Well, apparently, Kitty is the worst travel companion ever. She hated the entire journey. She hated being zipped into a carry case. She hated being carried in it. She hated being in the car. She hated when the car moved. And for a while there, it seemed she hated me...at least I figured she did judging by the horrifying guttural meows that she persistently emitted throughout the entire travel ordeal.
But, luckily, Kitty is quite resilient. After hiding in the closet for several days, she finally came out to explore and found many a place that she has now claimed as her own. Gosh, she is cute.
Brian's friend, David (The Savage Experience - see below), created some amazing art to grace our home. He made a perler of Brian a while back, and when we moved in together, he created one of me so Brian and I could hang out together perler style. When I went to Magfest last year with Brian and his friends, I saw perler art everywhere. Apparently, in the gaming community, perler is wildly popular. What's funny is that I remember perler art from when I was a little girl. I have vivid memories of being downstairs in the laundry room with my mom, ironing my little star and heart perler patterns, excitement bubbling as the smell of heated plastic oozed off of the iron as my mom pressed it firmly into some wax or parchment paper. This memory reminds me that Brian's and my world are bound together in interesting and unexpected ways.
There are the obvious links - My cousin would force me to watch him play Nintendo and Sega for hours on end. I would play Nintendo in my room - remember that Duck Tales game??) and later, I found myself listening to the new Hanson CD on my disc player while I rocked back and forth in my gaming chair playing Mario or Diddy Kong racing on N64. (Yes, that's right, I said Hanson...I loved them then, I love them now, deal with it.) When my mom and aunt still owned the hair salon, I used to pack my Gameboy case and sit quietly in their shop, gaming for hours. As a child, I found a simple joy in those solitary hours. Never much of a thrill seeker or adventurer, I found satisfaction in the kind of at-home adventuring and exploring these games could allow me. I found pleasure in the routine of the games, in the patterns. I knew what to expect in those worlds, I knew how they functioned.
But the game playing is only one way our worlds are connected. Something as small and seemingly insignificant as my experience with this kind of art as a child makes me feel a little bit more in touch with his world. Although I felt wildly out of place wandering through the game room at Magfest, I had to chuckle to myself when I saw perlers everywhere. Yeah, mine were crappy, they were haphazardly thrown together in a way that suggested a child's care and reckless abandon all at the same time. Sure, it was years and years ago that I engaged in this activity, but somehow, knowing that these creations were a part of my past, no matter how small, made me feel less inferior to the gamers strutting past me in their elaborate cosplay outfits. My favorite part about these two perlers is that they really encapsulate our personalities and they fit so well together. Sometimes, it takes me by surprise when I remember that Brian and I haven't even been dating for a full year. Like these perlers, we just seem to fit together.
I think it has come time to abandon the hope of actually catching up to the correct day on my picture of the day posts. I never seem to be able to get back to the present day. I think I will continue to take a picture a day, except now, I will post only those that are striking to me or epitomize a story or moment I would like to capture.
Here are some of those kinds of moments
Date Taken: 7/16/12
Setting: The Cup
Thoughts: For some reason, I have developed a bit of a possibly annoying habit when I go to ice cream shops. When I order a chocolaty flavor, I often ask the worker to dig into a specific section of the ice cream tub to scoop me the best possible scoop with all the best goodies in it. I also like to ask for sprinkles (crunchy is my favorite food after all) and when they ask me what kind I want, I always say, surprise me. In my head, I like to think that it adds a modicum of entertainment to their otherwise dull existences as ice cream caddies.
Britt, Court, and I went to The Cup and stumbled across a worker that was Britt's friend. I did my usual routine, and when I asked him to surprise me, he really did...
It. Was. Awesome. Date Taken: 7/17/12
Setting: Summerbridge
Thoughts: Jarred had to go to a training session and had texted me to ask me to keep him updated throughout the day. Here...is the remainder of that conversation... Date Taken: 7/18/12
Setting: Summerbridge
Thoughts: Just some beautiful flowers. The red ones took on this ethereal quality and they seemed to form into a heart shape that I found stunning.
Date Taken: 7/13/12
Setting: The upper school
Thoughts: Every summer, we take the students to the upper school and have Olympics. I feel it is necessary to preface the rest of this post with a fact that many people find off putting...I hate the Olympics. I find watching sports of any kind (unless a personal friend is playing) to be utterly boring and a waste of my time. So, there's that. More than that factor though, is the fact that the Olympics get hyped up in a way that feels unsettling to me.
There is a commercial for this year's Olympics that shows moms waking their various children early in the morning to take them to practices then shows them later on as their child wins a medal in the Olympics. First of all, are moms the only ones that can take care of children? Also, at what point did those small children actually consent to the long, arduous, painful road of possibly becoming an Olympic athlete? Why are we celebrating this kind of behavior. The adults that start training small children for these kinds of competitions are doing these children many a disservice. These children don't get to be children, they have to be machines whose bodies are not wholly their own, and whose disappointments play out at a national level.
I also find that the opening ceremonies and the overarching competition itself to be the most colossal waste of money, next to any and all superbowl half time shows of course. I wonder what would happen if the millions, possibly billions of dollars put into making those ceremonies and the games was actually spent trying to help people. There are kids that go to bed hungry every night, but that's boring, especially compared to fireworks and shiny costumes and elaborate choreography.
The only Olympics I like are the ones with do at Summerbridge. This year's games were the best I have been a part of. Josh and his committee planned them to perfection and everyone involved seemed to have a blast. What I love about our Olympics is that it allows our students to take a break from the heavy, adult burdens they often carry with them and run around and be kids for a little while. They get to laugh and dance and perform and play. They get to enjoy the company of peers that want to learn. They get to be excited about something larger than themselves. That's what the Olympics should be - a time to celebrate life's simple moments and joys and do so with little more than a few hula hoops, some cones, and some dodgeballs.
The pictures below are just a few of the amazing moments that happened on this day.
Pretty much the best thing ever
Date Taken: 7/12/12
Setting: Summerbridge and Shannon's House
Thoughts: This mask...will forever haunt my dreams...
Shannon invited us over to her parent's house to enjoy a meal and some relaxation time. Her house...is the most amazing house, ever. This fire pit is just one of the amazing features. After we ate burgers cooked on the built in out door grill, and met her parents in their full bar and whiskey lined basement (they publish a whiskey magazine), we ate ice cream and made smores around this campfire. It. was. awesome.
A lot of times, when I am at a friend's parents' house, I find myself wondering how they got from where I am now, to what they are. I have this urge to be at that place already - family, home, career. Yet, I know that to skip everything that comes in between, the struggles, the successes big and small, the actual building of a life I want, would be wholly unfulfilling. When I asked Shannon's dad about this idea, he said that we need to pursue what makes us happy. He gave us advice we have heard our entire lives - do what makes you happy. When he said it, I actually believed it could be possible. As I stood in this beautiful home, nestled into the woods, I felt like there could be a way to carve out a unique life path that includes the pursuit of a career that makes me happy and one that also enables a comfortable lifestyle that I could pass on to my own children one day.
Thoughts: Obviously, I didn't take this picture...but all the pictures I took today were lame...so, here is this one. I love it.
Date Taken: 7/10/12
Setting: Summerbridge, my desk
Thoughts: I found this on my desk this morning. Really, it is amazing I can find anything on my desk. It is perpetually messy despite my constant attempts to clean it up. All I can ever seem to do is re-stack papers in a different place or throw away post it notes. I never seem to put things in any kind of coherent order. The chaos that is my desk often reflects the status of my life. I am so frequently concerned with accomplishing multiple tasks at once that my life because messy and muddled despite my best attempts to clean it up, to organize, to attend to one item at a time.
It was nice to find this note amid my pile of papers. Anonymous. Cheerful. Supportive. Everything a good pick-me-up should be. I think the reason why I like this gesture so much is that it reminds me of something I might do for someone. I am a proponent of sending texts or emails to friends at random to tell them how much I appreciate them or how much a memory with them means to me now. I don't think we share those thoughts enough. We don't go out of our ways to compliment people, to help them, to offer them a smile, a nod, a hug. This note wasn't just a kind gesture, it was a reminder that I have the ability to accomplish my goals and that I have the capacity, as this person did, to affect peoples' lives in positive ways.
Date Taken: 7/9/12
Setting: Lehigh and a beautiful park
Thoughts: When there are beautiful, sunny, cloud-filled-sky days like this at Lehigh, they are magical. On days like this one, I get a feeling that nothing around me is real, that I am going to wake up from a vivid dream, that I am going to open my eyes and find myself a million miles from this place and where I want to be. On Lehigh Valley days like this one, the world seems so big, the summer too short, the days not long enough to take in the full, vast depth of beauty swells in sky and in the vibrant colors of the sky and earth and trees.
Lately, I have been doing a terrible job of blogging. When I work at Summerbridge, every last bit of my energy is zapped by the end of the school day. There is so much that needs to be done, so much that I need to do for others, that there is barely any room in my day to do anything for me. I have wanted this blog to be a place where I can take time to reflect on the day and the adventures it entails. I wanted to carve out this little space that is just for me to process and think and wonder about life. Yet, I wasn't using this space to decompress and to make sure that my days included time for myself. I wasn't blogging very much at all, and instead, found myself sleeping or watching television. What a waste.
As I move closer to the beginning of my third year as a doctorate student, I can see quite clearly the necessity of this space and recognize my need to work harder at coming to this space each day to record my thoughts and to allow myself room to process the day in silence.
Before I went back to school on Wednesday to work, Brian noted that I seem to have a sense of purpose when I am on campus. Today, I felt that sense of purpose as I walked from the train to work. At work, I was able to get so much done. It felt good, and it motivated me to do work at the apartment and to blog right now. It is amazing how doing things makes me want to do more things, whatever they are, and being static, unproductive, useless, makes me feel like doing nothing. I much prefer the first over the latter.
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