The first week of Techno Camp (and, yes, that’s its official name) ended without bloodshed – a real accomplishment when you think about it.  I did sort of threaten one kid with possible violence.  He was playing an internet game and when I asked him to stop that and start working on his website he told me he liked bloody games.  I told him that unless the next blood he wanted to see was his own, he’d get off the game NOW.  That elicited a rather startled look on his part, but he did get off the game – rather swiftly, in fact.  Score one for the adults.  Next week, we’ll have a new group of kids to threaten, er, work with.

One of the kids asked me if I had a website and, without thinking, I said I did.  She asked me for the address so she could see it, so I gave it to her.  It wasn’t until she actually went to the site that I began wondering if that was such a good idea.  I write pretty candidly about mental illness and all its manifestations – was that really something that someone 13 or 14 years old should be reading, especially about someone they “know?”  It’s funny.  I “hide” behind the Dragonrider K’Jan persona, yet I have a link to my site and my blog on my Facebook account.  It’s like I’m afraid to come out of the closet, but not afraid to let people into the closet with me.  Weird.

Of course, watching these kids work on their own websites got me wanting to create another personal site of my own.  I have NO idea why I would want to.  Over the years, I’ve created three other sites, although only two are still accessible (the folks at Road Runner lost my very first site), and they all basically say the same sorts of things.  On the other hand, I’ve gained so much knowledge regarding the mechanics of building the sites that I want to keep practicing and improving my skills.  While I have been working on a site for a friend – my first paying gig – it’s not the same.  There are constraints to doing a site for someone else.  I enjoy it, of course, or I wouldn’t be doing it, wouldn’t be training to do it for a living.  Yep, I can foresee another website being built over the summer – AFTER I finish my friend’s site, though.

The next two days are going to be devoted to rest and recuperation with a hint of preparation for next week.  I can see some things we can improve on so I want to write up some handouts for the kids to use as guides.  In fact, my mind is whirling with ideas so I’m not sure how much rest I’m going to get.  On the other hand, not having to get up early tomorrow morning will help immensely in the rest department.  Noon.  Yes, noon sounds like a perfect time to get up.

Well, it sounds like you've survived the rigors of dealing with camp kids, so that's a good thing - even if you did have to threaten... er... work with... one of them a little more intensely...

I know what you mean about hiding and not hiding, too. I did that for a very long time before I finally said to hell with it, I'm just gonna be me. I don't have personal info on my Facebook, of course (that would just be dumb), but it took me a long time to figure out that I had to decide if I was in or out of the proverbial closet. Also, being myself meant that I couldn't complain about nobody knowing me, anymore, which was a pretty big deal for me. I used to complain that no one knew me, but when people tried to get to know me, I hid behind my screen name. Seems kinda dumb to me now but at the time, I wasn't sure which way was up.

I hope you have a great weekend, K'Jan. You've sure earned it.