We were merely freshmen

So, tomorrow marks the end of the year - Beth and I are planning to sing an adapted cover of The Verve Pipe's "The Freshmen" to our darling freshies. Should be epic! I think I might actually explode. My immediate goal for this blog is to communicate with everybody this summer and to document my thoughts about what I'm learning and thinking about in Chicago and at Project Zero at Harvard. I'm also going to post about what I'm cooking and eating, because food is amazing. I'm going to miss Portland a great deal, so this will serve as my umbilical cord to P-Town as I'm floating from Chicago, to Cambridge, to San Antonio, to New Mexico and back.
Although I am exhausted and looking forward to the break, I realized while writing alternative lyrics to "The Freshmen" today that I have absolutely adored working with our kids this year. I hope this tribute shows this. Graduation will offer some closure to the year as well - I will see all of my juniors from last year and seniors from this year graduate.
Lastly, I have to say that I can't believe how my favorite characters from Carnivale met dire fates at the end of season one (spoiler alert): Sofie dies, Brother Justin turns demonic, and Samson, well, Samson goes to seed morally and tries to lure a character to suicide (none too charming). Can't wait to discover if Sofie really died, how Brother Justin wreaks evil and the growth or continued downward spiral of Samson.
I have also started reading Julia Alvarez's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. More on this later. Written in third person but with the perspective or focus on a different sister and time period which will connect and add up to a fragmented but whole narrative. The first chapter ends with the focus character noticing a Palmolive advertisement - I will try to find it on the internet!