It's that time of the year, folks!

ARE

YOU

READY

TO

STRESS CAMP?!

the short answer, is no. well, yes and no. mentally i'm prepared, and that's a fact. i'm excited to go, but i think that shows more that i'm delusional and have a short memory than anything else. every year after stress camp, i wonder what would have posessed me to lead such a thing, and i have serious doubts about doing it again. but by the time october rolls around, all i remember is that it rained a little, and we were exhausted.

if memory serves me, it poured last time, we hiked for 14 hours straight, we slept in puddles on the trail, and upon returning i was so exhausted i slept at 6pm the night i returned and didn't wake up until about 10am the next morning. but i do remember that it was a great time, the kids were awesome, and i learned a ton about me and developed some real, lasting friendships. so there's that.

stress camp starts tomorrow, which means that i should really be home eating and looking over my "must pack" list that is somewhere. if i don't have something at this point, i'm basically stuck without it, since it's 7pm the night before, so i'm not really in a rush. as per usual, the forcast is rain for the next 4 days straight. at some point i expect to become bitter and cynical about this, but right now i'm excited to try out my newest rain gear, and see how warm i stay at night in my new sleeping bag (thanks, cam!). since i've been working in japan i've gone on 4 long hikes: stress camp twice (4 days) summer death hike of '05 (5 days), and summer fun hike of '06 (3 days). every single time, without exception, it has rained. the only variance is the amount or type of rain- 2 were raging typhoons, and 2 were just bad weather. the forcast for the next 4 days has gotten progressively worse- from partly cloudy monday and a clear week, to what it is now- 4 days of solid, unrelenting, rain.

well, as i learned from calvin and hobbes, this sounds suspiciously like an attempt to build character...


pray.