Moving, Gardening, Adjusting, Flying through the sky in a suit of Iron armor, etc.,

I’ve been home from my semester in London for nearly a month now. Its been quite the upheaval. A few days after I returned to the States, my family and I packed up and moved to a new house about 10 minutes from the one we’ve lived in for three years. We moved because my dad just started a new job, one that allows him to have all his weekends and evenings free to spend with his family - something we haven’t had for years!

Moving is nothing new to me of course; I’ve lived in 5 states and moved about 14 times that I can remember, but for some reason this move was more difficult than the rest. Maybe its just because we’ve accumulated so much over the years, but it seemed to take forever to get everything transferred to our new place. I really like our new house, but its been pretty difficult to find room for everything in a smaller space, and we put quite a bit in storage. We’re still unpacking, but this house is starting to feel like a home.

We live on the edge of a tiny town with a population of 860. There’s a forest in front of the house, and a beautiful field stretching into the distance at the side of the house.We’ve planted some flowers and a small herb garden with chives, basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and cilantro that we’ve been using nearly every day. On Saturday I helped my dad plant a box garden that will hopefully produce tomatoes, butternut squash, onions, radishes, and garlic. 

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Last summer I went to Vidcon in California to be a cinematographer on my friend Hannah’s senior thesis project, A Film to Decrease Worldsuck: The Nerdfighters Documentary. It’s a film that’s close to my heart, since I’m a Nerdfighter myself! Nerdfighters began as fans of The Vlogbrothers – two brothers, Hank and John Green, who have grown to be internet sensations through their Youtube channel. Hank is a musician and John is an author (The Fault in Stars is his most recent work – I highly recommend it!) I’ve been working with Hannah on the social media promotion for a year, and last week I finally got to see the finished product at a screening which I emceed with my best friend and fellow Nerdfighter Tara in Indianapolis. We had about 65 people attend, and each person brought books to donate to the Indy Reads Adult Literacy Charity. It was so amazing to see all our hard work pay off. People loved the film, and there are still charity screenings taking place all over the country and in Ireland this summer.

Since I got home from London, I’ve spent most of my time dealing with the move, but I’ve also been babysitting some adorable babies, as well as working on video editing and updating my website and resume.  I leave for my summer job as the videographer at a summer camp in two weeks, and I have to finish editing my London vlogs before then. 

On Sunday our pastor’s wife asked me to share my about my semester abroad with her Sunday School class in a few weeks; she says that they are a group of old ladies who like to hear about what the youngsters are doing with their lives, so it should be really nice to share that with them. I had a lot of support from my church family while abroad, and its great to be back with them again.

Sunday afternoon we went to see Iron Man 3 at the historic one-screen movie theatre in our hometown. It was my second time seeing it (the first was at the BFI IMAX in London alksdjf;ladjs) and I loved being able to see it with my family. I also got to go to the premiere in London and catch glimpses of Robert and some of the other cast members on the red carpet! In my opinion it’s the best out of the Iron Man movies – the first two were pretty good, but this one just blew it out of the water. 

IM3 was hilarious and the action sequences were so inventive and exciting – even my mom liked them! Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant of course, and after this film he has moved high up on my extensive list of favorite actors. I loved the character development in this film. The writers gave the side characters – Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey, for example – some amazing scenes that actually made me care about them. Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley were absolutely fantastic as well. There were some plot holes and a couple small things that stretched the believability, but overall it is a fun, escapist film that I will watch again and again.

I’ll be spending Memorial Day weekend at my best friend’s lakehouse. We haven’t seen each other all semester, so I’m really looking forward to it! The past few weeks have been really stressful because of the move, but also really good because I'm with my family. Its hard to adjust to my life here again after spending 3 months in London; I still feel a bit lost and overwhelmed. I’ve seen and experienced so much in another country, and suddenly I’m thrust back into my old life, but in a new house and town! And I have such a short time left here before I’m back working at camp. After that its my senior year of college. I have many dreams for the future after I graduate, a future that feels simultaneously far away and terrifyingly close. I suppose I just need to take it one day at a time and keep working towards my goals, like I always have. 

And I need to go see Star Trek Into Darkness…

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