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.

So much has changed about the liberal arts college where I spent some of the best times of my life. Massive construction projects that were just beginning as I graduated are now complete. There’s a new theatre (where the lecture took place, actually), new dorms that look like luxury hotels on the inside, and a new dining hall that reminded my friend Sara of an Atlantic City buffet. Oh, and Kent Circle, with its 7 or 8 coveted parking spaces, exists no more (this will only matter to readers who lived in the Hill dorms, the Cullen dorms or Kent). While I’m somewhat jealous of the students who get to have a much more comfortable campus experience, I’m also glad that I got to live in a converted office building (Gibson), an ancient building filled with creative arts majors (Middle—a dorm they will never get rid of because of its historical significance, but will never be the same as it was in 2004 when the best people ever lived there), and a slightly dumpy dorm with centipede issues improved only by the showerheads my best friend’s father donated (Worcester). The students who reside in Sassafras may never know what it’s like to sleep in several layers of clothing because northwest winds defeat the purpose of walls when radiators break (Worcester), but they also won’t have a gritty college experience to create anecdotes for nostalgic diatribes in blog entries. Yes, being back on campus at this point in my life has caused me to wax poetic about my time there, but I will try to pull myself back on track.

This was my first visit back to campus since starting graduate school (aka deciding to make something of myself), so perhaps the reason I enjoyed it so much is that I no longer feel like my degree is a complete waste. The company didn’t hurt, either. My darling friend Alisha (the one with the Dad who gave us water pressure in Worcester) is in her final semester, and she played hostess to Dan, me and several others. Sara, the founder of The Medium lit mag and someone I’ve worked with on multiple projects, came down with Rielly who I remember being involved with pubs too even though we didn’t hang out. Alisha’s good friend and fellow senior Maureen was present, and her brother Rob who worked with me on a group project in advertising and went to high school with Dan, showed up part way through the reading. Could you keep track of all that? Everyone shared more ties than those, as WAC is a tangled web, but those are the ties to me, the antisocial babbler. Standing in Alisha’s kitchen was probably the most social I’ve been in months, and I guess the difference for me is that on campus, even the most random social situations (usually) aren’t awkward. It was nice to swap stories and anecdotes, and it was good to show Dan more of what made me me.

We witnessed the lecture itself from the balcony of the new theatre. Rather than dealing with the crowds, we chose to sit somewhere that we could see, hear and pass a communal thermos of fruit juice and alcohol. Daniel Handler was dry and watching my Dan (who refused the thermos, by the way) watch him was part of my enjoyment. Handler opened with an anecdote about his research into the Eastern Shore, which he accomplished primarily through reading the Kent County News.  He mentioned an article about a chicken house fire in which thousands of chickens lost their lives that was currently under investigation and a story about the heat-sensing abilities of snakes. From these articles, he deduced that the Eastern Shore clearly had a problem with arsonist snakes. Cue laughter. There were some uncomfortable moments—the kind where a speaker makes jokes about Judaism/Anne Frank, and you don’t know enough background to guess if it’s okay to laugh (it turns out it was because he was raised Jewish. Does this mean I can make Lutheran jokes?). Handler also talked about the name Lemony Snicket, and how he came to write books for children. For him, it started in childhood, with a serious dislike of books where everything magically worked itself out for the protagonist. He wasn’t a fan. Life is harder than that, though you may never have Count Olaf trying to get you.

Returning to Washington College, if only for an evening, proved to be a worthwhile adventure. Though I miss undergrad terribly, returning to campus creates a sense of pride rather than a sense of longing or regret. I miss the carefree lifestyle I led there, where my biggest worry was the next paper due or an upcoming test. Now I see WAC as a place that taught me how to learn. Through my liberal arts education, I grew to love research and writing. I would not be who I am today if I had not attended that Sophie Kerr weekend in 2003; my decision to attend Washington College is single-handedly the best decision I’ve made so far in my life. I have a second family made up of wonderful friends, an inquisitive mind fostered by my education, and the ability to return to a place where an author who writes books where children narrowly escape death gives a lecture that makes me realize there is nothing wrong with life being a bit difficult. It’s life, and WAC has given me a positive outlook on it.

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.

I’ve been eating at the Rehoboth brewpub since before I could legally drink, and long before I liked the taste of beer. The food I tend to choose is gourmet pub grub, but it turns out that many of the ales DFH creates pair well with true gourmet dishes. I learned this at the He Said Beer, She Said Wine dinner that Dan took me to in September. My Dad is actually the one who first introduced me to DFH. As a loyal Delaware Beach visitor, he’s been drinking 60 Minute IPA basically since its creation, and his appreciation for craft brewing has only increased as the DFH line expanded. My own taste in alcohol only grew up include beer within the last few years, starting toward the end of college when I could tolerate Blue Moon and other “girlie” beers. One of DFH’s claims to fame is their continuous hopping of certain beers (60, 90 and 120 Minute IPAs, which are continuously hopped for the amount of time specified in their names); unfortunately, I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of hoppy beers as I tend to prefer sweeter flavors. One thing I’ve learned from the brewery tours I’ve witnessed is that there are two types of beer: lagers and ales. DFH makes off-centered ales, whereas many of the beers I tended to enjoy when I started drinking beer are lagers (i.e., Yuengling, which is apparently more of a PA thing, or Sam Adams). Over time, curiosity has led me to trying many types of DFH, and even the hoppier flavored 60 Minute IPA has become something I enjoy. It’s very rare that I drink DFH without a food pairing, though, because the flavors are so strong to me; therefore, I’m very happy to go to beer dinners where I can pair the suggested beers with bites of delicious foods.

Ushering in the new year at the Dogfish Head brewpub had been one of my father’s top priorities since the beginning of the summer season of 2009. He was so intent on accomplishing this goal that he began emailing about it long before it was announced. He was probably one of the first ones to book a reservation once the event was announced, and he encouraged his friend Mike from work to attend as well. Dan and I also followed the DFH Twitter and Facebook with dedication, hoping we wouldn’t miss our chance to attend what promised to be a unique dining experience. As more details emerged about the event, we grew more excited. The night was being hailed as Fifteen Beers for Fifteen Years to celebrate 2010 as the fifteenth year of business for DFH, and fifteen beers would be paired with various courses culminating with a champagne toast at midnight. DFH’s website listed the dress as “off-centered black tie,” which let our minds roam to decide on the perfect outfit. As it turns out, not many people took the dress all too seriously, but Dan and I showed up in our attempt at SteamPunk fashion, and I think that we looked stellar. I donned an antique fur coat and decked out a black clutch with tiny metal gears; Dan sported a paisley vest, a top hat and carried an antique cane that belonged to his late grandfather. If the two of us were more outgoing (see: drunk enough to get out on the dancefloor), we would have been the envy of anyone who thought it prudent to wear jeans to such a lovely event.

We were greeted with a soft pretzel in a Gruyere cheese sauce served with a 60 Minute IPA. I eagerly downed both of these, and they complemented each other delightfully. The salad course was an arugula salad with prosciutto, Parmesan, walnut, white grape and roasted pear péche vinaigrette served with Pangaea and Black and Blue, the latter of which I later purchased at State Line Liquors. I’m not really the biggest fan of arugula, and I found the prosciutto to be a bit too salty to work with the earthy flavors, but the vinaigrette was something I could use all the time. The appetizer course was probably my favorite, and the hosting manager informed us that this offering was on the original menu at the brewpub many moons ago. They served us a wood grilled duck egg roll and cane sugar shrimp with roasted peanut sauce and Asian slaw with Sah’tea, Raison D’Etre and Chateau Jiahu. Raison is not one of my favorite DFH beers, but all three did pair well with the food. Chateau Jiahu is one of the ancient ales that explores a historic recipe for a beer that is part adventure and part science fair experiment. Sah’tea is another beer with an exciting background, as it involves boiling the wort with hot river rocks; it was also my favorite of the three served with this course. For our main course, we had some of the spiciest mac and cheese around! Our course was an ancho glazed pork tenderloin with chipotle mac and cheese and poblano sauce served with Theobroma, Black Thai and Immort Ale. I couldn’t finish my mac and cheese it was so spicy (but delicious!), and Dan cleaned his plate. Theobroma is one of my DFH favorites and with chilies and Aztec cocoa powder as some of its ingredients, it paired well with the pork.

Dan was a fan of the ancho glazed pork loin and chipotle mac and cheese

Our palate cleanser—a pomegranate granita served with Festina Peche—was completely refreshing after two hearty, rich courses. I passed my Festina Peche over to Dan, though, because while I adore my Festina Peche flavored chapstick, I’m not keen on bitter Weisse style ales. By the time the cheese plate arrived, I as starting to feel full. (I would also like to point out that unlike when we attended the beer/wine dinner, I was truly sampling my beers and not downing the whole glass; I realize that it was New Year’s Eve, and drinking is acceptable, but I find it difficult to get drunk in public, especially when my father is present!) I tried each of the three cheeses—Midnight Moon, 5-year vintage Gouda, and Carles Roquefort—with the bread and small sips of the three beers, which included a 2008 Red and White, Punkin Ale and a 2006 120 Minute IPA. The two vintage beers they chose with this course are similar to wines in that they age well and have more alcohol than your average beer. Punkin Ale is one of my favorites, too; I think it taste likes autumn in a glass. Finally, for dessert we received a beautiful plate containing a Fort Crème Brule and World Wide Stout chocolate ice cream milk shake served with a 2008 World Wide Stout and a 2007 Fort. Again, these two beers age well and are high in alcohol. It was my first time trying Fort, a beer in which the raspberry flavor is present but doesn’t overwhelm like some other fruit-flavored beers, and I thought it was delicious! I know that at some point, I will buy myself a bottle of it.

Overall, I would have to rate the food and drink combinations set forth by the brewpub as spectacular. Though I didn’t finish all of my beers, I tasted them and appreciated the attention that went to their creation. The myriad of flavors in the different beers worked in combination with the food. Some of the layers were complex, and I wish I had the talent to analyze things like the judges on Iron Chef America. However, all I have is my opinion and this blog, so I state—for the record—that this event was one of the most fun things I’ve done. As they cleared our last plate, champagne was handed to us to prepare for the impending change of the decade. The entertainment, Nate Myers & The Aces, played up until the countdown. They had a bluesy style and are actually from my home area, so I really enjoyed them. I especially liked the funky covers of different songs (like when they went into “Gin & Juice”) that played while we dined. As we rang in 2010, it was a flurry of horns and hugs and clinking of plastic champagne glasses. By this point in the evening, everyone was feeling friendly. The founder of Dogfish Head, Sam Calagione, had made his way downstairs to ring in the new year and made his way to the dancefloor. As for Dan and myself? We stayed about 15 minutes into the new year, but chose to head back to the hotel to relax in some New Year’s peace and quiet with our bellies full and happy. My father stayed with his friends and danced while having a few more beers, and I picked him up shortly after last call. To me, it was the perfect way to ring in the new year; I was with people I love, eating delicious food and drinking delicious beer and just generally in good spirits.

New Year’s Day was spent mostly relaxing, and eating. Dan and I checked out a restaurant we had always thought about trying, but that’s a different post for a different time. Friday night, we headed back to the brewpub to try a few brews that we hadn’t had on our beer tasting adventure the previous night. I made the mistake of sucking down two PG-13s (DFH Beach Beer with DFH Blue Hen Vanilla Vodka) at a record pace, but I managed to try a sip of my Dad’s Squall IPA, Dan’s Olde School barleywine and Son’s Love Hefe. I also tried a sample of the Life & Limb, something I wanted to try for months, even though I couldn’t possibly hold a full glass. (Life & Limb is a collaboration between DFH and Sierra Nevada. It’s delicious, but higher in alcohol content. I had the small beer from their brewing, Limb & Life, in November, and apparently that beer is the rarer find. Dan also bought me a Life & Limb t-shirt for Christmas because the artwork is beautiful.) We thought it was important, since it would be awhile until spring and visits to the brewpub, that we enjoy our last night in Rehoboth with these delicious drinks.

Saturday was bitter cold and windy, which made it less regrettable that we had to leave the beach. On our way home, we stopped in Milton, DE for a tour of the Dogfish Head Brewery. My father has taken the tour over ten times, and this was probably my fourth or fifth time. My only visits to the brewery have been during the construction of the new visitors’ area, so I’m not sure what it looked like before the remodeling began. However, this visit, the new section was open. The space to wait for the tour, shop for off-centered merchandise and–most-importantly–taste the beers is much more open and has floor-to-ceiling windows that let tons of natural light inside. Previously, the room with the bar and merchandise was between the warehouse and the brewery, with no natural light. I think this new set up will be great for those in charge of giving the tours and selling the beer and merchandise; it’s vital to give light to flowers, and to off-centered marketing staff. Perhaps the most stunning facet of the remodel, however, is the outward appearance of the building. The new entrance reminds me of a ski lodge, but that may have been the cold weather talking. It looks very natural, which I would expect from DFH since being green and working toward sustainability is considered by many politicans to be an off-centered goal.

Dan's stunning picture of Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, DE

The tour has three stops in which those on the tour learn how Dogfish Head made and makes their beer. The first stop is to see the original brewing equipment. Sam started the brewpub at age 25, after taking a few years to find himself (and working at other breweries) after graduating with an English degree. Opening Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats in 1995, Sam’s goal was to bring original beer, food and music to Rehoboth. He was trying to do this with a system that brewed approximately 12-gallons at a time. So the brewing production increased from every other day, to every day to three times a day. They expanded to keep up with the increasing demand by renting a warehouse space and purchasing some larger equipment, but by 2002, even that was not enough and the brewing aspect of Dogfish Head moved about 20 minutes away to a converted cannery in Milton, DE. The second stop on the tour would make sense to home brewers more than me, but it shows where the hops and barley are magically made into wort. It’s at this point of the tour where hops are passed around and my Dad gets giddy like a kid. One of my favorite facts at this stop in the tour is what they do with what’s left after the barley imparts what it can to the beer: it’s put into trucks and given to local farmers to feed to their cows. These cows turn into the burgers and steaks at Dogfish Head. Also, the excess water from the brewing process goes through a cistern system and is given to the farmers as well. All of this explains (at least to me) why I cannot go to Rehoboth Beach without eating a burger at Dogfish Head. The final stop on the tour showcases where the delicious beer is aged. In addition to traditional barrels, there are two oak barrels for certain beers and a barrel made of Palo Santo wood from Paraguay to age the Palo Santo Marron. What really makes the tour interesting are the random facts that the tour guide can throw out. He knew exact figures of the brewery’s growth over the past few years (and it’s pretty impressive), how much beer they make by the hour and the varying lengths of time it takes to make certain beers. I can’t even begin to capture all I heard unless I start taking a tape recorder with me, but I’m always very impressed. I recommend that if you are anywhere near Delaware and love craft breweries, that you make it a point to stop in. If it’s summer, there’s a beach you can visit, too, so it’s a win win situation.

Sam Calagione is an inspiration to me. He started his beer empire at 25—the age I am now—and though he hit a few stumbling blocks at the beginning (which you can hear about on the tour or read about in Sam’s book Brewing Up a Business), he rang in 2010 in style. We did too. If you asked me two years ago if I thought I’d be celebrating 2010 with craft brewed beer, my boyfriend and my Dad, I probably would have laughed in your face, but I can’t imagine a better way to wrap up 2009. This year, I discovered the joy of trying new things and going on adventures. I’ve learned to appreciate more than just the pub grub, and I’ve learned to appreciate how well a nice beer can go with some good food. So thank you Sam, for creating a great American business. Thank you Dad, for financing this adventure. And thank you Dan, for the past year and the upcoming one! And yes, that’s my corny conclusion—blame it on the beers.

My first day was terrifying and exhilarating. I’d managed to find a better-paying seasonal job to round out my summer; my last day was Labor Day. I was looking forward to taking a few weeks to prepare for subbing by cleaning and organizing. Instead, Tuesday, September 8, I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to a phone call. I agreed before I really understood what I was doing. That was just the beginning, I suppose. In retrospect, the first day was fairly plain. It was 7th grade language arts, and one period I had a co-teacher who took the reigns. The regular teacher’s plans were superb–she’d thought of a lot in advance. The 7th graders were only in their 2nd week of junior high, so they had no idea that I was not at all aware of what I was doing. At the end of the day, I felt confident I’d made the right choice in pursuing teaching as a career.

When I look back, I’m very happy that I accepted that early phone call. It let me train myself and get my feet wet without falling on my face. I learned how to follow a lesson plan, how to relate to students, and even how to deal with trying to find a school I’ve never seen. Since then, I’ve had numerous other learning experiences with subbing. It’s trial and error, and what one can accomplish in a day depends on the type of students the school in question has. The demographics vary, even in my small county, and the students are sometimes less receptive to a substitute depending on their grade level and their level in the education system. I hope to detail some of what I’ve learned here, and to write about the experiences—good, bad and in between—so that I might learn more from them as I reexamine what I’ve done.

Sunday morning came far too fast. We woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking, and when I emerged from the bathroom, my birthday presents were waiting for me on the bed. Dan, of course, did a fabulous job. He framed a picture of us before our He Said Beer / She Said Wine dinner and one of my favorite pictures that he took on one of our outings (and he got frames that were my style, too). He also got me the Dandy Warhols vinyl that I had drooled over–and it’s signed! The mix CD that came as part of my gift beat the mix I’d made him in August, but I wouldn’t know that until the drive home from his house that evening.

Breakfast was delicious again, and Dan found the berry bread pudding particularly enjoyable. I’m not a berry person, but I appreciated that it was a treat for those who were. Neither of us are really outgoing around strangers, so we mostly listened to conversations at breakfast rather than starting them. Sure, when someone spoke to us, we would answer, but we didn’t go out of our way to be chatty. This was, after all, our first bed and breakfast experience. We’ll work on that. People automatically assumed we lived together and were somewhat perplexed when we independently answered the “where are you from?” question.

Before we left, we wanted to try our luck with the dock again. We grabbed our books and headed down to the bay. The chairs on the dock were still damp with dew, but we sat on the platform and read in the peaceful morning sunshine, savoring every last moment we could. We watched swans and sailboats in the distance, and noticed bald eagles flying overhead. We were alone, but surrounded by the warmth of nature. The beauty was practically spiritual. Sounds kind of corny, but to me, it was surreal. I should note that Dan is part of the reason I appreciate nature so much. Around the time we started dating, I was going hiking a lot and I’m not sure if it was subconsciously done to try to impress him or because I was stircrazy from unemployment. He’s also done wonders for me to stop hating bugs. So to be sitting with him on the edge of the Chesapeake was wonderful, even when I knew there was a huge spider living on a web below the dock.

Of course our vacation had to end eventually… We hauled our bags out to the car after coming back from the dock with rosy sunburned cheeks. We shyly approached our innkeepers to pay our bill and were greeted warmly. I’m not really a “hugger,” but I accepted hugs from Joann and Jim with only mild awkwardness. They chatted with us a bit, and–like people at breakfast–were surprised that we don’t actually live together. I guess to a girl like me, it seems nice that I can be mistaken for someone who’s engaged or married or at least living with someone. It does help me feel as though I might actually be 25. Our hosts asked us to write about our stay on TripAdvisor, and I’ve been drafting a post for quite some time. I genuinely want to promote their establishment because the atmosphere was so much warmer than anywhere else we may have considered staying. We said our goodbyes to our hosts, and as we walked out to the car, we paused to say goodbye to the dogs.

Since I hadn’t given Dan a glimpse of anything in Chestertown save a quick walk around campus and my friend Sarah’s yard, we made a few stops there before heading home. We drove through the downtown area where a lot of change had occured since my time as a student. The biggest change being the closing of my favorite bar, which is another story for another time. One of our stops included campus so I could see my “little sister.” She was laying on the green with her friends and while we talked, the awkward feeling came back. At 25, I didn’t belong on that college campus anymore. I felt like I’d outgrown it. Lunch at one of my favorite strip mall restaurants, Luisa’s, was also a little bit awkward for me, although I definitely ate a ton of my favorite seafood marinara.

The whole experience, in retrospect, was bittersweet. Mostly sweet. Every moment spent with Dan in Rock Hall was special, even when we walked back to my car after our sunset cruise to see that we’d left my headlights on. I can truly say that every moment we were there was a happy one. However, being with him also made me realize that my life is completely different now. It’s not even the milestone birthday, it’s just who I am.