Saera

Hi Everyone,

I'm having a pretty good summer.

I got straight As last semester. I worked really hard and I'm proud of myself. I am most satisfied with my grade in Trigonometry/Precalculus. Math has always been a difficult subject for me. But with a good teacher, a good system, boundless encouragement from Daniel, much determination and chanting, I excelled. I was really glad to be done with the semester, and it was interesting to work the Senior Ball thing.

This summer, I'm cashiering at Whole Foods. I hate it, but it's the best gig in town for my circumstances, so I'm setting about changing my circumstances, starting with things like working on getting my license back. In the meantime, I'm working 3-4 days a week. I'm spending the rest of the time working on my blog at sunflowervillage.blogspot.com, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and building connections with people. I've been trying to get up to Montague to help my friend with his farm. It's hard since I don't have a car. I've only been once so far, but I'm hoping to go again on Tuesday. The last time I went was mid June I think. We planted about 3000 onions that day in about 6 hours. It was a lot of fun and the time passed quickly. Now I hear they're pretty big, and I'm excited about seeing them.

Toward the end of June, I went hiking on a couple of local mountains: Tom and Toby. They aren't Alaskan mountains for sure.... they're kind of like really big hills. Still, they're fun, and the view is breathtaking. Toby has a great waterfall with a precarious climb around it, and a firetower at the peak where you can see the whole Pioneer Valley. Mount Tom we did in the dark to watch the sun rise. That was an interesting adventure. On the way down we saw a bunch of tiny orange lizards and we had to watch out not to step on them.

On July 1, we took off for Florida to visit Daniel's family. He hadn't seen his older brother Tim for about 13 years, and other people in the family for about that long. In attendance were his parents from Alaska, an aunt from Texas, a couple of cousins from nearby, his grandma, uncle, and aunt who all live in Florida. We stayed at his grandma's for the week. It's on a lovely lake about 2.5 hours from Pensacola. Florida is much prettier than I expected. We went canoeing and swimming and played the Wii and talked and ate and ate and ate. It was fun getting to know his family. They were all really happy to see Daniel and everyone made us promise it wouldn't be another 13 years. But it all did make me miss my family, and I told Daniel that we have to see my parents first.

My cat Jubal died. We had two cats, Sher Khan and Jubal. We let them out whenever they want, and they come home when they feel like it. So if they're gone for a day or two once in awhile it's not shocking. But when they're gone three we start calling for them. Anyway, Daniel found an ad on craigslist describing Jubal getting hit by a car right where we live and they cross all the time. He ran off from that but his leg was hurt and we couldn't find him even though we looked really hard, especially Daniel and Ann. Got a cool volunteer pet detective. She found him after we left on the Smith College grounds while we were in Florida. We're getting him cremated and keeping his collar. I miss him a lot, but I am convinced that life continues. Jubal is also an entity of the Mystic Law, and when circumstances permit, he will be manifested again. Chanting helps.

Speaking of chanting, I've been taking on responsibility in the Soka Gakkai International in a new way this summer. My comrade Sonia is off to Kenya for the summer. She really was the engine with the students in the area during the school year. So I have been stepping up a bit. We are holding weekly youth meetings at our house. It's definitely encouraging me to grow and be more reliable. In August, I'm going to the Florida Nature and Culture Center in Florida for a Young Women's Conference. I'm excited to go. I've been hearing ever since I started practicing Buddhism how wonderful the FNCC is. So finally I'm going, and I'm sure it's going to be great. Sonia will be back from Kenya and attending, so that will be cool.

I've enjoyed talking to some of you on Facebook recently. It's nice to have the kind of technology that lets me be more connected to family while so far away and attending to multiple other things. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your summer.

-- Saera