Sucky and Super Saturday

Sucky:

• It has been cold and rainy this week. I hate weather changes, and hate being cold even more. I also lose any and all motivation to do anything with myself when the weather is crummy. I just want to curl up in bed and watch tv. For eternity.
• Work hasn't gotten any better. In fact, it's gotten worse. Last week we were so busy I was taking between 75 and 85 calls every day, got shouted at by consumers for the long wait time, and had far too many nasty calls. I left work in tears almost every day, was so frustrated I was just ready to give up, have been having nightmares, lost sleep, and was even fighting with man friend because I was so stressed out I turned into a crabby, irrational bitch. 
• The hot flashes have started back up. They calmed down and even went away for a week or two, and I thought I was in the clear. I was wrong. I start flashin at super inconvenient times, and get so overwhelmingly hot I just want to rip my clothes off. If I ever get health insurance, I can go to the doctor and see what the fuck is the deal.

Super:

• Wednesday was my man friend's birthday. We hung out at the Stadium bars, he got his free drinks, and we hung out with his coworker, friends and cousins. I wrote him a little piece and got him a rotating picture frame (it looks like a ferris wheel and I'm fascinated by it) and printed off pictures of us for it. For being in the middle of the week, it turned out to be a great night
• Thursday I went out as well. Two nights in a row, especially during the week, is almost inexistent for me. I met up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while and had a really good time. I'm really glad I went.
• I FINALLY got a laptop! My desktop had been giving me a lot of problems ever since it got "fixed" by the campus IT people when I was in college. For the last year, I've pretty much just been borrowing other people's computers. It's so nice now to be able to job search, write, and just simply surf the Internet whenever I want and not have to rely on someone else. It's equally as fantastic being able to take my laptop with me somewhere and not having a stationary desktop.
• Last weekend, today and next weekend have been/will be filled with volunteering and goodness. I spent the day at Camp U-Nah-Li-Ya, you can read about it here, today I participated in the March of Dimes walk for babies and next Saturday I will be volunteering for the YMCA's Healthy Kids Day. It feels so good to be donating time/money to such worthy causes. My volunteer work is the only thing keeping me from going crazy about my lack of success after college.  

Camp U-Nah-Li-Ya

Last Saturday was the end-of-session day trip to Camp U-Nah-Li-Ya with Girls Night Out. To conclude each session, the GNO groups from all the Green Bay Ys spend a day at camp. This particular trip was rather small, only two groups. It ended up working out just fine that way. 30 sixth graders is a tad more manageable than 60.

This was my third time up with GNO, and maybe the best. Certainly better than in December, that's for sure. The girls were super well behaved and seemed to really enjoy themselves. There was only one minor meltdown when one of the girls had a giant spider land on her and she started crying. Otherwise, a definite success.

The weather was beautiful, better than what we had anticipated. The sun was out all day, it was decently warm after lunch and there wasn't any snow. Because it was so nice out, we actually got to spend the whole day outside, whereas the last two trips we spend at least half the day inside.

The day was broken into two main chunks, survival skills and canoeing. My group did the survival skills section first, and the staff guy had made it a Hunger Games theme, which I think the girls really liked. It was cool to be able to make it into something relatable for them. I feel like survival skills were more appealing to them when they could think of it in terms of a movie instead of just because.

The girls learned how to build a fire, and became part of the one-match club. They split into two groups and had to use their new knowledge to build a mini fire. Each group had an area to build in between two steaks in the ground and a string tying them together. The first group to get their fire big enough to burn their string won.

When the fires had been put out, they moved a little farther into the woods and learned how to build shelters. Of the three trips, this group of girls had the best teamwork by a landslide, and thus, had the most successful shelters. I've found that typically one or two girls designate themselves to be leaders and completely take over while other girls stand in the background. Last Saturday, the girls communicated great, shared the work, and followed instructions to result in working shelters.

After some large group games/icebreakers and lunch, we headed out to the lake for some canoeing. I'm not even going to pretend like I was excited for this. In fact, I was really hoping we wouldn't go. Well, we did. One of the girls was really scared too, so we got paired together. At first I thought putting two scared people together was probably the dumbest idea ever thought of. Neither one of us really wanted to even get into the canoe. We both just stood there, trying to think of excuses for why we couldn't get in. I think we both realized at the same time that we weren't going to get let off that easy. Trembling, I got in and sat down.     Although we didn't master turning as well as most of the other teams, and we were still uneasy, we managed

to get out to about the middle of the water and we saw the giant snapping turtle.

When we finished canoeing, there was a little extra time left and the instructor took us on a nature walk through camp. We got to see some the brand new buildings, and got to see a bunch of turtles. The instructor told us that in the middle of the afternoon, the turtles like to come out of the water and soak up the warm sun, so if we were extra quiet, we would be able to see him. Believe it or not, 15 sixth grade girls managed to stay silent and we got to see at least 20 painted turtles and five or ten of the big snapping turtles. It was a phenomenal sight to see (pics coming soon).