Well, after what seemed to start out as a slow summer, I managed to fill up my summer quite a bit by the end. Because I think my favorite post ever is last summer's play-by-play, I guess I'll just do one for this summer. Fasten your seatbelts, everyone, if you have a seatbelt on your chair.
This summer had a lot more ups and downs than last year's magical summer, but I feel pretty much ready for anything where I stand now. It's a part of growing up, I suppose. Without further ado (and without Freddy Adu), I present this summer:
May
-Well, obviously I started the summer by driving home from Tampa to Lake Mills. The last "general" post of mine was written on the way back, so I never got to say much about the rest of the trip. Fortunately, not a lot happened on the rest of the trip. Driving through ATL listening to "What You Know" was easily the trip's highlight. Easily. Also, we arrived in Lake Mills just in time for the last hour of Lakeside's prom. To think, if we had left an hour later we would have had to navigate through swarms of horny, awkward teenagers just to get home. Whew.
- I had a couple slick Mr. Cool Guy business suit job interviews, which on the whole went pretty well. I didn't get any of the jobs though. Being 18 appeared to be a pretty major limiting factor. In due time.
- I got my USF grades, accomplishing a 4.0 for the semester - better than most of my high school report cards. As a result, one of my new year's resolutions was accomplished. Still keeping tabs on those.
-I found out pretty early on that this summer wasn't going to be the same carefree one I had last year when two of my friends/soccer teammates, Zach and Ryan, were killed in a car accident about two weeks after I got back. The first I saw of most of my close MLC friends after getting back was total grief. It's still sad to think about it. A lot of us grew emotionally and spiritually, and it caused some people to re-evaluate their direction in life. God got to use them to help us, and also got to welcome two new saints into heaven. Eternally speaking, a win-win. Can't wait to see you guys again.
June
- Graduation parties! Ah, man I love them. Obviously they weren't all in June, but a lot of them were. Most memorable were any that included backyard soccer (which was most of them), playing "tank points" at Kristen's, watching "The Room" at Paul's, telling the clown joke at Jordan's (a personal record 27 minutes!), getting free shirts at Jon's, crashing Paul's hot friend's graduation party, singing O-Town karaoke to Seth, establishing the 2/3 principle with Aaron at Bre's, debuting "Shallow Blake" at Sarah's and destroying my shin playing G in the G at Eric's. I'm sure there are plenty of others I'm forgetting, but I had a lot of fun at parties this year. Way to throw good ones, class of '09.
- USA vs. Honduras world cup qualifier. I think I've said enough about this one, as it merited its own long, excitable post.
- I went to Tom Mackey's house a lot, often with Caleb Meyer. Car ride dialogue shaped a big part of the summer.
- Noah's Ark! Tom, Claire, Caleb and myself got into Noah's Ark for free because we are good students. Noah's Ark is much smaller than I remember. None the less, it was fun. Demolishing a huge pot of macaroni between us while watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" was a nice end to the day.
- 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. Not something I experienced personally, but I did get to watch it on TV. In short, my obsessed-about US soccer team beat the number 1 team in the world in a game that I recorded so that I may have it forever (ish). Watching the victory was so rewarding.
- I tried frantically all month to get a job. Of course, the same could be said for May and most of July, considering that was pretty much my goal for the summer.
July
- I took a day to drive to Fond du Lac and do something I needed to do. On the way back, I stopped at the Horicon Marsh lookout point, took a deep breath, and just felt alive as birds flew by. "There's no looking back," I thought as I drove on the narrow isthmus of Highway 49, blasting "Drunk Girl". So I haven't.
- I went up north for the first time ever, with the Phi Gimma. I loved it. My family always preferred vacationing out of state, but there are definitely some merits to a trip to Northwoods Wisconsin for tubing, fishing, scrabble, and other general manliness. I hope we do it again sometime, it was one of my favorite weekends ever.
- On my way into chapel to practice for playing music in church, I scraped the inside of their narrow garage opening with my (parents') car. The damage was severe enough to set me back the 300 dollar co-pay on the insurance, which was starting to look like quite a bit considering I couldn't get a job for the life of me. This setback, coupled with the summer-long stress of not being able to get ANY job after having such high, high hopes, made that night feel like a major low point in my life. I felt like a failure whenever I had to address the fact that I couldn't get hired anywhere, so that was about as bad as it gets for me. So lo and behold, the next day...
- The phone rang. It was West Madison Target, looking to set up an interview several weeks after I applied. The date was set for that coming Friday morning. Generally return on heavy prayer isn't so instantaneous.
- Thursday of that week, I got to go to my second US soccer game of the summer, this time a tournament semifinal - also against Honduras and also at Soldier field. We won 2-nil and I had another great time. Plus I got to aggravate a bunch of Mexico fans and had stuff thrown at me. It's like a rite of passage for a soccer fan. We got back after 1 AM that morning. My Target interview was in 9 hours.
- So I went to bed, woke up, drove there, and got myself a job. Its stature doesn't compare to the internships I was interviewing for earlier in the year, but it's a good steady job that gives me a lot of hours and honestly, pays about as well as any of those business-y jobs I could have gotten. And who knows, maybe I can shoot for a Target corporate internship next summer.
August
- Fantasy Football draft. It wasn't particularly eventful but is always fun.
- Fax's Jay Gatsby Party. I showed up late because of work, but a Gatsby Party is always a highlight of the summer.
- OK, so I didn't do a whole lot during most of August, but that's because I worked about 40 hours a week. I gotta get paid, son.
-The last week of August was the exception. In one powerhouse day, Aaron and I managed to accidentally set up a radio station marketing proposal, discover a gem of a Korean baseball video game, and play Mackey in the tremendous "All My Children" board game.
-About that marketing proposal...basically, Aaron and I wanted to tour the offices of Madison hip-hop station "93.1 JAMZ" but didn't know how to ask. So we made up that we had a marketing proposal to make so that they wouldn't throw us out. Instead of getting a station tour when we talked to the receptionist, we got an appointment for a week later to actually make a marketing consultation with the station's program director. Realizing we were in a bit over our heads, we took the time to brainstorm an actual marketing plan - a 3v3 charity summer basketball tournament called the "JAMZ Slam". Jon drafted us up a logo and we dressed sharply for our appointment...and it went perfectly. The director loved our idea, got our contact information, and now we're approaching the very, very early stages of planning. Even though the appointment came basically as a joke, this could well turn into something that serves as a serious springboard for a future marketing career I may have. It'll look pretty good on a resume that my business partner and I freelance marketing consulted a local company into planning a big event. So hopefully everything pans out with that.
- Then I moved into college. Which, hey, is where I am right now.
College is kinda silly for me, because I'm working at Target so much (20+ hours a week) that I haven't really had the time to go out and meet loads of random people and just live the college life. But I'm ok with that. I got to do that last year. I came into Madison already having a lot of close friends (including my roommate) and if I have to sacrifice meeting a bunch of bros in order to keep my student loans manageable, then I'm ok with that. Hey, at least I got Badger Hockey season tickets. So I'm doing one part of the college scene right.
That's where I am in life right now. I'm almost always either working, going to class, or doing homework and there aren't even blips on my girlfriend radar...but you know what? I'm doing great. I'm starting to figure things out a bit. I'm starting to live my own life. I'm learning from everything I do. At a glance, my status in life seems unremarkable...but I'm just enjoying the ride and waiting with bated breath to see where it takes me next.
