Monday, August 14, 2006

contrition... yes.

Well, first off, Michigan was great. It was fantastic to see Jenn again, and I finally got to meet her boyfriend. (In my head, I still call him "Jenn's new boyfriend," even though they've been dating for something close to ten months now. I should probably start thinking of him by his name, which is Roy.) The week was over waaaay too quickly. We saw some good movies, and hung out at Lex (Lexington, Michigan. Near Lake Huron? They have a cottage there) and swam for all of five minutes. I should prolly get over my fear of swimming where things live. But it still rocked. And... what can I say? It was great. And I miss Jenn again already.

Going to Ohio was cool, too, if weird. I've been out of touch with my older cousins for a good three years at least. I remember them being a lot taller.... Anyway, so they're married! And I met their spouses! Weird. Also, another of my cousins got engaged during the party! And another of my cousins is having her second son this year. And one of the kids from Riverwood (our church in Michigan) that's pretty close to my age got married last Saturday, too. I think all of it gave Mom a little shock to the system - and made her super glad I'm not dating anyone right now. = )

It's getting to be that time of year again, where everyone gears up for school. In Bible Quizzing this year, they're studying Acts. Which takes me back. That was the first book I studied! Good times, good times. Makes me almost a little nostalgic, except that I really don't have time for quizzing, even if they had a college league.

The one thing that stresses me out most about going back to school this year is my independent study, Photo II. I e-mailed Andy Bale to see if he had a tentative schedule in mind, and what supplies I should order before I come to school, and have heard absolutely nothing from him. Dangit. I just hope that goes well, because if I hate him as a professor, I can't very well hide among the other students, can I?

It's also the time of year when I look back and evaluate my progress on my summer to-do list. I really didn't get very far teaching painting. We 're not even going to finish one painting before I go back to school. I could leave assignments for them, but I kinda doubt my students would comply with my parting instructions, even if they are related to me. I found out that ideal book length is between 70,000 and 75,000 words, and I only have close to 20,000 written, and I'm about halfway through plotting.

What do I need to finish before I go? I need to finish upholstering, finish Mom's skirt, pack up, buy some more notebooks and things, all of that good stuff. The countdown stands at 12 days, heaven help us all.

And also, I just got selected for jury duty... in October. In Harrisburg, PA. Maybe I can get out of it because I'm a student? And October is a school month? Aaron says he hopes I'd get a huge blockbuster murder case and have to be sequestered. Do you have any idea how much homework I'd have to catch up on?!

4 comments:

Captain Shar said...

You can try, but PA is pretty strict about jury duty. My mom couldn't get out of it, even though she's a schoolteacher, though they did let her do it during the summer. So maybe you can "postpone" it until you're back in Alabama.

brenderlin said...

Yeah, the end of summer always feels weird. It's like you accomplished a whole lot...just not what you wanted to. For me, I read a lot of books (more than I had in the past couple of years put together, actually), and saw a lot of movies/TV shows (which is getting something accomplished in my book. Unfortunately, I haven't written nearly as much as I had hoped I would - and apparently not as much as the rest of my friends. Sad face.

Oh well. sounds like you had a good time revisiting places/times past. Have you ever heard of Sufjan Stevens? He's the guy that's making an album for every state in the union (although I question how earnest he is in actually finishing it). Anyway, he's from Michigan, and his first 2 are of Michigan and Illinois. It's really good music, and you should probably check it out.

Anyway, Write! Write on!

Andrew said...

A good way to get out of jury duty is to claim that you're totally for Capital Punishment, with blatant disregard for the true degree of crime committed and regardless of your true stance on the matter. If pressed, cross your arms, look away indignantly, and mumble something like "well, someone's gonna hang for this...."

brenderlin said...

haha. I can just see it now. "But...but I was just jaywalking!"