Category Archives: think

just because it grows on a tree doesn’t mean you can eat it.

Posted on by
20

I am a camp girl.

I spent almost four and a quarter years of my life (over the span of 14 years) working at a summer camp on an island an hour off the Vancouver coast. I did it through high school, through years of university, and through jobs that allowed me the time to go and follow my little camp heart.

I started as a junior counselor at barely 15. I lived with 12 new monkeys every week, and taught windsurfing and snorkeling. From there, I did everything that I could possibly do on staff until I ended up in charge of the place year-round.

That added another 27 months in the office in the city, wrangling budgets and hustling to raise money and dealing with nonprofit crap and answering random parent questions and conducting more than 700 staffing interviews with people aged 15 to 82.

So when it comes to camping, I know my stuff. Mostly.

People ask me all the time why I did it for as long as I did it — especially if they never did camp or HATED IT (and I know a lot of you folks).

I suppose the best answer I can give is twofold:

First, I loved it. I loved being outside. I love kids. I love being active. I love being silly. I love people in general. No other job has ever worn me out in such a jolly way. And as wonky as the 18-hour days were, and as minimal as the pay was, you couldn’t really do much but be thankful when you woke up to a crazy sunrise and 220 kids happy to be alive.

Second? I saw the value in it every single day. The value of getting kids out of the city, the value of giving them an opportunity to learn something new, the value of making fresh friendships and learning to interact with others in a positive way… all of it made sense.

There are a ZILLION worse jobs you could do. I always knew that, no matter how tired or dirty or overwhelmed I got.

That doesn’t mean it was always easy.

It wasn’t easy when I had to file abuse reports for children that had gone through hell at home. I felt like gravity was sucking me into the ground when I had to tell our assigned caseworker that we had a little boy covered in bruises that weren’t caused by falling off his bike, or a little girl that hadn’t stopped crying panicky tears since the boat left the dock — a departure that finally put distance between her and her stepfather. He would later be arrested and convicted of things I still can’t talk about.

I never quite got used to “reporting”, though I did it dozens of times over the years. I can’t IMAGINE what it’s like to be a caseworker or a teacher or anyone who has to deal with it ALL THE TIME. I couldn’t. I admire you. I’m glad you’re there.

It wasn’t easy when kids would bully one another, or someone would feel left out, or I’d have a teenage counselor who couldn’t handle either situation well. I hated the idea of a little person lying in their bed at night wishing they were anywhere else but where they were… though I knew it happened.

We did our best, but I couldn’t force kids to do or be things if those things didn’t make them comfortable. I’d rout out anyone who made them feel like that, but I knew the positive nature of the experience would never be universal.

Hell, I walked away from my first week of camp at age 10 with a broken toe, a mouthful of canker sores, many traumatic experiences with bugs, and the worst counselor ever. I believe she was fired the following week for hitting one of her campers (!)

After all, when you’re a kid, leaving your family for a week and dealing with a ton of folks you don’t know can be a pretty weird thing. When I hear about the months-long residential camps in the States, I can’t IMAGINE how kids OR counselors deal with it. Or parents, for that matter.

Maybe we’re just pansies in Canada (though we’ll beat you up if you say so.)

Finally, it wasn’t easy when I broke a few ribs (three, with a windsurfing board), or broke my nose (four times!), or broke toes or fingers (all of them, at different points) or or fell on a wasp’s nest (10 stings to the butt!), or got pneumonia (twice), or got food poisoning (twice), or got a staph infection from a tiny cut on my ankle that turned into a near-amputation situation (once, but MERCY).

When the doctors discovered that situation, I ended up losing 38 pounds in two weeks (match THAT, Oprah) and lost my stomach lining to four rounds of IV and oral antibiotics.

Still, there are a zillion things worse than being injured at camp.

All in all, the experience exposed me to the best and worst in people, just like life tends to do anyway. And you can learn lessons anywhere… but I feel pretty blessed I got to learn them in that environment.

(And did I mention that I worked with gorgeous boys and got a fantastic tan and got to spend DAYS in the water? Yes.)

To sum it all up, I’d like to present you now with the 20 most important things I learned at camp in the space of those 14 or so years (not including the FUNDAMENTAL lesson in the title of this post.)

WHAT I LEARNED FROM BEING A CAMP GIRL

1. The key to learning to deal with your worst phobias (snakes, spiders, bees, rodents, heights, water, etc.) is to have to help ANOTHER person deal with that phobia… especially a small person. I was amazed at what I could handle when I had no choice but to keep my head together.

2. Some people just aren’t morning people. Don’t screw with that. Especially with a megaphone.

3. If you want to make a non-morning person laugh in a gentle, non-invasive way, have them watch (perhaps from a distance) you lead 220 kids in dancing to Tchaikovsky, ABBA or Herb Alpert in their pajamas. I swear. Works every time.

4. Gossip — though it may be at the heart of most entertainment reporting and the true purpose of all nail salons — is the fastest community killer known to man. Just open your mouth and watch things fall apart. I quickly realized that the people who knew all the “dirt” usually got their dirt at the expense of work, relationships and integrity. And sometimes those priorities got them fired.

5. Never put a laid-back person in charge of cleaning a kitchen or checking climbing equipment. This is exactly where you want your OCD staff to shine.

6. Never force a shy kid onto a stage if they don’t want to be on a stage. But if they ask for the microphone, give it to them RIGHT AWAY and stand back. Those tiny bursts of courage can change the face of someone’s whole life.

7. Sleeping under the stars is the best way to feel the right kind of small… and the right kind of big.

8. Crushes are better than coffee for getting you out of bed in the morning.

9. If your first response is to yell, see if you can go for a walk first. Unless it involves teenage boys or bears. Then go right ahead.

10. Don’t invent a rule to deal with a single situation. The best way to make a situation keep happening is to create a rule.

11. Better solutions to problems come when you get the right people involved, as opposed to just more people. Whipping a crowd into a frenzy for your purposes will seem like a great idea… until the same crowd turns on you.

12. Actual acts of love mean much, much more than loving words. But if you can do both? Score.

13. Sticks and fire are the greatest enemies of order and reason known to man. But a s’more is worth the risk every time.

14. You can get in much more trouble talking than you can by listening. Be a steel trap, not a sponge waiting to be squeezed out.

15. There are few things as powerful on this earth than a parent’s connection to a child. Think very hard before you get in the way of that force. And if you have to for the good of that child, don’t stop thinking the entire time.

16. Expectations and grace are two things every leader should have in spades. One gets you up in the morning, the other lets you sleep at night.

17. People are not the sum of their resumes. For better or for worse.

18. The chance to try something new is one of the best gifts you can give someone, whether it’s a huge challenge or a little task. An even better gift is giving them the chance to try again if it doesn’t work out the first time.

19. Being part of a child’s life is an honor, whether it happens for an hour, a day, a week or a lifetime. Even when you are pretty much ready to honor them upside the head.

20. Whatever you think you know, there is a thousand times more stuff still left to learn.

BREAKING: frog in video game still startled by oncoming car in tenth level.

Posted on by
16

Have you read this?

I doubt you have, since most of you probably a) don’t live in NYC; b) don’t read the Times Magazine; and c) aren’t especially compelled to read a magazine article about blog drama.

(What IS a blog, anyway? Damn kids and their new words!)

Anyway, I read it. And this. And this. Oh, and can we forget this?

And as a result, I’m struck somewhere between shock at the idea of ANYONE being bested in a battle of the wits with Jimmy Kimmel (on Larry King Live, no less!) and rolling my eyes at YET ANOTHER blogger on the Internet bemoaning the consequences of oversharing.

Because she’s not really bemoaning. She’s writing for the Times Magazine and making some good coin to do it.

Because her “suffering” has less to do with the Big Bad Internets and more to do with that girl in every high school who argues loudly with her boyfriend in front of his locker every time the hallways are crowded. Her life isn’t necessarily tougher than yours. She’s just more noisy about it.

And she’s the only one startled when the boy walks away.

I’ve been blogging under my own name for more than four years, which puts me in the “newbie” category for some, and the “old hat” category for others. I’ve spent that time as a “personal” blogger, which is the random category you end up in when you or your subject matter don’t fit any other popular designation. Or you’re, you know, personal.

I write about whatever I want to write about, and I don’t write about whatever I don’t want to write about. It’s up to me, 100%. Which is why I have no one to blame but myself if things go sideways: I’m completely accountable for every single word that appears here.

If I let myself get tempted (or even goaded) into sharing something too personal, it’s me that gets to cringe until the entry falls off my front page. If my reticence to share certain things bores people, then it’s me that has to live with being “dull.” If I write something crappy, well, add “crappy” to my resume.

Even if I’m writing for someone else, somewhere else… hell, it’s still up to me. I can choose to walk away from a stupid assignment, even if my bank account takes a hit for the sake of my ethics.

I do like to share about who I am, what I love, and what I don’t love. I do like to walk through the things I’m learning, and to learn from the people that stop by here. I do have the essential authorly desire to be read. I do like feedback. I do like conversation. I put my stuff out publicly because that’s what works for me.

And I am grateful for the way my writing career has launched itself from this space.

But the flip side is, I’m culpable the second I hit “publish”. If any shit is going to hit any fan, it’s going to fly in my direction.

That’s why I think before I write.

That’s why I avoid posting on the “controversy trifecta”: sex, politics and religion.

That’s why I don’t malign my family, my co-workers, my past or current mates, or my friends on my blog.

That’s why I check every harsh word I’m tempted to use against the real value of posting it. Will I feel better? Will the problem be solved? Will it end there? Am I going to wish I hadn’t done it in a year? An hour?

And that’s where Ms. Gould comes in: no matter how startled or wounded people pretend to be at the outcome of their actions, most people who write for very long on the Internet are WELL aware of what will happen when they post certain things.

If you yammer on LiveJournal about how much you hate your boyfriend’s best friend, someone will eventually send him the link. If you mock your coworkers without hesitation all over your Blogger, someone in your IT department is going to object to being called an “indoor kid” and make sure your supervisor gets the URL. If you post pictures of your boobs on your Facebook, people are going to look at your boobs (and either like them enough to share them, or mock them enough to, well… share them.)

If you post anything drunkenly anywhere, well… all bets are off, then.

Even if you think no one knows you’re doing it. Even if you lock up your privacy settings like a drum.

But if that’s what you like, and that’s what you want, more power to you. If you’re ready to man (or woman) up for the reaction, enjoy. I don’t have problems with anyone doing anything online if they can live with the results.

However.

The conceit of feeling exposed? The conceit of feeling victimized? The conceit of being held hostage by your own lethal cocktail of narcissism and naivete? The conceit of curling up in a fetal position when the world closes in on you?

(What, nobody lies prostrate anymore? Pansies.)

NO.

The last call is ALWAYS YOURS.

If you can’t or won’t defend it/stand behind it/sue it into oblivion, you’re going to end up paying for it. And the only person you’ll have to blame is YOU.

If someone else writes about you, well… you’ve got some room there to be offended and hand-talky. Unless, of course, you started something with them, or they’re just reposting something you put elsewhere. Because… yep, you got it… it began with you.

Is youth an excuse? Is fame an excuse? Is peer pressure an excuse? Is innocence an excuse? I’m going to say… naaaaaaaaah. Especially if catharsis was your only concern, or the approbation of dumbasses.

Which is what most people who write crap on the Internet are looking for. Period.

And now, apparently, people who write for the Times Magazine.

There are no victims here except the people in Emily’s life who gave up their privacy on the same laptop-shaped altar on which she sacrificed hers.

All you have is a blogging, bed-lolling, boyfriend-ruining, Kimmel-whacked, overpublished, overhyped hipster heroine for the confessional age… and one literary institution that just made a judgment call akin to getting a tattoo of My Little Pony after too many Jello shooters.

The Web will always need a balance of scholars, clowns, tarts, vicars, villains, Robin Hoods, Marilyns, Dorothys… you name it. There’s a standing welcome for everyone, whether you take the heat in the kitchen, or stay in the dining room with people eating pie and telling stories.

You’re even welcome to feel some regret when you slide in the wrong direction now and then.

But if you cannot own up to your role and your truth and that shot of your ass at Mardi Gras, I see no need to celebrate or indulge or mourn you ANYWHERE.

This is not what all bloggers do. This is not what all writers do. This is not what all young women do. This is not what all people do.

But this is the part of new media that our established media sources jab their fingers at as if to say, “Look! Look! PartyAngel69 is no Dorothy Parker.”

Damn right. No one ever will be.

But most of us aren’t PartyAngel69, either.

Occasionally we think first.

And then we write better.

finding emo.

Posted on by
10

Once there was a little fish named Meg.

She wasn’t actually that little. Actually, kind of round. But not too long, so still technically little.

What Meg wanted more than anything in the world was to have little fish fry. Not fried fish, mind you, because that would be weird, considering that she was a fish.

(In fact, just tonight Meg learned the name for baby fish, and it sounds about as suitable as calling baby pigs, “Bacon”.)

A couple years ago, Meg learned that she could not have fry of her own. This was tough, but she kept swimming and breathing as best she could through her gills and looking on the bright side. Which was up, since the sun reflects on the water.

And she knew she would be okay, eventually.

What she also knew is that she’d take someone else’s fry to be her fry.

Kind of like she used to at McDonald’s when she got the small size and wanted more and someone wasn’t looking.

But that isn’t really how adoption works.

That’s more kidnapping, and for that they put you in the Fish Gulag. Otherwise known as Petco.

Wait, where is this going?

Tonight, I watched Juno. Which everyone has been telling me to see, because a) apparently I am Juno-esque, save for my inability to bake buns in my home oven; and b) I would write a movie like this, left to my own devices. Apparently.

And it made me cry, of course, because it’s not just about Juno, but about Vanessa, who wanted to be a mom so badly… and then she was.

As I will be, one day.

Probably not by myself, because hello, I am too lazy for such things. Really. I’d get even less sleep and then walk fatally into a wall or something.

But I want it more than anything. And I believe I will be good at it. I don’t need to bake my own bun to love the warm bun-ness of it all.

Which is where the tears come from. Not out of sadness, but just knowing something good is coming and so why not blubber about it?

Because that’s what I do.

Or, you know… I can always just get some fries.