I Own Too Much Stuff

Nothing makes you think more about what you own than packing up everything to go home for the summer.

I own too much stuff. I'm not talking about the sweaters or coats or nbooks or DVDs or balls or yarn waiting to be knitted - I'm talking about the random doodads you can't seem to organize into any particular box or bag. The boxes of thumbtacks and the dozen boxes of pens and pencils you thought you would need but never used. When planning to fit all of your room into a tiny hybrid, some serious choices have to be made.

Why do we feel the need to own so much? Why do we feel the need to fill the empty spaces in our lives with free magazines and plastic stress balls with obnoxious smiles? Why don't we choose more green? More flowers and more herbs and things we already push out of our lives? Why does empty space scare us so much?

As a wise Peter Walsh once said (and I paraphrase): there's a difference between owning something, and something owning you. Right now when I'm having to choose between electric candles and a desk organizer.

Beh.

This is ridiculous. How can it be so hard to choose whaat's important to us, and let go that which does not matter? Option One: hire Peter Walsh to come and make you do it. Option Two: Think about how little you appreciate the things that are starting to own you, and then think about how happy someone else might be to get it for a bargain at a Salvation Army near you. I think Option One would make for a funny afternoon, but Two is more heartwarming.

Just like buying toys, its easier to think of how much we want something right now. I really hate deciding to get rid of things I paid good money for because I've never used them, and there's no point cramming it into a tiny car to not use it in another state. I paid for it, gosh-darn-it, I want it to be meaningful!!

We want and want and want.

Green your life.

Give back by giving away.

Reaffirming Work

I've always had an appreciation for those who work. Real physical labor seems like one of the most honest forms of work, and I commend those who thrive in this kind of work. Recently, I took a Wildland Firefighting course, where in my state I was certified to fight wildfires. Cool, right?

The drill was this - when the XX State forest service truck trundled onto campus and blew the air raid siren on top of the cafeteria, any College X students who were certified could come running, hop into the truck, and go fight a fire.

I honestly thought I would never answer the call.

Yesterday, my school had a "Work Day" that is highly anticipated among the community. All students take a morning at their work crews, and then spend the entire afternoon working communally on projects around campus. Afterwards, they share a barbecue together.

The air raid siren went off at 11:00 a.m. I knew if I went, I would miss the event, the camaraderie, and the really good food.

I ran as fast as I could back to my dorm to get my gear, and I had a wonderful time. The firefighters I was with were some of the most amazing - and funny - people I have had the honor of working with. I worked for thirteen hours straight on two consecutive fires, one in the mountains, one right on the side of a highway. My legs ached, my lungs burned, my eyes watered, and my stomach grumbled, but I always had a smile on my face.

My mother always said that we regret the things we do not do. She's right. I regretted missing the group picture and the laughing joy of school labor, but I got to experience real-life stakes - homes, lives, and the possibility of an exploding propane tank (slightly scary to imagine, but it never happened). I got to feel like an adult, and be thanked repeatedly by people who I had never met (also a strange experience).

I was never directly cutting fire lines to keep a fire at bay, but it still mattered, and I knew it. I may have missed the cute, meaningful work that was done around campus, but I got an amazing life experience that I get to repeat over and over as long as I keep answering the siren.

And guess whose story sounded a whole lot cooler when students were exchanging stories about their work yesterday?

Grateful

This isn't so much of a post as a list I've been meaning to post. I've found there are certain unexpected joys and kindnesses hiding in people at College X, and I wanted to take a few moments to share them.

I'm grateful for:

• The co-worker who brings me snacks and a smile when I'm stressed
• The friend who can listen to my rants about a frustrating situation with another friend, and give us both productive advice.
• Those same four boys who carried a fridge, a bookcase, and many heavy boxes with a smile.
• The theatre-buddy who brought four burly friends to help me move to a new dorm room on very short notice.
• The friend who drives me to the grocery store once a week so I don't have to stand in the rain waiting for the once-an-hour bus.
• My mom (of course) and dad, who both pay for my education, but give me money for food, and "sanity" money on a steady basis, and who also listen to my endless complaints with a knowing smile.
• My chemistry professor who listened to me talk about an issue for almost an hour, and helped me work through my feelings on the matter.
• This same professor for helping me trudge through a dislike for chemistry to an understanding of lab concepts.
• my friend - also a chem tutor - who tutors me through skype the night before a lab is due.
• the supervisor who sends me on lots of errands outside of the office and across campus when it's sunny and warm outside.
• And many, many, many more tiny instances of kindness by strangers.

I am always grateful.

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Eat Her Pudding Cups!

I am the first to admit I am a picky eater. I am not ashamed of this, it simply means I have a more refined tastes for some food, and prefer not to have my meats deep fried in batter and smothered with gravy.

Cafeteria food at College X is quite fabulous when compared to many other colleges, but it's still cafeteria food. My mother, the fabulous woman she is, provided me with a reasonable "food budget" per month, so I can stock up on my fancy cheeses and preferred High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup-Free fruit juices.

Just like I have my quirks about e-shopping and getting mail, I have a strange quirk about food. I hoard it. I can't explain why! For some reason when I buy food for my dorm room, I eat as little of it as possible, and stretch it for all that it's worth before I buy more.

This seems great- it seems like you would save money this way! No, you just end up more hungry this way. You could be eating something on the way to your chemistry class... but then again, you may want it later, so you should save it.

NO! This is not a good plan! Bagels and chips and cheese pasta are meant to be eaten!

I came to this realization earlier today, as I was about to head off to a particularly long work shift. I was weighing the odds of eating food my mother had sent my in a car package (lovely, lovely mother) versus "saving it for later", when "I might want it more." Suddenly, I felt ridiculous. My mother had sent me all of this wonderful food (Peeps, pudding cups, pringles, mango juice) partially because she knew I would never buy it myself, and partially because she knew I would love getting it, and love eating it.

Saving it for later was allowing the food to make me miserable!

Wrong. Totally, completely, wrong.

I had this sample strange complex growing up, and my mom always used to say "They"ll make more!!" I've been saying this to my friends here at school whenever they balk at my flippant habit of giving away sweets to people who look like they're about to collapse from low blood sugar. How silly of me, I know.

It was only when I realized I was weighing the pros and cons of eating a pudding cup that I understood how silly I've been all these years. My mom had been providing me with money so I could buy food to compensate for the meager cafeteria portions (and avoid battered-deep-fried-gravy-covered steak) and I had been making myself more hungry.

The grocery stores will not run out of juice tomorrow. The supply trucks will come, and I will be able to get my cream cheese and limeade.

My growling stomach would really appreciate it if I just ate the damn pudding cup.

Thanks, Mom.

Head For The Hills! The Budget Is Coming!

College life is very enriching, college life teaches you how to survive in the real world, these are the best years of your life...

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Stress teaches you how to go long periods of time without eating so you can get your homework done. It also teaches the people who live with you to throw offerings of food in the room before they come in, so you recognize them as friendly when you look up from your hunched position over the keyboard at page 5 of your paper.

Friend, frieeeeeeenddd...

And now to the "Yes, Mom..." part of our story...

As a second semester Freshman at College X, I am now fully discovering how deep a trench I have dug for myself in terms of workload.

Ahem.

-I am taking 17 credits, and work 15 hours for the school every week, thus keeping me out of my dorm almost every day until after dinner.
-I took a wildland firefighting course, and can be called to duty before an exam.
-I am involved in a play now, where rehearsals are nearly every evening, for at least three hours.
-I must be crazy.

That's deep. I reached six feet, and kept going.

When some people - myself included - find themselves so oft away from the "home" place (the dorm, the suite, whatever) we find ourselves making up for it. Some people study their brains out, some people party their brains out, and some people buy things.

I e-shop.

I love getting mail. I love it. Seeing the little orange slip for the package claim in my teensy mail box gets me all giddy inside. So when Mom stops sending care packages, I buy new socks, or a perfume that helps your skin, or a sweater to keep me warm when the windy gusts on the way to my 8a.m. class fall below zero degrees.

There's a small problem with this. I'm on a budget. X amount of dollars for food, X amount of dollars for sanity.

The key is balance, Mom says.

When one's mind is quite unbalanced, thinking about your lab report due next week, and your readings for two other classes, and chemistry problems due on Wednesday, and don't forget to memorize your lines, it's hard to remember to keep to the budget...

But really, thank you Mom.

The seniors say it gets easier.

Heh. Heh heh, hee hee hoo!

That's a good one.

Gotta go check my mail.

No, Really, It's That Easy!

Before I get into the current episode of "Mom Knew Best", I must apologize for not updating for a month. As it turns out, doing nothing over Winter Break kind of makes it hard to write about frustrating experiences. You know, the whole not having frustrating experiences thing.

Life at College X is fabulous. I really love it here, but sometimes the size of my dorm room kind of gets me down. Especially when the back panel of your bookcase falls out when you're trying to move it to make room for the 3'x2'x5' snake cage that needs to go in the corner. And said bookcase has to be laid flat on it's front to slide the panel back in. And it's full of books that you really have no place else to put-the reason you got said bookcase. And you only have four eensy teensy nails to hold the flimsy back plate in. And did I mention the panel is just a hair too narrow, so it falls out of one side of the grooves on each side every five seconds? Yeah... dorms are great.

Seri and I emptied the bookcase, flipped it over onto it's front, and tried to slide the panel in. We encountered our first problem right at this moment.

The panel is too small, so it jumps out of the grooves faster than water on a hot pan. We try to slide it in smoothly, careful not to favor one side too much, so the panel sits evenly in both grooves. Here we encountered our second problem.

At the top of the bookcase (the end of where you need to slide the panel- it slides in from the base) there is also a long groove, to hold the top of the panel in place. The panel is actually three pieces of chip board held together with tape, so it wobbles, and the middle panel likes to sag. How to make it flat so it will slide into the last groove?

Seri got tired of me swearing at the bookcase after about twenty minutes, and left to otherwise occupy herself far, far away from me.

Now, I pride myself in taking after my father in his problem-solving skills. Find what's not working, or which point in the series is being interrupted. This works great for computers, not so much for ornery bookcases. After another ten minutes of thinking my father would be laughing at me, I realized something rather obvious.

I was fighting gravity. And gravity had been playing this game far longer than I. So how do I beat gravity? I don't! I let gravity work for me! I flipped the bookcase so it was completely upside-down, and dropped the panel in from the top. one minute later, I was done, and had nailed (and duct-taped!) the panel into place.

Hah! Take that, gravity! Excuse me while I do a victory jig.

In this case, it was a lot about realizing that there is never just one way to do something. And often, the simplest solution is best.

I tried the same way of sliding the back panel in probably fifty or sixty times, expecting a different result. I guess that makes me insane!

Alright, now I have to go make my coffee brewer work...

How To Make a Small Room Bigger

My roommate "Rosa" and I have experienced a recurring problem within our teeny 10'x15' room all semester... how do we make it seem bigger? Taking our the option of knocking a few walls down, we have - over the last few months- experimented with various furniture configurations. We have two twin beds (not bunked), two wardrobes (not movable - bolted to the wall), two desks, a book shelf, and a mini-fridge. The fact that we have room to walk around at all in our room is simply astounding.

Through our attempts to make floorspace, Rosa and I have become experts at Tetris. Not the actual game, but the concept. Rearranging things to make more space when you have none does indeed seem to be a necessary talent in dorms.

One of the many problems with configuration experimentation is... you need free time! Free time... in college?! Don't make me laugh. The worst part of it all is that just as Rosa and I have mostly figured out a system that works... she decides she wants to move back to her home state... I had to find a new roommate.

Never fear! I managed to find my secretly-separated-at-birth twin sister, and she has agreed to move in with me! So I get a new roommate... and her three snakes and various musical instruments... Oh boy.

Just the other day we sat in my room for about four hours, discussing how to:
1- fit all of her stuff and my stuff in the same room without killing each other for space,
2- plan how we wanted the desks and beds configured,
3- how she was going to build a loft for her snakes' cage and put her instruments under it,
and much, much more.

My "new" roommate, we shall call her Seri, is also quite skilled at "Tetris." We've agreed to some major changes in the room (some of which involve flipping the beds over and hitting the frame with rocks to put the bed on a higher notch) that will give the more cramped room an airier feeling. We've also agreed upon certain methods of retaliation when our next-door neighbors blast their music at two in the afternoon... our speakers can go louder than theirs.