it’s not me.
it’s tumblr!
tumblr has failed me.
well i really want to keep following whoever i followed on tumblr, but if anybody wishes to continue following me, find me at:
^^,
jeangu
apparently, i’m not supposed to expose any identifying information about my campers online. which makes a lot of sense. oops.. but i am still going to journal what i’ve seen, done, and learned from working with my campers somehow without violating their privacy.
so that i can read and recall my experiences later. (my nickname is goldfish after all) and for any of you tumblr users (most of whom i probably trust) who are just curious.
wtf my main chunk of this entry just got deleted
idk how?!
a 40 yr old
low functioning
constantly touches her mouth
looks as if she’s shy
gets aroused? by unfamiliar men
—> her face becomes bright red, becomes harder to redirect, gets disoriented, laughs
once, in the dining hall, she became too overwhelmed after walking by a table full of construction workers/cafeteria staff (A WHOLE TABLE OF UNFAMILIAR MEN) and she just lay in the middle of the dining hall floor and wouldn’t get up. had to ask one of the guys to help her get up.
is very girly
likes jewelry, pink, flowers, etc.
eats whatever
monica’s (a counselor in my group) hands-on camper
he’s 8
CUTE chubby lil boy
low functioning
doesn’t really talk much
sensitive to loud noises
“hold hands”
likes to dart to places
LOVES to run in the gym
he laughs and it’s the cutest thing ever
loves being chased
he’s just so darn cute
is affectionate once he becomes used to you
likes to touch your face
and hug
“need a squeeze?”
the first camper with autism that i met and observed here at camp
he’s around 6
very precious
seemed normal, talks in complete sentences
blonde, blue eyes
has a cute little shorter version of a bowl cut
reminded me of dennis the menace
high-functioning
easily distracted by moving objects, people
loves LOVES dinosaurs
idk much about them, but seemed like he knew the names of the general ones. even the ones that are hard to pronounce
did an imitation of a dinosaur in the talent show
remembered me the next day
waved and said hi :D
pointed at me in the hay ride and said something like “Hey, you are from China”
i ignored him
HAHA
had a melt down the next day when he was working with another group of counselors
he apparently saw somebody drive a car that’s similar to his mom’s and thought that somebody was driving off in his mom’s car. they had to make up a social story to calm him
when i was working with him, he picked up a huge ass rock and started calling it an “iguana egg”
lol the next day, they made him a dinosaur egg to carry by covering a mr. potato head with paper. HAHA he hatched it at the end of the day and found a mr. potato head instead of a baby dino.
the next day, they just gave him a small football with some painted spots to make it resemble a “iguana egg”
finn idk his last name
a menace you can’t help but just love
too bad that didn’t rhyme
my first hands-on camper at camp royall
low-medium functioning
talks in short phrases (2-3 words) if asked something
worked with him in the training week
i think he’s about 15 years of age
loves LOVES absolutely loves thomas the tank engine
listens to his thomas cd whenever he gets the chance to (mouths to the songs, but doesn’t ever sing aloud)
recites the script for the show in random moments
loves LOVES absolutely loves “red coke”
made me cry when he sang the entire theme song to the thomas the tank engine in the talent show. esp when he was nodding his head to the beat in the intro
gave me a hug thinking that i was reaching my arm to him, when in reality, i was doing the flamingo dance. i was pleasantly surprised and happy
has a younger brother, kevin, who also has autism
has the best manners ever:
“no, thank you. i’ll just watch”
“please”
“thanks”
“goodbye now”
loves to throw rocks at the pond
but he’s not allowed to anymore :(
he gets a coke (a small sip) whenever he successfully transitions to the next place without touching the rocks. “they’re david yell’s rocks. no touch, scott gets a coke. good job!”
loves the pool
is very sensitive to loud noises, a crowd of people
scott graves
a sweetie pie
Jean Rheem
c/o Camp Royall
250 Bill Ash Road
Moncure, NC 27559
camp: 919-542-1033
a wrap dress.
the concept is very simple. the process, not as much as we thought it’d be.
amy and i have been browsing for a project to tackle and we stumbled upon this really cute yellow skirt, which seemed perfect for us at the time. it didn’t require a pattern, which i have never used before, so it seemed like a good place to start our first project: making a skirt out of scratch!
ever since i’ve gotten my sewing machine (husky star, love) i haven’t take the initiative to actually take on projects (laziness and idk the fear of failing, wasting materials, etc. were to blame) the most i’ve done with it before this skirt project was to resize and tailor the clothes i already had to have them fit me better. i actually tried to make a high-waisted knee-length pencil skirt out of an XL skirt (on sale for like $5), but it didn’t turn out so. flawless.
anyway, amy, the proactive one of us, took the initiative and in the end, we got VERY successful results despite our quite frequent freak-out sessions (regarding the length of the skirt— CUT TOO MUCH— so we had to reconcile with the idea of making a mini instead of a knee-length, the amount of overlap— we put in snaps so that the skirt wouldn’t flare open whenever the wind blows or we have to walk up some stairs).
really, as soon as we thought we solved a problem, another popped up. it was quite frustrating, but we made it work in the end! and i am proud to present to you…
tada!
model: amy
this is amy’s skirt. mine’s slightly different (a lil longer, but less flared, and the belt is a lil below the cut line).
i’d say we were pretty productive lil workers.
next project to tackle:
i’m thinking of… a dress
it’s alright if certain things about people don’t make sense to you
i have this compulsive need to understand people’s actions. but i realized that no matter how hard i study them, no matter how much my formulation makes sense to me, i may never truly understand others’ actions. it’s because i am not them and therefore, didn’t experience the experiences the way they experienced them. i guess they can try explaining it to me verbally, but this would take the utmost honesty and bravery in their exposure of their truest intentions, which is hard to come by. also, i could probably learn to relate to them once i go thru a similar experience, but the point is, sometimes even i, myself, don’t understand my own actions. so how can i expect myself to understand others? im not saying it’s impossible. it’s just that i realized it’s not as simple as i once thought before.
that’s one thing i realized from reading the unbearable lightness of being. see, the book goes to great lengths to explain why the characters felt compelled to do certain things (ie. tomas stays a womanizer even after he’s has found the love of his life) and normally i would have just dismissed these actions with simple assumptions (ie. he’s just a horny bastard).
i mean, i must be partly right, but the book explains that his actions had a completely different motive. the bodily pleasure was just an added bonus. tomas was actually obsessed with amassing and discovering the unknown of the infinite world through different women. according to him, people are more alike than different, and the one millionth part difference that sets one from the other is like a gem discovered in the rough. and the beauty of the world full of repetitions and redundancies lies here. it’s true that one could easily note the differences in people just by simply observing their daily lives, but what value is in that if all can take part in admiring these unique features? for him, discovering the women’s uniqueness through sexual activities provided him with the satisfying results that were reserved only for him and these brought him an excitement that he couldn’t find anywhere else.
it’s true this is a fiction and tomas is a fictional character, and i’ve tried to regard this specific explanation as just an excuse for him to go out everyday and see his mistresses. but i think this has some, if not, a lot of truths. it is entirely possible that tomas truly was seeking to see the beauty of life by studying the different women he slept with. he found the way different women reacted to his command to strip intoxicatingly exciting. this makes him idk, almost more noble, definitely more complex and more human.
but the thing is, i find uniqueness in people’s reasons for their actions, not in the actions themselves. if you think about it, i am typing a blog entry at 4:48 AM, an unlikely hour to be updating a blog. but i am sure there is somebody in this world that is writing a blog at this moment. if there’s someone else doing the same thing as me at the same moment, then obviously this would not make me unique. but the thoughts i am having right now and the feelings i am having as i am typing these words away cannot possibly be the same as that of the other bloggers, ultimately making me unique. gawd. yes, in this sense, everyone’s unique.
honestly, i wrote all this and i don’t know how to end this. i am going to blame it on the late hour, which probably has something to do with my inability to tie the ends of this entry.
i think i already made my point in the beginning of my entry: people are more complex than they appear. i only wish i could see the complexity in me. sometimes i think i’m too simple of a girl. or maybe i am just not seeing the gem in me. (i think the latter is more valid… i mean it’s happened before. i felt a sudden rush of different emotions w/o a clear understanding of their origins).
can’t fall sleep so here i am.
have been meaning to write something substantial,
something meaningful, idk, something reflective.
but i don’t think now’s the time.
but i shall update this thing anyway:
so life at home has been unbelievably relaxing,
to the point where it’s getting a little too dangerous.
reminder to self: i need to get myself ready to work (only 14 days left!!)
usually i’d wake up by the time my classes would be over on fridays
(around noon…) and make myself something to eat (i’d go with yoplait yogurt + cheerios + blue berries = marketplace yogurt parfait? *nostalgia*), bum around the house, trying to find something to do, like play the guitar, watch a movie, read my elle subscriptions, watch tv, go shopping, etc. then mommy and sis would come home by dinner time. i’d be starving by then. mom would whip up something out of whatever we have in the fridge and it’d taste good. we’d do our own things after then.
well today, i woke up around noon as usual, but this time, it was to the sound of my cell phone vibrating letting me know i got a txt msg. it kind of surprises me how i always wake up around the same time. it’s a joint work of my natural body clock and.. idk chance? like something wakes me up if i don’t wake up naturally. and every single time, i’m semi-in disbelief of my never-failing late start of the day. anyway, as soon as i fixed myself my own little makeshift fav bfast item from the marketplace, i got a phone call from amy. turns out that most of the unc kids were done with their finals so i decided to go get lunch with a couple of them.
jae, who i haven’t seen in at least 3 months, showed up in a minivan with amy sitting in the passenger’s seat. for a second, i honestly wondered what this ajushi (old man?) was doing in my driveway. lol. sorry, it was only jae. i mean it wasn’t that he aged drastically or anything, but idk the van took me by surprise. kind of made fun of him for that, but i realized that he was super crabby because he hadn’t eaten anything that day… and one of the guys that were coming was a “little” late… anyway, we ordered successfully in the end, with us pressuring this late comer to order as soon as he got there on the spot, while he was trying to answer a phone call. i believe my order was the most excellent out of the four: ton katsu. the rest of the kids ordered nonsense choices on the menu like… udon.. (jk i like udon), chicken teriyaki, and shrimp tempura. actually, these would typically be good choices, but at this certain restaurant, ton katsu is always the best bet. trust my humble opinion. man, i’m craving some right now. bad! we talked about things light in nature (literally, we talked about how much we weigh.. more like the guys were talking about it…interesting) just sort of talking about nothing of real importance. it was nice though. afterwards, the guys had to go to dick’s sporting goods to get gym shorts (cos sol, the late comer, only has 3 pairs…k) and amy and i decided to go to southpoint bc being naturally and helplessly generous, giving, and selfless, we had to buy presents for our loved ones: amy—her bf’s graduation present, and me—my mommy’s mother’s day present. we spent like an hour at “things remembered,” but i ended up not really finding anything so i left amy there, who was considering getting a pocket watch and getting it specially engraved. i ended up getting my mom a pretty little silk top from ann taylor’s loft. i’d wear it. it’s that pretty. haha. um anyway, after we were done with our good deeds, we moved on to borders to continue our conversation of.. actually this conversation was more substantial than that from today’s lunch. after a while, amy had to take off to work (she’s a master tutor) and i felt compelled to stay at borders and find a really good book to start reading.
after 15 min or so, i came across the unbearable lightness of being, which i’ve heard about from wanda and jinyoung. thought it’d be a philosophy book (in many ways, it is), but it turns out that it involves episodic plots of two couples. i’ve only read 60 pages of it, but i can just tell this is going to be a great book. the language of the book is pure poetry. the metaphors he mentions and the connections he makes between us and various things like religion, the government, etc. is so brilliant. and i can relate to many of the points he makes, admits, confesses, explains on different levels. also, he sheds light on how people can view a one thing vastly differently, which i found more than interesting. i have more than 2/3 of the novel to read, but i already have numerous quotes/passages i want to add to my collection of fav. quotes.
one of them being:
In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
in context of the passage, this jumped at me. i thought it appropriate to what i felt as my first year in college ended, as anything i’ve had to endure patiently had to end. i’ll be back with a full review once i finish the book. i even bought the book so that i can read it at home… !! but im planning on returning it as soon as i finish it. maybe if i love the book so much, i wont. whatever, thats not a big concern here. well i better attempt to sleep now.. its already 530 am. and i am craving ramen! bad! sleep. and i shall have ramen tomorrow for … my first meal. which is prob going to be around 1. 
