July 19, 1999.

Gah.

I feel so horrendously sick it's not even funny. If I was shy last session, I'm dead this one. Funny thing is that I'm not really on any committees this session...one decided not to meet & the other thought that too many members would be a liability...and with the way I feel right now, I'm not hopping to sign up for anything new.

We got our warm fuzzies last night (each counselor writes something nice about every other counselor). Mine were pretty impersonal, as you can imagine: "you're really good with your kids," "great idea in meetings," even "your enthusiasm was appreciated"(!!!). Like I mentioned, my demeanor puts people off, but I'm trying not to let it bother me this week. My mantra is something Agamemnon once said: "you can't like everybody, and everybody can't like you." Things do seem a bit better this session with the counselors, though. Some of the people I'd given up on are becoming friendlier...I guess they're like me in that they need time to become used to strangers before they can really warm up to them.

My new kids are whiners. This may be a problem. Right now I answer questions as cheerfully as I can, but sarcasm will creep in there unannounced, and then the mood will quickly go downhill. When a question is straight, sarcasm is funny...when a question is whined out, sarcasm is just aggravating. Sigh.

Oh, and Codygirl seems to have decided that she doesn't really want to participate in anything. I'm not sure if this is shyness or just surliness. Either way, she spends a lot of time frowning in disbelief. They're not a very cheerful bunch as a whole, but Codygirl takes the triple-chocolate cake...at least today.

Oh yeah, and I have a problem eater. It's not her fault, though. She's allergic to pollen, chocolate, milk, MSG, food colouring, eggs and corn. You wouldn't believe how many foods that rules out. The cafeteria is tearing their hair out already...they're used to feeding us meat-filled slop with no concern for nutrition. The veggies are going a bit crazy this month...and it's much easier to cook veggie than it is to avoid milk & corn.

My neck hurts.

And my hound hath no nose.

But we'll see how I feel after an afternoon nap.

Og. My little allergy girl is becoming a problem (thus we shall call her Allergia from now on). She's 9, and because of her food situation her parents have been providing all of her food all of the time. So she's not used to taking care of her own needs and vocalizing when she's hungry. Plus, she's not good at telling me what foods she won't eat just because she doesn't like them. At dinner yesterday I found out that she's allergic to peanut butter as well as everything else...and she won't eat tofu or beans or tomatoes.

Tonight's dinner was a beautiful case study in frustration. She eats like a savage (i.e. gnawing on roast beef with both hands holding a hunk of meat to her mouth and eating everything else off the end of her fork), so I tried to encourage her to use her knife. This, of course, made her sulk. Plus, the girl got 0 protein at lunch & breakfast, so I strongly encouraged her to eat one little piece of tofu in the specially-prepared meal. After doing so, she promptly lost interest in the entire meal. I promised to make her a ham sandwich later so she wouldn't miss the evening activity, and she agreed rather listlessly. So of course she bursts into tears during the activity, sobbing that she's hungry and her shoes hurt.

It's just so frustrating, not because she needs special foods, but that she won't help me take care of her even a little bit. Her problems become crises before I know that anything is wrong. As Davies said, she has been labeled 'delicate,' and that's the recipe for a tyrant.

Case in point: last night all my girls were in one room after I'd left for the nightly counselor meeting. When confronted by night patrol, Allergia responded that it was okay because she's an insomniac.

Grr.

That episode in particular makes it hard for me to like my cabin right now. I presumed on the trust I placed in my girls last session and got shown up as a stupid twat. I'm angry at myself more than any of them, but a little resentment persists in spilling over to the girls who docilely listened to me make the rules and then waited patiently until I was gone to break them.

One potential change is that my LCG might be moving back in with me. She was super homesick tonight and the thinking in administration is that it might be easier for her to be with the adult she's already used to. I'm cautiously hopeful...that would definitely turn things around here, although it would make it much harder to like my current crop of sprouts. I know, I'm such a brat.

Took my first meditation course today: A-mazing. Even though he did mix up Galileo & Copernicus to a hideous degree. We did a 15 minute meditation session & I started dreaming right away - and left incredibly refreshed. This is the first afternoon I haven't felt like death. Cool.