An Over due Update

I have successfully returned from Girl Scout camp!! I was lead counselor of the group Bits and Bridles and Saddles and Stirrups, which for anyone who could probably get the inner meaning of the names of the programs, was the program where the girls would learn about horses! All together I had 16 girls! Three of which are originally stationed in Korea, but Thankfully they came with a large number of adults and one of the adults were assigned to my group. Which I praise the Lord that I had two other people helping me with all the girls, by the end of the week I was dreading the sound of my camp name. Which was ironically "Thumper". I wouldn't trade the experience I had with all these girls for the world!! I re-learned about everything involved in being a girl scout, and was able to use some of my skills in "reading" people when it came to dealing with some of their problems. For example by day two I could tell that the younger girls in my group were annoying the oldest girls in the group, and once I pointed it out to the other counselor she saw it the next day.

I think one of my favorite experiences was when we were playing a get to know you game, and one of the counselors in my group said that one of her favorite music artists is Bob Marley. None of the girls knew who he was! So we thought of an idea to teach them a good Bob Marley song to sing, because when we would ask the girls if they knew a camp song either no one knew the song or they would start singing a song that's played on the radio. In the end our group song became Bob Marley's Three Little Birds. And needless to say I took a lot of pictures of the girls on the horses and learning the different things that the women at the horse stables had to teach them. Here are a few of my favorite pictures!

The only really downer to my week at Girl Scout camp was at the end of the week I managed to re-injure old injuries. After running around, tripping and falling once, and then walking from the lunch area to the camper area at the beach three times (it was a good 10 minute walk) in an hour the Coreman who had volunteered and was currently with the girls watched as my right leg swelled up and my limp steadily got worse. He had to ask me three times if I was OK before I let him look at it, and after he looked at it he told me what I already knew.. I had re-injured the soft tissue of my knee, and I needed to "take it easy" and see a Dr. Saturday after camp was over I saw a Dr and got some crutches, that I only had to use for two days to help with the annoying pain that happened when I walked for to long. Needless to say I'm better now but I'm still trying to exercise my leg with the rubber band thingys that are used for resistance training.

Other than that and having an amazing week at Girl Scout camp, I received an email from the school system that is located here on the island. I had applied for a position as an educational aid, and received an email while I was at Girl Scout camp about what they determined was my rating. I received a Highly Qualified (85) for two of the three positions associated with an educational aid, but the third position which was specified for working with Special needs children I received a Best Qualified (100). (Insert happy dance smiley) So the last couple of days I have been taking a "Updated" copy of my resume (had to add Girl Scout camp in my volunteer section) to the four schools that I had indicated in my application that I was willing to work at. All secretary's seemed rather happy that I brought them my resume. So hopefully there will be an opening at one of the four schools, otherwise I have to keep an open eye out for something else here on the island.

For now I have been doing some photography, I recently got muslin back drops with a stand. And I have two sessions tomorrow. And my friend and I have been exploring off base at different stores that we've read about in the paper. We found a really nice Three story craft store, and a stationary store/all things paper store. There is a fabric store near me that I really want to go check out, and I'm hoping next month to be able to take a photography class as well as a ceramics class that are offered at the craft store on Kadena. Well that's it for now!!