This post will give a rough description of a culmination of events that have happened this summer.
I started off the summer nannying for my former math tutor's newborn, Adelaide, who is almost as cute as I was when I was a babe...almost. And who knew that the greatest solace I have found in a blaze of my trivial worries would come from conversations with this baby whilst walking her in a stroller? I didn't, but that was the case, so I definitely plan on continuing this job during the upcoming year.
About the third week of June, I volunteered for Camp Soar, which is a Special Olympics-affiliated camp providing a full day of fun sports and activities for mentally-handicapped campers of all ages! A ton of people from Charlotte Catholic volunteered too, so it was a good time for sure.
After Camp Soar, the G-Unit took a trip up north. Starting our travels in Virginia, we toured UVA and I loved the campus. Not so sure I felt a ton of chemistry with the university as a whole, but I'll probably end up applying there anyway to see how the cookie crumbles. From Charlottesville we worked our way up to DC to tour George Washington University, which I had been ecstatic about for months. I definitely clicked with the atmosphere there, and the university offers me everything on my "list" and more, but in retrospect I'm thinking that a city environment should be reserved for the post-college stage of my life. I'm definitely anticipating a real, traditional campus experience next fall. After that, we went to our homeland of New Jersey and mingled with some other great Gills. We managed to steer clear of those ferocious housewives you see on TV these days, though. From NJ we reached our final destination in Baltimore for my grandma's 90th birthday party. What a rager that was. There was a ton of fun to be had and thus lots of family bonding ensued. And of course it was all followed up by the traditional Ash Bash cigar competition, and I managed to haggle a puff and contribute to Dad's near-victory.
We came home to the Queen City just in time for my birthday, and then I had about one week of summer to live it up before Martha Guy Summer Institute at Appalachian. I planned on hanging with the homies all I could before I left, and I managed to do so. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I went to Tess' house one day only to be thrown a mini surprise-party, contrary to my strong, anti-celebration wishes. However, it was great to spend time with a few really close friends and to be reminded of how important we are to each other.
The next event is MGSI, but writing about it here will make this post appear excessively long, so I'll write about it in a follow-up post to ease your psyche.
