Blog Reruns Episode 17 - Rainy days in July are the best you can get

July 26, 2006 - Wednesday

I've worked very hard in my life to arrange things so that I never have to drive farther than about four miles to get anywhere. I live only three miles from my school and about five miles from my church. If I have to drive the seventeen miles west in traffic to visit my parents or grandma I sometimes feel a little punished.
So it's July in Houston and last week was absolutely miserably hot. Last week I spent the week commuting from my apartment (Northwest Houston) all the way to University of Houston on the far (Southside) of Houston.
I was taking a class with the Richards Institute called Education Through Music. Basically, it is a method of teaching that uses music as the vehicle to foster the growth of play among children. The Richards Institute believes that the ability of a child to truly "play" signifies growth in intelligence and the general ability to learn. People who go to this class are lots of fun and not a little bit fanatical.
As Houston was hosting the weeklong course, we were given the task of arranging all of the details involved in housing, feeding, entertaining, and transporting 150 people about 40 of whom are children and the other 85 are adults who flew in from all over the US, Canada, and Japan and none of whom decided to rent a car. Everyone from Houston had to make multiple trips to the airport and then drive full loads of people everywhere that we went. Another Houston participant even arranged and paid for bus pick-ups and the bus had to make two trips for each event. Just to add to the Houston experience there was no air conditioning on the bus.
All of this to say that I'm glad for the rain yesterday and today. It has felt almost Canadian in the coolness of July, and if it's ever going to be bearable in Houston in July, you just better pray for rain. It's been very nice the last couple of days and I hope that my friends will come back around next July when it's raining.