I finally came up to Maine for the summer this past Monday. Yesterday was my first day of work, and today was my first double shift of the season – that’s a full ten hours of misery.

This is my fourth summer working at the gift shop. It was my first job ever, the summer before my senior year of high school when I was sixteen. It is certainly a good first summer job for a teenager, but I am now far past that (mostly because the paychecks hardly meet my needs anymore). I really should have found a new, better job by now, but all I can say for myself is that I have just been too lazy to embark on a new job search. I really don’t have much of a right to complain, but, in my own typical fashion, I will anyway.

My boss owns three stores: a surf/swim shop, a gift shop, and a woman’s clothing shop, all of which are very small and specifically designed to attract tourists. I have always worked in the gift shop, which was located in the larger of the three stores, squished between an ice cream store and a restaurant. The woman’s clothing store was located, quite literally, in a tiny shack on the corner of the road. In a brave attempt to maximize sales, this season my boss decided to swap the gift shop and the woman’s clothing store, so that the gift shop is now located in the tiny shack. This is where I am condemned to work.

The store is so small that there is hardly any room to walk around, and the area behind the desk is so cramped that my only possible movement is an awkward 360 degree spin. There is no chair, so I must stand in this tiny spot for my entire shift. Obviously, ten-hour double shifts are particularly brutal for this reason. The best word to describe this atmosphere is claustrophobic.

This is the essential breakdown of what I do during my shift: I stand around, waiting for the rare customer to buy something. In order to amuse myself I’ll either read a book or work on any of the three puzzle books I bought specially for work (Sudoku, word search, and crosswords). Luckily, I am able to play my own music on my iPod stereo, which is a small comfort. I am supposed to regularly tidy up the store and make sure everything is properly on its shelf, but I rarely do this unless it is absolutely necessary (again, this is where my laziness comes in). Sometimes, when a customer asks, I’ll have to give them the price of an item, fetch a decorative wall plaque down for them, help them find a shirt in a specific size, and so on. Usually, though, my interaction with customers is limited to ringing up and bagging their items, and then giving them their change.

In short, my job is horribly boring. My hope before I began working was that going to work would make time pass faster because it would give me something to do. Instead, it’s the complete opposite – it only makes time pass slower. I am constantly checking the time and wishing I could be elsewhere, and the puzzle books do little to amuse me. Summer is such a drag.

This week I received my financial aid package for my junior year at college. For a while this caused a fair amount of stress for me as the package was relatively meager: it consisted of merely two federal loans and zilch from my school. This was an unwelcome change from last year, where I had more grants – free money! – than loans. The worst change, though, was the absence of a work-study award, which I had gotten last year. Work-study, based on financial need, is where the federal government gives the university a certain amount of money (usually $900 per semester) on the chosen student’s behalf as part of his or her financial aid package. The student then obtains a job off campus in order to earn this money.

Last year I got the ideal student job with my work-study. My official title was “Office Assistant” at the Legal Studies office, but I think a more appropriate title is “Desk Sitter.” I was supposed to do typical office jobs such as making copies, filing, sorting mail, and so on, but 90% of the time there was nothing to do. Instead, I usually found myself doing homework or fooling around at the computer at my desk. Essentially, I was paid $9.25 an hour to do my homework. Not a bad deal, really.

When I viewed my financial aid package for this upcoming year and saw that I had not been awarded a work-study, I was pretty upset. I’m sure it would not be too difficult to find a non-work-study job on campus, but I was not too keen on letting this ideal job go.

This morning I called the Financial Aid office fully planning on begging the operator to give me work-study, but I certainly didn’t expect to get any results. Instead, all I had to do was display a minor amount of desperation, and she went ahead and added a work-study award to my account. It was that easy! I was endlessly relieved, but I am also left to wonder why they didn’t just give it to me in the first place.

I suppose I should be more worried about the fact that I was not given any grants this year. To be honest, though, that isn’t even on my radar now. My mother deals with all of my bills, including obtaining outside loans, so I am really not a part of the process (which is odd, since it is my education, after all). I am fully aware that six months after graduation I will be suddenly thrust into the bill-paying process when I am finally forced to begin paying off my student loans. I just try not to think about that because I know how menacing that whole process will be.

Flipping through the pictured booklet, I’ve realized how daunting the process of paying off my student loans will really be. Not only that, but the whole idea of student loans itself is enough to make me want to find a hole to hide in, permanently. For example, a $15,000 loan with 120 payments at an interest rate of 6.8% will accrue $5,660.26 worth of interest. That’s more than one third the original loan amount! Through only two years of college I have already racked up over $17,000 worth of debt, so by the time I have graduated I expect to owe somewhere around $40,000 to a combination of private loan companies and the federal government. This doesn’t even include interest. And I attend a public university!

The cost of attending college is truly shocking. My [public!] university is just under $20,000 per year, not including personal expenses (i.e. books, dorm supplies, etc). Back when I was shopping around for colleges and looking at the already sky-high price tags, it never once occurred to me that I should also consider the unavoidable and equally pricey interest charges on private loans. I turned down three other private colleges that had all given me impressive financial aid packages – one of which had awarded me with a prestigious $10,000 per year merit scholarship – in order to attend a public university that would be half the price, even after all of the free money the private schools had basically thrown at me. Yet, I am still floored by the amount of debt I will be saddled with upon graduation.

Moving to Sweden is looking more and more appealing.

Scott finally came to visit me this weekend. I had been looking forward to this ever since we left school over three weeks ago, so, as you can imagine, I was incredibly excited when my mother and I drove to pick him up at the bus station. It’s always a little awkward when I see him for the first time after being apart for so long – it’s almost like, for just a few moments, it’s the very beginning of the relationship again, where I can’t quite think of what to say and I can do absolutely nothing to contain my goofy grin. Of course, this initial hesitation is quickly long forgotten once we’ve hugged and kissed, and once I’ve touched him just enough to realize that, yes, he really is standing right there in front of me, finally.

On Saturday I borrowed my mother’s car for a few hours so he and I could get out of the house together. We chose to go bowling (cute, no?). We had gone together once before, and overall I didn’t enjoy it too much simply because I was so awful at it. The bowling ball was just too heavy! This time, however, I decided to take Scott to my local candlepin bowling alley. The idea was that this would be more fun because I was more familiar with this style of bowling since I grew up with it, whereas I had only gone regular ten-pin bowling once or twice before and was not accustomed to the gigantic bowling balls. While I did not do any better this time around, Scott fared much worse (though still not quite as poorly as me) and thus did not enjoy the game so much. We made up for this by playing (read: cheating at) the arcade games and turning in our wads of tickets for delicious candy. After going out for equally delicious ice cream and picking up some pizza for dinner, we headed home and spent the rest of the night simply hanging out together and watching movies.

We spent most of today being perfectly lazy and playing cards in my room. The worst part of the day arrived much too soon, as it always does, and I teared up a bit when we said goodbye at the station. It will be another three and a half weeks or so until he visits me again, at which time I will be in Maine. He will be staying for an extra day then, so I am eagerly looking forward to that.

One of the most frustrating things about life, to me, is that when you really want time to pass quickly, it goes by much slower, and when you really want time to slow down so that you can savor every moment, it only passes faster. This weekend was over in a blink of an eye, whereas previous weekends, where I have had nothing to do, move by achingly slow. Scott has repeatedly reassured me that the next three and a half weeks will fly by, but I am skeptical. I can’t help but stare at the clock and wait for each passing minute that is between the next time he will visit again.

Regardless of its brevity, this weekend was wonderful. Being that I have never experienced a relationship at all like this before, it is incredible to me that one person can have such an impact on all aspects of my life. I am truly a much happier person when he is around. For instance, I actually did not log anything that I ate this weekend on Calorie Count the whole time that he was here, which is rather unbelievable. Granted, I did keep a rough count of the calories in my head to ensure that I stayed on track, but I was not so consumed with counting calories that it was always weighing heavily on my mind, as it usually is now. Instead, I rarely thought about it at all.

Now that he is gone again, though, I have returned to my pre-visit state of malaise, anxiety, and general discontent with this drag of a summer. I am hoping that, once I go up to Maine in one week, time will seem to pass faster, thus bringing me closer to his next visit.

Before I began my diet, this was my standard serving size of delicious Oreo cookies, if not more. Now, my serving size is about one fifth of this, if I can even allow myself any at all. Today, though, I cheated. I simply could not control myself: I opened the cabinet to get some cereal when, alas, I saw the box of Double Stuf Peanut Butter Oreos. Ignoring the cereal, I grabbed the box of Oreos and peeled back the opening – just to admire how they looked, of course. Salivating, I took five out of the package, originally only to photograph for this blog entry. Minutes into my little photoshoot, however, I had become completely intoxicated by the wonderful chocolaty aroma, and before I knew it I had eaten three cookies. I am weak.

Two weeks ago I wrote this post about how optimistic I was about my diet because it was going so well. I no longer feel quite the same way. Lately my diet has been completely consuming my life. My day revolves around what I’ve eaten so far, what and when I can eat next, how much of each particular food I can eat, and, most of all, keeping track of each and every calorie. I think I may have crossed the line into diet obsession.

I miss the freedom of being able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I do not, however, miss the body that came along with that. Even so, this obsession with counting calories is really wearing me out. I have never payed so much attention to food in my life, and it is truly draining. Similarly, I have never craved food so much in my life. I am certainly not starving myself, of course; I have learned enough through dieting to know that barely eating is not productive in terms of weight loss (yes, I was surprised to learn this, too – it’s actually a lot more complicated than just eating less). So, I am not craving food simply because I am starving; instead, I am craving food because I am so used to stuffing my gut with any and all food that is put in front of me.

Limiting your daily caloric intake from an excessive amount to a healthy amount can really be a tough transition, as I have learned. I realize, now, what I was missing before: I never really appreciated what I was eating. I would eat and eat, but I didn’t take the time to savor the taste. Now, I enjoy almost everything that I eat, and I appreciate every flavor that hits my palate. Yes, I liked fruit before, but now I adore it – melons and berries and the like are a staple of my diet. I even actually like baby carrots, whereas before they tasted fairly bland and boring. In addition, any kind of dessert (including Oreos) is a thousand times better than it was before, even though my portions are now at least one quarter of the size that they used to be. Now, three Oreos may actually be – dare I say it – enough!

I suppose that, in the end, this particular entry is just as optimistic as the previous. Yes, I may be struggling with it now, but who ever said dieting was easy (well, I guess I sort of did, in that previous post, but I think I was delusional)? My problem now is that I am thinking too much about dieting and food. In the rare moments when my mind is not focused on eating, I’m perfectly fine. There is a lesson I can learn from that.

In any case, all of my struggles are completely worth it when I stand in front of the mirror and I actually like my body. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way before, and I’ve certainly never been excited to show off a bikini on the beach. My efforts have not gone to waste; in fact, they have given me almost exactly what I was hoping for. No pain, no gain (or loss, in this case), right?

I have been so utterly bored lately that I’ve resorted to completing small, unimportant tasks to pass the time. This morning it was painting my toenails, which will likely be the highlight of my day, as I have utterly nothing else to do. My only concern at this point is getting to the weekend as quickly as possible, which can be rather difficult when there is literally not a single thing to be done. Summer is such a drag.

This weekend, though, will be different: Scott is visiting! It will have been three weeks since we left school, which is the longest we’ve had to go without seeing each other. This is particularly difficult, given that we are used to being only a few doors down from each other. Unfortunately this idea of only being able to see each other once a month until the summer is over is just something that I’m going to have to get used to. It is slowly getting easier with time, aided by the fact that, for some reason, the days seem to be passing fairly quickly, somehow despite the fact that each day I am consumed only with watching the minutes pass.

In any case, this weekend should be really great. Simply being able to hang out with each other is always enough, but Scott and I do have a few activities planned so we can get out of the house. This includes going out to eat (hopefully at least once, and fast food restaurants don’t count), and going bowling. I will probably end up regretting the bowling decision because I am just so awful at it and I really don’t enjoy it much at all, but at this point I am just so eager to get out of the house that I’d probably have fun doing anything as long as it doesn’t involve sitting around and watching TV alone. While these are significant events on the itinerary, I expect that much of the remainder of our time will be filled with the requisite boyfriend/girlfriend activities (wink wink, nudge nudge).

In two weeks I’ll be going up to Maine for the summer, which is also something to look forward to because I will begin work. While of course it’s not the actual work I’m looking forward to, it’s the fact that going to work will, at least, give me something to do each day. I also have a few friends up in Maine, which will sometimes give me things to do while I’m not working. In a nutshell, I actually have somewhat of a life when I am up in Maine, whereas when I am home here, I am simply taking up space on the couch (don’t be fooled though, – I’ll still spend a significant time doing just that in Maine, too).

Anyway, I suppose the main point of this blog entry is that if I’m going to spend the next two weeks of my life wasting away on the couch, at least I will have pretty toenails while doing it.

A week ago I received in the mail my final paper that I had written for my Honors course. I had slaved away for weeks researching and then writing the paper, and it turned out to be the longest I’ve ever written, as far as I can remember: 16 full pages, double-spaced. While I expected an A on the paper and an A in the class in general, I was still very eager to get this paper back, completely corrected and with comments. I always appreciate getting feedback on projects that I have worked so hard on, and this paper was no exception.

Anyway, I finally received the paper in the mail, and, lo and behold, I had gotten an A both on the paper and in the class, much to my delight. On top of this, my grades for the rest of my classes were released several days later, and I was very excited and proud to find that I had gotten my very first 4.0. While half of my classes this semester were quite easy, the other half I really did have to put a lot of work into, and it certainly paid off. I am rather impressed with myself. I accomplished this completely on my own, and no one had to do any of it for me.

This was also the case with my other major accomplishment this past semester – being offered my ideal internship. This was another thing that I had achieved completely on my own. I found the internship myself, completed all of the application materials and wrote the cover letter, and impressed during the phone interview. Granted, I do owe a lot to Scott as he helped review my cover letter to make sure it was sufficient and he reassured me when I thought I’d bombed the phone interview, but it was, overall, my own accomplishment.

This is a rather significant step for me because, for much of my life, I have relied on other people to help me in any and all areas of my life. I am only now truly becoming independent (save for finances, I suppose, as even though I have my own jobs I do depend heavily on my mother financially, which I assume most college students my age do). I enjoy being able to accomplish things on my own, and I am rather proud of myself. It would seem that I am actually growing up! I do hope this trend continues.

I went to my very first Boston Red Sox game yesterday. It is pathetic that of all my nearly twenty years of living in Massachusetts, I had never had the pleasure of attending a Red Sox game. I’ve wanted to go, but my family has never been a huge sports family. My dad has always been into sports, especially football, but we never actually went to any games, save for a minor league baseball game in Maine. For the past few years I’ve been begging my parents to take us to a Red Sox game, and I guess my mom finally listened because she bought us tickets when they went on sale a few months ago.

Fenway is located partly on Lansdowne Street in Boston, which, up until recently, was also home to two nightclubs, Avalon and Axis, which would hold gigs for somewhat unknown bands that are usually just breaking out. I saw Incubus at Avalon over a year ago, for example, when they decided to tour small venues for their most dedicated fans upon the release of their album “Light Grenades.” Anyway, often when I would go to see a concert at either of these clubs, it would coincide with the date and time of a home game at Fenway. So, when I’d walk to the club from the subway, I’d be walking in with the Red Sox fans, and I’d be walking out with them when both the concert and the game had ended. Sometimes I’d even find myself wishing that I was going to the Red Sox game instead of the concert (which is pretty significant, coming from a zealous music fan). It was as if I was missing out on something important that I desperately wanted to be a part of.

A large part of the appeal of going to a Red Sox game at Fenway is the feeling of belonging to a sort of community of people. There is an overwhelming sense of togetherness, where nearly everyone in the park is rooting for the same team, and everyone seems to understand each other because of that fact. Immediately upon entering the park I noticed how friendly everyone was. Everyone was excited to be there, anxiously waiting for the game to start. When an impressive play was made by a Red Sox player, fans would jump up and high-five complete strangers. This idea is completely new to me, but I felt at home right away.

It was really everything that I expected and more. I loved (and hated, for the sake of my diet) the vendors that would walk around with Fenway Franks (which were absolutely delicious, by the way), peanuts, Cracker Jacks, ice cream, cotton candy, and even chowder. It was just like the movies! Although I wish that the game had been a bit more exciting in the second half, and that there wasn’t a giant pole blocking part of my view of the field for most of the game, I had a great time. I have finally been initiated as a true Bostonian. I can’t wait to go back!

This was my third and final day of substituting (for now, until I am asked to come in again). It was especially boring because I only had to teach three 45-minute classes, which meant that I had a break from 9:45 to 12:30. I spent this awfully long period of time sitting at a cramped desk in the small and cluttered art closet with only a book to amuse myself. Normally I would have little trouble occupying myself with a novel for three hours, but today I was running on just over four hours of sleep (for many reasons, one of which includes a wet bed. No, I do not have incontinence issues, but my dog apparently does). I could barely get through a few minutes of reading before I began to nod off, so I took the only available option and rested my head on the desk to take an uncomfortable nap. I had mastered this style of desk-napping in high school but it is apparent now that I have fallen out of practice, given that I awoke from my half-sleep with a puddle of drool on a stack of papers (pleasant imagery, I know).

To say today was a long day is a bit of an understatement. I doubt it could have dragged on any slower. This is one feeling that I am quickly getting used to as these summer days wear on. I know that nearly all of my days over the next three months will be like this: slow, boring, lethargic. This will especially be the case when I begin work at the gift shop once I go up to Maine for the summer. That job is horribly, mind-numbingly boring. One can only do Sudokus for so long before beginning to entertain fantasies of plunging a pencil in both eyes.

This is one of two reasons why I yearn for a new summer job (the other being that I do not earn nearly enough money with this one). I still scan Craigslist daily in hopes of finding something promising, but I know it is too late in the season at this point for anything worthwhile to materialize.

Perhaps the worst part of this summer drag is that it’s only been a week and a half since I returned home from school. From the way I’ve been talking about how bored I am, you’d assume that it’s been quite a while. Sadly, that is not the case. In fact, compared to how much time I have left to go, the time passed so far is barely even noticeable.

Overall, all summer is to me is a series of countdowns to the next anticipated event. When I can go home from work for the day, when I will be able to go out with my friends, when I will get my paycheck, and so on, the two biggest being when Scott will visit, and when I will return to school for the fall semester (though this is also in conjunction with the previous). All of these events that give me some sort of happiness and relief are few and far between. As a result, on any day where nothing special is happening (which is the vast majority of my summer days), I am consumed with anticipation for the next thing that I can look forward to. I would really rather not live my life this way, where time drags on and I only want that day to go by faster just so I can start getting through the next one. I would like to enjoy each day as they come and not be tortured by every day that is between what I am looking forward to, but I am not sure how to achieve this when what I want is both so physically and chronologically far away.

This photo was actually taken one week ago today, my first day of substituting. I would have taken a fresh photograph today (and I also would have blogged much more frequently during the past week), but, unfortunately, my camera is currently (I hope) being tinkered on by whomever Best Buy hires to do their warranty repairs. I should get it back as early as one week from now, so until then I will probably and unfortunately not be able to blog. For now, this leftover picture from last week will have to make due as I have been itching to blog for a while.

Today was my second day of substituting this month. This was the day I was originally supposed to come in, as I spoke of in a previous entry. Luckily, I will be paid for both days. I will also be going in again tomorrow. I certainly don’t like the idea of substituting two days in a row, but I could really use the money, so, of course, I will not object.

Today (and tomorrow, too) I substituted as an art teacher, which is what I am usually assigned to, given that my mother is one of the art teachers at the school. They must assume that I am equally as creatively gifted as she is, which is actually not quite the case. Luckily, one does not have to be very creatively gifted to do this job.

Instead of different classes of children visiting the art room at different periods during the day, which is what I was used to from my grade school days, the art teacher pushes a cart full of art supplies around to each classroom scheduled to have a 45-minute art period for that day. I like this schedule for two reasons: first, because it breaks up the day, it seems to go by faster; second, if there is a class that is particularly difficult, I am only forced to deal with them for 45 minutes until I move on to the next classroom. Additionally, the art teachers almost always leave very simple lesson plans for the substitutes to follow, so it is rarely difficult to conduct an art lesson.

After I had given instructions to a second grade class for their art assignment for that day, I walked around the room and looked at other previous class projects that were decorating the walls. One of the featured assignments was a time line of an historical figure’s or celebrity’s life. Students’ choices ranged from Paul Revere to Tom Brady, and even Jamie Lynn Spears (which conveniently left out her recent teen pregnancy snafu). There was one student’s project that caught my eye above all others: this student had chosen Barack Obama as the subject, which really tickled me. Being that this project was done by a second grader, I can only assume that at least one of his parents must be a hardcore Obama supporter. The student had drawn Obama tall and thin with very large ears (an impressive observation, I thought), and had even gone so far as to detail his official Obama logo on the front of his podium. The highlight of this project, though, was in the very last section of the timeline, where, under the illustration, the student had written “Obama is presinet.”

I truly could not have picked a better day to stumble upon this student’s project. I am sure most everyone has heard of this by now (mentioning it is really for my own pleasure, anyway) but, at the time of this posting, (roughly 7:15PM EST), Obama is on the verge of finally clinching the Democratic nomination. Fabulous (albeit expected) news for those of us in the Obama camp.

Overall, the changes I have made in the past year in terms of my diet have really not been all that hard. First I shifted from gorging myself to whatever food was in front of my face to eating normal amounts of food (the first stage of my weight loss), and from that I shifted to a regulated weight-loss diet (the second stage). During the first stage I lost upwards of ten pounds. This change I barely even noticed because it was during a span of about a year (though, when comparing old pictures, the difference is quite obvious). The second stage I began mid-March when I started counting calories daily with the use of Calorie Count. In the two months since, I have lost roughly ten pounds. This is a huge accomplishment considering all I have really done is become more aware of what I eat. I still generally eat what I want, though I have learned to pick healthier choices and control my portions. I haven’t even added any exercise. Really, that’s all there is to it. No South Beach Diet, no low-carb diet, no Weight Watchers. Without any extreme effort (though a moderate amount of effort nonetheless) I have seen the results I was hoping for, and that really pleases me.

While it is strange to measure out my ice cream portions, it is an even stranger feeling to look in the mirror and I actually like my body. I have never been too fond of my physical self, but lately, as my pant size decreases, my self-esteem has been steadily increasing. I feel much healthier and happier and I have more energy. The improvement of my life in the past year astounds me – my school work is more impressive (though it still was before), I am lucky enough to now have a great boyfriend, and now I may finally be pleased with my appearance. The quiet, unsure girl that I was in high school has since disappeared.

Perhaps I am just in a good mood today. Or, perhaps this is a good mood that is here to stay. Even the impending gloom of the next three months (namely, the distance between Scott and I) seems to be slowly brightening. I think the idea of being so distanced and detached from my life at school, which is home to me, is beginning to normalize in my head. This certainly helps to eliminate some stress. It will certainly still be a trying time for me, but maybe it will not be quite as bad as I originally projected in my immediate anxiety upon leaving school.

It is promising that this blog entry is chock full of optimism, something that is usually quite rare for me. Maybe I will treat myself to an extra scoop of ice cream.