Quarter-Life Crisis

MY REAL BLOG! I missed you! The trip blog was fun, but I enjoy my old blog more.

Let's start with the way all good blogs should start.

Word of the...um....the last couple weeks: America. America is a big place with a lot of white people that speak fast English. Amazing that a place like that actually exists, huh? Yeah, I thought so too.

Before I talk about life at all, I have a statement to make. If this is your first time stumbling across my blog and you haven't kept up with it/don't know me at all, please don't judge what I say. There are a lot of jokes in here that make more sense when you actually know me. I discovered recently that my blog was read by people who didn't know me and assumed that I was a little---well, creepy. That's the downside to blogs. From now on, I'll be a little more careful. I say a lot of things I don't mean because they are funny.

So America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. I've spent the last couple weeks trying to catch up with my friends and family, of course.

We'll begin with family. My mom got kind of buff. My sister got taller than me--stupid 14-year-old growth spurt. My brother got a car (excuse me?!?!?!). Dad's off this week, so yesterday we (family) went on a five mile hike and now my legs hurt. On Monday he took me on a date. Most dads aren't that cool. Last week we had a Hammer family reunion (mom's side--obviously) and I reacquired my southern roots with bar-be-que sandwiches and an accent to boot.

Friends. I really like having them. I hung out with Grace for my first couple days back. I got to see Lisa and Alyssa at the Mall of Georgia. Sarah, Rachel, and I had a very silly sleepover. I've seen Morgan at least three times in the last week. Rejoice is getting married, which is weird. Britney and Laurel both already got married. Morgan introduced me to her two gay friends, and we had a really fun time last night. I feel popular.

Since I'm here til the 24th, I'm trying to get somewhat involved in La Puerta, an outreach for foreign university students that come to work in Pigeon Forge for the summer. I've only been able to go twice so far, but it's fun getting to talk to the university students.

In two days I will be twenty. August sixth. My my. I must be hitting my quarter-life crisis or something. I'm a grown-up....but I'm not. I'm actually convinced that I'll never be a real grown-up. But I've gotten to that age where I can call everybody by their first name, and that's very strange. "So, Mrs Bea--I mean, Ruth, I was thinking..." What's even weirder is that I'm hitting the age where my friends are starting to get engaged and married. I want to say, "Hold on, weren't we just in high school? What are you doing??" I'm also getting closer to the part of my life where I have to figure out what I'm actually going to do with it....but I still have two more years to explore the possibilities. I have, however, decided on four things:

1) I want to be a teacher. I don't want to do it every year of my life, but I would like to do it for several of them.
2) I want to adopt a child from a foreign country.
3) I want to write funny children's books.
4) I want a dog.

Hurray for life goals!

Song of the day: Whatever by Steven Curtis Chapman