Necessary Update

I don't know where the summer has gone, but it's already Monday the 23rd of July and I'm leaving for the adventure of a lifetime this Wednesday morning! And I haven't written in ages! Shall I start now and go backwards? Last night I had a going-away party at my house. It was just lovely catching up with friends I hadn't seen in months. Conveniently, it was a pot-luck and all my friends are great cooks, so we had plenty of goodies to much on. Have you tried Michael C's mom's Oreo pie? I LOVE it. Or Leigh H's pita bread and hummus... delicioso! (my favorite Spanish word at this point.) Jessica M. mentioned how strange it was that a lot of the people I usually have over for parties were missing: Michael G. in New Hampshire for the summer, Heather B. in China, etc. There were some refreshing new faces there, and I love it when my friends meet and befriend each other. Ellen is especially good at that! If you haven't met Ellen yet, you should! Seth and Jared, accompanied by my dad on the violin, closed out the party serenading us with James Taylor and Jump Little Children covers--I think they play them better than the originals. Anyway, last night was bittersweet--saying goodbye is always sad. But I do know that I'm going to look back fondly on the next year with Biz for the rest of my life. And that's exciting.

The past week has been spent saying goodbye to dear friend near and far: Drew, Amy, Justin and Erin in Clemson, Anna and Jason in Columbia, and Joy in Atlanta. Hannah came to Edisto Island with my family last weekend (which feels like aeons ago). At the end of June we had our Sisters-No-Misters vacation in Orlando--the farthest we've gone thus far! Oh, it was such a blast. Highlights included Downtown Disney at night, hanging out by the pool, and the amazing land of Epcot. It's really cool, if you haven't been. Epcot/Disney hires hundreds of students from around the world to work in the different "countries" represented. Each country has a couple buildings dedicated to it--like a restaurant and a shop with products you could actually buy in that country. My favorites were Morocco and Norway--two countries I hope to visit in the next year. There were no Spain or Sweden, two other countries I hope to get to know in the next few months :).

Things I've been thinking about lately: life's brevity, transcendent truth, human nature, how I want to garden like Hannah, characteristics I admire in people: humility, transparency, vulnerability, security (aka, my friend Joy who I just saw). The ability (or inability?) for people to change. I think ability. But it ain't easy. I want to be an early bird someday. Right now I'm a late-night owl, and I don't think Spain's going to help with that. I think it's so interesting when people realize they don't want to be where they are now in 20 years and suddenly change (I was just talking about that with Seth), and it's interesting that people become more moderate as they get older (ie: the sixties). I've also been thinking about something my great aunt Edy said--when she was a girl, she thought her step-sister was a little on the weird side, but now they're best friends. I think about the girls I know I just don't "jive" with. Maybe I'm intimidated because they're too cool for me so I don't feel in my element around them. But someday we'll all be old people, wearing dentures and high pants, and the playing field will be levelled out--and we'll be friends. That's good to think about if I'm ever intimidated by someone.

Now I've got to pack!