Shifting Gears

I'm shifting gears. I've spent the last two weeks at Kirkmont Center, one of my absolute favorite places in the world. I've been working with kids ranging from 3rd to 12th grade, mostly on musical things. Here are a couple of pictures and video clips that somewhat document the time:






Now I'm preparing for another camp, one I haven't been to before. On Tuesday evening I'll be traveling to the Michindoh camp and conference center in southern Michigan to teach a class on music and worship at Covenant Gathering. Bit of a difference between a couple hundred kids and 11 adults... so that's the mental shift I'm working on this morning as I polish off my CG materials.

Camp

Well, week 2 of camp has arrived. Last week I was out in a tent with six 6th grade boys, and while I technically had my phone and had planned on posting that way, the time simply wasn't there. This week, however, I'm "camping" in a house on the property with the chaplain (I'm the music director this week). We've got our own bedrooms, a full bathroom, a kitchen, awesome living room, and WiFi. All in all... "roughing it" this week isn't so bad:-P

Graduation day was awesome. My speech was very well received. Week one of camp was awesome as well... despite some sewer and power issues here at the camp. A really great group of kids... incredible experience as always. So far week two is shaping up to be the same (we still have 3 1/2 more days). Not having a tent this week is giving me more down time, which I'm using to work on my presentations and such for the class I'm teaching next week (talk about a full summer!).

The theme for all of the camps here at Kirkmont this summer is "Handle With Care." We're talking about the importance of living in peace and harmony with the rest of creation, from nature to animals to each other. It's been really fascinating and moving to see the reactions and ideas that some of the kids have in relation to some of these ideas. Last week we talked about "Walking Lightly" on the earth... in other words, creating a smaller footprint with our use (and often abuse) of the resources and gifts god has given us. Very eye-opening. I've always tried to live fairly simply (although I admit that I often falter in the "gear" category), but the things we've been talking about these past couple weeks have reinforced something that I had already been thinking about for some time. I think that we as people (and me in particular) are really wasting creation right now. I'm going to try to think of some ways that I personally can improve my relationship with the rest of God's great world. I might post them here.

Well, back to work... good thing work at camp is nearly always fun!

Graduation

Graduating in the morning... pretty crazy. But then off to Kirkmont for two weeks! I'm going to see if I can do the mobile blogging thing while I'm down there, so we'll see how that works!

My New Addiction

I still have a tremendous amount of work to do tonight. You would think that the late nights would have ended after I finished all of my school related stuff (which I have done now), but alas, I have to prepare for three weeks of camps. So here I sit at 1:53, with much to do before sleep. I need a break, though, so allow me to share with you my newest addiction: Dr. Mario Online Rx.


Now let me be clear before someone with more years than I "corrects" me: I realize that Dr. Mario is a very old game (in fact, I have the old NES version on my emulator). Nintendo has repackaged and rereleased that game in an incredibly shiny and fun new version that you can download on the Wii, and I must say, I'm hooked. I've been playing online with people all over the world (and losing most of the time), and it's just a blast. If you have a Wii, you should check it out. If you don't have a Wii, you should buy one (because they're pretty awesome anyways) and then check it out.

Alright... back to work!

House Concerts

I'm currently in the process of trying to book some house concerts for this summer. I have yet to see how successful that endeavor will be, but I'm hoping I can get a few on the books for July and August. I got into the idea of house concerts a couple of months ago and have been reading about and researching them quite a bit recently. Something really appeals to me about the intimacy of the venue and the gig. No mics, no barriers between artist and the audience... just open, honest songwriting. I feel like that's a good way for me to express my songs to people... many of them are quiet songs that were laid gently on my heart. It doesn't make sense to rock those tunes out in a larger room, at least not at this stage of the thing, so this is the route I'm going to take for the time being. Hopefully people will respond in the way I'm anticipating and book me!

Transitions

I wish I had more time to write on this blog... I'm hoping that once school ends (which it more or less has) I'll be able to keep up with more on here. As it is, my "web time" lately has been devoted to creating two new sites... one is a new design for my own webiste:

http://www.ericfrisch.com

I've also been working on a site for Centerpoint's coffeehouse concert series:

http://www.fridaysinthecafe.com

I found a new web-design service called Weebly, which has been incredibly easy to use (if a little limited)... definitely an improvement over the software I had been using, and it's completely web-based.

As I mentioned above, school is coming to an end. I have two juries and two short finals and then I'm done. A week from now, I'll be completely finished with college... pretty wild thought. Overall, I'm pretty excited about being done. I've enjoyed my time at Otterbein, but I'm fully ready to move on to whatever's next. Even so, I'm certainly going to miss certain people and activities. The next few days will be filled with food, friends, and farewells... bittersweet, but I'm ready.