Thoreau Lives at the Brattle Gym!

The summer's been going swell. I've sweated 10 liters of salty liquid, fixed my brother's light saber 5 times, and moved 200 lbs of laminate flooring into the basement. The numbers don't tell the complete story, but my summer's been going swell.

Saturday brought the first day of Brattle volunteering and an opportunity to explore Harvard Square. As many times as I've been there--I even used to live in Cambridge--I've never actually explored the place. I had never wandered into foreign language book shops, never walked down the stairs to obscure basement CD stores named Twisted Village, never touched every single bead at Beadworks. Lunch, however, was an obscenely expensive sandwich split with Steff and the pigeons at Au Bon Pain. (Scary coincidence: I saw my English project stalkee again.) After a stroll through the Harvard campus, I almost want to go to Harvard, just to soak in that ambience and explore all those remaining nooks and crannies.

As for the volunteering, it must be the best-paid, most laid-back volunteer job I have ever taken. Not only is the work minimal, but I also get to watch free movies, eat/drink free food, and get free movie passes. Plus I got to meet the director of the film--pretty cool!

Some weekend web surfing led me to a rabid Wes Anderson fan site. When I say rabid, I mean RABID. I think I've found my people with them, but the girls (I'm guessing) there were obsessive to a point that far surpasses even my obsessiveness. Point? Dude looks really good in black and white.

I spent most of Sunday bonding with my family at Walden Pond. My mom, brother, and I took a hike around the pond and saw what was left of Thoreau's famed cabin. The term "what was left" is applied very loosely here because, quite frankly, nothing is left. It was simply a pile of rocks assembled as a memorial and then a plaque marking a stone of Thoreau's house. Disappointing, Thoreau, disappointing. You should have built your cabin better.

Today, I started summer gym. There seems to be an excessive number of students this year so we didn't get to pick our classes. :( I got stuck with my elementary gym teacher who is surprisingly hardcore. Oh why did I pay $150 just so I could write a paper for gym class? Sigh.