the best summer of my life

The last few days have been really tough.  As I mentioned in my last post, we have very few days left at camp.  The kids leave the day after tomorrow, and I fly home in four days.  I've been here for over three months and that completely baffles me.  Pretty much every day, all I've been able to think about is how everything is ending and this is the last time we'll do this and this is the last time we'll do that.  So pretty much everything is making me cry, just because I'm so upset about leaving.  On top of that, I've got all this stuff going on in my personal life, that I was talking about a couple posts ago.  My life is just a huge mess right now.

It's later now and I just reread the last sentence of that paragraph.  Holy drama queen.  My life is not a huge mess, by any means.  I am, for the first time in a long time, completely, genuinely happy.  I have met amazing people this summer who I will remember for the rest of my life, without a doubt.  Yes, I am extremely sad that I have to leave this place, but my life in the real world is not that bad, it's just really different.  The way I act at camp is very loud and outgoing and I never really stop, which is perfect, and the people at camp like me, for the most part.  But in the real world, when I try to act like that, people don't like me.  They don't understand me, and I never really fit in.  So I tone myself down and try to make myself more normal, and people like me.  Except it isn't me.  It's not me at all.  It's a pale imitation, a version of me.  And, I mean, I do have some friends in the real world who know the real me and love me that way.  But a lot of people see it as immature and attention seeking and just don't like me.  And I really hate that.  I really, really do.

So does it make more sense now, why I so desperately don't want to go home?  I feel like I'm going to go into withdrawal for the first couple of weeks and after that, I have the potential to get really depressed.  I so don't want that to happen, but camp, especially this camp with these people, has made me the happiest I have ever been in my whole life.  I don't want to go back to being unhappy, even though I'm quite sure that that's what's going to happen.  And I don't even have the option to see most of the people I worked with, because we're all from so far around the country.  There's one other counsellor who lives in Newfoundland and that's it.  This is going to suck, big time.

High: getting to go on the pontoon swim three times today.
Low: that today was the last real day of camp this summer.
Thankful: for getting to spend the best three months of my life with some truly amazing people.

Books read this year: 35

love <3

don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened

Gah, why do people have to leave?!  In exactly one week I will have been home for, like, twelve hours.  I can't process this.  I have decided that I will be here for another 4000 million zillion days.  I don't know how many years that is, but I think I can safely assume that it's pretty much the rest of my life.

I'm not really sure why I don't want to leave.  I mean, I get to be home for a week and see lots of friends and family, which will be great.  And then I get to go back to Newfoundland, where I get to see lots of my friends again, for the first time in four months.  I miss them all dearly, and I'm really excited to see them.  I'm just not very excited about starting school again.  I mean, I love learning, and...well, I really want to be done school.  But my life at camp is just so much better than my life in the real world, for the most part.  I don't really know how to explain it, I just know that I don't want to leave.  For the next eight months, all I'm going to be doing is waiting and wishing for camp again.  This is where I belong.


High: getting to go to the most gorgeous beach on a really amazing day for the last time this summer.
Low: realizing how little time we have left at camp, and that everything really is ending.
Thankful: that I got to have this experience and this amazing summer and that I got to share it with really amazing people who I will hopefully be friends with for a very long time.

Books read this year: 34

love <3

highs and lows of long distance?

I have a question: what goes through boys' minds?  I'm dead serious.  How do they think?  Why do they think the way they do?  How do they make such huge decisions they way they do?  I'm sure they could ask the same thing about girls, but I know how I think so I don't really care how other girls think.

Today was supposed to be such a good day.  Sleeping in, swimming, tanning, going for a run, relaxing, reading magazines, hanging out with the other counsellors, that sort of thing.  And that's exactly what the morning was.  And then three of my best friends left for escort, to pick kids up tomorrow and bring them to camp.  And then I checked my email and I had a message from one of my best guy friends, saying he needed to talk to me, so call him as soon as I can.

Him and I were best friends in high school, and it was never romantic.  He dated two of my close girl friends and my ex-boyfriend was a good friend of his.  I never thought of him that way at all.  Then after high school, when I moved halfway across the country, we kind of lost touch.  It happened with almost all my friends from high school.  I was only home at Christmas, so how was I supposed to really stay close with them?! During my first semester of university, him and I tried so hard to stay in touch, but it didn't work out at all.  We all had our new friends and we couldn't visit each other...you get the idea.  Anyway, this past Christmas break, him and I ran into each other at the grocery store.  We ended up going out for coffee and it was so great to talk to him again.  After I went back out east for winter semester, we kept talking.  And we talked, and talked, and talked.  By mid-March, I was seriously falling for him.  It was bad.  Then he told me that he was falling for me too, but didn't want to have a long distance relationship, which I can sort of understand.  Long distance isn't ideal, but sometimes it happens.  But I was going to be home a month later for the whole summer!  We could start there and then see what happens at the end of the summer!  Sounded like a good plan...until I found out a week later that I was going to be working in Nova Scotia, which is nowhere near home, for three months.  Close, but no cigar.  Well, for him, anyway.  I still wanted something to happen, especially because I was going to be home for a month before I left for camp.  We hung out almost every day I was home, but we still weren't in a relationship because he was absolutely set against long distance.  And being in a long distance relationship while at camp is really difficult, but it can work.  The entire time I was here, most days I was getting texts from him, saying how much he missed me and stuff like that.  WTF?!  Then one day, about a month ago, he called me and told me that he missed me so much and that he thought he was falling in love with me.  Are you serious?  You can't tell me that you don't want to be with me because you don't want to do long distance and then spend the entire time we're apart saying how much you miss me and then telling me you're falling in love with me.  That's not fair to either of us.  After he told me that, I told him that he needed to figure out whether he wanted a relationship or not and to stop talking to me until he figured it out because it really wasn't fair to me.

Today he called me to talk.  He told me that, even though he really likes me and thinks he's falling in love with me, he can't have a long distance relationship.  He said this was one of the hardest decisions he's ever made and he doesn't want to hurt me, but he doesn't feel mature enough to be in a long distance relationship.  I don't know how I feel about this.  Obviously I'm hurt, especially because this is the first guy I've had real feelings for since me and my ex-boyfriend broke up two and a half years ago.  Plus, I really liked him.  We got along so well and would have been perfect for each other.  I'm having a very difficult time accepting that we're never going to happen.  I'm in denial.  Story of my life.

High: watching movies with friends, but not really watching them and just talking lots and lots.
Low: if you don't know what my low is, you clearly didn't read my blog very carefully!
Thankful: that I have some really amazing people who I know will comfort me no matter what!

Books read this year: 34

love <3

chocolate milk!

A few minutes ago, I had my first glass of chocolate milk since I was home May.  It was so beyond excellent.  I usually drink several glasses of chocolate milk every day, and I've gone over two and a half months without any!  I'm not sure how I survived! lol

Today was a great day!  I'm on break, so I got to sleep in, but I ended up waking up at 9 this morning to say goodbye to one of the counsellors who left early.  I am so in denial about camp ending.  Two counsellors have left in the past two days, and I refuse to believe that camp is really almost over.  In thirteen days I'll be home, but I refuse to accept that.  It's actually pathetic!

After Shiver left, I hung out for a bit, did some computer stuff, watched some TV, just hung out.  Then a few of us went swimming, but the tide was really low, so it was super shallow!  It was pretty fun though.  Then we had a really delicious lunch (tuna sandwiches!) and did some more hanging out.  Then a few of us went outside and played a game called BananaGrams, which is kind of like Scrabble but different.  It's fun but I'm not very good at it.  But it was still really fun.  We just hung out outside, talking and having fun.  After that, a bunch of people left for a town about 45 minutes away to go see a movie and the rest of us biked to the nearest town to get some food for supper, because camp food epically sucks.  It took about 15 or 20 minutes to bike there.  It was so much fun!  There were five of us that went.  When we got back we all went for a swim because we were all so sweaty and gross.  The tide was really high this time, so we got a jump off the dock and stuff.  Then we went and showered and then ate some of the food we had bought.  It tasted so good after such an extensive night with no food.  Now I'm watching Degrassi and doing this.  After this I'm going to read and then go to bed.  I'm super lame, I know!

High: spending the whole day relaxing and having fun with people I love.
Low: mosquitos!  And realizing that, in 13 very short days, I'll be home and won't see some of these people ever again.
Thankful: that I have the time off to relax!

Books read this year: 34

love <3

P.S.  Since my last blog, I have been using livestrong.com religiously to track what I eat and how much exercise I do.  I feel amazing!  I have sooo much more energy, it's crazy!  I'm very happy!  I just hope all of this lasts past camp!

tough stuff

I need to talk about something.  This won't be easy for me to talk about, and it probably won't have much consistency between paragraphs, or even between sentences, because I will just be saying things as they come into my head, not trying to make sense.  Already I'm not making sense.  But go with it!

Pretty much my whole life, I've always been the "chubby" girl.  Both my parents have, or had, weight issues and it's something I come by naturally.  I also have a ridiculous sweet tooth and it's nearly impossible for me to say no to chocolate or candy, which really doesn't help at all.  As I got older and older, the weight kept adding up.  I'm very muscular, so even if I was a healthy weight I'd still weigh more than someone my height is necessarily supposed to.  But either way, the truth was, in high school, I was fat.  And then I started university.

I've been a vegetarian since I was 13, and in high school, living with my mom, who is also a vegetarian, and a health freak, the food she was giving me was always healthy; I never had to worry.  But once I got to university, and had to eat at the campus dining hall, and got to pick my own foods, things got a little out of hand.  First of all, it was not vegetarian friendly at all.  Sure, it was easy to just not eat the meat, but there was nothing to replace it with.  Occasionally there was tofu, but it was usually pretty sketchy, and there was rarely any other kind of replacement.  Plus, it was set up like an all-you-can-eat buffet, so I could literally just keep eating.  This created a huge problem.  In my first year, I gained a good 20 pounds to my already overweight body.  Then I went home for the summer, ate my mom's food, did a lot of exercise and was as conscious as I could be about what I was eating.  This helped, but not enough.  Then September rolled around and I was back living in residence and back to eating at the dining hall.  I was significantly more conscious of not only what I was eating but how much I was eating, but still.  The food hadn't gotten any better, so there was only so much I could do.  I would have to say I gained nearly 20 more pounds in my second year.  It was beyond ridiculous.

It was around this time that I realized I seriously needed to make a change: this couldn't keep happening.  I went home for a month and was very strict with my self about what I was eating (only my mom's food, as much as possible) and how much exercise I was getting (as much as possible).  It helped a little bit, but there's only so much that can be done in a month.  Then I left for camp, where I've been since the end of May.  In the last month or so, I've completely decided that this needs to end now.  So I've been watching how much I eat, what I'm eating, learning to recognize when my body is telling me I'm full and then stopping!  I've also been doing more exercise, although at camp, pretty much all we do all day is walk, so I'm definitely not at a shortage of exercise.

Last week I saw my mom for the first time since I left at the end of May, and she told me that she thinks I've lost weight, and my mom is my toughest critic.  I don't actually know if I've lost weight, because I don't weigh myself.  But I do know that I have more energy, and my clothes feel looser.  Almost none of my shorts/pants even fit me anymore, they're all too big!  I think this is a good sign.  I've also started doing a workout routine from a magazine, and some of the other counsellors and I have decided to do yoga together every morning while our campers are waking up and getting ready.  And thanks to the success story of one of my favourtie bloggers, I have signed up for livestrong.com and will be using it to track my progress.  And my friend is giving me her P90X videos, and I'm going to start doing them when school starts in September.  Plus I'm living in a house off campus this year and will be making all my own meals, so I can eat what I want to eat and be healthy.  I feel like this is a beginning of something amazing.

Maybe telling you all this before it's even really started is like jinxing it, I don't know.  But I do know that I'm the type of person where the more people who know about my goals and what I'm trying to achieve, the more likely I am to stick with it, because if I don't, everyone will know that I failed.  So please, in the comments, for the next few months, every once in a while, ask me how I'm doing and keep me in check.  I will let you know when I've reached my goal, and maybe even give some before and after pictures.

High: witnessing the campers write the thank-you letters to the Tim Hortons store owners who sponsored them to be here: I had no idea kids could have so much genuine emotion and happiness in them.
Low: that camp food is really starting to suck, and that I actually ate three pieces of food for breakfast.  I need real food!
Thankful: that I have amazing people in my life who I know will support me in everything I do.

Books read so far this year: 34

love <3

really...really happy :)

I miss blogging.  Although I love my job (almost) more than I love chocolate, I dislike the severe lack of time off I have each day in which to blog.  So many of the blogs I follow are doing Blog Every Day August, and I am so genuinely happy right now that I would love to be able to talk about all of my days with the cyberworld.  Boo.  But I am going to try and write as often as I can this month.  We're only a third of the way in.  I've got time to catch up!

Unfortunately, I don't have much time tonight to really start my in-depth August blogging.  But I would like to introduce something that I'm going to start doing at the end of each blog.  Every night with the campers, we do a debrief, where we talk about the day and stuff.  There are several different activities we do, but one of my favourites is High, Low, and Thankful.  It's pretty self-explanatory:  your favourite part of the day, your least favourite, and something you're thankful for.*  So here goes:

High: that I finally got to spend an entire day being co-counsellors with Buzz, after waiting two months for the opportunity to work together.
Low: that I still feel kind of sick, and that it was way too windy and cold to have a lot of fun at the beach.
Thankful: that the worst thing in my life at the moment is a sore throat.

Books read this year: 34 (I think...yikes!)

love <3

*I encourage you, in the comments, to tell me what your high, low and thankful for the day is!!