Tusc is not what it looks like on the outside. It’s not about how loud we cheer in the dining hall or how many miles we rack up on the bike trip. Tusc is about uniting and challenging us during the most difficult and rewarding times.
Before the bike trip, I thought of biking as an individual activity. I was surprised to learn that in Tusc, it can’t be. You have to cheer on the people in front of and behind you in order to get every single camper and staffmember up the hill. I never realized how much communication was really necessary to overcome this immense challenge.
As the Tusc campers and I turned right onto Camp Road, I was taken aback at the view of the lake we had just biked around. Starting and ending in the same place only enhanced this feeling, making the last mile down Camp Road exhilarating.
This experience totally changed my perspective on this summer. Coming from Seneca and Mohawk, where you live in bunks with the same people every year, I imagined that Tusc would look like a compilation of these bunks. But after the bike trip, I really didn’t feel like four bunks coming together anymore. I felt like one village, tracing the outline of the lake we call home.
The bike trip is strategically placed in the middle of July so that we come together as a group and learn to use each other. The bike trip helped us join as a team so that wecan tackle august as a more unified village. I know that I will take these lessons of teamwork, communication, and unification with me long beyond August 20th.
Camp is not an escape: Camp is not the place you come to run away from real life. I, my fellow Tuscaroransand most of you, come to camp to find ourselves. Things like organizing a banquet for 400 people and biking 100 miles around Seneca Lake push us to do so and teach us more about ourselves than we might ever learn otherwise.In tusc, you are challenged to the most extreme points and sometimes put in situations that make you uncomfortable and insecure. But nothing in Tusc is impossible. It is meant to push us to our limits and beyond so that we can extend our current boundaries. Camp, and Tusc in particular, iswhere we come to amplify our best qualities and grow as people.
Morgan A.- Tusc Camper
