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Girl scouts :)

This is one of those posts that is more for my benefit than anything. So it's long and confusing. But it does give an accurate representation of Girl Scouting!

So I just got back from running a one-night camp out for Girl Scouts. Our senior troop runs this campout every year for several troops of Brownie scouts(1st-2nd grade?) It was really tiring and fun.
We'd been planning this for weeks before, so yesterday we drove over to the camping site to set up our tents, about an hour before the brownies came.

When we got there, I was really excited because Lauren was there! Lauren is the coolest person in the whole world. XD She's really talented and funny and a good Christian, and sort of my role model. :P She hadn't been coming to meetings because of color guard, but she came to help out for a day.

Natalie(the troop vice-president), Joanne, Lauren, Tobin, and I were running the treasure hunt, which was one of the activity rotations(translation: we had to run the thing 4 times). The Brownies had to uncover puzzle clues to find a box of glow sticks. This was on the beach of a lake so everything was buried in the sand.

We quickly found out after the first "test rotation" that jigsaw puzzle clues were too easy, so they could figure it before actually putting the puzzle together. We quickly fixed that by making them put the puzzle together anyways, even if they already knew what it was. We spent like, an hour drawing those last meeting. They may as well appreciate it :P.

Also, we buried the clues in kind of a hurry, so in the first rotation we made two of the clues leading to each other so the first Brownies skipped two puzzles. ("And you call yourself a physics student." I said to Lauren. She was like >.>.)

We fixed that(rather quickly because we had about three seconds in between each rotation to re-bury everything) in order to face problem no. 2.

Brownies aren't known for their patience, and sometimes, when they couldn't figure out exactly where something was, they just went with unearthing every single thing in sight, thus screwing the treasure hunt.

One of the clues was a fishnet, which was hanging from the tree. They took a quick scan of the place, and ran to dig next tothe closest thing-the plastic anchor.
"ARGH! It says fishnet! Does that look like a fishnet to you?"I said, while Lauren quickly re-buried the anchor clue.

I can only imagine what went on inside their little 7 year old heads.

Hey! She said run for the FISHNET!  That's totally NOT a fishnet! (takes quick look around) O WOWZ! Look at that foam parrot???!!! Let's totally dig around there!

This was only our second rotation, and I was already all burned out, and I was like. "ARGH! DOES THAT LOOK LIKE A FISHNET TO YOU?"
And then one of the girls rolls her eyes and says "An-ger!"

>.>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And we're also not allowed to call each other by our real names when we're running Brownie events. Girl Scout tradition. We have camp "code" names which are acquired through years of girl scout experience, and our real names are supposed to be "secret" from the Brownies. They normally come from memorable events or personality traits. I'm "Pretzel" because I'm obsessed with pretzels.

Nicknames are always a source of fun stories for background information-Shelly(another girl)'s nickname was Submarine, because she sank a boat at a Girl Scout nautical event. It is a source of embarrassment because we're always making fun of it :P.

She said it beat her last name, which was(are you ready for this?)..Kronos.
........

She was worried about not having a camp name, when our troop ex-president was like: "Okay, quiet. Your name is Kronos."

We did assign a camp name this year, to Raksha, but it was "Minty." I guess she got it lucky.

I have such a hard time with these names.  I'm always calling Lauren "Lauren" even though she's supposed to be "Bunny." I was trying to call Rebecca, but I couldn't remember what her code name was, so I was like: "HEY! What's your name again?"
And she was like: "FAIL, Pretzel!"
And I was like: "Your name's Fail?"
And she was like: "NO! My name's Caterpillar(because of her green sleeping bag.)"
And I was like: "Your name's Fail."
And so I now call her Fail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After the rotations were over we ate(and served) dinner, did a campfire with songs and skits, and it was so much fun!
Songs and skits are an ESSENTIAL part of scouting, for girls AND boys. Girl Scout skits/songs and Boy Scout skits/songs are sometimes the same, or variants of each other.

It's kind of a unifying thing. It's really cool to see little kindergarten Daisy scouts and college-age Ambassador scouts singing the same silly lyric, or do the same silly dance, all without shame. There are classics that just never get old :P

Here's an example of the last verse of a Scout song, showing the variants between a Girl Scout and a Boy Scout version.

Boy Scouts:
Look at the moo-oose!(repeat)     
Swimming in the la-ake(repeat)
Drinking his ju-uice!(repeat)
Eating his sup-pa(repeat)
Where did he go-o?(repeat)
He's asleep.(repeat)

Look at the moo-oose!(repeat)
Floating in the la-ake(repeat)
No drink his jui-ice!(repeat)
No eat his sup-pa(repeat)
Where did he go-o?(repeat)
He's dead!

Girl Scouts(with a different tune and accompanying hand motions)
Daddy moose, daddy moose(repeat)
Swimming in the lake(repeat)
Eating his sup-pa!(repeat)
Where did he go?(repeat)
He went to sleep(repeat)
He went to sleep(repeat)

Dead moose, dead moose(repeat)
Floating in the lake(repeat)
NOT eating his sup-pa(repeat)
Where did he go?(repeat)
He decomposed.(repeat)
He decomposed(repeat)

See? They have basically the same theme: dead, sup-pa eating moose. Lauren wanted to add another line involving zombie moose.

And there are classic skits which every Girl Scout or Boy Scout should know. Go ask any Cadette Girl Scout or Eagle Scout about the "news reporter" skit. Or the "pencil" skit, or the "Is it time yet?" skit.

A lot of these skits are really old and classic. There's something magical about teaching a classic song like "Forty Years on an Iceberg" on to a young group of girls or performing a skit for a group of girls that have never seen it before. You're passing on the legacy! Maybe someday they'll be seniors and teach their own group of brownies.

~~~~~~~~~
Lauren had to go home. She didn't want to stay overnight because she wanted to be on time for church.

And then it was sleep-time. I was sharing a tent with six other girls....oh, goodness. Let's just say I TRIED to go to sleep at 11PM. I tried.

What everyone else did was talk about boys till 2PM while their captive audience(me) listened.

High school girls+douche boys=extreme drama=equals long, dramatic stories(mostly foreign to Christian and homeschooled people like me)=sleepless Amaranthine.

You may be thinking "Oh, drama and girls. Fun." But this was kind of weird, because in between the stories of competition for hot guys and locker vandalism, they kind of showed how real girls are. Like, I don't know, they seemed really sincere. They constantly talked about how they believed in true love, and how they believed that someday they'd find the person who was right for them. And the boys they really gushed over weren't the "hot" guys or the popular ones, but the gentlemen.

When they were talking about the "hot" guys, they were all grinning and rolling their eyes. But when one girl mentioned how her sister's boyfriend got on a plane and flew down here just so he could go to her winter formal, all smiles vanished and were replaced by a look of awe.  

"There's this one guy, and he's amazing", another girl said with a wondrous expression on  her face. "He treats his girlfriend like a princess. It's amazing."
"You just don't find guys like that anymore." said another.
"My boyfriend is like that"reflected another girl."He does that whole 'walk on the outside of the sidewalk' thing. I had to remind him to open doors for me("Hello-o? My door ain't open. Excuse me?)but he does it now."

They actually talked about religion, too. I think there was one other Christian in the tent..but I was trying to sleep and wasn't looking at them. There was one Jewish person, one Hindu person, some atheists..and this Persian-religion(I don't remember the name) person.

Maybe you're like "AMARANTHINE! This is your chance! Witness to them!"
But it was 2 in the morning, and I was like..."gnuhhhhh..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's sort of the other side of Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts is all about diversity, and tolerance and non-judgmental. Those are good, but it's also the reason why some Christians would rather send their daughters to Indian Princesses or American Heritage Girls.

If you're not a Scout, it looks like the last remnants of morality are being swept out of the scouting programs..  A copy of the Girl Scout Promise(which includes the word God) in the Girl Scout Handbook had this paragraph-long “footnote” which was like “The Girl Scouts of the USA do not attempt to define the word “God”...etc.etc. etc.” It was longer than the Promise itself. (I showed the “paragraph long attempt to be politically correct” to my friend and she was like, “fail.” And she’s an atheist.)

And yes, we still do use the COMPLETE Pledge of Allegiance, at least for now.


But it’s so hard to be critical of Scouting when the program is like, my life. :P Some of my happiest memories are with my Girl Scout friends.

For someone who’s been at home all her life, it’s given me more experience with diversity.  I had only Christian friends before I joined Girl Scouts, but two of my best Girl Scout friends are atheists. Is that okay? But they’re the nicest people ever! I actually invited one of them to church, and she came! I pray for them all the time!

But when I think about Girl Scouts, I don’t ever remember about feeling uncomfortable with people of other faiths or beliefs. I just remember things like Tobin and Lauren having a heated argument about Mary Poppins causing global warming while passing out napkins to a bunch of bewildered brownies. Or the time Lauren and Rae and other girls and I took a hike through a cloud and we pretended we were walking to Mount Olympus to have a feast.  That was when we were on a campout that Lauren planned. We talked and laughed about Monty Python and the science of colors and all sorts of Greek myths. Or the time Rebecca and I tore through her house looking for shoe boxes to make at a Brownie playdate we were organizing. Or the time....well, you get the idea.

Like I said, this is just me. I don’t know what to make of anything. But I do know that Girl Scouts is one of the best things that I’ve done. I love it. <3. I’ve learned so much cool stuff. And of course not all of the people there are nice. But no more or no less than you would find in your average Christian private school. And the people there of different faiths are a lot nicer then some of the so called “Christian” girls I know.

I think Girl Scouts is a good place to get exposed to different ideas and learn to become a leader. It’s all about finding the right troop and right leader. I had a terrible troop when I first joined, but we merged with a different troop and now I’m all right. There are a lot of awful troops out there, but I was lucky and found an awesome one.  <3 I’m “working” toward my Gold Award now.

Shout out to Rae, Rebecca, and Alyssa, Kaitlyn(Troop president!), and all the other awesome girls in Troop 887!   And especially to you, Lauren. :P I’ve been really blessed by you guys.

Lauren and Tobin are the only ones eligible for troop Vice Presidency next year. They’re going to have to thumb wrestle for it.


Here’s a picture from our hike/campout through the cloud. I barred Alyssa's face but I don't think Lauren minds.







It was seriously like a cloud. It was so foggy, we couldn't see anything. Which was probably good, because we were REALLY high up on a steep cliff and the trail was really narrow. Here we are super exhausted because the hike was six miles and steep and NEVER SEEMED TO END.

Here’s a link to Lauren’s deviantart account. Isn’t she a good artist????? And she's funny. Aww, and she even posted a picture of me! And more pictures from our hike! :P

http://shatterglass1.deviantart.com/


Comments

  1. It sounds like you had a ton of fun!

    I've known a lot of people in Girl Scouts through my growing up years. I was never involved in it, though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW that was a long post. xD

    my brothers are in boyscouts/cubscouts. It's practically part of my life since they've been doing it for over 6 years.

    And our troop since the moose song like this.

    Da moose, da moose, swimming in the water, eating his supper, where did he go? Where did he go? He went to sleep, he went to sleep.

    I can't remember the rest of it. xD

    I was brownies for like....a year. Then they closed the troop or whatever because our leader was an idiot who thought it was okay to meet in the back room of a bar when it was closed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Endero
    Aww! I bet you bought our cookies though. ;)

    @Qui
    XD Seriously? Like I said, there are a lot of CRAZY leaders and troops out there. I didn't know you had brothers! you should totally post about them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. YOU GUYS KNOW DA MOOSE?!?!?!?! :D :D :D :D

    ReplyDelete
  5. That was a really cool post. ;) I laughed, and it sounded like lots of fun!!!! I used to be a Girl Scout. ;) My mom was our Leader, but when our troop disentigrated and died, Chibi and I stopped doing it. My mom doesn't like that the moral values of Girl Scouts has been eliminated, like saying God in the girl scout promise (which I think I still remember.... :P) and having to make everything so 'politically correct'. ;)

    The song is hilarious btw. I liked the girl version and the boy version. XDD I laughed so hard. ;) LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  6. That sounds like so much fun! =D I love camp outs and hiking. My younger brother is in boy scouts, so I almost know what it would feel like to be in girls scouts. :)

    My brother's troop sang a song called There Was a Crazy Moose. It went like this:

    There was a crazy moose! (repeat)

    Who liked to drink a lot of juice (repeat)

    The moose's name was Fred (repeat)

    He liked to drink his juice in bed (repeat)

    Singing Way-Oh-Way-Oh! (repeat)

    Way-up-way-up-way-up-way-up! (repeat)

    ....

    It went on and on to where he drowned in the bath tub and came back alive. xD

    <3
    Rachel

    ReplyDelete
  7. Maybe I will. :) I have 3 younger siblings. I'll do a family post tomorrow maybe. Since i haven't talked much about them.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Migillicutty-Yes!! Haha!
    @Jedi~Chick-Aww! Disintigrated troops are common though. My first terrible troop merged with a good troop but all the other girls left so I'm the last remnant of the first troop. :) We still say God in the promise.
    @Rachel-Yes, that's a different moose song.XD We sing that one to. Did you ever sing the one about the invincible cat who never died?
    @Qui-Yesh. XD

    ReplyDelete
  9. *sniff* I always wanted to be a scout. I still do, in fact. They never had a big enough group though. Now that I'm in 9th going into 10th, there's no girls at all in the older part of Girl Scouts. But sounds like you really enjoy it!!

    -Leia <3 =)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Haha, the cookies were a big part of my growing up years, too. ;)
    But, after my favorite cookies were discontinued (the half chocolate/half vanilla cookie....I think....with the animals), I got mad. I don't think we ever bought Girl Scout cookies again. LOL!

    I just realized.....I don't know any more Girl Scouts. They've all graduated.

    ReplyDelete

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