![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm back from doing the kids' theatre mentoring summer camp in the woods of Ojai, CA. I've been doing it as the Virginia Avenue Project's stage manager for about nine years (I started when I was 21). The kids all have some sort of "risk factor"-- poverty, recent immigrants, weird family situation, you name it-- that means they could use adult mentoring and self-confidence building and encouragement. So far, 100% of the kids who stick with the program graduate from high school, 90-95% of them go to college, and of those, 85% are the first person in their family to attend college. We pair them with an adult theatre/film/TV professional who writes a ten-minute play for them both to act in, rehearse in Ojai, then perform at UCLA.
It was a fun trip, without the uproars and squabbles that usually enliven the Ojai getaways. One of the camp counselors was a kid who's going off to college in the fall. He almost didn't get into a four-year college at all, but after various Project people intervened and coached him and wrote letters on his behalf, he got a full scholarship to Drew, a small private college in New Jersey, which he could never have afforded otherwise. He's a great kid and completely deserves it.
One of the teenage boys was studying Japanese by himself and had written everyone's names in katakana on the name tags they stuck on their dorm rooms. An eleven-year-old boy was doing meditation by himself and learning staff tricks from the katakana boy. Once he learned to twirl a stick, he went around doing that all week, and periodically bopping himself over the head or between the legs with it.
When I took the kids to a used bookshop in town and bought them books, he bought two introductory books on Zen and one on learning Japanese. One of the girls bought the first two SPIDERWICK books. The camp counselor boy bought a bunch of paperbacks for his little sister at home, and CYRANO DE BERGERAC and WAITING FOR GODOT (his two favorite plays) for himself.
The campus we stayed at is vegeatrian and Irmgarde, the German vegetarian cook, had gone even more heath-foody than last time and only served dessert when one kid had a birthday. The kids were unhappy about the lack of dessert and meat, and the emphasis on legumes had several adults popping Beano. Instead of driving straight back to LA today, I drove into Ojai for a bacon cheeseburger, extra-crispy fries, and a rootbeer float. You know how people who strictly adhere to some health n/u/t conscious diet are always going on about how their bodies revolt if they break it, and send them waves of happiness and lack of farts if they go back? Well, my body informed me that it had wanted that cheeseburger.
There were long walks through fields full of holes between everywhere on campus, and ground squirrels scattered in every direction when you cut through. Tiny cottontail rabbits were often seen in the morning before the fog burned off, and nearing dusk. A bunch of them nibbling in field together reminded me of a scene from WATERSHIP DOWN, and I wondered if they were planning a new warren. There were lizards too, and enormous hawks, and robins and crows. It was quite a change from LA.
It was a fun trip, without the uproars and squabbles that usually enliven the Ojai getaways. One of the camp counselors was a kid who's going off to college in the fall. He almost didn't get into a four-year college at all, but after various Project people intervened and coached him and wrote letters on his behalf, he got a full scholarship to Drew, a small private college in New Jersey, which he could never have afforded otherwise. He's a great kid and completely deserves it.
One of the teenage boys was studying Japanese by himself and had written everyone's names in katakana on the name tags they stuck on their dorm rooms. An eleven-year-old boy was doing meditation by himself and learning staff tricks from the katakana boy. Once he learned to twirl a stick, he went around doing that all week, and periodically bopping himself over the head or between the legs with it.
When I took the kids to a used bookshop in town and bought them books, he bought two introductory books on Zen and one on learning Japanese. One of the girls bought the first two SPIDERWICK books. The camp counselor boy bought a bunch of paperbacks for his little sister at home, and CYRANO DE BERGERAC and WAITING FOR GODOT (his two favorite plays) for himself.
The campus we stayed at is vegeatrian and Irmgarde, the German vegetarian cook, had gone even more heath-foody than last time and only served dessert when one kid had a birthday. The kids were unhappy about the lack of dessert and meat, and the emphasis on legumes had several adults popping Beano. Instead of driving straight back to LA today, I drove into Ojai for a bacon cheeseburger, extra-crispy fries, and a rootbeer float. You know how people who strictly adhere to some health n/u/t conscious diet are always going on about how their bodies revolt if they break it, and send them waves of happiness and lack of farts if they go back? Well, my body informed me that it had wanted that cheeseburger.
There were long walks through fields full of holes between everywhere on campus, and ground squirrels scattered in every direction when you cut through. Tiny cottontail rabbits were often seen in the morning before the fog burned off, and nearing dusk. A bunch of them nibbling in field together reminded me of a scene from WATERSHIP DOWN, and I wondered if they were planning a new warren. There were lizards too, and enormous hawks, and robins and crows. It was quite a change from LA.
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
lizards. heh.
From:
no subject