How was your summer?

[Mihail]

Since summer is more or less drawing to a close(at least in my part of the world), I wouldn't mind finding out how all of you spent your summers. I guess it might be a good idea to define summer - shall we say the period between June and September?

The highlights of my summer was traveling - to the European Rainbow Gathering in Finland, then to Sweden to visit a friend, and back up through Germany, Poland, Lithuania. My grandparents came for the summer from the Motherland, which is good since they are heavy smokers, their hearts aren't the strongest, and they would have probably dropped dead if they were in Moscow at the time of those fires across Russia.

The most vivid memories are from the Gathering, I guess(hippies, not LGBT). It really impressed me how in only two weeks or so a band of volunteers prepared a space for, at the very peak, around 1200 people to live, work, play, eat, hold meetings and workshops, etc. Met a lot of interesting people, including the Azerbaijani mother-of-two who left a very privileged, aristocratic life in Azerbaijan to live in a squat in Amsterdam, the owner of travel website RoadJunky.com and guy who hitch-hiked from England to India and others. What impressed me the most, however, is how everyone successfully kept alcohol out - I didn't see one person drinking in the grounds of the Gathering, save for one or two local tourists with their beer cans.

So, what about you?

[Andrew]

I worked the entire time. That's about it. No vacation, no travelling, no socializing save for a couple events. Boring. Saving up to survive the winter.

[exatreide]

I had my two week annual training in June from the 13th to the 26th.

The first week wasn't to bad, Get up early, do some Medic classes, eat terrible food. Listen to NCO's and enlisted man drama. Be part of the enlisted man drama. Nothing to terribly exciting.

The second week I was a medic for military youth camp. Which was pretty easy, no real injuries minus a ripped off toenail. Watched a bunch of 14-17 year olds shoot m4's, and rappel down a tower, swam every other day. Good times. Best part was watching all the medics from my unit do a bunch of forced training that I got to get out of. Watching all the campers fall in love with each other for a week, and how they'd split up when I came around. Till I told them that I was a medic and not a counselor and didn't care. They made me a Ti di t shirt and a bandana with a red cross on it.

After that, hung out around town for a while, fixed my car up. Went on another mission from July 17th to the 30th. Easiest support mission I've ever done. Pulling support for warrant officers. 60 students and about 10 medics so we all had every other day off. They were in the class room for the first week, so when I was on duty. I was either handing out Tylenol, watching movies or playing civ 4. And managed to have a little fun.

After that it's just been hanging out and getting stuff around for school in the spring. Helping my dad find a house and getting ready to move there next month.

[Lord J]

Half-heartedly worked on my thesis. Slept in some. Moved and started going the local unitarian universalist church. Bought new bicycles and rode them some.

Not anything terribly exciting, really.

[Acriku]

My summer was a blend of working full-time at a supermarket and working out to P90X. Had a knee injury during an extended lunge (ow) and took a 3 week break to fully heal and repeated the second phase (out of three) and was on my way to completing it before school backhanded me into a lack of time for the long workouts (1-1.5 hours). But I also got to get into Lost (finished season 3 just this week) and love it so far!

[gryphon]

 

But I also got to get into Lost (finished season 3 just this week) and love it so far!

Don't get your hopes up. After that it's going downhill, and fast.

Only work here, finished a couple of big projects and managed to take a few short city-trips in the weekend.