Once again, it is difficult to have nicknames for every person you encounter on a trip. Real first names will be used once again, and likely for the last time this summer. Doesn't that just make you all teary-eyed?
I have been to BigStuf twice now (2003 and 2005), and it was AWESOME both times. I would recommend it to anyone at my church or any other youth group. It is a growing camp, as I noticed that they did eight weeks of camps in 2003 (1500 people per camp) and eleven camps in 2005. That means in two years, 4500 more people were attending the camp. I do this stuff for fun, you know. o.O So, basic information on the camp. It is held in Panama City, Florida, in a hotel right on the beach. Each camp lasts five days (as I said, this year they had eleven, we went to the last in both 2003 and 2005). They have awesome music, awesome speakers, awesome guests, and awesome students there. They call it, [appropriately], the ultimate camp experience.
Monday-Tuesday (Trip)
So, let's begin. The trip to Panama City, Florida from Rocky Mount, NC, lasted around 16 hours. Yah, long ride. I actually got bored on this one, guys... on the trip there, at least. We left at around 10 pm, on the 25th. Of course, to start off, everyone is crazy. We all know we are TRAPPED on a bus for the next 14 hours, at least. There are varying ways of coping. Some instantly go to sleep, but many are a bit too excited. Some put on their headphones and become oblivious to their surroundings (that was me). Some talked to their nearby friends for a while. I even noticed some decided to video tape their trip. Given, not the entire trip, but entries every here and there. So, we are driving to Greenville first to pick up another youth group, St. James, that is going with us. When they get in, the bus is FULL. I am in a seat with Nathaniel beside me, and Parker and Harrison are in front of me. Then we go on to Winterville, where we pick up Covenant Church. They are in a separate bus, thankfully. Now, neither of the two groups we were carrying along had ever been to BigStuf, so that made us feel all special inside. Not really. Anyway, around two in the morning, people began to calm down and go to sleep. Then around seven, people began to wake up. However, everyone was still asleep really until eleven, when things got a little loud again. This was Tuesday by the way, if you haven't figured that yet. We went through the time change and set our clocks back around 3 in the afternoon (umm... I think it was four before we reset our clocks). Anyway, in one of the crazier moments of the trip, there was this guy.
Umm... if an expanation is necessary for that picture, then I apologize, for there is none. He just, you know, mutated all of a sudden... he thought it was funny for some reason...... poor guy.
Sometime on the trip, I also helped answer a kid's question about Bible versions, although I can't exactly remember the question or the answer. I think he wanted to know how they could be different and all be God's word. I mentioned that all the versions of the Bible were translated from Hebrew, and that was the version from which all our English versions originate. On a... less religious note, as we neared Panama City, Nathaniel, Parker, and Harrison began to argue over who gets the bunk beds. I stayed out of it, and ended up pretty well off in the end, lol. We'll get to that when we get to that. When we were still in the swamps, they began an alphabet game. You know, one of those travel games where you get the letters in the alphabet in order. The thing about that was, they started IN THE SWAMPS. There was a sign about every quarter mile, but other than that, they had no words to go on. I, of course, pointed this out, and was promptly told to shut up. Anyway, Nathaniel disputably won, and I helped him when I could. When we did finally get to Panama City, it still took us an annoyingly long time to get to the hotel. Harrison began a countdown, but stopped any time he realized we were not yet near. The countdown ended on time, but...
Tuesday (@ BigStuf)
Anyway, when we got there, we had to wait to be registered and get our rooms. While we waited, a guy presumably from the BigStuf staff came on the bus and asked us to be as crazy as possible and took a video. He told us we were a 10, the first one of the summer, but I find that hard to believe somehow. We were crazy, but compared to some hundreds of other churches, well... idk. Once we parked, Parker and Harrison rushed of to the room (apparently a leader told them where it was) and Nathaniel and I took a bit longer to find it. When we did get there, Parker and Harrison had claimed the bunks. This REALLY bothered Nathaniel. Yet, I think we (all four of us) enjoy arguing. After much debate, and I don't recall when we came to this decision, Harrison decided to sleep in his dad's bed, Parker slept on the top bunk, Nathaniel slept on the bottom bunk, and I slept in the second queen bed alone (WINNER!!). I tried to get the Xbox out of the way of the rest of my stuff and hook it up, but couldn't get the cable out of the tv. So, it sat there for a while. Meanwhile, we went to dinner and had pizza. We hung out after that, and the other guys (you can guess who by now) played baseball a bit. That is, they played catch. Turns out, four girls on the second floor notice and start talking to us through writing down on paper and putting it to the window. They were really talking to Harrison, whose name they got, but also mentioned "Green" (Dixon, he was wearing a green shirt) and "Eyes" (Nathaniel... I think they liked his eyes, although how they could decide that from the second floor I do not know). Heh, I think they also threw a few water baloons at us (and missed) and videotaped us. Heh heh... one other thing happened to Nathaniel, but I do not believe he would appreciate my mentioning it... oh well. Parker happened to throw one ball and hit Nathaniel square on the head. Ouch. Anyway, after a while, we went to the first session. The sessions involve music, speakers, and guests; basically, the sessions are bigstuf. Everyone was extremely excited waiting outside the session room. When the doors finally open, it is a mad rush to get in and get the best seats possible. As soon as you enter you are knocked down by awesome [loud] music, an amazing stage setup, the little bits of scenery around the ceiling, and the sheer size of the room itself. The first night, the stage was just one [gigantic] screen, with a pretty cool icon moving around on it that said, predictably, BigStuf 2005. One song they played as people came in was from Blue Man Group! That was awesome. I was probably just about the only one to recognize it. The famous countdown began, and when it reached zero (trust me, by that time things were loud) the screen rolled up, and the curtains in front of the main stage fell to the sides. The band rushed out and began playing immediately. Now, these pictures are actually from the second session, but who cares, the stage didn't really change between sessions, just what they showed on the [nine, eleven including the two ceiling projectors] screens.
The main stage
I took several pics of the main screen, but this is the best one. Actually, there are a few others, but I'll save them for their proper session. Anyway, after maybe a couple songs from the band, Lanny Donoho (Head Honcho of BigStuf, author of God's Blogs, aka "Mr. BigStuf") came out every session and threw BigStuf frisbees out to the crowd. I believe we ended up with a couple, one we caught and one we found, by the end of the week. He told us that we were the most enthusiastic group of the week, a hard statement to believe, though we were pretty excited. He also made a phone call the first session, where you could hear what the person was saying and they could hear the crowd. The first phone call he called someone's parents who were celebrating their anniversary. Interestingly enough, the area code was 757, which is eastern Virginia. Also, the parents were named John and Sherill, interesting because the pastor at our old church was John, and his wife was Sherill. However, they fo not live in Virginia, and do not have a son. After a few more songs from the band, one of two speakers came out. I don't remember their names, but they were pretty cool. I DO remember that one of them was Doug. Yes, I would remember that. Other than that, no clue. The topic of this year was "Illusions." Basically, it was about illusions that confuse us when we are trying to make decisions. As much as I want to go, grab my notes, and put them all on the site... well... GO TO BIGSTUF NEXT YEAR. The speakers and the topics were awesome. My week there even inspired the latest deeperthinking post (-> Moving Along ->). After the speaker was done, the band played a few more songs and then we left. We then went to Lee's room, where we had a brief meeting and then went our own ways. Nathaniel and Parker went to throw a frisbee, and I believe Harrison went to the pool. Pics!
You could see it better on the camera itself, but there is a faint outline of Nathaniel in this pic, due to some effect of the flash.
Just thought this looked cool.
I left Nathaniel and Parker to have their fun and went to look for Harrison. I didn't find him, but I did run into Lee and Mr. Boudreau (apologies if that is wrong). We went to the store for a bit and then wandered back to the room and bought a pizza on our way there. After a little while we went to bed.
Random Pics!
This was the condo... next to us. It kind of dwarfed our cottage of sorts.
This was where we stayed. Our rooms were behind the black van, on the first floor.
This was our room. I had the queen bed further away.
This is one of the two pools that were available at BigStuf.
This is where we had meals. That's Harrison trying to get in the way of the picture.
Inside the meal area. It was pretty crowded usually.
Wednesday
Wednesday was basically a normal day, that is, as normal as BigStuf can be. We got up, took showers, had breakfast at the meal area, and went on to the morning session after a bit. The same deal with the session, except this one was the one I took pictures of. Actually, I took a few other pictures later, but these were the main ones. Very few of them were good, because, though they looked good on the camera, the ones I took without flash look blurry on the computer. Nonetheless, here are a few more.
The main screen again, this time with someone in the way.
This is another look at how they used the screens. They had several layouts that used all nine screens, and a few, such as this one, that didn't.
This is basically how the screen looked when the speaker was talking.
Here is a closeup of one of the speakers... I know it's blurry, but at least the camera had a zoom function.
This is our group. If you can't match names with faces, just don't worry about it.
Well, I'm still holding back a few pics of the main screen, but their time will come. After the speaker they had a magician of sorts come in. This being a Christian camp, he didn't call it magic, but to fit with the theme, he did "Illusions." They were pretty cool, though a few were, well, less than amazing. (A few were not meant to be) After that the session ended, so we went to lunch. After lunch, we went jet skiing. We, meaning Nathaniel, Parker, Harrison, and I. Actually, I didn't drive, but I did get a discount for just riding. Nathaniel and Parker traded off driving, and Harrison drove ours for the 30 minutes we were alotted. That was pretty fun. After that, we went swimming, and played some version of frisbee; adults versus kids. Basically, you just try to pass it to friendlies. After that, Nathaniel decided to try and hook up the xbox himself. He had to use my pliers, but he got the cable out. I hooked up the xbox and we played Battlefront for a while.
Yep, you guessed it, we went to Florida and played xbox.
Then we went and had dinner, and went to the evening session. I believe it was at the evening session that Lanny actually interviewed one of our chaperones, Harrison's mom. That was quite interesting, and actually both Nathaniel and I filmed it on our digital cameras. Unfortunately, I know of no way to post videos (and don't want to waste time looking for a way), so I took pictures too.
I believe at this point she was singing, actually. As a matter of fact, she was picked to be interviewed because of her singing, and then they asked her to sing alone.
Another picture, this time without flash. Interesting... it always seems brighter without flash...
And here is a picture of the interview. I didn't notice at the time, but the shirt Lanny is wearing is actually the shirt I bought. It says "Surf Atlanta." Butofcourse, who would (or could) surf in Atlanta? It's an illusion, to fit in with the week's theme. As a matter of fact, that is actually the shirt I'm wearing right now...
After the session, we went back to our rooms, played a little video games, and went to bed around midnight.
Thursday
Ok, Thursday morning Lee comes into our room and, even though I was [fully] awake and staring at him, bashes all of us with a pillow to get us up. When we did get up, Harrison quickly went and stole Dixon's room key so we could get revenge on him later. But on with the day! We had breakfast as usual and then went to the morning session... as usual.... The session was awesome... as... usual..., though I couldn't tell you everything that everybody did and said. I can tell you, however, that we were in the front row. As such, pics of the front row!
The front row, of course.
This is one of the screens before the session started.
These are a couple of the band members. I know it's dark, but it was dark with the flash and fuzzy without.
The band. We were in the front row, but people were sitting in front of us and standing up for music.
Another picture of the band... and the video guy.
This is the last one of the band I swear.
Lanny Donoho, Mr. Bigstuf, whatever. No idea why this picture was so clear compared to the ones of the band.
Lanny again, this time throwing frisbees.
After the...... usual...... session stuff, they did interviews with a few of the band members as the leaders had a meeting. We were let out pretty late, and went straight to lunch. On the way to lunch, someone said "Is that BLOOD in the water??" It was red algae. A lot of red algae. We went swimming anyway though, but Harrison and Parker avoided Nathaniel and I for the most part because, well, Parker hates me. After swimming, we played a little video games, had dinner, played a little video games, and went to quiet time. After quiet time, we had another session. Nothing I took pictures of this time, though I assure you it was awesome.
After the session, we had a meeting. At the meeting, one thing of note happened. We had been discussing "what is the wise thing to do?" in sessions. So, when everyone noticed a crab by the pool during the meeting, Lee cleverly said "that crab is about to make an unwise decision" just befor the crab took a few more steps and plunked into the pool. That was hilarious. Here are a few pics, though they have nothing to do with the crab.
People sitting before the meeting. Exciting, I know.
The meeting....
An interesting shirt. If you can't read it (please tell me you can), it says "What the [] is a Hokie?" Assuming that you can't read the finer print, especially if you couldn't read the large print, the date on the shirt is Nov. 16, 1989. The shirt is older than this kid! Putting age aside, A HOKIE IS A TURKEY THANKYOUVERYMUCH.
After the meeting, we went to bed. I tried to wake up Nathaniel in the morning so we could take our revenge, but he was so clueless he had no idea what I was talking about. I gave up trying to wake him up.
Friday
Friday morning I got out of the bed to avoid Lee when he came in with the pillow. After he woke up everyone else, we went to breakfast. After breakfast, we had morning session. Random pics between breakfast and session.
Rachel's famous evil look, with smile.
Waiting for the session.
More waiting for the session. We did a lot of that.
Ok, so this is during the session. Whatever. Anyway, this is Greyson and Hannah, and from what I hear, neither would not have survived if the other had not come.
It was that session, I believe, when they did a presentation for Compassion. Compassion is a program that allows you to pay a certain amount of money per month to sponsor a child. After the presentation, Nathaniel decided to sponsor someone (what a GOOD PERSON). Actually, I think he had already picked someone out at that point. Anyway, he made me come with him to fill out the form and we were late for lunch, I know that much.
One of the Compassion tables.
We just went back to the room instead of lunch, because the line was so long... I think Nathaniel had a snack, but I wasn't that hungry. We went to the pool for a little while after "lunch" (or lack therof). I played KOTOR II (Knights Of The Old Republic II, all you non-gamer peoples) for a while, and then we went out to dinner. We went to Schooner's, the "Last Local Beach Club." At least, I think that was their motto. We had a limited menu, being such a large group, but it was good food. A few of the guys threw a frisbee and a football around behind the restaurant for a while, and we went back to the hotel after we all finished dinner.
The stage at Schooner's, they had live music for a little while.
Another table from our group at Schooner's.
Lee taking a picture of me taking a picture of Lee taking... well, you get the picture. He didn't realize I had taken the picture when I did because the flash was off. After I took it he just said "ok, three, two, one..."
Parker and Nathaniel throwing a frisbee outside.
Schooner's from the outside.
Throwing a football after dinner.
We went to the night session as soon as we got back.
I told you we waited a lot. Does anyone else notice a strange glow around the Duke hat? Ten points to the one that makes the best Duke joke on that one.
At the last night session, they had a lot more music at the end, as usual. I was about to scream when they started the Lifehouse song, I LOVE THAT SONG. "Everything," from No Name Face, if you're wondering. I think I was one of a select few that recognized it. No one buys albums these days, they just make mix cds of the "best" songs. But not me, NEVER! Anyway, I stayed until they finished (a few people left to get some sleep) and had an awesome time as usual. I bought a shirt afterward (once again, the one I am wearing, even though the other time I said that was like a week ago), and got back to the room asap. I packed up as best as I could, and we went to bed. I tried to wake up Nathaniel again because he got mad at me the morning before for not forcing him to wake him up. Lol, he still wouldn't get up. I shook him for a while trying to get a response other than "uhhhh" or "so?" After a while, I gave up and started to go back to sleep. He finally said "oh!" as I was lying down, and then, "give me just a minute and I'll get up." My only response was "no you won't, you'll go back to sleep!" Neither of us said anything else.
Saturday
The next morning, the first thing Nathaniel said was "I just realized what happened last night!" Maybe I should have tried to wake up Harrison instead... Anyway, the first thing we did Saturday morning was pack the bus. We had breakfast after that, and went to the morning session. The morning session on Saturday was different, because a lot of groups were gone, and it was kind of just like an unnecessary addition to everything else we had done. We played with balloons, did different stuff, you know. After that session, we went straight to the bus and pulled out. Lol, we were kind of still in a good mood for the first part of the trip home...
Yeah, we played with balloons.
I do have more pictures of the balloons, and a video actually, but just one picture gives you the idea. Slowly the balloons died, one by one, and things calmed down. After a while most of us got tired of being on a bus. For most of the people on the trip, the bus ride home was the worst part of the week. Personally, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
This is Barton. Barton sat with me on the trip home. Barton also had no idea I was taking this picture and was nearly blinded when I did. Poor Barton.
On the trip home, I realized one thing, that I could talk to people. That, if I could be around those that had no false portrait to go by, I could show myself to people. I really wanted to come back home and be that way around everyone, but that seems more difficult that I had hoped. It seems to me that people are satisfied with the portrait they have of me. They don't want it to be put aside, as much as I want it to be. I just want to be comfortable around people, and for some reason that is difficult here. That is a topic for deeperthinking though. The trip back home really was deeperthinking though. I was happy with myself more than I had been in a long time. I talked to people I didn't know more easily than I had in years, and I knew that was a part of who I am, and that I had suppressed this part of me for years. Anyway, the trip home was fun because I thought. And, for once, it was not interfering thoughts, thoughts that make me hesitate to speak. We got home very late. Dad drove Rachel and I home, and we went to bed.
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