I am currently located in the computer lab sitting staring at a blank screen that I refuse to leave unless it's filled with the words I know I want to pour out. Life is moving by slowly, yet I can't remember when it became July.
I am officially back where I am supposed to be. I'm not just in the California state boundaries, I am back at school. Living in a dorm room with not nearly enough space. I already have a pile of laundry that rivals Mt. Everest and the bathroom that has only been inhabited by me for a week since May is beyond cluttered. It's good to be back.
So in my incessant effort to organize my life, I'm going to list the state of things (once again) because it helps me to feel like I actually have a bit of control. Bear with me if you've had to endure this before - basically anyone who's read more than a weeks worth of blog entries..
I am living in North Hall once again, in a single room (closet) that is the only inhabited room in the top two floors. The other 3 R.A's are living on the first floor. Yay for dark hallways with monsters in the shadows at night. I'm still in the process of organizing my belongings , but that won't be too necessary as I'll be moving to South Hall in a month, and back to North Hall again for the school year. Good thing I've had practice, I guess.
For work we've had a meeting each day, usually only for an hour or two each time. And every meeting I feel like I'm that much more unsure of what I've gotten myself into. I'm supposed to be an activity leader and a resident adviser - basically a package camp counselor. The kids are ages 10 to 24, from a foreign country such as Italy, Russia, China, etc.. and they take ESL classes in the mornings. From noon to midnight I get to entertain them, eat with them, and walk the hallways.
After a while the kids I'm supposed to be entertaining and watching over sound more and more like inhuman demons rather than foreign minors. The need for a supervisor at meal times to ensure that no food fights ensue is disconcerting in the least, and I'm hoping the nerf guns are a joke and not a required part of our safety as a staff member. Seriously.. there are nerf guns. God help me.
Aside from the scary part, I get to play games with them, paint faces, teach them a bit of english along the way, swim with them, etc... basically anything to distract them from realizing they are in America essentially unsupervised by parentals. The best part is the fact that even though most of these kids are from foreign countries where they start drinking at the age of 12 - and even when there is an age restriction it excludes beer and wine - I get to be the one who takes the alcohol/cigarettes/drugs from them and tell them to go to sleep at the ungodly hour of 11pm. Seriously, can i have an escort please? I'm still not convinced that the extra security guard the school hired is for the minor's safety and not ours.
Oh, and apparently each and every one of them will develop a crush on each of the staff members. This can only end badly.
Bring on the first 134 students.
About Me
- Brittany Sky
- Pleasantville, California, United States
- Walking through libraries. The smell of old books when they haven't been handled in ages. Music. Dancing in an empty house with the music echoing through every room. Music playing in your heart. Life, love and the pursuit of chocolate. Amazing worship sessions. Photography. Not having to edit a thing about a picture. Amusement parks. Windy days at the beach. Eating just about anything. Mending broken hearts. Learning life lessons. Meeting new people. Meeting old people.
3 comments:
Ah to be young. What youthful exuberance you may find hearkening and screened towards you in blank, slow, justly cautious implorations, you must take precaution towards. This is, after all, the noble month of July, and such a slow but foreboding behemoth certainly awaits you at August's turn that you can't help but be wary. This is the instinct of life, and the fruit of kindness and dignity that blooms, no doubt, from the official spaces between your back and the chair, from the very boundaries of California into the near-missed amnesia of ever-ridden laundry dust that prevails amongst the flowers, freshly bloomed in May sunsets and mountainous clods of dirt and ignorance.
And yet, all the incessant organizing in the world can never change the state of things, because any control is an illusion cast forward by the untrained mind. Only by deconstructing what it means to endure, and what a week-by-week practice of disillusionment calls forth, can one truly grasp the reins of sanity and find peace among the restless plains.
And so, then, must the Northern Hell begin, a humble beginning of the fiercest of all metaphorical trials, which surely awaits you. Its inhabitants you already know well: the monsters that cloud your own mind, the shadows that slip through windows and under doorframes and down your throat at night, vanquished by the Southern Sun in a heartbeat. No practice can adequately prepare you for such a bold trial of faith and endurance.
And as every meeting turns to coincidence, as every unsure thought flickers through your mind on this metaphysical/metaphorical homicidic, neurosis-inducing, hopefully all-enlightening journey, I can only pray that you reside a full and unopened packaged, unbridled by the flickering thoughts that fell the foulest of remorseless traitors, and that you abide on the unmarked line that separates north and south as long as is necessary.
Countries are naught, and children are a distraction, for our future is not one of growth, but one of isolation. From moontime to midday we feel the pangs of our inner demons howling, and yet we let a youthful exuberance wash over us, perhaps drawn from the souls of those young that accompany us.
Take heed, lest you become a meal in their foul plot, and keep your ammunition close to heart and your courage at the forefront of your being.
This ungodly hour is rising, and you can only pray for your own security. Do not cloud your mind with alcohol or drugs, lest you escort yourself to an unguarded point of no return. That which has risen shall be crushed. This needn't end badly.
I feel the same way about big spooky hallways and being all alone. I still am afraid that at night when I am getting into my car, someone is crouched underneath my car waiting to grab my ankles. I hope that goes away eventually.
Take heart, though. Those foreign kids are probably just as scared as you are, and they need someone with a smile like yours to illuminate the frightened depths of their hearts :)
I used to have no problem with dark, quiet halls until I watched The Blair Witch Project. Remember the end? Try not to think about it when you're all alone in the dark.
Seriously, don't think about it -- WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T THINK ABOUT THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT!
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