My 9 days working at Camp Shenandoah

This one's a little different from my usual posts--instead of writing it up for the first time right now, the entries about my time working at Camp Shenandoah are actually taken word-for-word from a notebook I had with me while I was there.  I'd originally planned to do blog posts while I was there, but lack of frequent Internet access at camp (at first because I didn't know the password, and later because we weren't supposed to be online for long periods of time if we could avoid it to conserve bandwidth) meant that they went into my notebook instead of onto here... until now!

I'll post another one of these about the stuff from after Camp Shenandoah some other time, but for now, here's my Camp Shenandoah wasn't-online-for-a-while blog stuff.

Day 1
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Lots of work (setting up tents, carrying beds to campsite, loading tents/cots for the kids' campsites into the truck and unloading them at the sites), but seemed like a pretty good start! Lunch was okay (ham/turkey + cheese sandwiches), dinner was pretty "eh" (I only had chips, peaches, and pudding... "meal food" was green beans and those weird-ass chicken cordon bleu things.)  Good thing I brought muchos snack-os.

Turns out I will need to come home this Saturday... or Friday night.  Maybe.  I'm still not 100% sure.  Schedule throughout a normal week seems doable; if I can manage to wake up in the 7am -- 7:30 range I should be fine.

Got my own tent, muddafuggaaaaas!! It's a new one, too.  Sadly, the staff campsite currently has no TP for my bunghole... so pooping will be happening in other places.  It does have flush toilets, though! So does the dining hall, actually... that's new.

Randomly felt like drawing Numnums.  Which I guess makes sense considering where I am.

I can hear frogs/toads from camp.  And also thunder, at the moment.


Day 2
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Staff showers are kinda ghetto--built into the same almost-building as the latrines.  Hot water works well, though!

Breakfast and lunch--more "eh" food.  Fortunately there was cereal there at breakfast, but lunch had me on the "snack food diet," since the main "meal food" and the side dish were both inedible for ground beef and bacon-related reasons.

More work--moving up tents and cots.  Left shoulder + upper arm are super sore now so I can't do much with those.  Right wrist briefly started to hurt, but that seems better now.

Some random goofy drawings from the first few days.

Day 3
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Camp is much less empty now that the Junior Staff and CITs here here.  There's only barely enough space for everyone in the staff lounge... also, I now have an extension cord if I need to charge my phone or laptop.  Lunch was once again "eh," and I ate nothing but chips and applesauce.  Good thing I wasn't all that hungry.

Still a lot of working, but less exhausting than the first two days.  Don't think my arm will be sore tomorrow.  Wearing the shorts I sleep in as underwear might be cutting down on the legs-rubbing-together soreness somewhat, which is nice.

Also, found out that I won't need fancy-schmancy clothes for the swing dance thing I'm going to with Angela this Saturday, which is good since I don't have any!!

SALAD BAR!! The savior of camp meals has arrived!! (Dessert is good too.)  Also, apparently I like bacon bits... even though I hate bacon.

..."training" was actually more like "dinky games that went on for waaaaay too long" this time.  Almost got into a borderline crowd-freakout situation.  Some of it wasn't so bad, like the "this is a booger" bit... but the awkward "hey, let's get to know each other... except not" games were really dumb.  Hopefully that crap thins out or stops over the next few days.


Day 4
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 ...Staff showers are a lot less nice when you're not the first/only one using them.  I haven't had such a shitty shower in YEARS.  And that was after maybe two or three other showers... can't imagine how much it must suck if you get in there right after "shower rush-hour" or something.

If  the other showers are open already, I'll probably be walking over there to get showers from now on... at least if I'm not up early enough for a decent one here.

...And I just found a tick on my stomach.  A little one, kinda dark brown... and it had already bitten on.  Was able to get it off pretty easily (and its head didn't come off inside the bite or anything) so it probably wasn't there for long.

Also just realized that I seem to have forgotten to bring my comb back... that kinda sucks.

Breakfast slightly less "eh" this time--biscuits were good so long as you didn't contaminate them with gravy.  Plus, there was cereal (as always.)

Went on a tour of camp, and got a map!  Also: actual Assistant Ranger work started today.  And lunch! Way better than previous meals--salad bar AND pizza! Supper was closer to "eh" again (unnecessarily beef-infested spaghetti), but salad/breadsticks/pudding saved it.

I got to drive the camp truck today.  Took a bit of getting used to, since the shifter (from drive/reverse/park) is in a different place and the parking brake is completely different... but once I was used to that it wasn't hard at all, I just had to drive slowly + carefully on the bumpy camp roads.  And they were very bumpy.  Made a trip up to Archery to drop stuff off, and then to Scoutcraft and Nature, before back to Maintenance.  Also, had to pick up cardboard boxes from the trading post and dining hall, to drop off where the recycling stuff goes.

Also: Got to play Munchkin! We didn't actually finish the game because it got too late, but still.

The map.  With drawings and terrain detail added by me, of course.

Day 5
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 Woke up to find mysterious bugbites on some of my toes.  At least, I assume they're bugbites... they weren't there last night and just kind of appeared overnight.
And finally--good breakfast food! Pancakes!! Lunch not so much... pale, suspicious-looking chicken nuggets that I definitely didn't trust enough to actually try.  Just had stuff from the salad bar, since the salad's always good.  Dinner also repugnante, menos la ensalada.

Suggestion to any super rich people who want to donate stuff to camp: new washer/dryer for staff campsite.  My bedsheets (the thin flimsy things that always get dry) were still soaking wet after a run through the dryer on the setting I usually use.  That is bullshit.  Also bullshit: showers.  How the hell are you supposed to get a hot shower around here!? What on Earth did I do right the first time I used the staff showers to make it work so well? Even the other showers sucked today...

After-the-fact edit: The dryer actually wasn't that bad, I had set it wrong the first time... it works differently than other dryers that I'd used, and in attempting to set it to a normal setting I actually set it to only dry for 10 minutes or so.  When I tried again later making sure to set it for 30 minutes, it worked fine... I just forgot to mention it in here, I guess.  The washer, on the other hand, actually broke later in the week...


Day 6
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First thing we did this morning: practice putting up/taking down flags.  I got to put them up once, or at least help put up one (the camp flag.)  Wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought it might be.

And things went horribly wrong.  Water at Andrews is out, so no showers or washing clothes.  Everyone's going to use the shower house until Andrews' water is fixed, which means no showers there for me either... just some cold rinse crap, if I can tolerate the cold water long enough for that.  To make it even worse... this is the day when I really needed to wash clothes.  I have zero clean shirts now.  One is maybe tolerable, but the other two I have with me... no way.  They stink.  Not sure about the one I'm currently wearing.

Crisis averted, maybe--water is apparently fixed ALREADY, so I will be able to wash shirts tonight after all.  Showers still suck, but... at least I'll have clean clothes.  Also, some really good banana pudding for supper.  Along with salad, as always.

Yep, washer/dryer work again.  And actually talked to people (and showed off Okédoké!) later on today! Today actually turned out good, despite early problems.  And I may have introduced a kid to the OHRRPGCE, too--he wanted to know where to download it and everything!


Day 7
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 Internet works again! Last night it was being weird.  Also, I have a motel room booked for the weekend.  Was surprisingly easy to get set up, and like I thought, a room was around $70 rather than this "over $100" nonsense my mom was assuming.  Of course, she was probably thinking of rooms with two beds.

Lunch was great today--they had this fish with potato-strip breading and I ended up eating three of them, plus my usual salad.  First meat-based food I've had (other than a hot dog and bacon bits... which probably aren't real bacon) since coming here.

Supper: also great! Best mac & cheese I've had in years!!

And got my swim test out of the way today, too.  "Beginner" test was very easy.  Will probably go back for "swimmer" later on in the summer.
And we had a campfire!! Went pretty well.  I need to find out when Troop 2's going to be here so I can do the Poop Skit.  Mwhahahahaha...


Day 8
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Work continues as normal.  Weather's nice today--cloudy and not as hot, but also not raining.  Plans for Saturday are pretty much set, so the weekend should go well.
Kinda scary for a little while there--had a "Code Green" (someone missing) which turned into a "Code White" (medical.)  I'm not sure what happened but I don't think it was just a drill this time... one of the girls was lying face-down in some leaves near the showers and not moving, and they brought the medic in on a truck to pick her up, or check on her at least--I didn't see her get loaded onto the truck or anything so I'm not 100% sure what happened.  I think she's okay now though (she just walked back in), so it might've just been a drill, but... it was unexpected and very convincing if it was.

Yep, apparently that was a drill.  I'm glad they sprung it on us--the "Code Blue" drill was kind of lame in comparison because we knew it was a drill ahead of time.

It rained.  A lot.  Like Outpost-level rain for hours.  My tent got rained in a bit, but everything seems fine... except possibly my power strip.  Now, my laptop charger still works (and presumably so does the phone charger) so this isn't the worst-case scenario or anything, but still sucks.  Hopefully it will work fine once it dries out... otherwise I'll need a new one in August when I head back to BV.


Day 9
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Last day of Staff Week! Should have plenty of time to wash clothes, dry them, and pack up stuff I'll need for the weekend... but just in case I don't I went ahead and packed some of it this morning.

...and it turns out this isn't just "last day of Staff Week" but "last day for me period."  I've been "let go" for vague reasons.  The only thing specifically mentioned was my driving, but... I specifically mentioned many times that I'd never driven a truck before (and I didn't go driving crazy or running over stumps or anything) so I'm not sure what the big deal was.

Almost time to head off to Camp Shenandoah...

Yep... Thursday is the day that I leave Middle of Nowhere, VA (...okay, Alleghany County, but close enough) and head... north... east... ish? I think? toward Camp Shenandoah, where I'll be working for 8 or 9 weeks this summer.  I've already started (well, almost finished) packing my stuff at this point; all that's left to cram into my suitcase are the two Boy Scout uniform shirts (only not in there yet because they need to have a couple of extra patches sewn on, one of which I don't have... the other, I just haven't gotten around to yet), my toothbrush, razor, and comb (...because I still need those for tomorrow), and this solar-powered flashlight that I got for Christmas this past year and haven't actually used yet.  Some other stuff (drawing supplies and maybe a couple books) will be coming to camp in my backpack, and these two huge packs of bottled water will probably just sit off by themselves since they're sort of self-contained already.  I've stocked up on snack food (peanuts, Pop-Tarts, and granola bars) and drink mixes, so hopefully I'll be able to have a decent amount to eat even if the dining hall's food is iffy some days... which it probably will be, going by what I remember of it from way back when I was still young enough to be going to camp as a Boy Scout rather than camp staff.

I'm still missing some of the clothes I'll be needing, unfortunately.  I have 4 pairs of the Boy Scout socks, but they're the excessively long ones that my dad insisted on buying when we were at the scout shop in Roanoke a while back, claiming that the camp would make me wear the long socks rather than the shorter, actually-comfortable-enough-to-wear kind.  Turns out that Dad was completely wrong on that one--the guy who hired me outright said that sock length doesn't matter, all that matters is that they're Boy Scout socks of some type.  I should've went ahead and gotten some shorter socks along with the awful long deathsocks Dad wanted.  Fortunately, the trading post over there sells Boy Scout socks, so I should be able to get actually-wearable socks once I get there.  I also only have 4 pairs of the Boy Scout shorts we'll be required to wear (and only two of those actually fit me, rather than just sorta fitting... those smaller ones were hand-me-downs from Dad), but I figure that those can be worn more than one day in a row (unlike socks) so I won't need to be buying more of them.  Only two uniform shirts should be fine, since I'll only need to wear them at dinner and on Saturdays/Sundays (...or more accurately, "Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon," since Saturday nights are generally going to be off-work days.)

But yeah... I don't think I'll be bringing my laptop, so computer/Internet access will be only occasional during the summer.  I may be able to access Facebook and such through my 3DS, since I know the dining hall has wireless Internet access now, but I don't know how well the 3DS will cooperate with that just yet so it's hard to say for sure.  For the most part, it looks like I won't have much contact with people through my usual method (Facebook chatbox messages), so I may end up text-messaging some people more often than usual.  I've already added another number to my phone just today, and I might attempt to track down another one or two people's numbers tomorrow so I can actually have some contact some of the people I talk to pretty frequently (or would like to talk to frequently but haven't really been in touch with that much lately, in some cases.)  So yeah... people I've talked to at least semi-often, don't be too surprised if you see text messages from me a bit more often than usual this summer. XD

On an unrelated note... the OHRRPGCE game I've been working on since 2009, Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana, is pretty much finished at this point.  In an odd coincidence, the date when I finished working on the game at last was the exact same date that the first released version was last edited before being uploaded (June 8th.)  A public release hasn't happened yet, but I have sent the game out to three playtesters (who, amazingly, all showed interest within a day or two of me first making an official call for playtesters) and will be hearing back from them over the summer as they play through the game and point out any bugs/errors/etc. that they happen to find.  If all goes well, a complete Okédoké release will finally happen in early to mid August.

And, I'm doing more painting again.  Got one painting (for a friend who's going away on a mission soon) finished today and will be delivering that to her tomorrow; I'm also taking my painting supplies with me to camp and will attempt to get at least one or two more paintings done while there (one for another soon-to-be-missionary, and another for an SVU graduate which was already started earlier this spring but just hasn't been finished yet.  Possibly another one for another graduate if I get those two done and still have time for another one while I'm there.)

I'll probably continue to post on here throughout the summer, probably on weekends when I'm back home from camp.  Which means the next post probably won't be coming until the 28th--I don't think I come back home this Saturday, and the 21st is going to be a different situation than usual due to neither my mom or dad being able to pick me up from camp or take me back the next morning.  So far it looks like a friend is going to pick me up from camp, we'll go to a swing dance event in Charlottesville, and then she'll drop me off at a cheapo motel somewhere so I have a place to stay for the night (before picking me up the next morning and taking me back to camp.)  I'll need to bring it up with her again before that weekend to make sure everything will still work and iron out the specific details a bit more, but so far it seems like she won't have any problem helping me out with that, so hopefully that doesn't change (...otherwise I'll be kind of stranded over there at camp with no way to leave and no way to get back the next day if I do manage to find a way to get away... and I really don't want to have to try and mess around with getting rides from other people who work there and whatnot.  I basically hate trying to get rides from complete strangers or people I don't feel like I can even remotely trust... which is basically everyone else who will be over there, since I don't know any of them! Yeah, I would not make a good hitchhiker. XD)

And this is completely random, but... earlier tonight, the entire downstairs area of the house randomly started to smell like a dentist's office.  That sort of latex glove smell, pretty much.  Really weird.  We opened a window down here just to make sure there's good ventilation in case this smell comes along with something we don't want to be breathing in too much of, and it seems to have gotten weaker since then... but I still don't have a clue what caused it in the first place.

Last post for the summer?

Well, I'm back home now!  Well... have been since last Wednesday, but I only just now got around to actually posting something on here again.  Whoops... XD

Anyway... the past couple weeks have gone pretty well! As mentioned in my previous post, graduation went well (no crowd-freakouts, got to see a bunch of friends before they disappeared off to who-knows-where.)  Also managed to get a storage unit in town for my stuff without any real difficulty (turns out that the indoor units were actually $1-per-month cheaper than the outdoor units, oddly enough.)  Oh, and the Sunday before last (the 11th), I did end up meeting someone that I'd been talking to on OKCupid for a while... and that went really well too! We went and got lunch at Don Tequila's in Buena Vista; I showed up several minutes early and waited, and before too long she showed up as well.  Of course... I didn't recognize her at first (her pictures on the site were older ones, I assume--she had shorter hair in both of them, while when we actually met her hair was longer and in a ponytail), but when she walked away from her car a bit, looked over toward where I was sitting, and asked "Eddie?" then I was pretty sure that she was the right person and not just some random stranger. XD

But yeah... I was slightly worried that "talking on and on forever online" wouldn't carry over to "talking on and on forever in person," somehow, but it turned out that wasn't anything to be worried about after all--we got along really well in-person after all, and started talking almost immediately.  The waiter in the restaurant had to come back a couple times before we were ready to order because we just kept getting distracted talking and forgot to decide on what food we wanted (...which, now that I think about it, is a lot like what happened on the first date I ever went on in my life, actually!)  After a couple hours of talking (and eating--chimichangas, the usual free chip basket, and this dessert thing that we got for free because they were doing some kind of special thing that day) we finally left and walked around town a bit, seeing the random junk robots and other random stuff.  She had to go around 3:00ish, but she gave me a ride back to my apartment first.  And of course, there were hugs.  So... yeah, I'd say my first attempt at actually meeting someone in-person after talking to her online for a while worked out pretty well! XD

Moving out (which happened last Wednesday) went okay too.  Took a lot more time and work than I had been expecting, though--I knew my dad was going to help me move some of my stuff out to the storage unit, but since his hippievan wasn't working he had to use a rented pickup truck instead, which took two trips to get everything up there.  Here's some pictures:

Yep... there's my storage unit, the truck crammed full with (the first load of) stuff, and finally the way the unit looked AFTER I'd moved all my stuff into it.  It was a 10x10 unit, so probably a bit too big for the amount of stuff I actually needed to put in there... but I'm not sure if all my stuff would've fit into something much smaller without piling things up to the ceiling (and plus, this was the smallest unit they had available), so it works.


Also have gotten more of my stuff for my summer job at Camp Shenandoah figured out; almost all of the paperwork is done at this point (just need to get the direct-deposit form filled out with my bank information, then get a physical so I can fill out the medical forms... that's all that's left at this point), and I now know exactly what stuff I'll need to bring with me.  Which includes a ton of Boy Scout clothes (which I currently don't have... so unfortunately I'm going to need to buy a bunch of them. two full Class A uniforms, plus several pairs of scout shorts--no long pants needed, thankfully!--and a few other shirts... the camp will be giving me two camp staff shirts, so I won't need to buy a full week's worth of them at least)... and even the absurd socks (they recommend having 8 pairs.)  Hopefully they have shorter-length socks, because I can't stand to wear the kind that comes way up on your leg.

Have also been working more on Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana lately.  The playable portions of the game are 100% done at this point, and I've made some good progress on the ending credits and the little scenes that go along with that.  Here's some bits of Okédoké-related stuff:

George W. Bush: President for Life (...he wishes, anyway. XD)

Yeah, you didn't do anything.  Except help build that giant robot...

From left to right: Schnee McBoobs, El Garbanzo, Señor Rialgo, Alejandro, and Señor Death.

Once that's done (probably will take another day or so?), all that's left is some short scenes that happen after the end of the credits (showing what various characters ended up doing after the game ended), and then the game will be completely done and ready for final "for somebody else's eyes" testing before the final release.  This means that complete Okédoké will be done before 2014 is over, and I'll finally be able to say that I actually finished one of my games for the first time since 2003!

Well... looks like I've graduated now.

Yep... today was the graduation ceremony for SVU, and (somewhat surprisingly) I actually managed to get through it without any problems at all.  Even though three of my least-favorite things (getting up early in the morning, extreme heat, and crowdedness) were all involved, none of it really got to me that badly and I was actually feeling pretty good even by the end of it.  Well, I was a bit overheated (which I suppose was unavoidable considering the combination of black graduation robes, black button-up shirt, black long pants, and sun+heat type weather!), but not to the point that it was making me miserable or anything.  I managed to find someone who was okay with sitting with me during the graduation, and (after a bit of work...) managed to convince the school's people to actually let that happen rather than being alphabetical-order Nazis and shoving me into a really uncomfortable position (surrounded by people I either don't know or barely know, in the middle of a row.  ugh.)  And after the graduation, I found out that my mom, dad, and little sister had all managed to make it out to Buena Vista this morning, so I got to see all three of them for a while (and lots of hugs happened, of course.)  After getting pictures of/with a bunch of friends and talking and goofing off for a while and eating some random fruit they had at the reception afterward, Dad took me and Julia to eat some Italian food (I had stuffed shells... and a salad... and cheese sticks... XD) and I think we all ended up pretty much stuffed.

And now, going in backwards order again--before graduation! I actually managed to finish a whopping thirteen of those gift paintings that I was making for people before graduation day happened and everyone disappeared.  And even though I got three paintings done in that last day, my hand only briefly felt funky; it was only the "slightly uncomfortable stretching" feeling when I moved it certain ways and not actual pain, nowhere near as bad as it was toward the end of last semester.  So I should probably be able to paint again after the weekend or so without any risk of things getting worse.  I only have 8 more people remaining on my current list, though I'm sure I'm missing at least a few that probably should be on there.  I won't be just letting those people go without paintings this time, though--I'm planning on getting all of these done and then mailing them out to people over the summer.

Oh, and speaking of paintings, here's a few that I did:

Those were probably my three favorites of the bunch, at least as far as the ones I managed to scan before giving them out.  The last two I finished turned out really well too, but I forgot to even get a picture of them first so unfortunately, I no longer have any record of their existence.  But eh, the people I painted them for have them, which is the whole point of this anyway, so I guess that's not a problem. XD

But yeah... things in general have been going pretty well lately.  Got to say goodbye to a bunch of my friends before they disappeared, got a ton of paintings done, graduated with no problems, got to see my little sister again for the first time in a loooong time... and this Sunday I'm going to actually meet someone from the online dating site, which will be the first time that's ever happened.  Well, I suppose there's a chance that I'll actually end up meeting two of them this weekend depending on whether the one girl who basically asked me on a date actually ends up going through with it or not (apparently "I don't have a car" wasn't a problem for her, but I haven't heard back from her after the last message--it's been days--so "I don't have a car, and I also don't know where any places to go get coffee are around here, maybe in Lexington or something?" might have scared her off. XD)  But anyway, the one I'm really looking forward to meeting is the one who I've actually set a specific day, time, and place to meet already, so it's pretty much a guarantee that it's actually going to happen at this point.  Hopefully that goes well; I know we seem to get along well online, at least, so that should transfer over to real life.  I can't imagine getting along with someone better online than I do "offline," anyway (it's certainly never happened before!), so things should go pretty well.

Should also start looking into the possibility of renting out a storage unit for my couch, table, chairs, mattress, and other random junk I won't need back at home over the summer.  I know there are a couple of places around here like that, but I don't know how much they cost off the top of my head or whether or not they'd have enough room for all of my stuff.  I suppose I'll end up putting things like my TV, whiteboard, and such in there too along with the big stuff, so I don't end up having too much stuff to take home with me.  Of course, I'd probably need to find somebody with a truck who could help out with moving the couch and bed out of here, because otherwise I don't know how I'd get those bigger things to the storage units in the first place!

Well... this last week has been a busy one.

Yeah... I'm not even sure where to start here, so much has gone on since the last time I posted here.  I actually don't remember off the top of my head when the last time I posted here was, though I know I haven't let it go for too long without a new post (checking again, it seems my last one was last Monday--so just over a week.  not too bad.)  But yeah... this past week.

It started off pretty good, I guess.  Started on (and finished) a 5th painting, got the notes on the back of three of them written up (and one delivered to the person it was made for), and unexpectedly ended up asking a girl on a second date, which is the first time that's happened since... way back in October 2011 when me and Ruth went on our second date.  Which means it's also the second time that's ever happened in my life, oddly enough; apparently I've gone on a whole lot of first dates but somehow never got around to asking any of those girls on a second one.  The thought had come to mind earlier, when I had found out that she actually wasn't going to be immediately disappearing to go on her mission after the summer but instead coming back to SVU for at least one more semester, but at the time I had kind of brushed it off... until we ended up talking in the library and I just couldn't help but blurt it out.  That's going to happen tomorrow; I'm going over to her house and making chicken fajitas as a late lunch for both of us, which should be pretty nice.

Later on in the week... things changed a bit.  Thursday I found out from my dad that my grandma had died.  I didn't react much at first (mostly just kind of stunned by the news and wasn't able to get many words out), but the next morning it finally hit me when I saw my dad share her obituary on Facebook.  I shared it too, and started to type a little bit of a message to go with it, and then ended up going on and on and going over all of my memories of Grandma and crying for something like an hour straight.  Thankfully I had friends to talk to about it with and help me calm down a bit almost immediately (one even contacted me midway through the typing-and-crying hour... just to randomly talk to me about something, but it turned out she just happened to get in touch with me right when I needed someone to talk to the most, whether it was intentional or not.  Thanks for that.)  I don't know how things would've gone if I had been stuck alone in my apartment the whole day with nobody to talk to about it, but fortunately that did not happen.  So many friends came out to show support that day, whether it was in-person or over Facebook or even by text-message.  Thanks again for being there for me, you guys.

Despite starting out with me crying for an hour straight over my grandma, Friday actually turned out to be a pretty good day somehow.  I ended up having a trip to Food Lion to stock up on some things I needed, got a haircut so I won't get kicked out of graduation for being too shaggy (and not only was it free, but it doesn't look weird to me! usually when I get my hair cut shorter, it does), spent a lot of time hanging around with friends, and went to a choir concert at SVU which turned out pretty well.  Friday was a pretty good day.

Saturday, though... that one broke my "nothing but good days since February" streak, even though the truly bad part lasted less than an hour.  It was just that bad.  I'm not sure what the heck I was thinking, but for some odd reason I signed up for a 5k that SVU was doing.  Started off fine, before it actually had started, when I was just hanging around talking to some friends... but then when it was about to start, everyone got packed in together at the starting line.  I ended up in at least a "pre-crowd-freakout" state around that point.  Then it started, and my friends (who I had thought would be mostly walking) took off running and I made a crappy attempt to keep up at first but found myself unable to put forth enough effort to actually do so thanks to the still-developing crowd freakout holding me down.  After that it just got miserable.  I was left behind by literally everyone, even random married people pushing baby strollers; I was in the very back of the line for a while, only 20 feet ahead of the random police car that they had to pick up people who physically were not capable of going any further if they happened to pass out on the road or something.  I just got so angry.  Mostly at myself for making the stupid mistake of signing up for this thing, but any random stranger who was dumb enough to cheer for me from the sidelines got yelled at a bit, too.  I was at least able to be a bit nicer to the people I actually knew, but not as much as I normally would.  I almost felt like I had regressed back to the high school version of myself for a while there--it was just that bad.  I mean, I don't *like* having people cheer for me even now, but I don't normally react too strongly to it, I don't normally yell "SHUT UP!" at random people who do it for even a second; back in high school I absolutely hated it, though.  I did actually have someone to talk to very briefly, for a few minutes toward the end, but... that was about it.  I probably should've tried to find someone who planned on mostly walking before it started and convinced them to stick with me for as much of the race as possible so I would have someone to keep the crowd-freakout from happening and be there to talk to me, but... for some reason I didn't think of it ahead of time.  I guess I didn't think that "running along with a bazillion people" would trigger crowd-freakouts in the same way that "sitting in one place with a bazillion people" does, or something.

And oddly enough, before the thing even started, a friend suggested that I should find a certain person who was walking the whole way and stick with them.  At the time I didn't really consider it because I thought that the group of friends I had managed to track down were planning on doing more walking than anything else, but looking back, it probably would've helped a lot if I had actually done that.

Anyway... after the 5k itself was over, I managed to find a group of friends again and be not-alone during the luau afterward.  I was still feeling pretty crappy for a while, but eventually I managed to at least partially recover thanks to having friends to talk to and goof off with for a while.  That always helps.  I didn't completely recover until around 11:00ish when I stumbled across the same group of friends again as I was leaving the lofts, and things just got really silly and I kept cracking up laughing and... yeah, I felt like myself again.  The only bad part was that I didn't have my camera to take pictures of some of the goofiness I was there to see.  So Saturday didn't end on a bad note, at least.  It just had one really awful one in the middle.

Sunday... was a Sunday.  Nothing particularly eventful about it, except that I finished a 6th painting (the first of the small ones) and it's really goofy-looking.  I only left my house to go for a walk later on.

Yesterday was my grandma's funeral.  I'd never been to a funeral before, but... it wasn't really that bad.  I managed to avoid crying, though only just barely (several times my eyes did tear up a bit, but never went beyond that--I guess I let most of it out Friday morning when I cried for an hour straight.)  Met a lot of relatives I didn't know I had who had shown up for the funeral, and also got to see my mom for the first time in a while (though unfortunately my little sister didn't come--apparently she had said she wouldn't be able to handle it and decided to stay home.)  I actually managed to get up in front of everyone and talk about my memories of Grandma for a while during the funeral service, despite my fears of having a crowd-freakout and just not really liking public speaking too much.  I was one of only three people who did that--one was the guy directing the funeral service, another was someone from Grandma's church, and then there was me.  I kind of ended up rambling on about silly little things, but... I think I did okay.  And besides, rambling on about silly little things is a normal thing for me, so at least I was "working" at the time rather than breaking down and not quite being my usual self.
I think I finally understand what the point of having a funeral service is, though.  It's not for the dead person; they're dead, they've already moved on, and though I suppose they might be present at their own funeral, floating around somewhere and watching and getting another look at their loved ones again without the physical ailments that made it hard during their last days on Earth getting in the way... the one in the casket is not "them," it's just a dead body at this point.  There's no need for it on that level, it's not some superstitious thing where the dead person's soul can't find peace until they have all these ceremonies and rituals done in their name or anything silly like that.  A funeral is for the people who are still alive, to give them a chance to come together and remember the one they've lost and have some sense of closure about it rather than dealing with it on their own and possibly dragging things out for too long and messing themselves up in the process.

After the funeral, I went along with my dad and several newly-discovered relatives and got something to eat at Jack Mason's in Clifton Forge.  The food (I had a fish sandwich, salad, fries, and cheese sticks) was good and it was nice to have people to talk to the whole time.  After that, we went up to the cemetery where Grandma's body is going to be buried.  I don't think it had been done yet, since there was a recently dug hole with a bunch of boards over it in the place where her gravesite should've been.  We did see my great-grandparents' grave, which I'd never seen before.  I never knew either of them, since they died in the '70s before I even existed.

After that, me and Dad went over to the computer place in Covington and got a replacement battery for my laptop.  The old one had apparently been in bad shape for the past semester-and-a-half, not being able to hold a charge for more than an hour and constantly telling me I needed to replace it.  The new one seems to work much better; at 40-some percent it still had more time left than the old battery had at 100% toward the end there.

And then I came back here, got more food over at the Institute building, and got to hang around and talk to several friends for a while.  One in particular I ended up talking to for hours... a lot more hours than I had expected to originally, actually. XD  But I think that was a good thing.  It's nice to have friends who I can just sit down and have multiple-hour conversations with, especially when they're the kind of friends who I can bring up literally any subject with (no matter how weird or not-socially-acceptable they might be to bring up with someone) without much fear of making things too awkward or freaking them out.  I wish I had more friends like that... there are several now, and I'm definitely glad to have those I do have, but I wish there were more.

A weekend that doesn't suck at all: it happens sometimes!

Yep... despite probably worrying a bit too much over it this week, the dance last night actually turned out REALLY well.  Did I have a date? Nope! Of course not.  I had been hoping somebody would come out of nowhere and ask me during the week leading up to it (since they actually encouraged the girls to ask guys to the dance this time), but it never happened so I just went alone.  Well... I didn't end up being completely alone, since there actually were a decent number of people who went without dates (though, at first, it seemed that the only people there were a bunch of engaged/married couples and the group of friends that I hung around with for most of the night.  Around 6 or 7 of us, plus 6 or 7 couples, most of them engaged.  That was weird.)

But yeah... although nobody asked me (I have had a few suspicions of people who might have been the most likely to ask in an alternate universe where someone had... but I don't know if any of those suspicions are remotely accurate), I definitely did not have trouble finding people to dance with.  The "nobody but engaged/married couples" thing changed before too long and more people showed up, some of them without dates.  I actually kind of had the opposite problem, for the first time ever: even though they seemed to be playing more slow songs than usual for an SVU dance, there were actually more people there that I would've liked to dance with than there were songs that I could have actually danced to! Several left before I had a chance to dance with them, and one was responsible for watching the front table so she couldn't actually go in and dance (though I did at least manage to ask.)

I think this is actually the first "regular" SVU dance where I actually had people to dance with pretty frequently and didn't even have problems asking anyone to dance.  Usually, it's only the live band ones (where it's easier to do ballroom-type dancing)  where I manage to have people to dance with pretty consistently; the regular ones have too much "random wiggle dancing" and it's usually really hard to track down people I'd like to dance with at a moment's notice when a slow song first comes on.  I think the fact that it was in the ballroom and also was a bit less crowded than usual helped--I could usually see across the room well enough that I could point out people I knew from a distance and go toward them as soon as a song started, in the cases where I wasn't already standing there talking to them before the song started up.  It was kind of weird how easy it was for me to actually ask people this time--usually it's really nerve-wracking for me, but this time it wasn't hard at all, not even the first time I tried.  Of course... I think it helped that someone asked ME to dance before I ever tried to ask anyone to dance.  I'm not sure what it is, but for some reason it becomes a lot easier to ask people to dance once I've been asked by someone first.  And that effect applies to other people too, not just the same person who asked me, so it's not even just an "oh hey, someone asked me to dance once so she'd probably be okay with dancing again" sort of thing.

I actually kind of amazed myself a few times.  Not just with the fact that I was able to ask people right as a song started, sometimes without even having been hanging around talking to them beforehand (though that's always pretty amazing too, when it happens--the "3 seconds to find someone to dance with"  thing doesn't tend to work well for me), but with who I was able to ask in a few cases.  I ended up dancing with two girls that I didn't know all that well prior to the dance (one of which I had only really talked to once before), and also asked someone who I had a crush on waaaay back in my first year (...and a half) at SVU, which is the sort of thing that can be a little awkward sometimes.  Especially since those feelings never got brought up with the person I had them for (...though looking back at several situations from my first semester or so, I was being pretty obvious about it a lot of the time, so I'd assume she probably figured it out at some point I guess?), so rather than a clear "no" that whole situation is still in "what if?" territory.  There was a brief moment last night where I wondered if I might've accidentally revived at least a tiny bit of that crush, or that it wasn't quite as dead as I thought it was before (just sleeping), but... I guess it's too soon to say.  So far I'll just assume it was more of a "hey, I used to hang around with this person more often and actually liked her!" sort of thing and the "crush may be starting to return" thing was just from memories of the first time coming up to the surface or something.  So... "still dead, but with little ghosties floating around occasionally reminding me that something used to be there" I guess.

Also ended up dancing with the girl who I suspect might have been the one someone was telling me about at one of the dances last year (the mysterious "girl who was at this dance who apparently liked me" that I've mentioned several times on here... I assume she'd probably have lost interest by now since that was waaaaay back at the end of fall semester 2012, but I'd still like to find out who she was at some point... I hate leaving questions unanswered and having these dangling "what if?" sorts of things floating around my head for years afterward)... no way to confirm or deny those suspicions as far as I can tell ("did you like me a year-and-a-half ago?" would just be way too awkward of a question to even ask), but I figure that if by some freak chance she actually is the one who likes (liked?) me, asking her to dance can only be a good thing for both of us. XD

(...plus I'm fairly sure I could end up liking her if we saw each other more often and got to know each other better.  and it'd be really nice to actually find someone who likes me for once, rather than constantly having these horrible one-sided crushes on so many people who will never actually feel anything for me.  I'm guessing I would have much easier time growing to like someone--and would be much more comfortable with bringing it up once I did--if I found out she liked me first.  So if you're reading this and you suspect you may be the person I'm talking about here, let me know!)

The weekend aside from the dance also turned out well.  I managed to randomly bump into a group of friends (the same ones I hung out with most of the time at the dance, actually) three days in a row and ended up actually having stuff to do and people to talk to, not just sitting around alone in my apartment all day.  On Friday there was an Easter activity at the Institute building, which turned out fairly well (despite not being able to do all of the activities--one triggered a bit of a crowd freakout, one was just awkward, and one I just never got around to.)  After that I went to an SVU orchestra concert, which also turned out pretty well.  Saturday I didn't have anything in particular to do (before the dance) but ended up wandering on campus and bumped into some friends again, which led to me tagging along for a bit as they went to the Amish Cupboard, the dollar store, and also the last women's lacrosse game of the year.  I had kinda been wanting to go to one of those at some point, mainly because I actually know several people on the team, but I wasn't able to get a chance before this past Saturday because I'm not really a sports person and that's the sort of thing I'd need to have friends to sit with at or things wouldn't go well (either due to crowd freakout or just a bit of boredom and loneliness... which tend to make me more vulnerable to crowd freakouts, so it'd probably end up being a little of both if I tried to go by myself.)  But yeah, since I had friends to sit with and talk to and goof off with, things went pretty well and I ended up staying to the end (...though we didn't get there until right before halftime. XD)  Later on Saturday was, of course, the dance which I already went into a lot of detail about.  Though I did forget to mention one thing--I actually ended up hanging around and talking to some people after the dance for quite a while (dance ended at 11:30... I didn't start heading back down the hill until something like 1:30.)  That's definitely something I've missed from my earlier semesters here--just having random conversations with people that end up going on for hours late into the night and only ending when somebody needs to go to bed. XD

Sunday even turned out well, which is something that doesn't happen too often.  I had to get up a bit early (which I'm kind of surprised I was able to do, considering that I didn't get home until almost 2 am and stayed up almost another hour before finally going to bed) because a friend had invited me to her church meeting so that I could watch her (and her brother, I think?) sing.  Apparently the Mormons have several musical performances from members on Easter Sunday, or at least they did this time, and hers was one of them (and as it turned out, two other friends were there playing the piano during her performance also.)  This was one of the 9 am sessions of Mormon church, but thankfully the meeting I was invited to didn't start until 10:50ish so it wasn't completely impossible for me to get up in time.  I actually ended up getting there a bit early--there was basically no one there at 10:30ish when I first got up to the church building!  Despite the initial lack of people to sit with, things turned out well; another friend had apparently decided ahead of time to sit with me so that I could avoid crowd-freakouts, so I waited for her to show up rather than spending all of my time glancing around the room desperately searching for somewhere I could sit.  There were a few others I knew there, so I probably *could* have had somewhere to sit if she hadn't shown up... but it's always nice to be able to skip the "awkwardly looking around for a seat" stage and just be able to say "oh, I'm sitting with this person!  that will work.  no need to worry about seating arrangements now," so if you're reading this... you being the "designated crowd-freakout preventer" this past Sunday was definitely appreciated! XD

And randomly, I also got to find out what the Mormons do when there are people who need gluten-free food, rather than just making them eat the hunks of bread that everyone else gets during sacrament meeting.  Apparently they put out this tiny little cup of... some sort of crunchy thin bread/cracker-type things, alongside the usual pile of torn-up bread chunks.  That's actually not something I've ever really thought about before (the "what about people who can't have that bread?" issue), but it makes sense considering I've met several people who are definitely gluten-intolerant or suspect that they might have some degree of gluten intolerance.

Sunday didn't even turn out to be a "sit around alone" day after that point, surprisingly.  I went to Subway, went for a nice walk, and then around 7:00 I ended up going to the fireside up at the Mormon church just to have something to do.  Spent most of that drawing and watching someone's baby running around and doing silly things, though I paid some attention to the speakers also.  Wasn't too "churchy" in this case, surprisingly enough, which is probably why I actually ended up paying some attention to the speakers--more of general "advice for doing well in life" sorts of things from what I can remember, and talking about the first two expeditions to the South Pole and comparing how they went (one guy made it there and back, the other's entire group ended up dead 11 miles from their base camp.)  Also ended up sitting with and talking to a new person who I had only seen a few times before.  And after that, I ended up wandering up to the lofts where I stumbled across the same group of friends that I had repeatedly bumped into throughout the weekend, this time dyeing Easter eggs in the lobby.  I ended up decorating one of the eggs (put two random chicken stickers on it and drew some squiggles and lines and random grass) but mostly just talking and goofing off.  Which continued for several hours--it wasn't until 11:00ish that I finally ended up going back home again.  It's nice that I've been able to get to know some of these people a bit better over the past week or two, though it really sucks that most of them are going to disappear (going away on missions) after this semester's over.  It really kind of makes me wish that the later half of February as it was had never happened (or at least, that the crush I had on someone back in February had never happened... or if I had managed to bring it up with her earlier and get a clear "no" early on rather than being unable to say anything and thus unable to give up until the feelings went away) and that it had been more like these past few days/weeks instead.  It's kind of funny (but also kind of sad) that I only just recently exchanged phone numbers with several of my "met this year" friends, and then they're all going to be gone in the next couple weeks (...which I also didn't know until very recently.  I knew two of them had planned on going on missions after this year, but I had no idea the rest of them were all going to disappear too!)  Hopefully I'll see them a good bit during the next couple weeks that are left of the semester so even if I never get to see any of them again, at least things will end on a good note rather than it being an "aw crap, I never even got to say goodbye to these people" sort of thing.

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.