I still like my job. It’s a tough one but it’s a good one. Regardless of how long I stay with my camp job I know I’m in the right place for now. It’s hard trying to stay somewhat involved in the art side of my life while devoting so much of it to kids who probably won’t appreciate me until they’re my age or older. But I still don’t want to quit camp.

I like to draw while I’m there. I make portraits of my kids in blue ballpoint pen. It’s loads of fun. One of ‘em sits still, several others crowd around. Each kid wants to sit for me, but I haven’t had time to draw them all before this homesday weekend. Most of them wanted a portrait they could take home to their parents.

Right now I’m messing around with my spreadshirt account. I’ve enjoyed putting all my various camp drawings onto T-shirts for people to buy. It keeps me busy. I really should take a nap now. My step mom got home from work not too long ago, and my little brother Joey was just on the phone. I got to say hello to him and wish him well on his interview for a newspaper internship. I might have some food with my step mom before going upstairs to zone out to my hulu queue.

It makes me sad that camp keeps me from many important dates with family and friends. I’m sure it’s the same with any and every job; you gotta put your time in before trying to swap schedules with someone. I’ve got a friend getting married this coming week, I missed my grandma’s funeral, I missed my brother’s birthday. C’est la vie, after all. The kids at camp need their chiefs.

So I’m done blogging now. Gonna hang with my step mom and catch up. Enjoy my little robots and see them on shirts on the merch page. Thanks everyone for checking in with me.

Rural North Carolina can be nice if you want it to be. My camp keeps a time off apartment about 40 minutes away from camp. It gets us far enough away to feel like we’re truly detached without taking burdensome travel time from our actual hours off. Normally I visit my dad who lives just under 2 hours away when I’m off from camp, but this week I came to the “T.O. House” to spend some time with coworkers.

It’s been really nice spending time with other chiefs away from the campers, venting, chatting, comparing stories and advising one another. I have some of the best coworkers in the world. I’m liking my job more and more, even though it’s difficult. I still sometimes have a pang of wanting to be back in the studio making monsters and art, but I’ll be doing that soon enough. Gotta save some money and fix a few kids. This week, as soon as I was back from my previous time off, I spent most of Saturday chasing runaways around property. Then sunday there was an all camp riot that happened over something stupid and unrelated. Then two of my campers were exited to stronger programs for property damage, assaulting staff and generally being toxic influences on the other campers who were starting to make some progress. It was a hard week, but my co-chiefs and I plowed through, did the best we could, got our kids fed and showered and to bed every day (which is sometimes all you can hope for on a tough week).

So, as for my time off, I’m in a little shopping villagey place near the T.O. house, with expensive smoothies and wireless internet and shops that sell nothing but olive oil (sheesh, in this economy.. ). I’ve just had a smoothie and I might mosey around and look for lunch. I’m uploading youtube videos, playing around with my spreadshirt account (trying to upload more designs for t-shirts), working on doodles and drawings, trying to do paperwork, and waiting around for the next matinee of Kickass, which I’ve been wanting to see ever since getting a few of the comic books it’s based on.

After all that I’ll probably go back to the T.O. house and continue paperwork and fall asleep watching whatever I haven’t caught yet on my Hulu queue. I’ve got to get up beastly early tomorrow morning to head back to camp. We’ve got another dreaded “homesday” coming up, in which those campers who’ve behaved themselves are allowed to visit their families for 4 days. A bunch of paperwork was due today because of that, and I’m sort of glad I missed it (I should feel guilty but I kind of refuse to). Homesday usually involves the kids acting crazy the week prior ‘cause they’re excited, then acting crazy again the week after they return ‘cause they’re unhappy to be back at camp. And, of course, during homesday, camp is free from all the functional kids who do well at camp, and us chiefs must spend four days dealing with nothing but our hard cases. This will be my first homesday weekend, so we’ll see how it goes. They typically happen every 5 weeks.

More soon as it develops!! Remember to write!!