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The Earthquake

I was on campus.

You see, I’ve been freelancing at my old job from college since we moved to Maryland two and a half weeks ago. So, when the earthquake hit, I was sitting alone in an office on the top floor of Bunting Hall at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.

In college, it was not uncommon to hear testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is located across the Chesapeake Bay. My first thought, as the shaking started, was that it must be something over there. As it got worse, I was worried that the construction in front of the building had gone horribly wrong. Only near the end of the earthquake, as the bookcase in the corner rattled and the plastic of the copier down the hall creaked did I think, “This is an earthquake,” and move to the doorway of the office.

Reports say the earthquake was only twenty seconds. It felt much longer.

Other confused faces poked their faces into the hall from their doorways. We looked at each other in bewilderment. The consensus seemed to be to go outside, so I followed. I tried to text Dan, but it didn’t go through right away. Eventually he got back to me and said, “You had a tremor too?” It turned out that 50 miles away, he’d been evacuated from his building as well.

Thankfully, it was a beautiful day to stand outside for 45 minutes. The College decided to send nonessential staff home. I listened to CNN and other news stations on satellite radio as I drove an hour back to our apartment and tried to wrap my head around what happened.

I still don’t think I completely understand.

Now it’s time to prepare for a hurricane. These things seem so alien to write about as a Pennsylvanian/Marylander.

Changes in my small world…

Things are starting to change. I finished up all the semesters of OATCERT. I have two semesters left to earn a master’s degree, but I’m holding off until after I get a job. Job searching is frustrating and kind of frightening. It’s been especially daunting because… I’m moving.

Dan and I have decided to look at places together, and we are currently waiting to hear back on what could very well be our first place. I’m anxious! It’s such an exciting concept, and he’s being kind enough to let me move in with him without contributing a lot monetarily because I am quite determined to find a job down there. Where could I get a job for just a month and a half up here until we move? So, to earn my keep, I’m brushing up on my cooking skills during this spell of unemployment.

Last week, I made mini quiche with green peppers, ham and onion (western omelette style). The leftover ingredients from that culinary adventure were sitting in my fridge unused, and Dan was up for the weekend so I needed to impress him. I whipped up a frittata with the aforementioned ingredients and a fluffy sour cream, milk and egg mixture. Forty minutes later, we had a delicious brunch! We had the leftovers this morning with some fried potatoes.

I sprinkled Old Bay on my fried potatoes, which reminds me of where we might be moving. I may be returning to the Eastern Shore! Granted, it will be north of the Washington College region, and it’s more at the tippy top of the Bay. I really hope it works out.

Vacation Post

Dan and I took a long vacation after the summer season at Hershey ended and before substituting got into full swing. He had some random vacation time for a week in September, so we rented a small condo in Dewey Beach that my family used to rent when I was a little kid. This vacation was supposed to start with a Kings of Leon concert, but they canceled (because they’re rat bastards), so it started a day later with us staying in the campground for a couple of days before it was time to move into the condo. Now, I could write about all the delicious restaurants we visited (Mama’s Cantina in Ocean City, Dogfish Head Brewpub, The Cultured Pearl, Nalu, Dos Locos) or all the delicious beer we drank (most of which was Dogfish Head), but that would only serve to make you jealous and/or make my mouth water.

Instead, I’d like to reflect on how being on vacation for an entire week with no commitments made me feel:

Really, really good.

I cannot remember the last time I felt total relaxation. While I did have to complete schoolwork, I didn’t take any textbooks to the beach. I read a trashy magazine and a novel. On a day when the surf was too rough for me to swim, I moved my chair down to the water and watched the waves break. The ocean moved like poetry; the tide seemed to wash away so much of the negativity I carried to the shore with me.

Surprisingly, Dan and I handled living together for over a week pretty well. It was a big test for us as two people in a long distance relationship that normally don’t put up with each other for more than a few days. We slept 11 hours on one of our first days in the condo, and the following day we woke up in time to see the sunrise over the ocean.

It was a wonderful experience because in the shoulder season, the beaches aren’t as crowded and the town is quiet and sleepy. People can bring their dogs to the beach and we watched all the different breeds and how happy they were in the waves. By the middle of the week, we both felt a lot like Peter Gibbons in Office Space. Completely relaxed. Sometimes I felt as happy as the dogs.

I tried to bring the relaxation back with me. For the first time since starting grad school, I turned in an assignment late because I wanted to go to bed at a decent time and refused to stress out about deadlines. I am continuing to relax a bit this week, since yesterday was my 26th birthday and I am still working part-time at Hershey on Sundays and Wednesdays. I need to clean up my office and get my life organized before subbing picks up so that I can keep school, subbing and Hershey straight. I hope that I can keep this positive attitude.

Perhaps someday soon I’ll write a post about all that we imbibed whilst in Slower Lower Delaware. Hopefully with some pictures from Dan’s Nikon rather than my cell phone.

Arsonist Snakes, and other fun at Washington College

When I was a senior in high school, I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful campus of Washington College to see author Tim O’Brien speak as part of something called Sophie Kerr Weekend. The weekend included the lecture, dinner with Mr. O’Brien, an overnight stay in a real dorm room and a Saturday morning writing workshop with other prospective students. This weekend trip is what convinced me to go to Washington College; in fact, after I spent the weekend there, it was the only college to which I applied. Seven years after that initial visit, I returned as an alumna for Sophie Kerr Weekend 2010 to see Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, address the prospective class of 2014.

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Fifteen Beers for Fifteen Years

Dogfish Head Beer is easily one of my favorite beverages. I am a fan not only because many of the brews are tasty, but also because the story of these craft brewed Delaware delights is so intriguing. The founder of Dogfish Head, Sam Calagione, was an English major who started a brewpub in 1995 at the age of 25. His brewpub grew exponentially since then, and now DFH is a mid-Atlantic empire, even seeing expansion in the face of 2009′s recession. DFH has built a culture around their ales, or perhaps the beer has evolved around the off-centered culture; the off-centeredness is seen not only in the taste of the ales themselves, but also in the employees and avid fans of their craft brewing, of whom my father may be #1. My Dad, Dan and I rang in the new year in Rehoboth Beach, DE at a dinner celebrating DFH’s 15 years in the brewing business and toured the brewery (with its new and improved visitors’ center) before we headed back to PA. Though I’ve done the brewery tour before, I was especially struck by the knowledge of our guide John and convinced that I do, in fact, need to evangelize this fabulous company’s off-centered ales to other off-centered people around the world.

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