Summer Sun

So, it has been the first few weeks of summer, and so far, it's been pretty nice - the weather, for the most part, has been great, and I have enjoyed sleeping in. But, that being said, I haven't just been just lying around and doing nothing these past few weeks. For one, I got a job cleaning my neighbor's house on a weekly basis. I don't remember if I've already mentioned that, so if I did, I apologize for being repetitive. I've gone over two time already, and mostly, I have been vacuuming her entire house. In addition, I have washed windows and mirrors. It's not the most interesting or fun job in the world, but at least I am doing something useful and making money in the process (which I have been putting into my savings account for college). What I find ironic is that I wouldn't be someone you would call neat, and I don't really like cleaning up after myself, and yet, here I am cleaning up someone else's house and being paid for it. Next thing you know, my family will be using my "expertise" in this field to their advantage...
Other than my new job, I - along with my sister and mom - volunteered last Friday by ushering for "A Winter's Tale" at the Nichols Arboretum at the University of Michigan. For those who are confused, the University of Michigan puts on a Shakespeare play outdoors in the arboretum every summer; the whole thing is called "Shakespeare in the Arb." As ushers, we are supposed to show people to the next scene and where to sit (again, for those who don't know, the scenes move around to different locations in the arb). Basically, though, we don't really do anything and get a free show and t-shirt out of the deal. It's pretty awesome. This year's t-shirts are especially interesting - on the back, they say "exit, pursued by a bear," which is a stage direction in "A Winter's Tale." Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - on Friday, it was raining on and off all day, so only about 7 people actually bought tickets. They weren't going to put on the play, but they decided to just do it anyway. Because there were so few people (about half the audience was ushers), you didn't have to fight for a good place, and could hear everything well. We are volunteering again tonight, but the weather looks much better, so there will probably be a bunch more people. It still should be fun, though.
The next thing I did, and probably the most significant, was that I took the ACT for the first time last Saturday. It wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be, but it wasn't as easy as the practice tests I took. I ran out of time for the science portion, so had to put random answers, so hopefully, I'll still do well. The results are supposed to come in 5 to 8 weeks after taking the test, so until then, I have my fingers crossed. Talking about school related subjects, I started reading A Tale of Two Cities for my Honors English summer reading, and so far, I have really enjoyed reading it. I have finished Books I and II, so all I have left is the ending. I hear that it is surprising, so I'm looking forward to finishing it.
The last thing I want to talk about is that yesterday, which was my parent's 32nd anniversary, my sister had a few friends over while my parents went out to eat and we watched the four hour version of Pride and Prejudice. Since we hadn't really cleaned up our house for quite a while, we had to spend the whole day cleaning up. Of course, the vacuum had to die on me during right when I was almost finished. You know how these things work. Anyway, everyone came over at about 7:30, but we didn't start until about 7:45 or a bit later.Since we started so late, only one person stayed to the very end (it was at about 1 AM), but it was still enjoyable. My sister had made a cake, which was kind of pitiful because the layers had slid a bit, but still delicious, one of her friends made peanut butter cookies, and there were tons of M&M's. I was stuffed by the end of the night - I ate two pieces of pizza, a piece of cheesy bread, a piece of cinnamon bread (that was all part of our dinner), two cookies, a slice of cake, and probably too many M&M's. This pizza-movie night is supposed to be a regular occurrence, so next time, I will remember not to each so much.