Written by Raven (camper)
I’ve been coming to NBTSC for four years and one event that I’ve always looked forward to was prom. I, personally, do attend high school, so I have actually been to a prom before. From my experience, I enjoyed the NBTSC proms so much more than any other high school proms. However, this is my first year at Myrtlewood (I’m a Latgawa refugee), so I was a little more excited than usual to be going to a NBTSC prom at a different camp site. One major difference that I saw between Latgawa and Myrtlewood was how exhausted the campers are by the time prom has come. Myrtlewood is a two-week camp, as opposed to Latgawa that’s an eight-day camp. I found that a lot of campers, including myself, were getting tired and worn. It definitely effected the mood of prom, but my friends and I still had a really good time.
My day started off pretty normal. Since this session is longer, I’ve grown accustomed to a consistent morning routine: having breakfast, doing morning meeting/check-in, and heading to advisee. I then headed to a friendship bracelet workshop, run by my friend Sita. I went mostly to help out other people in her workshop if they were confused and if she needed an extra hand, but in all honesty, I just wanted an excuse to make another friendship bracelet. Then, I used the next workshop slot to hang out with my culminator friend Jenny. The first week we didn’t spend that much time hanging out but I told her I wanted to change that, considering the fact that she isn’t going to be here next year. I attempted to help her write her culminator speech but failed miserably. I’m a very “distracting” person and let’s just say only a couple more sentences were written.
After the second workshop slot, we had lunch. Then, we had siesta. I took a 30-minute power nap before meeting back up with my advisee group. Our advisor, Christian, had promised our advisee ice cream if we won this game and fortunately we did. It’s weird, but when you haven’t had ice cream in nearly two weeks, it suddenly tastes amazing. We tried to be a good advisee group and invite Blake to join us, but he declined due to his fear of advisee groups wanting to throw him in the creek.
During the short workshop slot, I had my second Twerkshop of this session. I decided last minute to put my Twerkshop into a short workshop slot, compared to my first Twerkshop that was an hour long, and it was pretty fun. We only had 25 minutes, so it was mostly just review of my small first Twerkshop from last week. The workshop was also fairly small compared to my first Twerkshop, but I totally understand. Everyone is slowly starting to get sick, while others are just exhausted. I was even tired after my own workshop.
In the evening, I took a shower and got ready for prom. I wanted to get ready early to avoid the crowds of people that were going to be getting ready in the bathrooms later on. I spent time with my friend, M.J., who was also doing their makeup for prom. We must’ve been getting ready for an hour and a half, but next thing we knew it was dinner. I’m happy to find that a lot of people loved my makeup and complemented me during dinner. I’m not used to wearing makeup at camp, so I think a lot of campers, especially those who’ve been going to camp with me for years, were shocked to see me “all done up”. We tried to prank Matt during evening meeting, but I’m not so sure it was successful.
Prom was finally here. Honestly, getting ready for prom is probably my favorite thing about prom at camp because I get to see other campers dressed really nice. It’s just nice to see peoples’ outfits before they get all gross and sweaty during prom. I also love the hype and excitement that comes from prom preparation. Maybe it’s the vibe in the air or something, but I love it. Prom as a whole was actually a lot fun. I mean, at least I had a lot of fun. Most people decided to leave 30 minutes in, but my friends and I stayed pretty much the whole time. I appreciate Sydney for putting the BTS (Korean Pop band) song, “Boy With Luv”, in. I also just happened to know the dance routine, so I’m happy I was prepared when the song came on. Jenny and I partner danced together to the Billie Eilish song, “bad guy”, which is weirdly a great song to partner dance to. People would never think it was, but it is. Of course, when the kitchen staff brought out the prom snack, a mob of people came back in and that’s when my friends and I decided it was a good time to head out since prom was getting a little crazy. My friends and I then talked on Lyrtle porch. We talked about how these past two weeks have been going for all of us. We talked about our past years at camp. We talked about how much we all miss the Latgawa camp site.
This camp session has been a bit of a roller coaster for me. However, I wouldn’t trade my opportunity to be here at camp for anything else in this world. Not every camp session is going to be perfect and I understand that now. I know that out of my four years at camp, I’ve never had a “perfect” session. Every session has its drama and issues, but I just think that’s a part of camp. I think this session in specific has just been very hard for a lot of campers, including me. Just due to the fact two different camps had to merge to become one. It’s something that’s never happened before and I think that it makes a lot of people frustrated and anxious. It seems the culminators have had the hardest time with this merging of the sessions. This camp session has definitely been an experience with highs and lows. I’ve definitely enjoyed my time at camp and I hope other campers did too.