Summer: A Fond Farewell

Ah, summer. For the past 21 years of my life, I have had summers off, so I have come to consider myself somewhat of a summer vacation expert. (For those of you who have been teaching for much longer than I have, please note that I said "somewhat".) Though this summer didn't quite match up to the one that followed my first year of teaching (when I finally realized how SO MANY teachers can make it through each school year), it was still pretty darn good.
Whether it was watching a lightning storm from a camp site on a mountain atop a beach in Crimea, sitting around the shashlik (like shish kebab) pit with my friend Annmarie's host family, or singing camp songs at an unnecessarily loud volume, I was pretty much always having a good time this summer. Of course, all of this would be much easier for you, the reader living many, many miles away, to grasp if I had some pictures to illustrate my experiences, but, well, you'll just have to wait a bit longer for those, dear friends. Because I totally forgot to put them on my flash drive and I'm pretty much just killing time while I send some other, non-related pictures via email (and that takes way longer than I thought it would).
Still, as I start to make my phone calls around town to start putting together some kind of schedule for myself this semester, I thought it only proper that I take a moment to reflect on the fact that I had a lovely little summer, complete with old friends and new friends, and just enough drama to keep things interesting without anyone being killed, contracting a serious disease, or completely embarassing our country. All in all, a successful three months.

NOTE: I finally uploaded some summer photos. See them for yourself:

Summer 2007