London

8 hour round trip to London on a lovely packed coach at unimaginable hours in the morning = ULTIMATE WASTE OF TIME. Fantastic.

The Camp America recruitment fair was such an epic fail. Despite leaving at 6:30am I didn't actually get to Kensington Hall until 12:45. The doors opened at 12 and by the time I arrived I still had to queue in the bastard cold for an hour and a half at least. When I eventually did get in there it was manic, like nothing I've ever seen. All the preppiness of Disneyland but with this horrible acid hype that everyone knew was there but were denying all knowledge of; if it wouldn't have reflected badly on their applications I reckon every girl in there with an ounce of competitive energy would have slipped a blade between the ribs of the unfortunate rival in front of them who managed to let themselves get distracted for one second whilst flashing an overly white smile to a camp rep. God the whole thing made me sick.

As the London fair was the last one in the UK it started to become apparent as I was shuffling round that any hope I had of securing a place was seriously deluded. Everything had filled up. Unless I was a 21+ equestrian connoisseur with the uncanny ability to juggle fire whilst belting out a pitch perfect selection of west-end classics I didn't have a cat in hells chance. Lovely.

It was a pretty horrible realisation, I've invested a lot of time and money into this and it appears I have hit a brick wall. I haven't withdrawn my application yet but I've definitely given up hope, hmmmm time to explore other options..