Current mood:

nervous

May wrap-up
May, in general my second favorite month of the year, was marked by the end of my Homework Hub program for the academic year.  The program is facing cuts, but barring catastrophe I will still have a job with it in the fall.  In the meantime, I've been looking for summer work.  I've applied with Tutor.com to be an online tutor, after taking -all- the subject exams (many of which were quite educational).  I'm planning to apply to the Princeton Review to teach SAT prep, and I've been looking into other education-related opportunities, like substitute teaching.  I'll be continuing to go to the library on Tuesdays to run my weekly game and provide homework help to whoever's there, and I'm told there's a chance I may be paid a little to come in and help run Puzzlemania sessions once they start up.

Looking for work is frightening and frustrating.  More exciting for me by far (although at times hardly less frustrating) is the fact that I've finally finished the novel I began in November, What Is Best?  I'm going to do a little looking for a potential publisher, but given that the book is highly unorthodox in numerous ways and is also lengthier than the standard offering from a first-time author, I'm probably going to be self-publishing it through Lulu, CreateSpace, or another print-on-demand service.  I'm currently waiting for proof copies from those companies, and I'll be soliciting a little more feedback from friends regarding the challenge system in particular.  Once the book is available to the public, I'll post all about it here.

The Homework Hub year ended well enough.  The head librarian provided cupcakes and cookies in a little party for us on the last day, while a coworker bought sambusas, a Somali meat pastry, and the staff passed around oversized cards that our regular students signed in gratitude to us for all our help.  In addition, I went to a potluck luncheon for people associated with the Franklin Learning Center, a service that overlaps Homework Hub.  It was nice--the food was delicious and there was a mix of sixty-somethings and twenty-somethings talking about travel and politics.

On a related note, earlier in the month I attended an 'Open Mic' night for Learning Center students.  The attendees were pretty much all adult English Language Learners from East Africa and the volunteers who help them.  They hesitantly but proudly read the essays they'd gotten into the learning center newsletter (or a broader one), and I provided a change of pace by reciting my lengthy rhymed poem "The Selfish Salmon", which the Learning Center staff loved.  (One of them said it reminded him of Poe and gave me an article to read about his life.)

The game parties have been quite fun.  A lot of cheerful people are coming semi-regularly, and even bringing their friends.  The social atmosphere is great--the only downside is that they tend not to be into hardcore games--such as Agricola, the olden times farming Euro game my father was recently given, and which I quite enjoy.  It was especially nice to have an unexpected visit from Matt and Emily on the 29th.

Now that the weather's nice, I'm back to my pastime of taking long walks.  I walked to the library in LInden Hills one day and read a book about ferrets.  And on another occasion, I went a formidable distance just to use a Dunn Bros Coffee gift card I was given by the Learning Center staff.  But the topper was when I walked all the way from my home on South 40th Street to Bloomington's Moir Park, on 104th Street.  This is the park where my friends cari_rose  and crytel will be married on the 20th.  In addition to a couple of digressions en route (such as stopping at a lakeside gazebo to write back-cover copy for my book), I wandered in the forest surrounding the park beside Nine Mile Creek, climbed a little on the rocks, and had trouble actually finding the park proper before dark.  Just as I was about to give up, I came across the pavillion, and so I rested there and listened to a father playing with his children on the swings.  On my way out, I got lost again and had to race against the darkening sky to find my way out of the forest before it became black.  I made it with maybe half an hour to spare, and followed 106th St., Lyndale, and 98th St. until I reached a bus stop and caught an 18 home.  In all, I calculated that I'd walked 19 miles that day, which makes it a solid fourth place for me.

I also rode my bike to work on Ride Your Bike to Work Day.

I got to visit with the aforementioned happy couple on the 2nd, and then went to keep them company while babysitting on the 9th.  Both evenings made for relaxing chats.

Also in May...The May Day festival was a little gloomy for me this year.  The lowlight for me was a disappointing interaction with one of the specialists in the tents, and I spent a certain amount of time alone in contemplation.  Some days later, I encountered a hapless baby squirrel on the sidewalk and helped it up to a yard where it was able to find seeds.  It was an utterly cute experience.  In other news, the KFC value menu turns out to be disappointing.  The last game of Magnet Maze I ran at the library was also disappointing, with enough unruly kids that I couldn't keep under control that several of the better behaved players quit.  I hope tomorrow's game will be smooth.  Not long ago, I caught stomach flu, vomiting and suffering for a day and a half.  Slumdog Millionaire was only okay.  I enjoyed the tail end of Kelly and Matt Strait's baby shower.  The finale of Survivor Tocantins was 'eh'.  I finally finished a book my mother gave me years ago, one of a collection she picked out at a yard sale while my old bike was being stolen.  The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge is the first of several books from a Peruvian-American author who, in his naive yet intrepid younger days, studied under a Mesoamerican 'man of knowledge', or mystic.  (Looking it up now, I see there's some controversy over whether the books are actually true.)  I read it only while eating in Jimmy John's, and found it interesting, not least because it will enrich my roleplaying sessions with my magic-mushroom-using raccoon character.