summer of '69ish.

Whew!

Today marked my last day of long-term subbing my freshman. I will miss some of those kiddos - they were a good bunch and made me laugh often. For the most part, I'm happy to be done because, frankly, I'm ridiculously tired and really over reading Romeo and Juliet. I feel bad for the students because the regular teacher is less-than-enthusiastic about, well, being a teacher to ALL students, not just the ones that get As. This will forever dishearten me, but I think you'll find this no matter where you look. School reform is a long, convoluted topic I won't get into.

Because I'm finished teaching and I am going back to school in the fall, this is technically the beginning of my summer vacation. I'll be working at the law firm between having the best summer of my life (yes, superlative, and no, I don't feel bad) and getting ready to embark on what can only be described as mental abuse in the form of law school. That said, I do have a few goals for this summer. Broadcasting them in public will hopefully hold me accountable to these goals, but only time will tell.

- Move out of my parents house (less than one month and counting!);
- Get a tattoo (I do have a design and placement in mind, and no I won't discuss it - it's personal);
- Attend my first music festival;
- Skydive with my mother (this is 100% a sure thing, actually);
- Read all the books on my list (found below);
- Farmer's Market, Art Fest, 80/35, and all the other Des Moines staples I missed last summer;
- Adopt a kitty from the ARL;
- Go to Traverse City for the annual film festival (THE most fun I have every summer);
- Camp as much as possible with the people I love the mostest :);
- Spontaneous roadtrip. Anywhere, I don't care;
- Convince Kalena to move back to Des Moines ASAP;
- Hit up all the places on my ''Periodic Table of Des Moines'' shirt I haven't been.

And the books I am going to read or re-read:

"Brave New World" -Aldous Huxley
"Mere Christianity" -C.S. Lewis
"Small Footprint, Big Handprint" -Tri Robinson
"Hunger Games" - Suzanne Collins
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" - Betty Smith (finish reading this one)
"Rock Encyclopedia" - Lillian Roxon (anthology up to 1969)
...and plenty, plenty more.

This is going to be a wonderful summer, I can just tell. Here's to May!


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