It's J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter's birthday! And I'm not quite in England. But I am in Ireland. Which is close. Yay!
Today I got up around 8:30, went down to breakfast, and sat with Janice & Janis & two campers - Andrew [Miller] (16) and Cillian (11?). Andrew is blonde & cute & reminds me of my brother Andy a bit. He seems mature for a teenager, too. Cillian [hard "C"] is an amusing kid, sort of feisty. As for the breakfast food, I had something new to me today: chocolate chip toast. J and J remarked over it and said they noticed the Irish eat a lot of toast for breakfast. True, it seems they do, but I didn't really notice till they said that.
A little while after breakfast, we leaders had a worship service (most of the campers still hadn't arrived). We sang choruses that they have over in America and that my church sometimes sings, so that was a familiar touch. But 2 of the songs were unfamiliar to me. Robbie did a bit of preaching from Psalm 118, and near the beginning of the singing, we all stood up and formed a procession and marched through the whole first floor of the building, singing a psalm-like chorus.
After the service, we had some free time - and I started to feel quite sick in the stomach. I went to lie down in my bed, because we had a couple hours while campers were arriving and getting checked in and such. I even took a nap, cuz I am still jet lagged. But when I got up and went down to lunch, my stomach was still killing me. I didn't eat much of anything - nothing appealed to me. Then I wandered around for a bit, and I had to get my picture taken w/ my team - Shaz and Joanne. Shaz asked if I was all right, cuz I must have looked sick, and I told her what was wrong, and she said she had something I could take over in Densmore Cottage where she's staying.
1:48 a.m. 8/1/05 cont.
Well, I had to cut short that entry to go to a meeting. Picking back up...
Shaz ran to Densmore Cottage for the stuff, but when she got back with it, it turned out to be capsules, and they were big ones. There was no way I was going to be able to get those down. So I thanked her but said I couldn't take them, and I felt bad for making her run off to Densmore for no reason. She is so nice and considerate and just took off for the cottage the moment I said what was wrong. I really like her.
So, I was still in quite a lot of pain. I went back up to the girls' sleeping room, feeling miserable and very annoyed that this had to happen the first day of camp. Argh, argh, argh. I lay down on my bed but couldn't really sleep. I cried a tiny bit. I also started to feel sorry for myself, which I know wasn't a good thing to do.
I knew that the first kids' club meetings were scheduled to begin at 4:00, so I knew I needed to drag myself down there by then. (I skipped the opening kick-off service thingy, though, and I feel a bit bad about that. But no one said anything, and everyone is so nice when they find out you aren't feeling well.)
So I went down to Green group's meeting room just before 4:00, only to find that they had already been meeting for a while. I didn't know how long and was a bit confused. I didn't get to see very much of the kids, cuz they left at 4:15. I just got to play a couple games with them.
Later Shaz told me that they'd started at 3:00. Dang, I was lying up there obliviously in the room having a pity party, when I could have been down there helping like I'm supposed to.
But I did get to help after the kids had gone. We group leaders decided to paint our banner since we had an extra hour. We spread the sheet over the floor (it took up most of the space) and I was commissioned to block sketch the letters onto it since I am apparently the most artistically gifted (which is odd, cuz I can't draw worth crap, but I'm okay at lettering). The other girls said I did a beautiful job. :-) The other two painted (and I did a bit too) and we were joined by Gillian, our worship leader. She must be early 30's, and she's got a 2-yr.-old boy, and she's a schoolteacher. I can tell even this early that she's a D from the DISC personality test. [D is for "dominant."] She likes to give orders and do tasks, and she won't take crap from anybody. I was at first a bit intimidated by her, but she's nice and gave me compliments on my work. She's cool.
Took us quite a while to do all the painting we were going to do on the banner. Everyone had been called to tea (supper in American terms) before we were done. I'm so glad I had my camera and took pictures of us working on the banner.
"Live a Fruitful Life for Jesus"
After tea I hung around, unsure of what to do before the next thing, another worship service. I just kind of drifted about, talked to a few people. Then we had the service, which started late, cuz everyone drifted in very leisurely and weren't in any hurry. Now there's a cultural difference for you! And I love this one. Another reason I must move here.