MST@MSU | Day 1

Today was the first official day of camp, and what a busy first day it was! This year, we have sixty students broken up into five color groups, which in my opinion is much more manageable than last year’s 2.5 color groups. I woke up, showered, got dressed, and went up to the office for a little breakfast and pre-move in briefing. Primarily, we talked about where we needed to be, what we needed to do, and I talked about warm-up games following the orientation.

Then, the kids started showing up. At first, I was helping Priya pass out binders, but since we didn’t really need two people doing that, I went back to the floor to help the kids find their rooms, make sure the door was locked, and give a little more information. It was nice, and the same I did last year, but I like it. This time, I borrowed Darin’s speakers to play some music from my room, just to liven it up a little bit. I got two comments about it: one kid wanted me to wake him up with The White Stripes (I had “Seven Nation Army” on the quickly-made playlist), and one of the kids’ sister said I had good taste in music. Sounds like a good start!

After, I went over to Broad for the orientation. We sat through the instructors’ speeches, then quickly introduced ourselves before taking the kids outside for the intro games. We did the camp-wide matching game first, to much better success than last year, then broke into color groups for the rest. Soon after my group finished up the Starburst one, it started raining, so we shuffled them inside to finish up. My group, which is Green by the way, was pretty talkative, albeit with a few kids dominating the conversation and a few others not.

We finished that up, and then started free time for the next two hours. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the big TV in the corner (my corner) to work to put on the World Cup game, so I took a bunch of kids outside so they could make their own world cup game. It went pretty well, with me patrolling the far side to stop the ball from going near the river, which in the heat and humidity got me pretty soaked. The game somewhat fell apart after everyone went in to get water, but I stayed out and played volleyball with two kids before running in to get water myself.

Free time eventually ended, but due to Shaw Cafe being closed, we had to take them to Snyder/Philips. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but a thunderstorm decided to roll through just then. We stalled, then walked through the building trying to buy time, and by the time we got to the doors it had reduced to a light drizzle. We sat and ate in our color groups for the meal, and again everyone seemed to be talking and getting along.

We trucked them back to Shaw, told them to grab their binders, and had a safety and camp rules meeting. We also passed out the secret pals information, then Mazur, Darin, and I took the boys to the computer lounge to get their NetIDs set up. The girls followed soon after, so we had to make sure we shuffled them in and out to make sure everyone got it set up. Color groups again, and we went back to Shaw for free time before bed.

Once everyone was in their rooms and being checked in, we had our meeting. Picked classes for tomorrow, discussed eating schedule (open breakfast, classes lunch, color groups dinner), and talked about the kids and the scavenger hunt. Went pretty well, and not as long as last year’s first meeting, so I was good. Once we were dismissed, I went downstairs and took a shower, brushed my teeth, and prepped for bed.

I’ll be waking up tomorrow for running, which should be fun. Troy said that he’d also be up to run, plus a fair amount of kids expressed an interest. It will probably what will happen last year, with most of that initial group sticking around for the first two days, then it slowly (or quickly) dropping off to four to six kids that still run, plus myself and Troy. Should be interesting…

MST@MSU – Three Days Prior

With MST@MSU 2010 starting just three days from now, and the campers moving in in four days, myself and the rest of the staff are already getting excited. Last year at camp, there was almost constant back-and-forth between all members of the staff via text message about some of the strangest things, or random things that happened in the class we were in, or just funny jokes (Ya’ going ta SOAR?).

And that’s already started. In the past two days, I’ve gotten a ton of messages, and am currently in the process of clearing my entire text archive to get ready for camp. Most of it revolved around our color groups for this year. Troy, one of two coordinators, released the color group lists to the RAs yesterday alongside move-in and meeting information for the first day. Just getting that information felt great, even without the color group stats tacked on (following an e-mail from Mazur). Color group leaders are as follows: Darin-Blue, Steph-Red, Mazur-Orange, Priya-Purple, and myself with Green.

I planned on picking up a plain green shirt or two before camp starts (and I probably still will), as I’m sure the rest of the staff will (Mazur’s already picked up multiple orange shirts). I did also set aside the clothes that I’d be bringing to camp as well, and almost all of them are green anyway with a few exceptions (my LHC shirt one of the notables), so if I can’t make it to the store I’ll still be fine.

This will probably be my last post until camp starts up, so here’s to another memorable camp experience!

MST@MSU 2010 – Planning

On Wednesday, I had the first meeting before the start of the MST@MSU 2010 summer camp, which I am getting really excited about! This is the same camp I worked last year, but things change every year (aside from kids coming and going) so it will still be a fun experience. One of the best parts is that our entire RA is returning, plus we’re adding a new coordinator to help retain as much of Troy’s sanity as we can.

I woke up after only a few hours of sleep and walked over to Bessey, stopping at QD to pick up a bag of chips (Cooler Ranch Doritos) for the luncheon. No one ended up eating any of those chips, so I got to take the whole bag back home for my personal enjoyment, but that’s not important. I showed up about 10-15 minutes early, mostly because I walked a little faster than I thought to the building, and saw Troy standing in the hallway. We talked a little bit before various camp staff started showing up, including Darin. He and I would be the only RAs there, since Mazur is in a different time zone and Priya is… Priya. While I did miss not seeing the rest of the crew, we’ll be having a pre-MST reunion before the camp begins, then living together for two weeks, so it’s not like I won’t be seeing them for a while.

While most of the meeting was centered on the actual instructors, as it should be, there was a fair amount of detail that was relevant for me. Currently, the camp stands at 53 students (one more than last year), with applications still open until July 1st and a couple prospective applicants waiting. Right now, we’re hoping for sixty students, but for me the difference between 53 and 60 is almost negligible. Speaking of the kids, each RA will have their own color group, unlike last year were we had two-and-a-half color groups (Blue, Green, and the half-sized Red). This means that I’ll be responsible for knowing ten-twelve kids, much better than trying to swallow thirty names on the first day last year. Plus, the greater fragmentation of the students will be better for our various team activities (scavenger hunt, field day, ropes course, etc.), which I’m really looking forward to. A little competition never hurt, and I’m hoping that I get Red or Green for my color, but honestly any color would be fine.
Note: I’m going to guess the five colors will be Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Orange. The first four are probably definites, with Orange possibly switching for Purple or Brown, but my money’s on Orange.

EDIT 7.6.2010 – Color group information: Red, Green, Blue, Orange, and Purple. I was close… I’m also the leader for Team Green.

Once the meeting was over, I realized exactly how close the camp actually is: in three weeks from this upcoming Saturday, I’ll be moving into Shaw Hall for two weeks. That means I have three weeks to adjust my sleep schedule and mentally prepare myself for running every morning and taking the kids to basketball most likely every day. Of course the camp will be a ton of fun, as it was last year, so I almost wish that it could start sooner, but then again if it did, I’d still wish for it to start early.