Stand-Up America
Quote of the moment:
Too many to mention here, so they're scattered throughout. For humour value now, I went the whole shift yesterday night with my flies undone under my apron. D'oh!
I went to the Camp America Orientation meeting this evening in the University of London Union. It was ok: rather long, at 3 hours, but I was sitting next to a rather captivating young lady called Natalia (no russian accent, Jim) who's a first year economics student at the College of St Hild and St Bede at Durham University. In addition to that recompense, the guy taking it was quite a jester. He started off by making the 4 others with him (1 guy and 3 girls) introduce themselves - they're all Camp America employees who started off going on the programme themselves. When it got to him, he deadpanned the classic:
"Hi, I'm Alan and I'm an alcoholic."
Following that stirling start, he explained that he was from Brooklyn and thus spoke like a Hollywood gangster:
"I live on thoighty-thoist and thoid street."
Apparently this is rife amoung kids in camps around New York and may well be contagious, leading to counsellors returning home talking like this. Argh!
We (about 300 students) were split into 6 groups to come up, between ourselves, with a spokesperson, 4 questions for them to ask and a song for us to sing one verse & chorus of! We chose Is this the way to Amarillo?, naturally. I'm pretty sure the guy who nominated himself as loudmouth spokesman was about 5 ahead of me at the Camp Director's Fair. Anyway, the groups had to sing their song before sending up their spokesperson to the microphone, then Alan took the questions and got supplementary questions from his panel of 4. Some of his answers were quite entertaining:
On what to pack, the subject wandered from insect repellants to dealing with animals. The worst threat is apparently skunks! Snakes etc are rare, especially in the north where I am, but skunks can make their targets stink for at least 2 weeks: not great for counsellors, highly detrimental to campers enjoying their summer as it ends to lead to them being avoided by everyone. If the tail goes up the advice is to run, picking up kids on the way if necessary!
On visas:
"The DS157 is the 'are you a terrorist?' form, and is only for men. For some reason the Pentagon thinks girls can't be terrorists! Prove the sexists wrong, girls: blow something up!"
On the wandered-off subject of communicating with Americans:
"This programme's purpose is to make Americans aware that there are other countries like theirs. Otherwise if we aren't bombing it, we don't know about it!"
Some classic communication difficulties:
"If you ask for fags, you get the Village People!"
"If you tell your boys to put on their jumpers, they'll think you want them to wear girls skirts!"
"I had a British girl running the art and crafts, who put on her supplies request form '50 rubbers'. I thought she was planning some weird sex education piece!"
"If you get mad at an American colleague, you should call them a wanker. That word doesn't exist in the U.S. vocabulary, so they have been known to say thank you!"
On the topic of improving international relations, on Alan's first year of being a counsellor the British counsellors, having put up with the (good natured) teasing leading up to Independance Day on the 4th of July, decided to take their revenge on the day. They got up at 6am, raised a Union Jack (prepared in the art and crafts room) on the flag pole, cut the rope and greased the pole so it couldn't be removed. They then took over the camp radio, renamed it the BBC and read out a 'Royal Proclamation' declaring the reclaiming of the colonies and the resurrection of the British Empire, then spent at all breaks for the rest of the day marched around the camp singing Rule Britannia!
When the Trek America rep came on to do his bit before the 'travelling afterwards' questions, he said that when he started repping over here he told two girls who ignored him, in the normal American way:
"Fine, blow me off then!"
It was only afterwards that he found out what this meant over here, and then had to do a presentation with them sitting in the front row. He asked everyone to guess where he's from. In America he got mistaken for a Californian surfer because of his long blonde hair. Over here people thought he was Australian for the same reason, but with the added justification that his Mid-American accent is actually quite Aussie. He went on to talk about what his tours were like (cheap bumming in a minibus, sleeping in tents) using the example of one that passed through Las Vegas. He then says:
"If you want to pick up a bigger souvenir..."
...while putting up a slide of a couple outside a 24hr wedding chapel!
Too many to mention here, so they're scattered throughout. For humour value now, I went the whole shift yesterday night with my flies undone under my apron. D'oh!
I went to the Camp America Orientation meeting this evening in the University of London Union. It was ok: rather long, at 3 hours, but I was sitting next to a rather captivating young lady called Natalia (no russian accent, Jim) who's a first year economics student at the College of St Hild and St Bede at Durham University. In addition to that recompense, the guy taking it was quite a jester. He started off by making the 4 others with him (1 guy and 3 girls) introduce themselves - they're all Camp America employees who started off going on the programme themselves. When it got to him, he deadpanned the classic:
"Hi, I'm Alan and I'm an alcoholic."
Following that stirling start, he explained that he was from Brooklyn and thus spoke like a Hollywood gangster:
"I live on thoighty-thoist and thoid street."
Apparently this is rife amoung kids in camps around New York and may well be contagious, leading to counsellors returning home talking like this. Argh!
We (about 300 students) were split into 6 groups to come up, between ourselves, with a spokesperson, 4 questions for them to ask and a song for us to sing one verse & chorus of! We chose Is this the way to Amarillo?, naturally. I'm pretty sure the guy who nominated himself as loudmouth spokesman was about 5 ahead of me at the Camp Director's Fair. Anyway, the groups had to sing their song before sending up their spokesperson to the microphone, then Alan took the questions and got supplementary questions from his panel of 4. Some of his answers were quite entertaining:
On what to pack, the subject wandered from insect repellants to dealing with animals. The worst threat is apparently skunks! Snakes etc are rare, especially in the north where I am, but skunks can make their targets stink for at least 2 weeks: not great for counsellors, highly detrimental to campers enjoying their summer as it ends to lead to them being avoided by everyone. If the tail goes up the advice is to run, picking up kids on the way if necessary!
On visas:
"The DS157 is the 'are you a terrorist?' form, and is only for men. For some reason the Pentagon thinks girls can't be terrorists! Prove the sexists wrong, girls: blow something up!"
On the wandered-off subject of communicating with Americans:
"This programme's purpose is to make Americans aware that there are other countries like theirs. Otherwise if we aren't bombing it, we don't know about it!"
Some classic communication difficulties:
"If you ask for fags, you get the Village People!"
"If you tell your boys to put on their jumpers, they'll think you want them to wear girls skirts!"
"I had a British girl running the art and crafts, who put on her supplies request form '50 rubbers'. I thought she was planning some weird sex education piece!"
"If you get mad at an American colleague, you should call them a wanker. That word doesn't exist in the U.S. vocabulary, so they have been known to say thank you!"
On the topic of improving international relations, on Alan's first year of being a counsellor the British counsellors, having put up with the (good natured) teasing leading up to Independance Day on the 4th of July, decided to take their revenge on the day. They got up at 6am, raised a Union Jack (prepared in the art and crafts room) on the flag pole, cut the rope and greased the pole so it couldn't be removed. They then took over the camp radio, renamed it the BBC and read out a 'Royal Proclamation' declaring the reclaiming of the colonies and the resurrection of the British Empire, then spent at all breaks for the rest of the day marched around the camp singing Rule Britannia!
When the Trek America rep came on to do his bit before the 'travelling afterwards' questions, he said that when he started repping over here he told two girls who ignored him, in the normal American way:
"Fine, blow me off then!"
It was only afterwards that he found out what this meant over here, and then had to do a presentation with them sitting in the front row. He asked everyone to guess where he's from. In America he got mistaken for a Californian surfer because of his long blonde hair. Over here people thought he was Australian for the same reason, but with the added justification that his Mid-American accent is actually quite Aussie. He went on to talk about what his tours were like (cheap bumming in a minibus, sleeping in tents) using the example of one that passed through Las Vegas. He then says:
"If you want to pick up a bigger souvenir..."
...while putting up a slide of a couple outside a 24hr wedding chapel!
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