The Suicide Note show was great. The amusement park at Darien Lake was a lot of fun also; I hope we can go again on Labor Day. I got sun poisoning or something but didn’t realize at the time. I was nauseous and dizzy during the sunniest parts of the day, and when I got home, I noticed I had a horrible sunburn. We were going to stop at Rite Aid for sunscreen before we went, but we were late and had to run. I feel so stupid because I know that it’s dangerous and accelerates aging and such… and I don’t want any extra freckles on my cheeks!

The fall semester starts in 6 weeks and I’m actually really excited, even if it means the end of summer. I can’t wait to teach Social Studies, and I can’t wait to move back east to New York or Philadelphia where the demand for inner-city teachers is high. As a kid, I lived in housing projects in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even southeastern Virginia. I moved from foster home to group home and back again. I went to “bad schools” in crip-infested areas, and I went to well-funded “white schools” in the Poconos, where stock brokers buy lake houses. I know the difference, and I think I could bring something unique to the table and maybe even make a difference. Justin laughs at me when I talk like this, but I’m serious. Somehow though, I think the toughest trials with teaching will not be with the kids, but with the administration…

Anyway, I always beat myself up over waiting so long to get in school, but I’m trying to get over it. I can’t undo the past. The fact is, I’m 21 and I waited 3 years to start my post-secondary education, instead of the 1 year I thought it would be. I’m ready to get started with “real life”.

Summer has been kinda fun lately, so I haven’t felt the need to sit online everyday – which is one of the reasons I haven’t updated. Also, our air conditioner broke in our bedroom where the computer is… so we stay in the living room all the time where it’s cool.

For the past two weeks, Justin, Chris, Brandy and I have been planning a trip to Darien Lake, which is a local theme park. It was a Six Flags park until 2006, when they sold it along with a few other SF parks. We’ve all been really excited but it wasn’t a concrete plan until maybe 5 days ago. Yesterday, Justin mentioned to his boss’ wife that we were going to Darien Lake and she said that her sister had 4 passes she didn’t want, so she hooked us up with them. So now we don’t have to buy expensive tickets!

I loooove roller coasters of all kinds, so I’m always excited to go to amusement parks. I’ve been to about 7 theme parks so far, which is sort of a lot for someone who doesn’t actively pursue that sort of thing. Here they are, with the ones I’ve been to the most times at the top, and least times on the bottom:

Anyway, we’re going tomorrow, which is the 4th of July. It will either be packed with people, or dead. I am hoping for the latter! I have been to Darien Lake twice before, because I once lived in a group home waaaay up in northern PA, on the border of NY, so we went there a couple times. It’ll be weird to go and see all the rides renamed, since they rebranded everything now that it is no longer a Six Flags.

Tonight Justin and I are going to a show to see Suicide Note, which is a band I’ve been into for about 5 years. Neither of us have seen them, so we’re excited.

It’s been a while since I blogged.

On Monday we registered for our classes at the college and then sort of walked around before stopping and eating $10 worth of bagels, donuts and coffee. After all of that, it was getting late and we decided to go see The Happening. It is being trashed terribly on the internet on sites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, but we both really liked it. I won’t go into detail as some people haven’t seen it yet. I guess M. Night has a lot of haters, so it is just one of those love it/hate it movies.

After The Happening, we knew we had no other plans for our Monday night, so we sat in the lobby of the theater eating nachos for 30 minutes, and then on a whim we bought tickets to see The Strangers, which was a very lame movie and a total waste of money. I’ve never actually watched two movies back-to-back in a theater, so that was an odd (but fun) experience. The ticket-taker guy laughed at us.

Tonight a few bands are playing at some bar/club place only a couple blocks away, so that will be our Wednesday night. Some of Justin’s friends might be there, so I hope I’m not ditched, drinking my diet soda all alone at a bar. One of the bands (Speakerfire) actually played with Every Time I Die that time we saw them in Harrisburg, PA. The other bands are kind of metal/grind from what I’ve heard. Maybe it’ll be fun.

I’ve been learning Italian. Both of us have been using Rosetta Stone for two weeks now and it actually works well. I will take actual college classes eventually, but this is a good start for learning vocabulary and grammar and speaking with a “standard” non-dialect Italian accent. Well, wish us luck.

Yesterday was Justin’s birthday, and we went out to eat with his family, which was nice. We stopped at the mall and I had to go return these two bras from Victoria’s Secret. They were total douche bags about the “return policy” and made me feel like shit for wanting to exchange them. Anyway, we stood there arguing for a couple minutes before Justin flipped out and snatched the bras from the manager guy and started screaming something about how they are assholes and can’t do their job. It was a sight. Anyway, I might try to exchange them at another mall because they were like $48 a piece and they’re defective. I realize they changed their return policy, but when I bought the items, the policy had not changed yet, so I feel entitled to use the old policy… not the new, retarded one.

Later that night we went to the movies (just him and I) and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It was a lot of fun to watch. We got there a few minutes late because we didn’t catch the train on time, but I don’t think we missed out on anything – it all still made sense.

I’ve been doing more research into my genealogy, which has always interested me. I found leads as to which of my ancestors died in the holocaust. My Jewish roots (ie. German, Austrian, Luxembourgian) are on my mother’s side, and the family name is rather rare and turns up practically nothing in google, but when I run it through the Database of Shoah Victims, which only lists Jewish victims, I get so many results. I didn’t expect to see so many deaths under that name; it is frightening. I can only wonder how many other distant relatives were simply lost to the dust, with no traces of them left behind, and no surviving family members to write of them after the fact. It is all so very sad, I can’t think about it.