Day 05 - ICSP @ Camp Grimes

Today is the last day for traing before the camp starts.
In the morning, some "somebodies" came to visit the site. One leader (troop committee) had a "long" stop at our area. He asked all the details about our preparation from how to separate the patrols to the equipment. Everyone even did the teaching demonstration again in front of him again. In short, he was keen to know how and what we have prepared during the week and encouraged us to do our best for the coming weeks. I like this mental support very much. When I work in a Taiwanese camp, we also have Mr./Ms. Big to see how we are in the camp. However, they seldom ask for the details like the leader did today, basically, if they see everything is fine on the "surface", they become satisfied and then leave. Mr.S told me why those people came to the camp afterwards. We could call these people sponsers of the camp. They have donated so much to the camp, and it's time for them to see how their money is used to. I kept asking, how and why did you have so many sponsers? We always had problems collecting enough money to run a camp, e.g. 國中童軍營. He answered, you should step out and talk to people. Once people understand how good Scouting is, you will get what you need in the end from those people. Wow, interesting! He has the same thinking as my principal! But, I agree with that, Scouting needs better PR in order to let the public understand us.

In the afternoon, we had a LSS training. LSS, Lost Swimmer Search. It's a very serious training. Once the waterfront staff realizes that someone is missing (No one is in the water, but its name tag is still on the check-in wall.), the camp has to collect people by playing the alarm to the assembly field to see if it's only the person who forgets to check its name tag out or we do have a missing person. If it is the second, then all the staff has to put on their swimming suits and starts to search in the water. The waterfront is separated into two areras, swimmers' and beginners'. The swimmer staff is asked to search in the entire area, while the beginner staff only needs to help search in the beginners' area. ( Thanks God that I am only the beginner!) To search in the swimmers' area, the staff has to stand in line with their right arm streched to the next person's shoulder on the dock. Then, it's buddy check! The people in pair need to grab the other person's hand and to raise the hands up with counting off. The staff glides into the water. First, they need to check if the body is stock in the bottom of the dock. They dive into the water vertically. Once they touch the bottom with their feet, they may float up with their one hand raised over their head in order not to hit the dock with their heads. The staff turns around and does again the buddy check. And then, they dive into the water. When their hands touch the bottom, they have to swim three strokes before heading up. The lifeguard on the dock asks everyone to stay in line, which means if someone doesn't swim very far, others have to swim back until being at the same line as the person. For the rest, just repeat doing the buddy check and diving until finding out the body. As for the beginners' area, the staff stands in a line, side by side, with their arms escorted. The staff walk forwards with their feet feeling the bottom of the water. Once you touch some thing, you may shout out, stop! Everyone is supposed to stop wand wait for your checking. If it is a body, mission ends. Otherwise, everyone will continue searching. I helped out the begginers' area searching. After 20 minutes, my buddy found a fake limb put there by the lifeguards before. We shouldn't say it's great that we found it! I mean, you know how horrible it will be once you are look for a real body! In short, I appreciate this training, and it is necessary to do once your camp schedule contains water activities. BSA takes this training very seriously. We even have the alarm gathering training with all the campers every Monday morning!

We talked about how to evaluate our activities afterwards. Campers/Troop masters are our customers. Customers are not alway right, but they are still the customers! In order to let the camp run well in the future, we just need to work as hard as we can.


In the evening, we had our camp fire rehearse. The fire was at the other side of the lake. I felt so good that the fire place was next to the lake, although it should be at the center of the arena according to my experience. We had MCs, master of ceremony, to introduce the rundown. It's just so fun and everyone was laughing all the time. It was super dark when the camp fire rehearsal ended. I followed another group to go back to our rooms. The leader was a little bit lost his direction, so we spent more than 30 minutes until the destination. I was scared...

Staff's free time
Football, basketball and frisbee. I joined the frisbee, since I hate to play balls. I am not good at it!

Day 04 - ICSP @ Camp Grimes

Now, I will use my iPad (show off) to post today's diary! (Thank to Anders!)
Work
We Trailblazars did voluntary work for Scoutcraft this morning. In addtion to that, Mr.D also guided us to review the knots and lashings. It's making me full when I tried to remember all the new vocabulary. You know what I mean... Keep fighting with new words.
In the afternoon, staff from three departments gathered together to have "teaching demonstration". That's so exciting! I was going to teach in English! My heartbeat turned into 130(?) immediately when It was my turn. My show was about orienteering: how to set up a map. It was the same as I had my demonstration at the Scout Association of China (Taiwan) two years ago when ICSP applicants went through all the tests. I was approved after all with many compliments. Well, orienteering is my strongest part among all the skills. If I failed, it would be no fun at all. I appreciated the activity very very much (more than I can say). I actually suggest Taiwanese camps should adopt this system before they go. You just want to make sure that all the kids can get qualified lessons, don't you? These program leaders were fantastic. They not only gave compliments to us, they also let you know how you could improve yourself next time. I was so touched and impreesed, for the leaders were still young. But, they absolutely knew how to deal with teaching approprriately! We sat down in a circle in the end. We took turns sharing which part we could be better next time, our greatest weakness and strength were, and so on, which made me reflect myself and made a wish that I would survive for the following 5 weeks!
Staff's free time - Song Feast
Everyone got crazy and enjoyed singing loudly at the Open Shelter. So fun! Although I only understood 50 percents of lyrics. = =; Never mind, you just opened your mouth to pretend you were singing and shook your body with everyone!

Murmuring - Orienteering
I read the merit badge book for orienteering today. I just don't understand why BSA wants scouts to know "how to use a compass" right after "what is orienteering?". It doesn't make any sense at all! What is more important when it comes to "Orienteering"? Reading a map or using a compass? When you try to navigate yourself, you don't always have a compass with you, but you do have a map. I need to talk to someone who knows the system here to get its logic.

Day 03 - ICSP @ Camp Grimes

Work
Lots of reading today, in order to know what we are going to do for campers. Thanked to iPad Anders gave me. I didn't need to struggle for words! Basically, I just clicked and looked it up! (iPad became a dictionary? Ummmmm.....)

Free time - Jogging
I got the camp orienteering map today. I decided to have a short exploring tour before the dinner. I memorized the route I would take, and then I went! The camp was big and steep enough for me to get exercise. I should do it more often to discover more beauties within the camp site!

Free time - Swimming
I became beginner for swimming today! Yahoo~ We staff had a swimming test in the evening to see who could be beginner or swimmer during the camp. Once you are certified, you can do the water activities based on your level. I was so nervous in the beginning. I asked for all the details with shaky body (The temperature was so low...less than 20 degrees out of water.) in order to get more time to prepare emotionally. I took off my glasses and became brave. I mean, I couldn't see well, I just needed to jump in. The guard said the water was not as deep as I thought anyway (2 meters). After some minutes, I jumped in and started to swim like a frog. Maybe 50-75 meters? Then, it's time for the last part: backstroke. Well, I do know how to float in My way. I failed to move my hands like a bird while I was swimming( never done that before). So I was only the beginner. The guard said I am welcome to learn and redo the test one day!

Evening lesson
We talked about Sexual Harassment after swimming. I just realized Taiwanese scout leaders need to pay more attention to this issue before their camp or so starts, since we rarely talk about this. This is absolutely a good way to prevent everyone, from children to adults, from harming (sexual harassment, bullying, abuse, taking drugs...) during the event. See, the 22nd WSJ also asks all the staff to get through http://safefromharm.se/ .

Ohhh, today was also a full moon day. So lovely when fireflies flew around.

Tradition of Camp Grimes
Yell/scream/shout out the sentence on your meal plate, and everyone should yell back! Very fun! ps. The sentence could be: Do not take drugs......

Day 02 - ICSP @ Camp Grimes

It's a long day today~~~~~
I woke up at 6:30 in order to be in the Open Shelter in time. Getting up so early is just killing me, and we staff need to do this for 6 weeks! Man! But I have no other choice... This week would be staff's preparation week, and we will struggle with kids for the rest of 5 weeks.

My first meal at the camp.
I was so surprised that we got so little food (Am I not in USA???). I became super starving at 10. I even had stomachache. Anders said it could be from the jet lag. I would absolutely try to save some bread later on to prevent me from starving again. XDDDDDDDD

First task.
We didn't start to work right after the flag ceremony, for we had to get rid of a wasp nest with D-BEE first. Wasp nest? As Johan said to me last year in Ransberg, "You just take it down with your hands and cast it away like pitching a ball!" we could do the same here! Haha! Anyway, we cleaned out our shelter in good order then. I was also oriented today so I knew what I would do in the future. Basically, I would hang around with Tenderfoot scouts. I should teach them Scouting skills or so. I was happy that I bought a book called Camp Out some years ago so I could do preparation for tons of Scouting lingoes and terms before the camp. I still needed to fight with them, however, because my CPU is out of space....

Staff's free time
In the evening, all the staff went down to have softball game on the beautiful grassland. Softball? I have never played that before, but I still took a try. And, guess what? I succeeded! I did hit the ball for two times!! Wow~ I thought I just had this talent. (kkk~~) I appreciated my team members' yell and greetings! You guys were just awesome!

Day 01 - ICSP @ Camp Grimes

All way shaky to CLT from CPH... That's awful! However, here I come, North Carolina!

Mr.D fetched me in the airport. Thank to him so that I could arrive at the camp safely and in "dry". On our way to the camp, there was a super heavy rain with lightening. Well, NC greets me in its way. I am sure I will be fine here for 6 weeks loooo （遇水／雨則發）. Mr.D treated me the most popular and famous food in NC, pork BBQ with sour and spicy chopped cabbage. The restaurant was full of pig's stuff, such T-shirt, doll, pictures and so on. I would really like to take photos for my sister. She would fall in love in this place! (Her zodiac is Pig.)

Camp Grimes was just huge and green. After being introduced to everyone, Mrs.N showed me my future room, which had 3 beds inside. I would be only one using the room during the summer. Isn't it a super nice news? I have my own room and 3 beds to choose which to sleep on every day!

毛地黃為何有"黃"字在裡頭？明明花是桃紅色的啊？

四月時帶日本人遊士林官邸，當時被問到毛地黃花明明不是黃色的，但為何名字裡面有個黃字（我寫漢字給日人看）。這個問題困擾我很久，幸運的是，五月我參加了植物生態導覽訓練班，其中的講師解答了我的疑問，讓我不再困惑，以下是原因：

＂毛地黃名字由來：它為何被叫毛地黃呢？是因為它有著佈滿茸毛的莖葉及酷似地黃的葉片，因而有「毛地黃」名字；又因為它來自遙遠的歐洲，因此又稱為「洋地黃」。＂
來源網站

原來是因為其葉子長的像地黃的葉片故名，至於地黃是什麼呢？地黃是一種中藥材，依其炮製程度不同，屬性與用途也不同。更多資訊。

我們來比較一下地黃與毛地黃的圖片吧：
地黃照－

毛地黃照－花與植株

果然！葉子是蠻像的，因為上面覆滿小細毛故名毛地黃。毛地黃現在這個時後就可以在台灣的山坡上看到芳蹤，但小心有毒！不過她可是可以拿來作為心臟用藥，對人類有很大的貢獻低～

每日一花，到此為止，謝謝收看，咱們下次見。

入圍啦～～～～2011第六屆全球華文部落格大獎年度最佳休閒旅遊部落格

喔喔喔～我的老天爺！！再次入圍耶（第一次是在2007年）！這個消息對我來說實在是太棒的及時雨了！最近事情多到讓我差點崩潰，能有這樣正面的肯定與鼓勵，讓我有信心與動力繼續撐下去......所以，來一張敦煌仙女灑花祝賀吧：

編按： 此仙女為作者本人攝於20110525台灣師大博欣五十週年舞展。舞碼：敦煌‧飛天

總之，恭喜＂阿珮大小聲＂入圍2011第六屆全球華文部落格大獎年度最佳休閒旅遊部落格（活動首頁請按此）！！！（不知道要用多少個驚嘆號才能表達我的喜悅之情，請乘以無限大）我也向宇宙下了訂單：我要得到最後的大獎！