Bad things happen in threes? Well good things happen in there hundreds and thousands!

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The last two weeks for me have been a rollercoaster of emotions. major ups and major downs...

at times i questioned who i am, and definitly why i am here...the crazy thing was the campers with their incredible hearts were the ones to help me out of my down and lonely times.the campers here have obvious physical and mental requirements and difficulties and they remind me so much of CanTeeners, forever with a smile on thier face no matter how hard life can be.

its something i truly respect and admire and fully helps put life into perspective. theres nothing like being tickled to death by my favourite girls tina, bree and mary-pat when im feeling down. and they have the best way with people...always saying "i like you" it just makes you feel so good about yourself. so guys if you like someone, like something they have done for you-tell them!! said goodbye to Bree today, it was so sad we all loved her so much she had the best ability of always making you feel loved, best hugger ever!

so two weeks ago I lost a beautiful, incredible and amazing women and friend, Amanda Beaton. I knew this day would come but you never want to prepare for something like this. her loss affected the entire CanTeen community...I wanted so bad to be there and grieve with everyone and it was so hard being so far away. family and friends from home did a fantastic job at ensuring i was ok and kept me up to date with how everyone was.

when i first found out it hard me like a tonne of bricks, my whole body just weakened with grief and i ran outside distraught and bawling my eyes out....only a few seconds later though i was surrounded by loads of loving and kind friends. throughout the time ive been here we have all been super supportive of eachother and i really appreciate how ive had so many people looking out for me here and back home.

At times the work here is really hard, so much of it too but i hold onto the rainbows amongst the rain clouds as much as possible. there are amazing times here too and they by far outway the hard times, just need to keep remembering that this pain, frustration, grief is temporary and theres always tomorow-hold onto the good times.

so the combination of incredible stress from learning everything about our first week of work with campers, and learning how to grieve amongst all the full on crazyness left me worn out completely and gave me shingles! i went to hospital and they thought it was impetigo but after days of it getting worse i went back with confirmed shingles...but after two weeks they are finally getting better!!

after a long week of horse riding, arts and crafts, outdoor nature walks, swimming and lots of talent shows and karaoke some campers left and new ones arrived! One of my first campers, Anita, left camp andmy other camper Mary-Pat stayed...i must be honest it was a LOVELY sleep in because Anita used to wake us up at 5am to tell us what day it was EVERY morning...but i miss Anita! we had some lovely times and she taught my the value of patience!!!

everyone touches your lives in some ways. you may greet them in passing or have a stronger and longer connection with them, but everyone youinteraction leaves you with a piece of them and you leave them with a piece of you. we are our own person, but we are made up of pieces of everyone else. sometimes we just dont realise it, we are not just one person in this world, more we are one with this world and the people we meet and love and share values and experiences with. i think at times we need to be thinking more worldly ( is that a word?) we need to be thinking more of the people we love and even more about the people we think we dont love. people are people, we make mistakes, we have different cultures, we have different needs, we have different abilities, we look different, we have different ways of communicating and speaking, but we have one thing in common, we are all beautiful people. Baby youre a firework! cmon let your colours burst!

these past two weeks ive really been struggling with who I am, as Ive been lacking in confidence, i guess at times our society is superficial and at times character and who you are dont matter to others.. i need to keep surrounding myself though with people who appreciate me for all that i am, if i accept any less i degrade myself and my character. it has taught me an important lesson of always being you, the most precious gift you can give yourself. i know for myself i have formed some beautiul friendships here because i was myself and i didnt choose to disregard people because of their differences

i think at times we forget about moral responsibilty to other human beings...to explain more, last night we had a car full of drunk people come driving into camp quite fast, they were trying to find mcdonalds in the middle of nowhere. they managed to get stuck on the field, and a lot of us ran over to see what was going on. I noticed the driver was not with it at all, i kept telling people that we couldnt let them go, it was immoral as we were letting them put thier lives and potentially others lives in danger. I felt like we did the right thing, calling the police when they lived but it was going on constantly in my head was we were given the opportunity to help peopland we were morally responsible to do everything in our power to ensure that they were safe and innocent people were safe too. i just felt dissapointed as i felt like i didnt do enough. luckily they got caught but there was a time gap from when we let them go to when the police got them where anything could have happened.

if opportunity presents itself to you to help others, whether they are in the right or not we are all morally responsible to help... we cannot go through this world only looking out for one person, as maybe one day this person is able to help you or others because of your actions. people are apart of us, connected to us-let people be connected and apart of you, as when they take apart of you, you become more holistically fulfilled with connections and parts of them.

keep learning, keep discovering, keep smiling, keep forgiving and be forever loving in this big world we are all in.

always remember how much i love you all

te amo

anna

P.s song lyrics of the week- "I've had the time of my life, and ive never felt this way before!!!"

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