Thursday, October 20, 2005
Adventures in Babysitting
Ok, again, its been like 6 weeks since I've made my mark on that world wide wigga. So lets do a recap, shall we?
SUMMER CAMP
So here are some highlights from Camp Perfect in Jizbice:
Every summer camp has a couple of staple activities, yes? Barbeque, Olympics, Lazy Day, camp food, Haunted Night just to name a few. Camp Perfect is no different.
Well the camp food actually wasn't that bad, in my opinion. A lot of goulash and dumplings, but I'm a meat and potato kinda guy, so it suited me just fine. The only thing wrong with it was that I had a mean case of the fart for literally two weeks. It was horrible. My droppings were fine, but there's something they put in the water or something that made me pull my finger 5 or 6 times an hour for a fortnight. Not pleasant to hold it in during a 90 minute English lesson, but the sweet release that follows....Oh What a Feeling! Imagine my anticipation when Lazy Day was coupled with a barbeque. Time to show these (f)suckers how its done. But wait, what's this? Those burgers look a little raw Pavel, are you sure the kids should be eating them? You don't say? I didn't know that it was possible to mix chicken and lamb. No ketchup? Only mayonaisse? See you at breakfast. Vive la differance.
I taught the kids for about 3 hours every day and the rest of the time we did all the fun activities. I tried to make the English lessons as fun as possible. My favorites were the listening lessons where I would write down song lyrics with word gaps in them and the kids had to fill them in. The end of the lesson was a discussion of what the song means and the band behind it. Of course it was also an invaluable lesson in Americana as seen by Matthew Q. Lyon. I tried to find music that the kids would enjoy, but there's not much in my repetoire as far as Slipknot and techno pop go. Up first was "Dead Leaves and a Dirty Ground" by the Black Dots. The words are simple enough, some times Jack kinda mumbles, but we got through it alright. Unfortunately none of the 13-17 yr-olds had heard of them. WTF.
Next on the list was "Float On" by Modest Mouse, another virgin to their ears. Brock really slurs his voice on this surprise hit of the summer and it took a little while for the kids to get it, but when they finally did, I gave them a nice little lesson on the word "IRONY". With a little luck, their lives will be ruined forever...
I threw in a "If I could, I would" by Phish to teach 2nd conditional. Simple song, nonsense lyrics, but a great way to cruise through the morning lesson.
The rap these kids listen to isn't worth the toilet paper in the bathroon and as a child of the 90's I felt a need, nay, a duty to set them straight. Enter the Beastie Boys. Talk about confusing the hell out of uncultured Europeans. Try explaining "I'm-a set it straight this Watergate to kids that were born 20 years after and 3000 miles apart from the Nixon administration. And then there's I'm-a --> I'm gonna --> I am going to --> I will. That took them two days to digest. But I think they ended up liking it. They were all about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at volleyball, so that's hopeful. But the shit that's popular over here, ie 50 cent and Avril Lavigne is worse than the techno pop that keeps their little post-revolution heads boppin.
That's another thing, I realized after about a week with the kids that they are the first children to be born in a democratic Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia. They are the millenium babies for an entire country. They are completely void of any repression or dictatorship, which definately sets their mentality apart from their elders. The kids are regular kids who hope and dream and want to fuck with authority because they can, whereas their parents' generation were scared shitless and have never fully recovered. Its quite an interesting case study. But I digress...
So we have Hawaii night where the kids get to dress up in leis and all and have a dance. Well to make the dance more interesting, Pavel, the camp director also includes a dance-off of sorts to choose the "Perfect" couple. 10 couples get chosen and the first round is musical chairs. Harmless enough. The second round, he attaches a balloon to the boys' ankles and the couples must dance and try to pop each others balloon. Hooray for wholesome fun! In the third round there are only 5 couples remaining. Let me preclude this round by saying the oldest person is 15 years old. Each couple gets a peach and their arms are bound together in the dancing position. They then race to see who can eat through the peach first thereby being the first to kiss. Boner ahoj! The fourth and final round is something that has been the wish of every guy at every college costume party and only been attempted at MTV Spring Break 2kwhatever. The boys are blindfolded as the girls are laid down. The camp director proceeds to put small candies at strategic positions on the girls' bodies so as to maximize horniness and minimize inhibitions. So that's what my pee-pee is for! I didn't know it was possible to see a boy become a man in half an hour, but let me tell you that it is, lads...it is.
The next activity was the swimsuit competition. I kid you not. The swimsuit competition. This is where girls aged 4-18 shed their itchy hula skirts and get a little fresh air...all while dancing to Right Said Fred's timeless "I'm too Sexy". At this point I was planning my escape route from Zeus' lightning bolt, which would surely be unleashing its wrath on these infidels at any moment. But alas, the second coming is still ahead of us. Hooray!
Cultural differences? Maybe. Legitimate teenage fun? Hardly. Nietzsche's warnings of decadence? Bingo.
At any rate I had a blast at summer camp. There's a couple things I haven't mentioned, but I can't give away everything, now can I?
I'll try to do another post in the next week, cuz I've got a couple of dandies for ya. Here's a taste:
Alien searches for sleeping children inside 10 yr olds.
What's bigger than a breadbox and goes in your mouth?
SUMMER CAMP
So here are some highlights from Camp Perfect in Jizbice:
Every summer camp has a couple of staple activities, yes? Barbeque, Olympics, Lazy Day, camp food, Haunted Night just to name a few. Camp Perfect is no different.
Well the camp food actually wasn't that bad, in my opinion. A lot of goulash and dumplings, but I'm a meat and potato kinda guy, so it suited me just fine. The only thing wrong with it was that I had a mean case of the fart for literally two weeks. It was horrible. My droppings were fine, but there's something they put in the water or something that made me pull my finger 5 or 6 times an hour for a fortnight. Not pleasant to hold it in during a 90 minute English lesson, but the sweet release that follows....Oh What a Feeling! Imagine my anticipation when Lazy Day was coupled with a barbeque. Time to show these (f)suckers how its done. But wait, what's this? Those burgers look a little raw Pavel, are you sure the kids should be eating them? You don't say? I didn't know that it was possible to mix chicken and lamb. No ketchup? Only mayonaisse? See you at breakfast. Vive la differance.
I taught the kids for about 3 hours every day and the rest of the time we did all the fun activities. I tried to make the English lessons as fun as possible. My favorites were the listening lessons where I would write down song lyrics with word gaps in them and the kids had to fill them in. The end of the lesson was a discussion of what the song means and the band behind it. Of course it was also an invaluable lesson in Americana as seen by Matthew Q. Lyon. I tried to find music that the kids would enjoy, but there's not much in my repetoire as far as Slipknot and techno pop go. Up first was "Dead Leaves and a Dirty Ground" by the Black Dots. The words are simple enough, some times Jack kinda mumbles, but we got through it alright. Unfortunately none of the 13-17 yr-olds had heard of them. WTF.
Next on the list was "Float On" by Modest Mouse, another virgin to their ears. Brock really slurs his voice on this surprise hit of the summer and it took a little while for the kids to get it, but when they finally did, I gave them a nice little lesson on the word "IRONY". With a little luck, their lives will be ruined forever...
I threw in a "If I could, I would" by Phish to teach 2nd conditional. Simple song, nonsense lyrics, but a great way to cruise through the morning lesson.
The rap these kids listen to isn't worth the toilet paper in the bathroon and as a child of the 90's I felt a need, nay, a duty to set them straight. Enter the Beastie Boys. Talk about confusing the hell out of uncultured Europeans. Try explaining "I'm-a set it straight this Watergate to kids that were born 20 years after and 3000 miles apart from the Nixon administration. And then there's I'm-a --> I'm gonna --> I am going to --> I will. That took them two days to digest. But I think they ended up liking it. They were all about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at volleyball, so that's hopeful. But the shit that's popular over here, ie 50 cent and Avril Lavigne is worse than the techno pop that keeps their little post-revolution heads boppin.
That's another thing, I realized after about a week with the kids that they are the first children to be born in a democratic Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia. They are the millenium babies for an entire country. They are completely void of any repression or dictatorship, which definately sets their mentality apart from their elders. The kids are regular kids who hope and dream and want to fuck with authority because they can, whereas their parents' generation were scared shitless and have never fully recovered. Its quite an interesting case study. But I digress...
So we have Hawaii night where the kids get to dress up in leis and all and have a dance. Well to make the dance more interesting, Pavel, the camp director also includes a dance-off of sorts to choose the "Perfect" couple. 10 couples get chosen and the first round is musical chairs. Harmless enough. The second round, he attaches a balloon to the boys' ankles and the couples must dance and try to pop each others balloon. Hooray for wholesome fun! In the third round there are only 5 couples remaining. Let me preclude this round by saying the oldest person is 15 years old. Each couple gets a peach and their arms are bound together in the dancing position. They then race to see who can eat through the peach first thereby being the first to kiss. Boner ahoj! The fourth and final round is something that has been the wish of every guy at every college costume party and only been attempted at MTV Spring Break 2kwhatever. The boys are blindfolded as the girls are laid down. The camp director proceeds to put small candies at strategic positions on the girls' bodies so as to maximize horniness and minimize inhibitions. So that's what my pee-pee is for! I didn't know it was possible to see a boy become a man in half an hour, but let me tell you that it is, lads...it is.
The next activity was the swimsuit competition. I kid you not. The swimsuit competition. This is where girls aged 4-18 shed their itchy hula skirts and get a little fresh air...all while dancing to Right Said Fred's timeless "I'm too Sexy". At this point I was planning my escape route from Zeus' lightning bolt, which would surely be unleashing its wrath on these infidels at any moment. But alas, the second coming is still ahead of us. Hooray!
Cultural differences? Maybe. Legitimate teenage fun? Hardly. Nietzsche's warnings of decadence? Bingo.
At any rate I had a blast at summer camp. There's a couple things I haven't mentioned, but I can't give away everything, now can I?
I'll try to do another post in the next week, cuz I've got a couple of dandies for ya. Here's a taste:
Alien searches for sleeping children inside 10 yr olds.
What's bigger than a breadbox and goes in your mouth?
