Hello Everyone! Welcome to my monthly-ish blog. I enjoyed updating everyone on my adventures in New Zealand with my David Upside Down blog (found here www.davidupsidedown.blog) and decided to keep it up here but less frequently.
So, welcome! As you can see if you scroll back a bit, I had used this blog a bit when I first made my website but now it is back in full swing.
Let's go over what I did in August this year! For some background, I got back from Hawaii (the end of my upside down trip) on June 29th. Then, I had a week back home before heading up to Maine.
During that week, I got the chance to visit my cousin Martha up in New Hampshire with my sister, Elina and I saw my friend Tanner at Brandeis on the way.
In Maine, I hung out with family, biked, hiked, swam, golfed, helped run a bridal shower for my sister Elina and her fiancé Kaba and played games with the family! It was lovely.
But before I knew it, I was driving my grandparents home. Vacation was over but I still had a month left before heading back to Brandeis. The Sunday after returning home, we had a family dinner at my grandparents Marian and Irwin's house which was very special because we haven't been able to in a couple years due to Covid. Since we had been more isolated in Maine together, it seemed safe to do it before going back to our usual lives.
My first big project of the month was an application for a remote internship with a television production company run by a Brandeis alum. It seemed like I had a good chance given they were looking for Brandeis students specifically. I submitted my cover letter to a Brandeis professor who then helped me write an email to the production company. I then got a response that I needed to send in a video interview answering a set of questions in a creative way. So, the next few days were full of me recording clips, messing up a word, and recording them again.
I also started playing tennis my grandfather Irwin, dad, cousins and aunt again after not being able to this spring!
I met up with my friend Ben Clarke who used to be in the theatre program with me at Concord Carlisle and we got pizza from Walden Italian Kitchen in West Concord and then went to Maynard to watch Oppenheimer! I found the movie to be more confusing than I expected but it was very well done!
Meanwhile, Elina and Kaba were a month out from their wedding and preparations were in full swing. Kaba drove me to Men's Wearhouse in Burlington for us to find our suits but the guy working there wasn't very helpful (and frankly rude) so we decided to just get measured on our own and order online from the company I used for my prom back in 2019.
The need for measurements was the start of a fascinating study my mom and I had of dry cleaners in the Concord area. We went to three in the same day. At the first, the man working there explained that he could measure wrists but not waists. This didn't make any sense to us but at least he knows his limits.
The next one told us it would cost $300,000 to put a dress in a box so there was a language barrier or something there. And at the last one, the man working explained that his wife was out and he didn't know much about the business. Seems like that might be a good time to close then? Anyway, we struck out.
Finally, a few days later, after expressing our needs on Facebook, a kind local suggested a place called John's Cleaners. Interestingly enough, that shop, or at least the outside, is shown in the movie Knives Out. They have a poster of it in their store. A dude that works there was able to do my measurements no problem! And I could finally order my suit.
One Saturday, Elina did some wedding shopping with my mom and then my dad and I met them in Burlington for an outdoor lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then my parents returned home and Elina and I first went to a jewelry store for her wedding (I felt out of place), and then we went to Macys at the mall to do some more wedding prep. Once we were done with that, we headed to the fun part! Build-A-Bear Workshop! Elina and I had always wanted to get bears there and even spent a good part of a weekend when we were little selecting our bears but never bought them. So, last year, I gave Elina a gift of a trip there to build a bear!
That place is SOO cool! You pick your bear, they stuff it, you put a heart in it and then you choose the clothing! I named mine Wendell and Elina named hers Josephina.
I also visited my friend Yair at Brandeis and we went to Lizzy's ice cream. Yair was away last spring studying film in Prague so it was great to reconnect! He works at SIMS (Sound and Image Media Studio) with me.
There were some shifts open at SIMS so this meant I spent the following Tuesday in the library at Brandeis working. There was a student that had signed up for a camera tutorial but I quickly realized I didn't know how to use manual mode on that camera so I had to rapidly learn (and luckily the man that runs SIMS was very helpful) and a few hours later I was confidently explaining ISO and Aperture as though I always understood them.
During my time at SIMS, I also worked very hard on my cartoons for the Brandeis Hoot. My goal was to draw six cartoons before returning to school. On Wednesday, I only worked for a few hours at SIMS and then met up with my friends Tanner and Michael (my roommate from sophomore year) for lunch.
I drove Michael back to Concord, showed him my room and let him try the pogo stick and then we headed off for Walden Pond. We waded in, played frisbee, raced, and lifted a big log. I then dropped him off at the train station to head home. I was going to go to tennis but it was cancelled due to the heat.
I did go to tennis the next few weeks though. The routine was that I would drive to Lexington, pick up Irwin and then drive to tennis while Irwin directed me about where to turn.
A month is a long time to catch you up on so here are just a few more things that happened...
We celebrated Grandpa's and my mom's birthdays and for my mom we made her a special quesadilla lunch and took her out for ice cream.
I took a bike ride with my dad from Concord to Chelmsford using a new trail they have been building near our house. We had part before but this was the first time we had been able to go from our house without driving to a farther starting point.
I visited Grammy and Grandpa and drove them to Elina's and Kaba's wedding venue so they could see it and where it was. I hadn't been yet either so it was nice to finally look in person too! It's a gorgeous place for sure. I spent nearly the whole day with them and had a great time!
At the end of August, my cousin Martha came over to help us do some final prep for the wedding. We spent a lot of time making the name cards for the reception tables.
Then, my friend Jamie arrived from Florida and stayed with us for a day before moving into Brandeis. We went to Walden Pond which has become a tradition for us. We also got pizza from Walden Italian Kitchen and canoed to the Old North Bridge.
Well, this only scratched the surface of my month. It was a very busy month but a fun one. I am still figuring out how much to include in this blogs so future ones will be shorter. See you next month.
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