So Tired...

How have I already been here for 2 weeks?  That is just completely insane to me.  I feel like I have been here forever but at the same time, not that long, ya know?  Today was long.  I need to stop staying up so late.  I worked breakfast and supper tonight, along with teaching 7 private 20 minutes swimming lessons.  Bah.  Layed out for a bit with Katie after my lessons and got a nice little sunburn. Right now I am sitting up in the library with Vivien and Matt is across the room.  There is like this prodigy kid on the piano downstairs playing all of this top 40 music.  I went down there to check it out and he is amazing!  He doesn't know how to read music, but does everything by ear which is great.  My online class finishes in two days and I need to get motivated if I want to get everything done.  I will hopefully get a lot done tomorrow, well I have to get a lot done tomorrow.  Yuck.  Hopefully I will still have time to go out on the lake tomorrow.  We were going to go out with RJ and Tanner today but the wind was so incredibly strong...lots of white caps on the lake.  Even the pool had big waves in it while I was teaching today.
My family I had been serving since Saturday night left this morning after breakfast.  I, once again, cried.  I especially was going to miss my little Jack and his parents.  What great role models they were for me.  They gave me their email address to keep in touch and said if I ever needed a place to stay in Minneapolis, their house is open.  I learned so many wonderful things about them like how they taught school in Thailand for 2 years!  They gave me $60 for a tip for the 4 days and the rest of the family (12 others) gave me a $40 tip.  So exciting to finally have tip money!!!  I'm still not sure how I didn't get any from my family last week.  Oh well.  Now to start paying things off.....blech.  Well, my computer is dying and I am dead exhausted.  I finally have breakfast off tomorrow morning, so hopefully I can sleep a bit.  Goodnight!!

What Day Is It?

All of the days here at Fair Hills seem to moosh together.  I work everyday and hang out with the same people everyday, so only a few things stick out in my mind.  Yesterday morning our families that we had for the week left and I cried like a baby.  I went over to say goodbye to them and couldn't handle it.  And yet again, once I start crying, I don't stop.  And of course, I was the only waitron bawling over her family.  I miss them already.  Allison, Sydney, Joey, Ryan, Athena, Rebecca, Olivia, and all of my adorable other children in that family :)  I even learned some Afrikaans from Athena's dad.  I learned how to say, "Give me a hug" and "thank you".  Athena was my little cuddler.  I had almost all of those children in my swimming lessons as well. When I was talking to Athena's mom to say goodbye, she had tears in her eyes when she was telling me how much I taught her. Gosh, makes me tear up now.
On a side note, I just had to step outside onto our porch to finish this blog post because my Turkish roommate thinks that practically making out with her bf in the bed next to mine while I am there is okay.  Well, it isn't.  I really have no desire to hear or see that thank you very much.  He is in there ALL the time.  They take naps together like 5 times a day and do nothing else.  She is hopefully moving downstairs on Tuesday after the skunk problem is officially solved.
Back to yesterday....so Katie and I ate lunch and then decided it would be a great day on the lake.  We texted our friend RJ up here and he took us out for a couple hours on his boat.  Katie and I tubed for awhile and she fell off a lot, but it was great.  I was done after we crashed pretty hard and she ended up kicking me in the head on the fall.  We both attempted wakeboarding too.  I was terrified at first and I almost got up, but wasn't leaning far enough back and I was trying too hard to pull myself up instead of letting the waves take me.  My arms are SO incredibly sore today.  I can barely wash my hair.  Last night we just hung out with some friends and that's about it.  Great thunderstorm last night :)
Off to lunch now.  Working all three meals today.  Woooooo....
Adios.  Hope summer is treating you all wonderfully.
Love.

Stupid Class

Today was an extremely long day.  I worked breakfast, lunch, and supper along with having a singing rehearsal in the afternoon.  I thought that having a summer class this year was going to be easy being at a camp, but it is quite the opposite.  I barely have time to think about reading my books or doing my work, and when I do have time, I don't want to do it.  I want to build relationships with the people that I am meeting here instead.  Stupid class :(  We are all trying to figure out something to do tonight.  I really just want to sit around and chill and play games in our cabin.  We might be inviting some people over for that.
I got a new roommate yesterday from Hungary and her name is Vivien.  Her English is so amazing, which is a huge comfort since there is really no language barrier.  She is also a waitress with me, so that is really nice that she gets to hang out with me at work!  Being here on the first day is emotional for anybody, but being halfway around the world be terrifying.  She started crying and I felt awful.  I just hugged her for awhile and tried to make her feel better.  In order to try to keep her mind off of things, I got my guitar out (I am not that good) and played random chords and freestyled a song for her.  She seems a bit better today but she misses her family and boyfriend very much.  I told her that I am always here for her and I am having such a good time getting to know her.  She is supposed to move downstairs with the other Turkish girls but she is staying up here and I am very happy because she is so sweet.  Now we are sitting on my bed (me and Vivien) and she is showing me the songs she uses for Zumba that she teaches.  She is going to start teaching classes here at Fair Hills :) I can't wait to join!! Still loving it here and can't wait for it to warm up so that we can spend more time on the lake and simply outside.  Got a letter from my friend Abbie today and it definitely made the day a bit brighter.  My brain is going a thousand miles a minute right now so I best stop typing before it becomes really confusing.  I need to find something to do for the talent show tomorrow night....bahhhh.  What should I do?!!!

Jump Kaitlyn!

Today was long.  I am beat.  My arms hurt, my legs hurt, and I am tired.  Okay, I am done complaining now because all in all, it has been wonderful throughout the pain.  Worked breakfast this morning in the dining hall and then went to WalMart with Katie for a few things afterwards (this included a diet mountain dew because I have been craving one and they don't have pop here for us).  By the time we got back, we had about one minute to get our instruments from our cabins and head to the dining hall area to start the parade.  We marched down to the front lobby/pavilion with the kids (who got to dress up in many different costumes) while playing Oh When the Saints and the Mickey Mouse song but with words about Fair Hills.  Then we put on a mini concert up in front of the pavilion for the guests.  After the parade, we ate lunch and then I headed right up to change into my swim suit.  I am teaching swimming lessons this summer at Fair Hills (don't worry, I have taught before) and they are private lessons I found out today.  That means, I had 7 kids today, each for 20 minutes.  I was in the pool for 2.5 hours with no sun, a light breeze, and a semi-warm pool.  I was quite cold.  The lessons went decently well and I had some familiar faces from my family I am serving this week in the dining hall.  My little Allison came for a lesson and she is very allergic to peanuts, so I have to be very careful when serving her food :)  After lessons, I ran into the hot tub to warm up and while I was in there, a bunch of guys came running in looking frozen.  They had been in the lake for 45 minutes setting up 'the tower', which is a big wooden structure with a ladder that kids can jump off of.  It is about 8 feet high out of the water!  It was definitely a task trying to get that thing up and the water was only about 65 degrees!  After we had sat in the hot tub and warmed up a bit, I decided I wanted to go jump off the tower.  Two other guys came with me and we headed into the freezing water.  It burned my skin as I went in because it was so cold!  We climbed up to the top and I looked down and had to just stand there for a minute to get the courage to jump off.  The guys jumped a couple times and then I heard a few shouts from a sailboat.  This little girl I had met the other day and her family were yelling, "Jump Kaitlyn!!"  I told the young girl to count 1,2,3 for me to jump in and she did :)  Holy cold.  So much fun though!  We swam around for about two seconds and then I headed back to my cabin to shower and get ready to serve supper.  Supper was great.  I love my family I get to serve and there are a bunch of them, so they change around tables in my section and I get somebody new out of the family every day.  I had an older part of the family tonight and they were so wonderful.  I talked to them for about 10 minutes while they waited for the rest of the family to arrive.  They asked a bunch of questions about me and I really got to know them.  I just love people.  So great.  A lady that I had met in the pool earlier before lessons came up and talked to me.  Before she left she came up and said goodbye and how nice I was.  How sweet :)  Well, I am going to work on some homework for my lame online native american class.  Ugh.  I'm sorry I haven't been communicating much with everyone, I am so busy here and rarely on my computer or in my cabin.  Love to you all :)

Lake Jump!!

It is my fifth day at Fair Hills and I love it here!  I feel like I have lived here for weeks actually.  I waited on my first table all by myself last night (with very little training I might add) and it went great!!  I love being around families and getting to know them.  I have met a wonderful friend named Katie out here.  We are practically the same person and we have been spending all of our time here together (with other friends too of course)!  Yesterday we spent most of the afternoon out on the lake because we worked breakfast and supper.  We went out on our friend Tanner's pontoon out to the dam and swam around there and he fished for awhile.  The water is only about 66 degrees, so quite chilly!  Then we headed back because he had to work and jumped on our friend RJ's boat and watched as a group of friends wakeboarded and surfed for awhile.  Today we served an amazing father's day brunch, so happy father's day to all of you amazing dads out there!!!  I made $12 in tips but we have to pool them together because it was brunch and not everyone got tables to serve.  Hopefully I still come out with some good cash :)  At 3:00 today, we had a mini-hootenanny performance for the guests.  The Hootenanny is like our broadway musical that we put on every Tuesday night.  Today was interesting because we only had practiced like twice before so I really didn't know the songs very well.  Oh well, hopefully I didn't look too silly!  It is a tradition that after every Hootenanny, when the last song is over everybody yells, "LAKE JUMP!!!".  The staff all runs out to the dock and jumps off.  Then we swim to the raft platform and sing and dance to the pelican song one more time.  The guests usually watch from the deck and have a good time watching us get soaked and act like kids.  The water was cold today but it was really fun!!  Now, I am sitting in my cabin (still looking right at the dang pole...) waiting until I have to leave for supper.  After supper, there is a sand volleyball tournament and ice cream social.  Right up my alley :)  Hope your summer's have been going well!!

Help Me

Arrived at Fair Hills Resort today around 3:15 pm after a little over a 4 hour drive.  Another girl led me to my cabin and it looked cute from the outside, but inside was nothing of what I expected.  I walked into big open space with four twin beds and four dressers.  The place smelled horribly of skunk and had no air conditioning.  Now, I am no prima donna by any means, but this place was not what I was expecting.  I was expecting my own room, ac, and something not crawling with bugs and smelling of roadkill.  I have one other girl living with me.  She is a farm girl and is in ROTC, but lately took up pole dancing to be more girly....we have a pole in our cabin, I REPEAT, A POLE IN OUR CABIN.  She paid $400 for this gold piece of nast and put it in OUR cabin.  I thought it was built into the room until she told me it was hers.  She is a sweet girl, don't get me wrong, but I am staring at it right now...bah.  I had an emotional breakdown after I got all of my stuff up in the cabin (we are on the second floor).  I haven't had a good cry in awhile, and if you are a girl, you understand what I am saying when I say that this could lead to bad things.  Since I hadn't cried in awhile, my emotions were already topsy turvy, so that on top of all of this change made me burst.  I cried.  Cried because I just wanted to go home.  I'm over it now, the crying anyway.  Now just to get used to this new adventure.  But that's why it's called an adventure right?
Met some nice girls that work in the snack shop and had supper with them after they showed me around.  Not really sure what to expect still.  Went to supper with my roommate even though I had already eaten with the other girls.  I chose the wrong place to sit at supper apparently.  Sat by these two guys and two girls.  After sitting down, realized that English wasn't their primary language.  They were Bulgarian (first thing that came to mind was Viktor Krum all you HP nerds out there).  One guy was all snooty to me and I couldn't really tell if he understood me and I couldn't understand his mumbling.  Oh well, I am not embarrassed, just trying to make new friends.  Now, I am sitting back in my cabin, but will probably head down to the Pavilion (main lobby thing) soon.  Hootenanny practice tonight at 7 and it can apparently go for 3 hours.  At least I am getting paid and it's like a Broadway musical!  Hopefully I get used to this soon, this is nothing like what I expected.  So, here's to God for throwing me a curveball in life.  He must have something up his sleeve....something He definitely wants me to learn this summer.

Give Me a Chance

Now that I am able to count down the hours until I leave for camp, it is kinda freaking me out.  I know that I go to school and am away from home for a long time, but I know people there.  I may not always know what to expect, but I have a pretty good idea.  In approximately 34 hours, I will be going somewhere I have never been, know nobody, and have no idea what to expect.  I am even starting to have nightmares.  I will miss my family.  I already feel it.  I keep getting older and that means pulling away from my home.  Obviously I will always have my family, but it just won't be the same since I spend less and less time there.
Alas, God created stationary, cell phones, and a computer to put to good use.  If anyone wants to be my pen-pal, I have 80 sheets of paper to use.  Just text or fb me for the address :)  I would love to hear from you!
I won't tell you too much about music camp.  It consisted of not very much sleep, a mediocre 21st birthday, and a lot of children.  My birthday was in the heart of the week and a few of the counselors and me went downtown at midnight.  I ended up being the person driving home on my 21st, that's how crazy I get.  I had to play in the band with the kids because there weren't enough campers this year and it is always good for them to try to mimic my sound.  It was great for me too because I hadn't played for that many hours a day since school got out.  I also was blessed to be able to play a trumpet duet with my high school band director!  I have looked up to him my whole life and we played a duet from a book that was just finished this spring and had never been played in SD!  How cool is that?  We rocked it.
So, being 21 now, I feel like I should start living my dreams.  Why can't I be one of those nobody's that gets noticed and ends up on the big screen?  That is my only huge dream in life.  I'm about to pack up and figure out how to work this out.  When I saw Wicked on broadway this year, I knew I could do what those extras were doing on stage.  I don't have nearly enough talent to have any solos or be a big name, but I know that I can dance like those girls were on stage.  If I was somehow given the chance.  I want to see my name in the credits of a movie or in a playbill.  How much is that to ask?  :(
Went to Oasis last night and was on a cloud of happiness.  The joy that being at BWC brings me is unreal and I can't wait to be back this fall.  I miss the church community I have there and being around people that help build me up.  Bless the church and community and those who aren't able to be there this summer.
Going to finish watching 27 Dresses.  Oh wedding shows and movies...how you always creep back into my life.

50% Chance

This post will be very short considering I have to get to supper within the next few minutes. I am at SDSU, counseling All-State Music Camp and tomorrow is our last day. It has definitely been a challenging week between not getting much sleep and working with kids all day. Has it been worth it? I think so :) This is giving me a wonderful opportunity to learn how to teach music. I may not end up teaching someday, but between a school and a hospital (being music therapy), it's a 50% chance. My favorite part of the week was teaching a jazz sectional for the trumpets. It was so fulfilling to watch them grow and learn in the 30 minutes I had with them. Making them sing out their parts so that they could actually put the rhythms to work before sticking a horn to their face is always fun. I always hated singing out the music in jazz, but I have come to love it in college. It truly does help work it out!! Okay, I really have to go to supper (hopefully it's something good...dorm food...) but I will let you know how the week went soon! Adios.
P.S. It's cold outside. I am not a happy camper.