500 Miles

     There was a lot of running today. Not quite 500 miles. But it was still. So. Much. Running. We had a bit of a mix up of the schedule today. Wednesday is traditionally the day of the Quest. However, due to the rain this week, we moved things around a bit. Basically, they swapped the Quest with the Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
      I've been riding my bike a lot this summer. So the running was better than I thought. But it was still the most I've run at one time probably since last year. Surprisingly, I felt really good at the end. Tired but good.
     So what was this whole thing about? The idea was to set up the tournament to resemble the international championships that Natash and Dasha go to with the Ukrainian national team. I was a little fuzzy on the details of the bracket and how it worked. But work it did. The staff divided the students and staff into four teams. Each team played at least five times against the other teams. Ultimately (pun not intended), we did a lot of running and laughing. It also helped the students learn how important good sportsmanship is in competition.

Zhenya (far right) and the cheer squad

     After each game, the two teams would get together to talk about the game, the highlights and what they didn't like. It was essential to make sure there weren't any hard feelings toward each other. Zhenya the camp leader even tied the rules and sportsmanship into his Way Home talk (spiritual development lecture).
     The downsides of the tournament is that I got a little sunburned a a headache out of the deal. Plus I'm feeling really worn out. But that's to be expected from all the running that I did. It was a really hot day. Not a lot of clouds while we were out playing. At lunch you could tell who had played. Almost everyone was dragging. I'm writing this over 5 hours after we finished and I'm still tired. I might have to drink a couple cup of tea.

Dennis, Phil, Nastia, Anya, David, Austin, Kolya

     So what did we get out of this? The winning team, Austin's Wolverines, came out victorious. For their efforts, they won frisbees with the camp logo. They staff also handed out an award for the team with the best spirit of the game. There were also two MVP awards; one for the best guy and one for the best girl. Lucky me, I got the guy's MVP award.
     If you'd have seen me after the tournament, you'd think someone dumped a bucket of water on me. That might have felt better. I probably more than doubled the weight of my shirt with sweat. It was that hot and I was running that much. It's also my family curse to sweat a lot. Fortunately, I had time after lunch before English to shower and cool off a bit.
     Speaking of English, I feel like the whole process is going a lot better than last year. Every year is different. But for some reason, this year is going well. Austin, Bryson and I are leading Intermediate. This group of six seems to like games more than reading lessons. We tried reading yesterday but they started to zone out about half way through the definitions section. So I called a break and then taught them to play hangman. That went over a lot better.
     The rest of the day was pretty standard. The night finished off with a movie called Freedom Riders and team time. I'm gonna leave this here so I can get to bed a little early.

Essential members of my team, Kristen and Joan

     As a bonus, I have some spy video (shot on Austin's potato) of the dance moves the camp is preparing for their "flash mob" dance for the disco on Friday.