Chenoan Adventures

So I am back for the weekend! And believe it or not, I actually like Chenoa. I mean, its not home like Farnsworth is (yes, we do refer to it as home), but I could work there for a summer if I couldn't work at Farnsworth. It's nice. 

There are 6 CIT ones. Can you guess how many of them are Chenoans? Uno. The other five of us go to Farnsworth. What about our two counselors? Cero. We were very confused at times on how to do things at Chenoa, normally there is a staff member from Chenoa also doing CIT, but for some reason we didn't get one. So we ask them, and they have no idea either. 

There are some differences that I really didn't expect though. Many of them don't really make a difference in camp life, but it made me a bit homesick (meaning for Farnsworth, not my actual home). 

1. The tables are half the size. With the same amount of people sitting at each one.
2. They don't use silverware racks. According to Bob, Farnsworth is the odd one, and most camps don't use silverware racks, they put the silverware in cups like at Chenoa. When we visited Farnsworth for dinner we got so excited when the silverware racks and might have jumped up and down a little bit. It was that traumatic.
3. They have a nice waterfront. (Not everything is negative) It actually has a beach. 
4. The hoppers don't just get the food, they have to do EVERYTHING. Like scrape, clear the table, etc. I felt sooo rude not helping. 
5. All the campers watch the LBDs. (Which is scary if you're doing your first LBD like me.)
6. They eat chicken almost everyday. (Fun for vegetarians right? NOT.) The food at Farnsworth is soooo much better, even staff at Chenoa say so. 
7. Allll (except Rocky Top where the CITs usually stay, just not us) the units have electricity! Which is like the reverse of Farnsworth where like one unit has electricity. Who can guess which camp is newer? 
8. There isn't a central main camp, its spread out. Many more trees inbetween everything.
9. The Program Center includes art. It isn't separate there, same staff and everything.

Those are the biggest differences, or at least the biggest ones that are coming to my mind right now. I definitely enjoying being there a lot more once I figured out how to not get lost. 

It's been a pretty busy two weeks. There was a Sock Hop [where I did hair styles... yeah, who knew I would end up there (not by choice)], a Yo-yo that we lead teaching Farnsworth songs, and I failed at making friendship bracelets. I shadowed a unit, Baby Boot Camp, in which they were becoming babysitter trained. It would not have been my first choice (or second, or third...) for a unit, but I still enjoyed being with my campers. Hopefully I'll get a unit more suited for me for the next session. 

We did our solos!! Mine actually ended up turning into more of a duo, but that was because of things outside of my control. I was supposed to solo at Chimney Cove, a place across the lake that you have to canoe to, with Pickles canoeing with me, but us setting up far enough away there that they would still be solos. But, as my luck goes, the thunder and lightning started just as we were going to leave. So we ended up going to Beaver Pond (and getting driven there in a van). It's pretty small there, but we were able to set up our camps out of sight of each other, though we were still within hearing distance of each other. I was the only CIT not to use a tent, I tarp-ed it. 

We had to cook dinner together (which was good for me since I am not good at starting fires and it was raining) because there was only one fire circle. It was a one match fire in the rain!! Pretty amazing I might say, though it was all Pickles, I could just barely keep it alive while she cooked her dinner (but I did collect wood if that counts...). 

But I did the bear bagging which was pretty amazing. I got it up really high, but it did take me many, many attempts, one of which ended up with a rock almost flying into Pickles' head. I was in my tarp by myself when I started to hear voices. I tried to figure out if I was imagining them, or if they were really real. I went with imagining because we all know how crazy I am. But then they got louder and started yelling "PICKLES". And then I hear "CADENCE, ECKS?" I realized that it was just our counselors coming to check on us and I wasn't going crazy. When I was trying to sleep that night I heard things walking around me that were at least Pickles sized, if not bigger. And it wasn't Pickles. I heard coyotes. It starting raining and thundering massively. I wasn't sure whether I would rather be eaten or struck by lightning. Around 2am Pickles came to my tarp because her tent had become a puddle. I told her she could come and sleep under my tarp, which was totally dry, except my feet, which stuck out of the end because the tarp was too short for me. I didn't go back to sleep after 2am, and ended up getting pushed out (by accident) from under my tarp and out into the rain. I was rained on. And wet.

I DID MY FIRST LBD!!!! For those of you who don't know, LBD stand for Lost Bather Drill. Lifeguards search the water for a brick that represents a lost person. All lifeguards on camp are required to participate, even if they're not staff (which means me!). It was so much easier than I thought it was going to be.

We went on a three day canoe trip. Polaris taught us The Life of a Voyageur song, all five verses (even though you're not supposed to know them all) so we can pass them on to other generations of campers. She also taught us many off camp songs, some of which we made up new verses to. The first night we shared a campsite with some campers from a Farm and Wilderness camp. On the second day after we arrived at our campsite (really early too, because we are super fast canoe-ers), Simon, Cadence, and I went back out onto the river to pump water. After we had about an inch of water (which took us forever) our water pump broke. So we kidnapped Cadence and I paddled the canoe backwards upstream to a dock to ask if they had water. Simon and Cadence went to ask for water (except Cadence didn't really do anything) while I watched the canoe. The third day we arrived in Thetford and went to Farnsworth. (We told everyone we paddled all the way from Chenoa, but really we started north of Thetford.) Since we canoed so fast we got there too early and were confined to Windigo for the afternoon, but we got to eat dinner there which was nice.

I got to see Harry Potter at the drive in! But the sad thing is, I slept through most of it because it was the night after my solo and I had been up for 20 some odd hours. I'm just going to have to see it again. I also climbed the rock wall at chenoa, but didn't make it all the way up. It felt like claustrophobia (even though I don't have it, thats what I imagine it would feel like), even though I was in a nice wide space, I just had nowhere to move to.

Oh and I have a camp name now! It's Coda, as in D.S. al Coda in music. I was opposed to it in the beginning because it reminded me of that bear in the disney movie Brother Bear (or something of the sort), but everyone said I was a bear, and kept bothering me about it, so I gave in. And now I like it. Everyone else's camp names are: Loki, Simon, Escapé, Indi, and Pickles. Also one of our counselors has a new camp name Polaris (Polo for short, we decided camp names shouldn't have more than two syllables), because she didn't like her old camp name Ecks (pronounced X).

Sorry for the extreme longness of this post, though it really only covers a tiny bit of what's happened in these past few weeks. I head to Farnsworth tomorrow!! So I'm off to bed, going to get a good nights sleep before then. PLEASEEEEE send me letters!!! If you send me a letter I promise I'll write back!

ADDRESS:

EMILY DIPADOVA

CAMP FARNSWORTH

THETFORD, VT 05074

Love,

Em

La Canción: The Life of a Voyageur. The recording of it isn't in the right tune, and isn't as quiet as it should be, but it's all I could find. Though the good thing is, is that it is just the first two verses, as it should be. (Though some of the lyrics are wrong/different.)

Adios to the Civilized World.

Today is my last day at home for quite some time, because tomorrow I head off to camp! But I'm going to Chenoa, which I haven't been to ever before. I've heard the horror stories though. Actually, the only reason I'm unhappy about having to go there is that it's two weeks I don't get to spend at Farnsworth. But it's okay because I get to see some of my favorite people! :) If you want a little peak at what camp is like, you can check out this video my friend Brandy made.

WRITE ME LETTERS! Please! (Address: 4 Brimstone Corner Rd, Antrim, NH 03440)

I'll be home from the afternoon of the 24th to the morning of the 26th, so if anyone ends up missing me a ton, I'm free to make plans. ;)

I also finished all the patches for my quilt today!

Love,

Em

La Canción: Himmelblau by Die Ärzte. Its in German. Also, I forgot one for the last post, but it should have been: Puff the Magic Dragon

BREAKTHROUGH

I have CALLUSES! On all of the fingers I use when I play!! And I taught myself 4 new chords today, and now my favorite of all is E minor (taking the place of G major), which is funny because when abbreviated it's Em, which is also short for Emily! It just sounds so lovely. Strumming still befuddles me though.

with love,

Em

Camp out!

Last weekend was the brownie & junior camp out for the girl scouts. The girls are getting older now, and it's fun to see how they've grown. There was a pool party and a midnight swim. We ate lots of burnt marshmallows, some inside smores. Made some crafts too. Water balloons galore, some of which may have been thrown or popped on yours truly. Here are some quotes from the lovely little ones:

"I'm making out with my marshmallow!"

"Frankenstein lived in a field full of flowers with a pet deer named Hippopotamus"

"I'll have a buzz-weiser"

"We're doing that dance... what's it called... that Michael Jackson dance!"

"You guys are too old for bathroom buddies! I bet they're just too good of friends..."

Plus all the calls of "EMILY!"

All the brownies bridged up to juniors, so now they're back together as one whole group. I'm going to miss them all next year. Even when they make fun of me. (I tripped a lot, over many different things.) Oh and a tip: don't try to put up other people's tents when they are not around, though it does give people watching some entertainment. And thanks to Sheila, she made it a wonderful event. 

La Canción: Thriller by Michael Jackson. For the brownies, because they could not stop doing the thriller dance during the entire camp out; their way of acknowledging his death. 

Oh Hermaringen, Oh Hermaringen...

I. HAVE. A. HOST. FAMILY. But I don't really know much about them. I'm going to be in Hermaringen, Baden-Wurttemberg. My host Mom's name is Sabine Wirth, and I'll have a host dad and three host siblings. Ahhhh, I'm so excited! I'll make a longg boring post with more information about them when I have it. I found the town's webpage though, so if you want to check it out here's a link: Hermaringen (It's in german but translators help ;)

Anyways, back to the boring old Newport-ian life, plus an adventure in Concord:

• I got one of the fuzzy things that goes in your saxophone like Raynalde's at a music store! Maybe my saxophone will be happy now :)
• I need a ukulele and to learn how to play it. (after the guitar of course...)
• While waiting in concord Alison and I hung out in Eagle Square, she drew pictures, and I wrote bad and absurd poetry. Here's the one about a whale eating owl (Alison said I couldn't write one about that):

"My owl is friendly

He almost never bites

Except when a medley

Of whales give him frights!"

Yeah, that's not the worst either...

• I don't want to give up vegetarianism. I feel nauseated anytime I think about eating meat. 
• The lilacs are destroyed. (well "pruned" actually, but it's still sad)
• There was an advertisement/game about beating up Obama. How disgusting. 
• When I was mowing the lawn today I found a Jesus figurine whose head was chopped off. I couldn't find the head, so it must not have been me.

La Canción: On Planet Earth by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. Because Dorothy told me to listen to her, and also, my ukulele desires. 

Minor Musical Difficulties

No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to get any  calluses on my fingers! I've been practicing my guitar quite a lot lately, and none seem to appear. But otherwise I have been improving a bit, but still I can barely play anything - which is terribly sad. And I still don't know anyone who can teach me the piano. 

I got some books for my sax, in case where I'm going next year they don't have a band so I can still keep my playing up. The thing is, now that I've looked at these books, I have no desire to play anything in them whatsoever. It just looks so boring, even though I know it should help. On the upside, I bought some stickers to spell out "King Dagobert" and put them on my case. I was hesitant to put stickers on it, but its so banged up now it doesn't matter. I think the stickers are made for mailboxes, but whatever.

I have no idea how many or how not so many times I should post on my blog.

Song of the Post: In the Forest of the King. The third movement of this is where the name of my saxophone came from :)

Petey the Puffy Poodle

My neighbor's cat, Petey, has recently been shaved. Again. Petey is convinced that he is part of my family and lives on our porch. He tries to jump into our house at any possible chance and almost came to Bar Harbor with us once. Every year, starting two or three years ago, she shaves him - mostly. And he ends up looking like a poodle. Which is better for him in the long run probably, because it gets rid of the huge mats in his hair, and makes him cooler for summer, but he looks ridiculous. Even Petey notices, he kind of slinks around right after it happens and tries to hide like he's embarrassed. But he's still a sweetie anyways. Petey the Puffy Poodle, now that could be one of those alliterations, like "Peter Piper" or "Fuzzy Wuzzy". But the best one I know is in spanish: "Pepe Pecas pica papas con un pico con un pico pica papas Pepe Pecas". We translated it and it went something like this: "Pepe Freckles picks potatos with a stabbing thing with a stabbing thing picks potatos Pepe Freckles". ;)

Now for other recent adventures:

• I have developed a new love of bullets! So I'll use them quite frequently now, but this probably won't last for long.
• Alison wanted her hair dyed red again, so I put highlights in for her :) And, though I am not the best at this, I wouldn't say it looks bad at all.
• As I was walking down the street with Rocco, a car drives by. It starts barking at us and all I see is an old man with his mouth open. I thought he was barking at us and gave him a strange look. Turns out there was a dog in the backseat barking at us, and it was not in fact the old man.
• I have been attacked by dragonflies. I was walking up to the pinnacle, and then out of nowhere these two dragonflies come straight for me, one from each side in military fashion. It was like they planned the whole thing out!
• There is a snapping turtle next to you.
• My diet for the last few days has consisted of mostly eggplant.
• Singing is good.
• I tried a new thing today: Spicy Thai flavored chips. And when they said spicy they meant it!
• I'm trying to decide if I want to put a song at the end of each of my posts. Sort of like a "Song of the Day" or "Song of the Week" type thing, except more like a "Song of the Post" thing. I'll start it and then see what happens.
• It is not a crime to comment on my blog, I promise! If you are reading this feel completely free to comment, it will make me actually know if its being read. (and you don't have to have a blogger account to comment) Thanks!

Song of the Post (or maybe a better name suggestion?): Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes. I just heard of them today, and I quite enjoy it. :D

Sorry for the absurd longness of this post!