I think possibly the scariest thing that a person could experience in their life is being stuck in a riot. I can't even imagine how terrifying it's got to be for the people in the suburbs of London right now. In case you don't already know, violent riots have been raging in many areas of London for the past few days, initially sparked by outrage over the death of a man at the hands of police officers. This article from CNN gives a pretty good explanation of how everything spiraled out of control.
Sadly, rioting has now sprung up in other parts of the country, including Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and Liverpool. This BBC article paints a seriously frightening picture of what's going on. I wish I could wave a magic wand and just stop all of this. I'm frightened for the people who live there, and for all the people that are visiting there, even though at least in London most of the rioting is well away from the tourist-y areas. Less than three months ago, I had several friends visiting London and Liverpool on a study abroad trip. For selfish reasons, I'm frightened for all the incredible history and beautiful buildings that give those cities such character. The essayist Samuel Johnson said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Well, let's hope that's still true when all of this is over. I'm afraid to see what's going to be left....
Monday, August 8, 2011
BEDA Day 6: No, I didn't forget to blog today...
This is my blog for today. I had entirely too much fun hanging out with two of my almost-siblings this afternoon, and now my best friend Carie is here to spend the night and save me from being lonely in the house all by myself, since my sister and my parents drove to Chicago today. We have spent the evening watching Across the Universe and working on a scrapbook that's been on hiatus for almost a year, and now I'm tired and it's time for bed.
Cop-out blog post is a cop-out.
Cop-out blog post is a cop-out.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
BEDA Day 5: I think the Whomping Willow's out to get me
As I hinted yesterday, I will now commence writing about the crazy thing that happened to me after Mel and Derek's wedding reception.
Directly after the reception and getting everything cleaned up at the park, the families of the bride and groom and the wedding party went back to Mel's church to clean things up there. It was around 5:30-6:00, and the sky was starting to look really nasty, and the wind was picking up. As I mentioned before, it had been exceedingly hot and sunny all day, and in Ohio, that kind of weather early on a summer's day often means there will be a thunderstorm in the afternoon or evening. It took less than half an hour to get the bulk of things cleaned up at the church, and the sky had taken on the greenish cast that means a really, really, really bad storm is coming. The wind was blowing dust from the dirt/gravel parking lot in circles, and I decided I'd better head out right away. (It's only about seven miles to my house.) I hugged everyone goodbye and promised I'd call Mel when I got home.
The wind was buffeting my little Honda Accord from side to side as I hurried down the road, not to the point that I was crossing the center line, but certainly enough to be disconcerting, and there were lots of branches flying through the air. It started to rain really, really hard right as I turned onto 257, but I was still more concerned with the wind. There are tons of trees surrounding this long, very curvy stretch of road, and things were still flying everywhere. Right as I was going through a teeny tiny, bump-in-the-road town, I heard this terrifying sound that was like a huge rock smacking the body of my car. Then I looked up and saw a golf ball-sized hole in the top left corner of my windshield and saw the glass spiderwebbing all the way across in front of me. It had to have been a pretty large tree branch that hit my car; I never actually saw what it was because it didn't come inside. I completely freaked out and didn't know whether to pull over or keep going, but I was almost home, and I could actually see halfway decently, so I just decided to suck it up and keep going. I groped around for my phone and managed to call my mom and have her move her car out of the garage so I could park there, and to her credit, she didn't flip out when I told her what was going on.
I finally made it home and parked in the garage, and I just totally lost it. I really can't remember the last time I cried so hysterically. I was wet, and I was completely covered in teeny tiny shards of glass. It was all in my hair (which was still done up from the wedding), all over my face, in my mouth, down my shirt....it was horrible. But my family was amazing and helped me clean off, and all I got was this miniscule cut on my wrist that didn't even require a band-aid. My windshield got replaced two days later, and it's perfectly fine, although I do kind of miss the Virginia vehicle inspection sticker that was still on the old windshield from when the car belonged to my grampy.
So really, I'm pretty sure the Whomping Willow is trying to kill me, because that was the third time in my life that I had the thought, "I'm going to die right now," and both of the other times had to do with trees as well. The second was the time I almost got eaten by the Log Monster, and the first was when Mel was driving me home from a friend's graduation party in 2008 and we almost slammed head-on into a gigantic tree. So, yeah. Trees are apparently not my friends.
Directly after the reception and getting everything cleaned up at the park, the families of the bride and groom and the wedding party went back to Mel's church to clean things up there. It was around 5:30-6:00, and the sky was starting to look really nasty, and the wind was picking up. As I mentioned before, it had been exceedingly hot and sunny all day, and in Ohio, that kind of weather early on a summer's day often means there will be a thunderstorm in the afternoon or evening. It took less than half an hour to get the bulk of things cleaned up at the church, and the sky had taken on the greenish cast that means a really, really, really bad storm is coming. The wind was blowing dust from the dirt/gravel parking lot in circles, and I decided I'd better head out right away. (It's only about seven miles to my house.) I hugged everyone goodbye and promised I'd call Mel when I got home.
The wind was buffeting my little Honda Accord from side to side as I hurried down the road, not to the point that I was crossing the center line, but certainly enough to be disconcerting, and there were lots of branches flying through the air. It started to rain really, really hard right as I turned onto 257, but I was still more concerned with the wind. There are tons of trees surrounding this long, very curvy stretch of road, and things were still flying everywhere. Right as I was going through a teeny tiny, bump-in-the-road town, I heard this terrifying sound that was like a huge rock smacking the body of my car. Then I looked up and saw a golf ball-sized hole in the top left corner of my windshield and saw the glass spiderwebbing all the way across in front of me. It had to have been a pretty large tree branch that hit my car; I never actually saw what it was because it didn't come inside. I completely freaked out and didn't know whether to pull over or keep going, but I was almost home, and I could actually see halfway decently, so I just decided to suck it up and keep going. I groped around for my phone and managed to call my mom and have her move her car out of the garage so I could park there, and to her credit, she didn't flip out when I told her what was going on.
I finally made it home and parked in the garage, and I just totally lost it. I really can't remember the last time I cried so hysterically. I was wet, and I was completely covered in teeny tiny shards of glass. It was all in my hair (which was still done up from the wedding), all over my face, in my mouth, down my shirt....it was horrible. But my family was amazing and helped me clean off, and all I got was this miniscule cut on my wrist that didn't even require a band-aid. My windshield got replaced two days later, and it's perfectly fine, although I do kind of miss the Virginia vehicle inspection sticker that was still on the old windshield from when the car belonged to my grampy.
So really, I'm pretty sure the Whomping Willow is trying to kill me, because that was the third time in my life that I had the thought, "I'm going to die right now," and both of the other times had to do with trees as well. The second was the time I almost got eaten by the Log Monster, and the first was when Mel was driving me home from a friend's graduation party in 2008 and we almost slammed head-on into a gigantic tree. So, yeah. Trees are apparently not my friends.
Friday, August 5, 2011
BEDA Day 4: Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get ma-a-arried...
So this is the post I was planning to write yesterday....
On June 4th, 2011, my best friend Mel married a wonderful guy named Derek. I was honored to be a bridesmaid, which was my first foray into the world of wedding parties, and it was honestly so much fun! It was really wonderful to spend some quality time with Mel's mom (whom I call "mom"), and it was great to see her older sister, Rachel, for probably the first time since Mel and I graduated high school. Rachel was the matron of honor, and I had a blast with her and the other two bridesmaids, Mary and Debbie, and the pianist, Kristen, who were friends of Mel's from college. We all helped decorate the beautiful little church, which is right across the street from the school where I work, which was lots of fun. After the rehearsal dinner at the ever-amazing Der Dutchman, we went back to Mel's grandparents' house and wound up with one of the best bachelorette-party-gone-wrong stories ever!
Everything started out pretty low-key, because we were all exhausted, especially Mel. Rachel decided we had to watch some home movies from Mel's first birthday, and while the bride kept protesting that this was dumb and everyone was bored to death, we all laughed and laughed and kept track of the number of times baby Mel fell on her face. Then Rachel, who was insistent that her little sister have something akin to a real party, took us all outside for sparklers. After that, she sent Mel on a little fool's errand inside the house while she passed out cans of silly string. When Mel came back out, we attacked and chased her all the way down the street, which resulted in me spending a good 15 minutes picking little bits of colored goo out of her gorgeous curly hair. Then we went back inside for a bit.
I was just about ready to head for home, and Mel was just about asleep, when Rachel waltzed in again, blindfolded the bride, and marched her out to the car. She announced we were going to take Mel somewhere and leave her to be rescued by Derek. I climbed into the car that belonged to Kristen and her husband Daniel, Mel, and Mary. Debbie and Mel's cousins Jason and Sydney went in Rachel's car. I figured we were just going to drive to the park a few blocks away or something, but no -- we followed Rachel for nearly half an hour, all the way to Marysville, including a random turn-around in a driveway to throw the still-blindfolded Mel off track. After that turn-around, everyone in our car felt a small jolt, like we'd hit an animal on the road, and I couldn't see it from where I was sitting, but a whole bunch of lights suddenly lit up on the dashboard. Once we reached Marysville, Rachel turned into a Walgreens parking lot, just hoping to regroup and tell her about all the calls her crew had been making to Derek while we were on the road. As soon as we parked, however, Kristen and Daniel's car died. As in, completely quit functioning. The guys immediately started poking around under the hood and determined that one of the belts (I forget which one now) had given out.
So there we were, stuck in the parking lot of a closed drug store in a small town around 12:30 AM on the day of the wedding. We called Derek and his brother, who had been waiting at the nearby Wal-Mart, where we were supposed to meet them, and we determined that the whole groom-seeing-the-bride-before-the-wedding doesn't count till the sun comes up. Some of us had to use the bathroom, so Rachel drove Mel, Mary, and me over to Wal-Mart, where we used the facilities and Rachel bought a jumbo box of ice cream bars. When we got back to the Walgreens lot, the dead car had been towed, Mel's pastor was there telling stories like only he can, and her aunt was on her way with a working vehicle. After Aunt Lisa got there, we sat around in the parking lot for probably an hour, listening to Pastor's stories of bachelor parties he attended when he was younger (they once put a totally smashed groom-to-be on a commercial plane the night before his wedding!). We finally decided we ought to go when it was almost 2:00 and a police car drove slowly by the parking lot for the third time. I told Mel it's all going in my novel someday.
The next day, everything went wonderfully. My sister came along with me to the church, and she was a big help, putting on Mel's nails and doing Debbie's hair and running little errands for Mom. She did my hair while we were still at home, and it looked amazing! Pictures went pretty smoothly, thanks to Rachel running a tight ship, and they were a lot of fun. We were all highly amused by the ring bearer, a family friend of Mel's, and the flower girl, Derek's niece, who wouldn't even talk to each other at the rehearsal but had to be restrained from running around the sanctuary together while everyone else was taking pre-wedding photos. Mel was incredibly gorgeous and just seemed happy. Derek was adorably nervous. The ceremony was beautiful, and the only tiny hiccup was the flower girl deciding that she wanted to go sit with her mom in the second row after about twenty minutes, and that was way more cute than problematic. The reception was at a local park, and it was insanely hot, but that didn't stop us from having a great time. They had buttercream-frosted cupcakes and orange punch, and their cake toppers were Han Solo and Ariel, the Little Mermaid. I got to see a lot of good friends whom I hadn't seen in quite a while, and everything was just sunny and happy and wonderful.
This post has gotten sufficiently long, so I'll write about the crazy thing that happened after the reception in tomorrow's post. I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the wedding:
Mary, Debbie, Rhiannon, Mel, Rachel, and me
Best friends since eighth grade <3
Mr. and Mrs. Derek Glynn!
Mel and my parents
Thursday, August 4, 2011
BEDA Day 3: I Am a Murderer :(
So, I was definitely planning to write about happy things like the wedding I was in two months ago today, but I really don't feel like it now. I was just driving back from the grocery store with my dad and I'm pretty sure I ran over a frog. I've never run over an animal while driving before, and I know it probably shouldn't be that big a deal, but I really feel like a horrible person right now. The fact that it was a frog makes it worse, since I had a pet frog for six years when I was younger, which launched me into a lifetime of collecting froggy things. From my bed, where I'm currently sitting, I can see almost forty frog items around my room -- everything from stuffed animals to figurines to socks (yes I'm messy and have dirty clothes on my floor). I always figured God had a hand in me not having to dissect frogs in science class. I never particularly enjoyed dissection, but I could handle the fish and the worms and the squids and the crayfish. If I'd had to do a frog, I probably would have cried the whole way through.
Here's a prime example of the weird thing I do where I get extremely emotionally attached to large categories of things that don't really matter in the long run. Oh well. I'm going to go eat my ice cream and be sad now.
Here's a prime example of the weird thing I do where I get extremely emotionally attached to large categories of things that don't really matter in the long run. Oh well. I'm going to go eat my ice cream and be sad now.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
BEDA Day 2: The Little Monsters
If you've known me at least a year, or have been reading my blog for that long, you may recall that last summer I worked at a local middle school SACC (school-age child care) program, and I hated it. I felt overwhelmed because my boss had been doing her job practically by herself for years and just assumed I would understand things that seemed obvious to her. The paperwork at the site was extremely unorganized and I felt like I couldn't find anything. By the end of the summer the number of kids attending was so low that I was only working 15-20 hours a week. Because of our low numbers, I was often the only adult around when I was working. And most of the kids were so snotty that I only actually liked about four of them.
Because of budget cuts, the district's middle school program had to close, so this year I'm working for the same program at one of our elementary sites, and my situation couldn't be more different. My site director is extremely organized, and there's always another adult around who takes my questions seriously, even the tiny ones that I feel silly for asking. Our numbers have been so high this summer that instead of working 28 hours a week, as I was originally scheduled, I've been working at least 35 hours since the second week of summer. I get along really well with all of the other teachers (and it's a bonus that one of my best friends is working the same hours as me), and even when our kids drive me crazy, I still love them. Because the middle school program closed, the rising sixth graders have been allowed to attend our program, and our ages range all the way down to preschool. When we break into groups I usually have the 4th-6th grade group, but we all have plenty of opportunities to work with all of the kids. At these ages, they're still so sweet that even if they get really mad at you over something, they've forgotten it by the next day and you're bound to get hugs again.
The only downside to the job is that I'm absolutely exhausted and usually starving when I get home, because the little monsters wear me out! We stay really busy. On Monday afternoons we go to the small movie theater in town that's owned by a school district alumnus for a free kids' movie. On Wednesday and Friday afternoons we go to the pool. Thursdays often mean full-day field trips, such as to the zoo or local parks or Sports Ohio. When we stay at school all day, I usually teach a mini dance class for a group of kids.
We're currently working on a piece of choreography to Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," which the kids have been singing constantly all summer. I'm actually borrowing my sister's choreography, and I told the kids this yesterday, which led to a storm of questions, including about five kids asking how old my sister is. (They don't listen to each other...or me, most of the time.) I said she's eighteen, and they all went, "Cool!!" Then someone asked me how old I am, a question I've gotten periodically all summer, and one I don't mind answering because I think they definitely have a right to be curious about their teachers' lives. Before I could answer, though, one of my little boys, Matthew, shouts indignantly, "You never ask a girl how old she is!!" After I stopped laughing, I told the kids that that's a good rule to follow when you're talking to a grown-up you don't know very well, but it's okay to ask questions of the teachers because they know us well. Little moments like that totally make this job worthwhile. :)
Because of budget cuts, the district's middle school program had to close, so this year I'm working for the same program at one of our elementary sites, and my situation couldn't be more different. My site director is extremely organized, and there's always another adult around who takes my questions seriously, even the tiny ones that I feel silly for asking. Our numbers have been so high this summer that instead of working 28 hours a week, as I was originally scheduled, I've been working at least 35 hours since the second week of summer. I get along really well with all of the other teachers (and it's a bonus that one of my best friends is working the same hours as me), and even when our kids drive me crazy, I still love them. Because the middle school program closed, the rising sixth graders have been allowed to attend our program, and our ages range all the way down to preschool. When we break into groups I usually have the 4th-6th grade group, but we all have plenty of opportunities to work with all of the kids. At these ages, they're still so sweet that even if they get really mad at you over something, they've forgotten it by the next day and you're bound to get hugs again.
The only downside to the job is that I'm absolutely exhausted and usually starving when I get home, because the little monsters wear me out! We stay really busy. On Monday afternoons we go to the small movie theater in town that's owned by a school district alumnus for a free kids' movie. On Wednesday and Friday afternoons we go to the pool. Thursdays often mean full-day field trips, such as to the zoo or local parks or Sports Ohio. When we stay at school all day, I usually teach a mini dance class for a group of kids.
We're currently working on a piece of choreography to Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," which the kids have been singing constantly all summer. I'm actually borrowing my sister's choreography, and I told the kids this yesterday, which led to a storm of questions, including about five kids asking how old my sister is. (They don't listen to each other...or me, most of the time.) I said she's eighteen, and they all went, "Cool!!" Then someone asked me how old I am, a question I've gotten periodically all summer, and one I don't mind answering because I think they definitely have a right to be curious about their teachers' lives. Before I could answer, though, one of my little boys, Matthew, shouts indignantly, "You never ask a girl how old she is!!" After I stopped laughing, I told the kids that that's a good rule to follow when you're talking to a grown-up you don't know very well, but it's okay to ask questions of the teachers because they know us well. Little moments like that totally make this job worthwhile. :)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
BEDA Day 1: Summer on Fast Forward
Look, it's me!! I remembered that I have a blog!!
As atonement for my grievous lack of activity on this site over the last 2.75 months, I've decided I'm going to participate in BEDA, or Blog Every Day in August. (BEDA was started by the author Maureen Johnson back in 2009 and originally took place in April, but August works too.) Yes, I know today is August 2nd. But I'm not that far behind and I'll go for a whole 31 days by blogging on September 1st as well, since I'm sure I'll have some kind of sappy, Hogwarts Express thing to type that day.
Obviously my world didn't come screeching to a halt the day after I graduated college. The fact that I've graduated still hasn't fully sunk in, because this summer feels exactly the same as each of the past three summers. However, my friends who have yet to graduate are starting to talk about heading back to school on Facebook, and I'm starting to feel pretty sad again.
I'm glad to say I've had a really good summer so far. I'll just kind of recap everything here and spend the next few posts talking about various elements in detail. I was a bridesmaid for the first time, in my best friend's wedding, and my car got attacked by the Whomping Willow. (Yes, those events are related.) I started working at an elementary school child care program, and all things considered, I'm really enjoying it. My sister graduated from high school, and last night I tagged along on her first round of college shopping. And of course, I've had lots of Harry Potter-related adventures.
I dubbed the summer of 2007, the one right before I started college, "the summer of Harry Potter," because the fifth movie and the seventh and final book were both release in July. At that time, I couldn't possibly have imagined any of the things I've done in the last couple of months. For starters, I went to LeakyCon 2011 and visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the first time. I've been to four wizard rock concerts this summer, not counting the ones that took place at LeakyCon. I celebrated BAMFmas, also known as Neville Longbottom's birthday, with some of my newest and closest friends, which included destroying a horcrux at 11:00 at night in the parking lot of a movie theater with the sword of Gryffindor, which looked suspiciously like a light-up, inflatable lightsaber. And I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Harry and Jo's birthday to register for the beta version of Pottermore.
All of these things and more will be explained in the coming days, and I hope you'll stick around for my first BEDA adventure!
As atonement for my grievous lack of activity on this site over the last 2.75 months, I've decided I'm going to participate in BEDA, or Blog Every Day in August. (BEDA was started by the author Maureen Johnson back in 2009 and originally took place in April, but August works too.) Yes, I know today is August 2nd. But I'm not that far behind and I'll go for a whole 31 days by blogging on September 1st as well, since I'm sure I'll have some kind of sappy, Hogwarts Express thing to type that day.
Obviously my world didn't come screeching to a halt the day after I graduated college. The fact that I've graduated still hasn't fully sunk in, because this summer feels exactly the same as each of the past three summers. However, my friends who have yet to graduate are starting to talk about heading back to school on Facebook, and I'm starting to feel pretty sad again.
I'm glad to say I've had a really good summer so far. I'll just kind of recap everything here and spend the next few posts talking about various elements in detail. I was a bridesmaid for the first time, in my best friend's wedding, and my car got attacked by the Whomping Willow. (Yes, those events are related.) I started working at an elementary school child care program, and all things considered, I'm really enjoying it. My sister graduated from high school, and last night I tagged along on her first round of college shopping. And of course, I've had lots of Harry Potter-related adventures.
I dubbed the summer of 2007, the one right before I started college, "the summer of Harry Potter," because the fifth movie and the seventh and final book were both release in July. At that time, I couldn't possibly have imagined any of the things I've done in the last couple of months. For starters, I went to LeakyCon 2011 and visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the first time. I've been to four wizard rock concerts this summer, not counting the ones that took place at LeakyCon. I celebrated BAMFmas, also known as Neville Longbottom's birthday, with some of my newest and closest friends, which included destroying a horcrux at 11:00 at night in the parking lot of a movie theater with the sword of Gryffindor, which looked suspiciously like a light-up, inflatable lightsaber. And I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Harry and Jo's birthday to register for the beta version of Pottermore.
All of these things and more will be explained in the coming days, and I hope you'll stick around for my first BEDA adventure!
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