My best friend Marsha got married August 9th.

I was a bridesmaid! Marsha and Michael (the new husband) let me stay with them while I was there. I arrived in Louisiana earlier than her Maid of Honor, so I helped her get ready for the wedding and set up the church with her parents. The day of the wedding was crazy! Us girls went to get our hair done an hour and a half before we went to the church….that was not long enough. We got to the church late, which meant the men got to the church late because we had to be there first. Somehow, the ring bearer’s suit and the flower girls’ dresses got locked in a room that no one had a key to. Marsha’s dad cut his hand really deeply on the door while he was trying to force it open (he had to get stitches after the wedding). I was in charge of the two year old ring bearer, which means I held his hand down the aisle and had to coax him out of the bride’s spot where he decided it would be best to stand. He also thought it would be fun to step on the bride’s train and run around behind the preacher….. Then, after the wedding, the newly married couple realized they had left their marriage certificate at home. The groomsman had to go and retrieve it so that the wedding pictures could commence. At the reception, some crazy person put me in charge of cutting the groom’s cake….which was chocolate….and covered in chocolate-covered strawberries…..I told everyone that they would be lucky to get any.  And then I destroyed it. 

It is not smart to put me in charge of cutting a cake….it was not pretty when I was finished.  There weren’t many single men and women to catch the garter and bouquet: only four boys and five girls. Marsha threw the bouquet practically straight to my sister. 

 She didn’t want it. Marsha and Michael went to Vicksburg, MS for two days after their wedding and I got to stay at their place alone. I decided that, since I was running low on money, I would clean her house as a wedding gift. So when they went on their two day honeymoon, I cleaned. I cleaned their bathroom, kitchen, dining room, desk, and living room (I didn’t venture into the bedroom). I wasn’t there when they came home, but they said they were afraid they had gone into the wrong apartment. The cleanliness lasted until they opened their wedding gifts, which, along with the boxes and papers and bags, were strewn all over the living room. I didn’t stay with them for much longer after they returned.

I arrived in Boca Raton last night at 6:00 pm. Trying to get here was a disaster! I actually left Louisiana (where I was for my friend’s wedding) on Saturday, August 16th. When I got to about Jackson, Mississippi, my car stopped accelerating. It refused to move into 4th gear, so I was going down the highway at 40mph trying to get to an exit. I started calling everyone in my family and everyone I know in Louisiana, trying to get ideas about what to do. I didn’t know if I should call a tow or have someone pick me up.

Fortunately, my sister knew someone (our friend Phillip) who knew someone who had a trailer. Phillip drove all the way to Jackson, picked up me and my car, and drove me back to Louisiana. I stayed with me for the next week while we tried to figure out what was wrong with my car and how to fix it. It turns out that running over that piece of metal in Virginia had done more damage than I thought. It dented my catilitic converter so badly that it was stopped up, and that was causing my lack of acceleration.

Again, I was fortunate in that Phillip and one of his friends were able to fix my car, and I didn’t have to have it taken to a garage. The same night, I was taking my sister home, and when I tried to turn off my car, it wouldn’t shut off. I pulled the key out of the ignition, and it still wouldn’t go off. I called Phillip, and he unplugged the battery…. The car was still on. He finally had to unplug a cylinder to get it to shut down. We took it to a Chevy dealer soon after for them to fix it. The car would not do it for them. It worked perfectly fine. We were all so frustrated with my car by this time. I decided to wait a few days to see if it would act up again, but it didn’t.

But by the time it was fixed and running smoothly (well, mostly smoothly–a little louder), Hurricane Faye was hovering over South Florida. Everyone thought it was best if I didn’t leave right away.  So I stayed and hung out with people that I’ve known for years, but haven’t seen in a long time (I’ll blog more about them soon).

So, finally, everything was working and Faye had subsided a bit. I decided I would leave again on Tuesday, August 26th. I left at 9 am and I soon as I got down the street, I got a phone call from Phillip. He said to turn around; there was a pipe hanging from the bottom of my car and he saw it as I pulled out of the driveway. So I came back, he took it somewhere and bolted the pipe up and I left around 12:30 with no further interruptions or disasters. I am so relieved that my car didn’t break down again somewhere that no one could help me. Now, I don’t have to worry about anything for a while except going back to work and moving onto campus (yay!) on the 6th.

Hey all! I haven’t blogged in a while and I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to actually be able to. It’s been busy! I’m in Louisiana, where my best friend just got married, and I don’t have the constant access to the internet that I’m used to. As soon as I do again, I will blog all about my adventures down here. You’ll just have to be patient for a little while longer!

I set out on my first road trip alone this morning at 8 am. My best friend is getting married on August 9th, and I’m her bridesmaid, so I set out for Louisiana. My car is packed to the brim with everything I need to go back to Lynn, because I’m going straight to Boca soon after the wedding.

The trip started out great (except for a short 3 times in Jersey, where I got lost). Then, in Pulaski, Virginia, I ran over a huge hunk of metal at 70mph.

Not healthy for my car.

I had no idea what to do. Having never owned a car, I had never been in this situation. My closest family is over 200 miles away (with family in Maryland and Tennessee, I would, naturally, get stuck between the two), and I don’t know who to call or where to go for help. A trucker pulled over ahead of me to help, and a cop showed up behind me, so I wasn’t clueless for long. The cop found out where the metal had come from because the trucker whose truck it had fallen off of pulled over to drag the metal off the road. He was able to get the trucker’s information to give to me to give to my insurance company.  He also called a tow truck for me. I’m going to call them in the morning and find out the damage done to my car. Then, the cop brought me to a hotel. I haven’t been in a police car since I was 8 (I ran away from home), so it was an interesting ride.

Now I’m sitting at a Comfort Inn in the middle of nowhere Virginia with family calling me every few minutes to make sure I’m okay and see if they can do anything to help. I won’t know anything else tomorrow, so wish me luck. I hope my damage is minimal!

For a year and a half and the past two summers, I’ve been working at Kumon Learning Center, one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had. The program helps students learn math and reading from Levels A to O (I think). Each letter represents a higher level. Many students complete the entire program. When I first started, this Kumon was pretty young, only about two years old, so it hadn’t had time to gain many students. Over the years, though, it has grown so much! Once upon a time, there were three of us working there, and there was so little work that we could sit around and read (a fact that I took full advantage of, of course). Now, there are seven of us and my boss’s husband is expanding the building because we’re running out of space (it’s a small building).

My job is to grade worksheets that the students do daily and to help them when they need it. I used to just mostly help reading students, but since I’m only back for the summer, I go where I’m needed. Unfortunately, I’ve been needed at the math tables most of the summer. As a very devoted English major, math is not my best subject. In fact, I’ve been rejoicing that I took my last math class ever second semester of freshman year. Fortunately, most of the students are doing pretty easy math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and reducing fractions. However, it is there that my expertise ends. When the students start adding/subtracting fractions, I generally have to pass them along to someone else to help them. A few of the students have advanced to algebra, which I can usually help with. One student has advanced so far, though, that he’s at a level I never sufficiently learned. Have I mentioned that he’s going into 6th grade? He’s doing math that I didn’t start learning until 9th grade! It’s hard to believe that such a young kid has reached a level that a college student can’t help him with. 

Despite my difficulty with some parts of the job, it has been amazing. It has reinforced my lifelong ambition to teach (I’m limiting myself to English, though!). I know it will be great for my resume that I already have teaching experience, but it also taught me so much. It helps me with patience, impartiality, and coming up with innovative ways to teach a student a difficult concept. The benefits I’ve recieved from this job are innumerable. My advice to college students, or even high school students: find a job that will provide you with valuable skills in the career you plan to follow. Not only will you already have the skills necessary for the job, but it will also assist you in acquiring the job by improving your resume. I know mine has!

As Ashlea pointed out to me, I haven’t blogged in a while. That’s because I have nothing to blog about! That comes as a result of my somewhat empty life right now. My days consist of sitting around on my bed, watching movies on my laptop and the occasional meeting with the stove. I thought that was the ideal summer for the college student….I was wrong.

Something interesting happened today, however. My sister left for college. Mom is driving her down to Louisiana, and my little brother went with them. My grandparents are away for the week in Mexico for my cousin’s wedding. That leaves me. With an empty house. I think I’m in heaven. And no, not because I’m going to have amazing parties that get the cops called on me (you have to know people to have parties), but because I’m alone. There’s just something about being alone that motivates me to do something. Remember spring break? On the bright side, I have my dogs to talk to this time!

So what’s my plan for my week of freedom? Not too clear on that one. I will, however, be cleaning (again). Lots and lots of cleaning. Now that my sister has vacated what used to be our room but turned into her room and is now my room again (for another 2 weeks), I can finally clean up her mess. I would have done it earlier, but like I said, being alone motivates me. My only responsibilities this week include going to my job (fortunately, I still have the tutoring gig) and taking care of my dogs (I REALLY hope I don’t forget to feed them!). Hopefully, the week (and the rest of the summer) will be interesting enough (in a boring sort of way) for me to have something to blog about

Siblings have a special bond–one that involves lots of teasing. Me and my sister’s relationship is based entirely on teasing, I’m sure. Now that Christopher is old enough, he and I sort of gang up on her. But apparently, I’ve taught him too well…

My little brother pulled a trick on me today that I’ve been pulling on my sister for years. She finally lost some of her gullibility and it doesn’t work anymore, but it looks like my level of gullibility has increased. Mom was telling us today that we need to let the dogs out. She let one out, and when he was ready to come in, Christopher yelled to me, “Jana, mom said let the dog in!” I waited a minute (pushing my luck, as daughters like to do), and waited until Christopher said, “Fine I’ll do it!” I told him not to, that I would do it, so I went downstairs and let the dog in. When I came back upstairs, Mom said, “You know, I told him to do that.” I was dumbstruck. This little 11 year old just tricked me into doing something he was supposed to do! I couldn’t believe it. I never get tricked by my younger siblings. I do the tricking.  I’m the oldest; I’m supposed to know all the tricks! I guess being at college all year without them has made me a little rusty.

So Amber is officially graduated! The entire family is very proud of her.

As luck would have it, she sat on one side of the stadium while we were in the fourth row of the other side of the stadium. My mom spent the entire graduation standing on her side of the stadium just so she could get pictures of Amber walking.

Poor Christopher was so bored (well, to tell the truth, so was I, but I have more practice at acting interested. I wonder how differently I’ll look at a graduation when it’s my kids graduating…). He doodled throughout most of the ceremony to keep himself occupied.

He even tried to lay down and take a nap. And apparently he wasn’t the only one. Some of the graduates were napping in their seats, too, according to Amber. As exciting as actually, finally, graduating from high school is, the ceremony is always unbelievably boring. I remember at my graduation, I was fidgeting constantly. And I was in the front row, right behind the speakers. When the tape of graduation was played on local tv, everyone could see me moving my fingers constantly!

But anyway, I found one of the speakers to be very interesting. The mayor of Worcester spoke, and she compared the graduates to turtles: awkward and slow. No, I’m just kidding. She said that, like turtles, the graduates need to learn to stick their heads out to meet the challenges in life. They can’t hide in their shells. Another speaker accidentally called the ceremony a “commendment” rather than “commencement.” I caught the mistake, but thought it was appropriate nonetheless. The graduates deserve to be commended for making it out of high school. I was surprised to hear no one say “We did it!” or “You did it!” I was glad, though. I think it’s an overused and cliched phrase when it comes to graduations.

Congratulations to all of the graduates of 2008 and good luck in the future!

My little sister is graduating from high school tonight! My dad and stepmother flew here from England for the graduation, and my Mamaw and Aunt are here from Tennessee. Unfortunately, since her graduating class is so big, she only received six tickets. Three people will be sitting out. We tried to get more tickets, but those little suckers are scarce! We went to the school to beg for more, and I even asked a guy I work with at Kumon if he knew anyone with extras. He didn’t; apparently everyone is having the same problem as us. My mom, brother, dad, stepmom, Mamaw, and I will be watching her graduate while my grandparents and aunt wait at a nearby restaurant. Afterwards, we’ll probably all go out to dinner. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and even post a few. I’m still having a hard time believing that my little sister, the 5 feet tall brat, is actually graduating when she still gets kid’s menus at restaurants!

Starting in the fall, Amber will be going to Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana. We used to live in Bossier and she’s knows a lot of people who are going there for school. She can’t wait to be near her old friends again. She has orientation in July and school starts in August. She’s just planning on staying with a friend from July until school starts so that she doesn’t have to go back and forth.

If you’d like to know what we’re doing to prepare her for college or if you have any suggestions for us, please feel free to e-mail me: jfuson@email.lynn.edu. I’d love to hear from you!

Have I mentioned that I really need a job? I applied at a daycare center called Pokachoag Acres (I may have spelled it wrong; it’s a difficult word). I would make about $8.50 an hour and watch kids all day, which sounds like a good deal to me. I’m just waiting for my cori report to come back so that I can start. Unfortunately, it’s not really a full time position. I would be like a substitute, coming in when someone goes on vacation or calls in sick. So in the meantime, I went back to my old boss at Kumon Learning Center to see if I could get my old job. She gave me one for two weeks, because someone is on vacation. I don’t know if she has room for me after that. Besides, it’s only open for about 4 hours 3 days a week, and that’s not really not enough time to keep me occupied. I applied to a restaurant for a waitressing job out of desperation. The owner knows my grandparents pretty well, so I was hoping that would help me get the job. No luck so far. I suppose that’s alright because I’m really not the most graceful person in the world. I just thought the tips would be good. Luckily, I will be getting a paycheck sometime next week because of working at Kumon, but I really need to start working regularly. I’m not used to being lazy!