Remember in like, elementary school when you'd come back from summer break and have to write an essay (aka a paragraph, what happened to those days?) about your summer? Well, I started classes today so I can do longer deny the reality of school so I have decided to recap my summer by recording the books I've read, whole CDs I've bought and movies I have seen. It if were last summer, I would recap more interesting events like number of time I blacked out or number of boys that I "met" but the juxtaposition of that list with this one just goes to show how much your life can change in one year. So, in nostalgic reflection, here is my list:
Books
"Things I Know Now: Letter to My Younger Self" edited by Ellyn Spragins
"The Abstinence Teacher" by Tom Perrotta
"Everything I know about being a girl I learned from Judy Blume" edited by Jennifer O'Connell
"When You Are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris
"Commencement" by J. Courtney Sullivan
"I Know This Much is True" by Wally Lamb
"I Love You, Beth Cooper" by Larry Doyle
"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
2-3 months of the New Yorker
Currently reading: "Somethings Missing" by Matthew Dicks
Next in line: "The First Hour I Believed" by Wally Lamb
Movies
Away We Go
Paperheart
The Hurt Locker
Julie & Julia
Up!
The Hangover
The Ugly Truth
(500) Days of Summer
The Proposal
District 9
Next in line: It Might Get Loud
Whole CDs
Barclona "Absolutes"
Incubus "Moments and Melodies"
Blind Pilot "3 Rounds & a Sound"
Stephen Kellogg "...South of Stephen"
The Gabe Dixon Band "The Gabe Dixon Band"
Jaymay "Autumn Fallin'"
The Avett Brothers "I and Love and You-EP"
Bon Iver "Blood Bank-EP"
Regina Spektor "Far"
(500) Days of Summer Soundtrack
Eric Hutchinson "Sounds Like This"
Mat Kearney "City of Black and White"
That is my list. What about you, infinite abyss of nonexistant readers?
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Where will people get their first kisses now!?
So every summer there is some article about declining enrollment numbers in summer camps. Blame it on the economy, Xbox or the fact that you now cannot get a college scholarship for sports unless you've been doing it seriously since age 7, but this should be considered a national crisis. Now, maybe I was unique because I am an only child and my parents were deathly afraid I was never going to develop social skills, but I have been going to camps since I can remember for everything from various sports to computer programming (yes, I'm serious. but we aren't in middle school anymore so you cannot make fun of me).
Day camps are a joy, especially for working parents and the counselors get to send the little snots back home around the time the lunch/snack high wears off and they start screaming. I understand that not every parent or child is comfortable sending their children away to sleepover camp but this brings me to my point. A startling number of kids I know had their first kiss/sexual experience at sleep away camp. I also worked at the summer camp I went to and got plenty of action out of it so this issue spans across generations. Now, you may be thinking "why would I send my child away to be turn into a ho ho?" but think of the other places kids get first kisses.
1) A car: Ok, to this day I HATE saying hello/goodbye to a potential lover in a car. You can't actually touch, there's no way to lean in without being painfully obvious and then the girl will inevitably struggle somehow getting out of the car and want to crawl into a corner. Until bench seats make a comeback, this is a major nono.
2) At the door: As I mentioned, I am an only child. This means my mother waited up for me at night. Every night. The only thing worse than an awkward first kiss would be your parents witnessing it. Also, there is the awkward pause when both of you are trying to figure out what to do and what goes where and maybe your drop your keys or you can't find them after the kiss or your dog starts barking or or or!
3) At school: Eh. No. Although, any positive thing you can associate with high school is good. Or middle school. Whatever. But not every first kiss is positive so you know, be careful.
4) A dance: Very public. With people grinding all over each other. If it's in middle school, your best friends are obviously all staring. Awkward.
I'm sure there are a multitude of other options that are cute and everything, but the allure of camp is really that there are no parents involved at all. Most times, the counselors are more concerned with the play they may or may not be getting from each other so you can wander. Camps are also typically in the wilderness so you can wander a bit and hold hands because you are "scared of the dark" or "heard a noise." Then you can gossip to your camp friends about it (and maybe your counselors...) but they won't be there to taunt you forever about it. It's perfect. So, send your children to camp and let them experience first kisses the least awkward way possible. Plus, it'll give you alone time to get some lovin' too.
Day camps are a joy, especially for working parents and the counselors get to send the little snots back home around the time the lunch/snack high wears off and they start screaming. I understand that not every parent or child is comfortable sending their children away to sleepover camp but this brings me to my point. A startling number of kids I know had their first kiss/sexual experience at sleep away camp. I also worked at the summer camp I went to and got plenty of action out of it so this issue spans across generations. Now, you may be thinking "why would I send my child away to be turn into a ho ho?" but think of the other places kids get first kisses.
1) A car: Ok, to this day I HATE saying hello/goodbye to a potential lover in a car. You can't actually touch, there's no way to lean in without being painfully obvious and then the girl will inevitably struggle somehow getting out of the car and want to crawl into a corner. Until bench seats make a comeback, this is a major nono.
2) At the door: As I mentioned, I am an only child. This means my mother waited up for me at night. Every night. The only thing worse than an awkward first kiss would be your parents witnessing it. Also, there is the awkward pause when both of you are trying to figure out what to do and what goes where and maybe your drop your keys or you can't find them after the kiss or your dog starts barking or or or!
3) At school: Eh. No. Although, any positive thing you can associate with high school is good. Or middle school. Whatever. But not every first kiss is positive so you know, be careful.
4) A dance: Very public. With people grinding all over each other. If it's in middle school, your best friends are obviously all staring. Awkward.
I'm sure there are a multitude of other options that are cute and everything, but the allure of camp is really that there are no parents involved at all. Most times, the counselors are more concerned with the play they may or may not be getting from each other so you can wander. Camps are also typically in the wilderness so you can wander a bit and hold hands because you are "scared of the dark" or "heard a noise." Then you can gossip to your camp friends about it (and maybe your counselors...) but they won't be there to taunt you forever about it. It's perfect. So, send your children to camp and let them experience first kisses the least awkward way possible. Plus, it'll give you alone time to get some lovin' too.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck....OR...If the pool is empty, with a closed sign and there is no lifeguard...
It has been two summers since I told myself I would keep up a blog...and you can see how well that went. I have since graduated from college and completed a year of graduate school to find myself life guarding once again in an effort to take advantage of my (hopefully) last hourly wage job. This summer, yet again, boredom has led me to think that my musings may be amusing to others as well. So, here we go "again."
I work at the university pool which has an Olympic size competition pool and a smaller, much warmer dive pool. Priority is given to the Division I athletes of the University so most of the time only the dive pool is open because they are in the competition pool, but the schedule varies. We do not life guard for the athletes, only the recreational swimmers, and no athlete can be in an unguarded pool without a coach. This leads me to my point.
I like to think that people have a decent amount of common sense, especially considering we are at a university and no one under the age of 16 can use our pool. That being said, the questions I receive actually pain me. Some examples:
(While I am in the tower. People are in the pool. Other pool is empty and closed.)
"Is this pool open?"
"Can I go for a swim?"
(pointing toward other pool) "Can I swim there?"
(What goes through my head)
"No...I'm actually just sitting here watching these people swim for fun. We aren't open. In fact, those aren't actually other people."
"Yeah....actually, today just isn't your day...maybe come back tomorrow?"
Ok, so the schedule can be confusing. Swim team, swim camps, water polo soirees...it is a crapshoot as to whether or not the competition pool is open. We also keep the "pool closed" sign up when USC sponsored things are using the pool, so I SUPPOSE the sign is a little misleading. HOWEVER. Here are some signs that the non-open pool is, in fact, not open to you:
1) There is a pool closed sign 2) There is no lifeguard 3) A tall serbian man is cursing out water polo players 4) there are 4+ people to a lane swimming very quickly 5) there is a man/woman shouting swim sets into a megaphone and 6) THERE IS NO LIFEGUARD
Now, do not get me wrong here, I do appreciate that these people have the decency to ask as opposed to the people who just hop into an empty un-lifeguarded pool. When this happens, I suppress the urge to throw kickboards at the person. My other suggestion to prevent this from happening is placing a small, electronic device into the pool. That'll condition you never to swim alone. However, despite the entertainment of the aforementioned tactics, I would think simple logic would tell you that if you had to choose between an empty pool with no one in it and a pool with swimmers and a lifeguard you would choose the latter. It's basic water safety, really. I think next time I'm guarding a full, open pool and someone asked me if the pool is open I will simply reply "what pool?"
I work at the university pool which has an Olympic size competition pool and a smaller, much warmer dive pool. Priority is given to the Division I athletes of the University so most of the time only the dive pool is open because they are in the competition pool, but the schedule varies. We do not life guard for the athletes, only the recreational swimmers, and no athlete can be in an unguarded pool without a coach. This leads me to my point.
I like to think that people have a decent amount of common sense, especially considering we are at a university and no one under the age of 16 can use our pool. That being said, the questions I receive actually pain me. Some examples:
(While I am in the tower. People are in the pool. Other pool is empty and closed.)
"Is this pool open?"
"Can I go for a swim?"
(pointing toward other pool) "Can I swim there?"
(What goes through my head)
"No...I'm actually just sitting here watching these people swim for fun. We aren't open. In fact, those aren't actually other people."
"Yeah....actually, today just isn't your day...maybe come back tomorrow?"
Ok, so the schedule can be confusing. Swim team, swim camps, water polo soirees...it is a crapshoot as to whether or not the competition pool is open. We also keep the "pool closed" sign up when USC sponsored things are using the pool, so I SUPPOSE the sign is a little misleading. HOWEVER. Here are some signs that the non-open pool is, in fact, not open to you:
1) There is a pool closed sign 2) There is no lifeguard 3) A tall serbian man is cursing out water polo players 4) there are 4+ people to a lane swimming very quickly 5) there is a man/woman shouting swim sets into a megaphone and 6) THERE IS NO LIFEGUARD
Now, do not get me wrong here, I do appreciate that these people have the decency to ask as opposed to the people who just hop into an empty un-lifeguarded pool. When this happens, I suppress the urge to throw kickboards at the person. My other suggestion to prevent this from happening is placing a small, electronic device into the pool. That'll condition you never to swim alone. However, despite the entertainment of the aforementioned tactics, I would think simple logic would tell you that if you had to choose between an empty pool with no one in it and a pool with swimmers and a lifeguard you would choose the latter. It's basic water safety, really. I think next time I'm guarding a full, open pool and someone asked me if the pool is open I will simply reply "what pool?"
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