Summer isn't supposed to be stressful

I'm about a week into my summer break, though I've been done with finals for almost 3 weeks now. This has been by far the most stressful start to summer ever for me. Most of it involved summer jobs. Last summer I wasn't able to find employment at all, and somehow this summer I managed to get two job offers and had to pick between the two. There were advantages and disadvantages to both the Mexico internship and the job in Austin, but I eventually decided to stay in Austin and work at the Applied Research Labs at UT for a number of reasons. I figured that both would be great ways to spend my summer, and I need to stop worrying about what would have happened if I'd chosen the other one.

Another thing that's been somewhat stressful and annoying is not being able to see Robyn on a daily, or even weekly basis. I miss her a whole lot, and keep thinking of ways to see her. Something on my list of pros and cons of each internship was that I didn't want to spend two months in another country and not be able to see Robyn at all during that time. I've gotten kinda pathetic, but it's true. Similarly on that note, religion keeps being brought up in regard to the two of us, and apparently it's been happening to Robyn too. My parents have both asked me about her religion and if that's a problem for me since I'm a pretty religious person. Part of me does think it would be a lot more convenient if we had the same religion, but at the same time I'm really enjoying learning about Jewish customs and traditions in ways that I wouldn't be able to just from reading about it. I don't see it being an issue at this point, since, if anything, dating someone of a different religion than mine is helping me learn more about my own beliefs and helping me become stronger in my faith. If it doesn't work out between us in the end, sometime down the road, I will have at least learned a lot about the Jewish faith. And if it does work out and we stay together for a really long time, I'm sure we'll be able to make it work.

Another stressful thing. It seems like all kinds of bad things are happening to my high school friends. Well, mostly just two in particular. James is still having health problems that have been keeping him in and out of the hospital this semester, and will probably prevent him from playing much soccer with us this summer. And last night Cameron's dad passed away, and I can't even imagine how terrible that must be for him. It's hard to imagine someone at my age losing one of his parents. I certainly wouldn't want to have to deal with that kind of stress at this point in my life. If any of my readers could keep James and Cameron's family in their prayers I would appreciate it.

In a related note of things happening to people way too early, I found out yesterday that my first girlfriend back from the summer after my freshman year of high school and my best friend in my boy scout troop are getting married later this month. I was invited and will of course attend, since they are both very good friends of mine, but it seems so weird for people that are my age, a 19 year old and a 20 year old, that I grew up with are already getting married. That fact that I dated one of them for 2 months in high school makes it even weirder. Part of me is ok with it since they've been dating for 4 years now and are definitely right for each other, but at the same time getting married at 19 seems kind of ridiculous. Well, it's their decision and I wish them both the best.