Waiting.

Thanks to a connection with Matthew, I've been interviewed, hired, trained, and put to work at Red Robin.

There are several Matthews working there so he's almost universally referred to as Batman thanks to his stickers on his nametag and billfold, his belt buckle, and his unceasing quotations. It's so thoroughly permeated that the managers call him Batman even when casually referring to him to other people, and he's in the spreadsheet posted each week for the schedule under Batman. Since I'm his friend, and since I was given a red shirt, and since I have the name I do, I've naturally been dubbed Robin.

Some sections are a little more stressful and daunting for me than others but I usually make pretty good money, and I don't think I've yet to make technically-less-than-minimum-wage. I report my full tips every shift even though I know I don't have to (40% go underreported, says wikipedia) because taxes are important to me. I'm looking to save money for when I go away to DC in August, but for now I've got enough to go away to DC next week. I'm meeting with an advisor and meeting some friends from AmeriCorps, going to a concert with Kat, and generally relaxing.

I don't read, run, or work out as much as I'd like to now that I'm working, though. Yesterday the dog ate the liner out one of my running shoes. Also I'm very sleepy right now. I am getting dumber.

---

A fun mathing thing I did today:
5280 feet in a mile.
5 feet in one 1" square on a D&D board.
Therefore, 1056 squares in a mile.
One square mile, to scale on a D&D board, is 88 feet long by 88 feet wide, or 7744 square feet.



About this much space.

By the way

Nice flowers as bullets, Blogger. I don't care enough to figure out how to change you, regardless of how off-tone they might be.

Bob, bob, bobbin' along.

I have worked six of the last seven days-- 30 hours this week-- training at Red Robin. Far more goes into this than I had previously thought.

• You've got to get to and greet a table within 30 seconds of them being sat. You give them a sort of mandated greet and ask them where they'd "like to start," not "what they'd like to drink," so that they have the option to order everything all at once if they so wish.
  
• Go straight to the computer, punch in any drinks and appetizers, and be back with their drinks in two minutes. If you punch in appetizers and burgers at the same time, sometimes the burgers come out first, so wait until the appetizer's on the table to punch in the burgers.
  
• Any time you set any food down, you have to make yourself scarce until they take a bite, and then come right back and ask them if everything's tasting great.
  
• When the first person finishes the last bite of their burger or entree (ignore the fries, unless they're low, at which point you offer a refill, because they're "bottomless"), you have to set down the dessert card, with the check in it. Assure them you're not trying to rush them, but you're just trying to make things as convenient as possible for them. When they've got the payment down, get it processed and back to them in two minutes or less. On average, a lunch is 37 minutes long and a dinner is 42 minutes long.
  

...Okay, now that I write it all out like that it doesn't seem bad, but it's tricky doing it for several tables concurrently, when each of them are on a different phase of their meal. Throughout the day you've got to roll silverware into napkins, fold wax papers in which the hamburgers get wrapped, and do your assigned side work and beautification for the day-- manage the salad bar and polish the brass rails in your section, for instance. Restock the main line's boxes, plastic containers and condiments and wipe down some windows. It's somehow tied to the section you work but I haven't figured it out yet. You're also supposed to (nobody faults me for not doing this yet) run food out to others' tables as it comes up and they're preoccupied, and refill others' tables' drinks, and take their dirty baskets and dishes.

Matthew's responsible for my being hired here, and since there are several Matts he somehow convinced everyone to refer to him as Batman-- even the managers call him Batman on the schedule and the daily task sheets. It didn't take long for people to jump to the conclusion that with my name, my red shirt, the restaurant's name, and the fact that I'm there thanks to Batman's recommendation, that makes me Robin.

The people I worked with are stunningly enjoyable, though. I'd been put into this mindset of coworkers as vessels of contempt and waitstaff as bitter servants of the world that I wasn't ready for such a warm reception. I was acutely nervous, it being my first time serving and the place being a dynamo. I literally (literally!) had nightmares about my no-mentor-to-ask-questions "final exam": in it, I got in trouble for not calling guests "old badgers" because badgers had been surveyed as America's favorite animal and the one people identified with the most. What the hell, subconscious.

In my head, the scenario played out something like this: the two other girls in my training class have both served before (Ruby Tuesday and Red Lobster, and I note that they both come from a restaurant with a "Red" word in the title to ANOTHER restaurant with Red in the title), so they're already awesome at what they do. They zip around the restaurant with an inherent knowledge of how this sort of thing works while I'm stuck asking a million questions, making everyone furious with my incompetence. I wouldn't last a week.

In actuality? The two other girls in my training class both failed the live-ammunition final exam and have to retest on Tuesday. I passed just fine. Go figure.

Live and learn.

Well, my self-imposed moratorium on speaking about George Washington University for fear of jinxing it did not pay off. Admittedly, I didn't do a very good job of sticking to it. I just didn't want to... be chronicling what I could tell was going to be a nightmarishly up-and-down process, with no clear answer either way.

Thanks to numerous kinks in just about every imaginable process involved with admission or finance, I'm left with deferral until the fall semester eight months from now as my best option. If I go now I have a $12,000 unsubsidized Stafford Loan and if I wait until fall the fiscal year resets and they will give me a ton more money, and it will be GWU and Pell Grants instead of Stafford Loans. I feel like this is how people end up not finishing college; look at how much time I've wasted. There are people younger than me done with it and in real jobs by now. This made my semi-serious self-imposed vow to not shave until I went back to school all of a sudden far more daunting.

So it's time to go back to being an adult: looking for jobs, looking for additional scholarships. I'd like, really like, to head out to DC early, and maybe room with one of the AmeriCorps guys-- Coby, Ned, or Fusi, who live in DC, Baltimore, and Baltimore, respectively-- and spend a little extra in rent to be in the area, familiarize myself, and just be in a place I'd prefer to Michigan.

I feel guilty not having more Michigan pride, especially when I hang out with someone like Leeann, who has a ton of it. I wish I could find a solid unemployment figure: The Detroit News said Detroit's at 27% unemployment and probably about FORTY-FOUR percent underemployment. They said Michigan's official unemployment rate was just over 15%. It's bad all over, I know: Kat's having just as hard a time getting a job in Boston, and she's a college graduate. I'm wondering if it makes me worse of a person to say I feel like I'm a little too smart and a little too old to be working a fast food job, or if I should just bite the bullet and go apply at McDonald's.

---

In other news, I went to church with Matthew on Christmas Eve and liked it a lot; it was the first time I've been that I felt like I was maybe missing something in my life. But I wouldn't know how to go about finding a-- this sounds ridiculous-- finding a denomination or a place to worship that works for me. I'd love to go and sit in on worship at a synagogue or a mosque, but I feel like I'd stick out like a sore thumb and be given a lot of dirty looks.

I bound a few books for Christmas presents. They mostly turned out pretty bad, too tight. I couldn't tell where I went wrong compared to my first book, which turned out marvelously. I'm going to give another go at it for a few late Christmas/birthday presents. I also very much want to take up sewing, and keep prodding my mom on the issue. I think we'll start for real on Monday. Guitar, too-- I should actually pick that up sometime. Or painting miniatures with Warren. Too bad I missed the awesome holiday sale. Buying a nice bicycle for a cross-country tour. I have too much stuff, and want too much stuff.

I want to commit to reading more. I was really digging Lolita until I left it in Chicago at David-Scott's. I read the first part-and-a-half (out of five) of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I DM'ed a few sessions for the Sunday guys but my will and morale was both self-defeated and regularly-defeated: I think my expectations were too high.

Also I need to go visit my father again. It's been a few months.

Waiting.

I planned on updating when I finally got my acceptance from GWU.

After waiting nearly two months past the deadline I called. It turns out there's a glitch in the system and a bunch of people didn't get an acceptance or a denial. They said to email sbwiner@gwu.edu to get an answer. I did so and it bounced back, DNE. So I googled other possible addresses and the faculty contact page on GWU.edu said it's sbweiner@gwu.edu, Sara Weiner, Associate Director for the Admissions Department.

Emailed her and she said she was out of the office for the week but to call and ask for the Officer of the Day to get an answer. Called the next day and they said s/he wasn't available but to log into the admissions website by the end of the day to get an answer.

I logged on and instead of a recursive loop "loading..." page, I get a page that says my application doesn't exist. This was the evening before Thanksgiving. I can finally try calling them again tomorrow.

Only it's five weeks before the Spring 2010 semester starts and I haven't been able to work out any financial aid or class scheduling or dorming or if I got into the honors program, to say nothing of finding a job here to ship off with a little bit of money in my pocket... Vincent saw today a mailing I'd gotten from University of Maryland offering me $5,000 dollars a year in scholarships and was flabbergasted as to why I didn't accept it. I shrugged; told him I thought GWU would offer me more.

The Oakwood Hospital and Friends of the Rouge interviews came and went with no callbacks, along with a Target interview that equally fruitless. I babysit for my Aunt two or three days a week and do a little bit of volunteering for Arbor Hospice here. Now that training's done I sell remembrance ornaments as part of a fundraiser. Three hour shifts in the mall during the holiday shopping season. It makes for okay people-watching.

Adding to that, NPR forgot to blind carbon copy the email talking about phone interviews for the NPR internships. On top of the couple dozen gmail accounts, there were many school addresses: Nebraska Wesleyan University, Northern Arizona University, South Dakota State University, University of Texas at El Paso, the American University in Cairo (which I've actually looked at if I get the Boren scholarship), University of Utah, University of Virginia, Boston University, two from University of California (one in San Diego, one in Los Angeles), one from George Washington University, two from University of Michigan, three from Georgetown, and one from Yale.

So I don't know about this whole NPR internship thing after all.

But either way, phone calls from either organization are going to be wonderful since I've been sick and lost my voice from too much talking the past few days. And my lower back hurts in a different sort of hurt than I've ever had in my life. I want to cut my kidneys out of my body, because I feel like right now that'd be an improvement.

It's always the same, it's just a shame; That's all

It's not precisely that using this thing is a chore; certainly I like it and it's enjoyable. It's just that it seems awfully supplementary, I suppose, especially in a time when I've been seriously considering deleting other forms of internet communications.

It's tough to stick with things like studying Arabic and volunteering when you know you're not bringing in any additional funds, simply slowly running dry. I haven't been reading like I had in AmeriCorps either. Or even watching movies or television shows. I still run, but even that's not the daily occurrence it used to be (though certainly four to six days a week is still very good overall).

Awaiting a second interview with Oakwood Hospital and/or Friends of the Rouge, and I'm hoping any tardiness on their part is because of Labor Day weekend and not because they're not keen on hiring me. I'll toss them some follow-up calls on Monday. I'd also like a formal acceptance from George Washington University but I know that's not for another month at the earliest. Alas and alack.

Oh and I got turned down for the Department of Defense internship. I need to finish this NPR internship application and apply for GWU's honors program and I don't know. Find a way to keep busy and hopeful.

As an aside,

My old phone has been pretty useless ever since it got run over by a firetruck.

Until it became a physical manifestation of my rage; a vessel for all that incenses me.

Whenever I get very mad now, I take it outside and stand in the middle of the street, and throw it as hard as I can. I listen to the heavy whiff of wind and the clattering of plastic as it bounces a few times across the pavement. Then I walk over and pick it up, put it in my pocket, walk back inside and write the date and the event that so infuriated me onto a page in one of my miscellaneous notebooks. If I had the back cover to my phone, I would fold the paper up and put it where the battery used to be, but I lost that in the Colorado woods the first time I threw it, immediately after it was first crushed.

I have four entries now.

---

After this most recent one, I feverishly filled out six applications for positions at Oakwood Hospital--mom says our plumber's wife works Human Resources there and to use her as a reference--and one for a paid internship with a Rouge River environmental education project courtesy of Leeann. I also filled out an application for a spring internship with NPR in D.C., who curiously only accepts applications by mail. I suspect it may be the first of a few hoops they have applicants jump through, a sort of first test that you're committed enough to work there. Funny, though-- it seems a rather inefficient way to sift through candidates, given the ease of an electronic database.

I really want a corkboard to put near my door, so I can post little motivational reminders and to-do lists. I feel like this small step might help decongest my headspace.

Curse missed opportunities.

So I received some very bittersweet news today. I was awoken by a phone call from an unknown number, and as I've been hunting for jobs I took a second to slap myself properly awake and coherent before answering. They kept calling themselves the U.S. Mission, and I couldn't tell precisely who they were at first, but I played along hoping they'd say.

It was the United Nations, calling to ask if I wanted an internship in their Records and Research department. They told me that it was more behind-the-scenes and that it involved access to an enormous library of any sort of publication imaginable, and that the nature of the job was to compile reports that policy-makers in Washington, D.C. would use. I could also develop my own research project and sit in on a couple of meetings a week if I wanted. They also admitted that one of their big endeavors right now was a data entry project, switching from index cards to digital, and that everyone-- even the department chief I was talking to-- was working on it in their spare time, but he had no intentions of forcing an intern to do that eight hours a day, five days a week. He asked if I had any questions, and I asked a few and then thanked him before he transferred me back to an Indian girl curiously named Sheila who worked out the logistics behind the interns and their hiring.

I asked if there were any positions in Washington, D.C. available, confessing I hadn't looked at a single school in the NYC area and would it be possible to get back to her before accepting? She seemed irritated, saying that I had until Monday at the latest but she understood, and that I was set on going to D.C. instead. She noted that I should have been aware that the opportunity was in the NYC area, but that I could always apply again in the future. And that was that.

My mother was thrilled; she's been telling people for months now, purely coincidentally, that "my son's going to work for the United Nations one day"; my brother gave his typical blasé response.

Jobber.

I guess I didn't do as well on my Dearborn Inn interview as I'd thought: I made a follow-up call a week after the interview, and the front desk transferred me to whoever I needed to speak to for that-- a manager, I think, instead of the girls who interviewed me-- and I got an answering machine. I left a message and haven't heard back since. It's been two weeks since my interview, now. I've not heard anything since.

On the plus side, I've gotten some volunteer opportunities from Kat's mom in the form of a comment left on my last entry. I didn't even know she still read this! Hi Ms. Selby. On the one hand I want to stop by and say hi, but on the other hand Kat makes fun of me every time I come to visit with her mother.

On another plus side, I visited with long-lost friend Leeann last week and we had dinner, made cookies, and talked for about eight hours. It was a blast and she insists on exposing me to all these parts of Detroit I've never seen-- mostly because any time I've been there, I've been accompanying my older brother for work, photographing abandoned houses in the ghetto. So admittedly I've got a less-than-stellar opinion of the metro Detroit area as a whole. But! Leeann is looking to change that.

She's also letting me borrow her Arabic textbooks, which I'm loving flipping through and having a hard time devoting big blocks of time to. I need to re-trigger this sense of commitment I had somehow, and I think it starts with not staying up until 5am every night like I am now without meaning to.

Dull boy.

I've applied for several bank teller jobs, a few Borders books jobs, a PETCO job, a writer/reporter job, and a job was a bellhop at The Dearborn Inn, a classy hotel very nearby my little brother's workplace. A few of the teller jobs automatically shot me down, but my aunt knows the manager at one of the places I applied to-- which I only found out after I applied.

Dearborn Inn sent me a rejection via email, and then later that day someone called me for an interview. I just got back from it today-- I was interviewed by two mid-twenties girls who seemed really positive and hopeful-- and I think I knocked it out of the park. I'd also be doing valet and shuttle work, so my experience driving large vehicles and 12-passenger vans with AmeriCorps helped out a bit. I've got a clean driving record and the minimum 3 years with a driver's license they require. They seemed to really like that I was CPR certified and that I'm able to work weekends and holidays, and they even said that they have both a full-time and part-time position. It's also the sort of job that provides tips, so I think it might be a solid opportunity for me. They said they'd be calling me back very soon for a second interview, especially since they had three people they had to unexpectedly cut for driving issues. Still, I'm going to keep options open.

I've also spoken with a lady who looks for hospice volunteers and she's sending me an application for their training and service, starting in October, so I'll be able to continue with my volunteering too. I'd still like to look at other opportunities too though. I need to find a local food bank or something, maybe. I'm just not sure who to talk to. I registered at United Way and inquired about some things there but I haven't gotten any responses-- You'd think people would be a little better responding to these offers of free labor.

And University of Maryland offered me a $5,000/year scholarship on top of a financial aid package. Still holding out for what GWU has to offer, there. Things look up as far as Being Successful go, but down as far as Having Some Fun go. I dunno about any trips to my grandma's place up north or consistent D&D on Sundays, right now. Which kinda stinks.

Return recap.

I left with a suitcase and a backpack and came back with a suitcase, a backpack, and five or six boxes I shipped home. How does that happen? I only got my uniforms (admittedly quite a chunk of clothing, there) and three or so shirts I purchased, and a whole bunch of books-- what I thought was just one box's worth, but clearly not. I can't for the life of me figure out what all the junk going into the other four were. I mean, I see it all here, but I just... My mind is boggled.

Kat and I were trying to work out something so I could see her for the weekend in New York, at her grandmother's attestedly lovely lakeside cottage, but it didn't work out. We might try to go to my grandmother's lovely lakeside beachhouse instead sometime soon.

Joseph and Amanda left for California the morning after I got back. Amanda came over that night to see me but Joseph just slept. And that's all I've got to say about that.

Saturday was a family get-together for Adam and Sheila's birthdays, Nicole and Jeff's anniversary, and my return. I got many half-hearted hugs from cousins who then asked if they could borrow my Nintendo DS Pokemon game. Sunday was spent looking for volunteer opportunities and filling out various online applications for bank teller jobs, a reporting job, and a room service job at a fancy Dearborn hotel. I've already been shot down from two bank teller jobs.

Last night Matthew and I dressed up in shirt and tie and smoked cigars and drank a fifty-dollar bottle of scotch that he bought for my return. If that's not friendship, I don't know what is. Oh, and we're going to go to Greenfield Village this week to make my little brother make us mint juleps whilst wearing his period clothing.

The quick version

A climb up a rock scramble that turned into a thick underbrushy forest as Coby led us lost through Eldorado Springs and my ankles got cut up and we all sat by a stream that was so cold it hurt and I lost my glasses when I dipped my head under the little falls in the rapids but found them again after some hunting through the riverbed

A terrible Saturday service project at Barr Lake where grass was up to chest height and the mosquitos were worse than I've ever seen and our boss, who birdwatched from his car the whole time, said, "Sometimes I'm amazed they get paid for this"

A nice Sunday service project, my last, at the Children's Museum of Denver, where unbeknownst to me other two AmeriCorps volunteers were serving that day, and they fed us pizza in the name of our graduation and asked us to go to 7-eleven to get slurpees for everyone, sneaking behind one of the employee's back

A midnight bus ride from Nederland to Denver, to arrive back at campus at about 2:00am, all in the name of the Nederland Renewable Energy Group and a meeting at Greg Ching's house, which was fantastically energy-efficient with its solar and geothermal energy

A meeting with AmeriCorps's awesome (but very busy) budget guy for a discussion of future government careers on Wednesday

Three days left!

Those sweet buns looked so tasty, too.

The twenty or so people designated Corps Members of the Rounds throughout the year were treated to a fancy Asian buffet lunch by Director Barbara Lane today. She asked for suggestions on what was good and bad about the program and I was one of perhaps four people who were actually fairly talkative (though certainly I had to hold some reservations). She said that Dateline is going to follow an AmeriCorps*NCCC member from the Denver campus's next class through their application, interview, acceptance, training, and first round project for a feature story-- which could go either fairly well or fantastically poorly for AmeriCorps. I guess it depends on (forgive my honesty) how much of the underage drinking and pointless bickering they cut out of the footage. She rushed us out before giving us a good opportunity for dessert (woe!) for a meeting she had to get to, and walked out without paying before someone reminded her as she was getting into our vans.

I wrote an article on my AmeriCorps team complete with pictures for the local Nederland paper, the Mountain Ear, and it's going to be published next week. I'm pretty excited. I'm going to ask the Forest Service guys to bring copies when they come for graduation.

My last volunteer effort is going to be for about 8 hours this Sunday at the Children's Museum of Denver. There's a little fun hands-on science class I'll be helping out with. The last time I helped out with a science class it was on optical illusions and I made a thaumatrope. I think it'll leave me with about 215 hours of independent service. We're only required to do 80 or so.

I finally figured out why I enjoy ISP so much: the normal forestry work wasn't nearly as fulfilling. We cut down trees in empty campgrounds and almost never see or talk to other people when we do so. ISP is a chance for me to interact with people, and it's really personally gratifying to be able to talk to them. I feel like after 15 years, the Forest Service is used to and not quite as appreciative of AmeriCorps teams as they might otherwise be if it was our first year with them. The random community organizations, though, really and truly appreciate the help every time. And to be honest, the nature of the work tends to be far more fun anyway. Liam's right, the Nederland theatre really doesn't need me to be there. But they still love the help and love having AmeriCorps around. (The carousel certainly appreciates and needs the help, though.)

Sergio's wheeling his suitcase down the hallway as we speak.

Seven days left.

Firefox crashes and burns.

A Mozilla Firefox update ruined all my internet capacity but for AIM, and my innumerable solutions were of no good whatsoever. I eventually had to bust out the disc my laptop came with and restore factory settings. Google Chrome, I guess you're my boy from now on.

The previous class of AmeriCorps was present for the reinventing of the AmeriCorps marketing plan, which also means that some of them got selected to have their faces used as poster children, including Nick Massey, a team leader this year. He did wildfire last year and he worked in the office this year until Tristan was removed from team leadership, whereupon he took over Earth 6. Nick's basically a charming little kid in a tall black man's body, and he was my TL Coby's roommate last year. One of the two pictures of him in the new pamphlet his him with his hand on his chest, head thrown back just so and laughing. It entertains me endlessly.

I just hurriedly wrote a resumé, due today as one of our graduation requirements. I'm exhausted from tinkering with my computer until 3am and would greatly love a nap. Also I picked up Anthony Bordain's memoirs/honest look at the backstage of a kitchen, and it was hilarious and morbid and a touch alarming. I recommend it.

Eight days left.

Success?

So originally Sergio was going to be sent home, but instead they told him he gets to keep all his education money, will not be fined, will not get extra instruction, but will leave a week early. I'd heard a rumor-- only a rumor-- that they're going to fly him home a week and then fly him back for graduation, the missing of which was interpreted to be part of his punishment in the first place, as I guess he badly wanted to go, or something.

University of Maryland in College Park accepted me for the Fall 2009 semester but I don't really intend to go. After some application issues I called George Washington University's office and the supervisor I spoke to said that she would fix my issue and that she's the one who decides who gets in in October for the Spring 2010 semester and my application is "more than satisfactory." I think I'm still going to apply to Harvard this September though. Now I'm waiting for the Department of State to get back to me about my spring internship, and waiting to get accepted somewhere to apply for the Boren scholarship. I was thinking about learning Arabic in Morocco or Egypt, but if you sign a waiver you can go to a nation with a travel advisory. The psychotic, instigated-by-GI-Kat part of me is strongly tempted to go to Iran to learn Farsi. Kat, MD, loathes the notion that I'd get this scholarship at all, after being apart from her for 10 months of AmeriCorps.

We completely failed to build/buy the forest service a going-away gift, and while everyone conceptually agreed to repainting the shoddy wooden basketball hoop, I was the only one willing to get up on the ladder and do it. I slapped on a coat of white paint and meant to return to it and put the AmeriCorps logo on it, and then Coby said we should do both the A and the USFS shield, and then it never got done and I left the paint out and presumably one of the seasonals cleaned up the mess I left out. I feel only the mildest levels of guilt, partly because they still haven't gotten us the really spiffy wool-lined Carhartt jackets they buy each AmeriCorps class at the end of the program. Some of our supervisors are coming to our graduation, though-- maybe we'll get them then, instead of mailed to our homes.

I volunteered one last time at the movie theatre-- The Taking of Pelham 123 was surprisingly okay-- and I dropped into the crystal shop and said goodbye to Scott Harrison. We were originally supposed to work on the carousel that day but it fell through. I made ricotta-and-Parmesan lemon gnocchi for Mo, talked about AmeriCorps and what I'm going to do afterward. They let me know that if I ever returned to Nederland that I could stay in a room in the basement-- and seemed surprised that I slept on the couch. Unbeknownst to me, I had taken the dog's usual sleeping spot, ha. At about seven I took a bus from Nederland to Boulder, another to Denver, and then the light rail and a two-mile walk back to campus, since everyone else wanted to leave in the early afternoon; I arrived at about 9:30pm, with only a few minutes' downtime between any given transfer.

This schedule here says I actually leave at 10:00am on July 23, and not on the 24th. It looks like we walk right off the graduation stage and into the vans to shuttle to the airport. Huh.

I give blood for the first time ever tomorow morning.

Eleven days left.

Home Stretch.

My birthday was pleasant, if a little lonely. His dog Ruby kept me company, to the point where she even followed me a mile and a half back home to the work center the following morning. We had to drive her back and take off in a hurry so she couldn't keep up.

The Independence Day/AmeriCorps Going Away Party at Smitty's house was fantastic-- his house is a two-story gorgeous rustic place with an indoor hot tub, a television as wide as my armspan, a two-story deck... And a ton of delicious grilling and confections. Grilled tofu's pretty tasty. The fireworks turned into ooing, ahhing, cheering, and yelling out patriotic things at each explosion. "Democracy! ...Liberty! ...Republicans! ...Wiretapping! ...Freedom fries! ...Books!" It was my favorite Independence Day yet,

except for the part where Sergio tried to overstay his welcome as people were leaving and refused to get out of Smitty's hot tub, and then got right in our gracious host's face and threw up his middle fingers and yelled "fuck you!" Smitty just kind of smiled and took it in stride, further cementing himself as biggest badass in the world (because going on 13-mile hikes carrying a chainsaw once a week just for fun isn't enough). When we got back to the house Sergio tried to pick a fight with Liam, punching him twice in the face while he was sitting at the kitchen table.

Sergio's been sent back to Denver already, and might get kicked out, but might not. In his version of the story-- and I have heard him tell both of these to different people already- either Liam hit him first, or he didn't hit Liam at all and was just trying to have a polite discussion about their differences (which is what he told our unit leader back in Denver). Even though Nate, Lauren and I all witnessed it. Sergio is a fucking psychopath and I don't have a roommate for this last week.

Nineteen days left.

The Kindness of Strangers.

Mo Fauvel-- third from the right-- is Nederland's local doctor, and also the head of NedREP, the Nederland Renewable Energy Project which I take minutes for (perpetuating my tendency to hang out with people older than me). He asked when I was headed back home and when I told him I was only in Nederland for another few weeks, he invited me over for ATVing and dirtbiking. We went up to Caribou, the old mining town up the mountain from Nederland. Only two half-buildings remain, some rough fieldstone walls. The other dozens of buildings are completely gone, leaving only a grassy valley behind.

When we got back he showed me the homemade wind turbine he's crafting. He took the generator from the wooden water wheel he built behind his office-- it wasn't working out thanks to friction loss from the series of belts, but he might revisit it with chains next season-- and then assembled a vertical-axis system with airfoils made from reshaped gutters. Amidst the work we shared life stories. He grew up French Catholic not so well off, and he stumbled into medical school after a few years in college and he and his wife paid off his loans by working at a clinic in Alaska for a while (I made a Northern Exposure joke). They settled down here to be near his wife's family and a few years ago started their own private practice. He's been doing medicine for 25 years now and says he's thinking about taking a sabbatical. "This stuff was always my true calling," he said while working on that turbine. He's thinking about taking that up as a new career, and he told me about excelling at those mechanical engineering things in high school and on aptitude tests, but back in his day nobody really did much with the results of those as far as directing students went, so it became a hobby rather than a career. I think it's kind of fascinating.

Just this weekend Mo, his wife, and his three daughters left for Paris. He's thrilled for the two-week vacation, the first he's had in years. He also told me that while he was gone, I could stay in his house whenever I wanted, and even take the ATV for a spin. I was pretty apprehensive, not wanting to infringe, but he offered many times over, and I decided it would be nice to have a day to myself away from my team. When I mentioned the possibility of Kat visiting, he even said she could stay there too while he was away-- but we just couldn't afford it, alas. I told him I'd like to make it up to him and asked if I could make his family dinner sometime. Instead he invited me over for barbecue. When I told him that I enjoyed cooking he said I could man the grill, haha.

So I'm taking Tuesday off and I'm going to go for a run, get some breakfast at the teahouse in Boulder, maybe buy a new book-- I've got my eye on Machiavelli-- do some writing, and take care of yet more college stuff. I'm considering getting a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream and making some cookies or something too. I've no earthshattering plans, to be sure, but it's still going to be nice and relaxing.

Today I watched some soccer and found it far more exciting than most any other sport I've seen. I think I'm going to start watching more soccer. Football. Whatever.

Looking forward.

Wednesday during our daily briefing outside I asked Coby if I could run down to the bunkhouse to get the number for urgent care-- there's a humming in my ear that won't go away. He said yes, and I was there and back in less than a minute.

In that minute, the fifteen people sitting there left, leaving my backpack, which was promptly run over by a fire truck.

They say it's my fault. "Looks like somebody's got no situational awareness," they say with smirks. I've loathed this term since day one. Like "critical thinking," it's one of those words that unnecessarily vocabularizes a simple concept. In this case, "situational awareness" means "paying attention."

The next day while at the cutting and chipping site two hours away, right near the end of the day we moved on to yet another area. Everyone was tired and frustrated and I was picking up branches to put in the chipper. Someone put in a sizeable branch behind me when I wasn't looking, and when I turned around the branch rocked up and down in the feed wheel-- which they almost always do-- and hit me under the chin. It was the hardest anything's hit me in my life, and it just made this dense thunk sound in my head. I turned to Ned and asked him twice if my teeth were okay. He said yes both times. Then I spat up little bits of tooth. A chunk came out of the side of a back left molar. A bit flaked off the top of one of my lower left teeth, leaving a jagged edge. My top left canine got it the worst-- the entire point came off, the root nearly exposed. It hurt a bit to have cold air pass over it, to eat, to brush my teeth. (Oddly, I didn't spit it up but I didn't swallow it either. No idea where it went.) It didn't hurt, but the shattering of teeth was pretty emotionally jarring-- I sat in the truck and cried for a half-hour or so while the EMT-qualified firefighters took a look at me and asked me some neurological exam questions to make sure my head was on straight, ha.

The following day, Nate drove Sergio and I down into Boulder. My teeth got fixed up (though I might need a root canal in the future, which AmeriCorps wouldn't pay for if it's after I graduate, so I filled out a CA-1 Workman's Comp form and should be set for life). I bought the cheapest, junkiest cell phone AT&T had for $30. Sergio found out he has a sprained rotator cuff and can't lift more than 10 pounds for the next two months (even though he was playing basketball that morning). He's likely going to get transferred to another team, leaving me roommateless. So I guess these catastrophes were rectified acceptably.

Gathering no moss.

In one month I'm done working with the Forest Service. Then a week of debriefs and two weeks of responsibility-free outprocessing and saying goodbye to each other and Colorado. Yesterday our boss realized we were leaving soon and declared that he has to "bleed us for every minute of work I can, because we're paying $4.50 a day for you guys." He cancelled our going to the orientation he said we were going to go to tomorrow (complete with free pizza) in favor of us cutting and chipping yet another campground. It's getting monotonous, but I guess that's what a career is, huh? Shit.

Hit a small roadblock in my college applications-- had to apply for a term change for GWU and while both that and my application fee waiver were accepted, it seems to have bungled the online application system for me. What's worse, they sprung some kind of form on me that I have to have signed by the dean of students at my old school. Uh? That's going to prove difficult. University of Maryland is tougher to get a reply from; they didn't get my fee waiver but I think my application with them is otherwise done. I'll have to find the time to make more calls and ask for more help, which is always difficult given my lack of reception outside of a 100-square-foot block in Nederland. No word on the Department of State internship I applied for for Spring 2010, but I probably wouldn't hear about that until after July at least, since that's the application deadline.

A string of unrelateds:

• I have a cavity and no dental insurance. Thanks AmeriCorps.
• I went to the doctor for a humming in my left ear after someone used the grinder at work and they told me to use nasal spray to drain my sinuses; as it's failing, I'm now headed to an ear/nose/throat specialist who will hopefully be covered by my insurance.
• I'm tinkering with Rosetta Stone v3, which proves difficult to upgrade to the proper slightly-obsolete-yet-hackable middle version, 3.2.11, that I need. Oh wait I think I just got it. Arabic, Spanish, and Italian v2, here I come.
  
• Sergio is angry at me because three days ago I asked him if I could play video games when he was falling asleep on the couch at 3am after hours of television watching. (He said no, then started swearing when I pointed out why he was being unfair, and then after the swearing and voice-raising said that he was still being polite but wouldn't be for much longer.)
• The oft-unmentioned-by-me third firefighting team leader, Tristan, got kicked out for having alcohol in his fridge in his dorm on campus; he fell prey to random room inspection whilst away.
• On July 24 I return home to Michigan. Matthew and I are going to dress up and smoke cigars (or maybe I'll buy a pipe, I don't know) and drink whiskey. Or is it bourbon? Scotch? What's the difference, anyway? He says he got some pretty classy stuff for my return, and it might be the one thing I'm most looking forward to upon my return. He says he wants to play Risk when I get back, too, which seems somehow a fitting complement.
• My cousin and possibly GI-Kat and I may mount a road trip to New York or beyond shortly after. Kat wants a ride to some socialist convention (tch) on the 30th; I'd like to see New York and visit my unmet friends there.

I've no good way to end this post.

Spelunkadunk.

Mike Fusi (typically referred to as simply "Fusi") is my adventuring buddy. We went hunting with our pocketknives once, trudging uphill through patches of snow and along a trickling stream, following trails of deer poop hoping to find that elusive pooper. We didn't see a single animal the entire time.

A few days ago I pointed out a cave on the way down the canyon from Nederland to Boulder. Alongside the canyon is a... it's too big to be a creek but too small to be a river. It flows from the reservoir dam in Nederland all the way down the 20-mile canyon. About halfway down are the Boulder Falls, off-limits due to falling rock (Fusi and I checked it out anyway, and we weren't the only ones. It's really pleasant down there). Across from the falls is the cave. As soon as I pointed it out Fusi wanted to go, and today we went.

The biggest problem was that the spring snow is melting, and that little river? It's turned into wide whitewater rapids. We scouted up and down the bank looking for a way across, a precarious bridge of rocks to hop along... And eventually we found something. There was a rope stretched over the water, tied between two trees a little way up the canyon. It looked... Intense. There was nothing past it though, so we went back down instead. And found another rope, this one bolted to rocks on either side of the river, and lower to the water too.

Faced with no other alternative, we took hold of it and shimmied across. I pulled myself along the top, balancing as carefully as I could, and it sagged enough in the middle that I got soaked from the waist down. Fusi opted for a monkey-climb, hanging from the bottom of the rope, and at one point he was completely submerged--but we both made it across just fine (even if I was ready to jump in after him if he fell).

Wet, we walked along the bank, on rocks and through brush, to come to the mouth of the cave. The opening was perhaps eight feet tall. The first chamber was roughly circular, and sloped up slightly. It was full of moths and dust, and when we crested that little hill the darkness started to set in. We moved down the slope until we hit water, filled with slippery sticks and swampish murk. The walls were wet and muddy and we clung to them as best we could to not sink to the ankle in that narrow little corridor. The water was deepest where the cave split into three passages, the mouths of the last two dry. The middle passage was short, but had a small hole you could squeeze through into the left passage, past the water. That leftmost passage was the longest, and ended in a small spraypainted message: RANDY WA-- the rest was indiscernable. Was here, perhaps; or maybe a last name.

The rightmost passage had a black arrow spraypainted, beckoning onward, but it was short too. It culminated in a nest of grasses, divoted as though it had been slept in for some time, perhaps by a bear. There were no bones or waste or other signs of habitation, though, and Fusi and I left, content with our explorations. The trip back across the river was a little more successful for the both of us, and we looked a fantastic mess. We both loved it.

Tomorrow we go down to the Boulder Ranger Offices to plant donated trees--a nice change of pace from murdering so many in so many campsites.