Week Four

Oh my, time is just flying by!

Week four is coming to a close and it feels like I just arrived yesterday.

Sometimes the days blur together so it can become fairly difficult to remember what happened on what day, but overall I've been able to keep track of the weeks as they've gone by. Yesterday I had my day off (Friday) and my grandparents came to visit for the day. They took me into Traverse City and we rode on a big Schooner boat with about 25 other people. It was pretty calm in the bay, but it was also very relaxing as well as the wind blew through my hair and I watched various speed boats go by. We also ventured into downtown and walked around Front St. for a little while, the three of us stopped into Kilwin's fudge/ice cream shop and got ice cream and malts. It was a new experience for Grandma (not knowing what kilwin's was) and it was delicious ice cream as well.

Earlier in the week we had a Unit Activity for all the campers in Unit C. The event was a counselor dress-up fashion show where the campers of each cabin dressed up their own counselor. My campers dressed me and my co-counselor Katie up as the messy floor of our cabin and the "Caper Queen". (capers are chores) It was good fun, and there were lots of guest counselor and administrative staff judges.



This week I was also able to get away for a bit during the day and go see a movie with two of my HSG counselor friends. We went to Meijer and saw Inception, which was SUCH a good movie..makes you think though. At Meijer I bought raspberries for $2 and they were ripe and delicious and a good relief from 5 and a half weeks of cafeteria food.

Week Five is about to begin, and as much as I am excited to go back home and move to Kalamazoo for the year, I am sad that this summer has gone by so quickly and that I will have to leave all my friends that I have made here in just two short weeks..

Ta,Ta for now, I will write again later!

Week Three

Here it is, it's already Week Three!!

Week three means all the staff has been here for a total of four weeks, which is crazy to even think about. Interlochen is amazing in every way possible. The weather has been pretty nice and unusually consistent, trips to Traverse City have been amazing, and listening to all the performances around campus is just great!



Me By the Grand Traverse Bay on my day off.

Yesterday (Sunday July 11th) was the second WYSO Concert with guest performer, David Shifrin who played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. Did I mention that the tickets were FREE? Besides the fact that he is one of the best clarinetists ever, he is also an Alumni of the Arts Academy Boarding School here, so that must have been cool for him. The WYSO also played Pines of Rome (also amazing), and as we got to the third movement, there is a part in the music where usually a recording of bird chirping plays, but as the orchestra played the movement, actual birds outside started chirping as well..and to add to the atmosphere inside Kresge, the fourth movement begins quietly and slowly the orchestra builds its instrumentation; first the violins, cellos, woodwinds, then brass. So as the orchestra was building intensity and sound, the sky outside began to cloud over and get dark as the sun set, and the wind came in stronger and stronger over the lake as the orchestra hit its peak sound. Talk about surround sound. It was amazing, I love music so much, and not many people realize how all the things in one place can go together if you have a little music.


WYSO Rehearsing Pines of Rome

So we are on to Week Three, as I said before. not much is new, just finding time to practice, sit at the lake and the staff beach, read, and hang with friends and campers. On Thursdays there is a reading orchestra in the evening, so I'm excited for that. The Reading Orchestra is just for staff members who want a chance to play in an ensemble and to sightread over the summer. I definitely need to practice sight reading, and I do miss playing in an ensemble, so it should be fun.

Week Two

So It's been about a week since I have last written. The campers have been here for a full week, and I have been here for two already. Week two begins today, and there are a lot of things planned for everyone throughout the week. Dances, Lake Trips, Beach Sleepovers at the Waterfront, pizza dinner etc. Not all the counselors get to go on the off-campus trips, but it's still fun for the campers. Interlochen also has many different waterfronts that we can swim at that are nice. There is even a waterfront access that is right by Kresge (the main outdoor auditorium)that is only available to Staff and Visitors. We call it the 'Stone Waterfront', and it's a really nice smaller beach and swim area, a concrete deck area right next to the beach overlooking the lake with wooden lawn chairs and picnic tables to sit at and just relax. I went down there the other day, and it's a great place to chill out while the campers are at class on a warm sunny day under the huge tree that provides shade. It's the best when there's a big breeze coming off of the lake like yesterday (July 4th), especially when the WYSO is rehearsing in Kresge right next door.

I get one day off a week, which is cool to just chill at Traverse City all day. My day off is Friday, so last Friday a small group of counselors went to the Bay and sat on the beach for the afternoon. The Traverse City Cherry Festival was just getting started, so we were lucky to see the dress rehearsal of the Blue Angels right over the Bay.

So far I haven't gotten the chance to play my Clarinet a whole lot, but now that training and orientation is over with, I will have a lot of time in the morning and early afternoon to practice. There are even a few other counselor clarinetists in the High School Boys and Girls Divisions, so we were thinking of getting a quintet together or something fun like that. I played duets with one of the other girl counselors from Ohio the other day, She will be a Junior at Wright State University in Dayton, OH this year so it was fun to just relax and play duets.

Overall it's been a pretty chill week as far as activities and duties go, so I will post again once the activities and festivities get going.