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Countdown to Christmas Day 8 - oh wait maybe it isn't cause some people DIDN'T WRITE



This memory also takes place the summer of 2017, but it is later in the summer, and I'm at Interlochen. Since I had graduated highschool, I was in the cabin in HSG with the oldest girls. I'm not gonna lie, it was a strange dynamic. We were all still high school students but we all knew what colleges we were going to but we were like all still super insecure and the large majority of us were musicians meaning we were all judging each other about not being in WYSO. I was in WYSO the majority of that summer so it was fine :) Another interesting wrench thrown into the Cabin 12 mix was our HORRIBLE counselor. She was a wash out Musical Theater person who now professionally welded as a living (but I don't think she was very good at it), she liked to drench her pizza in ranch dressing *barf*, and looked like a lumberjack with her constant flannel and HUGE boots. 

What made this counselor especially despicable? Well, July 4th is one of the biggest days on Interlochen campus as it should be - floats, American music and patriotism run rampant on campus as campers find a way some way to break away from the sometimes stressful demands of an Interlochen Summer. As it is an arts camp, usually patriotic classical music is a big hit, listened to on the quad, by the Mofro, studied in Music Theory classes. As July 4th came to close, the sweetest member of the cabin - a PHENOMENAL bassoonist that was over 6 feet tall by the name of Nicole  - requested we listen to Stars and Stripes Forever to send off the warm July 4th evening. Our DEMON of a counselor refused, and for emphasis locked all our phones in the bin EARLY so that we couldn't listen to music at all. Little did she know from that moment on Stars and Stripes Forever would become the anthem to our rebellion. 

I loved that summer but most of the girls in my cabin were so cynical (as a result Gretchen and I spent most of our time outside the cabin). But there was one magical night that brought us closer together for the rest of the summer. Unbeknownst to all of us, the oldest cabin in HSG every year throws a secret dance party of a designated night in the middle of the Interlochen summer. That night as dusk turned to night, with the crickets chirping, lake lapping on the shore and mosquitos buzzing, the campers in cabin 12 were in full preparation mode for the dance party, prepared with what seems every now like a THOUSAND GLOW STICKS - a variety including sticks, necklaces, bracelets, big sticks, small sticks. As taps played throughout the division, our lights were out but our whole cabin was lit with neon light. We knew the dance party would take place on the tennis courts. Our job as the oldest cabin was to 1. Pick the playlist (including Sheherezade, Stars and Striped forever, Party Anthem etc.) 2. Wake up/Hype the high school girls division and lead them to the tennis courts and 3. Pass out the glow sticks.

At 10:00pm we sprinted into the night, screaming our heads off and knocking on doors as we weaved in between cabins and sleepy and confused girls walked out of cabins. The brave ones immediately joined in the fun and started sprinting towards the tennis courts while other joined more reluctantly and still others returned to bed. Launching glow sticks at people, into the air and all over High school girls division we convened at the tennis courts.. Music was blasting, lights glared down on the courts and we RAVED! And when Stars and Striped Forever played, Cabin 12 paraded across the courts screaming along to dulcet tones of those shrill piccolos.

As the music cut off and the counselors herded us back to our cabins, Cabin 12 was a little closer, a little happier and a little less judgey. That night also solidified our defiance of our counselor, a rallying cry that would last till the end of the summer where we all thoroughly and rather raucously enjoyed the last night at camp as the oldest of the campers. Cabin 12, you will always be remembered :)

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