silver lining

I have come to the realization that in everything, there is a silver lining.  Little nuggets of happiness in oppression, flakes of gold in the dirt, sunshine peeking through the drizzly sky {oh Utah weather}, $20 in your jeans, a compliment on a day you didn't have time to shower, that email from around the world that makes the rest of the week alright, and realizing the power of God's hand in creating miracles, whether big or small, throughout the day, every single day.

It's impossible to fully convey the numerous insights I have gained in retrospect to potentially the most difficult year to date.  Merely pondering on my countless blessings, including friends, family, roommates, and the current state of my life sheds some glorious light on the impracticality of how everything has slipped into place for a reason, completely unbeknownst and beyond me.  Whether practically reasonable or not, however, I have found that little miracles {"tender mercies" if you will}, occur and I do delight in discovering the slivers of a silver lining daily.
 
Life is not perfect.  Life is unpredictable and sometimes frightening.  The moment is constantly changing.  But when I forget my worries it overwhelms me how much I have been given, how much I am loved, and how much God directs my path each day when I put my trust in Him.

Sappy? Slightly.  But today I don't care much about being a sap, I am just happy to be me. 

zing!

Remember Dan Dan the Creeper Man?
(how could you possibly forget?)
Well... had another incident.  Not as bad as last week though.  You can breathe again, and then prepare yourself to gape in awe/horror/hysterical disbelief at his unobservant-ness and terrible awkwardness.

Get this-- I'm staring at my laptop, intently writing a paper (one of the gazillion things to do in the next 48 hours).  Of course I am alone in Psych Central.  Of course.  I hear a voice,

"Hey Becky"

Without turning I just know its him, and I can tell he's smiling.  Gross.
He's trying to have a conversation with me.  I don't let my eyes stray from my screen and keep on typing, saying one word answers.  I'm busy-- how annoying can you be?  I don't want to talk about my love life, about my weekend, or about how I'm doing because I'm f.i.n.e., and I especially do not, for that matter, want to talk about any of the above mentioned things in relation to you.  I'm trying to focus on my paper.  I'm in a time crunch.  Go away.

        "How are you?
        "How was your weekend?
        "How are the boys?
    S-T-O-P with the incessant questions!

 ***I have a serious flaw-- it is near physically impossible for me to be intentionally mean to someone's face.  It takes a LOT to push me to that point.   Perhaps that's not necessarily a flaw but at a time like this I wish I could spring open my "pandora's box" like Joe Fox just to "zing" people... But instead I'm Kathleen Kelly.  Which darling as her little jumpers and bouquets of newly sharpened pencils and perfect hair-cut are, my mind goes _________ {blank} in response to outlandish comments.  I wish I could evolve into "Mr. Nasty" because in the case of Dan Dan the Creeper Man, I don't think remorse would inevitably follow if I was to zing him. 

Dan Dan the Creeper Man: "You look especially gorgeous today"
Me: "Oh.  I didn't shower"
Dan Dan the Creeper Man: "Must be the pheromones"
Me: Gape in Horror!  Pick.  up.  jaw.  from.  floor.

HERE is where I need to be Joe Fox.
Just zing 'em-- ZING! 
Remember how I'm more like Kathleen Kelly? ... I went ______. 

He broke my personal bubble last week with the sneak-attack side hug.  Now he keeps touching my arm and back even though I make no attempt to establish even a small percentage of eye contact or respond in a reasonable way to his terribly awkward attempts at conversation.
It freaks me out.  And makes me want to coil into the corner. And horrible as this may be to say, I know he wants me.  He thinks I'm some grand creature that would be the perfect little girlfriend because I'm "so awesome", and eventually, one day, {which day will never come, even after hell freezes over and swine fly} I'll realize dating other boys is fruitless when he's before my eyes.   I'll come around or something {his past implies a l-o-o-o-n-g line of rejection he misperceives as, "sure, we'll date and I'll fall in love with you"}. Gag me with a spoon.

Perhaps I should request to be relinquished from my duties to "man" psych central-- avoid all future contact with him?  That sounds like the perfect solution.  Or excuse myself whenever I see him for the next month.  Or wear a fake ring, say the date with my home teacher went marvelously and we're getting married at the end of the semester and having a million babies. OR endure a drastic make-over/disguise-- don an actual cape {rather than just the feminist man-hating one}, "join" Medieval Club, wear Harry Potter glasses, give myself a scar, and carry a wand.  But... would that make me more appealing to him? ...It's hard to say.


One more month one more month one more month.
Perhaps I'll gain the courage to ZiNG him, thereby avoiding the hassle of buying a diamond, cape, and wand.  Not to mention drawing on a lightning scar with eyeliner every morning. 

9 jalapenos out of 10

I may or may not have just experienced the most awkward 15 minutes of my life.  I wished for an invisibility cloak, wished I could run away.  But instead, I was trapped, in Psych Central.

Boys are dense.  Really dense.  How many times have I come to this conclusion?  

There is a boy named Dan.  I met him last Fall semester in my Women's Studies class (there's a hint for ya-- he admitted to only taking the class to meet girls).  I have had constant and unwanted contact with him because of my requirement to "man" Psych Central for office hours.  He's creepy, really creepy, only he doesn't know he's creepy.  Thus he just digs himself deeper and deeper, until you may as well dump a coffin on his thick skull because there's no way he's getting resurrected out of that mess. 

He was asking about the confusion/lack of/pandemonium of my dating life-- our typical conversation now-a-days.  I expressed my intense desire to stop dating in general because a.) it's exhausting b.) it wastes the boys' time and money since I am clearly not interested and quite thoroughly in love with someone else and c.) I'm busy. {which while these are all very true and valid I have to put up my defenses around him, take on the attitude of feminist man-hater,  because, unless I blatantly say "I don't want to date anyone, especially you!", he will think that "no" means "yes" and "get lost" means "take me, I'm yours"-- quoting from lovely Meg in Hercules}

Well.  He got the gist of the facade of feminist man-hater {which is quite an easy cloak to don when you've taken a Women's Studies class}. But he continued on lamenting of why girl after girl turned him down or would stiffen after he asked if he could put his arm around him, and made several, several {did I mention several?} comments that either caused me to want to vomit or hide underneath my chair, including: 

           "You are like 9 jalapeno peppers out of 10"
           "You are one of the girls on my list that I wanted to ask out, but I understand your situation." {one other girl being a  gorgeous former cheerleader who just broke up with her boyfriend! Daniel, you've gotta learn where you fall in the scheme of things.  Don't be asking out "10"s when you yourself are... let's not get into that}
           "In Women's Studies, you were in the top 5 hottest girls in the class.  No joke."
            "I've always thought you were cute Becky.  Very cute."
           "You're in such great shape.  What are you, 135, 140?"
           "You're so awesome Becky." 
                 *THEN he sneaks up and gives me a side hug while I'm staring at the computer screen. AH! Personal bubble, please!

           Me: "Being an RM doesn't mean what it use to be.  There are several RM's I wouldn't be alone with"
           Dan: "Well I guess you trust me then, since we're alone"

       Umm... not quite.  More due to the fact that I'm assigned to be here and you've cornered me, awkwardly. 

Throughout our painful conversation I tried to be sympathetic but then it got to the point where I just wanted to die so I wouldn't have to endure his worries of, "I hate not being able to read people" {really? kinda like how you're creeping me out and you don't get it as I draw further and further away from you in my rolley-chair?} and "I just want to be in a relationship.  I need dating experience".   Then maybe you should stop hitting on Freshman babies! His follow-up: "You know it's bad when the girls who shouldn't know better still say 'no'."  Wow.  Wh-oa-aow.

I gathered my things up, saying I had to visit teach.
"Oh great, I'll walk you home then.  I think we live close"
"Oh, it's only 3?  I thought it was 3:30.  I should stay and do some more research."

Whew! Escaped out of that one.  Barely.  I think he got that I was trying to end our encounter.

Question: Did someone inconspicuously place a neon sign on my back or install a magnet in my spinal chord to attract anything creepy and male that moves? or do men just discombobulate the vibes of "get away from me" to "please, I'm begging you, hit on me profusely"? 

I seriously wonder.  Gosh.  Some days I just wish I didn't have to encounter the opposite sex.  I will don the feminist man-hater cloak any day of the week if it means I can escape being trapped in Psych Central, alone, with Dan.

i forgot how these things work

Home Teaching: a priesthood duty.  Being the church's first source of help to families and individuals.  Called upon to visit {at least monthly} and serve those you are assigned to by your bishop, and take such single sisters on dates.
      Wait. . . that's not in the pamphlet. 

Tuesday Night, 10:45 p.m:
My phone rings.
     It's my home teacher.
          Huh.  Way to be on the ball, setting up an appointment and we're only half way through the month!   

"Hello?"
     "Hi"
         Random chit-chatting for a minute,  laugh a little (which is odd, even though we're friends-ish)

Slight awkward silence.
      Okay home teacher man, what is the purpose of this call?  I know you didn't call to just chat. 
           This Sunday would probably work for you and your companion to swing by and teach us lovely ladies.

"Do you have plans Friday?"
    "No, I don't think I have anything going on"
        Friday night?  That doesn't seem like it would be convenient for anyone to home teach or be home taught.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go to the Volleyball game with me?"
      Oh! . .  A date!  It's been so long I forgot how these things work.  Hurry brain, process a reply! 
                   . . . . . . . 
          "Oh.  Sure.  What time?"
               Is this even allowed?  Home teacher and home teachee... Is there a rule against this? Probably an unwritten one.
                "Seven.  Want to get food before?"
                     It's definitely a date. 

. . . Yata yata yata . . .  

Yeah, I was ToTaLLY caught off guard.
I think we'll have a fun, grand, casual time.


But I'm slightly dreading it.  Because my roommates hypothesized, after I hung up the phone and informed them I had just been asked out by our home teacher, "what if you mess things up?" -- I do have a slight track record of doing such a thing-- because if I mess things up with this boy it's not like I'll never see him again.  I will.  At church, and when he comes to home teach me and my roommates to fulfill his priesthood responsibility.  What have I agreed to?! 

Oh well.  Worst case scenario it's awkward for 15 minutes, 20 max.

Wish me luck!

*unrelated side note: my 75 year old co-worker, Jesse, approached me at self-checkout today.  He draped his arm around my shoulder to give me a side hug, said "I just wanted to tell you I love you", and kissed my forehead.  He's so darling! Made my day.

*another unrelated side note: today at work I was called: doll, punkin, honey, sweetheart, and baby.  By customers, mind you.  Gotta love the Depot.

run away, run far far away

Rejuvenated and Refreshed.  A little R and R.  That is the glory and purpose of a vacation. This past weekend I went to Bear Lake with 4 of my 5 roommates. Vacationing at Brandi’s beautiful lakehouse was fantastic, and not only the most darling “cabin” I have ever seen but the perfect atmosphere to do some serious bonding and recharge my emotional batteries.

In the beautiful yellow room I was privileged to call my own for 3 days I acquired adequate sleep—a first since Christmas break! The ladies of Northwoods 4 shook off our sleep with Yoga for Athletes, nourished our bodies with delectable German Pancakes and candy galore, bundled up in 4 layers to speed along the windy lake shore aboard 4-wheelers, entertained ourselves with several card games and Scattegories, and looked through old pictures from the 80’s laughing at the fly-away bangs, shoes that tie over socks, as well as floral leggings and outfits I cannot even begin to describe the ridiculous-ness of. We talked and laughed and talked and laughed, and took some great pictures.

Sunday I felt ready to face Provo. I can handle this! Just 5 more weeks. I am feeling phenomenal, ready to handle all the couples of Provo, my major meltdown of last week seeming an eternity away and my concerns and troubles inconsequential.
Even pulling into the parking lot I felt content and happy to be back at my apartment-- a real first, I will have you know.

And then… I walked through that maroon door.

I still felt cheerful but… I was not ready for my vacation to be over, in addition to the fact that I am a terrible person. Truly. I have tried to be kind, I have prayed for charity beyond what is reasonably comprehensible for a person to pray for. But there are some situations when your environment has such a huge impact that you have to run. And that’s precisely what I did. Because the grinding of my roommate’s voice and the echo of her laugh and her odd platonic-but-not interaction with her 37 year old fiancée magnified the oppressive feeling I can’t help but feel being around her, and the positive feelings of the weekend were nearly driven away in an instant. I had to leave. So I unpacked, repacked, and headed to Sandy.

Blogging really is my outlet—so here goes. I love, dearly and deeply, my roommates. They are wonderful and funny and caring and so fantastic to be around. I lived with them last year, as well as this, and we have never had drama or problems. They are my support system in Provo and I don’t know what I would do without them. Seriously. We have made so many memories that, cliché as it is, I will treasure forever. We’re the roommates that 20 years from now we’ll leave our husbands and children and have a weekend get-a-way, a roommate reunion! Love them!

There is one… that has made for a challenge to live with (mentioned earlier, 2 paragraphs up). Living with her was not by choice, and as luck would have it she’s my room roommate. We’ll call her Shannon. She is one person that try as I might, I have extreme difficulty getting along with. It’s not that she’s disagreeable-- No-- it’s that she has no personality, or at least not one I have been able to decipher in the 7 months we have shared a room smaller than my freshman dorm room, because she does not interact on a competently social level, with me or any of the roommates.

I have tried. How I have tried to extend an effort at establishing some sort of roommate-relationship. I have tried to open up, tried talking, tried to be supportive, tried to be excited that she got her Masters and got engaged, and prayed like crazy. I have tried everything I can imagine, and yet… I have no warm feelings towards her. Thus, the reason I am a terrible horrible person. She is non-responsive. And I don’t know quite what to do with that. I’m still trying to figure it all out, 7 months after our initial introduction. Our biggest conversations now-a-days revolve around the girls we visit teach. Our longest conversation on record is probably 40 minutes. And that was a miracle.

She’s always in the room. Always. I don’t even feel comfortable in my room besides the rare occasion I’m alone. I avoid it as often as possible, praying she’ll leave and go be with her old-man lover.

There is a routine, every morning: her alarm goes off. She sloowwwllllyyyyy turns it off. She sniffles—not a regular sniffle, a nasally sniffle that continues for at least 10 minutes until she blows her nose. Then, she opens her computer and the gentle hum of it rings in my ears and drums at my sanity. Sniffle. The clicking of her mouse and the pitter-pat of the keyboard, the opening of the blinds and swinging of the door open and closed repeatedly and loudly causes me to pull my polka-dot covers over my disheveled bed head in an attempt to block out the sound, praying I can fall back asleep until my alarm goes off, silently pleading I can get decent sleep. Sniffle. But then it gets really hot huddled beneath those covers and I realize in my half-dream state that I’m starting to suffocate, so I reluctantly lower the sheets and endure the sounds until she finally leaves. And then my alarm goes off. Yes, every morning.

Which leads into the meltdown of last week—the big major sobbing meltdown of the year. My mother, the wise woman that she is, got to the root of the problem-- recognizing the toxic (harsh word, but true) effect of my environment and the resultant oppressive feeling that seemes impossible to shake, coupled with extreme sleep deprivation. She sympathized with the reality of bad roommates (fortunately only one in this case, I love the others) and encouraged me to limit my interaction for the next 5 weeks as much as possible. She’s not going to change, but I can do something about it. So that is my new resolution-- sleep over in Sandy, study at the library, sleep on someone’s couch, on my own couch perhaps, go shopping, stay far away and just get through the next 5 weeks in one piece. Run away, run far far away. Fight or flight—I am choosing flight.
A quote from our beloved quote wall freshman year has been running through my head as of late:
           ‘I could be that girl you read about in the newspaper— “Roommate Kills Roommate”.’

Funny as this was at the time, and I’m 99% positive everyone can reflect that sentiment at some moment in their life with regard to a roommate, sibling, or spouse, I do not want to be that girl on the front page of the newspaper. Thus (I love that word) to counteract the natural man I am going to do everything possible to endure the last 5 weeks of the semester before moving into a NEW place with my own room and a swimming pool! Yes, I can do hard things—I can do this.

I will not be a product of my environment.
I will rise above and conquer.
I will not kill my roommate.
And I will try, try, and try again to love her and not be such a horrible person in my flight.

the quiet stealth of indifference

Indifference: The state or quality of being indifferent.

Indifferent: 1. Having no particular interest or concern; 2. Having no marked feeling for or against; 3. Being neither too much nor too little; moderate; 4.  Not active or involved; neutral. 

There is a moment.  Everyone encounters it.  Before that moment the logical processing of your brain is skewed and you think something will be great, something will fix everything that's wrong, something will make you happy.  Even though your true rational knows this is not true, just before that moment you want to believe it is.  In the actual moment, in the very midst of that moment, is when you acknowledge that you just conjured a logical fallacy and, what's worse, you're indifferent.

You know you should have more interest and concern, you should have marked feelings, you should have too much or too little, you should be active and involved rather than Switzerland! For heavens sake, you need to have a feeling one way or the other!

And yet... you can't help indifference. No one can.  And that's the stealth and danger such neutrality springs on its victim.
I am indifferent, thus I am dangerous.

statistics-- 100% probability i detest it

I have been awake for 20 hours.  That can not be healthy.
I woke up at 4:45 this morning to leave Sandy by 5:15 to make it to work by 5:45 where I worked until 11:45, and then proceeded to shop at Old Navy for an hour before studying all day where I bought a darling white eyelet skirt {$15!}-- my other one is too small and bordering immodest-- it was most necessary, and then I drove with the windows down blasting OneRepublic, which really isn't music you blast but I'm no Cholo so I blasted it away-- because I don't care about Provo boys with their windows half down staring at me belting out OneRepublic with my hair whipping wildly in the wind. Whew.
That was perhaps the world's longest run-on sentence, except maybe in the scriptures because I swear there is nearly a full page without any punctuation to signify the ending of a sentence.  I suppose that's what happens when you're too tired to sleep and you write to unwind-- long run-on sentences.  Regardless, the real purpose in my run-on sentence was to lead into Statistics.

I'm in Psych 301-- Psychological Statistics.  Yes, it's just as gross as it sounds.  Perhaps my most un-favorite class of all time.  Keyboarding with Miss. Graham was better than this; Career choices with Mr. Stark might even have been better.  Why do I hate Stats?  Because I feel dumb, in a very depressing give-up-now there's-no-point kind of way.  
I am not a math girl-- I have accepted that fact of my life and moved on.  Obviously I am not a math major.  BUT for my major of psychology I'm forced to endure statistics.  And it's not my professor that makes the class terrible-- if anything he makes it less putrid and almost bearable with his jokes and random tangents-- it is the subject itself + the impossibility of my mind to comprehend linear regression and binomial whatevers and understanding the "sign test"-- which, by the way, can we please stop the use of double negatives, dear statisticians? It just complicates matters worse.

So today... I studied stats for-EV-er.  I had a minor freak-out about Type 1 and Type 2 errors, so I called my Papa.  As I'm telling my dad that I don't get it, this Asian boy next to me laughs. At me.  The nerve.  I wanted so badly to say, 
"Hey! Not only am I not Asian, I'm a girl too!  If you do the math the odds of me being a brilliant mathematician are stacked WAY up against me-- so stop laughing". 
But I didn't say that.  Because that  little outburst would result in being shunned by library personnel and students, and it would require energy that I did not have, energy that was being supplied by the slowly dwindling effect of Diet Coke in my system.

Well long story short after hours and hours of studying I felt quite prepared and confident marching to the testing center... until I got my exam-- then I realized that I cannot regurgitate a math textbook on paper.  Let alone reason which is the correct answer out of A, B, C, D, E (A & C), N (all of the above), P (none of the above), or Z {let's just make designs with the scantron bubbles and blow this joint-- this test cannot be worth all the tears and torment and torture}.
And computations-- ooooh don't even get me started!  This test has been a source of much stress and 3, count them, 3 major break-downs Sunday alone.  Some computations I totally owned-- I even knew which equation to use out of the 15 in the formula bank!  Some meaning like 5 out of 20.  The rest I just stared blankly at the page or wrote Ross, my professor, notes of how I was really trying but after attempting 3 equations on one problem and still coming out with the Correlation equaling well above 1, as in the ballpark of 250, I was giving up.  I also left him a note on the next problem, where I was suppose to use the answer from the previous question-- guess I'm going to miss those points too.  Then at the end there was a glorious BONUS question! But... as luck would have it, the bonus question related to the two problems I knew I missed earlier and had left notes on-- to keep with the trend I wrote him another note -- "My mind is not made to understand statistics, I'm sorry." 

 Maybe he'll give me points for trying hard and being witty.  I did show my work, even if it was wrong.
Disgruntled and near tears I trudged downstairs fully expecting to see a 18% next to my student I.D number... and by some miracle I still can't fathom {most likely due to my fervent prayer and pleading, or the wild possibility the computer is dyslexic} the screen flashed an 81%!
There I stood with my head cocked to the side, oblivious to others coming and going as I stared at that screen, trying to process that, "yes that is my ID number.  And yes, that does say 81%, not 18%".
After the long, excruciating, nearly-tearful but ultimately surprising test I felt incredibly incredibly relieved.

In a little over a month I will never again need to compute Z scores or determine when to use the addition or multiplication rule regarding probability- not ever ever again! {I'm crossing my fingers!} So although there is a 100% probability I detest statistics, one day when I'm in grad school I'll look back and laugh at my gigantic anxiety over stats and sigh with a smile that that is one phase of my life past and gone.

here's to little old men

I believe the world is wonderful, in part, because of little old men. These darling  crinkled gentlemen are charming and endearing, sweet and goofy. The twinkle in their eye can't help but cheer your heart.  Their wrinkled worn elbows, quick grin, and leisurely walk focus your gaze and soften your heart.  At times these dear aged men mumble a compliment or flash a smile that ebbs away the storm clouds and allows sunshine to radiate through to your soul. One such little old man said to me, unhurried and matter-of-factly:

"Becky, you're too cute to work at Home Depot. You need to quit and move to Hollywood where you can make some real money".

So here's a toast-- to all the adorable ancient men out there-- thank you for being so darn cute!