Tales of a coffee addicted, internet junkie!

In honor of the first day of summer, I’ve decided to share my one and only summer camp experience. Unlike most kids, this isn’t a tale about hiking, camping or craft making. Because if you know me, you know that I’m not really the outdoorsy type. Put on your sci-fi glasses and prepare to take a little trip back in time

A very long time ago (1994 to be exact) there was a city wide competition for high school students to attend a week long summer camp program. Run by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or known to must people as the CBC
If I remember correctly, then choose 12 students from across the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). I was not one of them!! I received a very nice letter from the woman who organized the camp, that I was on the waiting list. As we all know, waiting list is usually the code for “Thanks for apply, don’t expect to hear from us ever again”

I have to admit, I was a little bit disappointed. I thought this would have been a great chance to get my foot in the door, on my way to becoming a DJ Of course this is before I learned that DJ’s don’t actually pick the music they play or before a slew of personal problems hit (But that was another story, I think I might have told it already; but I can’t find the post or link)

So as I happy slumbered away, thinking of the various exciting things kids my age did (eg. go to the mall to pick up girls, play summer sports, bum around the city and go to the occasional party) I heard my uncle yelling at me that I had a phone call. Generally when I’m on holiday, your lucky if you get me out of bed before 11AM, but he keep bugging me, so I had to wake up.

On the other end of the line was Gayle (Our camp counselor) She called to tell me, that someone had decided to drop out and I was first on the list to be a replacement. Could I be down at the CBC’s main headquarters by around one. “Hell Yeah” I didn’t say that, but it was what I was thinking. I later learned from my fellow campers, one of the students dropped out because she learned we weren’t being paid. I’m sure she got far in life, especially if she couldn’t understand the difference between the words “Camp” and “Summer Job”

The actually camp experience was awesome. My fellow campers, were a lot of fun. There’s just something about being part of a group of people that have the same passion that motives you. The various staff members treated us like we VIP’s and spoiled us rotten. Showing us the in’s and out’s of the business and answering any stupid question we had. We were high school students, so we had a lot of stupid questions While it was only a week, at was definitely one the most fun experiences that I’ve had in my life. It also taught me, that there were a lot of things in the world that I still need to learn.

The week culminated with the students broken into three groups of four producing are very own street interviews. Which were later played on the morning show Metro Morning. Each group picked a topic, interviewed people on the street or in the building and edited all the tape into one segment. I’ve included the various pieces below. The first one was done by my group and appropriately entitled “What Are You Doing This Summer?” a topic picked at the last minute. After we wasted the entire day trying to think of something I included the other groups in the play list as well. You’ll have to excuse the horrible quality. But considering the tape was made in 1994 and the only audio tape player I had in the house was about 25 years old. Converting it into something remotely playable was difficult. You should really listen to it at a low level, unless you like static and pops.

Well I guess that’s it. The only regret I have from that time, was the fact that I didn’t really keep in contact with my fellow campers or the staff that showed us around. I would have loved to known if any of my fellow campers did actually go into radio broadcasting?

Got tired of imeem and their craptular 30 second clips!! Since I can’t seem to get the audio files to upload to my site, I’ve decided to use Dropbox. You can download them and listen to them at your own convenience.

My Summer Camp MP3’s

What Are You Doing This Summer?

Food, Glorious Food!

Money

Later…

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