Summer Staff

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Summer Update

June 24, 2001 in Life, School, Work | No comments

Summer is again upon us and with it this page once again finds itself the focus of a major update. If you’re a frequent visitor (and I know there’s more than Peter and myself), you have probably noticed what has become a long period of inactivity on this site. I won’t go into the drawn-out “I really meant to update” excuse that I would normally use, rather I will simply skip over it. You know, like the details in a Reader’s Digest condensed book, or the period in George W’s life between ages 16 and 45. It’s really not that important anyway.

The important thing is that yet another year of college has passed by, with it another year of my life, as I have turned 21 since my last update. (Insert your own excuse for my online absence here.) I made it through last term relatively unscathed, earning an A and two Bs while also surviving my final week as an RA on Ham Staff 2000-2001. Even though I once again had to force myself to stay up in excess of 40 hours as the end of the term neared.

After all- what would college be without the end of the term procrastinator’s test of manhood? Oh well. With all the idiocy that comes in saving a final paper (which I had a week to write) for the last ten hours of the term, I managed to earn an A on the paper itself (my third such A paper in two terms, I might add). In all, I must say that I’m rather proud of my grades this term. After all, it is only the second time in my life that I’ve earned a 3 point. I am so smrt.

In other news, my life on summer staff has officially started. So far I’ve taped meal cards and handed out blankets to people. In other words, they may as well be paying me to live at the mission. But hey- they’re paying me, so there’s no complaints here. Aside from that, there really hasn’t been much going on with me in the past couple of weeks. I’ve moved across campus, but with that nothing has really changed aside from my phone number and where I put my TV. I did buy some new furnishings, but I’ll be damned if I spend more than a sentence talking about my splendid new entertainment center and poster frames.

As for this coming week, I’ll be going home Wednesday to travel to Seattle with my family and watch the Oakland A’s kill the Mariners. In the process, I’m hoping to get the Mustang insured so I can bring it down to Eugene for a month or so and actually get some use out of the roughly $500 that was spent getting it to run. While I’m in McMinnville, I hope to see some people who I’ve inadvertently been ignoring for the past month. In addition, I will be wishing my brother a happy 13th birthday, as I don’t think I’ll be around for his actual birthday, July 2nd.

That will have to be it for this update. In the coming week I hope to have several new pictures online, including the infamous “swollen lip” shots, which I have now had developed. Watch this page and all attached, as this should be a week of updates. In the meantime, farewell.

Summer Staff Retreat

May 23, 2001 in Life, School, Work | No comments

A Wednesday morning and relatively little to do… hopefully this will become some sort of trend. Actually, things were quite different this morning, as I was deep in the rush to finish a geography paper and study for my spanish exam. I think that both went fairly well, but I didn’t want to start this update with yet another small rant on how tired I am for having stayed up nearly all night. I start off far too many an update with complaints about my procrastination, but when it is a trait so deeply engrained in one’s actions, it is difficult to simply stop.

This said, it’s really not my fault this time. You see, I am a member of Conference Services’ summer staff, and being so, I was required to attend a weekend retreat with my fellow staff. While this in itself is not a bad thing, as many of my friends are on summer staff, I probably could have used the two days that were lost to write my geography midterm. Oh well.

As it turned out, I had a pretty good time, save for a few mini-disasters. The trip began with a long drive in a Chevy Astro van to the Oregon coast. This in itself is not bad, nor was the fact that we were separated from half of the group (2 vans) once we reached Florence. It’s not that I really wanted to get away from anyone in either of the missing vans, it’s just that I really like it when something goes awry with scheduled fun time. We eventually stopped at Strawberry something (fields? hill?) and scared the seals. After about an hour or so there, we retreated to Haceta Head where we played on the beach and looked at the lighthouse. It was here that the other vans found us, and the scheduled fun was now set to begin.

We headed back to Deadwood, where we spent the night at a pretty nice cabin-type thing with a yurt and a hot tub. We had about an hour of staff time, but for the most part it was just sitting around getting to know people. I spent about an hour in the hot tub, then retreated to the house to watch a riveting Mel Gibson action/drama. I can’t remember exactly which one it was, but in the end does it really matter? At around 12:30 everyone was starting to go to bed, and I decided to follow suit. I brushed my teeth, then returned to my room, where Curtis was already sleeping in the lower bunk. This turned into more of an adventure than I had hoped.

You see, I am short, and the bed was tall. In other words, try as I might, I could not get up to the top bunk. And boy, did I try. The bed was positioned in a manner that I could not use the end as a ladder, and nothing in the room was tall enough to use as a substitute. Furthermore, as I have short arms, there was nothing for me to grab onto to pull myself up. This resulted in a very comical action that in many ways resembled a penguin attempting to jump onto an ice sheet. Needless to say, I would land on the bed for about two seconds, then slide off. DA Scott and Curtis were laughing hysterically, which was surprising as Curtis had just woken up. Curtis decided that he would show me how it was done, and being as he is a tall, skinny freak, he pulled himself up to the top with ease. After I had resigned to sleep on the bottom bunk, Scott decided that he would imitate my jump. On the first attempt, the corner of the bed went crashing to the floor. It seemed that the bed had just taken too much. After witnessing this, I sat there wondering how I was going to sleep on my now drastically slanted bed, and Curtis and Scott sat there watching and laughing. In hind sight it was pretty funny, but I was too preoccupied with the tingling sensation that had been present in my lips since brushing my teeth.

While propping extra blankets under the corner of the bed to return some sort of normalcy to my sleeping position, the tingling began to seriously worry me. Still, it didn’t feel this it was much to be concerned with. This being the case, I returned to bed. While laying there discussing the broken bed, I began to speak with a lisp. I immediately felt my lips, which were beginning to feel hard and slightly enlarged. I commented on them, but otherwise ignored it. After another 15 minutes or so, it could no longer be ignored. I asked Scott to turn on the lights so I could see what was wrong. I knew that it was out of my hands when as soon as the room was lit, Scott burst into laughter… followed by Curtis. I looked at my reflection in the window and saw what it was that they found so humorous- my lips were easily 2 times their normal size, pushing 2 and a half times. It didn’t hurt, but it looked ridiculous. I went into the bathroom to examine the situation further and found that yes, my inner lip was now on the outside. It was still tingling, and being as they had been normal until I brushed my teeth, I connected that fact to my present state.

I braved the comments for the rest of the night, vowed never to brush my teeth again, and went to bed. When I woke up six hours later, the swelling had gone down almost entirely, though it was still noticeable and I still suffered from a slight lisp. I ate breakfast and watched Curtis break the news of the bed to Ben, then I got in the shower. The rest of the day was spent doing summer scheduling, then driving to various places, lastly Eugene. While afflicted with my inflated lips, I made Scott take a few pictures, which will hopefully soon accompany this description. As for everything else, class is ok, though a little busy at the moment. Next week should be cool though, as my birthday is May 29th.

Mid-Terms, Summer Staff

May 10, 2001 in Life, Politics, School, Work | No comments

Another round of midterms and another sleepless night for which I will pay the rest of the week. Its been two days now and I’m still a wreck. Alas, the paper was completed and handed in for what will probably be a B. Was it worth it? Based on my state of mind at the moment, hell no. But then again, one tends to be of a rather negative state of mind at 12:50am on a Thursday morning when you’ve been longing for the soft comforting arms of sleep for the previous three hours. I mean, tonight I felt as though I should have been waiting for the lasted “Diagnosis Murder” or a “Matlock” rerun- whatever all the septuagenarians are watching these days. You start to see things from a whole new perspective when you can relate to those who normally shuffle off to bed before the sun has entirely set. I suppose that I could continue to equate how I am feeling to the everyday plight of the elderly, but I feel that my comments have run their course and I would only be alienating what I’m sure is a very key demographic for this magical page.

Anyway… So you may have noticed that I haven’t updated in about a month. This wasn’t intentional, but while updating a few weeks ago, I became distracted by the fact that my computer was no longer functioning. Long story short, I was forced to reformat my hard drive and in the rush of the following week, my update was lost in the attempt to return my computer to its former glory. In the end, everything is once again working, but I’m about 500 mp3s short of what I had.

Needless to say, a few things have happened since my last update. First, it’s official that I will once again be a member of Ham Staff. Also in that category, it is official that I will be an RA in the Earl complex this summer, marking the first time that I will be spending a summer away from McMinnville- ever. I never went to camp or anything as a child, so I’m counting the days until I have a meltdown and start calling my parents twice nightly. It should be ok, as many of my friends will be staying here as well. It’ll just be different. Nonetheless, I am excited at the prospect of having a new room in about a month. Summer staff Hoo Rah! Or rather, hoo RA. I know that was horrible- just bear with me.

Also in the past two weeks, I have run for and promptly lost my bid for College Dems co-chair, which is OK I suppose. If there is any consolation, its that I was told by most who were present that I had the best speech, the most clear ideas, and had all the new people voted, I probably would have won. All of this begs the question of if I was so great, why didn’t I win in the first place? I have my own not-so-popular theories as to why this is the case, but I’ll choose to take the high road for now and not attack the person who has described my candidacy as a “coup” to one Dems member who was not present to vote. All this considered, everything is not lost. Upon losing my bid for chair, I promptly ran for and won the position of treasurer, which is great and all, but it kind of leaves me with the same taste in my mouth as would “Everyone Gets A Trophy Day.” But I guess it comes with the territory- after all, I’m not a woman.