Hi again! It seems that my blog has died. But (hooray!) I am here to revive
it. Maybe. At least I have good intentions of doing
so... It’s been almost a year since I
posted anything, so here's some of what’s been going on in the past eleven-ish
months, all the way up to where I am now…
As of October last year, I became
an actual published author! Eeep! I wrote a short story titled
"Time Travel, Coffee, and A Shoebox" which was published online by
Daily Science Fiction. Not ashamed to admit that the day it appeared as a
finished piece in my inbox was one of the happiest days of my life. Much screaming and leaping around the house
ensued. Check it out, yo. Here’s the link if you feel so inclined. http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/virtual-reality/nina-pendergast/time-travel-coffee-and-a-shoebox
In November, I decided try
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
I had thirty days in which to hammer out a 50,000-word novel. As usual, it was something I plunged into
without thinking too hard about the fact that I worked 20 hours a week and
still had a fifteen-credit semester to tackle.
Somehow, in the midst of all the chaos, sleepless nights, and mass
consumption of vanilla tea, the novel got written. As you might imagine, it was a train
wreck. Some of it reads like the ravings
of a madwoman (which, by November 30, I practically was). It was both the most exhilarating and the
most nightmarish month of fall semester.
As for the manuscript… I’d let you read it, but then I’d have to kill
you.
May marked the end of my first
year of online college classes. Doing
college online is… a very different experience, and one that sometimes makes me
want to tear out my hair. This is probably
the subject for another blog post entirely.
Anyway, in the beginning of June, I left my dear old Bellefonte for a
third summer of counseling at Camp Hebron , a Christian camp in Halifax (PA, not Canada ). There’s absolutely no adequate way to do
justice to the nine-and-a-half weeks I spent there, at least not in one
paragraph. There never is. It was one of the most beautiful,
adventurous, wonder-filled summers I have ever experienced. Stargazing.
Mud fights. Canoeing on the
Susquehanna. Midnight hot chocolate
raids with my campers. Laughing until my
sides hurt. Eating worms. Climbing rooftops. Sharing stories into the wee hours of the
morning.
I’ve been back for two weeks now,
and the semester officially starts tomorrow.
It’s hard to describe all the feelings I have about the end of summer, about
all the goodbyes I’ve had to say and how strange it feels to settle back into the routine of home. Ah, end of
August, how can you be so lovely and so sad at the same time? I am reading The Wind in the Willows and Kenneth Grahame does a better job
articulating this than I can, so I'll borrow his words:
“Nature’s Grand Hotel has its
Season, like the others. As the guests
one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table d’hôte shrink
pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken
up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until
the next year’s full reopening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all
these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and
fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined
to be querulous. Why this craving for
change? Why not stay on quietly here,
like us, and be jolly? You don’t know
this hotel out of season, and what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who
remain and see the whole interesting year out.
All very true, no doubt, the others always reply; we quite envy you –
and some other year perhaps – but just now we have engagements – and there’s the
bus at the door – our time is up! So
they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful.”
While the end of summer often finds me unsettled, querulous, and craving change, I'm determined to find contentment and
adventure here. It's been a topsy-turvy past couple of weeks, but not without plenty of wonderful and interesting happenings. So there will be more stories to come
regarding said adventures, soon. For
now, farewell, goodnight, and (if you’ve made it this far down the page) thanks
for reading my ramblings. I'll be back later.
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