a ten-minute dream in the passenger seat

Today in response to a student calling my name to get my attention I answered "What up?" because I was on autopilot. His eyes got all big and he went, "You say 'What up?'?!?!" He was very impressed. I think.

That was possibly the only thing that went well today.

I decided to reread Pride and Prejudice after watching the 2005 version with Sara, Becky, and Megan. OMG Victorian romance. I just realized that I may be reading some Austen for English this fall, so that is cool; I've never really studied any of her novels.

In other not-so-exciting-news, I'm becoming bored! I guess after such a whirlwind June, July, and early August it's natural for time to slow down a little and play lots of tricks on my mind now that I'm not working. Add to that the fact that a lot of people are already at school, and I end up at home all day long doing nothing. While I'm getting more and more anxious to return to Grinnell, I'm also kinda sad that I won't see my family for a looooong time. Mreh.

I finally settled on a new layout (after much searching and perusing of lj-designer-people) by reversescollide. I am liking the simplicity. Eventually someday maybe I will design my own thing. For now, I'm satisfied to just make header images for myself and let others do the coding.

And now for some more of the adventures of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.

Camp is over! Yay? I feel both wonderfully free and sad that I won't get to see the (good) kids for a while (or perhaps ever again, if I go somewhere else next summer).

At any rate, I don't think I should ride on buses anymore. At least not school buses filled with rambunctious children. 'Cause it unfailingly leads to headaches and queasiness. :\

I spent the bus ride home alternating between thinking about Plato's tripartite theory of the mind (and the state), yelling at children to sit down and stop doing that honk-your-horn! arm motion at truckers, and trying to stay awake. It was interesting, but maybe I shouldn't be surprised that I have a headache.

Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with myself for the next 2ish weeks.

I'll spare you my monthly "wow, it's [insert month name here]! how did that happen?!" and just say that I think August will be an interesting month. I'm not exactly sure why, other than the fact that I will have 2.5 weeks off to play around with and I will be returning to Grinnell. That's it, really.

Um, anyway. My wireless card works now, thanks to John! Except it seems that I can't mooch off of my neighbors' wireless connection anymore . . . Hm. Oh well.

While not having internets in my room won't kill me, I'm afraid the chilluns will. Today two kids came up and grabbed me around the waist, one in front and the other behind me, and they proceeded to try and knock me over. They nearly succeeded, but Colleen came to my rescue. Also, headaches in a highly echo-y gym full of screaming children = teh suck. </ work rant>

It'll be nice, after next Friday, to have some down time. I would like to see a lot of people before they go back to school, and there is a lot of stuff I need to get done for myself. Such as:

- emailing profs about the books I'll need
- ordering said books
- perhaps buying new sheets?
- emailing the IES in Madrid people about a thing
- reading a lot
- cleaning and packing
- blah blah blah

In short, a lot of stuff related to returning to Grinnell.

The days are getting shorter, and I am becoming more and more exhausted all the time. I really hope I'm not like this when I get my first real full-time job.

Today I am 19 and two-thirds of a year old (so is Sara!). Hurrah!

It's been an interesting 2/3 birthday.

I woke up at 9:25 this morning to my phone ringing. It was my boss. I was supposed to be at work at 8:45. Ooops.

Walking to work was like a summer-camp-Walk-of-Shame, because I cut through the field that everyone plays in to get there. So all the chilluns were playing their games, but then they saw me and got distracted. They shouted things like, "Hey Amy, where were you??" and "Why are you late?" as I lumbered over with soaking wet hair and half a lunch. By the time I got there and signed in, I was a whole hour late. D:

Then someone defecated in the pool this afternoon. Yes, that's right. Poop. In the pool. We had to clear out and leave early because of it.

So now I'm sitting here, tired and probably very germy. I should go take a shower.

BUT!! John comes home today, yay! And I don't have to work tomorrow! Also yay! God, this day off couldn't be timed better. :)

Lately the days have sort of been sliding past without me noticing. I think it's the old curse of post-4th-of-July-summer, but still . . . the days not only slide by, but they also sort of melt together. LALALA TIME.

Um, anyway. I don't like it when children come up to me, sweating and breathing heavily in my face, and say, "Amy, my throat is killing me . . ." It's worse than my fantasy of 100 children running around, multiple flavors of jam smeared all over their faces, screaming, "GIVE ME COOKIES! GIVE ME COOKIES!" Perhaps because of the heavy-breathing-sick-children (or maybe it's just because my tonsils suck), I have the beginnings of a sore throat. It better go away soon, that's all I know.

Hmm. That one sentence was weirdly structured. Whatever.

I have these odd feelings of mild indifference when it comes to most things lately. It's sort of bugging me. I guess I have a strong feeling of dislike of this general apathy, but still. I would like to not be so blah, thank you very much.

So maybe someday I will see Harry Potter? Like perhaps Friday evening? Any takers? Bueller? Bueller? Mostly I just want the book, but seeing the movie would be cool too.

Aaanydangways. It's high time I went and drank something throat-soothing.

I'd like summer to come, so I can picnic with people at home and play pickup games of ultimate frisbee and eat rainbow sherbet from Baskin Donuts and go running down the familiar streets of Mundelein and eat at Green Basil with Becky and have movie nights. I want to sit outside and read fun books with no pressure to finish or psychoanalyze the narrators. I want to eat lots of veggie burgers and grapes, and make pasta salad to share with friends. I want to run and bike and swim and everything active that I haven't been doing these past few weeks.

Basically, summer should come now.

Today was probably the best 4th of July I've ever had - spending time with friends always makes me happy.

Except one thing (and it was just one thing I thought I was observing) made me really disappointed. In a person. I hope I'm wrong about what I thought I heard, but it seems that everyone's full of surprises, and that people I thought I knew aren't really that close anymore. It's sad, but what can I do about it? Their decisions are their own, and I don't have the authority to make them live by my opinions.

Anyway. I love my friends. I know I've said that before, but I really do love them all. Life wouldn't be nearly as fun as it is without so many amazing people in it. I hope the time between now and when I go off to Grinnell is as well-spent as today was.

I smell like bug spray. Time for a shower.

I think I understand what Becky always means when she says late nights make her spew out words and feelings into her LJ. Most of my spewing was done in friendslocked entries at clarinelf, but now I think it's time for some hardcore reflection.

The next month and a half is going to be insane. Between working (hopefully) two jobs and getting stuff organized for school, I am going to have zero in the way of free time. I hope late nights are okay with mis amigos for hanging out, because otherwise I won't be seeing much of them.

Actually, I haven't been seeing much of anyone lately. And this makes me incredibly sad. I've hung out with John a few times in the past week, which has gone from being awkward to emotional to pretty normal. I'm really glad we took that walk the other day. But other than that, I guess I feel very much cut off from a lot of the people I wanted to spend all summer with. I shut myself away for a few days when That Thing happened, and spent a lot of time reflecting on how I can react to all the things that are going on around me and in my life. Ted Leo helped a lot.

Books are good for keeping me entertained, but they're not great company when I need someone to talk to or laugh with or do something stupid with like ride bikes to Target or bum around at Bagels by the Book.

I haven't picked up my clarinet in weeks. It saddens me how little I care, really. I suppose that's one mark of how much I've changed over the past three years or so.

Somehow, after all the things I've said about wanting to get out of Mundelein, I can't make myself want to move away from the life I have here.