Lithuanian Folk Dancing - Journal 10/25

As difficult as it is to imagine, there were even less people at this practice than the last one. We went over the last dance with relatively little difficulty. The only seemingly large challenge is the fact that there are two different settings; Fast, and really fast. The step is also quite awkward. It involves using the left foot, and the left foot only. We then moved onto another dance. This one involves a sort of weaving step that caused me to run into Dainius once or twice. Overall the practices are getting shorter because we don't have enough people. We don't even know how we're going to have enough people to run NEFFA or even go to NY. At least I didn't throw up this time.

Guitar 10/12

It is interesting to note, that this is my seventh year playing guitar, and I still suck. Today however, was mostly spent reviewing things such as the Am pentatonic scale and the 12 bar blues and the like. My job was to solo over the rhythm and I realized that I have an incredible tendency to bend notes I shouldn't be. Further attention must be paid as to the placement of my fingers relative to the background rhythm.

Lithuanian Folk Dancing - Journal 9/27

We started dancing practice early this year, because we may have a chance to go to New York City to perform. Details are few and far between now, but we may not even get to that point because so many kids can't make it because of college, we don't have enough couples. We may not even be able to go to NEFFA this year. We learned a new dance, in spite or all this. Since this is the first practice, everyone was out of shape. It was really fast and involved a lot of spinning. I actually spun so much that I got sick and had to sit down. I hope we can get more couples because we've never been invited to another state to dance before.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/22

I didn't get to sleep last night. At about 2 AM, Vytas, Tauras, Saulius, Tomas, Rytas and I were told to change into our full uniforms and bring only a knife. We were then lead to the ceremony. So at 6 AM I stood in the mess hall eating my celebratory slice of cake, with a purple tie around my neck and a walking stick in my hand. I was now a Vytis. I immediately went to sleep and woke up at dinner time. We got the head table and had a purple table cloth and everything. My first full day as a Vytis has so far been pretty relaxing. The next day, the girls were supposed to get their blue ties, their equivalent of our purple ties. There is a traditional song the guys are supposed to sing to the girls, so that's what we planned to do. So it was about 12 AM and we decided to learn the song. Unfortunately, we didn't have the words. Saulius and I tried to look it up online on our phones, and Vytas was flipping though al the song books he had. Nothing. We called Ginty and asked what to do. He said to keep looking and that he would be there soon. While we were waiting for him, we found a copy of the song, but since I was on my phone, I couldn't play it. Ginty said we could go to his car, get his work laptop and sit outside the registration building and download it. Only thing was that because the girls are getting their ties, no guys are supposed to be walking around. We had to sneak down to the parking lot, get the computer, and sneak back to the registration building. Turns out Ginty's password wouldn't work, so we had to go into the registration building, download the song. We then had to sneak back, the mile, to our campsite and Saulius and I spent the next 3 hours listening to the song and transcribing it. Saulius and I decided not to go to sleep and at 8 AM during breakfast, we sang the song and promptly went to sleep. We then woke up at 10 and pack up all our stuff and went home.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/21

Today was the day I've been waiting for all week. Today we get to cook all our meals outside. I usually cook for everyone because I enjoy it and honestly, the only one semi-decent at it. For breakfast we have scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, hash-browns, and tomatoes. We started out kinda late and breakfast took a while, but everything came out fine. Lunch, however, was the main focus point. I decided to attempt to roast two chicken over a spit. I had half the guys build the spit, while the other half built the fire. I was busy preparing the chickens. I tried one with a poultry spice, and the other with italian spices. We calculated it out that the chickens would need a quarter turn every ten minutes, but eventually just decided to turn it whenever the sizzling stopped. We also thought basting it in butter would be a good idea to keep it from drying out and it worked amazingly. We knew the chickens would be done when they were cut open and the juices ran clear. All in all it took about 3 1/2 hours for the chickens. The chickens were done at about 4:45, but I had to leave at 5:00 because my brother was moving up a rank and was getting a new tie, and I was supposed to be at the ceremony and tie a knot in the end of it. It was a big honor. anyway, the general consensus was that the chickens were so good, that next year we'll have to try a pig.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/20

This morning we had to take care of the youngest group of boys. We were just supposed to lead them around to where they were supposed to go, and plan two activities for them. We split up again, so Vytas, Tauras, Dainius, Tomas and I took the morning shirt and brought the kids to the shooting range. We had to make sure they were all wearing their safety glasses and everything. One of the kids, Darius, i was told has a varying form of autism that makes it seem like he's not paying attention, but when you talk to him, he knows what's going on. For the youngest kids, when they were shooting, we would stand over them and shoot the targets so they wouldn't get disappointed. Darius was so excited and surprised when he hit all his targets. We then decided to teach them how to lash a tripod together. We then brought them to their nutrition class where we got to eat apples and vegetable chips. We brought them to lunch and traded off with the second group. Today was a good experience to know what it's like to be in charge of kids which is a part of becoming a Vytis.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/19

Today nothing was planned for the day, but tonight was "Night Games". Groups of one guy and one girl were given a glowstick and a challenge and we waited in the woods in different locations and the younger kids had to come and find us. If the kids completed our challenge, they got a sticker and the group with the most stickers wins a lot of candy. I was partnered with Greta. We sat in the woods and slowly but surely, the kids started showing up. Our challenge was for the kids to sing a simple Lithuanian nursery rhyme. I got bored pretty quickly so i made the kids do it in different musical styles. My favorite was the death metal rendition. We went back to the mess hall and I got a cake for my birthday. It was good. All in all, not a busy day.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/18

This morning we had to accomplish three things, we had to build a gate for our campsite, we had to tighten up some of the lashings of the swing-set, and we had to help the littlest kids cook their own food for lunch. Again, we split up into teams. Vytas and Dainius would tighten up the lashings, while Tomas, Rytas, Saulius, and Aric would build the gates. Tauras and I went to go help the little kids. They were going to spend the day on the lake, so we built a campfire so they could roast hotdogs. We also had a little portable grill where we made macaroni and cheese for them. We were done by around 10:30 or so Tauras and I decide to go get all the food so it was ready for them when they were done being on the lake. We had to call Ginty and ask where it was. He said he'd be there soon and not to move. When he got there he put necklaces of garlic around our necks and we were forbidden to talk for the rest of the day. We knew this was coming. Everyone hoping to become a Vytis must accomplish a ridiculous task all while not being able to talk. Ours was to build two rafts that would support a campfire for 2 hours. We split up into teams again, Vytas, Dainius, and I went to build one raft, while everyone else built the other. I found a really cool stump that we decided to use as a base and build supports around. It worked great. The only hard part was trying to find another like it. I walked around about a mile away and found another one although it had a hole in it. We lashed it to its supports and started building the campfires on top of them. Tauras had the good idea of spreading mud on the bottom of the stumps. It took a while to shave some sticks down for kindling, but after a while we built both campfires. We started at 10:45 and it took all the way until 5:20. We lit them at the flag lowering ceremony at 6:00 and to our surprise they lit and stayed lit. We got to take the garlic necklaces off at about 9:00 that night. I went to sleep smelling heavily of garlic, but happy in the work we did. Also: the garlic does wonders to keep mosquitos away.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/17

Today we had to build a swing set out of nothing but logs and rope. We had done it last year, so we felt up to the challenge, granted we had a few less people. We broke up into teams in order to finish faster. Tauras, Vytas and Aric build one tripod, while Tomas, Rytas and Dainius built the other. Saulius and I worked on lashing the seat together. We soon realized that it was going to be much harder this year because we didn't get as good a selection of sticks. The heat didn't make things easier for us either. We spent most of the day, but we managed to get it built and standing. We tested it on ourselves and it seemed to hold up, so we thought it would hold up all the little kids just fine. We finished lashing it down and called it a day. At the seemingly daily night-time meeting, Ginty and Sim said we were much louder today and that we should do that everyday.

Lithuanian Scouts - Journal 8/16

Today was mainly spent setting up the tents and getting the campsite ready. I shared a tent with Saulius while Vytas and Tauras shared a tent next door. Beyond them was Aric and Dainius, and Tomas and Rytas. The term tent is used loosely because they are sizable wooden structures with only three walls. Because it was so hot and muggy, the mosquitos were really bad. Saulius and I had the idea of taking a net I brought that is meant for sitting over and umbrella and hanging it up to act as the fourth wall. It required a bit of cutting but it did its job. We built the two campfires for the rest of camp (about 1000 people this year) and we had to keep them going while the rest of the camp did little skits. We then had a meeting at night where Ginty and Simas told us that we needed to pick up the pace and energy because we weren't marching correctly or singing loud enough.