Oh, Brother.

So apparently I did read The Odyssey in high school. Today in my backgrounds class we watched a clip from Oh, Brother Where Art Thou, the one with George Clooney. It's a movie that is based around Homer's story, but set in the South during the 1930s. At the beginning of class I completely blurted out that I had scene the movie in high school because it was a modern telling of The Odyssey, which meant that I had been reading the book even though I am convinced that this is the first time I'm reading it. I guess that I completely blocked that experience out of my head from freshman year. Of course as Taylor will agree I didn't do much in freshman English and have mostly blocked the experience from my mind. Besides Taylor, I'm probably the only person in the history of Stowe to hate their freshman English class if they had it with a certain young teacher. No really, people are in love with this teacher. I didn't develop a love for English classes until senior year with a certain older gentleman who performed epic poetry on desks and took us to see bad movies. He encouraged my dark sarcastic wit that has unfortunately crawled back under the turtle shell. Though I do sometimes bring it out with my Hebrew Friend.

The sirens scene that we watched in class today. 

Today is the first day of Monday classes and I have decided that I don't like having more than two classes a day and therefore I am not cut out for Mondays. I have four classes that go from 10am until 5:30pm and I have to work for a few hours in between. Two of the classes are also seventy-five minutes which means my attention span will wane as it normally does after twenty minutes and I will have to sit there in a silent stupor while I check my watch every three minutes. I do this even if I love the class, it's just the way I am. It doesn't help that I'm feeling lethargic and unmotivated to move. I slept through my alarm and got too much sleep so all I want to do is get back in bed, or do my laundry. Either one will suffice as long as I'm not sitting in class doodling or picking at my nails, I do that too sometimes. 

Last night I got an unfortunate email from the club field hockey team saying that there are going to be tryouts and cuts on the team. I do not go games and do not care about getting serious playing time. I just want to go running and go to practices so that I can exercise with people and have a good time playing a sport that I like. I don't need to deal with the competitive edge, especially when I am already busy with so many other activities and work. I am going to go to tryouts tonight and see if I can work something out. I think that it's a little hasty of our captain to call for tryout since there has only been one game and by the end of the fall season and the spring, the team is usually screaming for players. It's the captain's choice though and I respect that. I just want to play. 

Be proactive, not reactive.

"Isn't that a yogurt?"
"No stupid, it's what you put on your face."

My family is full of Purnellisms, things we say on a regular basis and most of them happen to come from my dad. One of his more favorites is "be proactive, not reactive." He usually likes to say this to me when I'm procrastinating on a project or when he would drop me off at jazz band and make me find a way into the locked school instead of waiting around for the teacher to arrive and open the doors. When I had to teach a religious class at camp I told the campers this phrase and was met with mixed results including yogurt and face wash. A friend of mine really likes to be proactive too and gets really into people and things that are more reactive. I think that it bothers him that we live in such a lackadaisical society. Right now I want to be proactive about getting my work done, but after working all weekend I could use a nap.

It's been an interesting weekend to say the least. It started with the CO2 tank being stolen from the restaurant. Apparently there's a place on the Black Market for carbonation. It was also the day that I was training to be a bartender and until we figured out what was wrong, every beer that I poured came out horrible and it really got me down. Of course it wasn't until I was out on the floor that we discovered the missing tank. It was terrible, the police came and poor Take Out Boy had to walk down to the grocery store and buy forty bottles of soda. He could barely push the cart back up the slope to the restaurant and into the kitchen. Yesterday I had a profitable day for only having to work during the morning and afternoon and I thought that things were going smoothly until the first dinner rush when one of our cooks said "fuck it," and walked off of the line. Goodbye wildberry Skittles. Today was better. I had my first shift behind the bar and we've started the football pool. It's a $5 buy in that will probably get pushed to $10 once people get involved and we get more organized. I maybe picked two winning teams today. I had the Eagles and the Pittsburgh games on while I was behind the bar and the scores kept flashing at the bottom of the screen and all of my choices were losing. I need to get up on football and start keeping track of teams and stats so that I stop losing more money at work than I make.

I actually like football considering that I barely understand some of the rules. We used to play in gym class and even though I'm terrible at the throwing the ball, I do like to pass it with people every now and then. I used to date a football player in high school and one of my favorite shows is The League, though that really doesn't have much to do with actual football. Either way I have decided to dedicate this season to learning the game and maybe winning some money while I'm at in.

And to finish this...a new Narration by Randall 

Don't leave me high. Don't leave me dry.

Tonight was one of those nights (yesterday for all of you reading this on Sunday). One of those nights where you just have a really good time with the people around you and feel incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and acquaintances and the chance to be with those people. I also can't believe that I just used the word blessed, it's so Samantha of me. There's something about hanging out with girls though that is so different and fun than what I'm used to though. Maybe it's because I work with guys and my best friend is a guy, but there is still something fun about women and the reckless abandonment that you can have with them when there's no guys around (I'm not talking lesbian fun Take Out Boy, I know that's where your mind is right now). Whether it was skipping to MGMT in the alley or singing Radiohead's "High and Dry" in the middle of the bar, it didn't matter that people stared, that I can't sing in tune, or that we had goofy grins on the whole time. We were having fun and we were ourselves. Tonight I got yo play with girls who weren't concerned with silly things or about acting grown up. It was like finally being allowed into the tree house or indoctrinated into their club and after this working weekend I needed to feel like that.

On the way home I also heard my new favorite song of the night, "What you know" by Two Door Cinema Club. The lyrics themselves are a little irrelevant to me, but the melody is really catchy and it's easy to sing along to. One of my friends told me that I sing decently, though that comment was probably filled with ulterior meaning at the time, but now I sing out lout in my car all of the time and that's just watch I did tonight. I've posted the video below, the leader singer looks like a male Adele and the video is a little weird but the song is really great and really fun. At first I though it was Death Cab, but nope it's a new band.

Don't listen to the make your own tampons person.

I don't know about you, but I am seriously tired of this weather. I love the rain, I really and truly do, but no when it is interrupting my life to the point where I can no longer walk around without getting my jeans completely soaked through and there are trees lying in the middle of the road and forcing me to take City Ave to get anywhere. I can't even get a decent school delay even though no one get there. If this were snow it would be a totally different story. Snow doesn't flood people's homes and ruin their lives. It just merely inconveniences them and makes for excellent snow adventures with your roommate. The worst part  of these storms for me has been when the hit in the middle of the night when I'm not expecting them. This last one was particularly not fun. I had maybe been asleep for two hours with the sky opened up and dumped a river's worth of water onto all of the air conditioning units outside of my window. It sounded like someone had fallen off the building and landed on my air conditioner. Still sleepy I looked out my window and through the slats in my shades the lightening looked like the early morning light. I had to check my watch because I couldn't believe that it was already 6am. In actuality it was only 2:30am. This weather has really been hampering my good sleep habits.

I've been getting really good sleep this past week and it's left me feeling really good. I've been asleep by 12:30am at the very latest and up at 7am without fail. Some days I even have to push myself to fall back asleep for a few more hours. Thursdays (excluding this past one) are my sleep in days. Somehow I've managed to start class at 1pm and have avoided scheduling anything before then so I can sleep in or use the time to catch up on homework that I may have left to the last minute. I'm finding that I am enjoying being awake early and still having enough time at night to get stuff done. Of course I've been a lot more coffee than usual before class. I need to find out where I can get the awesome Israeli coffee my Hebrew Friend serves. It's amazing. I also need to get my parent's Keurig machine the next time I'm in Stowe. It's such a convenient little machine, if only it could make pumpkin spice lattes for me. And speaking of which, the Starbucks on Old Lanc has finally put their sign out advertising the arrival of their pumpkin spice latte so that means that for the next couple of weeks I will be standing in line with Marg loading ourselves with spicy caffeine product. I love pumpkin products, they signal the advent of fall and fall means leaves, apple picking, and warm clothing.

You can do anything for thirty seconds.

Yes Tony you can do anything for thirty seconds, or at least that's what I keep telling myself when I do the P90X Plyometric workout. I had a great workout the other day getting through a lot of the harder jumps and twists that I usually struggle with. There are  some that I have to make modifications to so that I can get through them, but for the most part I have it done. I felt so good about getting through the plyometric workout afterwards and I'm finally breaking down some of my fitness walls. Yesterday was another great workout too. I did the yoga one and I am definitely starting to feel my body open up and gain the flexibility that it once had. I bought a yoga block this weekend, but I found that I only needed it for one or two poses this time. I also had another amazing breakthrough yesterday with yoga. I HELD CRANE/CROW FOR SEVEN SECONDS!!! I don't what you call the pose, I did it and it was so cool. It took a minute for me to find my balance, but I was able to get up on my hands and arms and once I got up there I got so excited I fell out of it. And while I'm still not up to the time limits of my Hebrew Friend it's still an impressive accomplishment considering that I couldn't do it at all the last time I tried it. I think having a successful arms and shoulders workout the day before helped build my confidence in my arms.

Moving on...my parents are in town. They spent the weekend moving my sister into her dorm and then they have been making the rounds around Pennsylvania. Yesterday we had lunch together in Manayunk. Lance had never really been over there and so we walked around a bit and I showed him the canal and part of the bike path that I take to Norristown. The river is still really high and you could see where water got into places. Some restaurants and stores are still airing out their stock. We settled on a small place called Le Bus. Le Bus is affiliated with the Le Bus bakery out in King of Prussia which is product that is becoming popular in the restaurants in Stowe. Lance got excited so we went there and it was actually quite good. Chem Anna had told me about it so I was eager to give it a try. It did not disappoint. I have a cup of gazpacho with avocado and an heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad. My mom had a salmon burger that came with the most delicious mustard sauce (I ate half of it) and Lance had a pear salad. It was a good lunch. My parents and I got a chance to catch up and while I told my stories my mother got red and tipsy off of two bottles of Corona and spent the ride home saying everything she saw out loud and with strong enunciations. Well done mom.

Le Bus, Manayunk, Philadelphia

"Don't say it, I know you're thinking." "No you don't, I was thinking about pantaloons."

The other day I dug out all of  my Guster music that I had and laid around listening to it and remembering all of those wonderful times in high school that I had with my friends. A long time ago I used to associate music with the events in my life, but I've had to stop because there were too many negative things attached with some of my favorite bands and I love music more than the negative things. Now I have gotten over the bad memories and have started listening to older music again, while remembering the good associations I have with it. Guster always brings me back to hockey and suicide sprints on the ice. When I was a sophomore Guster played a show at Higher Ground and a bunch of girls on the team decided to go. The concert was amazing. I remember my boyfriend at the time and I decided to wipe off the black X's that you get for being underage and then getting caught by the venue staff and being forced to go back and get new ones or get kicked out. I remember being in the front row and fall in love for the first time with a musician, Adam Gardner you'll always be my first. I remember when the band started playing Amsterdam that I almost peed my pants and I remember that all of the hockey girls that went to the concert had to spend half of the practice doing suicide sprints while everyone else took shots on goal.

Listen to Guster also made me remember the year I knew all of the words to all of the Coldplay songs that were out at the time. My friend Johnny Mac was obsessed with the band and spent every waking moment listening to them and when we would hang out at his house all we would do is listen to them. One time Johnny, Austin and I made a video of us playing cowboys and Indians (we were probably sixteen at the time) and we used Coldplay in the background. It was two minutes of us shooting Nerf guns at each other and then bouncing off the bed and out of the shot. It was supposed to be us falling off of a cliff, but each one of us looked like we were dancing at the end you could hear the oofs as we all landed on top of each other. I remember Lizzy and I would sing along to Yellow and Clocks and Green Eyes while we pined for our crushes and Katie had to choose between Johnny and Austin. Coldplay reminds me of old friendships and driving fast on dirt roads in purple jeeps.

Once I got through my Coldplay collection I found old Death Cab songs and Rooney. I miss Rooney, I wish they would put out some more music. Back when myspace was a thing I would put little Death Cab quotes all over my page and when everyone thought that Soul Meets Body was such an amazing and prolific song I was bopping around to The Sound of Settling. One day when I was at a friend's house her brother, who was home from prep school, asked if any of us had ever heard of the band Rooney. Being an avid follower of Robert Schwartzman and most of the other Coppolas I was the only one who had hear of Rooney and we started singing I'm Shakin'. It was really cool to know about something that other people hadn't even heard of because back then (and still today) I was always the last to know about anything.

I've been watching old episodes of The O.C. lately and almost all of the bands that I listened to in high school are featured in the series in some way or another. Hearing such amazing music has been making me nostalgic just the tiniest bit for when I younger and things seemed a lot simpler. Sure I still have some of the same issues and insecurities that I had back then, but I've learned a lot about not sweating the small stuff and that there are more important things in life than not getting invited to so and so's party. Of course I'm still in the infancy stages of my life and I have a long ways to go, but I have cultivated a strong group of friends and acquaintances who keep me on track and help me when I fall off of my high heels. 

Today is National Read A Book Day.

September 6th marks National Read a Book Day and I for one am certainly doing so. I fell asleep reading a book last night and somehow the underwear gnomes must have turned my light off for me, thank you gnomes. I am bring a book to work because it can be slow and tonight after my Shakespeare class and some wonderful Yoga X and cleaning my apartment before my parents come I will be back to reading for school and for fun. I love books. Books and reading have done more for me than some people have. It is because of books and reading that I am where I am at right now. So in honor of National Read a Book Day find a book, any book, and take some time to read. It can be anywhere, just let yourself go in the story.