UAF Summer Rec Camp

The University of Alaska Summer Recreational Camp

A glorified day care. I had the pleasure of being a camp counselor there for the summer of 1999 after graduating from college.

The idea was this: a general feeling of malaise at my coming distance from a place that I had loved and called home for four years, coupled with extreme academic burnout and disillusionment signaled time for a change. So the idea arose that the best thing for me would be to drive as far as humanly possible while still being able to speak English. Oh, and get a job too.

So Alaska became the target.

The job was found online, the interview was over the phone, I don't think the director was all that pleased to find a long haired boy standing on her doorstep saying, "uh, you gave me a job?" Not what she expected out of a theology student to say the least.

But we made a motley group, us camp counselors - although most of us were possibly more presentable.

• Amanda: my then lover, although our relationship didn't survive the summer and we were forced to "keep up appearances for the kiddies" while living in a one bedroom apartment on the University Campus.
• ML: a lesbian elementary school teacher, the best possible person I could have met in Fairbanks and a wonderful human who was more than happy to offer an ear and voice for bitching.
• The Mormons, who, to be honest, I never got to know because they never spent any time with any of us and greatly disapproved of our actions and activities. They were newlyweds. Very cute.
• Tim - a slightly misogynist and throughly homophobic Brit who somehow got hired by the lesbian camp director and who made many jokes behind her back. Not many of us understood.
• Kevin - the necessary sportsaholic.
• Julie - a sweet girl studying Athletics Education, she lived with the mormons in a camp ground close to town, so we didn't see alot of her either until the last week when she confessed she couldn't take it any more...

Oh and the camp was all sports. Which I didn't realize going into it, and didn't bode well for my future there. But I think I managed, and I think I made the kiddies happy, and I think that now, a year later, after a few other disasterous jobs/locations I've settled happily and my general malaise for the most part has washed away like a nice spring thaw.