I'm an idiot!!

Hi again guys!

I have a tan! I didn't have anything better to do the other day, so was helping out the athletics department with cleaning up the boys side baseball field. I got so burned!! But, now it has evened out and i'm nice and brown.

Tuesday night was the first divisional night for Junior girls and boys. It was a pool party. I was sitting outside the pool and had just taken off my flip-flops, I have a really noticable tan line on my feet, it looks like I've got on my thongs even when I don't!!!

So, as you can probably guess from this, it has been pretty hot and humid over the last few days. and finally the nights have gotten a little warmer, I don't need to go to bed with all my winter clothes on and anything else I can find to keep me warm!

It seems like no one is ever happy with the weather, its either too hot or too cold. And today turned out to be a Melbourne day!!!

After the pool party on Tuesday night we had our first official night off (except of course for those who were sitting od, On Duty). Went into Hancock, which is about 15 minutes away to go to the pub and have a few drinks. Unfortunately, if you were under 21 and decided to go and also had no fake id saying you were over 21, there is nothing else to do.

It was also kinda scary walking in Hancock, before we got off the bus that dropped us off, the driver told us to not walk around alone. And, as we were all walking towards the pub, there were all these menacing guys standing around. Then it hit me, the fact that I'm in a small town, in America where the residents are allowed to carry guns. I'm never walking anywhere alone in Hancock of a night.

Anyway, that was 5 days ago when I wrote the above. Taz got burned yesterday, her legs and shoulders are sooo red, I bought aloe vera gel today on my day off for her to put on. Oh, and she has been putting on sunscreen all day everyday, so it's not that.

I will now explain why this post is called "I'm an idiot"

Last night, I was walking up the steps of my bunk (number 13) and I tripped, I wacked my left hand and my left shoulder on the post next to the steps and my left big toe on the step above that I had missed. Two of my cabin mates were on the porch and were asking me if I was ok and I just got up and said "Yes, I'm, owww fine, owww, but my toe is really sore". I walked into the cabin then looed down at my foot, half my toenail had disappeared. Instead there was a lovely exposed area that was oozing blood. Extremely painful. Oh, the reason I did so much damage to my foot, I was wearing thongs. So, cut a long story short, I'm not allowed to wear open toed shoes for the rest of summer and am hobbling everywhere.

Later...

tiff is next to ME!!! on the next computer!!!

Boka tov,
well tiff is next to me on the computer and she is writing about our latest adventures like our knew names and how we got them... i am Shazza and tiff is trish... so read her blog for that one....well the kids arrived yesterday yay....i am not in a kids bunk soo that rocks...they are pretty cool... kids... i cant write much more because i have to be at the waterfront in 9 mins... sooo yeah...hope every one is doing well.... and i miss every one heaps and heaps....
and i'll cya later....
ps: people plz write letters... its lonley here... and every one else is getting letters....plz plz plz....
any who.....turkish kiss for u all.....

reviewing the past week

Well, it's been a week, maybe more since the last posting.
It's been pretty full on. We had staff training week and didn't stop all week.
Yesterday was my first day back in the office, I am in there with another lady called Ronnie, she is the office manager. And Diane, who has absolutely no idea about what to do in an office at all. But, she is nice.
Taz and I have new names as well, I am now called Trish (there was a vote of about 7 people on Friday night and they all agreed I look like a Trish and so, that is now my new name at camp.
Also, the other night we had international day planning. Taz is now known as Shaz. She did not volunteer, it was thrust upon her!
On the first day of staff training week we had the annual Chili Cook Off. My team did not win, but, considering what the ingredients looked like before we put them in, it turned out to taste fantastic!
Also, on Saturday night we had the annual staff talent night. That was pretty funny!
Good night until one of the kitchen staff got up and did a very erotic dance to a Shakira song.
And, amazingly, most of the boys were turned off by it!
Another thing we did, on Thursday we all went out to the nearest massive shopping mall, and bought two pairs of Sketchers for $50 and a heap of Roxy clothing really cheap. Went to the movies and saw Shrek the Third. And, went to Wal-mart. Oh.My.Goodness!!!! Wal-mart is fantastic!!! I bought a mag lite for $8 and it's the real thing! Also, got a massive packet of Junior Mints (Blake got me addicted on the first day I was here).
I Love Wal-Mart and Old Navy and TJ Max. Great shops. So many bargains.
Anyway, gotta go!! Better Spend soma quality time with my campers!!
Later!!

Bek is for u!!!!!

Bek bek YOung,
i just checked my free voice message thing and u left me a message!!!! like the day after i left tell me that i will be missing out on M>>>>BOOOBS. i am spewin well i know u well have a great time.... thanks for the message it was great to hear a voice i reconized!!! thanks LUV U YEAPS

movies, bbq, first camp fire for the summer!!

If all my days are as boring as the last few, and I am lucky enough to sit in front of a computer screen as well, you may be getting lots of updates on whats going on.

I suppose that is a good point of being in the office every afternoon. When I need to write stuff, I don't need to worry about waiting for a day or night off to do it!

So, all I've been doing since last Sunday is manning the phones in the office. It's not too bad, but, at the same time I would love to be out doing other stuff, like cleaning the art craft room, anything where I'm not all alone in a room by myself, even Joe's gone off somewhere til Sunday, so I really am in the office all by myself :(

Last night we had our first camp fire night. It was so much fun! Itay and Amitai who are both great musicians spent the afternoon setting up a little area for their instruments, speaker, mics and music and we all sat around the fire and they also had an open mic, so a few people got up and sang, David from London also sang a few songs. They're all fantastic players of instruments, but, unforntunately, not much on the singging front, so hopefully some great singers come in today on the staff bus.

Thats the other thing, at the moment, there are about 60 or 70 of us at camp, today we are expecting most of the rest of the staff to arrive, so thats like, 120/130 more people, but, they're not all coming today, some will be arriving throughout this weekend, so, by Sunday night, we will be at our full compliment of 200 staff so we can start Staff Week on Sunday night!

Then the first kids arrive on Sunday 24th June.

Later ...

It's Over!!! yay!!

Hey guys,
sorry if i am not keepibng people up to date as much as tiff!!! I have just finished a 6 days life guarding course!!! I am now a Professional Life guard!!! yay.... who ever thought i would be able to finish that??? not me!!! it was good i learnt alot...which my normal first aid never tought me!!! so it was good..... I am sun burnt at the moment we had our practical exams today so we spent most of the day in the poool...it was good fun. we just finished a bbq dinner it was great!!!! the sun was straight on my face and stinging it...but i will get over it!!! ( i think i am just randonmly typing anything at this stage) any way.... last nite the camp took us 60 staff members to the movies... i chooooose to see Pirates 3! it was great but i was sooo tired i got up at 6am that morning to see the state of origin.....yay go QLD!!!! and the movie did not finish untilm1:30am the next mornin so it was an extreeeemmmmmlllly long day for me!!!! then i had my exams today!!!! ahhh well i passed thats all that matters!!
i wont be checkin my emails every day from tomorrow cos we have the rest of staff coming.....so we are bootin up to 200 staff from 60 stafff.... but i will try to get to this as often as i can!!!!
if not read tiffs she will keep every one posted on what i am doin!!!!
Well luv u allllll.....

ILC (Island Lake Camp or I Like Camp)

I just wrote this whole big thing about this and then lost the connection, lost it all. Now I've gotta do it again.
So, here goes ...
Last night ... oh my goodness, last night we went to Island Lake Camp to play.
On Sunday at lunch Joe (camp director) told us we had been invited to another local camp in the area to learn a new game called KongPong, that they had invented and thoght we night want to play with our kids when they get here.
So, as we are driving up to their camp, driving though their camp grounds and all their buildings look brand new, like they were built last week kind of thing. Their lake was 20 times bigger that our lake. With a pool that is twice the size of ours as well. But, we do have a better slide than them.
Anyway, as we pull up in our 7 minivans right next to their 6 tennis courts with lighting, right next to their lake. they are playing a game on the tennis courts. They stop, in unison and start clapping and chanting. Now I don't mean normal clapping I mean *clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap* rythmic clapping *clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap* they were the worst kind of clappers, they were Happy Clappers. They also threw in some WHOOing as well.
We start getting a little worried. What have we got ourselves into??
So, the camp director welcomes us and we all start mingling and getting into teams combing both our camps, BBPC (sorry, I don't think I have given the full name of camp yet, it is B'nai B'rith Perlman Camp) and ILC.
My team consisted of: BBPC Graeme, Amber, Taryn, me. ILC Lauren, Dustin and Aaron.
Okay, so onto the rules of this brand new fast spreading game, KongPong. It is a cross between tennis (you play on a tennis court), volleyball (you use a volleyball) and soccer (you can hit the ball with our feet and head as well as your hands). One player serves, when you serve, you can hit or kick the volleyball from anywhere behind the back line. The ball must get over to the other side of the court, the other team. The ball must bounce once between each person hiting/kicking it. It can only be hit/kicked 3 times before it must get to the other side of the net and the other team has posession of it. If the volleyball bounces more than once, it is out.
Some of the teams had only a few members 6 or 7 while other teams were up to 15, which made playing a lot harder because there wasn't much room in their court for bouncing balls.
Some of the teams were really into it. I must admit, we were a bit, but not as much as some of the other teams. They were doing chants and more clapping before they faced each new team. Some of them were rather strange. There was one team who had three girls (I think they were sisters) who were all wearing black tank tops, black legings and bright green shorts. They were pretty into it. Very competitive. One girl in the team next to us was wearing fluro yellow shorts and had painted her legs yellow as well. I must admit however, we did some clapping at one stage before a game .... we decided, never again.
Taz and I think there were only about 2 or 3 Aussies there, and we only knew that because they were wearing Footy jerseys (one guy had a western bulldogs jersey). But, most of them were Americans. We've got spirit yes we do! BBPC is mostly Israelis, Russians and Aussies with a few Americans thown in.
Aaron was like the captain I suppose, he was always telling us "We're doing Great!" Dustin was the guy who got all the long shots or Taz got to them first. And Lauren, all the ILC guys were constantly picking on her. Poor girl. When they left her alone, she was pretty good at playing KongPong. At one point, she was up to serve and we had just had another rotation, so all the teams around us stopped and started clapping and chanting "Lauren! Lauren! Lauren! Lauren!" And our opposing team was so into it they completely missed hitting the ball! That was pretty funny!! Amber was pretty good at serving and so was everyone else. Graeme just turned up when no one else was there to do a great hit of the ball. If my life had depended on my serving the ball I would be dead now. Not once did I manage to get the volleyball over that bloody net! I wasn't very good, but I did manage to get a few good hits and kicks in at various points of the evening. That was a good point of my team, everyone had a chance at everything. A few of the others from BBPC were telling me once their team found out they were particularily good or bad at something they were put in one place and not allowed to go anywhere else.
We got talking to the ILC guys in our team and found out they some of them have been there for 3 weeks!
So, after about an hour of playing KongPong we all got back together in the centre of the courts and the *clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap* rythmic clapping *clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap* and don't forget, WHOOing as well, began again.
Then they all formed a path to the end gate of the tennis courts with their hands out and we each had to run through the centre of them all with our hands out and give each other 5 as we left their camp, slapping them 5s. And of course, there was more WHOOOing. It all was rather bizzar.
I think of it as they have been in the Big Brother house for 3 weeks, they have not had any outside contact in that time apart from themselves (when more people come in from the "outside") and we are like intruders into their "house".
So, when we eventually left (counting a total of 12 tennis courts in what we saw of the camp), we thought they must have been on drugs or something, they were so darn happy!
We got back to BBPC and as we all pulled up and got out of the minivans we all started clapping in unison. So funny!!
Taz is like right next to me now, she says "Hi! Love you Ev, Leah and Bek bek bek". i am running late for my life guarding course....see what i do for u girls!!!
Taz just had a test yesterday, which she was studying for like a madwoman and of course passed.
Don't forget to send us some mail!!! We are sooo out in the middle of no-where if you can tell my the company we kept last night! Anyway, thats enough typing for one day I think.
Later ...

im in!!!

HEy guys,
well it has taken me a week to figure out how to get into this program...i could not remember what login and password i put in...so i had to hack my way in...lol....\any who... i am sure tiff has been keeping every one up to date....i have been doing my life guarding course its pretty fun... had our first exam today out of three...i passed which was a great start... havin a great time here...not many people around at the moment....but we will have all our staff here on firday so then 200 people will be here and make this huge camp look like some thing is going on.....well i gtg lunch it ready..it took me ages to get into this page...soooo slow computers!!! ahh well it has the net sooo thats pretty cool.... mum and dad when u read this can u send me ur email addresss so i can write u guys an email..... thanks u
and piece out!!!!
TAZZA

camp stuff

Ok, Taz and I arrived yesterday with about 20 other people on a bus from New York to Camp. It was supposed to be a 3 hour trip but it took more like 4 and a half hours instead. But that was okay as I slept most of the way. The kids don't arrive until 23rd of the month. Until then Taz is currently doing a life guarding course and I am helping to clean up and tidy the art craft room (Huge job!) I am going to be doing art and crafts with JB and Aaron and Bonnie in the mornings then working in the office in the afternoons.
Today is Shabbat so the office is not open, but starting tomorrow afternoon I will be in the office answering phones and passing on messages to the camp director and others.
JB was pulling stuff out of the storage room this morning and came across boxes of stuff that belonged to people who are no longer working here. The boxes had clothes and stuff in them so JB, Blake and I were going through everything claiming clothing for our own. I now have another pair of sneakers and some more long pants to keep warm (it gets pretty cold of a night time) I also lost my boxers today, I wore them to bed last night then this arvo I was in my room tidying and they are no longer there! I'm hoping they are hiding underneath something else and I will find them tonight otherwise I won't have anything to bed!
Well, I will be getting some photos up soon, as I now have access to a nice new computer and I can plug my camera in no problems.
perlmancamp.org
Until then,
Later

x we are here x

Well, hello avid readers!
Taz and I are now at camp!!! We arrived about 2 hours ago (5.45ish) and then had tea. Which was absolutely scrumptious! But, enough about that, I need to tell you about New York.
We got in at our hotel at about 11.30 last night and decided to go for a walk down to times square, since it is only a few blocks away. It was a little further than a few blocks but that was ok as were both quite hungry and ended up having Maccas for tea, so we needed to work off the junk food.
So, we get to Times Square and it is packed! It was like walking around Melbourne at about 9 in the morning. We took masses of photos (unfortunately I can't post them as there is no way for me to connect my camera to the computers at camp). It was amazing! But, the smell was horrible, we reckon we experienced about 50 new smells like never before!

We both bought a painting each of New York (was $20 each, but we got him down to $15 for both).
On the way back to the hotel (sorry, Y it was a dive the room was about as big as a closet) we saw a couple of black guys kissing; and I mean KISSING. I think they got more into it the closer we got to them. So, we just ignored them and kept walking.

Garbage on the street/sidewalk in New York City.

We got back at about 2.30am and went to bed. Up at 7.30am and we went to find more food for breakfast and a looonnnggg walk to the Empire State building, which we ended up not getting to because we ran out of time, but we got some more awesome photos as well at the Chrysler Building (which was just around the corner from the Y). Made the bus to camp with time to spare and now, we are at camp!! Oh, I should also mention the bus driver, he was really cool and got us completely lost! But we obviously made it safe and sound. There is so much stuff happening in New York, it truly is the city that never sleeps.
Taz says "Hi!"
Later

the first leg ....

Hi all, well, after a few delays and a lot of being held up we finally made it to LAX!!!
After Taz and I finally got through the gate when everyone was saying goodbye, our flight was delayed for 50 minutes!! I had a grand total of $11 in Aussie money so decided to try to spend some of it since we had to wait for what we thougtht was such a long time. I didn't spend it.
When we finally got on the flight, the food was amazing, I have never had airline food that tasted so good before! So, make sure you all fly with AirNew Zealand when going international. We each had our own personal TV screen (on both legs) and got to choose what we wanted to see or listen to. And also got to choose which one of the two dishes.
Taz started watching Wild Hogs on the flight from Melbourne to Auckland, but we landed before she saw the end (Taz saw the end on the connecting flight to LAX).
I saw a total of 5 movies and nearly the whole first season of Little Britain on the whole flight. As you have probably guessed, I did not sleep. I am soooooo tired right now! Anyway, will maybe write more later, as right now I have a queue of people waiting to use this computer, one of the two at the hotel.
Oh, and Taz says Hi, and toilets really do flush the opposite way here!
Well, later!!!!
*Edit* The movies I saw were: Pan's Labyrinth, Razzle Dazzle, Stranger than Fiction, Dreamgirls and something else, I can't remember what it was ... food was chicken teriyaki with mash and ice cream, steak and veggie pie and ice cream, yoghourt, juice, crackers, a sweet fruit pie thing.

These photo's are from our trip to Santa Monica (duh) on our second day in LA

the Par-tay!!!

Well, on Saturday night was the partay!!
It was a fan-tas-tic night! Thanks everyone who came, you guys made it such a great time!!
If you weren't there, you missed out big time!!!
Leah and Bek wrote a song for us, they were going to give us a copy of the lyrics, but unfortunately they haven't yet, otherwise I would be putting them up now instead of all this rambling of mine. But, when they do, I will be putting it up for those who weren't there, and for those who were and just want to relive their fantastic contribution to the night, thanks to Gids too for playing guitar!!
So, anyway, leaving ......TOMORROW!!!
I can't believe how quickly it has come around.
Just heard from Taz before, thank you to all who were at Shane and Carly's last night, I appreciate your prayers for the time I will be away.
The next post will be from Taz and me in the US!!
Well, later...