Many children grow up going to summer camp. Usually, it’s outdoorsy; kids learn how to fish, do crafts, and swim. The campers quickly bond after living together in a cabin or tent for a week. They stay up late giggling amongst the trees and nighttime critters. They sing, they chant, they’re loud, and they’re passionate. When the campers leave, they are crushed to be leaving their friends and anticipate the next year the moment they leave.

And then there was me. As a child, I hated the thought of actually leaving the comfort of my own home, my own bed, to go to a forest filled with overly happy camp counselors feeding me spoonfuls of food cooked for crowds: crusty macaroni that had been sitting out for hours and meatloaf probably made the previous summer. For some reason, summer camp scared me, even before I went. Because eventually, I did go. I went to space camp.

Space camp. That’s right. Instead of braving the rough Middle-of-Nowhere forest to fight off bears and snakes, my parents signed me up for space camp at the age of 10, in Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas. Of course, I actually did want to go. I always had a fascination with outer space as a kid, so when my parents encouraged me to find a summer camp to go to (obviously to get a break from their home-loving youngest child), I chose the nerdiest indoor camp that existed.

It was a Friday in July when my parents dropped me off at a college campus in Kansas to begin my three day journey to hell and back. Come on, it wasn’t even a week-long camp. Eager young astronauts fresh out of fourth and fifth grade were dropped off on Friday and picked up on Sunday. It was still too much for me.

My parents helped me move into my place of stay once I was checked into space camp. No, I did not stay in a hotel or a cabin. I was in a college dorm room. Two beds, two closets, two desks, no roommate. There were other girls on my floor, but an odd number; I was the only one without a roommate.

I said goodbye to my parents and they scurried along before I could change my mind. Then I sat in the lobby of the college dorm until dinner. Yep, you guessed it, we ate at the campus cafeteria. Here’s where I should mention that the majority of people at the camp already knew each other; apparently the only people who go to space camp in Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas are people from Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas. Oh, and me, the odd duck from Missouri.

That night we were given a tour of the space museum next door where we would have the majority of our camp. There was then a break, so everyone went back to the dorm lobby and played board games or went to their rooms to hang out. Except for me, of course. The minute I got back to my lonely room, I called my mom and begged her to come back and pick me up. It was only the first night, but I knew it was going to be a long three days.

For the finale of the evening, my fellow campers and I went back to the space museum and sat in a pitch black planetarium to watch a star show. It was then that I cried. I was in the middle-of-nowhere, surrounded by strangers who were already friends, watching fake stars twinkle. I have never wanted to be home more than I wanted that night.

On Saturday, after a forgettable college cafeteria breakfast, we began our excitement. And by excitement, I mean we sat in a nondescript classroom and did worksheets about Mars until lunch. What a great way to pass the time! Nothing says “summer camp” like worksheets about the fourth planet from the sun.

We actually did some cool stuff that afternoon. We learned how to program computer-simulated Lego robots to do simple tasks, like pick up fake space rocks and bricks. This was our main project for the camp. Us campers were put into teams of four to program the robots. We would test them in front of our parents the following day to end our weekend.

My team consisted of myself and three boys. They had no social skills whatsoever and just sat at the computer and programmed everything for our team. It was fine with me; I had no idea what they were doing. That was my whole afternoon. I sat on the ground in a space museum in Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas, watching boys program a Lego robot to pick up wads of paper.

That evening, we watched a live puppet show. A puppet show. I cannot make this stuff up. At the age of ten, I watched a puppet show about the nine planets that circle the sun. “I’ll see my parents tomorrow,” I kept telling myself.

Naturally, that night, Middle-of-Nowhere, Kansas was hit by a line of heavy thunderstorms. Because back then, the one thing I hated more than the thought of summer camp was the thought of a tornado. For the second (and final) night at camp, I cried myself to sleep.

I must have blocked a lot of camp on Sunday out of my memory, besides the final robot presentation and finally reuniting with my parents after 48 hours.

The robot presentation was supposed to go like this: we hit the “GO” button on a remote control. The robot then picked up the paper space rocks, dumped them in a box, then turned around and shoved some cardboard bricks into a pile. Apparently that’s what robots do on Mars, you know, with all the Mars bricks lying around on its surface.

My team’s robot presentation went like this: we hit the “GO” button on the remote control. Then the robot sat there. And sat there. And sat there some more. Our robot did not pick up space rocks or push the cardboard bricks. The other teams’ robots finished in record time, and ours did not budge one bit.

One of the space camp staff members blamed it on a faulty battery, but I blamed it on the luck of my weekend.

I wish I could look back on space camp and talk about how amazing the experience was and how much I benefitted from it. But let’s be honest here—I hated it. The thing is, though, I didn’t expect to hate space camp. I expected to love learning all about Mars and expected to become best friends with everyone I met. What was so defining about this whole weekend, everything from crying the first night to our robot failing to perform for the final presentation, was that I learned for the first time that things don’t always turn out the way I think they will. The higher expectation I have for something, the less probable it is that it will exceed my expectations, whether that be for a class I’m going to take in college or an event that I’m going to attend, like a concert or a movie. Looking back on my experience, I wouldn’t have changed anything. Sure, I had a rough weekend. But now it’s just a humorous tale to tell: I went to space camp, and it was not out of this world.