For those of you that don’t know me all that well, I spend at least two weeks of my summer vacation at YMCA Camp Pinewood, a summer camp located in Twin Lake, Michigan—about a 30 minute drive from Muskegon. I have gone to this summer camp for the past eight years (my first year in 2009). I really felt connected to this camp for a very important reason: my parents used to be counselors there back during the late ’80s, and this summer my brother William was as well. This was part of my drive to also become a counselor at camp someday.

This summer, I took my first big step in that direction. As I a 16-year-old, I was now a Counselor in Training, or CIT. This summer I was more excited that I had ever been before. I was one step closer to living my dream! Though I knew it was going to be hard work, I felt confident that I could meet any challenge head on and get through it.

And so it was that I was placed in a cabin with my fellow male CITs. Out of the twelve total CITs (myself included), there were three boys and nine girls. Of these twelve, most came from the Chicago area (as Camp Pinewood belongs the metropolitan area of Chicago), and four of them came from Spain. I was the only one that came from Indiana.

In past years, I found myself usually left alone by my fellow cabin mates since I am usually…how do I put this? Overexcited? Overenthusiastic? Just plain weird? It gave me a little sadness that they would not care for me, but given that I was dealing with pretty much the exact same situation with my peers at school, I was used to it and welcomed it. It allowed me to catch up on reading the many books I had brought to camp.

This year, however, was different. I immediately found myself extremely proud of being a CIT and happy to get to know the other CITs. Pretty much right when we first met and were completing out first team building activities, we clicked as a group. No one was left out of anything. No one had anything bad to say about anyone. No one was left alone and sad at any point during our two weeks together.

The schedule for a CIT is different from that of normal campers. While they were off doing rotations such as boating, archery, and dancing, we were doing team-building activities that really brought us closer together and made us function as a team.

One particular activity comes to mind in particular. Our goal was to copy a puzzle from a master copy that our counselors had. They told us, however, that there would be three people attempting to sabotage our efforts and lead us away from victory. The growing fear that people were leading us wrong soon led to us yelling. It was not long after that then two people were voted out due to us believing they were the saboteurs.

However, right after that, those of us that remained took a break to pull ourselves together. We huddled up, decided not to eliminate anyone else, and went right back to work. When we were finished with it, we were told by our counselors that, as I had suspected from nearly the start, there were no saboteurs. Truly, the fact that we eliminated so few of us from the game was proof that we would be an awesome group of CITs.

And so the days flashed by. Wednesday we were taken camping at a campground called P.J. Hoffman, which was close to Lake Michigan. After an evening of swimming in the lake, attempting to catch a seagull (long story), and eating walking tacos, we spent the last hour or so awake sitting in a tent and talking about ourselves. It really occurred to me then, listening to all the stories my new friends were telling, how great a group we were. Despite all the bad things that had happened in our lives, we all still shared the same positive attitude that makes a great counselor. It was also that night that I learned I shared a birthday with another CIT, which really made me happy.

After we spent that first week learning how to be a counselor, our skills were put to the test. All through the second week of the session, we were placed in the different rotations and were observed by the counselors running the rotations on how we handled things. At dinner and breakfast for each day, we were also placed with a cabin so we could mingle with the rest of the campers.

Also added into our schedule was helping out the kitchen staff. For every meal, two or three of us would help the kitchen staff clean up the kitchen. Our main job was working the very large (and very cool) dishwasher. Each CIT was paired up with another for this task. By some marvelous luck, I was paired up with the same CIT that I shared a birthday with—not to mention that we started coming to camp the same year.

The second week was also different because of our personal victories as a group in the evening activities. Sunday night was Pinewood Idol, in which we were tasked with doing a skit/song for the camp. Our entire performance was based on a previous evening, during a cookout, when we sang whatever song came into our heads, constantly changing the song whenever we felt like it. After this new, planned performance, we received a perfect score, which would tie us against the Pioneer Unit and another cabin.

Deciding the winner was a long and tedious process, which led to the campers loudest cheering for a cabin being the winner to a dance off and eventually to a rap battle. The girl who was sent up as our representative came up with a rap that basically attacked the other two remaining groups left. As soon as she spoke the final lines, we all stared, stunned at first, but then we broke into a wild cheer and applause, which got increasingly louder when we were declared the winners. To celebrate, our counselors let us each have a can of Coke that one of the counselors had previously gotten on her night out.

The very next day, we were in charge of creating the evening activity, which we decided would basically be a real life version of the new popular game Pokémon Go. Cabins had to race around camp to complete challenges created by us to “catch” us while avoiding Team Rocket. Though the game took a bit shorter than anticipated, everyone had a great time.

The saddest part of the session was that final day when we had to say goodbye. However, thanks to the power of texting, we still communicate with each other and will probably continue to text each other for years to come.

The best part of the entire summer was probably meeting all the CITs and becoming friends with them. It is my personal belief that you are way closer to the friends you make at camp than you will ever be with your friends at school. There is a simple reason behind this. At camp, you are living with your friends for weeks. During this time, you get to know them better as a person while, at the same time, they get to know you. You learn things about them at camp that you never would know at school.

You bond with them in this way.

Throughout this session at camp, I learned many things about what it takes to be a counselor. Because of this, I am happy to report that I will be returning next summer for the next part of the CIT program. I plan on seeing many of the new friends that I have made over the summer there with me, and I know that in my heart,they are just as excited as I am for the moment when we can come together once again and shout that familiar chant: “CIT! CIT! CIT! CIT!”

Truly, this was the best summer I have ever spent at YMCA Camp Pinewood.