The First Day

For most of us, the first full day of camp began at 6:00 am. That was the time when the campers along with the counselors showed up on the basketball courts and started different games. We played basketball, softball or just threw around different sports balls. Some students took showers and hopefully all of them brushed their teeth. A couple of campers also started cross-country clinic - that's our way to work on skills in different sports. We gathered at 6:50 and ran a timed mile, to see how fast we could do it. We hope to improve each of those times throughout the summer. On the other days we will have a chance to learn how to grow in soccer, football, basketball and swimming. At 7:50 We gathered in front of the main hall for our morning assembly and prayer and after that went to eat some breakfast.
After eating, campers had time to clean the cabins and get ready for inspection. Three cabins got 7 and one 6.5 points out of 10, which wasn't bad for the first day of the camp, however leaves still a lot of place for improvement. Hopefully, we have 5 weeks...
After the inspection, we got ready for the swimming pool, as our swimming skills were to be assessed by a swimming trainer. On the way we learned also how we should get back to the camp in case of a thunderstorm. As the assessment went by, we got back to the main hall and started our first classes. It took us a while to learn how we are going to do that, but by the end of this period we had some work done as well. Throughout the camp we are going to concentrate mostly on writing skills and basic math skills. After we were done with classes we had a couple of minutes of free time and moved to the dining hall for lunch. We also gave a great applause to our first guests to the camp - Mr. Staysniak's grandparents who paid us a visited on their way home from Canada.
We took some rest just after lunch to save some energy for the rest of the day. And we used this energy well during group activities, another hour in the pool and half an hour of free time, which was interrupted by a fire drill - to make sure that in case of any emergency we can quickly gather and follow the evacuation instructions.
Punctually, at 6pm we began dinner, during which we followed the tradition of Camp Monserrate and have everybody weighed - to see how many pounds we gain or loose throughout the summer. Right after dinner the cabins gathered in four spots and they started Group Discussions - part of the day in which campers talk about topic of the day. Mostly it relates to the five characteristics of a Nativity Graduate, but also to other values which are important in Nativity and in everyday life.
At 8:00, the whole camp gathered in the in hall to watch a movie - today was first part of "Remember the Titans." After seeing half of the movie we brushed our teeth and moved to the chapel to finish the day with a prayer.