SUPER HUGE Blog Update

So I haven't blogged since Wednesday, and honestly, it's been so long ago that I don't remember much about it; here's what I do remember:

Thursday, work was mostly the same as the previous days; I made some bookmarks for people, worked the front counter, and spent about half the day fixing the last of the library's computers. I think we're pretty much caught up on that now.

Friday I went around with Cathy doing various errands, and got off early because we were fully prepared for Monday (tomorrow!)'s kickoff for the Summer Reading Program! I am really excited about starting it - we're going to be having a lot of fun, doing all sorts of reading activities, and also creative/musical things. I just hope the turnout is good.

I left Friday evening for Georgetown and spent the weekend at home, attending my friend Haven Hilliard's graduation party - which was amazing. I got to see all my home friends and did some good hanging out.

Sunday evening when I got back, we went to Ming Wah and had some really delicious japanese food. The people working there were really cool as well and were particularly interested in Alice. We came back and played Mafia- where I was the Mafia 3 TIMES! And lost two of them. GAH. It was still fun though!! More fun to be had tomorrow!

Russell Stover is officially my new favorite place in Marion.

So today was very eventful, tiring, and exciting. I got to work at around 9:30, and worked on the website some while I waited for my supervisor to get there. When she did, I was assigned the task of cutting out all of the library's promotional bookmarks for the summer reading camp that starts on June 1st. Using a paper cutter that was able to cut a few papers at a time, I proceeded to cut them all out - 2 hours later, I had a stack of 2,776 bookmarks. That's a lot of page-marking. These will supposedly be distributed to local children and schools soon to promote all the activities. I took lunch and came back at 1.
When I got back, Cathy informed me I had some forms to input into the computer from students who had already signed up for the reading program - exciting! We now have like 5 or 6 students signed up - of course, we'll have loads more soon. Once I finished that, Cathy gave me the task of going around to various local businesses in Marion, and soliciting donations for the program. I strategically chose the places I asked for donations in correspondance with places I wanted to check out in Marion that I had never been to - For instance, the Russell Stover outlet was more than happy to give me a bag of free chocolate for the kids, and also some free samples for myself. I conveniently asked Burger King if they wanted to donate, and bought some ice cream while I was there. I also visited Professional Pharmacy, which is an incredibly cool local pharmacy with a full-service lunch counter with sandwiches and milkshakes; I'm definitely going to do lunch there one day. The process was definitely frustrating overall with the amount of "no"s that I got, but it was still worth it - I was productive to a considerable extent.
I got back to the library and helped fix the printer for one of the computers in the reference room, and started an ongoing project for re-imaging another one of them that I should be able to fix tomorrow.
Once at home, we waited on the mayor's wife, Melina, and daughter (whom we had invited to dinner - the mayor himself couldn't make it because of a meeting) to arrive. We had delicious pesto pasta served by Charlotte and Khadijah, with brownies that were OUT OF THIS WORLD. So gooey, and so good. There was some great conversation about how Noelle and the mayor's daughter Hayley had a lot of stuff in common (John and Kate + 8 and also fashion designing), and we got to hear about the inner workings of She Magazine, which Melina manages.
After dinner, we played a word game called Contact, and kind of just chilled. Another exciting day tomorrow, for sure! WOOO!

Breakfast for dinner.. And Khadijah is a sneaky Mafia member.

Monday was Memorial day so we had a day off. Which was awesome! I slept late and just spent most of the day doing laundry, reading some books (I'm about halfway done with my Dean Koontz, and I also have been reading my book on Java), and just hanging out with everyone. It was a very fun and chill day, even though I didn't do anything super productive. For dinner, we had BREAKFAST. It was great. Pancakes, and bacon, and all that jazz - delicious and sweet.
Courtesy of Khadijah, Noelle, and Alice, it was a great meal.
Later that night we played a few games. The first of which was a cool game by Noelle which is called "This is a What." It was fast-paced and involved us passing objects frantically around to the rhythm of a chant. It was pretty cool. Next, we played Cranium and, well.. frankly, the girls killed us. Only because there were 4 of them, and 3 of us. And I didn't realize that Monet and Manet were different painters. Oops. After that, we turned off every light in the house, lit two candles... (no we didn't have a seance), and played... MAFIA. In the end, Khadijah's deceptiveness and John Deans's hilarious inaccurate accusations caused Khadijah to emerge victorious. Woot!
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Today, I got to work and my supervisor, Cathy, was back! Hooray! In the morning, I concentrated on working on the Marion Library website, improving minor things, and talking to tech support to resolve logistical issues. That's always fun. In the afternoon, I talked with Cathy about setting up a database to hold all of the student information for Summer Reading this year - it would need to hold contact info and also information like how many reading hours they had accumulated. After several hours of googling and trying programs out, I decided on the Zoho Creator web program (Access 2007 was simply a mess - Microsoft, you've really destroyed what little faith I had left in you), which was easy to use, powerful, allowed me to implement whatever I wanted, and was most importantly, FREE. I set it up, complete with an online signup form on the Marion website, and typed up instructions for the librarians to use. Later in the day, I filled in at the front desk because many of the employees at the library had to attend a funeral for a local student who drowned recently. Working the desk today was hectic- I was the only one up there, and when multiple people come at you, asking you to look books up, give them the bathroom key, sign them up for library cards, give them candy, and give them white-out (yes, all of these things happened within a short span of time), I was a little overwhelmed. At my old job, having lots of people coming at once was never frustrating, but because I was still getting used to all of the policies and procedures, I was operating a little slower than usual. Luckily, I eventually got through it. I also found myself constantly checking the door (out of habit from my job at Radioshack) to see if "customers" (now called patrons) were stealing "merchandise" (in this case, they could have gotten anything in the library for free, ironically enough). I never witnessed this happening, but I guess old habits die hard. I did almost catch a kid stealing the bathroom key though.
My most interesting observation today was that the library often plays the role of daycare/afterschool care unintentionally for many kids in the area. Around 3:30, children of all shapes and sizes began barrelling through the door, wanting things to play with, access to the computers, the bathrooms, the bathrooms, the bathrooms, THE BATHROOMS, and ocasionally some books. The library wasn't exactly a quiet sanctuary, but I suppose this is a better place than many locations for them to hang out - many of the kids were legitamately excited about the books though. The library is certainly an interesting place.
For dinner, we had taco night, courtesy of Brandon and John. Thanks guys!
We have dinner with the mayor tomorrow! Woo!!

DA WEEKEND. DA BOMB.

So this whole not blogging daily thing is really getting old. I'm falling into an abyss of procrastination. Ok, enough emo-ranting about my bad blogging habits. Here goes my days.
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So Saturday was a sleep-late day. It was GLORIOUS, frankly. I got up around 11 or 12ish and we just lounged around for a while, deciding what to do. We eventually decided to hit up the mall in Florence. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays (whose salad bar was amazing), watched Star Trek (my second time, but still EPIC), and just hung out later. It was great.

So today we went to the same Methodist church that the Demarcos go to - it was cool, albeit a little different than my Episcopal roots. Later, we split up and some people went to Walmart, and some people went to the gym (Yes, I actually worked out!). Frankly, I felt like I was going to die after the gym, but I'm proud of myself and hopefully I'll keep it up. Then, we ate watermelon! Then, we went to Zapatas (after riding around to 3 different places that were all closed - evidently all of Marion doesn't eat on Sunday) and ate. That was essentially it. A chill weekend but still fun. Memorial day coming up! Woo, a day off!!

T-Roy's/Troys/T'roys? Also, BOOKMOBILE.

The title of this post basically summarizes my two days, but I'll try to make them a bit more exciting for you. So.. here goes!
Since I got off of my post-a-day roll I was on, I'll start with yesterday. I came into work, and my supervisor Cathy was still sick. This meant that I would need to find stuff for myself to do. My first project was finishing up the BetterWorld books project (I finally remembered the name of the company!) Turns out this isn't a wholesaler we are selling to for funds for the library; BetterWorld's mission (as stated on its website) is stated as follows: "Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide." Wow, what a cool project! I wonder why they don't want all the books - maybe some of them aren't as effective at combatting illiteracy? Haha, who knows. Anyways, I spent the next hour or two scanning and organizing the last of the books for this project. I think all that's left is printing a shipping label and sending them off.
The next part of the day was "Mother Goose on the Loose" storytime. This is when Jean or Cathy read stories to parents and their children, but they also participate in simple musical activities designed to teach that reminded me a lot of the Kindermusik program I was in as a child. Salley told me to take pictures of everything that went on. Although we only had two parents/children attend, they seemed to enjoy it and the event was still fairly successful.
I got back down to the library basement and several of the ladies downstairs were having trouble with a laptop. I immediately was interested in how I could help. It turns out that this specific laptop was the BookMobile laptop; this one allowed us to check out/in books for the Bookmobile while on the route, eliminating the need for writing down long barcodes and such. I'll spare you the technical jargon, but the bottom line is that we got it going after about an hour and a half of playing with it. I then typed up a list of instructions on how to do everything I'd done - that way, when I leave, everyone will know how to do what I already did. Wow, that last sentence was very confusing, I hope it made sense. After that I rode on the bookmobile again to a variety of locations, most of which were no-shows -- people didn't show up when they were supposed to. So it was relatively uneventful.
I went back to the house and we decided that since John Deans, Noelle, and Alice went to a benefit concert/dinner for a breast cancer patient, that we would go out for dinner. I called Ben Demarco up and asked him what he recommended. He said that T-Roys was a pretty good place. So, after no one really cared where we went, we headed off. T-Roys was dimly lit, although it was very friendly. The prices on the food were a bit expensive, but my French Dip sandwich did not disappoint. We had some great chatter while we were waiting in the mean time. On my way out, I noticed T-Roy's business card/magnet said T'roys. As if it was a fancy French dining restaurant. Then I started thinking, why did Troy feel the need to give himself a nickname if he only had 4 characters in his name? Thus the great spelling/pronunciation debate began. Only it wasn't really much of a debate, I just thought it was funny (so did Khadijah =] ). We came home and watched Ocean's Eleven - I'd seen it before but it's still a great movie - and I went to bed. And that was yesterday!
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Now for today. I got up and went to work. Nothing new there. I was informed I'd be riding on the bookmobile all day til around 2 PM. Nothing truly eventful happened other than we were using the laptop for the first time. It worked out well. At 2, I went home for a lunch break and had a VERY productive break - I made a calzone for lunch, made sweet tea for the first time since I've been here (it was heavenly and David Womble approved too!), and started the Italian-cut green beans (which I got fatback for from Food Lion on the way to the house). Back at work I worked the counter for a little while. When I got home, Noelle and I got messy and did our chicken, marinated in awesomeness, made the mashed potatoes/gravy, and just made an AMAZING meal. I think it tasted just a little better because we made it. A good day. Later, we went to Dr. Demarco's house and watched and discussed an interesting PBS show on single-payer healthcare - we crammed far too many people for legality into the back of John Deans's truck and road over all in one car. And we saved gas! Tomorrow, hopefully pancakes!!!

Thursday's Post: Coming Soon!

I am too tired to blog. Long day that I will summarize tomorrow or sometime soon. Yay procrastination.

Check In. Check Out. Overdue. Fines. That'll be $24.00.

So today was a very interesting, wild, and varied day for me. My supervisor, Cathy, was out sick, which meant that the library was shorthanded and needed a substitute librarian - guess who that was: Me! So I spent the morning until about 12 PM learning how to check books in/out, shelve the books in the correct places (trickier than you think, actually!), sign people up for library cards, and charge people for fines on overdue books. By the end of the morning, I was quickly up to speed and working just like one of the regulars. I was given a 30-minute lunch break (Oh, boy!) and ran home for a quick sandwich.
I came back and we were pretty caught up on all the busywork that had to be done; shortly after, Salley, the library director, came up to me and informed me that she had a very important project for me and that my hours were being changed to a longer day 4 days a week, with Fridays off, rather than 5 shorter days a week. I think having Fridays off should be nice; I can do some of the things I've been meaning to do this summer, like learn Java, work on Spanish, and also Calculus. Oh, fun X_X
I followed Salley down to the library basement (where all of the bookkeeping and administrative tasks get done), and she explained my next task to me. The library had a large number of books that were either old, donated, or taken out of stock for various reasons; Salley had the idea of sending off these books to an outside wholesaler to get money for the library. The profits wouldn't be huge, but every little penny counts in getting it on firm financial footing. My job was to sort the stacks and stacks of books into piles of books that the wholesaler would take, and ones they "rejected." The only way to see if a book is permitted by the company is by checking the ISBN number on a cross-reference tool on the internet; this involves me typing in the ISBN number by hand (it can't be scanned because it's not on the barcode) for each individual book and seeing the result from the web tool. This is a very tedious process that Salley said no volunteer or person who ever started the project ever completed. This comment didn't discourage me though - it excited me, because I knew it was doable, and I would finish it. I sat there for hours, typing like mad, sorting and stacking, typing, sorting, stacking, typing, typing, typing.. And at the end of the day, I only have maybe 2 shelves of books left to go through. I'll easily be able to finish everything tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. Hooray!
I wasn't able to finish today because at 2:30, I went with Jean (who I was already good friends with from the desk) on her BookMobile route. We went north of Marion, into areas that I honestly don't remember the names of. These areas were also extremely rural and impoverished. Jean took the time to explain to me that Marion's education system was good, but had some "holes" in it. All of my conversations with Jean on the ride were so deeply empathetic; I could tell that she legimately cared about the mission of the organization she worked for. She told me that because of the BookMobile's rural route, the roads it traveled on were paved by the County. This really made me realize that the BookMobile wasn't just bringing education and excitement to these rural residents - it was improving their lives! We had two interesting stops today -
The first interesting stop was a nice family with a child named Daquan. Daquan was the most excited little boy I had ever met - he was so happy about the BookMobile, and just reading in general. Because of budget cuts, the BookMobile is only running once a month in the summer, so Jean told Daquan and his family to get as many books now as they could to stock up. Jean and I helped them pick out picture books that were appropriate for his age - unlike the child from yesterday, Daquan seemed to be on just about the right reading level, if not just a tad behind. I handed his mother one of my favorite children's books, Chicka Chicka Boom-Boom - she checked it out, and replied, "Hey, I like this. I'll get it." Jean and I continued picking out books, and I also suggested a book in the Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? series. Daquan's mom informed me that Daquan had read that book so many times she was sick of it. This was a happy thing for me to hear. Jean was in no hurry for them to leave, since she has a pre-determined time she spends at each stop. Jean sat down on the bus with Daquan and read him a preview of two or three of the books. He enjoyed this profusely, and jumped around in excitement - especially when he would guess a word correctly.
My other stop was extremely atypical of the normal Bookmobile stop. We stopped at a rural home of a woman named Peggy. Peggy was at least 75 or 80 years old, and apparently very sick, from what Jean told me of her. Because she was so sick, Jean brought her book deliveries in to her normally. We stepped into the house, which was saturated with cigarette smell, and Jean introduced me. Peggy said, "Oh, that's nice. Would you mind pulling my trash can to the door?" I obliged willingly, albeit a little bemused by this opening conversation. I grabbed Peggy's books for her, (which turned out to be a series of extremely steamy romance novels) gave them to her, and sat down. Peggy talked to Jean and told her about her life recently. Peggy's family life is rough; she has virtually no one to support her. Jean seems to be one of her last friends. I was heartbroken by the situation, but warmed by the fact that the BookMobile enables Jean to be there for this woman in such a desperate condition. The Marion library enabled her to bring not only intellectual stimulation but friendship and compassion to places all over the county.

We came home and Noelle and I bought ingredients for our dinner we're cooking Friday: Oven Fried Chicken!! Wooo! I ate a leftover monster burger, and we just hung out the rest of the night. Now. Sleep. Tired. Ugh. Library tomorrow. Post ya later.

THE BURGERS WERE HUGE

Well, today was my first day at the Marion County Library internship. Let's see if I can break down everything that happened - it was pretty darn eventful. I apologize for the length of this post! I tend to be a little too detailed.
I walked into the library at 9:30 AM, right went they opened up. I asked if Cathy, my supervisor, was there, and I was told that she normally runs late but should be in shortly. In the mean time, I met one of my main coworkers, Jean Townsend. Jean was very nice, bubbly, and easy to talk to. She gave me a brief overview of the library, asked me some questions about Duke and where I was from, and told me to just look around in the mean time. The Marion library is definitely old and limited in technology, space, and resources; it is smaller than the Georgetown library, but still functional and appeared ok. I discovered a featured display on Dean Koontz, one of my favorite thriller novel writers, and quickly picked up a book I had been wanting to read for a while - Velocity. It was at this point that I went and applied for a library card and internet access. I used my newfound library power to check out the book, as Jean happily replied, "Thank You, and we welcome you to the library!" I read a little of my new book to pass the time, and a few minutes later, Cathy arrived.
Cathy Pruett was funny and energetic, with a hint of well-timed cynicism - just how I like it. Wearing a gumby pin next to her name tag, I could tell that she was going to be fun to work with. Cathy took me on a more in-depth tour of the library, as well as introducing me to each of the library's employees; everyone was so friendly and nice; the Southern hospitality I had come to enjoy in Georgetown was even more prevalent here. Already, I felt like "one of the regulars."
After filling out some paperwork, Cathy, who is the library's Children's Librarian, explained to me the situations that plagued the library: first of all, there is no space for children's programming like storytime, arts and crafts, or perhaps most importantly, the summer reading activities. They currently use the South Carolina reading room or the periodicals section of the library for these tasks - certainly not an ideal situation. Also, the library needs more funding - they want/need to expand to three times their current size, but the project would obviously need a lot of money to succeed. Money that the library simply doesn't have. Cathy informed me that I would be helping to plan the Summer Reading program which begins in two weeks at the library. I'll be doing things like planning arts and crafts programs or helping with musicals. It should be a lot of fun. I wasn't able to meet Salley, the director of the library yet, and there wasn't much to do at the moment, so I went home for a lunch break.

When I came back from my lunch break, I met Salley, a very interesting woman who had even been to Andrews, a small suburb near my hometown (and asked me if I was familiar with the town's practice of hiding cops behind trees to police people speeding through their town - I was.). After a brief chat with Salley, I was given my final assignment for the day - I would get to ride with Barron, another one of my coworkers, in the BookMobile route this afternoon.


We departed for our route - extremely rural areas of Marion, Mullins, and the surrounding area. The bookmobile provides a mobile library service to the rural areas in Marion county; places where people don't have access to a library or the means to have transportation to one. Arriving at our first stop, I met a family who rushed out almost immediately after we pulled up to their house. A mother with three children marched up to the bus and began pulling books they were interested in off the shelf and returning ones they had from a previous visit. I noticed that one child, who was apparently in 5th grade, had a huge stack of books he was very excited about. They were all primarily picture books meant for 2nd or 3rd graders, though. I think this was my first exposure to the education gap that Marion faced - this was probably emphasized by my placement in rural Marion, where transportation to school alone is a huge factor. Anyways, the family was very nice and happy to meet me. They brought their dogs inside the bookmobile and introduced them - adorable! Our other stops were less eventful, but nonetheless, I had fun. My first day was quite an introduction to the library.

At home, we were shortly served with an extravagant meal cooked by John Deans and David Womble - GIGANTIC Burgers, Hot Dogs, Salad, and Baked Potatoes (complete with bacon bits and other dressings!). They were amazing - and, well.. ENORMOUS. Also delicious. We had some great dinner conversation too. Wow. What a huge day. And this is only the beginning.
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Memorable Quotes:
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"If I had a choice, I'd pick The Sims over school." - Noelle
"A good burger is like a good woman - pretty damn good." - David Womble

Banks, Walmart, Home Cooked Meals

Well today was first of all a day to sleep late. Relatively. Well, at least to me, sleeping til 9 AM seemed pretty late, but when half of the house still wasn't awake yet, I realized that maybe I could give myself some more leeway. Hm, well internships start tomorrow; so much for sleeping late. And here I am blogging instead of getting a good night's rest. Procrastination. What I do best.

But I digress. John and I drove to Bank of America today, which was a pretty epic trip. 30 minutes away practically! It didn't seem too bad, until I got there and failed to fill the deposit slip out correctly. So.. other people went in front of me as I worked on making my complicated transaction involving 2 accounts and cash back work. The teller still had to fix my corrected slip again. The point is, I have money now! YES.

Next up on our exciting day was WALMART. The pinnacle of shopping civilization. I frankly was a little overwhelmed. We had pooled our funds together to buy everything for the upcoming week, but WOW. It was a little more complicated than I expected. Even just choosing the type of lettuce, or salad dressing, or what size of syrup bottle, or the amounts of all of the previous things was incredibly complicated. Somehow, we got through it, and $250 later, we have many, MANY groceries. Of course, I bought some things for myself that were staples of my daily routine: sausage biscuits, waffles, ritz crackers, and Dr. Pepper. Sorry to the healthy people - I need to indulge regularly to function properly.

Speaking of healthy people, we stopped by the hospital (which houses the local gym) today and got applications for gym memberships. The question is, will I have the willpower to actually submit the application, and then to actually go to the gym? We'll see about that, but I'll certainly try.

In the evening, we were served a very delicious meal by Khadijah and Alice. Spaghetti with salad. It was fantastic, and we had plenty of leftovers - until David Womble got into the food ;) Noelle and I are cooking oven-fried chicken on Thursday - I'm excited about that though. Having our first meal together as a family was our first act of bonding. It felt good to all sit around the same table, eat the same food, and just share in each others' company. The BN family rocks, essentially.

Finally, we watched Tyler Perry's "Diary of a Mad Black Woman." The movie was HILARIOUS, interspersed with funny comments from the audience. Fun times, fun times. I'd give the movie 4/5. A little predictable, but certainly worth watching - very, very entertaining and Tyler Perry is a genius.

Our family still probably spends more time in front of its laptops than in talking, bonding, and sharing, but I really hope we break those barriers down in the next few weeks (days?). I can see it happening, and I think we all just need to make a little extra effort. Internship at the library starts tomorrow, although I don't think my supervisor is going to be there because she is sick. We'll see how that goes - as always, I'll keep you updated.

Quotes of the Day:
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Lauren: "The tea tastes.. Swedish.. I mean sweet-ish." (only I heard this)
Khadijah: "I'm brown too!!"

Watermelon - OR NOT?

Well today was a very exciting and logistical day. I never realized living with 10 people was going to be so complicated! ...okay I knew it wouldn't be a piece of cake, but actually, the difficult part wasn't the amount of people but just figuring out meals, transportation, house rules, goals, things of that nature. Minda came over and we basically spent the day having our "retreat," talking about what it really meant to serve, instead of merely "help" or "fix." Wow, I just used a lot of quotation marks there. Anywho.

Things we decided:
- Watermelon WILL be essential! (Thanks Alice/Charlotte ;) )
- Summarized rule: "JUST ASK!"
- The sweet tea trio (David Womble, David Oberst, and Lauren) will have a self-sufficient supply of sweet tea
- The word communal was used WAY too much.

We went out to dinner at Zapata, which, contrary to popular belief, does not mean Shoes, as we established with Zapato yesterday. Ah, the details of Marion life.

Most of us are going to take a CPR class later next month, which should be exciting too!

Also, I helped fix the internet today. Hooray tech support!!

Retrospectively, I feel like I already am a lot closer to my housemates. I set character goals of humility, flexibility, and integrity this summer in my personal reflections. I realized today that this summer is just as much about me changing the people in Marion as the people in Marion changing me - we aren't on unequal footing with these people; we have a lot to learn from their experience, wisdom, and cultures. Of course, being a southern small-towner (Georgetown is only about 1000 more people than Marion), this place isn't a terrible culture shock for me; however, a step out of my place of birth may be just what I needed to examine the very culture that has raised me, along with its issues of poverty/economic disparity, education, and things of that nature. Tomorrow is Bank of America, and WALMART!!! WOOO!!!

Also, Alice: "Do you wanna talk?"
Everyone Else: ...... (Silence)

¿Donde Están Los Zapatos?

So I drove up today into 204 Blue St (which my GPS refuses to believe exists - turns out that my Magellan thinks it is a whole block and street away from where we actually are. Oh well, I'll actually have to use my sense of direction this year. UGH.) Khadijah and Noelle were there, and the house is actually quite nice. I'll try to upload some pictures soon enough - I already took like 70 pictures! We had a great day which entailed the following:

1. Unpacking MANIA (no Alice, it's not an acronym)- not very exciting, other than I got a good bedroom. Me + John squared.
2. Lunch at Richard's Restaurant. Yes, that's what it's called. They only serve a limited amount of drinks for lunch. These include (according to the sign): Tea, Coke, and Pepsi. Luckily, the tea was fine for me, but it was almost too sweet for me. Which is saying something, considering I'm probably the "most southern " (geographically) of all the other BNs. Richard's Restaurant is a very greasy, quaint diner, where the service is mediocre, but the food slides down just perfectly, if you know what I mean. Definitely going to be a regular for me. It's cheap and unhealthy :)
3. The Foxtrot Festival - A celebration of fried food, gospel music, and arts and crafts. Basically amazing. We watched a couple of gospel groups sing, enjoyed some smoothies, and then just walked around.
4. Dinner with Minda + Piggly Wiggly - Pizza Hut for dinner and we bought items for tomorrow's lunch of peanut butter and jelly + cold cut sandwiches. Piggly Wiggly was quaint, although some people were disillusioned with the amount of "pig parts" that were available to be purchased. Hahaaha. It's called Piggly Wiggly, what do you expect?
5. Chillout time with Lauren's Birthday, Catch Phrase, Cards, and Wii. This included an epic event of having the candles blown out (thanks to John Deans), delicious cake, and fellowship. We later had an intense game of Catch Phrase, epic hula-hooping and tennis-ing on the Wii, boxing matches (Lauren vs. Noelle: Winner - LAUREN) and (David Womble vs. Brandon: Winner - BRANDON), and finally, a HUGELY epic game of spoons, where the winner emerged as Charlotte, but the surprise runner-up was first-timer John Deans! Woot!

That's all we did today, but I can already tell that this is going to be an amazing summer. We're already bonding and having a great time, making decisions, buying cake.. the whole house thing might just work out.

Oh, and so we're working on a name for this house - maybe Betty Blue Bloom (Khadijah?) The Blue House (Jharlotte?)
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Memorable Quotes of the Day (until we get a quote board):
"¿Donde Están Los Zapatos?" (Rosetta Stone Spanish HATES US)
"What a fail day in heaven!" (Noelle?!)
"It is INTENSELY COLD IN HERE! " (John Deans - with feeling - about the coldness at Pizza Hut)

"What's the difference between Chocolate Cake and Lemon Cake?"
"One's chocolate....and one's lemon??" - Unknown

"I'm reading the Faerie Queen, which isn't as gay as it sounds" (David Womble about his reading habits)

"How do you start this timer?" (Charlotte)
"There's only one button..." (John, reprimanding Charlotte about the intricacies of the CatchPhrase buzzer)

"David, I thought I expelled you from this house!" (Khadijah expelling me)

"Is there a Y in Marion?" (Misc. People)

"Veggie Salad?" Uhh..

"Life gets better Noelle, alright?"

Beginning the Summer

I've started this blog to keep track of all my adventures in Marion, SC on the Benjamin N. Duke Summer of Service experience. This summer, my housemates are: Lauren Anderson, Brandon Hill, Noelle Kelly, Alice Yen, David Womble, John Luttrell, John Deans, Charlotte Mabe, and Khadijah Bhatti. It's going to be amazing, I'm sure. Keep you posted as soon as I'm actually there.

- David