00:36 (August 16^th)

I came into the room about an hour ago, hoping to spend a good hour writing and then go to sleep, because we want to go swimming in wet suits tomorrow morning. Oh the water is going to be freezing cold, but it should be fun… nothing like immersing yourself in the experience. Someone once said something about finding stories for film, and I loved the way she put it; you just have to make sure that in this digital age of ours, you still immerse in life with real contact; touch, taste, feel, smell… absorb things… make a real connection.

Today our focus was evaluation, we went on a very short trip to Ballycastle to observe and jot down reflections about the big picture and the close angle view… well let me tell you, Ballycastle is a very cozy small town, and I just love the feel of those (wouldn’t be able to live there all my life but for a while it’s absolutely wonderful)… so we walked; Mais and I, and I told her that what I would actually love to do is find a nice local café and get a coffee… she gave me that you’re-so-boring let’s-explore-town look Now it’s not that I really wanted to have coffee, but I just think there’s something of any town’s character and vibe in its cafes. I love cafes, especially if you get to sit with a view of the side-walk and be able to observe the people and the pulse of the town. I guess here it’s more the pubs that reflect a town’s character, but I’m still for a place where you can go during the day for a coffee. So anyways, we were joined by some of the others and got a nice window table. When that very old man came to wipe the table for us, I felt some form of guilt like “oh he’s too old I shouldn’t be letting him do this”. More people from the group kept joining in, among them Ellen and Cathe… and we got to talk a lot about Northern Ireland politics, which the more I hear about, the more I realize I don’t understand…

It was interesting to see how Megan (a 12-year-old from Missouri) would have fried chicken and chips (French fries) so early in the day!

The afternoon evaluation activity was to come up with interview questions – formal and informal – to ask to a person about their camp experience so far. Then each person was supposed to team up with a partner and ask them these questions. Colleen and I teamed up, but spent most of the time drifting away from the topic of the questions and talking and sharing experiences about our lives and different cultures… I immensely enjoyed and appreciated this, and wished we could have more time to just talk, and talk, and talk

When we all got back together again to share some of the observations and answers, it was worth noting that for the question “which person did you find to be the most interesting?” most people could not give a definite answer, they couldn’t name just one person