Sense of Accomplishment; Sense of Virtue
I can't quite say "sense of satisfaction" or "sense of pride" because I didn't completely finish what I set out to do, but they are also along the lines of how I'm feeling.
Today was the Ramshaven Baronial Leith. It ended up being a very laid back non-event. Since there were only a few of us, we decided to not even bother with garb. There was some archery, some sewing, some calligraphy and much conversation. And food (it's amazing what my friends come up with when they're "just puttering"). It was nice.
However, for me the big thing was cleaning the kitchen. We got the site for free on the understanding that we would take the opportunity to close the kitchen properly for the winter (something that we noticed has not been done the past two years we've used the site for Ragnarok - probably it's never been closed properly at the end of the season). We weren't quite able to do it. For one thing, the site manager was not able (for whatever reason) to get us all the supplies we needed, so we had to make do.
We left at 8pm. I had not finished washing all the pots & pans (the one that I ran of time to get to were "clean" but still felt slightly greasy and I think had had mice run across them since the last week of camp), scrubbing down the cupboards on the north side, de-greasing the vent fan or stove top, or mopping the floor. I felt bad about that, but several people kept saying things along the lines of "it's better than it was" (true), "it's better than we've ever arrived to find it" (also true), and "it's better than they deserve." It's that last one that not only can I not agree with, but in fact rubs me the wrong way. While it's true that the site owner/management seems to have a rather slap dash attitude towards upkeep, that does not mean they are somehow not deserving of help. And we did agree to "close it properly." Therefore, I feel badly that I did not meet my standards of "proper."
I hope we did enough to lighten their load a little when it comes to open in the spring. That is my sense of accomplishment. And since the camp is run for under-privileged city kids by a certain volunteer service organization, I feel my efforts served a greater good. That is my sense of virtue.
Today was the Ramshaven Baronial Leith. It ended up being a very laid back non-event. Since there were only a few of us, we decided to not even bother with garb. There was some archery, some sewing, some calligraphy and much conversation. And food (it's amazing what my friends come up with when they're "just puttering"). It was nice.
However, for me the big thing was cleaning the kitchen. We got the site for free on the understanding that we would take the opportunity to close the kitchen properly for the winter (something that we noticed has not been done the past two years we've used the site for Ragnarok - probably it's never been closed properly at the end of the season). We weren't quite able to do it. For one thing, the site manager was not able (for whatever reason) to get us all the supplies we needed, so we had to make do.
We left at 8pm. I had not finished washing all the pots & pans (the one that I ran of time to get to were "clean" but still felt slightly greasy and I think had had mice run across them since the last week of camp), scrubbing down the cupboards on the north side, de-greasing the vent fan or stove top, or mopping the floor. I felt bad about that, but several people kept saying things along the lines of "it's better than it was" (true), "it's better than we've ever arrived to find it" (also true), and "it's better than they deserve." It's that last one that not only can I not agree with, but in fact rubs me the wrong way. While it's true that the site owner/management seems to have a rather slap dash attitude towards upkeep, that does not mean they are somehow not deserving of help. And we did agree to "close it properly." Therefore, I feel badly that I did not meet my standards of "proper."
I hope we did enough to lighten their load a little when it comes to open in the spring. That is my sense of accomplishment. And since the camp is run for under-privileged city kids by a certain volunteer service organization, I feel my efforts served a greater good. That is my sense of virtue.