I'm finally mostly settled into my new place, and today while driving through the cool 100 degree weather, I began dreaming of glistening rain and sparkling flowers from North Carolina. Plus, my mailbox here is not nearly as cool as some of the ones I saw back in NC.
I dearly miss North Carolina. As my time there came to a close, I realized how much I absolutely loved it.
The land. The people. The experience.
The Land
It's beautiful there. I've shown that beauty in past blogs. I have loved seeing the 4 seasons. I've never experienced 4 concrete seasons like I did in North Carolina. The first time I saw a firefly was last summer. Granted, it was in Maryland, but close enough. We had a campfire going, and I thought sparks from the campfire were going towards the grass. When I was told they were bugs, I was so excited!
The People
The people I met there were the best. Strangers were often quite friendly, and acquaintances quickly became friends. Due to the small size of the groups I was a member of, I feel I've made a strong connection with many people. For example, at school, there were three other US students in the same (or similar) program as me. We spent many hours on homework together. As grueling as that sounds, being together made doing the homework somewhat enjoyable. At church, having a smaller group helped me to get to know everyone. We often had parties where everyone was invited. There was always something to do.
The Experience
The combination of the people, the culture, and the land was a rewarding experience I never imagined possible. I hope to go back and visit someday soon. I'll try to take advantage of my free flights. Now if only I had more than 5 vacation days this year. Although, if anyone wants to visit me, I have 8 discount tickets for other people to use (standby).
And finally, here are some of the neat mailboxes I found a few weeks ago.
A few weeks ago, I started watching the TV show, Pushing Daisies off of theWB.com. I immediately fell in love with all of the dresses the main girl wore, so I tried to find some like it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any quite like them though I did find a few that I liked. However, these dresses were priced much too high for one that I wasn't certain I was in love with. Also a few weeks ago, I read a book called Into the Wild Nerd Yonder. I enjoyed the book but only because I immediately connected with the main character and her joy for math. She spent her summer sewing a lot of skirts---one for every occasion. On the first day of school she wore a skirt with pencils and rulers on it. While I don't think I could ever go that extreme, it gave me the desire to make a skirt for myself. Then a few days ago, I was watching another episode of Pushing Daisies, and I decided I could make a dress for myself too! Only problem, I've never really sewed before. I remember working on a quilt made from scraps of fabric when I was a child, but I never finished it, and I've never done much since then. Still, now that I'm done with school, I think I need to do something else with my life than work. So, I have a new goal. First, sew a simple skirt and maybe a few other things, and then design and sew (or just find a pattern I like) a pretty dress for myself. And hopefully since I have posted this goal for everyone to see, I'll actually do it.
