The Process of Going to College

I have begun packing for school. I swear I am packing the essentials! I am prepping for life in small dorm. I take notice in the small things that differ in packing for college versus backpacking, which honestly, feels luxurious. 

My friend (a.k.a. Zoe, The Terrible Modern, or Nilbog,) has already begun the process of unpacking at her new school. She now resides in this building.


Currently I am busy putting in a crushed rock around my house as well as some painting, and seeing friends in between. Although I am so rusty at it, I am enjoying an already 2.5 day streak of reading and writing, and it feels good.


Other habits I am looking forward to restarting is swimming and meditation. Last year this time I weighed about 153 pounds, 155 pounds maximum. Now I weigh 138-139 which is mostly due to lack of exercise and a coffee diet. I can't say I will join the swim team at Hogwarts for sure, but it really is tempting, I just want my weekends! As for meditation...


Last night as one of a few culminating event of the summer, a bunch of my friends and I collected at Bayside Bowl. My first score was 58, followed by a 62 in the second game. I beat Obama.

My camera was hijacked and used to take photos of people shaking their faces. Here is the complete album.

Isaac also made a mocumentry. 

I present to you: TONIGHT WE BOWL

Starting up the blog for the school year.

Hello World.


I am re-booting "The American" blog for the school year. I have taken a long break, now I'm ready. I recently heard and enjoyed quoting this to a friend of mine: "[I hope that this last year] was just the trailer, the real picture show starts now." Let's hope that's true.


I had a goal of making a book about this last year. I wanted to finish it this summer. It will be called "The American Gap Year." It has not yet been completed, although it has a decent start. I will keep you all posted on when it will come out. It has been difficult for many reasons, including the meaning of the gap year still unraveling in my head, which will continue, I am sure, for a very long time. I will attempt. Soon.


I am sure I have mentioned the name of the college I will be attending this fall, but due to being unsure how I can safely use the name I shall refer to it as Hogwarts. As for a location, Hogwarts is located somewhere in the state of New York. I am packing my wand. And a nerf gun.


The last week and a half has been an up and down journey both emotionally and it seems through time. Today seemed very 90's. Yesterday the terrible modern went to New York City for school. I have bought new materials for school myself. A friend from England visited and left. Difficulties have peaked and begun to decompress. New ways of life and how I will spend my time seems just around the corner.


Six days until I go to school! I will be in the Hufflepuff house, otherwise known as freshmen honors housing.

Maine Summer Fun

Too lazy to put the a/c unit in at home I have taken cover from the heat by going to my dad's air-conditioned office. It's suppose to be a high of 87 today but it is actually 93. I was planning on working all day but instead I have only worked a few hours and finished up some paperwork. What I really am trying to do is warm up to write out some of my book about this past year.

For the last two weeks the prep for the Clam Festival took place and finally it happened over 3 days. Now most of the grass is dead, but that is probably from the heat. One of the three evenings of this event my dad and I road bikes down to the carnival rides and it turned out we were on time for the fire works. Between the thousands of lights, rides, and explosions I managed to get some video I really enjoy. Listen for my dad's crazy laugh.

I also got a few of my all time favorite photos. Dusk is my favorite time to takes pictures. The light changes rapidly and it provides an enjoyable challenge. It's also when the human made lights become more prominent and eventually take over. When the two sources of light fight back and fourth is my favorite but I cannot deny how much I love thousands of tiny light sources mixing together but staying apart.

I have also been working to earn some of my more expensive items for college. I have been painting, moving things, and planting. Last weekend it took my dad and I 7 hours and two 4 feet wide 2 feet deep holes to plant 2 trees.

Before:

After:

Isaac, Zoe, and me got on the bus to Boston for some exploring.

Isaac is in some Harvard summer program focusing on architecture during the day but the three of us hang out in the evening. We walk around and go to places like Dosa Factory or the Falafel Palace for dinner.

The brick is a big shocker after being around concrete for so long in Asia. Boston does seem much more beautiful now that I have been to more cities, although I still like Barcelona a bit more because it has insanity mixed in with beauty.

The evenings were early and I slept very well. The first night in Boston I slept from 10-9.

I did the touristy stuff in Boston for the first time in Ages with Nancy and Tracy, good friends and visitors from out of town. It was really nice and tempts me to do some similar activities within Portland. This is us at the capital in Boston.

The most exciting experience in Boston was going to the Harvard Natural History Museum for the first time. It has recently been re-done but Zoe has assured me it has not lost too much of it's quirkiness or nerdy-ness.

Home at last.

I made it safely back to home on three moderately uneventful flights. We literally ran to the exit of the airport where I found my mom and the Woodbury-High's waiting for Zoe and me. It was a great reunion. Zoe hung out in Boston for a night while I went straight back to Portland. It all felt good but very surreal, maybe it was from being so exhausted.


Jet lag lasted a week but was tolerable. Once I stopped wanting to go to bed at 5 things were pretty good. For the most part I slipped back into Maine life almost too well. It was really nice to see everyone and receive a few gifts, dad got me a Buddha lamp for at college.

A "Maine theme" party was put in order for a good welcome back. I made a pinata for the occasion of a Ferry, which Charlotte thought was the mystical pixie like being, but instead took form of a boat that transports people from island to island off the Maine coast.

The Pinata was huge. We filled it with salt water taffy and other cheap candy from "Renys, A Maine Adventure," and painted it the appropriate colors. It took a while to hang because it was so heavy but once up the vessel peacefully swayed in the summer breeze.

It then met death via croquet mallet and a girl in a dirndl. There were also many other kids there who took many swings until it gave up the simple carbohydrate treasure within the hull.

Since I have been back I have gone bowling:

And I have enjoyed our most explosive and important holiday of the year, the 4th of July:

I have been getting my drink on, it has mostly been moxie actually.

And hanging out near the castle. Right now the past year feels like a crazy dream that never actually happened but I know that it did. The large gap in my blog is due to my effort in putting a book together about this past year, which I hope to complete before college. More on that soon.

Kanazawa

I have had a cold meaning I have had time to do some art. This is Bigfoot or known by his peers as Samsquanch.


Zoe and I went to the beach yesterday. We bought a pile of lunch and took the train. Then we were hit by a few waves of rain which we mostly avoided by hiding under part of a tsunami wall. The sky was very dark and the sand was blowing by horizontally. 

We were the only visitors at the beach who had not driven their car onto the beach. This is a very new idea for me but it seems popular with the Japanese. In the picture below you can see a few cars have sunk. A bulldozer pulled out two cars while we were eating lunch.

Osaka Aquarium

Today we went to the Osaka Aquarium. Since today is Sunday, it was packed. Screaming children pulling adults around flooded every inch. Strangely, there is no major open space in the entire aquarium, it is one very long hall spiraling down from the top of the building. It was very strange architecture, at times claustrophobic and very load due to the hard walls and endlessly long tunnels we were all channeled through.


I can't say I learned much. I want a pet crab. One of the few pets I can provide a good life for. Well maybe not for the first three crabs but fourth time is the charm you know? Ok, bad idea. Maybe. Anyways, we acomplished are largest goal, to get Zoe in physical contact with her favorite marine animal: Sting-ray! (see below)

We wandered around this mall and had ice cream after the chaotic fish world. It was worth the $23 to get in by the way, there was a twenty meter long whale shark and sea horses. We ate a lot of junk food today but we had a great lunch and dinner. Food is so expensive here and I am really looking forward to constant access to good food for under $10.


We went to the American village after our ice cream. I thought it was going to be packed with Japanese hipsters, moderately sketchy, and some strange depiction of the US. I found none. I saw some US looking shops and restaurants but it was such a rich part of town I think the neighborhood is being choked out. It is literally next to skyscrapers which are basically moving in.


Our couch surfing host is awesome though we have not seen much of him. His name is Akira and he loves soul music, he plays drums among many other instruments and has cut his own album last march which is now available on itunes. We got a great room, a jug of soy milk in the fridge (soy milk is amazing in Japan!), and a box of cereal. Life is complete.

Osaka

For those of you that do not know Zoe and I have decided to end our trip about three weeks sooner due to several reasons. Without going into too much explanation it is due to multiple reasons including we look like bums in Japan, dollar are not worth anything here, we feel it is time to go home, and I personally miss moxie and other Maine stuff. So we will be home in 10 days.


Today we got up at 5:30, ate as much food as we could in two minutes then went to the train station. We took the train into town, got our tickets, had 200 yen left over and no access to an atm because it was 7 in the morning. Luckily McDonalds was open, and for the first time in a very long time I went in a bought a coffee. 


In this picture you can also see my haircut which is crazy. Zoe calls me muffin head. I prefer crooked muffin head. There are parts about a half inch long that I did myself.... accidentally....

Max Zoy? More creative spelling on our names.

The 5 hour bus ride which turned into 6 hours due to traffic was completely uneventful other than seeming long and lots or rain. I managed to write down a good part of a movie script for a horror film that I would love to make at Hartwick next spring. It was partially inspired listening to J.J. Abrams being interviewed on "Fresh Air."


So we get to Osaka and got about 7 hours to kill before we meet up with our couch surfing host. I have yet to see a couch in Japan yet by the way, it is totally cultural and unfair. It should be Futon Surfing. Okay, anyways, first I got lost, then I got pissed off, then we had lunch and I was 100% happy again.


Then we stumbled upon this little gem, no joking here! We went in and got a little homesick. Although this particular store had cooler stuff than the big one in Maine has. Our Couch Surfing host knew of this brand and said it is quite popular here.