solitaire in stroudsburg.

Welcome to life, version three. As a young person it seems like every six months I am thrust into a completely new experience. New opportunities yield new jobs. New jobs bring a new setting. A new setting means new people. To be frank, the past four years have been quite volatile as far as my surroundings are concerned. This is probably reflected in my blog posts – which I do realize are not much more than a string of coming of age stories. Don’t worry, it will eventually pass. But not quite yet … indulge me still.

This summer I am working as the online intern at the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. It’s a growing town, an hour north of where I learned to ride a bike, spell my name and cut with scissors. Though I am close to good, old and familiar places, I am quite far from any familiar faces. And thus, I have named this blog post: solitaire in stroudsburg.

Here in Stroudsburg, I am living on top of a mountain, in a large office building, in the middle of the woods, by myself. It’s lovely – really and truly it is. But it’s also a tad TOO isolated sometimes.

When I go on walks through the woods after work, I think of all the terrible things that could happen to me. A hungry bear shreds me to pieces to feed her cubs, an escaped convict robs me of my clothing to use as a disguise, a lonely Appalachian Trail hiker locks me in his microbus and leaves me to die and I must eat the old faded leather seats to stay alive. These things sound bad, I know. But what makes them worse is that since I live alone, nobody would notice I’m gone. Sure, after I blew of work for a few days without as much as a phone call they might get concerned – but who knows, I could just be the flaky intern. My parents would grow frustrated with unanswered phone calls, but I do that on a regular basis as it is. Seriously – it would be weeks before people put the pieces together. And by then my organs might be beyond recognition … or I may have run out of car parts to eat.

*deep breath*

The truth is, I don’t really mind being alone. In recent years I’ve learned that I have somewhat of a split personality that gives and takes from introversion and extroversion – and since my life in Elon is mostly the latter, a little alone time won’t hurt, right?

To keep myself occupied, I’ve set a few goals for the summer. Just things to do in my spare time, really.

1. Learn to take better photos
2. Actually read Newsweek and The New Yorker cover to cover when I get them
3. Bring my HTML and CSS skills to a adequate level
4. Learn Flash
5. Write more

Week one starts today, and so I’m off to delve in ISO, F-stops, Shutter Speeds and Focusing.

Olivia Hubert-Allen