from Portland to S.C. and all stops in between

Well, when I left Nashville at 4 AM (in route to the beginning of my summer vacation), it felt like 40 degrees outside. Very chilly. And, sure enough, at my connection in Denver it was snowing. This is how summer began. In Sacramento it was clear, but only in the 70s. So, all around disappointment. Luckily it has warmed up considerably since.

Anyways, Mom picked me up from the airport which was a big deal for me. I spent the first week settling in and seeing family (another delicious bbq at Uncle Rick's). But, the following week it was time to gear up for Portland. I journeyed with Shahla and we ended up departing around 10pm on Saturday night. She was already tired, having been awake since 6am and not really enthused about driving. I had gotten sleep, but a late night phone call from Vinny postponed bedtime a bit. He needed someone to pick him up from a party and a bunch of people were drunk. It was cool that he trusted me enough to call. I know that I have a lot of faith in him too, and trust him and how he handles situations like that. I look forward to moving in with him and spending more time with him this summer. But, the point is, we started at 10!! We took my car and, to make a long story short, I drove the whole way. It was epic. We arrived at 8am, barely in time to make it to Stasia's graduation.

Highlights of the trip (in no particular order):
1) Attending my very first college graduation ever!
2) Hanging out with Stasia, the "driving" force of the whole adventure, who always seems to motivate me to happiness
3) Camping out at Stasia's new apartment on the lake and feeding the ducks
4) Seeing James- It's been so long since I last saw him that I had forgotten how much I like the guy. He is awesome!
5) Yummy sushi and free Olive Garden!
6) Letterboxing!! Have you heard about this phenomenon? It is so cool! It's like a refined scavenger hunt nationwide. I think I'm gonna modify the concept and use it with my students.
7) All that quality carriding time with Shahla. And the quality carriding time with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on audiotape.

Top drags were: icky and cold weather, bad timing, being tired, Stasia being sick (which inevitably led to Shahla and I being sick), and lots going on in so little time. But it was a good trip overall and I'm totally glad I did it.

But, I wasn't done with trips. The following week Shahla and I reunited as I joined her in Santa Cruz to see a lecture by one of my favorite playwrights, Luis Valdez. His speech was so inspiring as he talked about the fight for civil rights for Chicanos and others, led by Cesar Chavez. I can do a fairly good impression of a couple of his entertaining stories, so feel free to ask me. The trip also involved ocean, a rollercoaster (my first time to the boardwalk!), more quality Shahla time, and frozen yogurt (yum!). Despite the fact that it was a 2-3 hr. drive, it seemed so quick shortly after returning from Portland. Although, now I have my sights set on Vancouver. Canada, here I come!!

Summerbridge also began in full swing. I got to prepare a lesson for fourth graders as part of a program called "I'm Going to College!" that is based on research suggesting that students who haven't thought about college by fourth grade are far less likely to attend than students who have. So these kids do research on local schools, apply to the colleges, learn about and apply for financial aid, and finally take a field trip to college for a day (in this case, University of the Pacific). I co-taught a lesson on food chains that called for students to play a modified version of tag, acting as hawks, frogs, or grasshoppers. Running around always seems to engage kids, who'd a thunk? Then, on the following weekend, I went camping with the Summerbridge kids. I wasn't exactly stoked about camping with 12-14 year olds for 32 hours, but it turned out pretty fun. I had know idea you could camp at Folsom Lake. It's very flat and not abundantly full of wildlife and just a few hundred feet from the nearest Walgreens, but I don't think they noticed. It was cool because I got to meet and spend some quality time with a bunch of the kids who will be eighth graders this summer when I'm teaching. We swam, played kickball, knitted, sang songs, made s'mores, etc. All together exhausting, but entertaining. I got a nice tan too. I better not go back to Nashville or people won't stop trying to speak Spanish to me.

Mom has been doing all right. Her and Grams fight a lot because Grams can't hear and Mom gets frustrated. She definitely is at the end of her nerves and gets on my nerves when she knitpicks things all the time, but oh well. While I stay with them, I try to balance time in the living room with time in my "room" or away. I've been taking her to most of her daily radiation appts. She just today had to go to the ER because her lungs were hurting so bad. She has pnuemonia apparently, hopefully they'll take care of that. It's always a little scary though, each time she gets bad you don't know what to expect. I also went to the doctor recently. Surprisingly, he said I was healthy! That's always good news I suppose. My dad has returned from his alcohol detox program and is like a new man. I pray he can keep it up because he looks and sounds different. So, there's a plus for you.

Anyways, I hope that helps to catch us up on the basic things I've missed blogging. Hopefully Internet access will continue to work with me and allow me to keep up with the blogging for the rest of the summer.

Chao!! (Not caio)
Mat