Heading out camping.... skipping school....

My girlfriend has never been camping before since she was a small child and doesn't remember it. Because our summers wouldn't mesh to find time together, we concocted a plan to skip school, and take the kids out camping overnight. She invited a bunch of girls she works with, some who I vaguely know from various other functions and we ended up with a bit of an eclectic group of people, 6 adults and 7 kids. It was a bit out of my comfort zone. People I don't know, smoking and drinking around the fire after midnight, a very interesting sort of cross dressing/ Goth looking, very chatty type of fellow who was brought along to our "girls" campout. I respect my friend who is just a part of these people lives and can just relate to them so easily. I have a little more difficulty because it's not among my usual places that I frequent, like schools and stores and my neighborhood. Even at work I do come across some very different people, but the relationship is different because it's professional, not social and I definitely have the control in the interaction.

I did a bit of a presentation on this during my nursing course, because I find it a very interesting topic. The power and control in relationships. When you are in a situation where one person has more of the "power" or initiative or whatever you want to call it, it shifts the relationship to one side and makes the interactions different. There is more expectation on one side than the other. As a professional, I need to interact with people on a different level and retain some sort of distance, yet there is an even more familiarity because of the roles, but don't want to put people into a position where they are the ones being "done to" or don't have any say in the way things take place. You see it in social settings too where one of the persons takes, or seems to have more of the control over how the relationship goes. Sometimes the other one can allow it on purpose, like passive-aggressive and that person is actually maintaining more of the control. Anyways, I am not explaining this very well at all, I think it is my tired brain.

All to say, that I find it interesting to watch how people interact with each other especially in new situations. Some are just more socially adept than others, and last night, I was the observer, plus the smoke from the fire was really bothering my lasered eyes.

The one with the purple pony tail is in her 50s!!! She's amazing!

5 boys under age 10, and fire.. hmmm...
no one was injured during the filming.