Summer Recap

With mere days separating me from the grind of classes, problem sets, and essays back at Cornell, I've been considering the productivity of my summer spent without any internships, research, or even a job involving French fries and overdone burgers.

So maybe I didn't find the cure for any rare genetic disorders or invent a life-changing device. I enjoyed myself, even when my face was melted to the carpet, and accomplished the following:

Read twenty and a third books for the first time and reread another dozen or so. It’s really not that impressive; about half of the rereads were kids books and the other half were young adult books that I was reading for the second . . . or third time. Highlights of my summer reading can be found in the post Summer Reading. Sometimes I astound even myself with my creativity. I also enjoyed Maphead by Ken Jennings, 74-time Jeopardy! champion; The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean; and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. Since The Disappearing Spoon tells lesser-known stories about the elements and Maphead and A Walk in the Woods deal with maps and the Appalachian Trail respectively, I consider that my chemistry, geography, and history for the summer. See, who says I didn't learn anything?

Successfully baked, by which I mean didn't burn the house down. Most recently, I made blueberry muffins with fresh Maine blueberries and chocolate/peanut butter chip cookie muffins. What exactly is a cookie muffin, you ask? A cookie muffin is a cookie baked in a muffin tin that tastes like a cookie while being shaped like a muffin. Basically, a not-flat cookie of less nutritional value than a muffin. Which is to say, the muffin is only in the name to let you trick yourself into eating them for breakfast.

Passed my driving test. While this may not sound like such a big deal, in the state that I live in, there is one maneuver that can singlehandedly sink your chances of getting your license, two words that will strike fear into the hearts of full-grown men: parallel parking.

Survived a week of VBS at my church. I helped out in the craft room and got to deal with up to twenty kids at once ranging from ages two to eleven (fortunately separated into age groups; we started the day with ages 9-11, then had 6-8, and so on). Yes, it was fun. Yes, it was also chaos.

Completed my cross stitch project. I will spare readers the details of the rest of the grievances I have against that particular project. In addition, I glued together a plastic model of a rocket ship that was unearthed when we were getting things together for a yard sale. We had tried to sell it before, but nobody was interested. Maybe because all the instructions were in Japanese. Fortunately, there were a lot of pictures, so I am now the owner of a blue plastic Japanese spaceship. And most importantly, I made myself a pep band folder (for my music) out of a sheet of paper and duck tape. It is orange with anthropomorphic food on it and I am completely satisfied with it.

Ran/biked seventy miles, which is somewhat short of my goal, but between those miles, walks around the neighborhood, and the hiking we did on vacation, I think I came pretty close to a hundred miles for the summer. The one redeeming factor of the pinkness of my bike is that because it’s supposed to be a mountain bike, the seat doesn't bruise all your lower organs for a week after you ride over a pothole.

And I am now in the process of packing all the things I unpacked three months ago so that I can reunpack them in a few days.

Milestones

Once Cornell started thawing out, I started trying to go running a little more often. Since I also had a membership and free shoe rental for the climbing wall, I've been more active in the past few months than I have been since . . . oh, eighth grade or so. I might have had more to do with high school sports, but the soccer team cut me, so that was the end of that.

I like running on dirt more than concrete, so I've done all my running at Cornell around the lake so far. Plus, this way I don’t have to cross any roads and no one has to wonder if I’m going to pass out from the exertion. With that as an indicator of my physical fitness, it was actually an accomplishment for me to run two miles without stopping. Since coming home for the summer, I've started trying to add a little mileage, however, the two large hills on my route have something to say about me not walking.

I also finally got a new bike after the back brake on the bike I was riding broke, making it super fun unsafe to ride down the aforementioned large hills. The old bike (which wasn't technically mine) was pink. My new bike is pink and white. The only way it could get any better is if I added pink glittery streamers to the handlebars. (Note: if anyone actually attaches pink glittery streamers to my bike, I will reattach them semi-permanently to the head of the perpetrator and/or the nearest victim. . . . Kidding . . . mostly.)

Anyway, I've been trying to bike for longer distances as well, but again with the **** hills. Insert word of your choice for the asterisks. Personally, I like steep. Actually, it’s more like conditionally steep. Walking up the hill? No problem. Biking up? I hope you didn't need to feel your legs for awhile. I’m hoping to spend the summer going a little further for a little longer. If it doesn't keep raining, I may see if I can hit 100 miles running and biking . . . combined, not each . . . I’m not that crazy. I know some people can run more than that in a week. At this point, I’m not one of them.

On the climbing front, before I left Cornell for the summer, I finally managed to traverse over half the wall without stopping/falling off. Next step: traverse the wall using only natural holds. Once I get some chalk. Yes, it is possible to climb without chalk. No, it isn't always ideal, especially when you go from having your fingers in a hold to plummeting to the ground in approximately 0.001 seconds.

In the meantime, I guess it’s time to hit the roads.