Oops, I kind of forgot to update

Well that was bad of me; promising an update on my trip and then not delivering! I uploaded lots of pictures of my trip on facebook; public links to the albums are here:


England 1
http://uga.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190332&l=c29ab&id=4922861

Across The Pond
http://uga.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2186510&l=ad009&id=4922861

A Day Out
http://uga.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2186511&l=8fa2d&id=4922861

A Night Out... After A Day Out
http://uga.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2186521&l=82bb3&id=4922861

The Last Few Days Abroad
http://uga.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190384&l=8712e&id=4922861


In short, the trip was amazing.
It's a beautiful place, and there is so much to see and do there that I've decided I'll need to live there for at least a year or two to even begin to make a dent in all the things there are to see and do.
Plus, I need to stay long enough to make the accent stick. The British Natives aren't very impressed with my attempt at a British accent ("a mixture of posh, cockney, and Texas"), though Americans can't tell a difference, and think I sound quite British when I put on the accent. It'd be fun to get a real accent, though. :)
Some highlights of the trip:
~Spending lots of time with my best mate Phil and his family
~British accents, of course!
~Unusually lovely weather for the duration of my stay; the locals were weirded out that the weather stayed so nice. I just told them that I brought the sunshine with me when I came. They didn't believe me (granted, I didn't believe me either!) but when I got on the plane to leave the UK it started raining and snowing... ;)
~Seeing Hot Fuzz in the cinema a whole month before it came out in the United States
~Going to Aberystwyth, Wales- on the coast of the Irish Sea. The flat I stayed in was a block from the ruins of a 12th century castle by the sea. It was absolutely breathtaking.
~Wales in general. It looks just like The Shire from Lord of the Rings. I know where Tolkien got his inspiration now.
~Passing The Green Dragon Inn while driving in the hills of Wales (another Lord of the Rings reference-- The Green Dragon Inn is the name of a pub/inn in The Shire)
~Pub food
~cooking hamburgers for my British friends one of my last nights in the UK- as I was frying the hamburgers Al came into the kitchen and said, "Wow... I am so lucky- I'm getting hamburgers cooked by a REAL American! The only hamburgers I've ever had have been from McDonalds"
~Comic Relief- a British comedy night to raise money for humanitarian causes. Lots of funny acts by brilliant British comedians, with things getting progressively..... interesting... as everyone on the telly got drunker and drunker. Crazy Brits

The United Kingdom was great. I came back and worked my tail off at school for several weeks, then as soon as finals were over I picked up and flew across the nation and spent a week in California. I just got back last night. Cali was a good time. Now for a week in Barnesville, then headed out for another summer of camp. I'll update this blog as I am able; I'll try to be better about updating in a timely fashion :)

Anticipation

Well, after a fall semester and half of a spring semester of staying put in Athens for school, it's time for another trip. I have a running list of places I want to visit, and the UK has always been at the top of that list (next on The List: Australia, Greece, New Zealand, and India). Now, due to the fact that I have an awesome friend and awesome friends' family who don't mind me staying with them, the trip to see the UK is now a reality! I'm leaving for Manchester, England on Thursday March 8th. I will spend ten days traveling around England and Wales, seeing sights and meeting people. It's gonna be great! I should have pretty easy access to the internet, and you'd better believe I'll be taking lots of pictures, so check back for photos and blogs- I'll be gone March 8-18.

This is my last week in Georgetown, Kentucky. Next stop: Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Where it is going to be hot as anything, and super-humid. Brent, our resident Arkansian has informed us of this. Before I forget, my address in Arkansas is

Miriam Rowe
Centri-Kid Staff
Henderson State University
1100 Henderson Street
Arkadelphia, AR 71999-0001


Georgetown has been cool; lots of fun (and funny!) stuff has happened. This week I have a girl in my Bible study who knows Orlando Bloom.

The other night I sat down at dinner with a group of little girls who were whispering and giggling. I asked to be let in on the secret and they told me that they were trying to figure out a way to get the boys back for picking on them, but they couldn't think of a way to get the boys without touching them, because touching them would give them the cooties.
me *very seriously*: "That would be a horrible thing. Are you girls taking your cootie shots?"
them: "Oh yeah! Definitely! We're not dumb. But even though we do tons of cootie shots it's never enough because the boys get close to us faster than we can do cootie shots!"
me: "Wow. That's pretty hardcore. I haven't had a cootie shot in a while."

At this point I was lectured and berated for waiting so long for a cootie shot. Then the fixed the problem by giving me the "Circle, circle, dot, dot, now you've got your cootie shot!"

I thanked them for taking care of me so well and promised I wouldn't go 12 years without a cootie shot ever again. Then, out of curiosity (and because for some reason every eight year old girl I meet at camp has a boyfriend) I said,
"So I suppose since guys have cooties you girls don't have boyfriends, right?"
girls: "Well.... ... ....SHE does!" and they all started pointing and telling on each other.
me: "So how does that work? If boys have cooties then how can you have a boyfriend?"
girls: "well.... MY man doesn't have any bad stuff- just all other boys."

And that's where this story stops. I couldn't think of anything that wasn't cynical to say after that, so I changed the subject.

Well, it's time for me to go start packing up some stuff so it can get moved. I'm back in Georgia in about three weeks; see some of y'all then!

Hey y'all!
Middle of the camp week- tomorrow is the last full day of camp, and tomorrow is OMC, which stands for Organized Mass Chaos. It is what it says it is- 350 kids, shaving cream, hoola hoops, skipping, jumping, yelling, smashed bananas in hair, singing, ice water poured over heads... last week I ended up with so much shaving cream in my hair that my kids were able to spike it. It was pretty hilarious. But mostly just shaving cream-y and gross. Talk about insanity! Here are some OMC pictures:





I would love to get some snail mail while I'm here in Georgetown. If you wanna send me mail that would be so great! You can send it to this address:

Miriam Rowe
Centri-Kid Staff
Georgetown College
400 East College Street
Georgetown, KY 40324

Humorous Happenings from the Camp Week

Some more humorous camp occurences:

Last weekend our team went to a coffeeshop downtown called the Lock 'n' Key for some unwinding time before getting ready to start camp. Brandon stood in a corner, contemplating the coffee beans for a while, and then said (to no one in particular),
"Is it faux pas to sniff the beans?"

...I guess he decided that whether it was or not he was gonna sniff the coffee beans, because he sat there and was entertained for a long time by sniffing the beans.



The second funny thing involves Kyle. There's always that one kid at camp who everybody knows and everybody has funny stories about. Well this week Kyle was "that kid". He is going into fourth grade, is around 3 and a half feet tall (still too short to ride roller coasters, he informed me), blonde hair, freckles, gap-teeth, and a cast on his arm because he fell out of a tree a few weeks ago.

Kyle is a great story teller, and during free time on Thursday he was telling me this long, involved story that started out as a story about playing foursquare, then moved to a story about baseball. He was still in the middle (as far as I could tell) of his story about baseball when he got really quiet and sat down on the lawn. I went and sat next to him and he was quiet for a few minutes and I could tell he was contemplating something. After a little bit he looked up at me and said very seriously,

"I'm allergic to squirrels."

Me (caught a bit off-guard): "Oh really? How do you know that?"
Him: "Well, I don't know that Im' allergic to squirrels, but I think I might be."
Me: "Well what makes you think that you are?"
Him: "Whenever I get within a foot of a squirrel I start sneezing like CRAZY!"
Me: "That sounds like a pretty good reason to think that you're allergic to squirrels. How often do you get that close to squirrels?"
Him: "All the time."
Me: "Do you like to sneak up on them and see how close you can get?"

At this point Kyle looks around, then looks behind his back, then leans in toward me and says,
"They like to sneak up on me."

Done, Done, and on to the Next One!

First week at camp was cool, chaotic, and great. It's over, we've moved from Lambuth College in Tennessee to Georgetown University in Georgetown, KY. We don't have internet for the first week here at Georgetown, but I'm taking quick advantage of a stop-in at a local coffeeshop in town. Camp starts again tomorrow, which means another week of sixteen hour workdays, super-speedy meals, and hundreds of hot, sweaty, dirty campers who love you and want to be just like you when they grow up. Lots of learning of new things and lots to do. Give me a call and leave me a sweet voicemail during the week, since I won't have internet access for a while. So anyway, lots to write about but it'll hafta wait because my whole team is standing in line to use my computer and the interwebs. Love y'all!

p.s. Photos of camp-thus-far can be found at http://uga.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079831&l=a35cf&id=4922861

"Welcome to camp- kids come today!"

"Welcome to camp- kids come today!"
This has been our battle cry for a while- "Welcome to camp- kids come next week!"..... "Welcome to camp- kids come in a few days!"..... and now the big day is here. Exciting! :-) This first week of camp is a smaller crowd- we'll only have about 200 kids. Most weeks it will be 500 or more. It's rather nice to be able to start out small.


A rather funny moments in the life of our team:

We were praying for each other, and part of the prayer time the guys prayed for the girls and then the girls prayed for the guys. The girl who was praying for the guys started off with, "God, thankyou for these men that you've put on our team this summer. Thankyou for the leaders that they are and please help them become even stronger leaders as the summer progresses. God, please let these men burn with fashion......
......
....i mean, passion......"
She prayed some more, but I don't think any of us heard anything after that. We were too busy shaking with laughter. When she finished the prayer we all fell down, rolling with laughter.