Reflections

So here I am sitting in front of my laptop getting ready to finally turn it off, pack it up, and head off to school. Yup, Summer has passed and it's time for me to start my senior year. Honestly, I couldn't be more excited and more sad; it's really going to be a bittersweet year. However, I am so excited to go back. You see, going abroad really helped me to gain a new appreciation for Ann Arbor. My first semester junior year was by far one of the lowest points in my life. I wasn't depressed or anything, don't get me wrong, but I was under and overwhelming amount of stress that just really took its toll. But that's a whole other story. By the end of first semester I was more than grateful to be out of Ann Arbor. Going abroad caused me to reminisce and henceforth dearly miss my second home. So to me, this Summer went by a bit too slowly for my taste since alls I wanna do is go back to school! I am so stoked about this year, it's going to be amazing.
So let me re-cap my Summer and the reverse culture shock. Well, needless to say I didn't really experience any culture shock. To me, Spain felt like this fantasy dreamland--everything and everybody was so new and exciting. Home, being the U.S., always seemed like reality. Like, going home would be like waking up from an awesome dream. And that's exactly how it was. I got home, all was the same, how I remembered it, etc. I had no problem remembering how to drive, how to get places, where people live, knowing stores and neighborhoods, adjusting to the new mealtimes (well, I still ate dinner pretty late out of habit, but that soon adjusted itself back to normal meal time). Adjusting to the time zone was surprisingly easy since I took my program director's advice and forced myself to adjust to the time change right away. My first morning I set my alarm for 10am...I was groggy in the morning, but my circadian rhythms quickly came back as they responded to the natural sunlight. That's another thing: my first month home the weather was gorgeous! That was a pleasant surprise. One cultural shocker (although not cultural) was seeing the temperature go below 80 degrees! Haha. My first day back I went to a Cubs game and was wearing a sweatshirt. That was great. My first day back was pretty great and only had a bit of culture shock: Nicole and I snagged front row tickets to the Cubs game from Evan. We took the EL which was surprisingly easy...I had become such a public transportation pro abroad that the typically challenging EL was a cynch. The only real culture shockish thing that occurred for me was at that Cubs game. The crowd mentality in the States is completely different than in Spain. People don't meander about like they would at the bull ring in Sevilla, everyone walks briskly with a purpose, pushing to get where they have to be (whether it be food, bathroom, or their seats) as fast as possible. It definitely took me by surprise. So that was interesting. After the game we met up with Evan for hookah at Samah, and I then noticed that it was set up/decorated just like the teterias I had frequented in Sevilla and Granada. How funny! I even drank Arabic tea. That night, while walking back to the EL, I realized the bad effect that Spain had had over me: my fear of bums. Yeah, I've developed a fear which I am really working on conquering right now because it's ridiculous. Before going to Spain I had no fear of bums...I mean, I grew up in Chicago and go to school in Ann Arbor. But after my incidents with the bums in Spain and my growing defensive comportment while walking the streets, I now walk around with a constant feeling of being a victim when I am downtown. It's terrible and I need to get over it. We encountered many bums that night and, out of instinct, I would walk away at a good distance to avoid any run-ins. Whenever a homeless person asks me to spare change my heart immediately starts racing. I have just been conditioned to be on the defense when a bum actually approaches me. Sigh. Don't worry, I'll beat this one. Speaking of bums, I wonder how my favorite bum from Sevilla is doing (the one that is on a hunger strike for his dogs). Hmmmmm.
Anyways, let's briefly go over my summer. It was a pretty standard Highland Park summer, I guess. But then again, what is a standard HP summer? It was boring at times, but in hindsight I really had a good time. It was very low-keyed and a good relax after a crazy semester in Spain. You'll be happy to know that I seldom drank this summer, despite my being legal. If I did drink it was only a drink or two at dinner. Alcohol is just so much more expensive here! Plus, I just don't really party here. My friends at home aren't big partiers. We're chill. Oh, that reminds me, at the Cubs game my first day back I had my first official legal drink! A Bud Light. It was great. And expensive. Oh well; I found it very appropriate for a first legal drink here. Anyways, my Summer. Well, Nicole left the Tuesday after I came back, and I pretty much bummed around for two weeks. I hung out with Evan, Jason, and Leah a lot. I had relied on my babysitting jobs taking me back for the third summer in a row, but that all fell through. So I was unemployed and in dire need of money. I mean, who would hire me for a month and a half? Luckily Evan's dad pulled through and I became a full-time employee at the Smalley Steel Ring Co. I had my own cubicle and that was exciting. It was a real 5-day-a-week, 8-hour-a-day job (7:30am-4:30pm with a lunch break and a 40 min. commute both ways). I really got into morning talk radio. Looooove Drex morning show on 103.5. The first week of work was exciting, I felt like an adult and whatnot, but after awhile it became pretty mundane, and eventually kind of depressing. My project was to scan all of their large automotive files onto their new electronic filing system. So I was in front of a computer alllllll day. My eyes started to grow really irritated and I felt alienated. I don't know how people work cubicle jobs for a living--it's a very depressing environment. It's just so...impersonal and automatic. Blech. Whatever, I made $2,000 this summer, so no complaints. And I learned a lot about the Greenhill's company and about the business world. Honestly interesting stuff.
So that took up most of my summer. There were some highlights such as getting Pink Eye. That was fun. But no, I took some really great trips around the midwest. I went with Evan and his dad on their gorgeous yacht across Lake Michigan to the state of Michigan. That was really awesome--it was my first time in Michigan since January! The east side of the lake is so pretty. We first stopped in Whitehall where I surprised Stacey. You see, I would have called her and told her that I was coming, but I never got her U.S. phone number! So I just showed up at her work, a little restaurant called Pekadill's (Whitehall is a small town, so it wasn't hard to find) because I knew that she was working all summer. So I just showed up and surprised her. You should have seen the look on her face! It was priceless. I got to see Stacey's 'hood, which is really cute and a lot nicer than how she had described it to me. I met her friends, and she got to meet Evan, it was all really nice. The next day we went to Grand Haven where we met up with Nicole. Grand Haven is really nice. We got to see the largest musical fountain in the world there. Pretty neat. It was nice to catch up with Nicole since we didn't really have much time to catch up when I got back from Spain. The trip was really awesome, I had a great time.
Two weeks later I went back to Michigan on a trip that I had actually been planning for months. I called it the "Whirlwind Michigan Tour". I pretty much travelled across the state of Michigan in five days. And it was SO FUN! I started out visiting Nicole in Grand Haven. We went to the Coast Guard festival, met up with Axel, ate great food, played with her animals (which are awesome), watched movies, it was great. I love Nicole's family, animals, and her house is adorable and pretty. We then both went up to Muskegan to her dad's house. He lives on this huge property on Twin Lake (adjacent to Muskegan) right on a gorgeous river. Every year he has a river party where people come and camp out on his lawn for the weekend and party and such. I got to catch the beginnings of it. Nicole and I took a tube ride (not a boat tow tube, but like a lazy river tube) down the river. We brought a cooler with two bottles of Boones Farm (which I had never had before) and went to town. We got pretty drunk and met some nice, drunk middle-aged men and their 16-year-old son kayaking down the river. They gave us beers so we got really drunk. To make a long story short, our 2 hour tube ride turned into a 5-hour tube ride full of many obstacles (branches...one of which caused me to tip over), and cold weather (the sun had gone down...we didn't get back until 9:30). When we got back we met up with Joe who had driven up from Ann Arbor to hang out with us for the night. That was awesome because I hadn't seen him since January. We ate pizza, drank beer, and watched Family Guy and Pee-Wee. The next morning we hung out on the trampoline on the river and drank and sunbathed. Then that afternoon I said my goodbyes and drove from the west side of the state to the central part to Mount Pleasant for my friends Randy and Beth's wedding. It was my first real wedding and I had so much fun. I got to go to the rehearsal dinner and everything. It was at the Soaring Eagle Resort and Casino which was really nice. I gambled for the first time! I hated it, by the way. But it was exciting, nonetheless. The best part about that weekend was that I got to hang out with a lot of my friends from freshman year in East Quad who I hadn't seen in ages. I mean, we hadn't hung out probably since 2004. A lot of them had graduated this past Spring, so it was really good to hang out with them for one last time and say my goodbyes for real. The wedding ceremony was beautiful, and brief. The reception was so much fun! Weddings are like bar mitzvahs but better...cuz you get to drink. I like the open bar thing, I must say. The food was really good, and the music was great. I got really drunk...the drunkest I had been all summer. It was so fun! One of the major highlights of my summer. That and tubing with Nicole win as best summer memories, I must say. On Sunday morning I drove to the east side of the state to Ann Arbor...my first time in Ann Arbor since January! I fucking love Ann Arbor, and despite a hangover and 3 hours of sleep, I was overjoyed to be there. I was only there for a few hours--I went to my first semester apartment to pick up a couch and a shelving unit that I couldn't fit in my car back in December. I then went to Zingermans for lunch, of course. It was packed and it took forever (most crowded I've ever seen it), but it was worth it. My sandwich was heavenly. Best food in Ann Arbor, hands down. I then drove home. And that was the Whirlwind Michigan Tour.
I would like to talk about one major highlight of my summer. "24". Evan moved into a new mansion this summer, and he took me on a tour my first day back. In his parents' absurdly large walk-in closet I spotted the DVD collection of "24". I had heard such hype about it that Evan and I decided to grab the first season and start watching it. After Nicole left at the beginning of the summer, Evan and I immediately popped in disc 1 of season 1. It was love at first sight. We became addicted, and in our first sitting we watched 8 episodes--that's 6 1/2 hours of viewing...with no breaks. We didn't even notice. We became obsessed. It is honestly the best tv show that I have ever seen. Hands down. It trumps all other tv shows ever made. I cannot believe how amazing that show is. And Kiefer Sutherland is a sexy bitch and amazing actor. That is all. Oh, and it one an Emmy...best drama series...and best lead actor. Fuck yeah. Anyways, so Evan and I would spent countless days camping out in front of the tv watching "24" on DVD. There are 5 seasons so far and we got all the way through season 3. Ugh, not good enough. So we still have some catching up to do before season 6 starts in January. I love "24". Evan and I would talk about it all summer. We still talk about it. I even dream about it. It's pretty sick. And I love it.
The last trip that I took was recently. Mom and I drove with Shana to Bloomington, IN to drop her off at college. My little sister...going to college! Craziness. It was exciting because I had never seen the IU campus. It's so nice and so pretty. IU reminds me so much of UofM that it just made me jealous of everyone there...I just wanted to go back to school!! I miss college! It was really cool being there because both of my cousins on my mom's side were going to Indiana, too. My mom and both of her siblings went to IU, and now Lindsey, my mom's sister's daughter will be a senior, Shana will be a freshman, and David, my mom's brother's son, will also be a freshman (living in the same dorm as Shana, coincidentally). So that was really exciting...although I kind of felt like the non-Indiana outcast. Well, Shana chose the Milgram school, and I chose the Fetman school. So what can I say. The first night there Lindsey took me out and I saw all of these Highland Park kids who I haven't seen in ages. So weird. I drank keg beer for the first time since January which was so nice. Sigh, the simple things in college that we so easily take advantage of. While in Bloomington I ran into a good amount of Highland Parkers which was so strange. It made me feel like I was going to school there more than Shana. The coolest part about our trip to Bloomington was the last night my mom got a tattoo! She's been wanting one for awhile to represent Shana and me, and it seemed appropriate to do it her last night with both daughters...sending the last daughter out of the nest. So she got 3 hearts: one big purple one to represent her, and two little ones to represent Shana and me. It's on her ankle and it looks awesome. That was pretty sweet. We then drove home on my half birthday. Yep, happy 21.5 to me! Hey, remember when I turned 21? Wow, time flies.
Since returning I've been packing and shopping like a mad woman getting ready for a kick-ass year in Ann Arbor. Words cannot describe how excited I am. It's going to be the best year ever, I can feel it. My living situation is perfect, my schedule is perfect, my football seats are perfect (3rd row, baby!), my friends are perfect (and I have all of these new friends from abroad!), everything is just perfect. I cannot wait.
Studying abroad was one of the best things that I have ever done with my life for so many reasons. I learned so much in so many ways. It sounds cliche, but it's made me a stronger person and allowed me to see life in a completely new, exciting way. I miss Sevilla and can't wait to go back one day. But for now, I am looking toward my next destination: Michigan. It at first seems mundane, but Spain has given me a new zest for life and caused me to see anything as an adventure. Life is an adventure. Senior year will be an adventure and I cannot wait to see what it has in store for me.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read my blog (you know who you are). This thing has been the bane of my existence (hence why I've been updating it so slowly this summer), and yet a really good thing. I've always been terrible about keeping journals and have therefore missed out on documenting key moments in my life. I'm very proud of my dilligence and motivation to keep updating this thing, it's truly impressive for me. I hope that you have enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, and I know that I will enjoy it when I re-read it 20 years from now, and so forth. Love to all. All I wish for everyone is love.

Life, here I come.


Love,
Lisa 8/31/2006