Wrangling Youths

My friend Mary claims "wrangling youths" as her job description - she, like me, works as a camp counselor during the summer.  Both of us have begun our jobs and will probably not contact one another until the dog days of August when we'll begin preparing for our senior year of undergrad.

Camp is a four-letter word where I'm working.  The kids are not "campers," they are "scholars."  The staff refers to the "residential high school summer enrichment program."  We provide mandatory convocations and a diverse film series.

So basically, it's nerd camp.

I attended as a junior in high school and began working last summer.  It's not a bad gig - there's always someone around to practice French, to make me laugh, to intimidate me with his vast lexicon...  A learning experience.

In addition to RAing, I'm considering career options, researching internships and jobs in the US and abroad.  Why did I purchase an LSAT study guide?  And why haven't I learned Chinese yet?

Also, I have created a summer (read: hopeful) reading list.

Take that, C-J.

The shameful selection of comics in the Courier-Journal has led me to search for my morning rigolo elsewhere. Here are some links from webcomics of which I've recently become a fan:

Amazing Super Powers
The Perry Bible Fellowship
Wondermark

I might search for French comics, but gallic humor sometimes eludes me.

The day was called on account of rain.

A few nights ago, as I sat in the kitchen thumbing through dinner recipes, my little brother passed by on his way to work and announced, "Thursday, my friends and I are going to pick strawberries at Huber's."

I love Joe Huber's Family Farm. A slew of childhood memories floods my mind when I hear the name: riding around on hot, dusty flatbed trucks to fields where my family picked gallons of ripe U-Pick strawberries, blackberries, peaches, apples, and pumpkins; my stomach jumping as my brothers sent me skyward on the enormous painted green see-saws; the honeyed, fermented redolence of the traditional country store; falling off tire-horse swings into a spread of itchy-soft hay; making sure to pet every last goat in petting zoo; eating another fried biscuit for just one more blissful taste of homemade apple butter...

I looked up from the heart-healthy cookbook I had in hand and met Chris's eyes. We were both silent for a moment, staring at each other.

"Am I invited?" I asked. "My friends invited you." "Because it's not okay to tell someone about your awesome plans if you're not planning on - your friends invited me? I'm invited? YES."

Of course, he followed with an "I'll let you know what we're doing," a gentle way of declaring that I had better maintain a minimum proximity in my relationships with his pals. Nobody likes big sister crashing the fruit-gathering fête.

So on this drizzly Thursday morning, I'm waiting to learn if my presence has been deemed Too Embarrassing to be a team member on the berry-hunting expedition. If so, I might just stow away in the backseat anyway: the "freaky" berries and the jam I'll make with them will be worth it.

---

5 June: Update

Ended up picking $28.74 worth of berries in perfect sunny weather today. Photographic evidence with my cousin Danny and me below:

We made two batches of freezer jam with what's missing out of the box in my right hand.

Bears ride the ski tow?

Someone moved my stuff.

I've turned the house upside-down this morning looking for a pink confetti Chinese Laundry shoebox filled with metal tubes of acrylic paint, paintbrushes, and a cheap plastic palette (haven't seen it, eh?). After searching far and wide, I inquired among my family members, who each referred me to another warm body. The goose chase ends with dear old Dad, who's conveniently at work at the moment, and who "probably threw it out." Excellent.

So in my idle time, I'm enjoying this great Nickelodeonesque (the television network, not the jukebox/movie theatre) artwork from Galerie Chamonix. I'm thinking of reproducing the Sauvons les tire-fesses! piece to hang on my wall.

I'll sign it Charlie Adam, of course.

"Sauvons les tire-fesses! Association de défense des remontes-pentes obsolètes"

Hiking up my pants

Kentucky this morning is drizzly and grey.

According to statistical analysis of past adventures, this type of weather is one of the requirements for my friends and I to go hiking in Grenoble. Other stipulations: the hike must take longer than expected, and someone has to fall at least once.

Voici quelques photos des randonnées du premier semestre à Grenoble:

the Belledonne Massif as seen from Mont Jalla

the path below my house

a view of Mont Saint-Eynard from La Bastille

the colors of autumn up on La Bastille

a mountain blowing smoke rings as seen from Mont Saint-Eynard

Mont Saint-Eynard looms in the haze

hills in Saint Martin-le-Vinoux

Saint Martin-le-Vinoux, cont.

Sunset in Echirolles

"I romp through the fields." Echirolles.

Life after France

I'm currently streaming Radio France's France Info channel: at the moment, critics at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival discuss Michael Haneke's film Le ruban blanc.

Listening to French radio is one way I want to supplement my language studies while stateside. I just returned to Kentucky from a nine-month séjour in Europe (with a couple of stops in North Africa), and I'm in the process of readjusting to life on this side of the Atlantic.

Three days back and my stomach aches, I can't sleep for more than seven hours, and I have an aversion to driving, which seems a gruesome chore.

Hopefully, I'll replant my roots in time to enjoy summer in the Bluegrass.