Preparing for a Nomadic Summer

Commencement and reunion was a grand old time: my boss taught me some Cambodian, I watched a bunch of movies, practiced my French with Professor Uhden at Amherst Coffee, caught up on a bunch of reading, and most importantly there was free food all the time (not just your normal cheese plates, like lobster dinners free food). Plus this campus was just swimming in unwanted alcohol.

Now things have temporarily taken a turn for the pathetic- my housing ran out so I'm camped out in the common room of Marsh surviving off of granola and perusing the Marsh library, which at this point mostly consists of anthropology textbooks from the 1930s.

I leave for France this Thursday!

Briefly: Study Abroad Fail.

Lately, I've been waiting to hear back from King's College, London about my study abroad application. It's been two weeks and I've been getting anxious.

Randomly, I decided to check my spam filter this morning. Apparently the email with my application didn't go through because of oversize attachments.

Thanks for letting me know, Gmail.

I'm So Sticky...

Well I guess it is my day to submit a blog post, so here it goes!

After working a combined total of 32 hours and 3o minutes this entire weekend (Friday-Sunday), I find myself delirious and $700 richer. Reunion work was tiring to say the least but I am sure that I will definitely sign up again next year. Though not as fun as the 20th year reunion for the class of 1990, the class of 1991 did throw down.

I'm using this post as a source of procrastination from packing up all of my stuff. You never really think you have that much stuff until you have to fit it into two bags and a backpack... Anyways Amherst is sweltering and there is really no way to escape the heat. Luckily or unluckily, the college shut off the hot water to the entire campus so showering is the only way to escape the heat. Looks like those James Bond showers finally paid off!

After finishing up clean up for reunion and walking around campus and the town, the fact that I will not see this place for the next five months has really set in. Although this saddens me to certain extent, I cannot help but feel a sentiment that borders on relief. Without a doubt I miss and will miss you all, however living in the bubble that is Amherst College has definitely put its strain on through this past year. My time away is bittersweet in the way that it distances me from the root of my distress yet it also distances me from the people that have gotten me through the rough times, you guys.

So that's all I really have for now. I realize that it is actually 1:15am and no longer my day to post so I'll wrap up tout de suite. I have to catch a bus in three hours so there is no reason to go to bed so I'll be up. I look forward to hearing all about what everyone is doing. I get so giddy when I get email notifications that someone has posted on the blog! Until next time family.
With all of my love,
-Josh 

I promise I know the days of the week.

So, it wasn't until about five minutes ago that I realized that yesterday was Friday and I owed you a post. hmm... let's see, how about reverse chronological order. I'm currently in Maine with the family. It was so foggy out when we were driving back from dinner, it was unbelievable (for those of you who don't know, my family has a new found aversion to home-cooked meals- not the eating , but the cooking part, so we eat out/take-out a lot). I also went to CA's graduation this morning. There's a tradition where diplomas are handed out randomly and the last person called receives a sock. So we all try to guess who will be last. I was so close-- JJ, why did you have to be third from the end? Anywho, the commencement speaker was Henry Louis Gates Jr. and I thought that his speech was one of the better ones that I had heard (well, in truth anything would beat Ed Bagley Jr. from last year whose prize quote was something along the lines of "I don't remember the 70s."). He truly loves the academy and it showed. He's also friends with Oprah. Major Props.

Thursday consisted of some shopping (finally found a dress for the wedding) and lots of ice cream eating with high school friends- also had a really nice panini for lunch.

Wednesday was... well that's a good question, I know I had to take Josh to school, but I think the rest of the day was just researching and relaxing.

And before that I was hanging out at school with Josh and Michelle after everyone else left after commencement. In case you were wondering Hannah was a beast at the tent parties.

I'll be back in Amherst on the 1st! I'm looking forward to seeing some of you then!

Good Night and Good Luck.

Boredom in Believeland

The title is accurate. I've just been catching up on the sort of existence that Mia talked about - cook, sleep, see high school friends, watch tv, and some reading.

I did, however, begin one of my summer projects : a website. I bought up the domain name www.dylanherts.com and have just started messing around with what things can look like. It's nothing special yet, but I'll put up more stuff as I go along.

So that's kinda cool. Maybe we can make a sub-page for blogging/discussions at some point in the future? Or set up our own (it's surprisingly inexpensive)?

There's a carnival in Chagrin Falls this weekend, so I'll head out there with some friends. It's a quaint little town with a waterfall bisecting its main street and Bill Watterson grew up there. He once drew Calvin tearing out the famous popcorn shop on the back of one of his books.

I've also been cleaning out a lot of the old stuff in our house. I found a big box with all the G.I. Joes that my brother and I used to play with all the time when we were younger, so I sorted them and their gear, boxed them up, and put them in the car to go to Goodwill tomorrow. Remembering that cute scene at the end of Toy Story 3, I slipped a note into one of the gear boxes to their new owner. Wrote something about how they hadn't been played with in a while and couldn't wait for some new adventures. Ended it "So what's our first mission?" and signed it from "Your New Soldiers." I hope someone likes it/them :)

I guess I'll take Thursdays! Once work at Yale starts, my posts should be more interesting.

All Good Things,

Dylan

To the Fairest Family

So, I'm sitting in bed. It's 11:16PM. I just finished my second cookie of the evening. I guess this sort of sums up my summer so far. In anticipation of the enormous amounts of work in the coming weeks, I've taken full advantage of my zero-commitment weeks at home. This basically includes me: snuggling in bed with my enormous puppy, making awesome scrambled eggs, shopping, watching movies, and lazing about.

Unfortunately all of my television shows have been wrapping up, but fortunately re-runs are supremely available online. I'm sure my parents rue the day that I discovered what Fancast was (not that they know).

Back to this summer: I've read a couple books on Bosnia to prepare for my trip, but the more I read, the less prepared I feel. Currently I'm in a little bit of a panicked state regarding writing lesson plans. It's the feeling I often get before starting a big paper, at the point when I'm procrastinating and denying that I'm procrastinating, but miraculously, nothing is done yet.

I leave next Wednesday, fly through Chicago and Munich (which I'm pumped about: the airport's website is awesome!), and arrive in Sarajevo at noon on Thursday. From there, I'll meet my boss, wait for Lillia (the other Amherst student), and leave for Tuzla (the city where I'll live and work for the next nine weeks!).

Again, excited but nervous seems to be my prevailing sentiment.

I'm slightly worried about where I'll be living, which while being an unknown, furnished (?) apartment, may not have, say, a nice wooden spoon for my scrambled eggs. This anxiety, though small, exists alongside my worries about doing laundry (washing machine with instructions in Bosnian most likely, line dry), shopping for groceries (I still haven't managed to find a Bosnian dictionary), and getting lost (and not being able to ask for directions), continuously.

Alas, I guess I'll have to wait and see. Only a week now! Oh, other thing. No constant internet access! Apparently there's wireless in the city center, but otherwise, I'm thinking I'll be updating sporadically from cafés.

Laku noć!

I like to move it move it!

Today is Tuesday!! Josh, Jenna, and I had a discussion about assigning days. Here is what we came up with...
Sunday: Josh
Tuesday: Anna
Friday: Jenna
Feel free to pick a day peeps! We can double up, too. And since it happens to be Tuesday and I remembered I thought I would try out posting things.
Right now I am in Florida and it is turtle time! No turtles yet, but I did see a firefly and potentially an alligator in the bushes, poised to attack. I have been mostly pretending to read by the pool, swimming, shell collecting, and applying sunscreen.
Commencement was a ball for those who missed it. Lots of tents, food, and drinks. Sometimes a few too many drinks...
Looking forward to seeing some of you back on campus in just a week or so!!

10 Weeks to a Better You!

Hi all. This is Karen. I'm not familiar with how many of you are familiar with my adolescent screen names.

My summer thus far has been quite uneventful, happily so. I've been oddly obsessed about getting fit this summer and considered doing the P90X program. For those of you not in the know, P90X is the exercise program of the gods. But then, I got intimidated and adjusted my goals to earthly levels. By the end of summer, I want to be able to go 10 miles in 100 minutes. So, for those who I shall not be setting my eyes upon until the Spring or potentially next May, PREPARE for me to be RIPPED (not scarily so). And for those who I have live in the same dorm this summer, PREPARE for me to be SWEATY ALL THE TIME.

Other news: My brother is graduating and has a job!

Because we sorely need a new post...

So I've been "working" this week. This has totaled about 8 hours of researching, while waiting for books to come into the library (they're here, I'll be picking them up tomorrow!). In other news, it was Joshy (brother)'s birthday this week so we ate delicious cake. I even attempted to cook for his birthday (gasp!). In other news, watch out route 2, Hannah and I will be traveling out to Amherst tomorrow morning to bask in the commencement festivities. Josh (Russakis): I hope your floor is still available tomorrow night, because otherwise I will be homeless and that will be sad. Bingley sends his love and hopes that you'll all come visit him at some point. And in conclusion, dibs on Friday posts in the future.

XOXO Gossip Girl

Commencement Work Blows Harder than...

Hey Y'all! So I started Commencement work today and it looks like it's gonna be a shitty week... Out of all the lax custodians I lucked out and got the only hard-ass one that gives a damn. It's gonna be a pain in the ass but at least I get paid I guess. Although I think what really makes it hard to stand is the knowledge that a job exists where you actually walk around to dorms and pull down shades to make sure they work. WTF!? Sorry for bitchin'. Call me out on it or commiserate! Miss you guys like Star Jones misses Arbys!
-J