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Welcome to ANI, in the air, under the tent, and around Baltimore, your daily podcast briefing
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of all the goings-on ins around Arts & Ideas at Sudbury School.
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So today was the beach field trip.
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There was about 10 or 12 students that were in the building, along with three staff, and
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then there were the other two staff on the trip, and with, I assume, the rest of the
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students.
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It sounded like it was a really great time.
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There was lots of fun, some clams, lots of sun, so it sounded like everyone had a great
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time, and I look forward to hearing more of the stories.
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So what else?
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Well, I spent the day power washing, so I dressed up in my big green gear and set about
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maximal power washing, and just, yeah, clean the sidewalks and clean the ramp and all those
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things and it takes a long time.
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It is now a little after 8.30, and I'm done, I'm packed up, and I'm doing the podcast.
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So yeah, I find power washing to be an exciting task, well, really more of a restive task,
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I suppose.
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It's one of those tasks where you can see the progress you're making.
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I mean, it's really, really amazing the clarity, like I don't have to keep track of where I
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am, I can just look at what's going on, and it's one of those tasks that requires enough
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presence of mind and detail to really keep your focus, but not so much to be actually
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mentally tasking.
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So it's kind of like in a meditative stance state for most of the day.
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I'm pretty tired now, I don't think I've had enough water, and even though I was surrounded
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by water, it's beautiful really, all the water coming out of the power washer, and I glimpse
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off the sun like a rainbow in the mist, and it's truly lovely.
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Anyway, the sun's getting real low now, and it's time to put it all away, so I'm going
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to put the big one away, going to sleep now, yes sir.
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Alright, what else, yeah, it was a fairly calm day, Phil and Josh were busy playing
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around with AC in the art room, they did some great work, although there still remains some
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stuff to do, so hopefully tomorrow it'll get working, and yeah, I imagine now we're going
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to ramp up to preparing for the end of year show, that will be next week, 8 days, last
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day of the year, only 6 more school days to go.
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So yeah, that's the day I should finish up, I need to go and have dinner and stuff.
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But it is Thursday, I believe it's still Thursday, yes, and so tip of the week, the theme of
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the week was boredom, well it kind of veered into some kind of weird guided meditation
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on Wednesday, and so I think I'm going to go with sort of another trick with almost
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a meditative thing, other than like doing power washing, which hey, if you've got some
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dirty stuff, you know, do some power washing, get your meditation stuff done, you get thanked
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by the people who you live with, or you work with, or whoever, and you know, you really
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reset the mind.
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But anyway, going beyond that tip, it is now firefly season, that's right, the fireflies
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are out, as the cicadas flee, fireflies light up, and I can see them in the field right
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now.
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This was not planned, but having my, I mean I did plan to have fireflies as my tip of
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the week, but I did not plan to be here when the fireflies were actually dancing around
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the field.
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So I wanted to tell you about a little trick I have, of when you have a field of fireflies,
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unfocus your eyes, may take a little practice, but just instead of focusing on the details,
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focus on the big picture, on the scene, and just see all the motion.
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Oh, here comes a firefly right now, under the tent, firefly under the tent!
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Hello, firefly!
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They are so excited, I love fireflies, but anyway, unfocus the eyes, and just see the
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whole field light up, and if you can get to a point where you can see, like you have a
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field and it's all lit up with fireflies, oh man, that's amazing, because it's just
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constantly this motion, and it's this dance, and it's all, it's mesmerizing, and that is
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another great meditative thing.
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Bonus tip for fireflies is, they are quite easy to kind of get on your hand.
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You kind of like, they like to fly up, so you kind of put your hand sort of above them,
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and they fly up onto it, and then they land, and then if you rotate your hand like it's
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a swinging leaf, they tend to stay on it, and they'll just kind of crawl around your
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hand, and maybe up your arm.
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I've had 9 or 10 fireflies at one time on my hand and arm, usually at that point they
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start tickling me, and I just can't stand them, so I shake them all off, but it's really
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kind of cool.
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So don't harm the fireflies, just kind of say hello to them, but yeah, you can have
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some fun with fireflies.
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But really, unfocus the eyes and see the whole picture.
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It's kind of the opposite of focusing on the details like I talked about yesterday.
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But how does this relate to boredom?
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Well, I don't know, it's kind of the opposite of boredom, I find fireflies exciting myself
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there.
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I once quit a job, a relatively well-paying job, simply because I realized I'd gone through
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an entire firefly season without noticing a single firefly, and I thought that was intolerable,
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so I quit.
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I am not making this up.
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Yeah, I was in my youth.
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But yeah, I'm pretty gung ho about fireflies, so I'm glad I'm able to see them right now.
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And yeah, I've been sitting at my balcony the past few nights watching the fireflies.
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Really that's all I ask out of life, just I gotta see my fireflies.
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They only come out for maybe a month, probably mid-July, they start to be gone.
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But man, mid-June to mid-July, hmm, wonderful time, wonderful time.
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And I like to visit my parents who live six hours north, a little after our firefly season
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because their firefly season goes a little later because they're a little bit up north
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I guess.
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So with that and all my tricks of fireflies out there, I think I will bid you goodnight,
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and long day it was.
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Oh, and you know the power washing, the biggest problem, I mean I was doing it for like seven
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hours or something, you know, the hands get all like vibrating and the forearm muscles
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now are kind of all twitchy.
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But I'll probably sleep good tonight.
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So you all have a good one, and I will see you when I see you.