Vacation! SUUSI!
May. 2nd, 2006 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI just got permission from Lydia to schedule vacation for the week of July 16-22. So we're going to SUUSI - the Southeast Unitarian-Universalist Summer Institute - this summer. I am so excited.
I think this will be a stretch experience. Neither of us has ever done anything quite like this before - like a con, but with workshops and trips instead of panels and room parties; like the church family retreats or youth group trips I went on as a teenager, but with 1000 strangers instead of just our own church; and, hopefully, nothing at all like the church camp Michael attended as a child. I know that it will be a stretch for me to push past my own shyness and really participate in the intentional community aspects of SUUSI.
But it should also be so much fun. It's being held in a beautiful, beautiful part of the country - Blacksburg, VA, in the Appalachian mountains. I've signed up for two "nature trips" - a canoe trip down the New River as evening turns to night, and a all-ages hike to Poverty Creek for which I plan to wear Alex in a backpack. Michael's planning a trip to a mountaintop winery, and possibly a kayaking trip. And there are workshops: I'm going to take a sushi-making class and a workshop about using Christian myths in Unitarian churches. There's dancing every night! Two beer tastings! A coffeehouse for discussion and games! Concerts by nationally-touring artists every night, plus a cabaret! Worship services every evening! ...Okay, maybe that part doesn't sound fun to you guys.
There's children's programming too, but I expect we'll be treating it as a drop-in playgroup rather than leaving Alex there. More critically, there's a childcare co-op for the post-bedtime hours. In exchange for being on duty for one 2.5-hour shift each, we'll be free to spend the rest of our late evenings going to programming or taking long, romantic walks.
(I am glossing over the part where we'll be sleeping in college dorms and eating in the dining hall. But I still think it will be great.)
I think this will be a stretch experience. Neither of us has ever done anything quite like this before - like a con, but with workshops and trips instead of panels and room parties; like the church family retreats or youth group trips I went on as a teenager, but with 1000 strangers instead of just our own church; and, hopefully, nothing at all like the church camp Michael attended as a child. I know that it will be a stretch for me to push past my own shyness and really participate in the intentional community aspects of SUUSI.
But it should also be so much fun. It's being held in a beautiful, beautiful part of the country - Blacksburg, VA, in the Appalachian mountains. I've signed up for two "nature trips" - a canoe trip down the New River as evening turns to night, and a all-ages hike to Poverty Creek for which I plan to wear Alex in a backpack. Michael's planning a trip to a mountaintop winery, and possibly a kayaking trip. And there are workshops: I'm going to take a sushi-making class and a workshop about using Christian myths in Unitarian churches. There's dancing every night! Two beer tastings! A coffeehouse for discussion and games! Concerts by nationally-touring artists every night, plus a cabaret! Worship services every evening! ...Okay, maybe that part doesn't sound fun to you guys.
There's children's programming too, but I expect we'll be treating it as a drop-in playgroup rather than leaving Alex there. More critically, there's a childcare co-op for the post-bedtime hours. In exchange for being on duty for one 2.5-hour shift each, we'll be free to spend the rest of our late evenings going to programming or taking long, romantic walks.
(I am glossing over the part where we'll be sleeping in college dorms and eating in the dining hall. But I still think it will be great.)
Re: from another b-burg resident . . .
Date: 2006-05-02 08:40 pm (UTC)But, then, I grew up there, so I suppose maybe it's something I wouldn't have noticed even if it were there. And also I like the Hokie Stone. (It's not on quite all of the buildings, though. Can you guess my undergrad department there if I tell you that I was in the one that doesn't have any?)
Re: from another b-burg resident . . .
Date: 2006-05-04 01:43 pm (UTC)A department without Hokie Stone? The only place that comes to mind is Upper Quad, and I didn't think there were any actual departments up there, other than the Corps. (And let me say that I definitely prefer Hokie Stone to red brick.)
. . . ah, right. Your userinfo reminds me of Randolph, the building that looks like a junior high school. :)
Re: from another b-burg resident . . .
Date: 2006-05-04 09:19 pm (UTC)I actually sort of like how Randolph looks, but I've got a soft spot for that 1950s industrial aesthetic if it's taken in moderation.
And, yeah, I was always coming into campus from the north end, so that might have affected the odors as well. How much of the cost of this manure gun was chipped in by clandestine contributions from University of Virginia fraternities, I wonder?