As summer more increasingly begins to come to a close and the fresh cool air of autumn sweeps in to refresh us, I have to take a look back at my top 10 best, summer moments. So please, come with me as I show you how my summer rocked.
So coming in at number....
10. Geting a Master's degree--in English. Summer started with a bang of celebrations and a trot out with the Charleston into my favorite season of the year.
9. Going on a Cruise with Mom. As if getting an MA wasn't good enough, I got to spend 5 days on the ocean without a cell phone, facebook, or work.
8. Winning an official, Carnival Cruise Lines Medal of Participation: Alright, so I got schooled by a bunch of teenagers on this one--but come on, we all know that had there been literature and grammar questions, I would have killed it.
7. Getting a Promotion: Got a Job; real style. No more 3AM mornings laying on top of books about Jacobean England divorce, marriage, and sex laws. Shit just got real.
6. Surviving an electrical storm: A casual jaunt to the free, employee luncheon at work turned sinister. Friends--walking together under the protection of a long metal rod with a plastic tarp, pointed at the sky, when suddenly the sky breaks apart in thunder and the gods send down flashes of fire and electrocution, and in slow motion, umbrella's fly, shrieks are projected, and friends get lost in action.
5. Being a Tennis Pro: Many a tennis ball met the face of my brand new, pink tennis racquet on the courts at Wild Dunes. I even won a match.
4. Being Panda-obsessed: The Giant Panda, Lun Lun, who belongs to the Atlanta Zoo, birthed twins in July and my love for the sweet little creatures has caused a pandemonium (ha--pun intended) for my life. I've been glued to the live webcam and the pictures of these little guys.
3. Spending the Fourth of July in a Random Place: ha--haha. In the most random of randomness, my fourth of July was spent lounging by the pool, with my friends Syd Dog, and Haley Boo Boo, a box of wine, lime chips, and an occasional firework. Oh. Did I mention this all went down at a random apartment complex?
2. Hearing Second Hand About the "Valet Service:" Even though I wasn't a first hand witness like some, the pure joy I get from this story causes it to be a member of this list. Picture, slow motion, to the tune of the great eighties classic, Chariots of Fire (need a reference? Click Here) a splendid coach of white sparkle, traveling, at top speeds in backward motion towards our Wild Dunes Heaven-sent mansion. Suddenly, chariot and mansion meet in a combustion of enormity. Knowing the stagecoach makes this story so much more the glorious, but sorry guys--top secret. The driver goes unnamed.
1. Being with my Friends: Nothing makes summer sweeter than spending it with your friends and loved ones, and I've got the best. Some are near, and some are far but my list would be empty without you all!
Friday, August 9, 2013
Sunday, August 4, 2013
It's Moving Time--Open All the Doors and Let Me Out into the World.
Everyone hates moving. I am no different, but somewhere in the pain and stress of moving we are able to peel back the layers of our lives and rediscover who we are. People carry their lives with them in brown cardboard boxes, and when we open them up we remember what what we're about.
Today my best friend left Charleston because she got her big break--a real job--a job we went to school to do. At the same time, I find myself moving apartments post grad school. If you've read my blogs or ever talked to me before you will know that grad school is no easy task and that for me to proclaim a desire to continue my education in English, might be absurd. But today, I crawled way back into the under-stair closet that for the past year has hidden away the "less important" items of my school days.
I struggled as I pulled out heavy boxes full of books, notebooks, and spiral bound journals. My first thought was that the books had to go--there are plenty of good homes I can think of that the books could find happiness in. I yanked back the tape, pulling up some of the brown box with it and I began picking up books. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte De Aurthur, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Tolkien criticism, Norton Shakespeare, the list goes on. I picked up each book and smiled as I remembered the knowledge, both historical, and literary that each one contained. I placed all the books back into the box and realized that I can never really give up learning. It's too much of who I am. I crave the pain of trying to figure out a 20 page paper, but also the joy that comes when you know you did a good job and that you connected with the past. I can't give these books up--they need a real home--a bookshelf in a professor's office. These beautiful books can't be pushed aside.
Of course I am happy in my new job--you can't live life worrying and hating the moment you're in. Our time is just a vapor as each present becomes the past and every future becomes the present. As I cried watching my friend leave today, I remembered each happy moment we had together and was happy to say that I rarely have bad memories--I make good ones. I want to live life like Thoreau and not realize that "when I come to die, discover that I had not lived. I [want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swatch and shave close, to drive life int a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms." How amazing to suck the marrow of life out of each day--to contribute to the world we have been placed in? As I move, I have to ask myself if I am living deep enough--if I am sucking all the marrow out of life. Or, maybe I am settling into the comfortable routine monotony of life? I don't want my cardboard boxes stuffed into the back of some closet--I want the contents of those boxes poured out everywhere and placed into my everyday life so that I can live the life I was called to live. I want to feed on the marrow of life daily as I create the futures into presents that quickly become the memories of our past.
Today my best friend left Charleston because she got her big break--a real job--a job we went to school to do. At the same time, I find myself moving apartments post grad school. If you've read my blogs or ever talked to me before you will know that grad school is no easy task and that for me to proclaim a desire to continue my education in English, might be absurd. But today, I crawled way back into the under-stair closet that for the past year has hidden away the "less important" items of my school days.
I struggled as I pulled out heavy boxes full of books, notebooks, and spiral bound journals. My first thought was that the books had to go--there are plenty of good homes I can think of that the books could find happiness in. I yanked back the tape, pulling up some of the brown box with it and I began picking up books. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte De Aurthur, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Tolkien criticism, Norton Shakespeare, the list goes on. I picked up each book and smiled as I remembered the knowledge, both historical, and literary that each one contained. I placed all the books back into the box and realized that I can never really give up learning. It's too much of who I am. I crave the pain of trying to figure out a 20 page paper, but also the joy that comes when you know you did a good job and that you connected with the past. I can't give these books up--they need a real home--a bookshelf in a professor's office. These beautiful books can't be pushed aside.
Of course I am happy in my new job--you can't live life worrying and hating the moment you're in. Our time is just a vapor as each present becomes the past and every future becomes the present. As I cried watching my friend leave today, I remembered each happy moment we had together and was happy to say that I rarely have bad memories--I make good ones. I want to live life like Thoreau and not realize that "when I come to die, discover that I had not lived. I [want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swatch and shave close, to drive life int a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms." How amazing to suck the marrow of life out of each day--to contribute to the world we have been placed in? As I move, I have to ask myself if I am living deep enough--if I am sucking all the marrow out of life. Or, maybe I am settling into the comfortable routine monotony of life? I don't want my cardboard boxes stuffed into the back of some closet--I want the contents of those boxes poured out everywhere and placed into my everyday life so that I can live the life I was called to live. I want to feed on the marrow of life daily as I create the futures into presents that quickly become the memories of our past.
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