Thoughts from the month of June

I suppose I haven't been contributing, because I haven't gone anywhere yet, and am just starting to figure out how the communication with friends thing might work after being so close (in a small town) to some of you for five years. So, here's what I've been thinking about!

First, reasons why camping (actually "cabin-ing") with the Peachey's and Parrishes is paradise:

1. Among the parents are a geophysicist who smashes rocks, makes maps and talks about time travel, a librarian whose dissertation is on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement and loves talking about historical utopian societies, two peace and justice advocates; one who does peace education in the Mennonite church, uses bad puns fairly regularly, the other who does womans advocacy in the Mennonite church, has a Master of Divinity degree, and loves to talk about books and President Bush.

2. Among the "children", almost all of whom are over 18 by now, are a music teacher who's getting much better at guitar playing, a tree-and-hiking-without-shoes loving international development major, a pianist and French speaking quilt-maker who's spending a year in France in the fall and a violinist who happens to play and love soccer.

3. All of the aforementioned people generally bring 2 or 3 or more books to the cabin, leaving them lying around everywhere, so that everyone can read any of them, whenever they want. Then, if you have a book you want to talk about you can "present" it to the group, and have a discussion.

4. Hammocks, campfires and s'mores are involved.

5. We saw chipmunks, toads, and baby deer on some amazing hikes. We (the four children) also got lost once, and stuck with our very dubious trail much longer than we should have because of the inadequate map we had. Our resident geologist later pointed out the flaws of this map in great detail.

Second, leaving Oberlin.....:

I'm not sure what I'm thinking about this right now...I'll be ready to go, but I'm not as excited about heading to Guatemala as I was a month or two ago. Maybe because I've had to be so focused here with spending time with friends before they leave. Also, it seems like my job won't really wind down much before I leave-we have this three week tutoring program that finishes my last week here, and so I'm still having to really focus on that, and I have a good amount of reporting left to do on what happened with the tutoring programs the past year.

So, in two weeks, all of the sudden, I'll be done (not because there isn't still work to do at the two organizations I've been working at), but because my committment will be fulfilled. I think it will feel pretty strange.

Once I get home, I want to find some cool stuff to do...ideas of interesting/helpful/cool stuff to do for three months, anyone??