good and bad thangs

i finished summer school two weeks ago... real school doesn't start until august twenty-fifth.  awesome, right? i am in the process of finding a job on campus, but no one is listing jobs yet... i have nothing to do.  i'm going through netflix movies like there is no tomorrow.  and i never thought i would ever get tired of arrested development... but i may at this rate.  poor milo has been spoiled because i'm with him all day long. i don't know how is is going to handle being left alone again for parts of the day when i start school.  i'm reading three books right now, which sounds like a lot but actually, i'm just unable to focus on any of them so its going to take me a long time to finish them.

so you know how when we are all bogged down with homework, and we keep on saying that we would all love to just write a top forty song, and live on the royalties for the rest of our lives... well... let me tell you something... you may just be bored out of your mind... put that on the con list of that particular career move.

homes

i just looked at the good ole' camp lakeview website, and they have put up the new staff picture... the new staff picture that i'm not in. sad. 

i was thinking about my days as a junior counselor yesterday.  if i learned anything from being a junior counselor it was how to mop correctly.  after rainy days, john dobrinski would have us mop all of the porches around the dining hall.  i hated being on porch duty after a good rain. 

anyway, i was reminded of all of that when i made the decision to clean my basement. let me describe the place to you.  the old air conditioning pipes are still there and they are insulated by about a foot of foam all the way around... so in order to walk around the basement, you have to stoop under these padded pipes.  i have 22 bags of shredded paper that were collected for a prank that never happened. they were basically soak through from the mysterious water that comes out of no where.  the pipe that carries all of the water from the sinks in the house is broken, so the water basically spills on the floor. also, the washer isn't hooked up to any kind of drainage pipe, so all of that water from that spills on the ground, too.  there is a nice hole in the floor that all the water eventually drains into. the dryer had a piece missing for awhile, so all of the lint that wasn't collected in the trap was spewed out on to the wall behind it. my dog likes to sneak down there and poop in the corners where i don't notice until the piles become the same moldy blue color as the floor.... speaking of the floor...  i found mushrooms growing on it.

needless to say, my cleaning aspirations were long over due.  i'm going to call my landlord and find out about a dehumidifier, but in the mean time, i have lots of mopping and washing to do.  i may wear my old junior counselors t-shirts and pretend like i'm scared that karen is going to catch me doing something wrong, just to bring back some memories.  

new friend

i made a new friend yesterday.  a stray springer spaniel came bounding into my yard yesterday. he was really sweet.  after a little bit of debating, kevin and i took him to the animal shelter, only to find his owner looking for him a few hours later.  apparently, they live a block or so away, and he gets out a lot.  his name it ali, and i told him that he could run to my yard any day.  i want a dog like this one of these days.

i almost killed a squirrel on my bicycle this morning.  it ran out in front of me, and i swerved and crashed to avoid it, and my bike landed on top of him. i think he was okay because he looked at me like he was very offended than scrambled up the nearest tree. and found a nut to chew.  

i have one more final left.  i'll be glad to have a little bit of a break finally.  i have no idea how i'm going to fill the up coming month... i'm going to michigan for a week, and i have a wedding to attend at the beginning of august... but other than that, i guess i'll have a lot of time to job hunt.  ugh.

for the past two nights i have been staying up late playing several rounds of the life (the board game).  tonight, i will probably do the same, then at midnight i'm going out with a few people to drink a beer at the herot.  one beer... that is it.  then after that i'm going to go home, go to sleep, then wake up extra early so i can go to camp.  i have a few pets and a boy to drop off at various places before i get to camp... but after that  it'll be time to parrrtay. i'm going to oliver winery with laura and a few other camp friends.  after that we are going to drink illegally on the dock.  i feel only slightly foolish that i'm going to camp lakeview for my twenty-first birthday... but carl frost made me feel better when he said, " yeah, because taking twenty-one shots is sooo much cooler." 

then it will be off to holland michigan.  i have no idea what is going to happen there.  but it will be fun, regardless.  

capital idea.

my instructor pushed back the due date for that paper until friday. so i read all but the last twenty pages of the catcher and the rye.  it was good. holden caulfield told someone they were a gentleman and a scholar. this made me compare him to michael scott from the office for the rest of the book.  they are kind of similar sometimes... i'm just saying...

so i feel like i need to explain the lack of capital letters with in my blogs.  please believe that i am sort-of  meticulous about proper grammar when typing, and it drives me crazy when people don't.  but, you know... i think lower case letters look better... it really is a simple as that i guess.  you will have to forgive me.

i am slowing running out of food at my house.  i am doing this on purpose (don't worry mom) because i'm going to be gone for a week and don't want to let things go bad.  my diet today consists of the last of my eggs, black beans, garbanzo beans, and rice.  tomorrow i may whip out the lentils. i ran out of spaghetti noodles a few days ago. i had a dream last night that i found some tucked away in the corner of my pantry.  i forgot that it was a dream when i woke up and was severely disappointed when i remembered the truth.  i really love spaghetti... i was just think about all of the things i wanted to eat when i go up to michigan... the sad thing is, i kept looking for restaurants online that seemed like they would serve spaghetti.  

make me stop this

this is the first time in ten weeks of summer classes that i have procrastinated big time.  i feel pretty good about my ability to focus that past couple of weeks... but this weekend was wildly unproductive.  tomorrow i have an eight page paper due.  i haven't started on it.  i haven't even looked at the syllabus for instructions on what to do for it. i told myself that i wouldn't start another book until i got this paper done, thinking that would minimize my distractions.  alas... i still have blogs to write, arrested development to watch, a garden to water, and food in my refrigerator that need to be eaten before friday. 

the mail is here.  

hawt

i have a standing rule in my house not turn on the air conditioning until the thermostat read at 85 degrees.  right now it says it is 83 degrees.  it is freaking hot in my house.

i went to the farmers market for the first time all summer.  prior to today, i was either not in town , or it was raining, so this was the first chance i had. i bought a watermelon.  a huge watermelon.  the ride home on my bicycle was interesting.  i'm glad i had a basket for it.  cutting it was an adventure, and forced me to exert a little more energy that this current heat calls for.  but the results have been rewarding. 

i finished reading another book.  it was good. murakami is definitely one of my favorite authors. i have no idea what i'm going to read next.  i tried starting a book called fast eddie, king of the bees... but it was either really boring, or the heat really got to me because i ended up taking a two hour accidental nap.

i'm turning 21 in a few days... it feels too old i think.  a few months ago when i heard my sister say she was 23, it felt so far away... but i feel like, once i hit 21, it won't feel as far away... that is a little unnerving...  i guess 21 is really the last birthday that you really feel excited about.  the rest of the rest of the milestone birthdays from here on out are only good for other people to make you feel bad about getting old. 

i think the heat is making me more cynical than usual... sorry.

three point one four...

i just finished reading life of pi by yann martel. it is an incredible book. my sister has read the book as well, and i echo her words, "it was one of those books that i didn't want to end."

the story itself is fictional, but there is a certain quality to pi's seclusion that seems familiar to me. the things we experience within ourselves cannot be understood by any one else, making us out to be castaways in a sense.  

the plot is about a boy, a tiger, and the pacific ocean, but the book itself has very little to do with any of those things.  the boy's experience spoke of both a person's strength in survival, and at the same time the need for something beyond one's self to sustain.  whether that sustaining outsider was the tiger or a hoard of flying fish, Allah, Jehovah, or Lord Krishna- pi would not have survived his journey.   

lately the subject of God has been a difficult one for me.  i think every one, believer or not, goes through periods in their lives where doubt can be really overwhelming.  but reading this book has given me new strength. there has been something that has kept me alive, kept me going. i can remember specific (and rather recent) moments when God did not seem like a reality... and those moments also brought about a deep depression that i was unable to hide from.  in all reality, i should not have survived those moments... but i did.  and i'm beginning to see where God was in those moments.  he knew i didn't want him... that i couldn't face him. so he stood behind me. 

it is good to know that i do not have to sustain myself.  it is good to know that God is as unavoidable as a 450 pound tiger in a life boat. it is good to know that while God is capable of overpowering me, that he sees good in me and chooses to let me live. it is good to know that he doesn't mind being unseen or doubted or weak.  it is good to know that he is willing to stick around because he knows of my need for his companionship.

i am not saying that life of pi has brought me out of this season of doubt... maybe it has... but i only just finished the book, so i don't know...  what i'm saying is that even when i feel doubt in my heart, i don't need to worry.  yes, the reality of a God isn't exactly likely... the bible calls it faith for a reason. no one has ever been able to prove God to anyone but themselves.  but i think that what this book has taught me is that God will appear in unlikely places, and doubt has no power over some one once he does.

anyway... you should read it for yourself.  in all in fictionality, it is utterly believable.  

new things.

kevin's family got six pounds and seven ounces bigger last week.  chloe marcella trinidad perez was born last monday, june 30th.  i took kevin down there to see her last wednesday.  kevin had a very similar reaction to her that i had to my nephew when i met him for the first time.  everything about her was soft and small, it is really hard to figure out how a person that small can even be real... he really couldn't stop poking at her.  she was pretty amazing, though... i can't blame him for wanting to know everything about her.  

kevin also got a chance to change his first diaper.  his grandma had to help him, but between the two of them she was well taken care of.  his sister said that she normally cries when her diaper is changed, but little chloe didn't make a peep when kevin was changing her.  i think it was because she could tell how nervous he was and didn't want to make it harder for him. 

they are going to make a wonderful pair.  he is already daydreaming about reading books to her and taking her to the children's museum.  my ambitions for my own nephew are quite different.  while he will be busy teaching chloe all of the wonders of the world, i will be teaching sam how to hide his food under his plate so cara thinks he ate it all. cara, kory and sam moved back up to my parents place this past weekend as well.  after seeing chloe, i had a hankering for baby, so it was a good weekend to see mr. sam pants.  he's fourteen months now, and he's beginning to seem like a real person.  it was funny to watch him walk around the house... i think he is showing great potential to be a causer of mischief.  he also really liked my cat moses, and she didn't mind him at all. once she even rubbed her nose and face on his hand.  

i have two weeks of classes left.  the projects are starting to pile up a little, but i am pretty motivated to do well... mainly because i think that taking only two classes at a time makes it too easy for me to get good grades, and if i don't that i will feel pretty ridiculous about it all.

having a second dog around the house has been interesting.  the first night was crazy, but milo and pepper have gotten quite used to each other now.  pepper is really old,  so she hardly does anything but lay around or scratch her on the bottom of my couch.  i have discovered, however, that when one dog barks, the other one really like to join in.  normally they only do it when there is some one at the door, but a few times they do it for no reason at all.  other than those few moments of noise, i hardly notice her at all.  she is really well trained so i never have any messes to clean... well... no pepper messes... milo is a different story.

right now, instead of blogging, i ought to be  cleaning my house.  ellen has been a great roommate this summer, and she even told me once that she found my messiness endearing.  i really shouldn't let that go to my head.  i'm off.  have a good day.