In Retrospect

Parents are pretty awesome. Today for Mother's Day, I'd like to highlight all the awesome stuff I've come to realize about my parents (but mostly my mom. Sorry, Dad, your time will come) and all the things they have to put up with when raising children (or dealing with other adults).

I never realized how much of a pain in the butt picky eaters are until I tried to cook for one, and/or take one out to dinner at a nice restaurant. How on earth so you respond when a grown adult starts picking the green things out of her pasta in the middle of a crowded room? Growing up I was (and kind of still am) a picky eater. If it wasn't macaroni and cheese from a cardboard box, I didn't want to eat it. Many a night was spent wishing I had magical dairy powers to turn those weird green things into happy day-glo orange noodles. Alas, I had to become a respectable person instead. Cooking for others is difficult enough without someone adding the unpleasant commentary of "Uhhhhh.... so what's that? Is it spicy? I can't eat it if it's spicy."

Moms are your walking, talking, personal day-planner. Except that they aren't color coded, and tend to resent being called such things. As an adult you realize that suddenly you have to keep track of your own doctor's appointments, class schedule and planning, wardrobe, cleaning, etc etc etc. Calendars just never seem to suffice - the boxes aren't big enough to contain the joy of a trip to New York in the same month as the end of school. Somehow only a mom can keep track of their own schedules and that of their husband and children. Go moms!

Unconditional love. What kind of person still loves you when you break the dinnerware, make a mess of your room and refuse to clean it, pout, fuss, and steam your way all across the house in a right tizzy. Moms; that's who. They might not like you very much when you whine all day about your chores ("Whyyyyyyy do I have to clean the kitchen??") but they'll always love you.

The wisdom to keep your mouth shut is painful - people will tell you their problems and just expect you to nod sympathetically and say "poor baby" a few times in appropriate places. Some people just aren't receptive to the comment of "well maybe if you hadn't spent all of your money on potato chips you would have some to spend on those shoes you wanted." Many times when I received a response like this I got to practice my pouting ability. I was very good at it. My mother, more often than not, gave the appropriate responses all pre-teens and teens want, and tried to keep her 20/20 hindsight out of my view. Generally people don't care to hear how they could either solve their problems or avoid them in the future; they just want to complain.

So thanks, Mom. Thanks for the nineteen years of wisdom and love and benign neglect. Thanks for not sending me to summer camps, and repeatedly prying me away from the television and out into the sunshine. Thanks for instilling in me a sense of moral values and a good set of table manners. Thanks for teaching me how to behave in public, and giving me a wonderful role model.

Thanks, Mom.

Happy Mother's Day.

Plan B is Important

Those times in life when you choose not to construct a "Plan B" is when you're actually going to need it. When you're incredible nervous and make ten different plans just in case, everything goes smoothly and you didn't need them after all.

Starting in about February College X took applications for summer internships with some of our academic partners. Some of these are REU's (Research Experience for Undergraduates), some are more like an actual job. The competition for these internships is pretty fierce - there are only about twenty slots, and about 60-70 people apply every year. That might not sound like a lot, but that means that more than two-thirds of us are going to go home in tears at the end of the whole process. And even if you get offered an internship, it may not be the one you applied for, or even one that you think you might enjoy.

I applied to work in South Carolina with loggerhead sea turtles, and was probably overconfident about getting the job. I went through a round of interviews and felt fairly sure I was going to get the job. I started telling people I was (probably) going to be working with turtles this summer, yadda yadda... You could probably hear the sound of my head inflating.

Things started to go south when the process came to a draw between myself and another applicant. I later learned that she was a firefighter (like me) and a Junior (like me) with lots of work experience (like me). The preserve in South Carolina ran a second round of interviews over the phone - seriously nerve-wracking. I hate talking on the phone. I really can't stand it.

I knew when the Internship adviser called me two days before Spring Break (when the announcements about internships were due) and mispronounced my name that they had chosen the other girl. I was utterly heartbroken. My senior research, summer plans, and future job plans had basically all hinged on getting that job. I was crushed.

In a day I had managed to pull myself together and start (a little late) a job search. Prospects weren't good. Then, the night before Spring Break, my adviser called again. This time he pronounced my name correctly - must be good news!

Another girl had turned down a fantastic job opportunity only an hour or so from my home town, and he wanted to offer it to me. It payed nearly twice as much as the one I wanted, the hours were much more reasonable (no getting up at midnight to look for turtle tracks) and they would enable me to do my Senior research.

I was overjoyed, and wanted to cry and scream and shout all at the same time. I think I did, actually.

So how is this relevant to anyone else? I have never been rejected for a job in my entire life. Never. I am used to generally getting what I want when I want it. Those few days of crushing rejection and realization that I had to start all over because of my huge ego was a gigantic bucket of ice-cold water. I was a lot more grateful for that internship when I was looking at a (possibly) jobless summer.

Be careful what you wish for (and expect) because you might not get it. You aren't entitled to it.

Priorities, Cleaning, and Minor Purchases

Dorm rooms aren't big.

You own probably about twenty or thirty cubic feet of stuff when you move into a 10x15x8 dorm room.

Logic and math says that you and all of your stuff and the desk and the dresser and the bed and the (insert large dorm object here) cannot all exist in that space together without a few bruised toes. Butyou'll try anyway.

Do you need to bring your entire collection of miniature teddy bears? Of course! And the complete dinnerware set? How could I leave it behind? And that hand-tooled leather bag you've never used? Duh!

See where I'm going?

So we start to cut back, and leave the dual-action flossing and brushing tootbrush (still in its box) and the Martha Stewart stationery set (only $39.99 plus the cost of shipping, handling, and the effort it will take to pitch it into a dumpster in a month!), and all the other crap we hang on to because it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy.

I have been hanging onto a lot of stuff. This is not the ideal "stuff" that is perfect and makes you happy every time you look at it. No no. This is the stuff that when you open the drawer to get what you really want, you see it and think "Dear god, I can't even look at this right now!" and you slam the drawer shut and hope to never open it again. Why? It might eat your soul.

So we leave the drawer shut because it's too scary. Or maybe because we just can't justify something that we spent our hard-earned money on in the first place. I'm a college student - money is a big deal.

But I have limits. Limits are reached when I have finally come to a healthier, mostly headache-free point in my life... only to realize I live in a high-class dumpster. Nothing is dirty or moldy, there's just a lot of stuff! So much of it represents what I would actually like to own, so I have five or six representations of a single more expensive object I want.

Logic says that in order to gain space and sanity, I should just go ahead and buy the one thing I want and give away the six other objects. In the immortal words of one of my idols: "Pick it up, walk to the window, and throw it aaaaalllll out!"

Ahhh. Breathing room.

People Can Be Disappointing

But that's okay.

Yes, it really sucks sometimes. And no, you can't put on your best pouty face forever.

I am friends with some really great people, and I do my best to be there for them however I can. I don't ask for a lot, and I repay whatever favors I do ask for generously (at least I think so). Today I had a musical review performance with a few of my theater friends, and I asked about ten or fifteen of my closest friends here at College X to be there and hear me sing a solo for the first time in my life.I emphasized how much it would mean to me to have them there. I batted long eyelashes and made my best "Bambi" face. Really, I did everything but bribe people to show up.

When it came time for me to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" to an audience of thirty people only one of my friends had shown up, and I hadn't even asked her directly to be there. I was hurt, to say the least. I sang the mournful song with this energy, and apparently (the director told me later) even managed to make the audience cry.

The show was about an hour long, and I really wondered what was so critically important that many of them had said they would be there, and then decided later not to show up, or even call and say they couldn't make it.

I really don't care. I asked one friend, and got a mumbledy-jumbledy answer about work and an art project. I would probably get similar answers from the others if I asked them as well. I could be seriously pissy about it, or I could just express my severe disappointment, and leave it at that. I don't want to hear excuses - I manage to make it to all of their events, and they didn't see fit to return the favor. Which is completely their right. Not everyone likes musical theatre.

At the same time, the performance wasn't for them - it was for me. I have never gotten the chance to sing a solo song in four years of theatre. That's four plays and five musicals. It felt amazing to know I moved an audience, and finally had the courage to really sing my heart out. That's worth a lot.

Diabolical Scheduling

I am an evil genius. No, really!

When this semester started in January, I had four to five classes every day, along with a work shift thrown in somewhere. It was torture, but it was the middle of winter in the mountains (excuse me, can you help me find my nose? I think it fell off in the ice storm) so it wasn't like I badly wanted to be spending time outside.

Two of these classes were term classes, meaning that they ended before spring break. Now I am left with only two classes a day, and neither one of them assigns a good deal of homework outside of a single lengthy project. Now that it is perfectly glorious weather outside, I have all of the time I need to both do my project, and work on my base tan.

My friends all hate me for this.

Sure, I hated life during that first term, but the vision of a sunny and relaxing future in just eight short weeks kept me going strong. While everyone else is complaining about all the homework and projects they suddenly have piling up at the end of the year, I get to wander around outside twiddling my thumbs for hours on end. That plant collection project that's due next week? Oh, I just finished that, and just need to mount my specimens. You haven't started yet?

This also leaves me lots of time for cooking, watching movies, cleaning, and preparing for the end of the school year. Yes, despite how much we whine, the school year does eventually come to an end.

Now excuse me, but the sunshine is calling, and you should probably get back to work!

Free Time is Overrated

Some children may disagree with me on this point, but let me explain.

At glorious College X, students work for the school at least 15 hours a week, and do community service, and somehow fit homework in there. It sounds crazy, but there is actually a lot of downtime if you have a good work ethic (how else would I write blog updates?) Somehow between my classes, work, and service I fit archery, firefighting, first-aid for fire spinners, and a love of Law&Order into my week. Not to mention lots of crazy daydreaming. It may help that I don't party, don't drink and don't smoke.

I often wonder how people at other colleges don't go completely crazy with an extra 15-20 hours of free time every week. Maybe their brains just turn to mush, and they're brainwashed into thinking it's an invigorating experience.

We're not lazy, we're just selectively focused.

Bah. You had your entire childhood to play around in the dirt with sticks (at least I did - no summer camp or soccer for my family! Wahoo!), apply yourself a little.

Though I may not have enough time every week to write a lengthy blog post, I at least feel satisfied with everything that I've done.

A Touch of Perspective

As I have discovered recently there are a lot of things college students (and other such adults) love to complain about, even though there are easy solutions.

#1: "I don't get enough sleep"
There are a lot of varieties of this complaint, which include saying "I'm really tired" about eighty times in one day, etc. The easy solution is: Go to bed before midnight every night, and try getting up at the same time every day (a sleep schedule). It also has another name most people hate - a bedtime. Your body loves schedules, and hates the funky partying you do until three a.m. on Saturdays. Try it, you'll be amazed.

#2: "I don't have enough time to do all of my homework/projects"
Again, try getting up at eight or nine on weekends instead of two or three in the afternoon. You'll be amazed how productive you can be that early when all of the other hung-over people aren't awake yet and the dorm is extremely quiet.

#3: "I don't have enough money"
Well did you really have to buy all of the beer for last week's block party? I might also recommend spending less, saving more, and getting a summer job (If you aren't in a position to have a job while at school). Remember that it also isn't a good thing if you save every penny and deprive yourself of a little fun. It's also not good to sponsor happy hour at the local bar.

#4: "I hate all my classes/professors"
Then you probably aren't in the right major. A reevaluation of your educational priorities may be in order, or a quick talk with your professor about your concerns.

#5: "School textbooks are too expensive"
... Well yeah. There really isn't a way to fix this, but that doesn't mean you have to repeat it every single time you buy textbooks.

#6: "[insert generic complaint about girlfriend/boyfriend/partner here]"
Probably the greatest number of complaints I hear on campus are about relationships. It drives me completely insane. Most couples I know are dating someone on campus, and when they complain I try to make it clear to them how fortunate they are to be able to see each other every day. I have been dating the same man for three years, and I have hardly seen since I came to College X (except over breaks). It's torture. Unless your significant other also chooses to join the military like mine, stop complaining about not seeing each other every single hour.