They call me ResLife, 'cause I got no life.

 One of my obligations as a Resident Advisor is to keep my staff, residents, and any random passersby who come to my room looking for me informed about my approximate location/actions at all times by way of a "Where Am I?" sign posted visibly next to my door. Each RA makes his/her own, so our personalities really come out in what places and pursuits we choose to include on our sign, e.g. the RA whose sign includes an option for "Beating people up (at rugby practice)." I'm not much for beating people up, except maybe verbally, so that's obviously not on my sign. I do, however, have an option for "at the library," which I only included because most other RAs do and I didn't want to seem any less studious than anyone else; honestly, studying in the library stresses me out. Still, with the exception of the option indicating that I "fell down a well; please help," most of my Wheres are vague, nonspecific, and vaguely dishonest about specifics. If I were to be completely truthful, the sign would read something a little more like this:

-Taking an afternoon nap but am ashamed to admit it
-Lounging casually in my underwear
-Watching Glee
-Watching YouTube videos and, embarrassingly, actually LOLing
-Singing to myself
-Skyping
-Facebook stalking
-Really focusing on painting my nails
-Listening to one song on endless repeat, hoping no one around can hear
-Engrossed in non-required reading and will probably become violent if disturbed
-Eating dinner alone from a takeout box with a flagrant disregard for table etiquette
-Huddled in bed, recovering from an excess of interpersonal interaction and, quite frankly, avoiding you all

Ah, well. Another semester, another few months of lying to my residents about my whereabouts.

Summer reading 2011.

These are the books I read this past summer, presented in chronological order and with minimal commentary because I'm currently occupied with much less recreational reading. Critical thinking on writing composition theory, anyone?

Italics indicate books I had read previously; bold type marks my recommendations. [If I re-read it, that's a recommendation in itself.]

The Truth About Forever -- Sarah Dessen
Prague -- Arthur Phillips
How Did You Get This Number -- Sloane Crosley
What Now? -- Ann Patchett
Nine Stories -- J. D. Salinger
Mrs. Dalloway -- Virginia Woolf
Special Topics in Calamity Physics -- Marisha Pessl
On Chesil Beach -- Ian McEwan
The Russian Debutante's Handbook -- Gary Shteyngart
The Phantom Tollbooth -- Justin Norton
A Widow For One Year -- John Irving
Someone I Loved -- Anna Gavalda
I Am Charlotte Simmons -- Tom Wolfe
Indecision -- Benjamin Kunkel
The Luneberg Variation -- Paolo Maurensig
Love in the Time of Cholera -- Gabriel García Márquez
Selected Stories -- E. M. Forster
The Forgotten Garden -- Kate Morton
The School of Essential Ingredients -- Erica Bauermeister
Old School -- Tobias Wolff
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation -- Elizabeth Berg
Still Alice -- Lisa Genova
Picnic, Lightning -- Billy Collins
The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- Muriel Barbery
Interpreter of Maladies -- Jhumpa Lahiri
The Music Lesson -- Katharine Weber
One Day -- David Nicholls
Little Bee -- Chris Cleave
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food -- Jennifer 8 Lee
The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era -- Geoffrey Douglas
A Moveable Feast -- Ernest Hemingway
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation -- Lynne Truss
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris -- John Baxter
The Hunger Games -- Suzanne Collins
Never Let Me Go -- Kazuo Ishiguro