I'm going to have a job this summer. (Maybe now that my luck's turned around a bit, a girlfriend and a car will suddenly come out of nowhere too?)

Yeah... this past week or so has been a fairly productive one for me, which isn't something that happens often.  Made another $70 or so selling video games on eBay, bumped into several people I haven't seen nearly often enough this semester (and got to talk to others who I've seen more often but haven't really gotten many chances to actually talk to), went to a Doctor Who club meeting that turned out pretty well, and (of course) got a freaking job.  Yep--this past Saturday I went over to Camp Shenandoah and had my in-person interview and was told that I was "probably hired" by the ranger and that it was a 95% chance by the other guy in charge of hiring.  And then yesterday I got an email officially offering me the position, telling me how much it would pay, and so on.  So yeah... I'll repeat: I got a freaking job.  Just have to get some supplies (Boy Scout Class A uniform that actually fits, a couple of "class B" uniforms that actually fit, etc.), get a physical, and fill out some other forms that Camp Shenandoah should be sending me in the mail within the next couple of days and I'll be ready to go.  Doesn't start until mid-June, so I'll be home for around a month after graduation.  This also means I won't have to worry so much about the usual summer boredom and loneliness, since I'll be away from home for half of June and at least most of July working at camp.  And I won't have to worry so much about being cut off from my friends, either, because I'll have electricity in the staff campsite (so my laptop will work!) and wireless Internet access around the dining hall, apparently.  Hopefully it turns out well!

I know my visit to the camp Saturday turned out pretty well--aside from the interview, lunch, and helping some people out with their attempt to spread gravel out across the roads (which will be nice, since I'll have to drive on those roads when I'm the Assistant Ranger this summer!), I also got a chance to wander around a bit and explore the campsite.  Here's some pictures!

...and yeah, that trash can at the end says "Crap Canvas" on it.  I'm not entirely sure why. XD

But yeah... though job stuff has been the biggest thing, other stuff this past week has mostly worked out pretty well too.  I finally got to talk to someone who I'd been having these really odd feelings of "wanting to talk to this person-ness" all semester (which is especially odd considering that she's someone I really didn't know at all), and it seemed that we actually got along really well.  And apparently, according to her, we had talked once before, oddly enough--apparently it happened way back at the beginning of last semester at an FHE activity or something.  It's weird that I didn't remember; I assume it must've been pretty brief, because usually when I actually find a new person that I can talk to I remember them afterward and I don't think she's the sort of person I would've forgotten about so easily based on our one conversation so far.

The one thing that didn't turn out so well was the movie on Saturday.  SVU was showing the second Hobbit movie, and I thought I'd actually be able to stay--I even found people to sit with, which normally would prevent crowd-freakouts pretty well.  Unfortunately, things didn't quite go that way... I was doing pretty well for a while (talking and goofing off and eating cookies and cotton candy with friends), but then some other people showed up and somehow the conversation shifted toward "who has a crush on who" sorts of things.  A topic that's pretty much guaranteed to leave me feeling a bit left out, especially now that I don't really have any major crushes (there are a few people hovering in the "maybe I'm starting to like this person... okay, yeah, I think I'm starting to like this person... wait, maybe it's just a maybe again, I'm not sure >_<" range, of course, but so far there's nobody that I'm just constantly thinking of like there always has been from 2011 up through February or so of this semester.)  And then it drifted to "hey, this other guy has six girls who like him" and I'm just sitting there with this look of utter disbelief on my face (or would be, if I wasn't already in a pre-crowd-freakout state that made me unable to show facial expressions besides "blank") like "really? six? okay, sir, you've got more than enough luck for one person, I'm going to have to confiscate some of that."  Oh, and it didn't end there--apparently he was able to figure out who three of them were!  It just amazes me how insanely, ridiculously, unrealistically lucky some people are.  If there was just one girl who liked me, I probably wouldn't be able to figure it out unless she made it so obvious that anyone in their right mind (which, to be fair, disqualifies some of the guys that I've met) would be able to figure it out.  How can one person be so lucky to not only attract the attention of six different people, but be able to figure out who three of them are?? It's just... bleh.  That's too much luck for one person.  I've got nothing at all against the guy (we're actually friends, even), but that doesn't mean I want to hear about how ridiculous his luck is while I'm sitting here with my "dating/relationship luck-o-meter" hovering just a few degrees above absolute zero.

But anyway... so that whole conversation got me feeling a bit left out and alone, and that feeling made me a lot more vulnerable to crowd freakouts than I would have otherwise been in the situation.  So when a bunch of random people (mostly strangers or people I don't know that well) suddenly moved in just a few feet to my left... yeah, crowd freakout happened.  It wasn't too bad as far as crowd-freakouts go, but it was bad enough that I didn't really feel like sitting silently and watching a movie for a couple hours.  I was able to poke one of my friends and let her know that I was leaving (so people didn't just... suddenly find out that I was no longer there an hour or so later), and then headed back down the hill to my apartment.  Thankfully, a couple of good friends were online and after a while of talking, the crowd-freakout effect wore off and I was feeling pretty good again.  I'm always kind of surprised that talking to someone over Facebook can actually have that effect--for most of my life, online stuff just didn't quite work as well as talking in-person.  It's only been in the past year that I've stumbled across people who can somehow, miraculously, make online communication feel like actually talking to a person rather than just... some robot is sending text at me again.  Definitely nice to have people to talk to when I'm in a crappy situation and really need it, though.

Also found a huge shiny black beetle crawling around in the grass the other day.  First one like this that I've seen in years, so of course I took a bunch of pictures (here's one.)

Yep... I like bugs. XD

I've also been doing some painting lately, working on some little random things that will be gifts for some of my friends that are graduating or otherwise leaving SVU after this semester.  Currently I have three done, though I'm not 100% sure if one of the three people is actually graduating this semester (I'm pretty sure he is, but... not 100%.)  I have 8 people on the "graduating people" list so far (the 3 I have done were all from that list), but I know that's not everyone who's leaving... I don't have a "people who aren't graduating but are leaving" list started yet, but I probably should start that one up pretty soon so I can keep track of how many of them there are.  I may have to cut the size of these things in half (or make sure I only do simpler paintings for most of them) if I want to get them all done in time...

And in completely unrelated news, there's a dance at SVU this weekend, the last one of the semester actually.  And apparently it's "ladies' choice," which I'm not sure if is intended to mean "girls have to ask guys if they want to go to the dance with a date" or "girls have to ask guys to dance at the dance itself."  Sounds nice at first (no asking for me this time, yay! also, get some of those lazy "I don't believe girls should ever ask guys" people off their butts for once and show them how hard it actually is to ask, so maybe they'll understand why not all guys can do it like it's no big deal) but unfortunately "ladies' choice" is probably going to end up meaning "girls are asking the guys to dance, and guess which guy's never going to get asked?" (Hint for the clueless and/or people who don't know me well enough to have heard about how awful my luck is with this sort of thing: that guy's name is Eddie.)
It'd be nice if it turns out that my prediction is completely wrong (either a girl will actually ask me to go with her, or if not then at least I'll have people asking me to dance while I'm there), but I can't really see that as being all that likely.  Would definitely be a pleasant surprise if someone DID ask me (at least, assuming it was someone I at least kinda-know and not a total stranger from out of nowhere who's just that desperate for someone to go with), and especially nice if it turned out that this was someone who actually liked me in some way and decided to take this chance to actually let me know... but I'm not really counting on anything like that happening.