End of summer, two weeks at home, peer mentor training and the start of orientation

 Hi!

Today is the first day of senior year and it has been a busy couple of weeks and so here we go with the very standard update. 

The end of camp was good in that there were a lot of familiar camper faces, but it was very busy because when my counselors use to say don't do anything stupid as it is a lot of paperwork, they were not lying! It was so much paperwork but I learned a lot from the experience of being on the administrative team; besides learning about myself and how my values work with others, I learned the behind the scenes of camp magic, and thanks to the staff I learned new dad jokes, tips on caring for plants, horoscopes and how to chose chaos more often. After kids left we had a great staff banquet and everyone took off at the end next day for the most part but I wanted one more night, so I took it. Albeit kind of lonely it was nice to exhale and have time to reflect before leaving the next morning. 

I then spent a fun two weeks at home filled with dates to see some camp friends before they took off for college and home friends for bagel, beaches, muffins and unfortunately a tornado warning. That last day was less fun as some spicy memories of the 2019 cape tornado hit me, but nevertheless we persisted. However also being home I got into the habit of watching jeopardy nearly every night. Then it was back to school time so I packed up my stuff and then packed up the car. There are a couple of signs a long the way that mark the distance but this is one of my favorites ...

I was off for Senior Year at Skidmore. For those long term readers you may remember me being a peer mentor in 2019, well I am a Peer Mentor again but this year for the London First Year Experience and for the 60ish sophomores who have never been to campus before. I am excited as I love the peer to peer support but it was a long week of trainings that I have sat through before. I won't bore you with too many more details but I will share that on one of the move in days my 7;40 start time led to 18,672 steps, an impromptu speech to a tent full of parents, and journey to the president's house. 

After most of the move in was done, Hillel hosted an Erev Rosh Hashanah Dinner and for those of us who knew what meals used to be like it was quite the throw back and everything almost seemed completely normal again. 

I am excited for some slightly more relaxed club events and chill times on campus a lot of tension that individuals seemed to be holding feels like it has been exhaled which is nice but for such an active school I doubt it will be for long. 

I will write again once I get through my first few days of classes but before I go I will share an observation that I had. Over the past long weekend I have received a lot of compliments about my leadership skills, not all that surprising, but it is weird to reckon as the examples (after so many years at camp) don't feel like leadership skills instead they feel like basic camp counselor job requirements. 

Any way, all of my wishes for a sweet new year and a relaxed September, 

me