Dream Camp Exclusive

For the past 3 weeks I've been working in the city at Girard College where one company brings together 300 kids from all over the greater Philadelphia area to have fun at a summer camp. The first week started out sort of rough with me contracting a kiddy disease, known by the name of strep throat to many, something may I add I've not had since I was 10 but luckily I recovered and have had a blast since then; I teach Project Discovery(science) and World Tours(s. studies) to a bunch of 6-9 year olds who have blown me out of the water with their intelligence. "Most" of my campers encourage me daily with their insights and funny comments and it has certainly been a rewarding experience. Especially when moments like this morning happen where a young, often difficult camper runs up and says "Miss April, my uncle left yesterday for Belize, I told him about all that stuff we learned, even them funny people with cone shaped heads and cross-eyes".
I don't know much about their home lives or how well they do in school but it has been amazing to see the smiles on these kid's faces as a room full of people cheer them on for earning the honor of "Camp Scout" for the day. Just giving these kids a place to have fun and be kids has turned out to not only be a blessing for them but me as well. This afternoon as one of my campers was attempting to teach me the Dream Camp rap she stopped one of her friends en route to the bus and was beaming to tell them she had successfully taught me the rap/dance, " I didn't think I could ever teach anybody anything."It turns out what I thought was the most whitest white girl dance ever could bring a huge smile to one child's face and I'd risk humiliation for that any day.

The Order of the Phoenix

Tuesday night, April and I went to the opening midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Both of us had to be at work early the next morning, so we tried to get a couple of hours of sleep before we went to the movie, and we both passed out for a couple of hours after we got home at 3:30 am. That one late night made us both feel tired the rest of the week - we must be getting old. I must say though that it was worth it to act like young people, ignore the voice of responsibility inside our heads that seems so loud these days, and go see a good movie with good friends.

Although we do enjoy Harry Potter, we apparently aren't as passionate as the people at the screening who were sporting their Death Eater costumes or the guy in front of us who refused to move down a seat to accommodate other movie goers (in a sold out theater) because he was "perfectly centered." We started reading the Harry Potter books earlier this year on recommendations from a lot of friends, especially our friends who are English teachers and professors of literature. We were hooked. I'm the kind of reader who can't put down a good book, and April had a job that presented her with a lot of down time that she could spend reading, so we got through all six books just in the right timing for the release of the final one next Friday.

This was my favorite of the five Harry Potter movies so far. Maybe it was because I had time to get excited about it and it was the first one I saw in a theater, but I felt like the movie presented the story in an intriguing and easy to follow way even though there was no way they could keep all the detail from this huge book. I'm still more excited to read the final book, but the movie was entertaining and a good way to build the anticipation.