Life

I haven't written a lot about myself lately. That is partly because the point of this blog hasn't been for personal stuff, partly because of school prioritizing over personal writing about partly because I haven't had anything to process. But I think a state of the John is a good thing to assess every now and then.

Right now I feel great about my life and who I am. If you have been too close to me these past few months, you'll know that this is a great departure from even a couple months ago. I feel good about who I am and where I'm going. I'm excited for a lot of things I have coming up and that's an important thing to have.

I look forward to my road trip to California next week. This will be my first real road trip to somewhere farther than Portland or Vancouver without my family. It's something I've always wanted to do and I know that it will be a lot of fun.

I look forward to my new job. For many reasons, this is one of the most important things that needed to happen. Target had become a place I had no desire to go to and was just trudging through every time I worked. And while I'll miss a number of people there, there are still too many ghosts of bad things there and I don't make nearly enough nor am I given nearly enough responsibility to have to deal with that. Leaving Target is the last step for me in what has been a long process and I'm really happy about it. It's bittersweet in that I've been there for almost 4 years and I am grateful for them giving me my first job and for taking me back after I quit the first time but it will be great to have a job that might connect to something I want to do with the rest of my life and with something I have an immense passion for. Might I get burned out with the Mariners too? It's possible. But at least I will be getting consistent, predictable hours and will have a passion for what I'm selling and who I'm working for. And won't have the possible awkwardities that come from Target. I will miss a number of the people who I've worked with but Facebook will allow us to keep in touch. Yay modern times!

I look forward greatly to my hopeful study abroad opportunity over the summer in Spain. It's going to be really challenging basically just being placed into a foreign country with less than a mastery of the native language but I think it will be the best way for me to master Spanish. It's also part of the college experience I want to, well, experience myself. I always hear about how someone has spent a semester abroad somewhere or how their sister is in Sydney for the winter or something and I am immensely jealous. Well not jealous as that's too strong of a word, but it makes me think "I really should do that". And I am going to. Am I a little scared of it? Of course. It's a completely new experience. But I'm not exactly a risk taker and this is a risk, albeit not a giant one, that is really worth taking. I worry that it will affect my new job but I think this opportunity is a lot more important than that job, for more reasons than I have to study abroad for my minor.

I look forward to taking a leadership role in Model UN. It's weird how I've sort of taken the reins of our school club and am going to be the president next year but I'm going to embrace it fully. I want our club to flourish and grow. I hope that more people realize that MUN isn't as rigid and uninviting as it apparently gives off. Most people are just doing it for fun and aren't super intense about it. I've met people I'd otherwise never be able to meet through it and I've been able to do non-businessy things with my college career which is a bonus.

Mostly, I look forward to my future, both academically and professionally. It's nice to be legitimately interested in the classes I will be taking and not just taking them because I have to. I can't wait to be able to take my econ electives and learn more about the subject. I've realized that I've got a lot more ability to succeed than I've given myself credit for. I've always known I've been smart but I always assumed that I would drop off at some point and that my intelligence wouldn't carry me forever. That hasn't happened yet. I've been able to adapt and study hard when I need to and I've been able to evaluate how well I actually know things. I feel like I'm pretty well developed in an academic sense and in a professional sense. I'm never going to be someone who's going to make a complete ass of himself at an interview or with a cover letter, mostly just because I know what is expected, both through what I've learned in school and through intuition. I might not get every job or every interview because I'm not perfect and no one gets every job but I feel like my common sense and general idea of what to do in situations will carry me. My ability to improvise and roll off an answer to a question that I might not have prepared for directly is an important one. These are skills I was unsure about. Am I still worried about when it comes time to work in the real world and start earning a salary? Of course. But I know that I'll have the skill set necessary and know what I need to do to at least get my foot in the door somewhere and gain that experience.

At this point, I'm not as dreary about myself and my outlook on life and my interactions with others as I was a while ago. I realize that I'm always going to be a little socially awkward and am not always going to come off as outgoing. I'm fine with that. That's who I am. I know enough to not be a social pariah and outcast and that's enough for me. I have a pretty decent amount of friends and a varied enough amount of friends to know that I'm not that weird kid that no one likes. I've shifted my thinking from thinking that people don't talk to me because they don't like me to that they don't talk to me because they don't know me and haven't talked to me before. Does this mean everyone likes me? No. Far from it. But at this point I realize that it's just a personality difference or a lack of contact more than something that's wrong with me and I think that's important to realize.

Yay being happy and optimistic again.

My Favorite Bands: Brand New

There are a few bands that no matter how often I listen to their songs, I don't get tired of them. In this (likely sporadically updated) series, I will cover the few bands that I can listen to for weeks on end. I'm usually pretty picky about what I listen to and after a few days of listening to an artist or album I'll move on to something else. These artists have staying power for my short attention span, however.



The very first Brand New song I heard was probably Sowing Season or Jesus Christ. Sowing Season probably just in passing because it was one of their more popular songs. Jesus Christ was the first one I downloaded, at the recommendation of one Nathan Smith. It is a wonderful song, though wonderful is probably a strange word to describe it. I'm not very good at interpreting song lyrics and Jesse Lacey is a fantastic song writer but the song seems more or less like a simile between what the singer is going through and the crucifixion of Jesus. There might be more or fewer religious overtones than I see but I mainly see the religious part as a metaphor for what he's going through.

So anyway, that was my first exposure to the band, towards the end of my senior year of high school. Three years after The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me was released and three months before their newest album, Daisy, was released. Most of my favorite bands have come from me getting in to their music long after its been released. I'm like the anti-hipster in that sense. "I discovered this after anyone was still listening to it". So, yeah, I can't say I wss their first big fan or anything.

I had Jesus Christ for about a month before I downloaded Deja Entendu. I don't know why I waited so long. Probably just dealing with all the shit that goes on in the last month of senior year. (Note that I looked up the dates I added these songs in my iTunes library and that I don't have a freakish memory for this.) Anyway, possibly as a result, Deja Entendu is probably my favorite album of theirs.

I wish I could explain why. I guess because it's still a degree of pissed off but not as high-school-feeling as Your Favorite Weapon, their first album, but also not as heavy and dark as The Devil and God... or Daisy. One of my favorite Brand New songs is "Okay I Believe You, but My Tommy Gun Don't". First because what an awesome title. Second, it's a ridiculously fun and funny song. Jesse Lacey is pretty clearly poking fun at everyone in music who're so full of themselves. My favorite line is probably "My tongue's the only muscle in my body that works harder than my heart" just because of how ridiculously over the top it is with how sincere and great of a writer/singer he is.



Deja Entendu is just great to listen to all the way through. This is where my lack of ability to talk about why I like music comes in but pretty much every element of it is great in my eyes. I guess I'm a sucker for overdubbing and harmonies (I guess you can call them that). The type of screaming, again I'm not sure if you can call it that, on this album is the kind that I actually like. Lacey has a ton of vocal range. If I had to pick a few songs for you to listen to from the album besides the one I already names, I'd go with "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows", "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" and "Good to Know That if I Ever Need Attention All I Have to Do is Die". Hooray long titles.

So after a month of Deja Entendu, I bought The Devil and God... It's a very different album than Deja Entendu, much darker, much heavier. I am, again, terrible at interpreting meaning but pretty much all the songs are about shitty things happening and how they are dealt with. I am oversimplifying a lot. One of the things I like most about this album is how jarring some of the songs are. I'd explain it but here's an example of what I'm talking about.



It's amazing how the song goes from a relatively soft song to Lacey just screaming his lungs out. Whenever I listen to this song now, I'm waiting for that moment in the song because it's the best part. It's a dark song but there are times where you want someone out of your life that badly. But just the juxtaposition of that relative calm with the rawness that comes out of it is something I'm a sucker for. That kind of thing is a trademark of this album. I love a song that can scare the shit out of me like that.

This album is ridiculously good beyond that one song. It's obviously depressing, given the title. The character singing (I guess that's how I've always seen it) is going through varying stages of shit, from depressing to pining for lost opportunities to uncertainty to just straight wanting to kill someone. And the emotions that come out of it lead to it just being so powerful.

Next in my Brand New quest came their brand new album, Daisy. Daisy is their... weirdest album. They infuse a bunch of old radio clips which is actually kind of cool. It leads to another holy shit moment though in Vices. Possibly worse than the one in Luca. Daisy is just about as pissed off as The Devil and God... though not as focused on just an ex, as far as I can tell. Daisy hasn't lasted as well as my first two Brand New experiences. About half of the songs I don't really want to hear when they come on now. I don't know if it's because of overplaying them or just not as high of quality or what. You Stole, Bed and At the Bottom are the main examples. You Stole is pretty much six minutes of those two words being repeated.

My favorite songs from this album are Bought a Bride, Sink and In a Jar. I think it's just the shifts from relative calm to screaming that makes me like them. This album is so much more dark and doesn't have the clever lyrics I look for and have relished in their last albums. But the musicianship is really good as always and it's a nice departure from what they've done in the past. A lot different.



So for some reason I waited another six months before buying Brand New's first album Your Favorite Weapon. And going back to this album after hearing their others, it's amazing how much they've evolved since then. YFW was a really good album but it was still just a pop-punk album. When I only hear the intro to, say, Jude Law and a Summer Abroad, I think it's a blink-182 song. This isn't bad but any means but if you played me Failure by Design and then played me At the Bottom back to back I would have no idea they were by the same band.

The more I listen to this album, the more I like it. It's really fun, even though they're still angry emo kids at this point. One of the songs, Seventy Time 7, is basically calling out the lead singer of Taking Back Sunday and saying they hope he dies on his way home from a party, though not as literally as it sounds. In what's probably my favorite song on the album, Mixtape, the band even self-references, which I always like in a song for some reason:



I just love how the song is lyrically even if it's pretty immature. He's clearly telling a girl to get out of his life and calling her fake but it's not as depressingly heavy as the last two albums and comes off as playful. I wouldn't say that musically YFW is up to the standard of the last three albums but that's to be expected and it's not like it's bad. It's just more generic.

I guess the biggest thing I like about Brand New is that all four of their albums sounds different. With many of the bands that started around the same time as them, their sound hasn't changed very much since then. But each of Brand New's four albums are distinct. If you play a song I can identify which album it's from immediately, which I might not be able to do with a band like the Foo Fighters or something. YFW is like someone dealing with their first break up, Deja Entendu is the growth past that. The Devil and God are dealing with a bad end to a serious relationship and Daisy is the aftermath of that and growing cynicism.

So that's Brand New. A very amateurish review of their career thus far. If you haven't heard much of them, I hope this leads you to check them out. You can see whether I'm way off with my ideas about what their songs and albums are about or even about how good they are. But that's what music is, ultimately. Subjective.

And Now to Get a Little Political

So yeah I usually don't talk about politics because it's so so so divisive and leads to arguments and people getting pissed off. But things have gotten so dumb that I have to lay out what I think about it, whether you, hypothetical reader, cares or not. Plus school is done for awhile so ample writing time!

Tax cuts: So the whole hoopla now is about how the Republicans won't do shit until the tax cuts are extended to everyone, not just households that earn $250,000 or less. This is annoying 1. because that this is such a childish way to handle this but I guess politically savvy at the same time which is bonkers if you think about it and 2. because the tax cut extension itself is really dumb. I'm not really sure what sort of political gain the Republicans get from extending them to the richest portion of the country. Obviously they fund them a lot but it doesn't seem like Joe Voter would be all that upset about rich people getting their taxes raised.

I understand the arguments for tax cuts. They stimulate consumer spending. The top earners don't deserve to be taxed more just because they earn their money.The problem with this first one is that I'm not entirely sure that these tax cuts are stimulating spending any more. They've been in place since the early days of the Bush administration and I wouldn't really say spending has gone up since the early 2000s besides from inflation. It's entire possible consumer spending has improved as a result but I find it unlikely that the effect is still there. You'd love for that extra money Americans don't have to pay to go back into the economy but it doesn't seem to be happening. The tax cuts haven't stopped the recession. We need some way to pay for the spending and to lower the deficit. It doesn't seem like anyone is willing to cut any of the spending we have so taxes are really the only way to do this.

The fact that the wealthiest Americans have earned their money is true. I'm don't make over $250,000 a year so I don't really know how much of it they need but it seems like the money they would lose from taxes wouldn't be missed as much as the same amount from a household that brings in, say $100,000 a year. It would be easy enough. And the main thing with letting the tax cuts expire is that taxes weren't even that bad under Clinton. I certainly wouldn't say that the nation was suffering economically in the late '90s when taxes were higher. And the tax rate now is half of what it was for most of the last century. I don't understand where all the uproar about the government wanting too much and intervening too much in our lives comes from. We have to make sacrifices with the economy in the shitter and it doesn't seem like anyone wants to do that.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: I think this whole debate will be seen as regrettable in ten years by most, not that most people don't feel that way now. It's been shown that the soldiers by and large don't really care if another soldier is gay as long as they are competent. That was the whole point of that survey. And really, how likely is it that a gay guy is going to try to come on to a fellow soldier? Is this really a great concern? Is male soldiers raping female soldier a giant problem? This of course isn't going to happen. People are just afraid of gay people for whatever reason and want to exclude them. Is this really a time to be selective in who we pick to serve in war? If we're committed to fighting these wars (which I question whether we should actually be doing but whatever) it doesn't make sense to turn away able bodied people who are willing to do it. Being gay doesn't affect your ability to fight. They keep raising the maximum age to be in the military but it seems like a lot of that could go to allowing gays to serve. The bill to repeal it is only being rejected along party lines. I don;t know if this is just so Republicans can get their tax cut extension or if they really believe that this is right but I don't see any non-political or prejudicial reason for the policy to still exist. For as far as we've come as a nation, we still have some really dumb ideas on how to do things and DADT is one of the prime examples of this.

I could probably talk more about other things if prompted but these are the two most egregious ideas. Yay for economics coming in handy for the tax cut thing.

What I've Learned

If the last month and a half has taught me anything, it's that I can do pretty much anything I set my mind to. Even with all the personal shit I've gone through, I've been able to maintain at least a B in every class. Like I haven't gotten anything less than a B on anything while taking 20 credits. I'm pretty proud of myself, given everything that's been going on outside of class. I'd be happy otherwise obviously, but it's a real confidence boost to know that I'm able to do that while not exactly devoting my full attention to school. I'm pretty thankful that I have this unwillingness to let myself do worse than my expectations. I'm not sure if this is a learned trait or just a natural characteristic but whatever it is, I'm glad to have it. Whether what I have to thank my parents' rearing or genetics or some higher power, it's nice. I've also been thankful to have friends and family for support and to distract me from school and other problems when I've needed to.

While school success isn't everything, it's pretty important to me and for me to be able to make it through all this so far without getting grades that aren't acceptable for me is something I'm very happy about and I'm getting more confident overall. Obviously I'm not completely happy about everything but I realized today that how this quarter has gone academically has been pretty remarkable.

I don't like to brag about myself and I hope this doesn't come off as such. I just have this tendency to doubt myself and recent events made that happen again in many aspects. But I feel like I'm correcting that line of thinking finally and my results in school are helping that to happen. I still have more people I can meet and such but things are changing for the better and I'm having a better outlook on how things go on. Only time will tell what will happen but I'm glad I am where I am right now, despite what else has gone on.

Smell

Things that smell good:
Pumpkin flavored things
New bark
Fresh food that I like (sorry to be so specific)
Females
Flowers
New cars
Freshly cut grass
New books
Old books
Gasoline (don't judge me, you've thought it too)
Rubber cement (actually, maybe this is problematic)
A non-wet baseball
Freshly washed dogs
Hand santizer
Cocaine (or so I've heard. Though maybe it's not the smell that people like)

Things that smell bad (besides the obvious gross things):
The inside of an actual pumpkin
New bark
Food that I don't like
Overly-perfumed females/overly-colognated males
Fungus
Old cars
Two-days-after-it's-been-cut grass
New DVDs
Old hats
Exhaust
Glue
A wet baseball
A dog at any other time ever
Alcohol the day after you've been drinking
Cocaine
Hipsters

Oh and here's one last rerun

This is something I wrote back in April when i first had to think about losing my dog, Buddy. He passed away on August 27th, so I still got to enjoy a good four months with him before he moved on. What's most remarkable about the two weeks since then is how the behavior in my other dogs has changed. While Lucy and Sally used to bicker, they now stick together as if they are afraid they're next or realize they don't need to fight or something. It's been pretty cool to watch actually. They are almost mourning his loss while being less grumpy in general. While it's never good to lose a dog you've had for over 13 years, I'm glad we didn't make Buddy have to suffer for very long and I'm glad he didn't have to go on while losing most of his senses. I will never forget you, Buddy, and you will always be dear to my heart. What follows is what I wrote back in April.

_____________________________________________________________

This isn't something I want to write but I feel like it's something I have to write.

I've always had dogs. Everyone in my family has. The first dogs I remember having are Suzy, a schnauzer, and Dolly, a... well we'll just say a mutt. I didn't get to experience the primes of these dogs lives. Suzy was basically crippled for my entire memory of her, though she did somehow manage to drag herself across a busy street and survive, my lasting memory of her. Suzy died sometime in my early school years, before I moved to my current house during Kindergarten I believe. She was the mother of the most beloved dogs I can remember of my grandma's Cricket. My grandparents loved him and seeing him whenever we went over to their house is one of my earliest memories. How he always knew that 5 was dinner time.

Dolly was my mom's favorite dog ever. I've always heard stories about how smart she was as a puppy. When my parents lived in California, she would find frogs in the backyard, pick them up by their feet and sling them across the yard. My mom always knew she could count on Dolly. Unfortunately, my memories of her are as a mean, grumpy dog whose senses had gone. She died sometimes in late elementary school but she lived to be almost 20. I was mildly afraid of Dolly, mainly because a single digit boy wasn't the best friend of an old dog with limited senses. But I was sad when she died because I knew how much she meant, and still means to my mom, and wished I had gotten to see her in her youth.

My brothers had Sofie and Molly, two Labradors, one mean and black, the other nice and golden. (I may have the colors mixed up). I remember going down to my brother's house in Lacey and playing with Molly. I remember once when Molly had the lampshade device on her and that was my first exposure to that piece of canine misfortune. I thought they used an actual lampshade for the longest time.

I remember hearing about the dogs my dad had as a kid. Scamp is the one that comes most to mind, though I think my dad was grown by that point. Apparently Scamp would jump from my grandparents' boat into Lake Union and not die, something I found amazing from such a small dog, and from hearing about it at such a young age.

I tell you of all these dogs from my early childhood or even before I was born because some of my most distinct memories from my young days are those of interacting with dogs. From putting the blanket over Dolly in order to pick her up and have her on my lap and keep her from biting me to discovering the Chow that came with our house for some reason. While not all my experiences are necessary pleasant, I really do look back on all of them fondly.

The first dog I had of my own, which was post-Buddy, was Patches, an Australian Shepherd. She was such an energetic dog and just loved to play. Her tail was called Godzilla because it was so damn huge and could knock everything off the table. She quickly was able to leap the fence in our yard and was one of the biggest reasons for us installing a wooden fence. Unfortunately, Patches grew too big. Our yard wasn't big enough to hold her and my mom was allergic to her constantly shedding fur. We gave her away to a family who had a bigger yard and I hope she's living/lived a full, happy life. Of course, at age 8 or 9 when we had to give her up, I was devastated. But I think it was important for me to understand that having a dog that big wasn't appropriate, either for us or the dog, and it was better to find a better environment for her.

The next dog I had of my own was Suki. She was also a Schnauzer. She was the first non-Patches dog who actually responded to me. I believe she was an adopted dog. I loved that dog to death. But, in the Great Bathroom Remodel of 1999(?), our dumbass contractor (installer? I don't know what you call that person) left the door open and off ran Suki, never to be seen again. I'm still sad about it to this day. I don't know what happened to her at all. I'm hoping she didn't die soon thereafter but we never heard anything about it. I suppose it's possible that my parents knew and didn't want to tell me because I was a youngin, but that still pisses me off. Never have Blair do anything home improvement wise for you ever. I don't care if it's a different Blair.

Many of you reading this may have never had a dog and don't understand how one could form a bond with an animal. But dogs are always there for you, no matter what you may have done. They are attention whores, sure, but really, who can get pissed off at something that just wants to be petted constantly? Even through all the changes in my life, I've always had a dog there to cheer me up. They know when you're down, even though I don't know how. This entire paragraph sounds cliche but it's completely true.

This brings me to Buddy. We got Buddy for free from a trailer in Gold Bar when we saw an ad for him in the newspaper. His first year in the world was torturous. He was called Munchkin for God's sake. (note: sorry if your dog's name is Munchkin) For years, Buddy was afraid of being covered with a blanket (which may be a normal dog thing but he seems particularly scared of it), presumably because the hell-child who owned him previously used that as some sort of torture device. I imagine his previous owner as being Sid from Toy Story. I remember going to get Buddy. It was around April of 1997. We had just moved into our house. The trip to Gold Bar was unfathomably long for a 6 year old, so I had my parents drop me off at my grandparents' house in Kirkland on the way. I'm glad I didn't have to see Buddy's original house, as it would make me too angry today to actually see it.

Anyway, when my parents came back with him, we gave him what I'm fairly certain was his first ever bath in my grandparents' front yard. This is my earliest memory of Buddy, and really one of my earliest clear memories. Spry, young Buddy was quite the entertaining Scottish Terrier to be honest. He always would try to catch flies in his mouth (something my other, younger Scottie has inherited), though I don't think he ever actually caught one. It was the adorability of his persistence that made it for me.

Our neighbor to the back of us had a variety of lawn ornaments. One of them was the ubiquitous lawn gnome. This was and probably still is Buddy's arch-nemesis. He would go out there and bark at it for hours. It's dumb because, good lord Buddy, that thing has never moved. But really, you can't fault him at all. There was also the fact that Buddy would take one of my former dogs, Patches, toys and put them just out of reach of her tether outside. He was an asshole about it but it's still fantastic.

The most memorable single thing Buddy did was lock my dad out of his car. My dad went in to Fred Meyer for a quick minute and left the keys in the car. Buddy, being in the car because the car is like heaven for dogs (it wasn't hot, don't worry), loved to sit on my dad's left side when he would drive, or on the driver's seat itself with no human occupying it. He had always put his front feet on the door of the car where the window controls were and, well, you see what happened. My brother had to drive up and unlock the car for my dad. You want to get pissed off at him but, c'mon. How can you?

Buddy has been around for most of my life and essentially all of my academic life. I always remember being there. Whether he wanted to be up on the chair while we watched TV or he got so, so excited at the possibility of a walk, he was always a joy to have there. Unfortunately, as all dogs do, Buddy has lost his youthful exuberance. Whereas he used to be able to jump 3 feet straight in the air, (but maybe 9 inches forward) his feet barely leave the ground anymore. He has essentially lost his sight and hearing. Over the last few years, it has been sad to see Buddy after remembering how he was. But the enduring thing about him is that he's always been so nice. I don't think Buddy has ever bitten anyone ever or even growled at anyone (besides those who dared ring his doorbell or walk by his backyard. But that's a territorial thing that comes from being a dog.) Whereas my other dogs haven't always been the nicest to people or even other dogs, Buddy has always been so gentle and kind.

While Buddy is still alive and it's not a real surprise he's reaching his end, it still hurts to see it happen. It makes me realize that I've taken him for granted, as cliched as that sounds. I mean, he's always been there. I can't help but feel I haven't appreciated him enough. I wish my most clear memories of him weren't his decrepit current state. But after thinking about it, I realize that I've always loved Buddy and don't want to see him go. All the good memories I have of him as a pup.

This is what's hard about owning a dog. They live a comparatively short life, so it's almost guaranteed that if you own one, it will die or run away in your life time. In many ways the long life of a dog is bittersweet. You get more time with the dog, but you also have to see their modern-day-Griffey-esque fading years. We don't want the dog to suffer more than we have to but it's always so hard to let go. Even though I have two other dogs still, their personalities are completely different from Buddy's.

I guess all I can really say at this point is that I'm glad to have been able to experience the time with Buddy that I did. His presence throughout my childhood is something I'll never forget. Even though I never thought of him as "my dog" (he's my dad's dog, clearly), He's always been there. And for that I'm glad. Even though it's not quite time to say goodbye yet, Buddy, thank you for always being there. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

Ah, summer

No, blog, I haven't forgotten about you. I've just had extended writer's block and been busy having an amazing summer.My lack of posts may or may not coincide with an introduction of a new segment of my life that has kept me busy. I'm definitely not looking forward to summer ending and having non-work responsibilities. I feel like there was more that I wanted to do this summer that I couldn't get done. In June, summer feels endless but in September, it can't feel any shorter. I didn't spend as much time with friends as I wanted to. I never picked cherries with Alyana or went to a Mariners game with Shun or went to Canada with any of my underage-in-America buddies. I hardly hung out with my favorite Jew. But when I look back on it, I never really felt all that bored. I always had something to do or someone to see, whether it was work or a random meeting with friends or hanging out with my family.

But now I have a smidge over a week left at work and living in Kent. Will I miss work? Miss is a strong word but there are certain aspects I'll miss. The money. Some of the people. Starting to actually work in a part of the store I like. Will I miss Kent? I love the ability to park places for free/without hassle and I will miss easy access to the people I care about most. But there is a certain element of freedom that will come from being back in school. Maybe this will be the year that I actually am a good student and don't just coast by on my intelligence. Maybe I will be more outgoing and make more than a few close friends. I look forward to the new things I will learn this year and hopefully learning whether I actually want to go into business or not. And it will be nice to have people to hang out with just a few doors down from me and not miles away and accessible only by horseless carriage.

So, summer 2010, I will never forget you. You brought me much joy and a little bit of trouble (sorry concrete barrier and Camry! Bye Buddy). And to those who I didn't have a chance to do as much as I wanted to this summer, I did want to and still do want to. I just took the amount of time I would have to do so for granted and didn't embrace the opportunity. But there will be other chances, even once school begins. I hope to have my friends last all year and not just have summer friends and have college friends.