Breakfast with Amber

May 2021: The First Time Things Were Okay Again

May was the month where the spring semester wound down and the summer began. For this summer, I had not one but three "enriching activities" lined up. The first was my research project with Dr. Aarons. The second was a cultural exchange between Trinity and Kwansei Gakuin University, which as I mentioned before is our partner university in Japan. I applied for the study abroad program in Japan again for it to get canceled again, so the study abroad department came up with this little solution. It would be virtual just like everything else, and there would be one session every two weeks spanning from May to July. It would also be in the evening because that was the only time that both the American students and the Japanese students would be awake. The third was a few virtual creative writing classes with Gemini Ink because even though I lost that internship, I could still learn a thing or two from them.

But first, I had to get past finals. For English, I had a final essay. For Japanese, I had a presentation, an oral exam, and the N3 proficiency exam, which I'm pretty sure I bombed, but it didn't affect my grade anyway. For mass media, I had a presentation. For theatre, I had a group scene and an essay. For religion, I gave my famous presentation, The Four Horsemen of Memes. Once I was done with those, it was time for me to go home.

The weather forecast said that it was going to be raining all day on the day I was set to move out, but on the actual day, it was more cloudy than rainy. Mom and Dad came to help me carry my stuff to the car. Then we had lunch at a family favorite: Quarry Hofbrau y Mas. You ever wanted barbecue, German food, and Mexican food at the same restaurant? Well, you can get it at Quarry Hofbrau y Mas. I told my parents about my finals and showed them the slides I made for The Four Horsemen of Memes on my phone using the restaurant's slow cellular service. We were done with lunch and headed for home so quickly that Mom said, "Geez, we're gonna get home so early you guys are gonna expect me to make you a real dinner! I thought we'd be getting home late and I'd just make you pancakes or something."

To that, I replied, "Ooh, pancakes!"

And that's how I got pancakes for dinner. As we ate, Mom mentioned that my Grandma Janet wanted to get me a present for a job well done this semester. I mentioned that they had made a port of Miitopia for the Switch (which would be released in two days after we had this conversation).

I got a week to relax before the first session of the cultural exchange happened on the evening of the 25th and my summer research program began on the 26th. I started with a Zoom meeting with Dr. Aarons where she explained to me what we'd be doing for this project. She said that the focus of this project would be writing a paper focusing on Flying Couch by Amy Kurzweil. We had already bought the book beforehand, but we also spent the money on three other books because she had previously told me that the paper would be over all four of them. I promised myself that I'd read the other three. So far, I've only read one. Another one was used for a book-folding project that has since been unfolded.

I'd spend three hours every morning working on this project from May until the first week of July. That meant it would just be me and this book for the next six weeks. I started off by reading the book. I thought it would take me a few days. For example, I'd read chapters 1 and 2 on Wednesday, chapters 3 and 4 on Thursday, so on and so forth until I got the whole book finished. What I didn't realize was that this was a graphic novel, which is a way faster read than a novel, and I was able to plow through the whole thing in two days, including all the pauses I took to take notes.

I'd take notes on literally anything that stood out to me with the intention that I'd only use the most important ones in my essay. They usually weren't more than a line, and they probably would make more sense if I still had the book with me, which I don't. It also took me an extra few seconds to determine the page number because only a few pages had numbers, so I'd have to find the nearest numbered page and then count until I got to it. For example, here are the notes I took for chapter 1: