Summertime

It's summer! I didn't have to go in to work on Monday and that was the beginning of summer for me. It's been a very weird couple of days. I know that I can rest, but somehow my soul hasn't got the message yet. I sit on the couch and feel guilty that I'm not working. Last night, my body said, "Jill! We must sleep!" My new roommate left at around 6:00 PM and I fell asleep on the couch soon after. At about 6:30 I woke up and decided to take a pre-dinner nap. Eleven hours later -- I woke up. I feel so much better this morning. I think I've been walking around in a tired daze for the past few days. (umm, past few months??)

So -- it's summer. What does that mean? Well - it means two things for me. Rest -- and feeling guilty that I should be doing something when I'm resting! The truth is that I can't make it through the school year if I don't take a serious break during the summer. It's is just too draining. This past year was particularly draining, in more ways than one. I know that if I don't rest this summer, I'm going to pay for it next fall. That still doesn't change the fact that I feel like I should be productive all the time. And sitting on my couch, surfing the web is not productive.

I love to explore the hearts and minds of people. Surfing through people's blogs, websites, and favorite links is so interesting to me. People construct monuments to their passions. They spend hours and hours creating art and video and text that explains their heart to the world. How can this not be fascinating? Sometimes I'm led in a direction I don't want to go, but then I just back out and take a different road. Sometimes I'm led into places I never would have ventured on my own. For example, this morning I read my friend Chris' blog, which led to a blog entry on Hearst Castle and Julia Hunt Morgan, the architect who built it. To quote Spock, "fascinating." I'm thinking about doing a little surfing on famous buildings and the architects who designed them. After all, what goes into designing a building? How does the architect balance the practical, the beautiful, and the needs for the public and/or private space? How do they take the contemporary culture into account? Or do they refuse to be guided by popular opinion? If architects usually work on commission, how do they balance what they know is best with their client's desires? Maybe I should find a good book. . . :-)