Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.

This week I begin one of my favorite annual charity adventures. Camp Fun in the Sun is a three day camp for the raising of confidence and self esteem in troubled and/or financially challenged youth. It is held at CCDS III: Center for Change, Discovery, and Support at 7525 John T White Road in Fort Worth, Texas. It has been coordinated for the past four years by a Ms. Sandra Brown. The camp focuses on team building, challenge course excersizes, counselling, and arts and crafts.

I have realized that most camps are missing a very important aspect of youth existance, EDUCATION. Arts and crafts is a completely pointless waste of time. It's not like we're discussing shading and giving the kids an easel to paint on or marble to sculpt. You give them elmers glue to eat and make random knick-knacks that are perfectly suited to adding beauty to the floor of a trash can. What kids need in the summer time is some pure education. They need algebra to work on and literature to discuss. The kids need their logical comprehension increased. Before this post becomes attacked by people who believe that I'm some sort of Evil Mastermind, I would also add that I would like the kids to play an hour or so of video games to increase their logical abilities. If you now want to attack me for feeding moral destroying garbage to children, go to your local library and rent Everything Bad is Good For You.

My thoughts on this subject have caused me to plan on opening next summer my own camp with a tentative schedule as such:
First: Katas and Excersizes
This will be done to get the blood flowing in the morning and teach meditation and healthy living.

Second: Challenge Games (ROPES-esque)
This is done to teach leadership, team work, and confidence

Thrid: Math
Even children will do math in Algebraic Notation (4 + 4 = X) with the hope of easing the switch between the simple maths and upper level courses.

After that: Lunch
Fifth: Literature
The children will read and discuss classic and modern literature, the book will also influence the theme of the week and some vocabulary work.

Sixth: Water Play
Squirt guns, inflatable pools, and water slides

Seventh: Science/History/Arts alternating every day
There won't be any kids science. Children will learn the basic methods of future sciences like mass-mass equations in chemistry and the like. I need help to figure out an interactive way to teach history. Arts will include discussion of artistic form and will include painting, clay sculpture, poetry, and music theory.

Eighth: Team Games
Rugby will be the official sport of the school although other sports will be played occasionally. This keeps the American students learning new things, creates a degree of seperation between the school and the outside world, and promotes team building.

Ninth: Freeplay/Movie
This is the final portion of the day. If it is too hot to freeplay or a movie is prepared, a film will be watched inside. If a film is watched a discussion of cinematics will ensue. Everything should be interactive. Freeplay will have a huge push towards probing and telescoping games. These are games that can be as simple as tag or have complex narratives to begin them, but the actual rules of the game are unknown to the players. The referees know the rules and will call out penalties or points so that the kids must negotiate new situations and discover how to play games from scratch.

Also all new scholars will take an IPIP-NEO test and an IQ Test. All subsequent work will be kept on file.

This is the end of the actual article, below is some mild whining.

In this paragraph I will delve into a small tangent. I was hoping this year to be listed as co-coordinator because of how much effort that I have put into the camp the past three years. This year alone I have done a huge amount of the administrative work leading up to the camp. Last year Sandra had a huge lapse of competency since she wasn't extremely excited about the prospect of camp and was behind at her actual job. I filled in the cracks and made sure that the camp did not implode. As much as it sounds like the rantings of an inflated ego, I assure you that this is at least fairly close to the ultimate truth of the situation since numerous counselors pervayed thanks to me for my work. Alas though, she has listed someone who was only at camp one year (last year, which was the one that I wore myself out on keeping it together) she has been listed as co-coordinator although I have yet to see her affect on any of the planning or administrative functions. It seems that I may be the victim of friendacrocy. Though I am mildly content in that the must difficult section of camp, recreation, is one hundred percent under my and my assistants control (Young and Matt be thanked prehensively).