Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Moving On

Summertime has a hypnotic effect on me. Something about the combination of constant sunshine and lack of rain makes it hard to gather perspective. Everything happens in a blur it seems, and yet, nothing is happening at the same time.

My most recent hallmark was completed my third move in the last four summers, this time from Rhea House to Long. Thus far I'm really enjoying the change of scenery. Rhea House was nice because of the privacy factor, but my apartment in Long is so much brighter, making a substantial difference in my mood. Along with the privacy of RH came the feeling of total isolation, which is quite the opposite now that I'm in the hub of teenage summer camps (more on that later).

One of the biggest advantages of the move is that I can actually determine what temperature the apartment should be. At RH, the thermostat for the entire downstairs (my quarters) and most of the main level was in the main hallway upstairs, meaning that most of the time the temperature that was most comfortable for the upstairs was anything but for the downstairs. There was really no point in walking up the stairs to change it either, since by the time I had reached the bottom step on my way back down someone would have already changed it back. Amazing, this Long apartment with climate controlability, I say. I'm lacking a laundry room to wash my clothes for free whenever I wish now, but the upside of that loss is that whenever people are in apartment it's because I invited them in. Not that I disliked people in my apartment at odd hours, but it's nice to feel a little more control.

I was just getting accustomed to living in the dorm, when I went to pick up my 15-year-old sister Rebekah in Dalton on Friday. Twenty minutes after I arrived at the meeting place, I got the call that there was car trouble and that I would have to drive 20 miles further south. To make a long story short, I spent the entire weekend in Atlanta with the family than in Dayton with Rebekah. here's the long story: The van couldn't be fixed by a mechanic until the next morning, so I drove everyone back to Atlanta. On Saturday, I drove my dad back to pick up the repaired vehicle, only to get another call from him 20 minutes after we departed saying that the same thing was happening to the van 10 miles south on I-75. We found another mechanic who worked on the van for at least an hour before saying it should be able to get home. Five miles later I got another call, and I took dad home again after the mechanic said he'd have to keep it over the weekend. Exhausted, I decided to stay home for the night and left late the next morning. Taking I-75 down to two lanes for road construction on Father's Day Sunday didn't seem to be too good an idea to me, but some knucklehead obviously thought it was a great idea. So the usual three-hour trek back home ended up taking a good 4.5 hours, which brings me back to the summer camps.

Bryan rents out its facilities each summer to traveling Christian camps. Sometimes there are enough campers to fill up all the dorms, and other times they only fill a few. Regardless, there are kids everywhere all over the campus for at least five days straight. When I got back from Atlanta Sunday evening, I realized that I would have the joy of having 90something 12-18 year old boys in my building for the week. The dry erase markers from my apartment door had already been used on my board and then taken, and the moving boxes I had emptied and sat outside my door had been scattered and kicked around the foyer while serving as the common trash receptacle for the camp. All in a matter of a few hours, since I don't think the camp started until Sunday. I have a list of observations of the campers that I'll post later. Included here, it would make this post quite long.

I have a total of nine days left to work at the paper, four more including today until I get a week of vacation. In honor of Rhea County and the Herald-News, here's a parting photo I took recently outside of Spring City. It was the dominant photo for the weekend edition's frontpage (impressed, aren't you?). I think I would get along well with whoever came up with this idea.