The fears I wrote about last night did not come to fruition. Yesterday’s night at the carnival was apparently uneventful, in a good way. Personally, I enjoyed myself yet again. I absolutely love seeing people, even people I weren’t too fond of in high school. It’s a great familiar feeling watching everyone walk around again, just like through school hallways.
Tonight, night three, is the parade. Although I’m not a huge fan of parades, it’s a nice change-up.
Wow! That was an interesting first night of what’s shaping up to be the most uncomfortable Dover Carnival in history. Personally, I had a great time. It was really wonderful to see many of my friends again; I’ve realized just how much I miss them. Working non-stop has its downsides, it appears.
In the last paragraph, I predicted that the carnival would be “uncomfortable”. Last night, a kid was either physically assaulted or “mugged”. Although I don’t know all of the details, it’s really unfortunate. To add onto this, the hooligans who started Dover High School’s (much talked about) decline traveled around together in packs. It was unsettling.
Although I’m enjoying myself, this year’s carnival feels different so far – different in a bad way.
I hope I’m overreacting.
I come home exhausted each day after working, but I absolutely adore my job. I get to wake up every day and teach kids about computers. I believe we make the greatest impact on the world by educating children, and I personally love technology. It’s a great fit.
But as I pull into the driveway sometime between 5:30 and 6 each evening this week, I have something bigger to look forward to.
That’s right – it’s that time of year. It’s Dover Carnival time.
The Dover Carnival is the greatest gathering of people in this little town I call home. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen most of my friends; I’ve missed them quite a bit, so I’m very grateful for this opportunity to see them all.
Quoting myself from last year,
Perhaps the Dover Carnival isn’t a time or place. Maybe it’s a state of mind: one where we try to let go of our problems and fly in the air singing about pirates; one where we wander around aimlessly until finding the warm feeling of friendship; one where we spend too much money on food to compensate for having too much fun; one where Dover isn’t a place we complain about for being too small, or too far away from civilization, but instead a place that we all love. Join me, let’s let each and every day be the Dover Carnival.
As you can see, I love this thing.
It runs from Wednesday evening to Saturday night. Just like last year, I’ll be writing about it here on the blog. If dilly-daddle about my small town isn’t appealing, just skip those posts. Between spending each night there and getting up early for my awesome job, I’ll be a zombie by Sunday.
I’m excited, nonetheless.
There’s a little tradition at Dover High School – graduating seniors can elect to paint a mural on the high school’s driveway. It’s a great way to leave a mark until it’s paved over sometime in the next year. With the help of a few friends, I painted what I consider to be an awesome driveway mural. I did it a few weeks back; in fact, I was up there the night before graduation.
That’s right, folks. With this post, I’m officially (on the blog) declaring my support for Barack Obama in the presidential election of 2008.
If you’d like to see more photos, check out this public facebook album.
The Poughkeepsie Journal, a significant local paper, ran a series of articles on Sunday about high school graduations across the county. The article about Dover High School by Greg Marano was beautifully written. For archival purposes, I quote the entire article below, but urge you to read it on the Poughkeepsie Journal website itself. The Poughkeepsie Journal website also has a copy of my speech.
I graduated today. Aside from a single, somewhat large error in delivering my speech, that ordeal went very well. Most everyone really enjoyed it, both family and friends.
My grandparents flew up from Florida, and other members of my extended family stopped by today. It’s been really great to see them.
Until next time, I’ll be cleaning up the pieces of my new life and attending graduation parties. Apologies for the extended length of time between posts, but you can see from reading my speech that I’ve been busy.