This Pot of Gold is Disappointing

I've got nothing going on and its kind of freaking me out. I don't remember the last time my life was so calm and so boring. I suppose it might have been this way last summer, but I don't remember. I suppose thats the thing about times like this, they aren't very memorable.

Since September I have been dealing with one thing or another pretty much continuously. And now, for the first time, I find myself without an illness of some kind, no job and not much homework (I'm still working on my incomplete from Spring semester).

I thought this was what I was waiting for. But I suppose free time is a little bit like chasing the gold at the end of a rainbow, its hard to find, and when you get there it doesn't look anything like you thought it would. I thought I would get to knit whatever I wanted (including finishing up the afghan for my aunt), but I find myself with an injured wrist, so thats not happening. I thought I would get a chance to play all those hours of video games I had been putting off while I was in school, but now that it comes down to it, it seems I can't be bothered. I thought I would finally get to read something for fun, so I started The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but I'm having a hard time seeing what all the fuss was about. I'm half way through and not all that invested. I thought I would be making a skirt a day now that I have the time, but I haven't touched my sewing machine yet.

I guess my point is, because there is nothing going on in my life, there isn't much to write about, and I am giving myself over to it. So if things seem a little quiet from my corner, don't worry, I'm just relaxing.

What I Did Over My Summer Vacation

I hate it when blogs start with "its been a while, but here is why I haven't written..." so I'm not going to bother trying to catch you up on what has been happening in my life since I last got around to writing. That being said, how can I possibly tell you what is going on without telling you what has been going on? So here goes. School ended for the semester, and because I took an Incomplete in one of my classes finals were not nearly as grueling as midterms were. Maybe its because everything went so smoothly that I decided to sign up for a May-term class (at the U of M we have May-term instead of J-term, but its pretty much the same thing, a quick 3 week intense class). This has left me with a few weeks of summer vacation before I jump back into class tomorrow. In those few weeks I have done some stuff I wasn't planning on, and not done lots of the stuff I had planned on doing. Which, if you ask me, is the point of vacation.

I finished reading World War Z by Max Brooks. Its a book about the zombie apocalypse, but really its about the way different cultures around the planet dealt with the crisis. If you like zombies you might be disappointed by this book (the zombie information was seemingly accurate, but all in all they played a very small role), but if you like sociology you might be happily surprised, as I was. The book is written from the other side of the disaster. The human race has (narrowly) survived the invasion and after 10 years of getting their feet back on the ground a report is commissioned to sum it all up. The book is what had to be left out of the official report, as these interviews are focused much more on personal stories than on cold hard facts. Through all these stories you start to get a picture of how people survived, how people are equipped (or not) to survive without the structure of society we all have come to depend on (for better or for worse), which gives us a chance to look at how our society has formed us, our opinions of the world, and our opinions of ourselves. Do we think we have the skills we need to survive in the wild? Do we expect someone else to take care of it for us? Do we band together, or try to go it alone? Do we flee, or fight? Anyway, the point is: it was a surprisingly lovely book (lovely and zombie are not words I generally think to put in the same paragraph). It was thought provoking, and well written. I highly recommend it.

I did not start reading any of the books that are in my 'to read when school is out and I have time' pile. I haven't worked on the afghan for my aunt, which was supposed to be done almost a year ago. I haven't listened to all the tunes that I have been saving for 'when I'm out of school and have the brain space to actually take them in'. I haven't played through Portal and Portal 2, which was all I could think about for the last two weeks of school. (To be fair, I have played most of the way through Portal). I haven't cleaned the house (I did clean the bathroom, but the rest of the house is under construction, or full of furniture from the part that is under construction and where is the fun in cleaning that?)

But for all the things I haven't done, there are things I have done too. I have started listening to Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham. A nice surprise to find in my iTunes library. I have learned to sew and made a few skirts already with plans to make a million more. I have cooked myself some delicious chicken curry. I have started going to Temple. I have started doing yoga again. In short I have spent this week coming back to myself. I have started enjoying the space in my head again. Thats what vacation is for right?