Day number 2

Up again bright and early, and right to the dining hall. Everyone by this time was starting to recognize my voice. I never realized until this week how loud my voice really carried, but in a crowd like this, it was much needed. Everyone was out of the dining hall by 8:30, but this morning. I filled in as a relief mentor. I had two girls, and one was sneaky. She hung out with her boyfriend most of the time. We had to go back to the dorm, so she could change; let’s just say she was not dressed like a young lady should be. And just keeping up with the girls was tiring; the mentor I was filling in for had to take her other mentee to the airport to put on a plane back home. That young person could not handle being away from her parents even for 2 days. After lunch and when the mentor returned from the airport I explained all that I saw and suspected from this young person while I was filling in. I was extremely relieved to know the mentor already knew one of her mentees was up to no good. While the mentor was gone, the mentee girl told me in not so many words that she wanted to make a baby with her boyfriend, so we were on consistent BWP, or Baby Whosit Patrol. And although I found this amazing at the time, teenagers are not the same as I was 20 years ago. By the afternoon I went back to marshaling and other duties. Whenever the mentees were in there pods or STEM tracks, I was running around with my head cut off running errands. For lunch on this day, the menu was buffalo chicken sandwiches and grilled cheese; however since I was so frazeled or exhausted, perhaps both, I mixed up the entree items. So instead of saying Buffalo chicken sandwiches I would shout buffalo chese and Grilled chicken sandwiches. Of course, a male mentor who I didn’t know his name at the time, would come by to just mix me up. He was going through the line with the mentees. On one of his trips through a line near where I was standing he invited me over to eat with him and his students. I had no idea when I would be able to eat and thanked him; surprisingly just a few minutes later, I was relieved by another Marshall who had already eaten their lunch. Quickly grabbing food, I went in search for the male mentor to sit with him and his students. The cafeteria was very crowded with again not only our group but with several other large groups too. Most of the conversation centered around books and things we liked to do. At the time I didn’t have a way to read audio books as my income would not allow the purchase for a new Victore reader stream device. Very quickly the lunch period was over and I had to run off to be a Marshall again. I did learn that male mentors name was Joe. But didn’t know him from the other mentors named Joe, nor knew if he was the same from Saturday or Sunday.

Tuesday evening was the sports and recreation extravaganza activities that took place on a field that was out past the armory, so getting students and staff out and back took up much of the evening. Originally I had been assigned to the goalball station; sadly I did not get to participate, as I was pulled to go back to the campus and help with other tasks. After my third or fourth trip from the sports field to the campus, I stumbled upon the same male mentor Joe and his student, who had a heart condition. We were able to get a ride back to the campus in a van; by this time I could barely walk my feet and ankles were so swollen and painful. That was another late night, like all the others. Once all of the mentees were back in their dorms, groups of mentors hung out in the quad. And as long as I was not walking and sitting I didn’t care what I did. The evenings were very pleasant, not terribly hot or cold but a tad damp with a coolness in the air.

By this time in the week, there were people that I remember much more than others. One particular male mentor, Joe and I were running into each other randomly between activities, while I ran errands, in the cafeteria, and outside. Neither of us were trying to run into each other and most of the chance quick happenings were all accident. When I did remember to look for Joe, I was so busy; at this point he was the one person I had been able to get to know the most. At one point we exchanged cell phone numbers, I thought. When I gathered up enough courage to call, he had given me his home number, not his cell; so I just left a message he would later find after Youth Slam. I still didn’t put this Joe with the same Joe who I had met on Saturday, or the person who gave me the ziplock baggie, or had sat with to eat my first sit down meal thus far. I wasn’t worried about what we would or would not become; I knew I was having fun getting to know a nice person but had no expectations of the future. I did know that if he chose to continue to talk with me after Youth Slam Joe would make a great friend and I really wanted that.