Occupying Myself

I have yet to state what I've been filling my time with since my return to the U.S., mainly because there's not a whole lot to say :) But all the same, here you have it. I made a little bit of an effort at finding a job, but had little luck and if I would have found something, by that time it would have been unlikely someone would want to train me for 2 1/2 months; and I refuse to work at Subway for four summers. So, I am missing the consistent inflow of cash but am enjoying my relaxing days and increased free time. I do have certain obligations though since I am taking 12 credits online. It's kind of frustrating being forced to stare at this screen for so long, but several of my friends seem to be having the same experiences in their summers, and sometimes such is life.

I'm taking 3 classes, Cultural Anthropology, Statistics, and Intro to Music.

Cultural Anthropology will fulfill several general requirements, but it is the dumbest class I've taken in quite a while, and was warned of this fact from everyone who's taken it. I figure at least taking it online is better than wasting my time actually taking it as a credit during the school year, but it's a lot of busy work and a lot of times I find it somewhat pointless.

Intro to Music is the last requirement needed to fulfill my music minor. I've considered dropping my minor since I have so much I need to do next year in order to graduate and it's not really necessary, but I figure in the off chance I am able to keep it, I might as well get this class over with now. There is a lot to do for the class, lots of listening and quizzes and tests, and though it's the one class this summer I actually the material in, the subject matter is kind of a joke. With my musical background and music history that I took last year, a lot of it is repeated material.

Statistics how I detest it. I haven't taken math since high school, so this was kind of a shock to the system. I'm not that much of a fan of math, but this is so much worse. Sarah is also taking it online with me and we frequently moan and complain about it to each other over text messages or phone calls in French. I'm not sure if it's that we are failing to yet see the point of it or if it's because it's challenging or a lot of work and not fun or what but it is the most avoided thing of my summer.

Wednesdays and Sundays are my least favorite days of the week since those are the days my homework is due, and because of my lack of enthusiasm I frequently avoid it at all possible costs until literally the last moment and then Sarah and I find ourselves ready to burst into tears at 12:50 AM Wednesday night when our stats homework is due in ten minutes. I'm trying to get more on top of it this week and get ahead in music and cultural anthropology where all the assignments are posted for the entire course and then I can just stay on top of stats as he posts the new lessons for the week. This will get a bit more difficult since it's getting to the point where we not only have our weekly homework but it seems each Sunday coming up there are some big projects due, but if I can just stick it out, I think it's only 4 or 5 more weeks until it's all over, then a month left of Summer Bliss.

In an effort to avoid the homework I should be doing, I instead have taken up other little projects. I've started a small garden, including tomatoes, jalapenos, corn, red bell peppers, oregano, mint, and basil, and have already made use of them in one of my other projects, cooking! I've made use of our dusty, little-used bread machine to make Italian herb bread and will experiment more with that tool. I have made several batches of cookies, smoothies almost every morning for breakfast, applesauce, experimented with lentils, and yesterday I made salsa! Next on my list is Cream Brulee, crepes, molten chocolate cake, and apple crumble. Another of my projects is to organize my massive pile of pictures from years ago. I have a pile under my window seat cubby that has been steadily growing for about 9 years or so of pictures that I intended on doing something with and never did, so I finally started scrapbooking them this summer and made a bit of progress until I ran out of tape. As soon as I get some more of that from my cousin I will pick that project back up and hopefully get the mass under control and move onto my mom's project boxes which I have been dying to see inside every since we started collecting them like 25 years ago. Last but not least I have started training for a marathon! I've always tried to run or walk or bike or something regularly but it's nice to have a specific goal. October 4th there is a marathon in Portland and a group, including Sarah, going from Walla Walla, and I've always wanted to do a marathon, so now's my chance! Here's to being in shape in time for my 21st birthday! Other than that, not a whole lot going on. I try to stay up on my French in as many ways as I can either by watching French movies, american movies in French, listening to French music, reading my french books or studying grammar, talking to my friends back in france, or my fellow French students in French, which is much easier to motivate myself into doing than my homework, since all I want to do is anything involving French. So there you have the grandness of my day-to-day summer activities. Nothing terribly exciting, but it occupies my time.