had another Mauka Kids camp this past weekend. It was a three day weekend so the camp was a little longer than usual. This time the camp was a pirate themed. I thought it was pretty cool. The kids this time around were 100% better than last time. Well it just so happened that September is a Sports Festival and sometimes they take place on the weekend so the numbers this time around were really low. The minimum number of kids is 10, we had 11 sign up. At first I thought this would be a problem but it turned out to be a blessing. The lesser kids there are the easier it is to manage them as a group. In attendance we had 8 girls and 3 boys. Well usually the number of girls is bigger than the number of boys. Best part of having just three boys was because 2 of them were from one of the school’s I teach at. And as at added bonus they speak perfect English! They went to an international school for eight years and they loved in San Jose for a while also. The third boy didn’t speak English but made up for it by having one of the most modest and kind personalities I’ve see in Japan. He was such a nice boy. He never complained about anything, always asked if he could help and always did his best during our activities. The boys were so sweet. The best part was being able to trust them to do things on their own. For example I would just go into the room and tell them, “You got 30 minutes of quiet free time and then go and take a bath” and like clockwork it would be done. I even asked them to go to the vending machine to grab me a drink. The first time I did it they were more than willing to go for me and as a reward for their generosity I asked if they wanted anything but they modestly denied the offer, but the second time I asked them to go they seemed really excited and told me that they were waiting for me to ask them to go to the vending machine because they really wanted something to drink too. Ahhhh, so heavenly.
The girls were also really good except the choice few. If you refer back to one of my May posts there is a blog about the last time I went to camp, titled, Camp Wannabitchsumore, or something like that. In that blog I talked about a certain girl that had it out for me and made the last camp a living hell. Well, she came again. And she brought a friend. The weird thing was that the friend was really nice and tried to use English as much as possible. But anyway the Hellion came again. I was really afraid for what would happen. The first day she was up to her own tricks of picking on me, bothering me, trying to get me pissed off. But then the weirdest thing would happen. She would actually be really nice to me. It’s almost as if she wanted to be nice but forgot that she needed to keep up her mean streak. But what she did accomplish was create new hellions to take her place as she became the leader. The ironic part was that the hellion she created was a girl that was from another school of mine. Actually she isn’t all that bad but her first impression from the “Leader” was to complain and be negative about everything. So from that point on she became a Hellion. The other kids were not as bad but then you could easily tell which kids were from good upbringings and which were not. Some kids were so selfish and demanding that it was hard to tell who was worst the Hellions or the Brats. But there were a few good girls that shared the same qualities as the humble boys.
I guess the MVPs of the camp were a pair of high school girls that came as volunteers to help out. The girls being older yet closer to their age than us, able to speak they girly language and actually like girls holding their hand made them perfect Brat and Hellion shepards. Everywhere the high school girls went the bad kids followed. Well I guess they weren’t bad but you know what I mean. The staff especially the girl staff was so relieved that the high school girls were there to watch the girls. The only part that was shady was when one of our staff members over heard one of the Brats asked the high school girls about S-E-X. Did we talk about it when we were in 4th and 5th grade? I don’t remember taking about that stuff until intermediate school. Anyway one of the Japanese staff members sat them down and explained that they should stay away from those types of topics just in case it comes back to the camp. Would you want to send your kids to a camp where they learned about the birds and the bees from a high schooler? Anyway it turned out that the high school girls were indeed smart and used very political answers like, “everyone has does it and you’ll learn when you get older.” That’s just more the reason for them to come back again.
We also have a trip to Hiroshima for the second three day weekend coming up. It seems like we might even get a chance to meet up Lisa, Jesse, and the new Boyfriend. The tickets weren’t too bad and it seems like we all got good deals on the hotel. The only thing that is bothering Krystal mostly is that the room that we got didn’t have a private bathroom. They have this weird thing in Japan where its ok to see other people naked if its in the bathroom. Actually to my understanding I think Japanese people actually prefer the Japanese style baths to the private ones at home. I don’t particularly care for it either and try to stay as far away form the idea as possible but being in Japan I have taken a number of baths with foreigners already so what the hay? Not that I like that kind of thing…
Break it Down!
We had another Mauka Kids camp this past weekend. It was a three day weekend so the camp was a little longer than usual. This time the camp was a pirate themed. I thought it was pretty cool. The kids this time around were 100% better than last time. Well it just so happened that September is a Sports Festival and sometimes they take place on the weekend so the numbers this time around were really low. The minimum number of kids is 10, we had 11 sign up. At first I thought this would be a problem but it turned out to be a blessing. The lesser kids there are the easier it is to manage them as a group. In attendance we had 8 girls and 3 boys. Well usually the number of girls is bigger than the number of boys. Best part of having just three boys was because 2 of them were from one of the school’s I teach at. And as at added bonus they speak perfect English! They went to an international school for eight years and they loved in San Jose for a while also. The third boy didn’t speak English but made up for it by having one of the most modest and kind personalities I’ve see in Japan. He was such a nice boy. He never complained about anything, always asked if he could help and always did his best during our activities. The boys were so sweet. The best part was being able to trust them to do things on their own. For example I would just go into the room and tell them, “You got 30 minutes of quiet free time and then go and take a bath” and like clockwork it would be done. I even asked them to go to the vending machine to grab me a drink. The first time I did it they were more than willing to go for me and as a reward for their generosity I asked if they wanted anything but they modestly denied the offer, but the second time I asked them to go they seemed really excited and told me that they were waiting for me to ask them to go to the vending machine because they really wanted something to drink too. Ahhhh, so heavenly.
The girls were also really good except the choice few. If you refer back to one of my May posts there is a blog about the last time I went to camp, titled, Camp Wannabitchsumore, or something like that. In that blog I talked about a certain girl that had it out for me and made the last camp a living hell. Well, she came again. And she brought a friend. The weird thing was that the friend was really nice and tried to use English as much as possible. But anyway the Hellion came again. I was really afraid for what would happen. The first day she was up to her own tricks of picking on me, bothering me, trying to get me pissed off. But then the weirdest thing would happen. She would actually be really nice to me. It’s almost as if she wanted to be nice but forgot that she needed to keep up her mean streak. But what she did accomplish was create new hellions to take her place as she became the leader. The ironic part was that the hellion she created was a girl that was from another school of mine. Actually she isn’t all that bad but her first impression from the “Leader” was to complain and be negative about everything. So from that point on she became a Hellion. The other kids were not as bad but then you could easily tell which kids were from good upbringings and which were not. Some kids were so selfish and demanding that it was hard to tell who was worst the Hellions or the Brats. But there were a few good girls that shared the same qualities as the humble boys.
I guess the MVPs of the camp were a pair of high school girls that came as volunteers to help out. The girls being older yet closer to their age than us, able to speak they girly language and actually like girls holding their hand made them perfect Brat and Hellion shepards. Everywhere the high school girls went the bad kids followed. Well I guess they weren’t bad but you know what I mean. The staff especially the girl staff was so relieved that the high school girls were there to watch the girls. The only part that was shady was when one of our staff members over heard one of the Brats asked the high school girls about S-E-X. Did we talk about it when we were in 4th and 5th grade? I don’t remember taking about that stuff until intermediate school. Anyway one of the Japanese staff members sat them down and explained that they should stay away from those types of topics just in case it comes back to the camp. Would you want to send your kids to a camp where they learned about the birds and the bees from a high schooler? Anyway it turned out that the high school girls were indeed smart and used very political answers like, “everyone has does it and you’ll learn when you get older.” That’s just more the reason for them to come back again.
We also have a trip to Hiroshima for the second three day weekend coming up. It seems like we might even get a chance to meet up Lisa, Jesse, and the new Boyfriend. The tickets weren’t too bad and it seems like we all got good deals on the hotel. The only thing that is bothering Krystal mostly is that the room that we got didn’t have a private bathroom. They have this weird thing in Japan where its ok to see other people naked if its in the bathroom. Actually to my understanding I think Japanese people actually prefer the Japanese style baths to the private ones at home. I don’t particularly care for it either and try to stay as far away form the idea as possible but being in Japan I have taken a number of baths with foreigners already so what the hay? Not that I like that kind of thing…
Break it Down!
posted by Chris at 5:25 AM
1 Comments:
NEKKID!!
Hey when in Rome, man!
lol on my trip up there we stayed at a ryokan that has japanese style baths. Lucky they had one private bath that you could lock the doors. :P
cheers to the inbread American social behaviors. We are on of the most anti-social[closeness,nekkidness,intimacy ]countries out there.
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