Yakima

Currently reading: Seeds of Hope, The Pearl, Lots of teaching stuff

Please excuse any mild cursing of technology that may occur in this post. I've moved up to Yakima at this point, and the internet here is sporadic to say the best. So I typed up a lovely long post for this and then went to publish it and the internet conked out and my post was lost forever to cyberspace. The real kicker is that I knew it was going to happen and thought to myself "Self, maybe I should save this in Microsoft word or something". I should listen to my own good advice sometimes.

So yesterday morning I packed up my lovely Dodge Intrepid, which FYI, has an incredible amount of trunk space, and drove three and a half hours up to Yakima. It was a pretty pleasant drive, and I left well before the heat, which was also a good call. I've discovered the hard way that my car REALLY does not like the heat.

The last week in Portland was a lot of fun, but as a result of said fun, I kind of look like I've been beaten. MJ, one of the girls in the program's house down there, and I did all sorts of Portland-y things. We hiked a waterfall, adding an assortment of bruises to my legs, took a fast food tour of the city, went to a cowboy swing concert, took some tourist pictures at a mansion overlooking Portland, and did a slip'n'slide in the back yard...hence a ton of bruises. My one arm is in pretty bad shape in terms of cuts, bruises and general pain, but it was definitely worth it.

I also had a chance to see the Ruffner brothers in Portland. We wandered around the town together, and I got to see some parts of the city I hadn't seen before. It was a lot of fun just to hang out for a few hours with people I already know. :) We walked a lot and ate some West Coast pizza, and just had a generally sunny afternoon. I was hot and tired afterwards, and my car overheated on the way home, which was not a whole lot of fun.

So the plan for today is to finish settling in here in my room and trying not to make it look like a hurricane struck. Tomorrow and Tuesday will most likely be spent at the school, putting my classroom in order and adding some personal touches. If anyone has a map of New Jersey they'd like to add to the endeavor, I would appreciate it very much. I want to make sure that the Garden State is appropriately represented.

I miss you all tons. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.