Fish Camp

Oh my goodness gracious, I have waited way too long to post this simply because I knew it would be a long one. This update is about fish camp. I went to it about 2 weeks before school started as a counselor. I always tell people that I am involved in fish camp and they usually give me the "wow, i have no idea why this girl is so excited to go fishing for four days...she is odd" face.


Basically, it is a freshmen orientation program at A&M where we teach incoming students about the traditions of the university and help them transition into college smoothly. It's the largest run orientation program in the nation. Our camp was around 120 freshmen. We were a part of green camp. There are 6 different camps, all representing a different color. There are 24 counselors, 2 co-chairs, and a namesake in one camp. A namesake is a nominated person from A&M who has gone above and beyond for our university. We had two awesome namesakes this year, forming us into Green Camp Starcke-Rieckenberg. Yes, that is an outrageously long name and it took me about a month to learn how to spell or pronounce it. I'm a communication major and it was incredibly too difficult. We began to refer to camp as "CSR." We have partners to lead a small discussion group (DG) over the four days.

We prepare for camp for about 6 months. The counselors become very close to each other. I've never met a group cooler than this one. Our namesakes introduced "YNWA" at the beginning of the year. It stands for "You'll never walk alone" and is used as the Liverpool logo. They said it encompasses what fish camp is truly about...being a family. We prepare hilarious skits, color our hair green and the guys make theirs awkward as heck(camp pride, whaddup), make up yells in order to be louder than any of the other camps, paint banners, plan activities, etc. Most of the stuff we do is completely ridiculous, but it's okay. We are judged by everyone because we are never in congruence to social norms, but again, it's okay.

I am aware that all of these do not make sense, but here are some yells that we do:

"You can't ride on our green dragon, the tails are broken and the wings are saggin."

"Aqua's awkward, 

purple is too, 

red and blue, we dominate you, 

yellow camp...so what? 

Starcke-Rieckenberg, we kick butt."

"Starcke-Riecke, we so green

we all win like Charlie Sheen"

Day 1: Counselors wake up at about 5:00 o'clock in the morning, which is not easy for college students. We dress up crazy and head to where the freshmen will get dropped off. At about 8:00, freshmen start to arrive and we basically scare them with being so weird. When I was a freshmen, I turned to my friend and said, "Can we leave? They are spazzing out. Let's just turn around." --Now, I am honored to call myself a spazz. We take a 2 hour bus ride to the campsite while the freshmen get to know each other. After we are there, we start programs and camp time, consisting of team building games, skits, and introductions into the Aggie family.

Day 2: We wake up early again and start the day off. We do a bunch of skits. The freshmen go to programs on Aggie traditions and we play more games. That night we have a flashback mixer. I have never been so sweaty from dancing in my entire life. I took a shower in my own sweat. It seemed to be a theme of fish camp in Texas' 110 degree weather. 

Day 3: We wake up early again. Yes, this is another theme with fish camp-- delirium, awkwardness, sweat, and sleepiness. We present more skits and hold more programs. One of the programs is called, "community of respect." This is an awesome program that allows people to recognize the diversity within the camp, and the university. We have a country mixer (come on, it's texas) later on that night. 

Day 4: We leave the camp grounds and go back to A&M. Everyone sleeps for about 20 hours afterwards. It's glorious. 

As I am typing this, I realize that this post will never do justice about how amazing camp actually is. Camp has a quote that sums the experience up-- "From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can't explain it." I hope the pictures say at least a 100 words, because I know my words will not get anywhere close to explaining the experience.


Real Talk: I love Fish Camp.