Written by Valentina (camper)
Wake up call arrived as I was finishing dressing this morning, having woken up some fifteen minutes before. Once I had what I needed for the first part of the day, I headed off to the lodge and ended up joining an impromptu music group that formed on the porch until breakfast.
During advisee time, my group joined with another one to play Gladiators, a complicated communication game. One member of the team was blindfolded and the others had to direct them to pick up and throw balls at other “gladiators”. But only one of the other team members could see the playing field – and only the one who could not see the field could talk! I was the gladiator for my team, and did rather a lot of wandering around trying to find a ball!
After advisee was the first round of workshops for the session! I went to J’s tea tasting workshop, which was delicious as always. It served as a lovely appetizer to the following activity, which was lunch! Lunchtime brought me sushi and miso soup, which I ate outdoors with the rest of the Bonding Night committee as we planned said event.
I have been on the Bonding Night committee at every session of NBTSC I’ve attended; five in all! I love working with everyone else and balancing all the different levels of experience that the committee inevitably has. Often there are people who have never even attended Bonding Night working right alongside me and others who have been on the committee multiple times! We get to teach each other and share experiences as we plan how we want the event to go that particular time.
I snagged a bit of quiet reading time during siesta, which is definitely important for introverted me. What with committee meeting before and workshops after it wasn’t as long as I might have wanted, but I do not regret doing those other things! I try hard to balance my need for rest with my desire to do all the things, and consider myself relatively successful.
After the second workshop slot of the day was one of my favorite things at camp: the staff panel on healthy sexuality! Yet another thing that I have done every session without fail is attend this panel, and I have never regretted it. It’s always a little different, and it’s always incredibly helpful and interesting. I didn’t end up asking any questions this session, which I usually do, but plenty of other people asked very interesting ones! The panel ran past its allotted time – until dinner, in fact – which is also pretty normal for it in my experience. There’s just so much to talk about!
After community meeting tonight, the Bonding Night committee and I worked as fast as we could to set up the lodge for the event and go over all of our parts to make sure it would go as seamlessly as could. When the bell rang we were finishing our last run through, and soon we were circling up in the field.
Bonding Night was, as always, wonderful. I hugged many, many people and got anonymous hugs from just as many. Afterwards I stayed up until nearly midnight just lying on the floor with friends and having conversations both silly and serious. It was all the best things about camp, and I greatly look forward to the 11 days ahead of us.