Man, oh man. This morning marked the end of our first week of campers at the Ranch. We survived! And by 'we,' I mean the staff and the campers alike. That makes it sound worse than it actually was... which, really, it wasn't bad at all. The worst part for me was probably getting sunburnt every other day if I slacked off on sunscreen in the slightest... I now have a stark watch tan and a lovely tank top tan that will be just amazing when I wear my strapless dress for the scholarship concert in the fall. Also, my nose is perpetually burnt... but that has gotten better since I've started wearing my leather Aussie hat that I bought a few years ago.
I haven't decided yet if this week has seemed really long or really short. When I was a camper, it always seemed to drag on forever... there were a couple of days like that this week, but for the most part everything just kind of chugged along. You get into a routine because everything is scheduled: wake up, morning devotionals, bring the horses up from the pasture, groom and saddle them, go to breakfast, get horses ready, teach classes until noon, break for lunch, one more hour-long class after lunch, kids go to bible studies and free time while we do chores or drill practice until about 3:45. Then we have a break until dinner at 5:15... then staff meeting, evening game with the kids, evening chapel, and bedtime around 10:30.
Monday was relatively uneventful for me, but the other wranglers had to deal with various mishaps including frustrated, crying kids on a trailride (horses love to eat on trails and kids don't always know how to make them stop eating) and a rider falling off of a horse on another trail ride (never a good thing). Monday was one of those days that went on forever. I ran out of things to do halfway through my arena class and the kids definitely got bored. The one boy in my riding group wouldn't stop complaining during my barn class (where it's more of a lecture type thing and I talk to the kids about various horsey subjects). All in all, it wasn't a terrible day... but it was long and hot and sticky. I had a dry throat by lunchtime from talking for three hours straight, something I'm not really used to at all.
As the week went on, however, things started looking up. I definitely started settling into my role as a wrangler and got comfortable with teaching arena classes (always my weak point when I was a SALT[Servant And Leadership Training, like a CIT]) as well as being able to pick up classes I knew little about (like driving, where you put harnesses on the horses as though you were going to have them pull a wagon... but we didn't hook up a wagon) and spend an hour teaching them. Out of the five barn classes I had to teach this week (one a day), I'd say only one or two went over really well with the kids... that is going to be my new weak area this summer, and I suspect it will take a few weeks to figure out good topics and a good way to teach them.
I haven't gotten more than a couple hours of piano practice in these last couple of weeks. That's what I was most concerned about when I was deciding whether or not to even apply to camp. Music is and has always been a huge part of my life, and I went into camp with the hope that I would be able to devote my hour and a half of daily free time to piano practice. Um... not the case in actuality. The only thing I want to do in the afternoon when I'm done working is peel off my sweaty, sticky jeans, get out of my boots and dirty socks, get into some capris and go somewhere air-conditioned where I can buy something cold to drink. The reality of the scholarship concert at the beginning of the quarter hasn't really hit me yet, and I'm already apprehensive about the wave of frantic preparation I'm going to have to do when I finish camp at the beginning of September. Unlike some people, I cannot memorize a Rachmaninoff etude in the two weeks I'll have between camp and school.
So, what can I do? I'm definitely not going to get any practice in next week, which is Independence Day Family Camp--my days will be filled with leading trail rides and getting ready for the big performance of our horseback drill. The week after that is campers again, so it will be back to a more regular schedule that might allow for practice time. My problem is that I also need some 'me' time to chillax after working all morning/afternoon, and.... while I love piano, it's not the same as flopping on my bed and resting my eyes for a while.
I think I'll just have to give the piano practice another shot. I have to get this etude down. The part I feel bad about is that I don't even have the music for the Saint-Saens concerto I'm supposed to be working on too, but two piano projects right now is impossible. So, it can wait until September.
Hopping to another topic as I untangle all the ideas and thoughts that have been going through my head these last few days: I realized yesterday while spending some free time at the waterfront that I am not a risk-taker. At all. There is a new blow-up climbing toy called the Iceberg at the waterfront: an enormous (maybe 15+ feet tall with shorter "crags" on either side) mountain thing that sits on top of the water and has handles on three sides for climbing and a long smooth side for sliding (or jumping) into the water. Hakuna (one of my fell0w wranglers) convinced me with much cajoling to climb the thing and jump off. Now, I'm not a water person (I gave up on learning how to swim after a traumatizing experience with a diving board when I was little) but I decided to give it a shot since, well, that long side WAS basically a slide and it couldn't be that bad... right? So with some struggling I started climbing up the side and reached the left-hand "crag", which serves as a tiny sort of platform for you to catch your breath before continuing on to the top part about 7 feet above it. I took one look at the water a good distance below me, another look at the top of the crag farther above me, and decided right then and there I wasn't going any farther. A kid had reached the top platform at that point and poked his head over the side to congratulate me for getting as far as I did... then, noting that I was standing (slipping) there not jumping off, asked if he could go ahead and jump off. I told him to hang on and that I was about to go anyway. It wasn't like I could just climb down at that point, which would be too lame even for me. Taking a huge breath, I counted to three, let go of the handles and slid/bounced off the edge. I swear my heart stopped for a second before I hit the water.
Yes, I really am petrified of jumping into the water. You may now ridicule me to your heart's content.
Anyway, even though I was wearing a life jacket (you can't laugh at that, everyone who went on the Iceberg had to wear a jacket) doing something I hadn't really done since I was like... 6 was a huge risk for me. Not in the sense that it was life-threatening or anything, but that I was stepping way out of my comfort zone to do this thing that I didn't even really want to do, just to say that I did. It did NOT end up being fun for me (I'm not that much of an adrenaline junkie), and my throat was sore for the rest of the evening from inhaling lake water, but it did show me how hard I work the rest of the time to keep myself in my 'comfort zone.'
Being a music and English double major is in no way a risk for me. I really felt led to develop those skills at the college level and it seemed like the logical thing to do. In a sense I was putting a lot of faith in the fact that God was leading me into these things and knew that I would do something useful with them eventually (hopefully), but at the same time it wasn't a risk at all because I have always done these things and had a hunch that I would be successful with them in college. Plus, I've always wanted to pursue them (at least music) in college. Following your life's aspiration is not a risk, at least in my case.
Going to camp was a risk--I'd never taught before and hadn't even ridden in half a year. Add to that the knowledge that it would take a lot of time out of my practice schedule, which potentially messes up my long-term piece planning for the fall, and you have a good step out of my comfort zone. But I trusted and took the position. This is where I'm supposed to be. It's going to be a lot of hard work, and I have yet to find out what the consequences will be for piano, but for right now I am in the right place, and I know I will take a lot away from this summer no matter what happens.
Okay, I'm done with ruminating now. Back to worrying about family camp for next week... lots of trail rides and, of course, preparation for our drill (eight of us cantering around the arena in formations to music--definitely dangerous and difficult and a lot of fun) which we performed for the first time today and it went great. I am reasonably confident about that. I just need to keep up my energy this week and not get exhausted... or too sunburnt...
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