What an absolutely perfect topic for the first real post. So I just got back from the greatest place in the world, Camp Mikell, nestled in the North Georgia mountains in Toccoa, Georgia. I've been going to Mikell for three summers now, in addition to three years attending DYC, a diocesan retreat for middle- and high school-aged kids. I've been on staff for two, almost three years.Anyway, Mikell is about the biggest part of my life right now. I know all my best friends through camp which can be kind of a pain sometimes since we come from all over Georgia, even beyond. In some cases, there's people from Tennessee, Florida, even as far away as Washington D.C. and Illinois, but that's pretty rare.
The past week I was counseling at one of the camp sessions, Performing Arts Camp. It's a camp for rising 4th to rising 9th graders. It sounds like that could get a little messy, but it isn't 99% of the time. Counseling was one of the most rewarding (and difficult!) experiences of my life. By the third day I hated children and wanted them all to fall in the creek or something. But when I saw that final performance, what all our hard work amounted to, it was something else. I realized that I was one of the thirty or fourty-something guiding lights those kids had that week. Twenty counselors plus twenty-five or so summer staff, and I was one of them.
About two weeks ago, I also counseled the Kid I session, which is 3rd-5th graders. There were only 77 kids at this session, compared to the maxed-out capacity of 125 kids at PA Camp. Despite there being fewer kids, there were more problems at this camp. I was actually in a cabin at Kid I, as opposed to being a commons counselor, who helps out with all the cabins. There was one kid who was intent on breaking every single counselor, guy and girl, and lucky me, I ended up with him. I never thought I'd tell a kid I hated him, but I think I told Nile that at least three times a day.
Overall, though, Kid I was an enormous success for me. I gained new friendships with counselors and campers and earned experience you can only get putting up with nine-year-olds for a week. Would I do it again? In a hearbeat. 
Whenever I try to explain Camp Mikell to people, I always have a difficult time. It's impossible to tell stories without mentioning the inside jokes and the camp traditions that no one gets. There's an old saying that goes, "From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. From the inside looking out, you can't explain it." I'm not sure if it originate at camp or what, but it certainly applies. Just because Mikell is such an amazing place, I'm gonna say camp takes full credit for that one.
Some people call us a cult. Do I take offense to that? No. May as well be true. When you think of a cult, you think of a hundred people in a small area dressing, talking, and acting the same. The description of Mikell isn't far off from that. We're all flip-flop-wearing, Nalgene-toting, booga-boogaing (see? inside joke), tie-dye-making, missing-more-than-a-few-brain-cells crazy people, and I wouldn't change that for anything. But as similiar as we are, we're all different. And that's why Camp Mikell is so special, and that's all the proof I need.
