Tonight we took a bunch of the campers to the Weatherford community pool for some summertime fun. I left my swim trunks in Hinton, so I just kind of went along to hang out by the pool and chat with the campers who went but didn't want to swim.

About half an hour before it was time to go, a kid from Hinton who's on my floor came up to me and said he'd pay me $100 to jump into the pool, just as I was. I looked down at myself, saw that I wasn't wearing anything of real value, and shook his hand. I threw my wallet onto the ground and ran off the diving board. Easiest hundred bucks I've ever made.

BUT... it appears that I have a conscience. Dang it.

As we were walking back to the dorms, I let myself start feeling guilty because I didn't really need the money. Also, as a counselor I really didn't feel like I was being a very solid example to the kids by taking the money. It just didn't feel right.

So when John came and held out the hundred dollar bill, I just told him not to worry about it. I've been kicking myself off and on for the last hour and a half about it, too. *laughs* I think I did the right thing, but an extra hundred bucks would have been handy when the bills came. Ah, well. Another day, another lesson, yadda yadda yadda.

Thank you, Goodnight.

Listening to - Them from Summer by All Star United

SWOSU Band Camp is....FUN!

So I'm working band camp this week, and I've managed to find a computer with an internet connection. Excellent.

You know, I spent seven summers of my life at this camp, making friends and getting to know people, and now that I'm seeing it from the counselor's point of view, I realize I must have been the most annoying camper ever. After about my third year, I began to think that my veteran status enabled me to have some sort of inside track as to what the whole band camp thing was about. I chatted with counselors, made banter with band directors... but now, I see that most of them were probably just humoring me by listening. I had one kid last night just walk into my room and start playing my guitar; now, I'm not a huge stickler about my guitar, but having the gusto to just walk into your counselor's room and start playing his instrument without even checking if he minds first... that's just not cool. I don't think I ever did anything that extreme, but then again I've had a long time to forget most of the stuff I did. The most vivid memories I have of camp are the girls I met over the years. And most of those even ended up coming to nothing at all. *laughs*

Well, I've got to wake some kids up in about six hours, so I'm off for now. Keep on a'rockin' for the kids.

Listening to - My room's A/C unit... it's got this cool rhythm to it. *chunk-chunka-chickchick-chunka-chunka-chunka-chickchick*

Well, we never did shoot that film Jim was telling me about.

I'm back in Hinton now, all fired up for the big Independence Day celebration. I haven't been able to track Nathan down yet, oddly enough. Apparently they're off on some mission trip and were supposed to be back around 3:00, but here we are at almost five and there's been no sign of the group. Ah, so it is.

For some reaon, I always find myself checking out the Apple website. I really don't know why, either. I prefer to build my own computers nowadays, but something about those shiny iBooks just makes me keep coming back to their website. Maybe one of these days I'll just surrender my pride and get one just so I can feel all cool and artistic like all those "revolutionary" Mac owners out there. I mean, they're really good for video editing, right? Right?

I start band camp on Sunday, and will therefore be without any real internet access until next Friday night. There's also no cell phone service, so I probably won't get to talk to Jen at all. *insert saddened face here* Ah, well, at least I saw her yesterday, even if it was just long enough to say hi and be on my way to Oklahoma.

I talked to my dad a fair amount today about stuff from the past. It's interesting to hear his take on the whole thing with mom; it's almost amazing how non-bitter he is about it, even though it has been about fifteen years since it all came down. There's several things I had forgotten about the divorce and pre-divorce parts of our lives, simply because I was pretty young when all of it happened. I need to ask him if I can read some more of the court transcripts sometime.

Well, for all interested parties, my final ended up being not that bad. I ended up with an 86 on the test and a 93 for the course, so that means I've just earned my first 4.0 semester at Baylor University. Let's see if I can pull something like that sometime other than the summer, though.

But, moving on...

Jen and I didn't get to talk very much tonight, unfortunately. Her parents are kind of cracking down on how much sleep she gets since she's living at home this summer, and we didn't actually start talking until around eleven anyway. So we only got about a half hour of decent conversation before she was told that she needed to go to bad. So, I had the next few hours to essentially do nothing (well of course I'm not going to use that time to sleep!). I figured I'd go and see what Jim was up to.

Some folks were over there, so we all watched a movie and then later Jim and I went out to IHOP. For some reason, hanging out with Jim always makes me feel like I actually have some sort of depth to my thinking. We manage to brush on a very wide scope of topics, ranging from Batman to theology. We never reach any actual deep thoughts, but we explore ideas enough to fulfill my need to feel like an intellectual.

We talked briefly about shooting a video this week sometime before I leave for Hinton for the holiday. It was a rather nifty idea concerning the comparison/contrast between being a diner patron and a hospital patient... really cool. Assignment for self: ponder this film.