A Brief Recap
Holy shit, this is the first post of the new year! I haven't updated for a while so I suppose the time is here for a lashing of words and such.
I was able to return home for a very short stretch of time in December from the 17th to the 21st. My house in Seattle lost power the night before I left which was a Friday and I spent all day on the train on Saturday. Literally. I got on at ten to noon and got off in Portland at 6:30. Power outages really fucked with the train's progress but I was happy to escape Seattle and I learned that my house up here was actually black for 5 days. Even when I was leaving, I could see my breath as I sat in my freezing room.
Time in Oregon needed to be about 5 or 6 times longer. It sucks because there are so many people to see at once and in such a short span of time. Nevertheless I did make it to CHS for a bit and see some old friends and then around downtown, too.
Claudia and I hung out a lot that week and, as mandated by AmeriCorps, I really had no vacation. During the two weeks of break I should have gotten around 60 hours. I got 18. Oh well. Those 18 were made in the week when I was home and I never got a chance for any the next week.
On the 21st of December, I learned that I had been accepted to Western Washington University. It was an email and took me completely by surprise. That is only a third of what I need to make Western work for me. I now need to get accepted by Fairhaven, the school like Evergreen but better, within Western. The biggest hurdle of all is getting into the WUE program. Due to the anal rules of residency, I can't get it this year and have to go through this program that would know tuition from roughly 15 grand to 7. WUE is of course very competitive and only 35-45 students are picked. My second choice is University of Puget Sound, which I think I'll get into.
Enough of that college talk. My family packed up on the 22nd and drove all the way to Anacortes Washington, caught a ferry and were in bed on San Juan Island at my mum's parents house that night. We did Christmas stuff the next day (my half birthday) and I got some good stuff. Money, the Simpson's 9th Season, a decent sized duffel bag, Marley and Me, which is a great book about a Labrador Retriever, and other odds and ends. We came back to my dad's mum's house in Seattle on Monday (hmm that was Jesus's birthday) and were there until Wednesday. Thursday my bro and my dad and I hiked up a mountain and they ditched me at home on Friday in Seattle.
I had about an hour to get ready for Claudia to arrive. She got on the train for her home a few hours ago so we had a good long visit. With more time, I took her to malls, the kick ass park near me, the local music shop, the cupcake shop and all that. She got me a lovely little shoulder bag for my cell phone which has fallen countless times from my hip and is now safe in the bag, fake eyelashes which I wore yesterday, and she bought me Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which I just watched. Somehow, impulse really got a hold of me. As if the new Simpsons season and KKBB weren't enough, I bought two additional DVDs. Quills and Eddie Izzard's Glorious. Quills is a zesty movie and I finally learned how to pronounce Eddie's last name. You say it fast. Say the "I" like from word "it" and then "zard". It is terrific, I swear. I got Claudia two CDs (TV on the Radio first and second album), incense, 4 ounces of darjeeling black tea, mittens, lipstick and a big box of Ferreros chocolate truffles dealies.
Now I need to write thank you letters to my fam and all that. My first week back to work was all right. The kids were just about the same as when I left them. One of the kids I was tutoring moved away, which sad but may make things easier for the moment. Speaking of making things easier, Rachel and I may be interviewing for a third person this week. Both are women, one is a retired social worker and the other is a college grad. Should be interesting.
I have learned that two things have really helped keep my spirits up. Traveling and buying shit. Seriously. It is probably really bad. Traveling is fine. I love going places, seeing old or new people. The buying shit thing is seriously like prozac. Well maybe. It's not impulsive per se, but it usually helps if there is something I can keep in my sights. One of the reasons I'm sure that Maiden is still with me is because I got hook on getting all of their albums. Same thing with Calvin and Hobbes books. That was an old goal of mine I fulfilled when I mowed lawns for money. I now have the hardcover box set of C&H but I also have all the books I purchased individually, mostly through Grass Roots.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that parts of Reign in Blood by Slayer are terrific. The point of the previous paragraph is that my sights are currently set on an mP3 player. I have discovered that few, if any, forge a healthy relationship with Macs and I am now looking at the new 2nd Generation iPod shuffle. This thing is only 80 bucks with free shipping and all I need. It holds roughly 240 songs and any other iPod would be too much for my humble collection of music. This one allows a shuffle or straight through playback of the playlist loaded into it. The coolest thing is that it's biggest dimension is less than 2 inches!! I hope to get it soon.
There will be more to say in the coming days I hope and I was going to write something damn cool here but that will have to wait. Happy New Year!
I was able to return home for a very short stretch of time in December from the 17th to the 21st. My house in Seattle lost power the night before I left which was a Friday and I spent all day on the train on Saturday. Literally. I got on at ten to noon and got off in Portland at 6:30. Power outages really fucked with the train's progress but I was happy to escape Seattle and I learned that my house up here was actually black for 5 days. Even when I was leaving, I could see my breath as I sat in my freezing room.
Time in Oregon needed to be about 5 or 6 times longer. It sucks because there are so many people to see at once and in such a short span of time. Nevertheless I did make it to CHS for a bit and see some old friends and then around downtown, too.
Claudia and I hung out a lot that week and, as mandated by AmeriCorps, I really had no vacation. During the two weeks of break I should have gotten around 60 hours. I got 18. Oh well. Those 18 were made in the week when I was home and I never got a chance for any the next week.
On the 21st of December, I learned that I had been accepted to Western Washington University. It was an email and took me completely by surprise. That is only a third of what I need to make Western work for me. I now need to get accepted by Fairhaven, the school like Evergreen but better, within Western. The biggest hurdle of all is getting into the WUE program. Due to the anal rules of residency, I can't get it this year and have to go through this program that would know tuition from roughly 15 grand to 7. WUE is of course very competitive and only 35-45 students are picked. My second choice is University of Puget Sound, which I think I'll get into.
Enough of that college talk. My family packed up on the 22nd and drove all the way to Anacortes Washington, caught a ferry and were in bed on San Juan Island at my mum's parents house that night. We did Christmas stuff the next day (my half birthday) and I got some good stuff. Money, the Simpson's 9th Season, a decent sized duffel bag, Marley and Me, which is a great book about a Labrador Retriever, and other odds and ends. We came back to my dad's mum's house in Seattle on Monday (hmm that was Jesus's birthday) and were there until Wednesday. Thursday my bro and my dad and I hiked up a mountain and they ditched me at home on Friday in Seattle.
I had about an hour to get ready for Claudia to arrive. She got on the train for her home a few hours ago so we had a good long visit. With more time, I took her to malls, the kick ass park near me, the local music shop, the cupcake shop and all that. She got me a lovely little shoulder bag for my cell phone which has fallen countless times from my hip and is now safe in the bag, fake eyelashes which I wore yesterday, and she bought me Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which I just watched. Somehow, impulse really got a hold of me. As if the new Simpsons season and KKBB weren't enough, I bought two additional DVDs. Quills and Eddie Izzard's Glorious. Quills is a zesty movie and I finally learned how to pronounce Eddie's last name. You say it fast. Say the "I" like from word "it" and then "zard". It is terrific, I swear. I got Claudia two CDs (TV on the Radio first and second album), incense, 4 ounces of darjeeling black tea, mittens, lipstick and a big box of Ferreros chocolate truffles dealies.
Now I need to write thank you letters to my fam and all that. My first week back to work was all right. The kids were just about the same as when I left them. One of the kids I was tutoring moved away, which sad but may make things easier for the moment. Speaking of making things easier, Rachel and I may be interviewing for a third person this week. Both are women, one is a retired social worker and the other is a college grad. Should be interesting.
I have learned that two things have really helped keep my spirits up. Traveling and buying shit. Seriously. It is probably really bad. Traveling is fine. I love going places, seeing old or new people. The buying shit thing is seriously like prozac. Well maybe. It's not impulsive per se, but it usually helps if there is something I can keep in my sights. One of the reasons I'm sure that Maiden is still with me is because I got hook on getting all of their albums. Same thing with Calvin and Hobbes books. That was an old goal of mine I fulfilled when I mowed lawns for money. I now have the hardcover box set of C&H but I also have all the books I purchased individually, mostly through Grass Roots.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that parts of Reign in Blood by Slayer are terrific. The point of the previous paragraph is that my sights are currently set on an mP3 player. I have discovered that few, if any, forge a healthy relationship with Macs and I am now looking at the new 2nd Generation iPod shuffle. This thing is only 80 bucks with free shipping and all I need. It holds roughly 240 songs and any other iPod would be too much for my humble collection of music. This one allows a shuffle or straight through playback of the playlist loaded into it. The coolest thing is that it's biggest dimension is less than 2 inches!! I hope to get it soon.
There will be more to say in the coming days I hope and I was going to write something damn cool here but that will have to wait. Happy New Year!