In Which I Reminisce about Summer!

The summer is coming to a close. If you have kept up with at least the previous two posts, you would know that. Or, if you too are in school or you are a parent/grandparent, you might know that.

(This picture isn't mine. So I'm totally jealous of this guy's mad photography skills).

In the beginning of the summer, I made a list of things I wanted to do! Now, I am going to share that with you and tell you which ones I did/didn't do.

1. Write a new novel-- Eeee... not so much. When I wrote this, I intended this to mean that I would start and finish a novel all in three months. I have been writing, just nothing of novel length. The stories I did start are not finished. This did not get finished.
2. Prepare for NaNoWriMo-- Umm... hehe, funny story... I did no formal planning for this crazy event.
3. Make a trip to Uptown-- Afterwards, I proceed to make a mini list of places I wanted to go. This did get done! When my family was hosting our French student, I took her to visit Uptown and my grandmother. That was an excellent day! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, or else I would have shared pictures with you...
4. Get a new quill pen and ink-- I didn't look hard enough when I went to Barnes and Noble.
5. Pull an all-nighter with Ezra Zank-- I did do this! There is a blog entry to prove it!
6. Take the train to Mall of America/Ride the light rail from end-to-end-- Nope...
7. Apply for jobs-- Oh boy, did I!
8. Actually get a job-- Eeeh.....
9. Visit Avery and Nyaruach at their respective working places-- Halvsies. I went to Kowalskis, hoping to see Avery, but I was also going for my own selfish reasons.
10. Show Clementine the city-- Clementine was our French student. I think (hope) we did an okay job with this!
11. Go to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts-- YESyesYES!! Most amazing museum ever!
12. Do odd jobs-- I had a few.
13. Hang out with Rosemary, Avery, Ezra, Jack, and Laura-- a check to all!
14. Attempt to fix violin-- I did attempt, but alas, I failed. I am no violin expert. I blame the rosin.
15. Go on a "bike trip" in July-- Check! Unfortunately, I don't think I took any pictures...
16. Get a better camera-- Due to my lack of steady job, this wasn't entirely possible.
17. Get better at bass guitar/bass clarinet/clarinet/piano/guitar/violin-- This one is iffy too. Some instruments I worked at more than others (i.e. piano).
18. Finish summer school-- 2/3 done! I did not complete a semester of gym.
19. See 'Robin Hood,' 'The Last Airbender,' 'Up,' and anything Jack makes me see (:D)-- 1/2 done!
20. Build a bookcase/desk-- I had plans drawn up and everything, but alas, my dad and I never got around to it. But I might not have been persistent enough.
21. Make a family tree in French-- I started, and I learned a whole bunch of vocabulary, but I never actually completed it.
22. Get lots of cork board and push pins-- I went to the art store and I was about to get some, but it was really expensive. Since I don't have a job, it would not have been the smartest thing for me to have done.
23. Scrapbook and create an old-fashioned photo album-- I took plenty of pictures for it, but I think I will wait to work on it during the slow days over the school year.
24. Take lots of pictures-- oh boy, did I!
25. Put money away towards France and Australia trips-- Again, the job thing...
26. Paint-- I did!
27. Rearrange my room-- Too much work. If I had fewer books to shuffle around and a book shelf that could actually detach from the wall, that would have made life easier. So I didn't do it.
28. Read a lot-- Not as many as I would have liked, but yes, I did read quite a bit (my reviews below are my proof).

Other than the stuff that I wanted to do, there are other things that I did that I did not plan on doing:

1. Wearing flannel in the middle of summer
2. Becoming a part-time amateur web-designer to help my dad
3. Becoming a part-time architect and realizing that I can express my ideas verbally when I try
4. Making a YouTube video and trying video blogging (however unsuccessful it was).
5. Being as active on this blog (I have my Shelfari buddies to thank for that. We all got into a blogging phase where everyone was creating blogs left and right. I had one, so I just realized my love for blogging)

So, that was my summer! Actually, I guess this blog was a way of chronicling this summer, but this isn't the end of it! There's still plenty to do, though from August 30th to June, those things will be posted sporadically and in no pattern at all.

I apologize for the long-ish post. They'll probably be a little shorter... actually, I won't promise you that, since they'll be so sporadic. I'll probably have lots to tell you, it'll just be less often!