In which I use a great many words to say I like the people I was chaperoning with

I’ve now been on 5 senior trips and they were all different. Two went to a place called Split Rock Resort in a town called Lake Harmony in the Poconos (though I don't believe there actually is such a town). It’s a pleasantly run down and well equipped four season resort. It’s not my favorite kind of place because it’s in the middle of nowhere and a mile walk just to get out of the resort. I always like to know where I am, which means walking or riding around to get a feel for the area. Obviously this works best in urban areas and less well in rural ones. The other thing is that the rooms at Split Rock are suites, so I end up sharing living area with other people. This has ranged from really good to very unpleasant (yeah, got both in only 2 trips), depending on the other chaperones and staff.

The other three have been to Ocean City, MD, which I personally prefer, because it’s an actual place with actual stuff, not made-up resort things. True, much of the actual stuff is touristy crap, but I still like it better and people know what you’re talking about when you tell them where you went. Otherwise you end up having to explain something that neither you nor they really care about. Too much effort for making idle conversation. The hotel is similarly pleasant yet run down, and I get my own room. Sure, it’s a room that lacks any decor whatsoever, a view of outdoors (it looks out onto a large atrium) and fresh air, but my own room nonetheless.

It’s also possible that I like OC better because I’ve been at least nominally the lead chaperone on all of those trips and neither of the Split Rock trips. This year was more of a group effort than a single lead, which was different but okay. It was also a much smaller group. I’m used to 50-ish students and this one was 27. And 3 chaperones instead of 4 or 5. I’ve been on trips where all or some of the chaperones disliked each other and ones where everyone got along famously.

From my perspective, this one was definitely in the latter group. I can’t speak for how the others felt; they’re generally polite people. But one of the things I enjoy about these things is the chance to spend concentrated time with my colleagues, because I’m lucky enough to work someplace with people I like and respect. So as much as it’s about the kids, sometimes the adult interaction feels equally important and gratifying.

That’s a lot of what I’ll remember about this trip, because even though I’ve had never had anything but positive interaction with my co’s (the seniors like to abbreviate things, and this one can mean co-chaperones), I really didn’t know them very well. There were other things that gave me some trepidation, but thinking back it’s always that way unless we've done trips together before. For someone lacking good instincts for social interaction (okay, maybe completely lacking is more accurate), this kind of close contact is terrifying, but it’s a terror I’m familiar with.

At my current stage of life, I don’t go through a lot of insecurity and fear that people won’t like me. I’m pretty self-confident and, to be honest, I’ve not found it helpful to worry about what people think of me. But my tendency to view every moment as a blank slate can make things unsettling when I’m outside my comfort zone, as concentrated time with people you don’t know very well can be. And although my instinct in these times is to disengage rather then jump into it, I’m fully aware that many of my best experiences have happened outside my comfort zone. So I approached the whole experience with the co's with what you might call optimistic terror.

Whew! That was exhausting. I’m not trying to be confessional, but it’s dumb to take the time to write about this if I don’t bother expressing my feelings about it. It’s my blog, and skipping the important stuff would make it pointless.

And enough meta. Here’s what I know. You can’t really understand someone until you’ve played mini golf with them. Maybe it doesn’t have to be exactly mini golf, but dumb as that sounds, a game is a far more personal experience than anything that can happen in the hallways at work. You also can’t understand someone unless you see them first thing in the morning, late that same evening, and in easy situations and tricky ones, because sometimes it’s hard to know the difference. You can learn about someone’s openness, sensitivity, intelligence and dedication. Which is a lot of important stuff in getting a sense for a person.

So part of what I take away is an appreciate for how great these people are, given that that’s not a given, (is that even close to being correct grammatically?). I got to see it for myself. It made the whole experience more fulfilling and more fun.

Day 3

Notice that my titles are getting shorter as I get increasingly fatigued.

The last day started, for me anyway, with another bike ride. This time I rode into the wind first, a journey that took me from the hotel southbound toward the boardwalk area. I should have checked whether you can ride on the boardwalk here. In some places you can before stores open, plus at least for part of it, OC has both a boardwalk and a parallel wide concrete path. That would have been fun. It was still fun.

Lots of people don't like riding in urban areas. I grew up in Brooklyn and rode all the time, and when I moved back to New York in the late 70's the previous occupants of the apartment had left a beat up 3-speed old Schwinn girl's bike- the perfect city bike, indestructible and worthless: too old and ugly to be worth stealing with even minimal locking up. I rode all over Manhattan on that bike. Okay, not through Times Square or anything, but anywhere most people would be comfortable driving a car. So I don't mind.

It's not like I don't know the risks, but for all the risk in urban areas, people are generally moving slowly compared to on suburban roads, and the principles are the same. You ride far enough from parked cars to avoid getting doored. Even if you're not going to actually stop at a red light, be ready to and more generally, respect the rules even if you're not going to follow them to the letter. But above all ride without fear.

I don't mean that you shouldn't be cautious. I'm an extremely cautious rider; I've been riding 100-150 miles a week for the past dozen summers without even coming close to having an accident or fall. But what I mean is that you can't ride around fearfully, expecting trouble at every moment. You can't do that well any more than you can drive that way. You look for and anticipate potential trouble spots, and once you've taken a course you go with it, ready to react but not expecting to. So cautious, but confident. I don't know, it works for me.

So anyway, I don't mind riding down the street in Ocean City, which hardly qualifies as urban anyway. There's a shared bus/bike lane; it's the only place I've seen such a thing, but if you can keep up a decent rate of speed, the bus won't ever catch you. Going into the wind that's not entirely possible, but with the wind I actually put distance on the bus behind me and almost caught the one in front.

Then it was time to pack and get out of town. The students, I have to say, were remarkably efficient at cleaning and packing. In past years there's always been some group that trashed their room and required major cleanup. But not this year. So we got out on time and headed for an amusement center.

Unfortunately, most of the parks don't fully open until June 1, but we found one with go karts, mini golf, bumper boats, and a couple of other things.

And then it was time to go home, so off we went. It was fun. Very hot and muggy, but fun. And now we're off for home.

Once I've had a chance to process this, I'll do another post on my overall impressions, but we'll be back at school shortly and I want to get this done

Senior Trip, day 2

The second day was bright and beautiful and extremely windy. I woke up and went for a bike ride. I headed north and went about 8 miles to Bethany Beach. A few years ago I was here and went up that way with a student, not realizing that we had the wind at our back the entire time. We laughed a lot once we turned around and realized, but it was really hard and long. So this time, I was prepared. It was still long and hard, but being prepared made it a lot easier to bear. 

After my bike ride, we were all going to go for watersports, paddle boards, kayaks, etc. One of the kids wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to stay at the hotel just in case they needed something. This entailed sitting on the beach, so it doesn’t mean that I was suffering or anything. It was the kind of windy that sandblasts you, so I rented an umbrella to screen the wind, not the sun. It worked well enough for me to sit and read for an hour and a half. 

Once the others came back (they had a pretty windy experience as well), we had lunch and then some free time. Some people went down toward the boardwalk area to sit on the beach there, while others sat on a nice grassy area and sunned. I joined in that group. It was very pleasant. I went for a walk to see what the houses on the side streets looked like. Most of them were extremely nondescript, (yes, I’m aware that particular phase is pretty much meaningless), though one looked like a medieval castle, complete with turrets. I also saw what has to be the most useless road sign ever.

Probably would have been more useful at the beginning of the street

Eventually everyone wandered in and we showered and then many of us ice skated until dinner. We then loaded on the bus and went to the boardwalk. Ocean City has a nice boardwalk; it’s very long and well stocked with tacky shops and places to get fried food (fried anything really), ribald t-shirts, candy and ice cream.

I opted for the last 2, and the ice cream (vanilla/chocolate swirl with rainbow sprinkles. This led to an extended conversation as to the supposed difference between sprinkles and jimmies. Is it chocolate sprinkles and rainbow jimmies, or vice versa? Or both sprinkles or jimmies. This is not the same as whether you say envelope or ahn-velope, this is a much more pronounced (so to speak) difference.

We left without settling the dispute, but not before I got chocolate ice cream (or is it custard? Argh!) on my pants.  Duly christened, we returned to the hotel, where the kids did a bonding activity and then we eventually settled into bed. 

Senior trip 2015 day 1.

So yeah, I know, I haven't posted anything yet. Sometimes on these trips you get busy. And sometimes you just don't feel like writing. Ask a writer.

The last time I chaperoned the senior trip, there were 50 students and 4 chaperones, which made for long day, especially since the weather wasn't good and we had to make plans to keep everyone busy and happy. This time, there are 27 students and 3 chaperones, and it's relatively mellow. Not that anyone has ever used that word to describe this year's seniors. But one of the things you notice on trips like this that relative to the population at large, our students are smart, well-behaved and for the most part use good common sense.

We got here around noon and because of a bunch of late checkouts post-Memorial Day, none of our rooms were ready. When we finally got one available, all the girls went there to change and the boys changed in the banquet room. I guess that's what they call it. We were not having any banquets, though I can't say the same for the senior class of the Salisbury Christian School, who were having a fancy affair in a neighboring room. I guess if you occasionally have a banquet in a room, you can always call it that. For us, it's a place to eat and meet. Eventually all the rooms were ready and everyone moved in.

The hotel is not fancy but nicely located right on the beach in a quiet part of town. They have a large atrium with a small skating rink. The hotel is called Carousel, but I think they put a food stand where the carousel used to be. The rooms are pretty bare bones as far as decor is concerned, but large and equipped with refrigerators and microwaves. We have a coach bus take us down here and the bus stays with us for outings.

Today the bus took the kids down to the boardwalk for a quick scavenger hunt I stayed at the hotel and got myself settled. They came back wanting more time down there, so we'll go back. We had dinner and then went to play laser tag. I'm being a slug and not playing laser tag. I don't like shooting games and tag was never my favorite game as a kid. I was more a play sports games type, and if we were doing one of those traditional kid games we'd do hide and seek, or occasionally, freeze tag.

So I played mini golf on a not especially challenging, though interestingly decorated, course. After it was done was the highlight, as a prom invitation appeared on an electronic sign in the parking lot. It malfunctioned briefly and we scrambled to stall while the manager ran up to the office and rebooted their computer. Ultimately it was very cute and deemed an awesome way to do it.

Back to the hotel then, where a bunch of us walked across the street to the supermarket. Strolling around a supermarket with teenagers is fun. They wander up and down the aisles somewhat aimlessly, with a general expressions of "wow, look at this." They were teasing me that I probably knew the exact layout and had a plan when I went to the supermarket. I admitted that not only do I have that but I have it for multiple supermarkets.

Eventually to bed. A full day here tomorrow.