The action-packed month of July
I got an e-mail from gin asking what I'd been doing lately and realized that I hadn't updated in a while, so here's what I've been doing in July.
I've been sleeping as late as possible to make up for my measly six hours a night during the school year. My brain was not happy with me for that, so summer is good for decompressing and catching up.
Part of my youth group went on MAP (Metro Atlanta Project) to help re-roof houses for senior citizens who couldn't afford to get it done themselves. I never thought that sitting on a hot roof in July for six hours each day(we spent a week there) with no shade to rip out shingles and nails, pop chalk lines, and put new shingles down would be fun, but my group had a great time talking on the roof every day. We had some great adult volunteers helping us for two days; they were nice and patient in showing us the ropes of how to do some of the tricky parts like cutting shingles to fit around vents. The only near-accident I had on the roof was when Connor, one the adult volunteers, was trying to trim a shingle with an Exacto knife. He was trying to cut through a thick part and the knife whizzed all the way through the shingle and kept going; I felt it hit my sleeve and almost brush my skin. Given that the knife was one that the site supervisor had passed over because it would supposedly slice through anything, I thought I did a good job of not screaming. Connor was horrified and kept trying to apologize; I told him it was my fault for sitting in a stupid place and kept a careful eye on the kinfe after that. I was happy, by an accident of taking turns, to be able to nail in the very last nail at the corner of the last ridgecap and thus finish the roof. The man we were helping was really sweet and we were all happy to see how thrilled he was that his roof wouldn't leak all over his living room every time it rained. The only real downsides to the trip were that I was embaressingly petty in arguing with two middle-school white guys who talked fake ghetto and kept provoking everyone and that I got itchy sun poisoning on the side of my neck. Sun poisoning, to those who are lucky enough to have never gotten it, is a sudden group of bumps that you get from being in the sun for too long. I dubbed it sunburn part two, but it was better in a way because it didn't hurt.
My family and my mom's parents spent a week in Myrtle Beach. Rachel (my little sister) and I went swimming every morning for a few hours because the ocean was so warm and fun every day until Friday, when a huge wave slammed me in the stomach, tossed me ten feet backwards, and tried to tear off part of my swimsuit. We went to a lot of seafood restaurants, and I was eventually coerced into trying shrimp. It tasted okay, but I didn't like the texture much and it's not exactly my new favorite food. We spent a good bit of time shopping at various outdoor malls because Rachel wanted a sweatshirt, but I skipped souvenirs in favor of buying five new camis (white, gray, teal, green, red) that were on sale. We all had a good time at One: The Show, a variety show with all sorts of creative music and dancing and a comedian pretending to be a redneck stagehand. The most unique experience of the whole trip was when Rachel and I got our picure taken together with a fifty-pound tiger cub and then by ourselves with a ten-pound tabby tiger cub. Touching both tigers was exciting and not really what I expected; they were mostly oblivious to us and their fur was rougher than it looked.
I think my new favorite artist is Rob Gonsalves- I got a chance to see a lot of his work in a Myrtle Beach art gallery, and I love the way most of his pictures make your mind bend. There's something fascinating about the way he blends two realities that are equally valid but mutually exclusive. If you ignore part of the painting then it makes sense in one of his two ways, but taken as a whole it's not possible for things to exist the way he portrays them. It's impossible to say that one version is "right" because each one is equally real- I love the problem because I enjoy simply thinking about the way the two realities merge.
My assigned summer reading is going slowly right now, but I read (and did the assignments for) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in two days. Note to people who are still in school: Invisible Man is a tedious and rambling book. Don't read it unless you're absolutely forced to.
My church has a Youth Sunday every summer; the youth group runs everything at all three services- music, the sermon, and all. The sermon was far better than the congregation expected because we have a guy called Ollie who is determined to be a preacher and has been planning this sermon since sometime back in January. The youth pastor asked to play the prelude, mostly because only one other person in the group was willing to play and he wanted to do guitar for the offertory. I accepted, but I was at Myrtle Beach for the week before Youth Sunday, so I was practicing frantically to get my fingers back in shape when I got home on Saturday night. I messed up a ridiculous number of times at the early service, but I just kept going and no-one noticed. The middle service is mroe casual and didn't need a prelude; everything went very smoothly at the 11:05 service, partly because I played barefoot to keep my foot on the Tiniest Piano Pedal Known To Man. I've seen matchboxes bigger than that thing. Getting to use the piece I chose was fun because I had planned to use it for my recital but couldn't when my teacher scheduled the recital for the second day of choir tour; I was irritated at the time to have polished it for no reason, but playing it for church was great. I got several compliments afterward, so I was happy not to have started the service off on a sour note.
Mike (youth pastor): *looking down at MAP shirt* I don't like these. I think I can see my nipples through the cloth.
People at restaurant: *give him funny looks and edge away slowly*
Mom: Come on, get in the ocean. Show the waves who's boss!
Dad: Oh, I'll happily concede that they are.
Me: So, Mom, where'd you get the "tough rocks, Bosco" catchphrase?
Mom: You know, I don't remember.
Rachel: I thought Bosco was the taco dog!
Mom and I: ... heh?
Rachel: You said it a lot when we went to Taco Bell! It's that dog from the commercials!
Everyone else in the car: *imagines that nasty little rat-dog and considers that Mom's been saying that pretty much forever, then explodes with laughter*
I've been sleeping as late as possible to make up for my measly six hours a night during the school year. My brain was not happy with me for that, so summer is good for decompressing and catching up.
Part of my youth group went on MAP (Metro Atlanta Project) to help re-roof houses for senior citizens who couldn't afford to get it done themselves. I never thought that sitting on a hot roof in July for six hours each day(we spent a week there) with no shade to rip out shingles and nails, pop chalk lines, and put new shingles down would be fun, but my group had a great time talking on the roof every day. We had some great adult volunteers helping us for two days; they were nice and patient in showing us the ropes of how to do some of the tricky parts like cutting shingles to fit around vents. The only near-accident I had on the roof was when Connor, one the adult volunteers, was trying to trim a shingle with an Exacto knife. He was trying to cut through a thick part and the knife whizzed all the way through the shingle and kept going; I felt it hit my sleeve and almost brush my skin. Given that the knife was one that the site supervisor had passed over because it would supposedly slice through anything, I thought I did a good job of not screaming. Connor was horrified and kept trying to apologize; I told him it was my fault for sitting in a stupid place and kept a careful eye on the kinfe after that. I was happy, by an accident of taking turns, to be able to nail in the very last nail at the corner of the last ridgecap and thus finish the roof. The man we were helping was really sweet and we were all happy to see how thrilled he was that his roof wouldn't leak all over his living room every time it rained. The only real downsides to the trip were that I was embaressingly petty in arguing with two middle-school white guys who talked fake ghetto and kept provoking everyone and that I got itchy sun poisoning on the side of my neck. Sun poisoning, to those who are lucky enough to have never gotten it, is a sudden group of bumps that you get from being in the sun for too long. I dubbed it sunburn part two, but it was better in a way because it didn't hurt.
My family and my mom's parents spent a week in Myrtle Beach. Rachel (my little sister) and I went swimming every morning for a few hours because the ocean was so warm and fun every day until Friday, when a huge wave slammed me in the stomach, tossed me ten feet backwards, and tried to tear off part of my swimsuit. We went to a lot of seafood restaurants, and I was eventually coerced into trying shrimp. It tasted okay, but I didn't like the texture much and it's not exactly my new favorite food. We spent a good bit of time shopping at various outdoor malls because Rachel wanted a sweatshirt, but I skipped souvenirs in favor of buying five new camis (white, gray, teal, green, red) that were on sale. We all had a good time at One: The Show, a variety show with all sorts of creative music and dancing and a comedian pretending to be a redneck stagehand. The most unique experience of the whole trip was when Rachel and I got our picure taken together with a fifty-pound tiger cub and then by ourselves with a ten-pound tabby tiger cub. Touching both tigers was exciting and not really what I expected; they were mostly oblivious to us and their fur was rougher than it looked.
I think my new favorite artist is Rob Gonsalves- I got a chance to see a lot of his work in a Myrtle Beach art gallery, and I love the way most of his pictures make your mind bend. There's something fascinating about the way he blends two realities that are equally valid but mutually exclusive. If you ignore part of the painting then it makes sense in one of his two ways, but taken as a whole it's not possible for things to exist the way he portrays them. It's impossible to say that one version is "right" because each one is equally real- I love the problem because I enjoy simply thinking about the way the two realities merge.
My assigned summer reading is going slowly right now, but I read (and did the assignments for) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in two days. Note to people who are still in school: Invisible Man is a tedious and rambling book. Don't read it unless you're absolutely forced to.
My church has a Youth Sunday every summer; the youth group runs everything at all three services- music, the sermon, and all. The sermon was far better than the congregation expected because we have a guy called Ollie who is determined to be a preacher and has been planning this sermon since sometime back in January. The youth pastor asked to play the prelude, mostly because only one other person in the group was willing to play and he wanted to do guitar for the offertory. I accepted, but I was at Myrtle Beach for the week before Youth Sunday, so I was practicing frantically to get my fingers back in shape when I got home on Saturday night. I messed up a ridiculous number of times at the early service, but I just kept going and no-one noticed. The middle service is mroe casual and didn't need a prelude; everything went very smoothly at the 11:05 service, partly because I played barefoot to keep my foot on the Tiniest Piano Pedal Known To Man. I've seen matchboxes bigger than that thing. Getting to use the piece I chose was fun because I had planned to use it for my recital but couldn't when my teacher scheduled the recital for the second day of choir tour; I was irritated at the time to have polished it for no reason, but playing it for church was great. I got several compliments afterward, so I was happy not to have started the service off on a sour note.
Mike (youth pastor): *looking down at MAP shirt* I don't like these. I think I can see my nipples through the cloth.
People at restaurant: *give him funny looks and edge away slowly*
Mom: Come on, get in the ocean. Show the waves who's boss!
Dad: Oh, I'll happily concede that they are.
Me: So, Mom, where'd you get the "tough rocks, Bosco" catchphrase?
Mom: You know, I don't remember.
Rachel: I thought Bosco was the taco dog!
Mom and I: ... heh?
Rachel: You said it a lot when we went to Taco Bell! It's that dog from the commercials!
Everyone else in the car: *imagines that nasty little rat-dog and considers that Mom's been saying that pretty much forever, then explodes with laughter*