My Real Post...

Hey guys - well finally I have something to update about now that my internship has finally started! I must say it's been a tiring 72 hours. Thursday at noon I departed for DC, made what I thought would be a quick stop in on my friend Jodi from abroad, which turned into 2 hours. It was great to see her though. However, the second I got back onto the NJ Turnpike, I was bombarded with heavy rain and over an hour of 5 mph traffic. I finally made it to Alice's house in DC at 8 PM. We cooked dinner together, and then just stayed up and talked for hours and it was wonderful. I left her house at 1030 AM on Saturday and arrived here in Staunton, VA (which is ACTUALLY pronounced StAN-tin so as the townies could tell who the foreigners were...go figure. Crazy southerners) at around 1:30 PM, just in time for our 2 PM staff meeting. Saturday afternoon was incredibly intimidating and frustrating as all the other staff members had previously worked at YCTC (Young Company Theatre Camp) or had been campers themselves, so it was a bit cliquey. Also, they're ALL southerners. Suffice it to say, I felt quite out of the loop. Especially because they all seem to have a hate-on for northerners, especially New Yorkers. I said "But yeah, at least we don't marry our cousins." But looking at the schedule for the next 3 weeks (the first session of 2 I'll be working with) got me pretty excited about all the neat shit I'm going to get to help with: lots of Shakespeare classes, stage combat, masks, etc. Later that night we had dinner at the director's house, and I was able to actually converse with some of my fellow staff members, so that was cool. Most of them are sophomores/juniors (with exception of 3 adults on the staff), so I'm one of the older ones. Also, one of the ones who is older than me did BADA(my study abroad program) the year before me, so that was pretty neat. And, another one spent a few weeks in Europe last semester, as I found out from the Ampelman (sp, rose?) pin on her bag. So that was cool to talk about. Today the little rascals arrived. They are quite a mixed bunch, both in personality and in age, ranging from a few 13 year olds to 16(next session will be 16-18). The group of 4 that I was assigned to includes a 16 year old girl who dropped out of high school after one year, and is now working on her associate's degree at community college. And I must say, she is rather stuck up about it. But that's a whole other thing. So now it's 9:45 (I don't have internet in here, so I'll have to post this tomorrow if I make it to the coffee shop), and I don't really quite know what to do with myself. It's a bit lonely, but I'm enjoying the air-conditioned-ness of my room (only the dorm rooms and the library have AC). So yeah, that's it kiddos - I miss you all muchly, and hope you are having fan-TAB-ulous summers. See you back at Conn before you know it!