The Middle School Diaries

Class Trips

A couple weeks ago I went with my middle school to an education camp, but not everything went as planned... I honestly have NO idea why my teachers thought it would be a "good" idea to take eighty middle school students to a five day trip of "learning fun". Eighty middle school students with raging hormones and awkward crushes together, at an educational camp for five days. A five day sleepover with my friends would have been amazing! But, sixty straight hours of little sleep and cold showers can drive a person a little insane. Epically when you get ALL the people who "drive you crazy in your cabin. So that was fun.... Camp was still really fun, the food was AMAZING, but it definitely had its ups and downs.

Here are a couple interesting situations I ended up in:

1. A Game:

One of the counselors had the bright idea to play spotlight tag. Basically, spotlight tag is where you run or walk from point A to point B with a coffee straws. There are two teams and the goal of the game is to have more straws than the other team. The dads who came to camp with us have giant spotlight and if the see you moving you have to go back to point A. It's a lot harder than it seems and we go all out. Everyone brings dark clothes, masks to cover there faces, etc. It's really fun, if your careful... Me being the over competitive athlete, might have taken it a little to far... My friend, Sarah, and I had just put our straws in our team's bucket and we we're running back to the teacher, who had the coffee straws at point A. I was running, in the dark, when I tripped over the BLACK barrier holding the sand in the beach volleyball court. I fell and landed on a tree stump. The wind "knocked" out of me and I couldn't breathe. I was hunched over the stump desperately trying to get are inside of my body. It felt like air wound go in. I was panicking and trying, but failing, to look like everything was ok. The air wouldn't go inside and my body started to make a weird, it's hard to describe, wheezing like sound. My friend had already ran to go get the teachers. Slowly I stood up and walked to a bench. Our teacher/nurse for the trip ran over to where I was sitting. She made me take deep breathes. It hurt to breathe, but I finished the game. I bruised three of my ribs and I still have a scar across my rib cage.

2. The Creeper:

For the learning part of camp, we were broken into five groups, group A,B,C,D, and E. I had an ok group. I was talking to my friend, Anna, when all of the sudden I notice this guy named Charles is in between us. He started talking to Anna. He talked to Anna for most of the day, he asked awkward questions like whose in your cabin, what's your favorite class, where are you going during free, and when he wasn't talking he was staring at her. When Anna was finally free from Charles I ran over to go talk to her. "Charles has been stalking you for most if camp..." "I know!" She said in a please help me voice. "It's really creepy!" She whispered. "It is, but he probably just really likes you." "I know it's sort of sweet, but really creepy!" The next day we decided to test Charles. Our "cabins" were basically large rooms with bunk beds and there was an open area mirror and counter area with two doors, one on the right and one on the left, leading to the the toilets and one to the showers. Basically there are eight rooms, four on the first floor and four on the second floor, there are about nine bunk beds and a bathroom area in each room or "cabin". Anna, our friend Alex, and I were going to test Charles. We saw him walking up the large staircase with his friend, that leads to the rooms upstairs. So, we walked, where he could she us, to the game room across the road. Charles ditched his friend and sprinted down the stairs and caught up with us and stood next to Anna. Some people can become very creepy when they like someone.

3. Storyteller:

It is a camp tradition to tell ghost stories on the last night. I was picked to tell the story of Joy. Every year a new storyteller is picked to tell this ghost story. The story is about a girl who is the daughter of the manager building the camp. Joy loves to play in the woods, but one day a convict escapes from the near by prison. Joy's dad can't find her. Then two days later they find her body. Mr. Smith, a dad who goes every year picks a girl and "kidnaps" her at the end of the story. The story is used to scare the sixth graders. I had finished telling the story and went to open the door to cue Mr. Smith, but when I turned the door handle, Mr. Smith pushed me over and grabbed the girl. It was funny looking at there scared little faces.

So, camp was had it's ups and downs. The picture is the lake at camp. I hope youenjoyed my camp adventures. It was very interesting...