This post was inspired by Kris over at Because or Why Not.  She posted the meme and I thought it was a great idea.  She didn’t tag anyone, but said that if we were interested, to mention her, so I did (besides, I like her blog).

I don’t know if this meme has a particular name, but essentially it is about making the blog a little more personal by answering a few questions and writing them out by hand.  Many times in the past I have mentioned that I enjoy writing by hand.  I write letters all summer to friends.  I used to write home to my girlfriend-now-fiancee, but now she works at camp.  So, if any of my readers want a letter, all you have to do is writ to me.  The address for the summer is here on my blog somewhere.

Read More

It is that crazy time of the month again, when bloggers unite for a little blogging fun known as bloggerstock!  This month I am happy to be hosting a good blogger friend and fellow founder of Bloggerstock, Shinxy.  She never fails to speak her mind and she is always interesting to read.  Hopefully you all enjoy her writing as much as I do!

As usual, Shinxy’s post is very blunt and some may see it as controversial.  If you actually read her blog it will make more sense.  I only post this warning because there are some of you out there who may be offended, but hey, we can’t please everyone all the time!  Shinxy’s postcard is written to Adolph Hitler and she wanted the picture on the back to be the following:

So, without any further ado, I shall turn the floor over to Shinxy for the July Bloggerstock event: “Potential Postcards.”

---

Dear Adolf,

There is much debate as to whether the T4 program was euthanasia or murder; and whether it was the stepping stone to the Holocaust (Okay there isn’t. Every history book says it was murder, and it was a stepping stone to the Holocault. It’s just that I disagree). Any research I have done on the subject has ended in ’and six million Jews died in concentration camps’. I am one of the few who separates these events.

My boyfriends and I would have been terminated under your T4 program, but I do not connect the Holocaust and T4. Most people say you would have killed us because you thought us inferior or inhuman, as you saw the Jews. I prefer to think they were indeed mercy killings. In your last few hours, you had to make the decision to kill your beloved German Shepard, Blondi, before the Russians got to her and tortured her. You knew if you let her live, the rest of her life would be suffering. I like to think you thought of us like that. I haven’t spoken to one severely disabled person about the issue of suicide without them sharing a story of an attempt. There are many of us who can only look forward to a future of increased disability. If one commits suicide, one is seen as a coward. If one is euthanised, as you would have done to us, those who care about us can only feel the comfort that we are no longer suffering, not the anger. I would love this option. Part of me wishes I was terminated under the T4 program. I am sure that there are many deceased from that who would thank you if they could; certainly the ones who had descended into madness to the point where they no longer know what’s going on around them, as I will be one day.

For those of the 200,000 killed whose very being was torturous and unbearable, I thank you for giving them mercy.

Regards,

Shinxy

---

Hopefully you are enjoying this month’s Bloggerstock event!  If you want to read my own post, you can find it over on Amanda’s blog: Amanda Abella.  If you are want to learn more about Bloggerstock or want to sign up for future events, please check out our website!

Read More

All things considered, it is kind of hard to follow my last post.  Needless to say, it has been quite along week.  We have a saying at camp: “The days are very long but the weeks go by too fast!”  It is so true.  Sometimes I wonder if shows like 24 could really happen in the span of a single day, but when I look back at all the things that happened some of the days this week, it seems a little more plausible.  We seem to really be able to pack a day full of things to do, especially when you wake up at 7AM and go to bed at 1AM.  Which by the way, I am still not sure how I manages that most of the summer.

Last Monday seems so far away, heck, so does yesterday.  I know that I went on the camping trip on Monday, but that seems like years ago.  In the span of a week I have driven hundreds of miles, gone camping, scuba diving, played guitar at two campfires, wrote a tribute to a dear friend, got signed up to play camp-counselor 2-on-2 beach volley ball, and so much more.  I was actually very happy that for the most part today, my services were only required for the setup of the big screen so that our Spanish “mafia” could watch the World Cup finals.  It was actually a relaxing day and the heat wave has mostly broken it seems.

All these things have gone on, and while I was sitting at campfire, watching the embers drift in the thermals I was thinking that tonight would be a great night to write.  Well, here I am getting back to my computer and I feel like I have just hit a block.  I don’t really know why, other than the fact that I feel like I should be writing more than just the summation of the things that have happened over the past week.  There is something so mesmerizing about watching the embers from the fire dance up into the sky.  That is probably what made me think that it would be a good night to write.  Watching that always reminds me of the scene in the movie The Right Stuff where the embers from the aboriginal fire seem to fly up into space.

Today was just one of those days, all the best intentions, none of the motivation.  I have a list of things that should get done, and I probably could have checked a bunch of them off today, but I didn’t.  In truth, I didn’t really do much of anything besides play guitar and eat today.  It seems like all we do on Sundays is eat.  Mostly because we have a late breakfast, but lunch is at a normal time.  The sad thing is that we manage to have both one of the best meals and the worst meal of the week on Sunday.  I am sorry, cold-cuts on rolls that are not big enough for a sandwich just does not a dinner make.

Unfortunately, while it sounds like many of the thoughts and ideas that I put down on last week’s comment card were applauded, odds are nothing will change.  I missed most of the staff meeting this week because I was setting up for the World Cup.  I heard through the grapevine that some of the admin liked my ideas for making the daily schedule better, but often times this is one of those organizations that won’t change because they think the way things are is tradition.  Well, it could be better and I wish that we could get it there.

Life is good though.  Camp is fun.  Maybe if I play my cards right I will get to go on another trip.  That would be a lot of fun.  It is just nice to do something different as the day-to-day routine here can get old fast and when you have lots of kids out of camp on trips, hiking, at competitions and at the lake, it can be like a ghost town.  In some ways, it makes the job easier, but it can also make it less fun, especially for the campers.  It seems though that for the most part people are in good spirits, so that is good.

Read More

So I had this idea last night as I was writing letters.  I actually write real handwritten letters to people all summer because when I am at camp it really seems like the thing to do.  That mentality probably comes from when I was a camper and the only form of communication that we had was letters.  I like writing, and writing letters at the end of the day is a great way to decompress (especially after a day like today).

I suppose though, that you are wondering what the idea actually is.  Along with writing letters I also like to get mail, also, the walls of my cabin are kind of bare.  So, I thought that I would put out a proposal for post cards.  I don’t really know how many people read my blog, but if any of you out there write me a postcard from wherever you live or are spending your summer then I will send you back a nice handwritten postcard from Maine or New Hampshire.  I will even sweeten the offer and say that if you write more than one postcard this summer I will send you back more than one.

Now I suppose you are going to ask why I would do this.  As I said, I like to write and I am happy to write to anyone who writes to me.  I also think that writing by hand is a dying art and I would like to keep it alive for as long as possible.  It is also fun to get mail from other places.  This certainly is not the most expensive of summer opportunities and it is cool to get neat post cards.  Maybe if I get postcards from any of you I will scan them and post them on my blog.

If you want to send me a postcard and participate in my summer postcard swap, you can find my address below.  I made it a graphic just for a little sense of security.  Of course, in order to write you back I will need your address, and I figure the best way to do that is to either email me or use my contact form here.  If you don’t care then i suppose you could just leave your address in a comment.  In any event, let’s have some fun with this!

Read More

So, I have seen on a few of the blogs that I read that people are participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.  Basically, the idea is that she posts a set of prompts and people pick one or more to write about and then post their links on her site.  It has been something that I have thought about trying, and just have not got around to it.  So, now I am getting around to it and I think it will be fun, plus it will also give anyone reading my blog a little more insight into me.  So, from this weeks prompts, I chose number two: “What book captured your heart? Write about why the first book you loved is the first book you loved.”

I think the book that captured my heart was The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman.  It is the first part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, which is also my favorite series of books ever.  I first picked up the original hard cover edition of The Golden Compass after reading a review that had been cut out of the newspaper and was posted on the end of a shelf at the Borders in the Atrium Mall in Newton, MA.  I think that it is amazing that I remember that much detail, but i can’t remember who I was at the bookstore with, though I think that it was my grandmother.  Needless to say, I picked up the book very close to when it was released in 1995.

I remember the first time that I opened up the book to start reading it.  I felt like I was a little over my head and only a few pages in I was lost and couldn’t figure out what was going on.  I mean, I was only 11 at the time.  So, I put the book down for a while.  however, when I came back to it later on I was completely sucked into the story.  I have always been a fan of sci-fi/fantasy books and this story was no exception.

I am not even really sure what it is about the book that really sucked me in.  This is one of those stories that I really let take over my world.  This was a story that I could see all of the events unfolding in my head like they were real or a movie in my mind.  I would read into the night, lying in bed and then I would fall asleep thinking of all the things going on in the world of the story.  Sometimes I would even fall asleep making up my own stories that included me in the story.

Then, while I was in college, there was a fire at my parent’s house.  The biggest loss (aside from the back of the house) was books.  I think I lost the entire series.  So, my girlfriend at the time bought me a new set of the entire series as a birthday gift the year after the fire.  So of course I had to re-read the entire series.  I also picked up the audio books of the series to listen to.  Every time I re-read or listen to these books I get more out of the story or I uncover something that I haven’t noticed before.

These stories touch on so many different themes and ideas.  Pullman creates such an amazing world and characters that I think both children and adults can relate to.  Whenever people ask me for a book to read, The Golden Compass is the first one that I suggest.  Most of the time I don’t even really tell people what the book is about.  Some of the themes in the books may be a little edgy for some people, but I hope that people can can get over that and really enjoy the adventure.

This is a book that I go back to whenever I can’t find something new to read.  It sits in a prominent place on my shelf, and probably will always be my favorite book and one of the only books that I can really say that I love.

Read More