It's Summer!

[trinalin]

Hello to you, longest day of the year! As I mentioned to one person today, "Welp, it's all downhill from here!" The lady I mentioned that to said that she always felt sad to think that days will be getting shorter from here on out, but I said "that only means it's closer to Christmas!" OK, so I'm one of those ANNOYING optimists. :-)

Anyhoo, I'm been on Summer Break since May 30th, but have only just gotten around to posting a journal entry. Mom has mentioned a couple of times that it's been awhile since I last posted something.

Since I last posted, I've been busy. Here are a few of the things I've been up to since May 3rd.

• Went to our alumni banquet as I was part of the 25-year honored class. My parents also attended as it was their 50th year. The class of '89 had 55 students, which was one of Newton's biggest classes. When my folks' class celebrated their 25th, at least 30 showed up. And here on their 50th, at least 25 were present. We had 6. It was somewhat embarassing. But that does seem to be the trend of late. Last year's 25-year class had about the same number show up.
• Went to a VFW for the first time in my life (as part of the after-alumni do for just our class). Was surprised to discover there's usually a bar at VFWs. I had no idea. They had Angry Orchard cider, and a stranger at the bar bought it for me. Nice folks at the VFW!
• Finished out another school year. All of my chemistry students who took the course for credit got C's or higher, thus getting credit for the course. Yay! The final was a new one and was as much (if not more) of a killer as the prior one. I really need to prepare them better for it, but I've still not worked out how I can.
• Had judiang and elsaf over for time at mom & dad's cottage at Lake Loramie. They came over Strawberry Festival weekend and so we went there, as well as to the Louisiana Boil that some friends of mine & the folks' put on. My peeps had fun, as did their peeps.
• Have gotten into my summer habit of biking/reading/walking/swimming. And unlike last year, I've been in the pool a couple of times before the first day of summer!
• Have a queue of movies to watch, many of which I've now seen already. I requested several through the library, and, wouldn't you know it, most arrived on the same day!
• Bought a Google Nexus 7 tablet. I just never could think of the niche that a tablet could fill, till I bought a bunch of digital comic books from Humble Bundle. Well, two bunches, it turns out. I figured my eInk-based eBook reader (a Kobo) would be crap for colorful comics, so I figured a tablet would be my best bet. And yeah, I was right. It's also great for playing Doctor Who: Legacy and watching Lynda.com video tutorials. Hooray for technology!

With my summer break in full swing by the first day of summer (or by midsummer if you prefer), I'm good to go for the remainder. Teachers start back on August 15th, so I have to get all of my biking/reading/walking/swimming/movie watching done by then! :-)