Relatively Recent Ramblings (Part 3)

The day we returned from New Jersey, I got on the South Shore Train and took it up to Michigan City. You might be asking: “Why did you do that?” or maybe “Who goes to Michigan City?” Well, I was going to visit Shane and Asha who were performing in The Wrong Turn At Lungfish at the Canterbury Theatre. They picked me up from the train station, which is much more like a bus stop than a train station. The tracks run right down the middle of the road and there are no guardrails. It was very odd. Anyways, we went to dinner and on a brief tour of Michigan City and the theatre. The area seemed like it used to be nice, but it’s not the greatest right now.  When our tour was finished, Shane and Asha needed to get ready for the show. So I waited in the lobby.

Thankfully, Ronni’s mom decided to come and see the show. We talked for a while until the house opened and then we watched the show together. I was really impressed with the production. I mean the theatre is small, the lighting fixtures are ancient, the designs weren’t the greatest, but they didn’t have to be. The script was interesting, the acting was good, and the design elements created enough of a world for the story to unfold in. It’s really amazing what you can accomplish on a shoestring budget, a small amount of time, and a bit of talent. Maybe money doesn’t make theatre good, or should it be money doesn’t make good theatre? Hmmm…

The next day, Ronni and her mom drove me back home, and I started to settle into being in Plymouth. I don’t really recall any specific events during the weeks that followed Dessert Theatre other than going and seeing fireworks. I had pictured myself going right from Dessert Theatre to my next job. Instead, I ended up reading, playing video games, and gardening. Though maybe there was a reason for I didn’t end up finding a summer job.

July finally rolled around and it brought with it the final big event of the summer, Eric and Chelsea’s wedding. One of the reasons that graduation was anticlimactic was that I knew that during the summer I would get to see people again. After graduation there was choir tour, and after choir tour was Dessert Theater, and then after Dessert Theatre there was Eric and Chelsea’s Wedding. The problem here being that there were no more events after the wedding. It was the last time I knew for sure that I was going to see my friends. That hit me pretty hard.  

I had never been in a wedding before so I didn’t know what a groomsman was expected to do. What I found is that it require very little thought or physical exertion. Basically you show up when you’re told to show up, walk when you’re told to walk, and stand where you’re told to stand. Though, I will say that standing still is surprisingly taxing. It seemed to be a very nice wedding. Everything went smoothly. No one fell going down the isle, there was no wardrobe malfunctions, and Eric didn’t accidentally set Chelsea on fire when the lit the unity candle. Anyways, it was an honor to get to be a part of such an important day in Eric and Chelsea’s life.

After the wedding was finished, I got to spend the rest of the week with Greg and the Fox Family. It took Greg and I a few days to recover from the crazy busy weekend, so we mostly just read and played games. It was a nice change of pace. Later in the week, we got to go on an adventure to the Warren Dunes. It would be our luck that we chose to go to the beach on the hottest day of the year. The temperature made being in the water just that much more enjoyable, but the sand had to be a billion degrees. It must have been quite a site watching us walk from the water back to the parking lot. Our trip to the dunes reinforced my love of Lake Michigan, as well as gave me a fun sunburn. After a few more days at the Fox Den, I left the Mishawaka area for the last time. Well at least for a little while. 

Relatively Recent Ramblings (Part 2)

The last major event of May was working on the dessert theatre set. From what I remember it was really hot that week in the shop. Although, I guess that should be expected of a giant metal building sitting in the sun. We made some good progress with painting the shops and the doctor’s house. I am very thankful for everyone who came out and helped.

Once I returned home, I began my job search. I sent out about fourteen cover letters for a variety of theatre jobs. I also filled out about half dozen or so applications for places like Sears and Kmart. Sending out cover letters can be a very depressing process. It involves hours of searching for places to send letters to, hours of personalizing letters to those places, and then hours of waiting. Job searching is a full time job in itself.     

By the time June rolled around, I finally had some success in my job search. I had a phone interview with a theatre in Florida for an internship. The Friday before I left to return Bethel, I received a phone call and was offered the internship. After thinking about it over the weekend and talking to my loan companies, I officially accepted the offer on the following Monday. Overall, Dessert Theatre week went well. The set turned out good and I had a lot of time to spend on details, which I enjoyed. The best part of the week was simply getting to see everyone again.

The week after Dessert Theatre, I got to go with Jeanne and Greg to see Drew University. There are some very beautiful places between Mishawaka, Indiana and Madison, New Jersey. Having spent most of my time in Michigan and Indiana, I’m not used to seeing mountains very often. So it was amazing to see the mountains on our trip. In some ways it is just as amazing seeing how we have managed to make roads through them. Arriving at Drew felt like quite an accomplishment after being in the car for so long. I can only imagine how Jeanne felt after having driven for fourteen hours. Drew’s campus has a lot of character. It was exciting to get to see the building of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. We went in and asked (well Jeanne asked) if we could see the theatre and they let is take a peak. It was incredible! It would be really cool to see a show there one day. As we continued our tour, I was very surprised at how many squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs there were. I thought that Bethel had a lot of rodents, but it really doesn’t have anything on Drew University. The city of Madison seemed to have just as much character as Drew’s campus. We ate at the Nautilus, browsed a furniture store that was selling a 10,000 dollar couch, and hung out in a comic book store waiting for it to stop raining. It was a very neat experience getting to see where Greg is going to be living for the next couple years, and I’m really glad that Jeanne and Greg let me go along with them. 

Relatively Recent Ramblings (Part 1)

Well. It looks like I failed at keeping up with my blog . . . Alright. Yes, yet again. Although, in my defense I will say that senior year was by far the busiest I have ever been. Which is really quite an accomplishment to achieve, because I stayed pretty busy while at Bethel. In retrospect, it is hard to believe that I was able to fit so many activities into one year or for that matter into four years.

This summer has been incredibly different than I pictured. I’m not really sure why though. May was the busiest month of the summer. It started off with graduation, which is a very odd day. It almost seems like an anticlimactic end to four years of hard work, sleep deprivation, and DC food. I guess it’s really not fair to force one day to become more important than the 1,460 days that came before it. It’s really nothing more than a drop in the stream of time when compared to that. Although graduation day seemed short, it really is a marker in my life. It marked the day I wouldn’t get to live with my friends anymore, it marked the day that I entered into my grace period on my loans, it marked the day I stopped being an occupational student (For now at least. Who knows? Maybe grad school will be in my future one day. Regardless, I plan on being a life long learner.) Maybe the importance of the day isn’t so much in the 1,460 days that came before it, but rather in the possible 18,250 days that could follow it. 

After graduation, I went on choir tour in Michigan. It was a very bittersweet trip. In one way it was a trip of farewells and in another way it was like a homecoming. Growing up my family would spend part of the summer in Northern Michigan at my grandparent’s cottage. “Going up north” was always a highlight of the year. For a combination of different reasons, I hadn’t been up north in five years so I was excited to see Northern Michigan. A week before graduation marked the one-year anniversary of my grandma’s death and being in a place that spoke so much of her was a challenging celebration. It’s really amazing how many memories you can have attached to a place. Every day we would go somewhere or see something that brought about a flood of memories: the bridge in Charlevoix, the water tower in Mackinac, the Wal-Mart in Gaylord. I’m sure this crosses over into New Age-iness but bare with me. The memories made the places seem almost sacred. (Yes, I know it’s weird to think of a Wal-Mart as being sacred.) I guess the reason that the places felt sacred was that they served as a tool to connect me to someone that significantly impacted my life. To the person who taught me to love games, to the person who taught me to sew, to cook, to drink coffee, and who is a missed friend.  That is what made the places important. It was a trip to remember old memories and to make new ones with new friends, Ubbie Dubbie, sitting on a breakwater, and even climbing a mountain.