Of summer that is. I don’t know about this coming year. I’m so tired of high school, so bored of the lack of mental stimulation, so sick of the stupid people and the building. I really, really want to be done with it and go to university.

On the other hand, there’s FOCS. Every time I think about what to do with FOCS, I always remember that workshop from TC two years ago, with Jesse telling us about AYJ’s Christian fellowship, probably the largest school fellowship in Toronto. And I’m reminded of what FOCS can do to West Hill. I wonder what the administration will say about us when we graduate.

This past weekend I was somewhere around nowhere camping at Aletheia’s summer camp. I got a chance to experience the wonders of the new fellowship. For the most part, I think the main difference between Hosanna and Aletheia is that Aletheia is much more relaxed. It’s probably because they’re older and part of it also probably has to do with Dan.

Anyway, having been two years since I’ve been tent camping, I’ve lost the little skill I’ve acquired in the five or so years of tent camping in setting up the darned things. Tents are very different from Edgewood. At Edgewood, I was incredibly worried about touching the walls or the floors because they were so nasty. I don’t have to worry about that with tents. On the other hand, cabins don’t leak from the ground up and if they do, we had the nasty mattresses to put our sleeping bags on, instead of enduring a wet sleeping bag for one night and having to soak up the excess water with almost all of your clothes.

Having to cook our own food was fun and not as hazardous to your health as you’d think. It seemed like a lot of the time was cooking, but that was fun. I mean, it’s Aletheia, all of the Hosanna teens grown up, so there are plenty of snarky remarks going around. Hilarious. The food was excellent, relative to what I was half expecting. I guess you can’t go wrong with tons of oil and sauces.

I liked the worship sessions at Aletheia camp. They’re really different from Hosanna camp. This year’s Hosanna camp was bringing in more worship stuff than ever. There was the screen, the laptops, and all the instruments: an electric, an acoustic, a bass, drums and an army of vocalists as well as the A/V people to run all of this equipment. In stark contrast is Aletheia’s worship team: two acoustics and two vocalists.

An interesting sidestory: a while ago my mom was telling me how Doreen (Trinh) and her family used to live not too far from us. In fact, they were almost right behind us, just a few houses over. Also, they had this dog that I could always hear at night, barking. Interestingly enough, Doreen’s brother, Toby, was the speaker at Aletheia camp and their dog and old house got mentioned. I was thinking ‘the dog! I remember the dog!’ at the time.

Anyway, the talk at night in our tents was quite interesting. They asked about Hosanna and we were talking about some of the changes that were happening, namely how the new PC’s going to handle the new influx of Grade 7s and how the younger ones outnumber the olders teens badly. We also went to talking about the coming year, which was quite insightful. It’s gotten me started thinking about next year even more. Like what am I going to do this time next year?

Another sidenote: With the help of Perry, I have come up with a name for my bass. Henceforth, it shall be known as Hadouken, of 8-Bit Theatre fame.

Anyway, on Saturday, our tent got drenched and there was a hole in the floor. Not really a flood, but my sleeping bag got really soaked, as did much of my stuff. Really disgustingly uncomfortable.

Speaking of university, I don’t know. I mean, my programming is okay. See, so far, I haven’t learned enough to start nontrivial projects, which is where school has failed me. I’ve got the basics down pat, but stuff like pointers and classes are eluding me. Any attempts to try and understand them are not working. I’m trying my best to get involved in some sort of coding project, but I don’t think I know enough for it to work. I’m really worried about that.

Anyway, what did I think of camp? Hosanna summer camp was much relaxing, since I didn’t really do much. But Aletheia summer camp was quite introspective and insightful. Much to think about for the next week.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 28th, 2005 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Christianity, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.