Rather than spending this week's day off on my graduate work, I instead spent it driving great distances within my beloved state to see my beloved undergrad advisor, who was vacationing with her family in Cape May Point. I figured, when in doubt about my masters, visit the person who has actually already successfully seen me through obtaining a degree. This was a great choice for several reasons:
1. I got to drive basically the entire length of New Jersey.
1a. This included going straight through the Pinelands National Reserve, pitch pines and wetlands galore, oh happy day!
2. I got to swim in the ocean (sort of, it was kind of where the Atlantic meets the Delaware Bay, but there were waves, and salt, and that's all that matters).
3. I got to chat about things, grad school related and not, with someone totally awesome.
3a. It's reassuring to discuss my challenges in grad school with Melina because she knows me as a student, and she successfully went through the same program I'm in.
4. Melina has really cute children. REALLY cute.
So, 380 miles over the course of about 36 hours was pretty sweet. I visited my parents and slept at home in Toms River, which was nice. The trip back to TR from Cape May was not so nice though. That part of the Garden State Parkway is under quite a bit of construction, and received heavy rains on and off during the day. It wasn't actively raining as I drove by the start of the construction zone, around mile 60, but I saw a truck a little ahead of me hit a pretty deep puddle, so I tapped the brake to slow down a little before getting to it myself. Unfortunately, the water started way sooner than I had thought, and I began to hydroplane a little. I stayed under control for a few moments before careening toward the guardrail along the left lane and then starting to fly toward the construction zone--and cars-- in the right lanes. I began to spin a little bit, and as the rear of the car headed perpendicular to the right side of the road and I saw a car heading toward my door, I panicked and slammed the brake, which sent me spinning into the construction zone, taking out a few of those orange barrels and finally coming to a stop, facing in the right direction in a huge puddle in the construction area.
I think I'm a pretty good driver; I do enough of it. In fact, this morning I broke 139,000 miles on my little (now scratched up) car, which is more than 50,000 more than I bought it with just over 3 years ago. That's a lot, considering I'd drive it to college and leave it parked for most of the semester, for the first year I had it. When I drive, I'm often more worried about other crazies around me than my own ability. However, yesterday afternoon, I am extremely grateful for all those around me on the Parkway who were on their game, paying attention and driving carefully. The fact that my faithful automobile and I weren't harmed means that we can enjoy more roadtrips together in the future, starting with this weekend, when I drive great distances in New Jersey again to deliver my friend Tim home to South Seaside Park for his birthday, and go to the Ocean County Fair to celebrate it with our friends.
15 July 2010
03 July 2010
To live your life, you've got to lose it
I'm pretty exhausted as I write this, both physically and emotionally. I just got back from a week of youth home repair mission work in the cornbelt of the eastern shore of Maryland, which was really awesome, but definitely lacked in the sleep department after an intense week prior. Some of the highlights:
Corn. So much corn. I drove down separately from my youth group-- they left from Toms River after church; I worked breakfast and lunch at Johnsonburg. My route took me through the western part of New Jersey, which is pretty much all cornfields alternating with forests and cute little old towns. I spent a little bit of time in traffic on I-95 going around Philadelphia, a little bit of time navigating busy state roads around Wilmington, and spent the rest of my trip on various county and state roads through cornfields galore (well, with some soybeans sprinkled in). I basically spent the entire week in the cornbelt of the Eastern Shore. So much corn. Very relaxing.
My youth. I cannot begin to share how great my youth group is. This year we had 24 kids (and 10 adults... the ratio is not normally so absurd, but I think this may be a piece of the reason everything went so well), mostly going into 8th grade but a few going into 7th and 9th. I love this age group. They are just starting to become interesting people who you can actually have a conversation with if you're willing to overlook how obnoxious they can be. And I totally can, because underneath the snide remarks and occasional silent treatment are some really cool and good kids.
My crew. I was on a crew with another adult (a cop from North Jersey), two girls going into their freshman year, and two guys going into their junior year. Late in the week we were joined by a crew who finished early (a young pastor from New York who reminded me a lot of my older brother, a kid with ADD who would just appear everywhere you looked doing random things like taping his eyes shut, and one of my own youth boys, among others). Together we finished painting basically the entire interior of the house, and built a porch for the back door (in about a day's work, with my supervision!?). We were really excited to finish, albeit late Friday afternoon, and our resident was really excited about our work.
My youth. (Didn't she already mention this? Has she gone all crazysauce on us?) No, I mean my own personal youthful age. In real life, I'm an adult. I'm a leader for our youth group. According to Group Workcamps, I'm an adult (over 21!). However, it took some convincing to get others to acknowledge this. My youth group clearly knows it. My work crew all knew it. It took my resident about a day to figure it out (when I mentioned that I taught a college class). The site coach? Not so much. Despite the fact that I was the only one with experience building things, and was clearly acting as air traffic control on the porch process, I'd ask a question about something like the angle of the railing and he'd just kind of smile and then continue the conversation with any adult man in the area. Group Workcamps Staff? Handed me a youth camp evaluation form, and questioned me for requesting an adult leader form. I know there are some ways women can dress to appear older in the professional world, but how does one appear over the age of 16 when wearing paint-splattered t-shirts and jeans? Suggestions are MORE than welcome. I know I'll be thankful for this when I'm 40, but right now I'd just really like to look like I'm of legal age.
Ukuleles. So I bought a ukulele two weeks ago, because my friend Katie told me to. I do not regret the impulse buy even in the slightest; it's a really fun instrument and much easier than the guitar for my poor gimpy left hand to work. Katie also owned one, so we formed a sort of "band" with our friend Bailey (appropriately called Bailey and the Ukuleles by our youth) to lead youth group devotions each night. It was well received by our youth group, however, here's a curveball NO ONE SAW COMING: a youth group from HAWAII was at this work camp in Worton, Maryland! Seriously! In all my six Group Workcamps, NEVER have I met anyone from Hawaii! And so I gained my status as the 4th best ukulele player in Kent County.
Life: Past, Present, Future. Because I drove myself down solo last Sunday, I also had to drive myself back solo this morning. First of all, I thought back to my days in youth group on these trips and realize how awful it must have been for my leaders to drive back after a week of hard labor and the late nights of youth group shenanigans. At least they usually doubled up leaders to vans so they could switch off; I was pretty exhausted and this trip was way closer than any of the ones I went on as a youth. Second, my route back (which took more like 3 and a half hours) took me over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which is how I always drove back and forth to college. Whenever I cross the bridge and see the cooling tower in Salem, NJ, I think about one particular journey to Mary Washington when my dad told me that he almost took a job with PSE&G down there (as opposed to where he has been for more than my entire life, with them in Newark, NJ). That really gets me thinking-- how different would my life be if I had grown up in Salem (or somewhere down closer to Philly or Delaware) instead of Toms River? Would I have gotten involved in a youth program like the one at PCTR? Or music? Would have I have gone to the same college, chosen the same major, gone on this awesome trip to Maryland? It's kind of strange/neat to have things in that perspective, especially as the current chapter of my life (grad school and all that has brought) is quickly drawing to a close. It seems though, that everything is working out just as it should.
Tree of the week: American Sycamore. There was a nice big one in the front yard of my worksite with a really excellent crown, meaning awesome shade for lunch and devotions every day. We had beautiful weather all week, but it was nice to sit in the shade across the street from a hay field and just relax a bit. It was also enough shade to welcome a crew from a few houses down to share devotions with us on Thursday and Friday (which the ukulele was also present for).
There's probably a million more things I could say. There's a reason I keep going on these trips (6th Group Workcamp, 9th? 10th? something like that overall mission trip). I'll stop there with the writing, but I plan to continue with my awesome adventures.
Corn. So much corn. I drove down separately from my youth group-- they left from Toms River after church; I worked breakfast and lunch at Johnsonburg. My route took me through the western part of New Jersey, which is pretty much all cornfields alternating with forests and cute little old towns. I spent a little bit of time in traffic on I-95 going around Philadelphia, a little bit of time navigating busy state roads around Wilmington, and spent the rest of my trip on various county and state roads through cornfields galore (well, with some soybeans sprinkled in). I basically spent the entire week in the cornbelt of the Eastern Shore. So much corn. Very relaxing.
My youth. I cannot begin to share how great my youth group is. This year we had 24 kids (and 10 adults... the ratio is not normally so absurd, but I think this may be a piece of the reason everything went so well), mostly going into 8th grade but a few going into 7th and 9th. I love this age group. They are just starting to become interesting people who you can actually have a conversation with if you're willing to overlook how obnoxious they can be. And I totally can, because underneath the snide remarks and occasional silent treatment are some really cool and good kids.
My crew. I was on a crew with another adult (a cop from North Jersey), two girls going into their freshman year, and two guys going into their junior year. Late in the week we were joined by a crew who finished early (a young pastor from New York who reminded me a lot of my older brother, a kid with ADD who would just appear everywhere you looked doing random things like taping his eyes shut, and one of my own youth boys, among others). Together we finished painting basically the entire interior of the house, and built a porch for the back door (in about a day's work, with my supervision!?). We were really excited to finish, albeit late Friday afternoon, and our resident was really excited about our work.
My youth. (Didn't she already mention this? Has she gone all crazysauce on us?) No, I mean my own personal youthful age. In real life, I'm an adult. I'm a leader for our youth group. According to Group Workcamps, I'm an adult (over 21!). However, it took some convincing to get others to acknowledge this. My youth group clearly knows it. My work crew all knew it. It took my resident about a day to figure it out (when I mentioned that I taught a college class). The site coach? Not so much. Despite the fact that I was the only one with experience building things, and was clearly acting as air traffic control on the porch process, I'd ask a question about something like the angle of the railing and he'd just kind of smile and then continue the conversation with any adult man in the area. Group Workcamps Staff? Handed me a youth camp evaluation form, and questioned me for requesting an adult leader form. I know there are some ways women can dress to appear older in the professional world, but how does one appear over the age of 16 when wearing paint-splattered t-shirts and jeans? Suggestions are MORE than welcome. I know I'll be thankful for this when I'm 40, but right now I'd just really like to look like I'm of legal age.
Ukuleles. So I bought a ukulele two weeks ago, because my friend Katie told me to. I do not regret the impulse buy even in the slightest; it's a really fun instrument and much easier than the guitar for my poor gimpy left hand to work. Katie also owned one, so we formed a sort of "band" with our friend Bailey (appropriately called Bailey and the Ukuleles by our youth) to lead youth group devotions each night. It was well received by our youth group, however, here's a curveball NO ONE SAW COMING: a youth group from HAWAII was at this work camp in Worton, Maryland! Seriously! In all my six Group Workcamps, NEVER have I met anyone from Hawaii! And so I gained my status as the 4th best ukulele player in Kent County.
Life: Past, Present, Future. Because I drove myself down solo last Sunday, I also had to drive myself back solo this morning. First of all, I thought back to my days in youth group on these trips and realize how awful it must have been for my leaders to drive back after a week of hard labor and the late nights of youth group shenanigans. At least they usually doubled up leaders to vans so they could switch off; I was pretty exhausted and this trip was way closer than any of the ones I went on as a youth. Second, my route back (which took more like 3 and a half hours) took me over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which is how I always drove back and forth to college. Whenever I cross the bridge and see the cooling tower in Salem, NJ, I think about one particular journey to Mary Washington when my dad told me that he almost took a job with PSE&G down there (as opposed to where he has been for more than my entire life, with them in Newark, NJ). That really gets me thinking-- how different would my life be if I had grown up in Salem (or somewhere down closer to Philly or Delaware) instead of Toms River? Would I have gotten involved in a youth program like the one at PCTR? Or music? Would have I have gone to the same college, chosen the same major, gone on this awesome trip to Maryland? It's kind of strange/neat to have things in that perspective, especially as the current chapter of my life (grad school and all that has brought) is quickly drawing to a close. It seems though, that everything is working out just as it should.
Tree of the week: American Sycamore. There was a nice big one in the front yard of my worksite with a really excellent crown, meaning awesome shade for lunch and devotions every day. We had beautiful weather all week, but it was nice to sit in the shade across the street from a hay field and just relax a bit. It was also enough shade to welcome a crew from a few houses down to share devotions with us on Thursday and Friday (which the ukulele was also present for).
There's probably a million more things I could say. There's a reason I keep going on these trips (6th Group Workcamp, 9th? 10th? something like that overall mission trip). I'll stop there with the writing, but I plan to continue with my awesome adventures.
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