The Smorgasbord of Douglas Bell

I know what you’re thinking. “Sheesh, Douglas, you do all this fanfare for this new blog that you’ve put together, and then you only make five posts on it, and then let it go stale for a week shy of a full month?” Yes, this morning I’ve finally gotten myself to write a blog post and get this thing kick started again.

The crazy thing is, my blog (or lack thereof) is probably a good representation of what this summer is like. It’s feels very weird. You know, the past few summers I’ve been able to easily fill up my time with the projects that I’ve wanted to do during the school year but wasn’t able to. And that worked. Quite frankly, last summer didn’t even seem long enough, since I lost the entire month of June to the China tour, a week of resulting jet lag, and then Boys State. (Which I’m not complaining about; those experiences were great, although “summer break” as it were didn’t really feel like it started for me until June 30th.)

This summer: totally different. I’m pretty much in a state of transition for everything, and that has resulted in somewhat of a vacuum. High school is over, so there’s no summer reading (except for one summer reading book that AU has assigned, but that thing actually isn’t that long compared to the two books I’ve had to read during each of the past four summers), there’s no preparing stuff for extracurriculars in the next school year, there’s no more State PTA stuff to work on. Strictly speaking, my high school stuff is over.

And at the same time, I still don’t have that much of an idea of what I’m going to be doing in the fall either. At this point, I do know what my class schedule will be (although it’s still subject to change), but it’s still a bit early to tell where I’m going to be getting myself involved once I’m over there. And of course there’s the counting down to the big day–Saturday August 15th–when I take off for the other end of the country. It’s actually now only five and a half weeks away, making right now the middle of my summer break (since my summer started about five and a half weeks ago).

So what HAVE I been doing this summer? In short: trying to keep myself from getting bored. I’ve been working on some website projects that I normally wouldn’t have time for. I started to clean my room a little while back, but kind of got sidetracked from that, now that I think about it. I couldn’t find a job (because I’m a bit picky, and the job market is not in high demand for students fresh out of high school who are only going to be in town for two and a half months anyway), so instead I’m volunteering at the San Mateo Public Library. I work the Welcome Desk/Gate Check area in the lobby Tuesdays 4-6 PM and Thursdays 11 AM-12:30 PM (originally 10 AM-Noon, but their hours recently changed), and I’m helping with the weekly children’s movie Thursday afternoons 2:30-5 PM. Oh, and on June 15th, I went to the DMV and got my learner’s permit, and have been practicing with my parents. I just got on the freeway the first time this week, and man, that was an experience!

Soon (like within the next month) I’m going to have to start thinking about stuff to take to Washington, DC and stuff to leave behind. And how to get it there. Anyone have suggestions? I’d love to hear ‘em!

Until my next blog post (which I promise will be sooner than three and a half weeks off), later.