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The best way I can understand what happened in the year that just past is by looking at the year ahead. That's an odd sensation. What is that? Oh, my. That's fear. I started down a strenuous, but clear, path when 2010 turned to 2011. As this year begins that path will fade only 5 months from now and I have to take back over for what happens next. Who knew 2011 was such an easy year? Didn't feel like it, but I know better now.

2011 was also, of course, very joyful. If it was a highway I was undoubtedly racing from rest stop to rest stop as fast as I could, Styrofoam coffee cups piling high in the passenger seat. Thank goodness Michelle and I planned a special excursion along the way, like pulling into the parking lot of the surprise day at the amusement park, and got married in October (to each other, even!) Camp Fowler was, in a word, perfect;

The Chapel

even though the skies drizzled and the temperatures drifted to lows somehow colder than it is even today. Check this out, the weather being as affecting as it was, pulled the guests together, and as a wedding community, refused to let it be a factor in our enjoyment of the weekend. I can not think of anything more "camp," I can not think of anything more "us."

And I can't say I didn't enjoy the rest of the road trip either. If I take my 2011 education experience and compartmentalize it; it was downright amazing. In my master classes I made new friends, and not just any new friends, the kind of new friends that one makes at Camp Fowler. The kind of people who remind you that you're not the only person trying to change the planet for the better. Funny people, musical people, people I will miss now that school is over. In my elementary internship I made a difference. I befriended nearly 400 children and tried to learn every one of their names. I changed some of my understandings about children and human development. I was supported and cared for as a member of a team of professional educators, and my decision to become a teacher was resolutely reinforced.

Now I enter 2012, 30 years old, (Did you catch that? I snuck it in behind my wedding), and I'm no closer to feeling that mature. 2011 showed that I can follow a complicated plan, and I can follow it pretty well. 2012 will have to prove that I can make my own plan.

We know the question well, "How was your summer?"

We know the answer too, "It was alright."

That's the standard answer I've had since I left Camp Fowler in 2008, when my usual words would have been, "It was the best summer, yet, camp is the greatest!"

If I take a moment and breathing Summer 2011 in, however, I must learn to modify my words.

It was a summer that I should not be too quick to dismiss, for it may have been the best I've had since I left camp.

It was quick, of course. In the mornings I helped set wedding plans in stone while I spent the evenings working at Dunkin Donuts. Each weekend was occupied. That's not an exaggeration.

With busyness comes adult growth. I have seen more of my friends this summer than I have in three years. I have reconnected with people and personalities that hold deep importance in making me who I am today. I have visited two great American cities and spent a weekend in the mountains. I have met a new niece-by-friendship who has captured my heart and filled it with hope and happiness. I've played music and I've read books.

I have learned that I am someone who does not go out of my way to enjoy life, I often prefer life to come find and enjoy me. It's selfish, silly, but--when you consider my young adult years were spent at an Adirondack playground where everyone I knew wanted to be--forgivable. With Michelle's help I have become a better person this summer.

I wouldn't spend the summer before our wedding any other way.

Oh yeah, and Michelle is planning our wedding.

So, where to begin? Hm, here's this:

I'm still figuring this out. If I'd been interviewed at anytime during the trimester I'd have forecast the distinct impression that I was failing miserably. I am the master of academic histrionics. One of the silliest things I have ever done was my Ithaca College exit performance. In the midst of straight out skipping three clearly easy undergraduate finals, the class in which I held strong, was the impossible one. History of Medieval Thought as taught by Joseph Tempesta. Ah, this was one of those courses where the syllabus explicitly stated that a certain percentage of us would fail while the rest would pull a well earned D. There were two paperback texts for that class, each the size of a loaf of bread. In the midst of dropping out of college, I cranked out a B- in that class. I don't know how, honestly. The only person allowed to fail me, is me, apparently.

This trimester seemed rockier than its end result for a couple reasons. I was tired, clearly. There's no break between the trimesters and in my internship I'm technically working Monday through Friday 8:30 - 3:30 in addition to classes three nights a week. This trimester in particular was heavily backloaded. Most classes were heavily relying on grades that were mostly collected in the last two weeks of class. As a procrastinator this can be a nightmare. Luckily my calendar had a built in failsafe. The internship ended a full two weeks before classes. This meant that as long as I wasn't working during those two weeks I'd have full days to work on my papers and projects.

Today, looking at those grades, I can't argue with the pay-off. I actually got a lot of my work done ahead of their final due dates. That is a shock. I turned everything in with high confidence. Great plan, right?

That leads to part two of this post. Now, I needed work. I crunched the numbers and my loans simply would not get me through the summer. I would be 900 dollars short -- and that would be under a no driving, no spending, bare minimum bill spending scenario. This was probably the most stressful thing I faced! I know how hard it is to get a job out there and I was not about to go crawling on my hands and knees back to Target.

Most students who successfully flag down summer work today are returning to prior employers or they had the foresight to nail down their summer work in March, or February, or (as I know from Camp) December. I don't have the mindset. This is my failing, I'll admit. I hate having to be an advocate for myself. At the precipice of 30 years old I'd still rather have someone else tell me what to do... and then I'll perform that task above and beyond. Just like the audacity and bravado required of someone aspiring to be a broadcaster the last thing I want to do is sometime in April call up summer camps I've never even visited and advertise myself as someone deserving of work. So, I refused to be successful and now I'm going to pay for it.

The first option was to not find work. Seemed like that was going to happen. I actually did a lot of applying in May and June to open Assistant Director positions. I responded to some Craigslist landscaping positions. I started putting in to places like Pizza Hut, Big Y, and Dunkin' Donuts. I heard from no one. Ugh, I had just done this. The worst thing about the modern job search is not the rejection. There is no rejection! It's just pointless paper work. I think one of the online assessment tests I took lasted about a half hour.

I caught a break when I inadvertently handed my Dunkin' Donuts app directly to the store manager last week. She looked at it, flipped the page, and without looking up asked if I could come back at noon the next day for an interview. The interview was a four-person group affair where this manager nonchalantly said if we could put up with the rudest customers in the chain and herself as the, uh, forceful-female-personality manager -- we could work.

There you go, graduate degree student/Dunkin' Donuts crew member. The funny thing is, so far, this Dunkin' Donuts thing is hard! I don't know how they do it. It's like someone telling you three phone numbers in rapid succession and then handing you a phone and asking you to dial them all. No wrong numbers! My poor brain is not happy with me. It was pretty happy with the job skills I already had, and it really wants to know why I'm making it learn new things. In the summer, no less!

Yet, it is the summer. Today I have a full day off, and nothing, aside from helping with the wedding plans, to worry about. Oh, except for the sticky conversation with Dunkin' management coming a scant four weeks from now when I confirm with them that they understand I'm just temporary (I think they conveniently skipped that part of my application and I conveniently, well, let them). I hate that conversation. I also hate missing camp in a working capacity for another summer. But, the big problems can be set aside for a little while, and hey, we'll all be at camp real soon.

To me, this is a lot of writing on my part going to waste. Plus, some of this might (I said might) be interesting.

This is not my tell-all memoir. These are stories about real kids and their real teachers. I take great pains to leave names out of my work, regardless, I don't think it's right to serve this content up to the Google Gods.

So, if I post about school it will remain password protected for now. If you'd like to know what my internship experience is like in mostly long, boring, academic reflection, I would be happy to share the password with you.

If you're someone for whom that's appropriate, you know how to find me.

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Yes, that was a blur. Somehow I swung those grades despite my uncanny ability to leave every assignment for the night before and alternate between 14 hours and 2 hours of sleep.

What's frightening is that I'm muscling out this update while I'm in the midst of already having met for most of my classes already in the next trimester.

I did enjoy a lot of the research I've gotten to do already. There have been some late night psychotic breaks. Most of the time I am raving mad and declare, loudly, that I don't want to do this. A few times it's been because I've been really into my work. If I get around to it I may post a couple of my presentations or papers if I can figure out a way to make them internet entertaining.

Other than that things should stay pretty quiet around here on the update front.

Before school I liked to read. Now I never, ever read for fun. How does a flashlight-under-the-blanket kid become a sloth ridden couch potato.

Before school I liked to blog. Now I have to write a daily journal entry after each day of my internship.

That's where the writing goes.

Then real stuff happens. I quit Target, I return to school, I get engaged.

Quite honestly the longer I went without seriously discussing these events on the ol’ internet the harder became to update the blog. I knew with each passing day I would have to start my post with what I’m typing out right now. My site would be come another classic sorry-for-not-updating-my-blog blog. I hate that kind of blog.

The whole idea of having my own website is to have a place where I can make people “look at me look at me!” Then I have to use the actual words, sorry y’all couldn’t look at me for a while there, and I have this realization of how silly and self-centered the whole project is. Who am I apologizing to right now?

The answer is me. I’m saying sorry to me. This is a place for me to write and I take that hobby away from myself when I get hung up about what my imaginary public needs from my imaginary stardom. I could have just filled the last three months with a daily photo of my cat (don’t test me) and the quality of this website as a blog would not have diminished.

That’s not how my writing mind works. I can only think about how I can’t comment on making catering decisions without some former grandiose testimony to the joy of my engagement. These are big events and they should have earned big posts. The only person who that really stopped was me. Now that I wrote this to undo the shackles on my keyboard let’s do this:

Hey, I quit target, I returned to school, I got engaged.

Let’s get back to blogging.

Things are moving forward with grad school. I've been awarded an internship (most likely) and I picked up a substantial financial aid package.

My internship interview was a strange experience. At one point the principal and assistant principal looked at each other and briefly confirmed with each other that, "Yeah, we're staying open."

I was struck by what a strange country it's become. When the Mohawk Mall slowly became an empty husk or the retail football that was the Glenville Fay's Drugs building finally was razed to the ground it was change but it was good old fashioned American change. Schools closing and restructuring feels entirely different, although maybe that's because I grew up in a district that was pushing against the size of it's buildings. I've seen schools closing in the news but this was the first time I sat across from actual professionals what that shrug in their shoulders: we don't know where the country is going.

The financials were the last thing really holding me back from committing to grad school. I'm going to get swallowed up by a really nuts schedule over the next month. Enjoy this nugget. I'm going to go disappear again.