Personal Narrative : A New Experience For Me

I started drawing when I was 16. I was cursing 10th grade, or how is called in my country, Dominican Republic “Segundo de Bachillerato”. It was recess. I was alone in my classroom that day, besides two or three people who were just killing time there, and I didn’t had much to do with my time. I was at the last book of a series of books which names I can’t remember and If I recall correctly the last book was very boring for some reason so I didn’t wanted to read it anymore. So, looking for something to do, I stood from my seat and walked boringly down the aisle of chairs and that was, not my first interaction with art, but the first time I remember i liked art or paid attention to it. Yerkis, a guy of my class: short, chubby and well mannered

Growing up with a father in the military, you move around a lot more than you would like to. I was born just east of St. Louis in a city called Shiloh in Illinois. When I was two years old my dad got the assignment to move to Hawaii. We spent seven great years in Hawaii, we had one of the greatest churches I have ever been to name New Hope. New Hope was a lot like Olivet's atmosphere, the people were always friendly and there always something to keep someone busy. I used to dance at church, I did hip-hop and interpretive dance, but you could never tell that from the way I look now.

Put the gun down! Put the gun down! Pow Pow Pow. The gun shots cracked into the air as loud as thunder. One after another. We live day by day not knowing our end. In the blink of an eye our lives can be changed forever. Its life, yet even in knowing this we never expect tragedy to find us. We never expect it to affect our lives and the people we know and love. I’m going to share with you the day tragedy found my life.

I believe the experiences I have had throughout my childhood and now as a young adult would make me a great camp counselor. I have always enjoyed the outdoors. I often went hiking at Chestnut Ridge State Park and my family loved to go camping in Allegany. I’ve played many sports throughout my childhood including soccer, softball and gymnastics. In high school I started working as a gymnastics club leading workouts and creating circuits to build young children’s strength and abilities. I also became the captain of the varsity cheerleading team my senior year. Now in college, I am an early childhood/childhood education major with a concentration in math. I am a part of the education club on campus as well as Fredonia Greek Life.

Attending Troop N Camp Cadet was truly an experience that I cannot say enough great things about. The camp truly pushed me to my mental and physical limits, and because of that, graduation day was a day I will never forget. As I think back on this experience, many people stand out to me. One of the main groups of people was of course the advisors, which were helped by the junior counselors. I believe that I, being given the opportunity to be a junior counselor, would be provided with a positive experience for many reasons.

I was incredibly excited. School was starting tomorrow. The first few days were just icebreakers, learning everyone’s names, blah blah blah. Then the real learning began. Of course, teachers started to write our lessons on the board. I started to notice a few changes in what I was seeing. The words they were writing were just...black lines! I didn’t pay much attention to it, I just asked my friends what the board said. As the year went on, it affected me more and more, especially in math. I saw a 2 as a 6, and and an A as an 8.

This summer I will be a CIT (counselor in training) at Camp Cherry Valley that is located on the island of Catalina, right off the coast of Southern California. It's a really nice camp with an incredible staff, and this was one of the first things that I noticed last summer when I got off the boat that takes you from the mainland to the island. The week that I spent at the camp with my troop was as a senior patrol leader. As soon as I got back from camp I knew that I wanted to be part of the same staff as last year. The first step I needed to do to go to Camp Cherry Valley was to submit an application online write about why I believed that I qualified and was capable of doing the job. When they received my application and saw that I had already

The benefits of being a CIT Director at Camp Cosby would mean so much to me; however, I know that this job carries a lot of responsibility and duty. I can name many that have had this position and I remember each of them, and certainly my CIT directors have made an impact on my life. I hope to make the YMCA a career. I want to be the difference in the world, and I feel like I can start at Camp Cosby.

Hi iam Edgardo Flores i was born in casa grande, az not that far away from our state capital,Phoenix, Az.theres nothing better to do in a hot summer than going out with the friends to a lake and have a blast riding jet skis boats and my favorite, swimming!My activites of the day are shooting,riding horses,and my favorite one is quad riding.Thats right! ive been doing these fun exciting hobbies since i was 9 years old.pretty young huh?

I spent the entire school year looking forward to returning to that hillside, but now it became time to transition to staff. So I asked myself, “what's next?” Instead of running around having the best time of my life, I would be overseeing campers while I can only reminisce about it. I never hesitated to come back, but I did not look forward to it quite as much as I had in the past. That year as I went through the process of interviews and questionnaires to prepare me for staff, I never thought about what made made being a counselor so great. But as the summer rolled around and I found myself back on the hillside once again, I immediately realized that being a staff member is all about giving the campers the best summer of their life, like my counselors did for me when I was young. I had to experience the atmosphere of being a counselor to realize what it meant. It was finally my turn to give back to camp, and I knew I had to do a great job considering how much camp did for me in the previous

Walking into the coffee shop where everyone else , including me now, confronts people in their lives and continues to discuss important topics. The decorations around me are plain and simplistic, nothing special about this place whatsoever. I wait patiently for my invite to show, mentally preparing myself for the conversation that I want to have so desperately. I think of the topics I want to bring up and the ones I want to focus on more than others. Nervously, I continue to wait and talk myself out of thinking that they wouldn’t show at all. A few minutes filled with deep breaths later, finally they’re here. I walk over to the table we agreed to meet at, and sat politely before greeting them and waiting for a response. I cleared my throat and looked at my lap, trying to refrain from saying anything I’d regret. Taking a deep breath, I tried to remain professional while addressing the topic. Finally, my attention was brought to the person seated in front of me, to the world in front of me. With all the courage I could muster I stared dead into its

The summer of 2016 was my first step in achieving that goal. I applied for Cross Roads’ Leader-in-Training (LIT) program and was admitted, staying for all 6 weeks of youth camp learning what it meant to be a counselor. It revealed a level of difficulty to the job I wasn’t aware of as a child. A super counselor makes sure he knows all of his camper’s names within an hour of meeting them; he understands how a group develops and how to guide a group in that process; he can help a child get over homesickness; most of all, he can give children the opportunity to grow as people and provide them the time of their lives.

When I was 5, my hands grew old and weary, tired of construction and calloused from work. Day after day after day, I would fashion new worlds and cultures out of little LEGO blocks. I worked fastidiously- creating tiny planes, guarded forts, and expansive cities that swept from one end of the carpet to the other. (I loved to make castles with booby-trapped moats and false walls and hidden entrances.)

For a majority of the twenty counselors, this was their first experience as a mentor. With this role, I was going into my eighth year in such a capacity. Knowing this gap of experience would lead to different viewpoints, I looked at opportunities to gain influence within the group. The Director of Operations traded a hierarchical chain of counselor command for a flat organizational model; thus, there would not be an opportunity for positional influence. I decided to repeat the process that had worked well for me in the past. I would not announce my expertise or use that to dominate conversations. Rather, I would give advice to fellow counselors when they asked for it and take charge when it was needed.

My eighth year at HoneyRock Camp was also my first as a counselor. I had gone as a camper for six years and a voluntary staff assistant the year before, but the experience of being a counselor was unlike anything I had ever done, and the opportunity to give back was invaluable. I wondered if I would have any ‘counselor moments’; ‘misplacing’ a camper, losing my temper, or other “human moments”.