Free to live the memories

Its late on a Friday night but I'm starting my Sunday blog early because it was an important, surprisingly emotional day. Today was my last day in Summercamp. Summercamp has been a staple of my life and this blog for the past two years. I haven't quite gotten around to my university memories part two, but when I do there may be many more Summercamp tales. For now, I just want to honor my lifeshaping experiences with this weeks blog.

First let me say i'm not really an emotional person. I don't cry. And before you get excited, I didn't cry on my last day either. However, I know i'm not some stonehearted or heartless monster because while I may not actually shed a tear, I often get my heartstrings yanked around. Recent examples include toy story 3, Up, certain scenes in World of Color. And today.

I am moving to Ohio state next fall for a degree in higher education and student affairs. The reason im doing this is because of my experiences in Summercamp. The work we do, the impact we have and the developmental focus drive my work to make college students have a successful career. And at the heart of that has been my Summercamp team. So in this blog, I'd like to highlight a few individuals who have made my experience and my life so wonderful. To all of them I want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, which does hurt to leave such wonderful people behind.

This blog is all about the characters in my life. When I studied English, it was the characterizations that I was always most interested in. Who was who and what made them who they were. It is the same in my life. I may not know all the big picture themes, but the characters around me shape my world. So in reliving the memories of this past year, I want to talk about the characters that made it special.

First there is Pandita. I bring her up first because it is now Saturday and I just came from a wonderful graduation party of hers. She comes from a big Mexican family and it was nice to see what I associate with the more traditional Mexican party. My latin blood was happy to hear a lot of salsa music (I am far more likely to dance to that than any other music). And her wonderful welcoming family made us feel at home. And that is how I can best describe the sweet, loving, Pandita. With her, you always feel like you are safe at home, and they plays the role of mother, sister, and daughter well, both in her family and at work. She spoiled us with baked goods and her warm laugh. And while I loved teasing her for never coming to our biweekly one on one meetings, I also trusted that she didn't need to meet with me to be successful in her work and with her students. I hope to always stay in touch with her and look forward to see her impact the lives of every single person she meets.

Next I think I'll mention Missy Sunflower. Missy hasn't been alluded to at all in this blog, but as it is late and I'm feeling nostalgic, I may just go through everyone that made this year grand. I wish I got to work more with Missy. She and I have a lot in common. She worked in teh position I did my first year in the department, so I took a special interest in seeing her succeed as our liason to the community. I loved hearing her stories and connections and reminisced on my days as a new staff member. She also shares my positive outlook and religious slant on life and I had great conversations with her about life love and the pursuit of bringing happiness to others. She was also so sweet and grateful for even the littlest things I did for her and I'm so happy to see her going on to great things. So, thank you Missy for trusting me as your supervisor and your friend.

Royal Rose has a very nice real name herself, and even though I didn't get to know her as much as I wanted I was proud to see her grow into a leader. My favorite memory is sitting down with her to do her RA app. I'd been up late reading and reading applications, helping edit and fine tune them to be the best possible. Everyone's needed lots of work. When Royal Rose came to me with hers, I was pleased to see her great insight and well written essay. She was so worried about a few details but I was like, Rose, you are in great shape, let's tweak this and that and youl be fine. That's how it is with Rose, she always hits the ground running and was competent and capable in everything she did. Best of luck to her in her RA role next year.

There were plenty of others I'd like to recognize. Green Trickster, Hungry Brawler, Britney Bell, Shy Rider, Beatboxed Arms. And my good peoples from last year, Chai Ducky, President Futballer, and Punk Sister. But I have a splitting headache right now and need to sleep. I'll finish this Sunday but if you read this before well know its not done.

Continuation Sunday...

Captain Peanut was one of my programmers. I have a lot in common with him, not the least of which is our shared love for video games, especially smash brothers. While we only played Brawl maybe two or three times total, Captain Peanut and I shared many a great conversation about pretty much anything we wanted. While an exception programmer who was always on top of his work, Captain Peanut also has a great perspective on life, looking at problems from different angles and always thinking outside the box with his logical approaches. He has a great sense of a humor and always phrases things in witty and insightful ways. Some of my favorite moments with him include playing "Presidents" and the hundreds of times I got him to give me to say "James, that's not funny. You people shouldn't be laughing at that!" after I made some very corny, pun or play on words, intentionally so bad it was kinda amusing.

Nobel Dancer was another one of my really high performing staff members. Like Pandita, she's one of the sweetest people I know. Considerate and thoughtful, she always has something nice to say about everyone and everything, rarely getting angry. She is also a great dancer and singer, talented like a Bollywood superstar. I'm positive one day she will win some kind of Nobel prize for her outreach, compassion, and dedication to helping those in need. She will change the world and she definitely helped shape my time in Summercamp. We had this ongoing point system where I missed one of my meetings with her (I even wrote a text telling her I'd be late but forgot to send it!) and she was like, James, you lost 100 points there. I spent the rest of the quarter trying to re-earn those favor points back (yea who was the supervisor here? I know) and ultimately caught up by attending her phenomenal dance recital at the end of the quarter. I have fond memories of conversations about life and love as she drove with me to pick up something or drop someone off early in the year, and that shaped our relationship, even if later she didn't want to tell me stuff because she knew I knew the person. Oh well, I would just listen carefully and find out later. I'm going to miss seeing this great person, but I'm sure she'll continue her own blog and video posts, so we shall stay in touch.

Naysayer P Smith called King Wrangler my little brother. This was mostly because he is half Latino half White like me. Generally, we had a good amount in common though he is a stats major, or statistician as he likes to call himself, and I was an English major. But we both had very positive experiences as student leaders and call more than just Summercamp our home in the past (they called my old residence hall Jamesville or something like that). When he's not wrangling data or working on his memory palace, he spends his time with his girlfriend, Fall Girl, who's got the sass and sarcasm to deal with King Wrangler's constant rants and verbal meanderings complaining about some minute problem with supposed big picture implications. Needless to say we always found his ravings very entertaining. King Wrangler would just walk into my office and say James York, I have a question for you. And then go off on a wild idea about how he could create a better system or address a problem in a better way than the department, school, politician or whoever was doing now. Often they were very insight if a bit extreme in a humorous way. In fact, my best memories are with King Wrangler and I would sit and chat about anything from social justice to the best restaurants at Disneyland and have very nice chats. I'm going to miss his humor, his sarcasm and his wild ideas that I never took quite seriously because he never did either. Someone who talks for the sake of talking but its funny, unlike some of my other friends who talk for the sake of hearing themselves speak. King Wrangler, my 'little brother' I hope shall be someone I run into often.

These last two are perhaps the hardest to write. Of all my staff members I think I've gotten the closest to them throughout our year of programs, one on ones committees and just fun hang out time. I have loved every staff I've been on but something about this years staff has definitely made them the most... recent. And very tight night, and these two have been the heart of it. I love everyone and don't really play favorites, but these two I feel I know the best and they know me the best.

Ironically, there was a running gag within the staff that these two were the same person. Maybe that's saying something but I'm not sure what...

Red Button: I heart Red Button. She is high performing, on top of her work, and balances a lot of committements beautifully. I don't know anyone else who is so involved and so often volunteers for things and is still days ahead of her homework. Moreover, she is a genuinely good person. We actually share a lot of perspectives on life, usually looking for the best in people, staying positive and supportive, and a love for telling stories that are really only entertaining to us. Often when there were communication break downs in our staff or someone tried to do something that didn't make sense, I'd hear Red Button starting to make the same suggestion to help that I would, and vice versa. We'd always go "See that's that connection we have". Practical and on the same page. This made for a great working relationship and fun one on ones, which for her were usually two or three on ones because King Wrangler or Pokeboss or both would crash her meeting times. These were great times, though I was always behind in the rest of my work because these meetings lasted so long. She also often walked by my office and no matter what she'd stop by with her big smile and bright red hair (no eyebrows interestingly enough) and she "Hi James" I'm planning such and such or I have a question about this and that, always thoughtful and always proactive. It was such a pleasure to work with her, and I'll cherish those moments when I really saw her shine in her position, with her many roommate conflicts in particular. Her thank you notes and heartfelt tears made it very hard to say "goodbye" to this wonderful person. I know we will always have a bond over baseball, which nobody else on our staff ever seemed to understand. We will continue to root for the home team and even though our team time together has ended, the memories and relationship built will last a lifetime I'm sure. I wish the best for her in all her endeavours and hope she considers the potential calling in student affairs and maybe we'll be on a team again.

Pokeboss oh Pokeboss. As any of you reading the blog lately will know, Pokeboss also was a constant visitor in my office. She often likened me to her big brother, saying if we ever met we'd get along famously. Perhaps that's true, but my experiences were with her, and I suppose I did see her a little sister. I think back to the first time I drove my staff to one of our many bonding activities. Pokeboss needed to ride with me because I was going to drop her off at her family's home for something. I remember being annoyed that this student didn't seem to have the passion and committment to the position and was considering missing the bonding activity for family time. My offer to drive her allowed her to have the best of both worlds (a concept I strongly value and will probably unpack next week). After two fairly long drives, an accidental leg grabbing as I fumbled for a box of kleenex, and the first of a series of soundbitten conversations, I decided that this kid was alright. Thus began a year long series of growth and bonding moments between the two of us. From hours and hours of one on ones to facing new Sporcle challenges, Thursday meals at Awesome Burger Chain to my "helping" her keep meeting minutes by pushing keys at random, I think Pokeboss was present at more individual Summercamp memories this year than anyone else. I even helped her drive on our jampacked freeway and swapped music tips and discussions. Like a lil sis, she also would drive me crazy at times, refusing to tell me information after alluding that she had some (perhaps my biggest pet peeve) and sometimes having rants and being angry about things that aren't really related or affecting her just because she dislikes them on principle (another pet peeve of mine). That said, I'm sure I drove her and many of the staff crazy with my politically safe answers to questions they had about the department and the minimal information I would give them, especially compared to Naysayer, who would often tell them much more (even though he was the one who instructed me not to share information!). Pokeboss once in her comfort zone with the staff, single handed helped shape staff development with her biweekly staff newsletters, birthday posters, and even starting a kickball tournament. She was the one I trusted to communicate things to the rest of the staff and my liason to the many dinners I had with the staff later on. I was always excited when she would visit my office, even if it meant no work would get done, often because more staff members would soon follow. Like me, she would spend more time bonding and hanging out with people than working, and I think that fact solidified our friendship, one I'm sure will stay alive even after I leave for Ohio State.

All my staff members defined my positive experience in Summercamp. I will sorely miss all of them and hope to stay in touch as much as possible. Though now I am no longer their supervisor, I hope to continue to call them my friends. I haven't forgotten Naysayer P Squirrel, my boss through this entire time. I think he will continue to be a prominent player in this blog. He hates goodbyes, but for us, I don't think there ever will be one. On our last night as his supervisee, we had a huge marker war which involved physical abuse, lots of ink, and the use of a blind man's walking cane as bludger, among other things. Even on our last day he taught me an important lesson: he is willing to go to any extremes to win, while I learned long ago to pull my punches and try your best not to hurt anyone if you are play fighting. In other words, know the rules of the game. Still I think it would have been bad if I had actually pulled the feet out from my boss and knocked him on the floor. Not just because it could have hurt him, but because it would most assuredly have hurt me in the long term. Remember the pie story from last year? Yea, same thing.

Still on our last night Naysayer P Squirrel bought us pizza and we actually reminisced with staff members from last year, including some old residents and Chai Ducky, who happened to be visiting. I felt like everything had come full circle, and while I was having flashbacks to my own graduation, I again felt that intense nostalgia and hesitation for change, something that Pokeboss and I had discussed her fear of in our first one on one.

The fact is, when in September Pokeboss said she was afraid of change and she dreaded the year's end, I thoroughly agreed. While I stayed positive with her assuring her that our year would be long and that it will all work out, things I also believe, I too was scared. I didn't realize it until this weekend, but once again I am afraid of change. But I guess as a sign of my own growth, despite this fear, I know that change is good and I will not let fear paralyze but rather encourage me. I shall be cautious and appreciate each relationship I have and that fear of change will show me I did good. That was one of the many things I shall be taking away from Summercamp.

One last thing on Naysayer. He has put me on a career path. He has helped me grow and develop as a leader, a supervisor, a supervisee, a coworker, an administrator, a judicator, and a person. He has read resumes for me, given me advice on life, love and everything in between. He taught me how to "play the game." He has been a mentor, an almost father figure, a boss, and a friend. I'm glad he doesn't like goodbyes because it means we will always stay in touch. So I give a special thank you to him.

Thank you. For everything.

And now I say goodbye to Summercamp. It will be sorely missed. For the first time in my life I am free. Free to not have Monday meetings. Free to work normal working hours. Free to not have to worry if a program meets fire marshal guidelines, if a staff member is going to fail out of school, if my student leaders have good chemistry, if I missed a timely, important email, if I was supposed to be at a one on one right now, or if I was going to be yelled at for working late even though I had a lot of work to do. Free from all of that which I have loved about Summercamp. Having freedom implies I had bondage. Well I did, I bonded to Summercamp. And now that I am free to change I am also free to live the memories that have developed me so. I look forward to new reasons for nostalgia and new memories to make. Goodbye Summercamp, until we meet again.

-JTY

Once last lesson to my staff: Remember Freedom is one of the basic needs for humans along with survival, power, love and belonging and that last one that I just don't care to remember. Take that choice theory!

Reading: 100 Bullets Book 7, though I'm stocking up Shadow in the Wind and The Name of the Wind for my flight to England and Ireland with the family in a week!!

Playing: Super Mario Galaxy 2, the first game on my summer docket I need to finish.

Listening to: Wicked Little Town from the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was first playing on my drive home from Summercamp at 4am on Friday and really just matched my nostalgic mood. Even though I've only seen half the movie, I think it was fitting. Maybe I'll watch the whole thing soon.