Again, long hiatus from blogging. Not totally my fault though, not a whole lot to write about now that school is over and it's summer time.
Everyone goes nuts about getting out of school for summer and laying out in the sun, pool time, tan lines and friends.
Expectation:
Reality:
Currently I'm still out in good ol' Salukiville. I'm in Carbondale for the summer. Yay.
Believe it or not, it was by choice. I need to establish residency for in-state tuition and the thought of paying for my apartment but not living in it is an abhorring thought, and it's very hard to find a summer job that will only last a little over 2 months anywhere, even Cali. So I'm taking summer class, life guarding at the Rec Pool and working out and going out to the desolate bars now that most of the students have vanished.
Hurrah.
My GA deal doesn't extend through the summer so I'm now a regular working student, getting paid hourly to guard lives with my red floaty and whistle as I sit on a stand and watch people try to swim in a poorly ventilated indoor pool. But it's a job and I have some pretty cool coworkers that I'm not going to lie, I was kinda nervous if they'd like me. Life guards are different than your average student workers. We sit up on a stand for 30min at a time in solitude. Yeah, we're supposed to be scanning for potential drowning victims but it's a lot of alone time. Almost too much. So we get kinda weird. *Raises hand* I'll confess, it's even happened to me. But they're cool people, albeit we get weird and we got weird very fast with each other. Something about pools and life guarding that just makes you want to talk about nonsensical stuff with anyone willing to listen. I'm pretty sure I've heard at least 5 life stories, shared my own probably more than that and other random topics have been discussed in the brief 2 minutes that we actually get to interact with our coworkers when we rotate shifts. And I've only been working for 3 weeks.
I'll give you a run down of a typical day for Marissa-
Get up- put on my life guard uniform- (swim suit, shirt that says Aquatic Staff, swim trunks, and flip flops.)
Go guard lives - involves 20/30min shifts for 3 or 4 hours that we switch out from on break in the aquatics office, to chair 1 and to chair 2.
Go work out
Go home
Watch TV
*Sometimes* (Cough rarely cough) do online homework (my classes are all online)
Make food
Eat said food
Sleep
Repeat
Yep. I'm living the dream.
The town is desolate, as is my life and for a few days there I was going nuts I was so bored. I would drive around aimlessly just to get out of my apartment.
But on the weekends I do have some fun. Kaylee is in town over the summer as well but she interns every stinking day for like 28 hours a day and so she doesn't have time to entertain me during the week. So we have fun on the weekends. We go kayaking on campus lake, eat ice cream, and go out to the bars. Sometimes. But the bars are kinda dead now or full of townies we don't know so it's not the same. So it does get kinda interesting.
But summer school starts soon so I have quite a few friends who are coming back to get some credit so I'm hoping my life gets a whole lot more interesting.
And this week it definitely did so here's to more excitement! It started with Memorial Day weekend that I spent kayaking with Kayln and then grabbing a few beers with some townie friends for friend's birthday and going to Herrin Fest. A nearby town throws a fun festival that includes vendors, fair rides, and music. We saw Thomas Rhett, an up and coming country singer and it was super fun! I got to wear my cowboy boots and my american flag vest, I was killing it. The booze was expensive but the music was good and it was fun to people watch. We saw some friends that were leaving soon since they graduated so it was good to catch up for a bit and it was cool to see how the locals do fun events. We of course wriggled our way up closer to the stage, even though I didn't even know who the guy was by just his name, I had to listen to a few songs and go "Oh I know this song! I didn't know he sang it!". I'm slowly learning the newer country music songs and singers. I don't have much of a choice as that's about all we hear down in So. Ill. But it was fun and I was glad to do something and be social.
Herrin Fest photos…my new phone case made the photo quality less than stellar but it was a fun time indeed.
A night out on the town with the Townies!
"Sure I'll take your picture, but first lemme take a selfie."
The OGs, Original Goons.
Gonna miss ya, Unkie! (my eyes are open I swear)
It was a short week due to the holiday which made it nice. I worked as a life guard, and most of the time that means baby sitting for school groups that come in and use the Rec Pool.
Talk about the best form of birth control ever…picture 115 screaming middle schoolers swimming around, jumping off the diving board and high dive. In an indoor pool. So it's slick tile, stuffy, and loud. REALLY LOUD.
And little kids can be ass holes! I whistled at one kid to stop running and he turned at me and stuck his tongue out! It took all my will power to not jump off that stand and grab him by the ear and drag him to the bench and ban him from the pool for life. Grrrr… we had another incident where a kid panicked after jumping off the high dive so the other guards had to jump in to help. It's protocol for us not in the water to get the other kids out while they attend to the injured. So I blow my whistle tell kids to get out and one of them goes "What? Why? He's not dead." Are you freaking serious??? Rude!! GET THE HECK OUT OF THE POOL!
I immediately retorted back "Because I said so! Get out of the pool. NOW!"
So I guess I'm the pool bitch. Sorry I'm not sorry that a bunch of 5th graders don't like me. How will I ever sleep at night…
Most of the time it's not that bad. We have our regular swimmers who keep to themselves and we don't have any issues. Until we have to change lane lines and that's a pain in the ass because we have to get into the pool to do it but that's usually the biggest problem of the day.
Almost every day I work out too. Not much to do and since I work there and have more than enough time, might as well. I work out with a friend, well more like I work out and he teaches me how to. I just don't want to look like an idiot in the weight room, so I asked my buffest friend to just show me how to weight train so I wouldn't end up being an internet meme sensation. And I avoid having a packed weight room with a bunch of tools and really intimidating guys since it's summer so it's perfect.
My luck without WannaBeTrainer, I'd be this guy. I don't want to be that guy.
And then it turned into him being my amateur trainer. Ok, Mr. FormAboveEverythingElse and NoCheatingAllowed. But I can tell it's working and his work outs are freaking hard. I'm dripping with sweat after about 45minutes (not an exaggeration by any means I'm gross and can't keep up with laundry b/c of it) and usually unable to function normally for a full day afterwards. After leg day I can't walk, it's like I'm 83 years old, arms day usually means I can't open a door without strenuous effort, etc. I abhor chest day with a passion and whenever I get too sassy he ups my weight and I struggle and want to quit but I shut up real fast.
On Thursday my good friend Ally came back into the Dale and so we met up at a friends and had a little girls' night in with wine and popcorn. It was good to have them back and be social again. We plan on doing the wineries and hanging out more this summer as Ally heads to France to study abroad for a whole year! I'm going to miss her dearly but I'm glad to be around this summer to hang out before she leaves us.
Friday I got asked to help volunteer at a golf tournament put on by the Rec. I didn't really know what I was getting into but didn't mind helping out for a few hours. Turns out me and one of the pro staff, Amanda, were to drive the beer golf cart around providing beverages to our golfers.
Ummm best job ever! We drove around and put on our biggest smiles and ended up scoring big time on tips. I remember seeing the beer girls when I went golfing with my grandfather one time and thought she was the coolest chic ever and so much older and cooler cuz she knew all the guys and was pretty good at golf too. Looking back it was kinda weird since she got hit on by old men all the time (blek) but we didn't get much of that but we did have a lot of laughs and a lot of beer and a lot of tips. Score.
But then it rained and I mean the heavens really opened up, like TORRENTIAL down pour. For all you Cali peeps who are so used to being in a draught it's kinda like wait what's rain again? I'm not even joking that the term raining cats and dogs means absolutely nothing to you until you've seen rain like that. Flash flooding is a very real thing people. So we all drove back to the club house as fast as that cart could get us there but didn't matter, just 30 seconds left you soaked to the bone. I looked like I took a shower, my hair was all wet, we took our shoes and socks off and ran in the rain and puddles that were the size of Lake Michigan barefoot because wet socks are the worst thing on the planet. Attractive much? Oh ya. But the golf tourney was fun and I will always volunteer to be the beer cart girl for just about every golf outing I ever attend.
And I went to Chicago on Saturday but I'll save that for my next blog.
To be continued!
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