This happens almost never, but it happened once to me.

Alright. It's time for a million updates on life. Things are starting to slow down, just a little, but I want to blog about my life before I start right back into Rocky Reads. So this post is intended to be written so that you don't have to go all at once. There's several things I want to hit on updating, and I'll make a heading for each of those, that way you can have a reasonable place to break if you need to.


Work
I just want to say that I love my job. I've almost worked at the rec center for a year! It was actually 11 months 3 days ago, which is the longest I've ever held a job. And I still love it. I still get to teach Climbing 101 on Thursdays, and I get to teach Parent/Tot on Saturdays. And until school starts up again, I'm also teaching a class for 7 and 8 year olds on Monday. It's a lot of fun, actually. This is the second session I've done, and I have 2 kids who were in the first session and wanted to stay for the second, and I also have a couple new kids this session. And it's really cool. They're all awesome and improving on climbing, and I'm slowly learning ways to help actually teach kids and adults how to climb and improve their skills. Plus, my bosses are all pretty bamf. I have a fantastic story about being stood up for climbing by a group of kids twice in a row. This actually something that's only happened twice, and both times I got to be the one working. And this story really highlights exactly how awesome my bosses are.

Alas, I started typing it, and it looses something if it's not told in person. Or maybe I'm just too lazy to type it all out. It's pretty long. Whichever reason you want to choose. :) But ask me about it sometime! It's awesome.


Climbing
CLIMBING! I miss climbing. Unfortunately, my friend that I was taking climbing all the time doesn't actually have the money anymore to be able to climb with me. So I haven't been able to go in a while. But I did take another friend climbing for the first time in her life, and you know, she did way better than I did my first time. :) Which isn't to say she's good (and I mean that with all the love in my heart), but she had a ton of fun. That's the first time I've ever taken anyone climbing and they just straight up wanted to climb more on a regular basis.

She made it probably 30 feet up the wall, which is almost to the top, and I think she could be really good at it. But we climbed for a while, and she was super impressed by my skills (which I think is funny, since I'm not super awesome at climbing. I'm pretty average, I'd say), and by "we climbed" I really mean that I climbed one route on the auto belay and she climbed two routes, about 1/4 the way up one, and almost to the top on the other. She did climb the one of them twice, and the second got up about 2/3 of the way. But she was so tired, he arm muscles were just not doing it anymore.

Getting tired from climbing is a weird experience. It's not that you're physically panting and can't continue or something, and it's not even that your arms feel too tired to pull you up the wall. There just hits a point where your muscles aren't doing it anymore. A move you literally made 5 minutes ago will not be a move you can make now because you don't have the grip strength. It's funny. But Christina-- the friend-- got super tired like that, so we stopped for the day. I go over and start putting away the equipment we borrowed from the rec center-- my tag, her harness-- and she comes over to give me her shoes, and glances at her phone to check the time and she just stops. "I've only been climbing a half hour?! That's terrible! I need to work out more before I come back." Haha. It was hilarious.

Then I got the usual slew of questions about what muscles should you work to strengthen your climbing muscles? And straight up, I have no idea. I built up my climbing muscles by climbing more. I worked myself to exhaustion the first week of my class, and after that I just had a lot more upper body strength. That said, I'm still pretty weak, but I improved, and I honestly don't know what exercises will help you with climbing, aside from just climbing more and letting that be your exercise. So sorry.


Weddings
Not mine, no worries. Haha. Though wouldn't that be a way to announce my engagement. (Side note: I had a marriage defined to me recently as betting someone half your stuff that you'll love them forever. I thought it was fantastic.)

A couple of my friends got married last Friday and their reception is this Saturday, which I'm going to. Now this is particularly exciting because I have found someone to be my plus one!

I've been to many weddings, all alone, and most of them have actually been kinda really sad and terrible? I mean, by nature, weddings are these giant celebrations of love and that's beautiful and everything, but it's all about couples. Primarily the one couple that's actually making the vows, but all the things you do at weddings are done better in pairs. Dancing, uh. Eating cake...

Hm. Alright, maybe weddings can be done as a single; maybe the reason I've never enjoyed them before is because I was never particularly close to the bride and groom nor the other people at the wedding. But the people I've always tried to hang out with before at weddings all had dates, so I was just the awkward 3rd wheel, there. And this wedding wouldn't have been a whole lot different. Almost 100% of my friends have a date. They all have boyfriends/husbands/girlfriends/wives, and though I love hanging out with them, it's always paired off. Alli and Trey. Sara and Brandon. Kayli and Billy. And that leaves me as an awkward 3rd wheel if I'm sitting there trying to talk to them. This is a problem all the time, but it's usually not terribly obvious. But weddings, being romantic in design, will most certainly aggravate the situation.

Now I do have one other friend who is boyfriend-less. So every time in the past that we've had everyone hanging out together, if everyone got too coupley, at least we would have each other. But I kinda always wanted that to be my last resort, and this friend almost sees it as a pride. She tries to make it like we're so awesome because we're single and we don't need someone else and it's actually incredibly obnoxious, and honestly I would rather just spend the evening alone than have to spend it with her. Thankfully, instead of having to bare a night being her "partner in crime" or whatever, I just found a date to go with me.

I'm excited. I had to buy shoes so that he can buy a tie to match them, because my dress is just plain black, so if he only has to match that, we're going to be boring. Haha. Hopefully I'll have pictures later.

ASL
So every Thursday, I go to Old Chicago in Superior to hang out with a group of Deaf people and ASL students and we all sit there signing to each other all night. And it's fantastic and I love it and I'm getting pretty good at ASL. There is still so much more for me to learn, but people always tell me that I'm really advanced for having only taken ASL 1. Like, it's not just students who tell me that, but also the Deaf people. Such a compliment. I love it.

One of the coolest things, actually, was last week when I was talking to some girl who I hadn't met before. I can't remember her name. I honestly thought she was Deaf from the way she was using her voice, but it turns out she can hear fine. Maybe she has a Deaf parent or something where she learned to voice herself like Deaf people do. Ooh, she might be a CODA [child of Deaf adults]. Anyway, she was talking to me asked how long I've been studying ASL, so I told her only one semester, and she said that she was really impressed because most ASL students always voice what they say. They speak a lot, especially if they don't know the sign for something, which is particularly bad for two reasons: 1- it's considered super rude in the Deaf culture, and 2- there's not a direct translation from English to ASL, so if you speak while you sign, then you probably aren't signing with good grammar.

But yes. It was a nice compliment. There's this other girl named RaVen who is Deaf, and she was telling a story a couple weeks ago and it just went 100% over my head. My reception is getting better, so I can follow more stories that people tell and tell more stories myself, but this was not one of those nights. I just had no idea what she was saying. And when she finished, she asked if I understood what she said, so I told her no, which she suspected, and then she told me not to worry, because back when she first learned sign language, she wasn't very good. And she improved to where she is now, so she said I can, too. :) It was cool. She and I are actually going to go camping in September. I'm really excited.


Writing
So I suppose I never actually wrote a whole lot, but I miss it anyway. I'm considering starting a blog where I write short stories that span over several posts. These stories wouldn't really be planned out, it would just be me taking maybe one day a week to write out a little bit of plot and seeing where the story goes. Actually, that's the way that Stephen King and Dean Koontz both write their books.

The only problem I see with this way of writing is that I wouldn't be going back to edit the earlier parts of my stories, so the plot might have some continuity errors (depending on how often I update the story) and my prose might not always be beautiful. But I still think it could be fun.

Would anyone be interested in reading that if I started it up? I'll start it up eventually regardless, because if I want to be a writer in the future, then I should start having a set schedule of writing now, right? Get into the habit? But I'll do it happier and sooner if anyone is interested in reading my writing.


Concerts
I need to go to more concerts. On my list:
Five Finger Death Punch
Volbeat
Flobots
Rise Against.

I'm willing go alone-- I've done it before-- but is anyone interested in joining me at any of these concerts next time the bands tour to Denver?


Random Numbers
I think this will be my last section. I've been getting so many texts from random numbers I don't know. It's a strange problem that I can't really say I've had before. It's really ridiculous how many texts I've gotten recently. Some from people I do apparently know, some from wrong numbers, some who never reply to me, and one who I didn't know, but I think they were texting me on purpose.

A couple highlights:
The other week, someone texted me, and all it said was, "I'm sorry" so I replied, "I forgive you. Who is this?" and never got an answer. Which might worry me a little haha.

There's this guy who started texting Sara pretending to be with the CBI and saying that she's in too deep, and she wasn't really playing along, so I texted them and we had a fun conversation about some fake victim and tests that were run on her and us being suspects and needing to get out now. It was random, but totally awesome. I suppose I was the random number in that situation, actually.

Today I got a text from someone saying, "Is this Phil? This is Newly." So I said, "Phil of the Future?" and they just replied with, "I must have the wrong #" haha. So I said, "Yeah, sorry." But I'm glad they replied at all. Made me laugh.

Such a strange problem.

Not that I would call it a problem problem, though. They are almost always either someone I know (like from church) and just don't have the number for, or they don't text me back. The one time they wouldn't say who they were, it was like two years ago and they were doing that Cat Facts thing. I think I won that, though, because the Cat Facts person gave up texting me before I freaked out on them.


Thus ends my giant update on life. I'mma try to read more of The Blade Itself tomorrow! Yay :)

My friends are jerks.

So I'm reading Game of Thrones right now as a leisure book. I started reading it once about a year ago, but I don't remember a lot of what I read so I'm starting it over.

My friends all watch Game of Thrones on HBO. They just finished the 3rd season, which goes up to half way through the 3rd book.

One of my friends (the same one who kept telling me about things in Harry Potter that I hadn't gotten to yet) just told me that a very important character dies at the end of the first book! She told me who it was and why they killed him. Which also revealed a big secret about one of the kids in the book.

Why? Why would you do such a thing? I literally stopped reading Harry Potter for 6 months after being spoiled about everyone who dies. I just don't understand why she'd say such a thing and ruin the author's build-up.

Obviously I will eventually find out the secrets. But way to take all the tension and fun out of reading it myself!

I should have known. She's one of those people who reads the first book in a series, then instead of reading the rest of the series, goes to wikipedia and learns the rest of the plot that way. Wtf.

As a future writer or book editor, I really hate that kind of person.

Because I'm smart?

For my ASL class, my professor wants us to not only learn sign language, but learn about the culture of Deaf people as well. It's kinda cool, I think. I mean, languages aren't this solitary thing that remain the same across time and space. They differ depending on tons of things: where you are, who you're with, history. It goes on. And it's cool, I like it. It kinda comes with the territory of teaching a foreign language; you also have to teach culture.

When I took French in high school, we went on a field trip to the art museum and a French restaurant every year. In my Chinese class, our professor would tell us countless stories about things she's experienced in her 30 something years living in China. When I taught English in China, we celebrated American holidays. The fun thing about ASL is that there's a Deaf community right here in the states. Madame Guzman could tell us all she wanted about getting lost in the Red Light District at night, and she could try to make the classroom feel like a street in Paris, but she couldn't take us to France and let us experience being in France.

However, since Deaf people are everywhere, their culture is everywhere. And I'm sure it's a different culture here than it is in Africa or Australia, but it's still the actual, living culture here. We can actually experience it, and that's just really fantastic, isn't it?

To ensure that we actually do go out and experience it, Peter (my professor) made it a requirement. You have to go to a Deaf culture event and then write a one-page paper about your experience, how you felt, etc. He, then, as the semester went on, he would announce events here and there that we could go to. Plays, Rockies games, Deaf Community Days, and Old Chicago night.

Most of these things you had to pay to go to. Deaf Community Days was a free event, and Old Chicago is kinda free? You have to pay for your food, but to go is free. For that, everyone meets at one of the Old Chicagos on Thursday at 7. It's kinda nice, except that I work every Thursday, so that's not working out for me. The Deaf Community Day event was on a Saturday (which I also work), but it was easier to find someone who could cover that, and it sounded a little more interesting to me.

Well, that's scheduled for tomorrow, and I was going to go, but on Monday, Peter told us that the person in charge of it emailed him to say it's not really open to ASL students who are just starting out. It's not focused much on ASL, but more on building the Deaf Community. So it's for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, their friends and family, advocates of Deaf people... basically anyone who actually knows ASL well and wants to be more integrated into the Deaf Community. Not a young ASL student.

So, that left me out of luck. This thing that I've been planning to go to for most of the semester is now not open for me, and there's like 2 weeks left where I have to find something to do and write paper before the semester ends. The tough thing about finding someone to cover my Thursday shift is that's when the Climbing 101 class is, and there's only 4 PFS's who know how to teach it (including me), and we're all pretty busy, so it's difficult to get it covered. But, thankfully, one of them texted me the same Monday I found out I couldn't go to Deaf Commity Days, and asked me to cover his shift on Tuesday, and then he was available to switch for Thursday, leaving me free to go to Old Chicago.

It was probably one of the most fantastic things I've ever done. I met a ton of cool people, I got to practice my sign language in real life (not just in the scripted setting during class), I learned a bunch of new signs, someone gave me a sign name, practiced my reception of fingerspelling, and it was just a fun time in general. At first, I was worried it would be awkward because I'm only in ASL 1. I clearly am not fluent, or even really conversational imo, but it was alright because I wasn't the only student there. I guess kids from CU and Front Range go a lot, and there was actually another couple girls from my class who showed up. One of them is super hard of hearing, and she's really good at sign language, but I suspect she's learned some outside of class. The other girl, Tammy, is pretty good, she's probably in the top 20% of the class, but it was interesting to see how she couldn't quite understand the full scope of what we've learned so far. She still did fine, though, and she had fun.

One of the things that I think was so cool, actually, is how accepting all the Deaf people were of us as ASL students. If there was a word or a sign that I couldn't understand, they would try to rephrase it, and if that didn't work, they would fingerspell it. They were just really accommodating for the ASL impaired people who were there. It was cool. Super friendly people, really happy to help us try to learn more. One time, one of the guys was signing to Tammy, asking her what she's studying in school, and she didn't understand, so she turns around and looks at me slightly panicked, looking for help, but before I could help try to clarify, the guy she's signing with taps her and tell her to calm down, it's ok. He teased her a little for freaking out, told her it's fine, and sat there working with her for a couple minutes to try to get her to understand what he was asking, and then they had a little conversation about that.

There was this one guy, Greg, who was signing with me and he would sign pretty quickly (for me anyway, it was a normal pace for someone who actually knows sign language), and if I had a hard time following, he would slow down, then apologize for going so fast, and then tell me to ask him to slow down next time. So the next time he signed too fast, I signed to him asking him to slow down, please. He laughed, apologized again, and then told me that when he's signing with someone, if they don't know what they're doing, he goes really slow, but if they do know, he speeds up, and so with me he keeps trying to go at a normal pace.

Basically it was just a compliment that I'm good at signing. He asked what school I'm studying ASL at, and then asked where I studied it before. So I told him no where, just Metro. And he was really surprised. He double checked with me that I was just in ASL 1, which I confirmed, then made sure again he understood by asking that it only just started in January? Yes, I confirmed again, that's right. And then he complimented me for being so good at signing with such little time. He asked me why I know sign language so well (probably expecting to hear that my dad is hard of hearing or I have a Deaf friend or something) and I'm just like, "I don't know. Because I'm smart?" He just laughed and agreed, and then I told him I just love languages, and he told me it was quite an accomplishment.

It was a lot of fun, and not terribly far away. We told jokes and stories. I talked about school and animals and religion. I watched a bunch of conversations, some people were talking about a shooting, I'm not sure which, but I think Columbine. It was cool to just hang out. I'd really like to make it a habit to go after work on Thursdays. It would be kinda late, I wouldn't get there until probably somewhere between 9:30 and 10, so I wouldn't get any food, but I could get a drink or something, and then hang out with everyone for a couple hours (it's suddenly really really convenient that I don't have school on Fridays). And then when we redo the schedule in a couple months, I can ask if anyone will trade me for my Thursday shift, and I would be able to spend more time there. Hopefully someone will comply!

It's the F-L-O-B-O-T-S; what did you expect?

About a week and a half ago, I was listening to KTCL (that's a radio station), and they were just about to play Make It Stop. This is a game where they play some crap song until someone calls in with the correct song title and artist, and then they stop the song and give the person a prize. The prize this particular week was tickets to go see the Flobots at the Gothic on 11/3. I was so excited to hear that this was the prize (because, as I said in my Liebster or something awards, Flobots are one one my top two favorite bands). I ran over to the phone to get ready to call in and try to win tickets, and then the song started playing on the radio.

I have no idea what this song is. Never heard it before it my life. Could have googled it, but someone else would most likely have called in at that point with the right answer. But this is the Flobots! I can't just not go see them play live! So a day or two later, I decided to buy tickets. :D SO EXCITING! I bought two, hoping to find someone who would want to go with me. Unfortunately, most of my friends only know two Flobots songs (or, they think they only know two, but they actually know five. They just don't know that the other three songs are Flobots): Handlebars, and Circle in the Square (they also know White Flag Warrior and Rise and Stand Up). And they were all at a friend's coming home party. And they mostly weren't too interested in going. Or had to wake up early. Or any combination of the above. So I ended up going alone, but it was still so much fun. Going to concerts stag is not as bad as I always imagined it would be. And this was single-handedly the best concert I've ever been to.

Astronautalis and My Body Sings Electric opened for Flobots (though not in that order) and I actually missed all of My Body Sings Electric (I was at the welcome-home/Halloween party for Trey who just got back from Basic and AIT training-- he's Army Reserves-- and left a little later than I should have, and then the line for Will Call tickets was really long and slow). Doors opened at 8, concert started at 9, I probably got in line for Will Call at like 9:25 (I would have gotten there 15 min earlier, but I couldn't find anywhere to park that was public... I wasn't even looking for free, I was just looking to find a lot that didn't tell me they would tow my car. I gave up with that and decided to take my chances on getting towed and parked for free in a King Sooper's parking lot), so it was probably about 10 before I actually got into the concert. Astronautalis was playing at that point.

Astronautalis, as a side note, was actually pretty good. Unfortunately, the rapper was the only one who was there out of the entire band. They couldn't make it; I don't remember why, but they're stuck in Texas. He had an instrumental recording that he used to rap over, and it still sounded pretty good. He also had a really nice stage presence. He told some jokes-- like there's this one song he wrote to make money, and it's about the guy who invented the periodic table of elements. Because, in hip hop, that's what everyone wants to listen to. Singing about boobs, butts and bullets is so last year. Now, old dead chemistry guys are where it's at. Also, he freestyled a song for us! It was way cool. He took topic suggestions from the audience, and he ended up rapping about this Davy Crockett hat that someone gave him, shoveling snow, the equator, the evolution of the free spirit (haha), and some other things I don't remember. It was cool.

After his set was done, Flobots came out and they were so good. First off, they're just really talented. But aside from that, that band just sounds really awesome live. Most of the shows I go to (as fun as they all are), I feel like the music isn't balanced well, so I can't really understand the words of the song, and usually the guitar and bass are both really loud compared to the vocals. But they sounded really awesome and I could clearly hear the words, the viola, guitar, bass, drums. It was sick. They're really good at being awesome and getting the audience to be an active part of the show. They dance and get everyone to move with them, or clap along. And I know those things are pretty typical of all shows, but Flobots was just better at it than everyone else I've seen.

They played their set, and then went backstage, and everyone sat there chanting for them to come back and play encore. They did, and played like 4 or 5 more songs, then actually ended the show and they all gave high fives to everyone that came up to the stage. It was cool :) I got to touch the hands of Jonny 5 and KennyO. Jonny 5 said he and a couple other of the band members would be out to say hi in a couple minutes, so I hung around and got some signatures (Brer's and Jonny's, and the guitarist). I talked with them for a little bit-- there weren't actually a lot of people who hung around-- and then walked back to my car. It was, thankfully, still there.

Such a great night. But I have a fun story now! Well. Fun might not be quite the right word ha.

So when I got to the Gothic, I bought a shirt (as pictured) and then went back to watch the show. There was a big crowd of people hanging out right in front of the stage as there usually is when someone is playing, so I just stood off to the side by some stairs that went up to the second level, and as people moved, I gradually got closer to the stage, while still keeping to the side. Eventually, it was just me and this one other guy standing by the stairs. Ha. This kid. He was not subtle. But he was attractive, so that's fun at least.

We're sitting there, listening to Astronautalis who is currently in the middle of a song, and this kid taps my arm and points down at my shoes to tell me they match. Haha really? In case you haven't noticed, I wear cons all the time. And I was at a concert. My shoes probably matched with a third of the people there. But I just nodded, and he said they were good shoes, and I smiled and turned back to the stage. A couple songs later, he stood right next to me so our arms were touching, and asked if it was ok if he stood there. He seemed nice and all, so I said it was. Between a couple of the songs, he tried making a little conversation and asked if I had ever heard of the guy who was singing (I hadn't) and then said that he thought he was pretty good, but he was actually just here to see Flobots. And then he pointed out all the smoke in the lights and said, "That's what happens at a Flobots concert when they're about to legalize weed in a couple days." I mean, I don't actually know that much about drugs, but I do know that weed has a distinct smell, and that wasn't present in the venue. There was also really good security at the Gothic. What I'm trying to say is that I'm pretty sure that smoke was just an effect. But hey, what do I know. Maybe it was weed and I'm just crazy.

Between the bands, while we were waiting for Flobots, this kid-- apparently his name is Ryan-- was talking to me, but it was a weird conversation. The topics were normal, but he kept asking for clarification on weird things. For instance, he asked where all my friends were, and I told them they didn't come because they were partying. So then he asked why I wasn't partying, then asked why I don't drink-- almost without even waiting for an answer from the first question-- and assuming it was because I wasn't 21 yet, asked when my birthday was. Similarly, we got on the topic of school, and he asked where I go. Apparently he goes to UCD (which is on the same campus as Metro) and then he asked what I study, and why I want a chemistry degree. All normal. But after I told him I want to go into forensics, he told me that was cool, but why do I want to do that instead of being a doctor? Random. (For the record, I wanted to be a doctor, once. And when I got into that field a little with Crew 911, I realized how annoying it is to try to keep people alive. Too much work. I'll just deal with the people who are already dead.) I gave him my reasoning, and he told me that it's not that hard to keep people alive, just work out and eat well, and you'll be healthy all the time. Well ok, sure, most of the time that theoretically works, but the people who are healthy aren't the ones who will need to see doctors. So he told me that I should be a preventative doctor or something, and I gave up and told him I would consider it. And then he was all proud of himself for convincing me to consider a career change... Yeah. Because I'm totally really going to consider it.

Whatever, Flobots eventually came out and we moved a little closer to the middle of everything, and things were normal. Until they played a slowish song. Ryan waited until the song was nearly over and asked me if I wanted to dance. Um... no? This is a concert... Like, he wanted to do the whole ballroom-meets-grinding thing. I know that's actually a thing people do at concerts, but typically the people who dance like that were a couple that was together before the concert started, and came to the concert together, and will continue to be a couple after the show ends. Haha. Anyway, he asked and I said no, and he asked why, so I told him I'm not really a big dancer. We actually already had this conversation, between sets, and he just kept trying to tell me that I could dance, really, and he kept trying to dance with me. I kept saying no, and he eventually got it. The song ended, and Brer Rabbit was talking, setting up the next song, and I'm sitting there trying to listen to what he says, but Ryan's busy trying to save face and says, "Oh, the reason you didn't want to dance is because the song was almost over, right?" Dude. In a super sarcastic way, I told him yes, that was totally the only reason, and for good measure, I rolled my eyes at him too. He just kinda yeah-I-thought-so'd and then backed away to hang out with his friends and go jump around in the circle pit.

Heheh. Once, during a fireside, my friend Jason said something about how girls are really mean, to which I replied, "That's probably my favorite thing about being a girl." He was shocked I would say such a thing, but really. When boys are going to be dumb, I'm not going to try to be nice to them. My new friend Ryan is exhibit A.

And just to finish off the post, here's some sweet pictures of my Halloween costume I had at Trey's Welcome Home party. I made it myself (the apron, I mean. It's duct tape). I'm Alice. A creepy Alice, which is really loosely based off American McGee's Alice. I like my eyes in the second one, because the flash did a weird thing and made one of them all white-pupiled and awesome. But in the first one, you can see the knife better. I also have some cards (queens and aces of spades and hearts, and the joker) sticking out of the apron, but I don't really think they showed up well in either.

Zombies ate my neighbors.

Remember how I work all the time, now?

I just agreed to come in this Thursday (one of my days off) so I can shadow Adam while he teaches climbing 101. Why? Because I'm going to need to know how to teach that class in Nov. Not because I'm taking over for Adam teaching it or anything, but I'll need to teach the same material for my Parent/Tot class (Sat) and my Woman's Climbing class (Thurs) that I get to start teaching. (I think it's funny that they're going to have me teach the Woman's Climbing class, because last time it was offered, I was in it. Haha. Awesome.)

But they are changing my schedule a little bit at PDRC. I'll be working Thursdays (just to teach, though), every other Friday (for Kid's Nite Out), Saturdays and Sundays. We're hopefully getting two new program facility supervisors, and Melissa will just fill them in for the next two months so they can be shadowing someone for the entire two months of training (versus what I got/had to do where I got my own shifts and only shadowed other supervisors for maybe 3 weeks). And then, once that's all done, hopefully I can trade away my Sunday shift for something else in the week and start going to the branch again.

But I actually did something this weekend that doesn't have to do with work or climbing! Ally, Sara and I went to H Burger on Saturday night to review it. I don't know if any of you know where it is, but it's down on the 16th Street Mall. We all piled in my car and drove down to Metro's campus, parked there and then walked over to the restaurant. It was a lot of fun, and I'll get to that review soon! (I even brought my camera and our burger-rating-notebooks down already.) But that's not why I bring this up. Apparently, burger-rating aside, Saturday was an important day. It was the Zombie Walk! Zombie Crawl? I don't remember which.

Basically, a ton of people dress up as zombies and walk around 16th Street Mall being awesome, pretending to eat brains and what not. Some people just go as regular people and pretend to shoot zombies. It was really cool. It happens every year right around Halloween, but this is the first year I've heard of it. Maybe next year I'll dress up :) We saw three pairs of bride/groom zombies, a ton of soldier-zombies (as well as regular soldiers who were there to fight zombies), and a strange amount of clown zombies. There was this one guy dressed as Santa zombie. It was a pretty cool event. They did costume contests (though I don't know who won), and they played Michael Jackson music down by the movie theater. I hope when Thriller played, they got a little flash mob of people to dance to it.

As cool as all of this was, we actually didn't go downtown just to see the show. I just wanted to try out H Burger, and then since we'd be there already, walk around 16th Street Mall and hang out. It was just a happy coincidence that 16th Street Mall happened to be so awesome that night. But as we were walking, Ally wanted to check out Hot Topic and see if they had any Sailor Moon shirts (they didn't). They do, however, have a ton of Batman stuff. He's probably my favorite superhero (I've had thorough arguments with people about whether or not he's a superhero, and I always win. He definitely is). I even have a Batman lanyard that I keep my badges for work and my car keys on.

One of the things Sara found Batman-wise was a little bobble head or something that matched this lanyard. When she showed me, I got all excited and went to grab my lanyard and hold it up next to the bobble head thing. I didn't get too far with that though. "Where are my keys?" And that's when I realized that for the 4th time in the past 5 or 6 weeks, I locked them in my car. Probably still in the ignition.

You know how most cars have that feature where they beep if you have the key in the ignition and open the driver's door at the same time? My car sorta does that. It actually beeps if you don't have the ignition turned to the correct "release key" position. But as for if the key is actually in there or not, it doesn't really care. As long as it's in the position that lets the key out, it doesn't beep. So if I ever get distracted between the time I turn my ignition off and decide to actually leave the car, I usually forget to take the keys with me. The distraction can be small-- something as minor as making sure I have the correct badge before I go into work will distract me enough that I lock my keys in the car. (That is actually the reason that I started keeping my keys and my badges physically connected. I locked my keys in my car 3 times before merging the two). This time, I was counting out loose change to pay back Ally for parking, and that was definitely enough of a conscious effort that I completely spaced grabbing my keys.

So, after Sara's great reminder, I called Dad. He and Mom were at Stake Conference, but they promised to come down to campus and unlock my doors once it was over. It was kind of them, and I really appreciate them coming to our rescue. I'm sure Ally and Sara appreciate it too :) And since Stake Conference wasn't going to be over for an hour, we still had some time to walk around.

We sat and people/zombie watched, and there was some random protest that looked like it was for stopping brutality against police officers. I didn't really realize that was a problem, but what do I know. Maybe I read the sign wrong, and they were trying to stop police brutality? But a ton of Denver police officers were guiding the rally/protest, so... Then we tried to get to the balcony of the clock tower (the balcony by the giant arches, not the one by the clock), but apparently they don't just let you meander up; you have to actually rent out that space. After that, we went to the candy and soda pop store. I bought a tin poster that says, "One Hour Service. We do you quick!" and some Pez for the dispenser in my car, which is taped to the dashboard. We took pictures with some cardboard cutouts, mine is with the Mad Hatter. And I bought a drink with Alice on the can. It was awesome and tasted like blueberries. I love that store. And I love Alice in Wonderland. Probably one of my favorite Disney movies.

Mom and Dad called us, and we met them on campus. Ally and Sara had to use the restroom, so after we got my keys back, we went to see if any of the buildings were still open. It was almost 10 at night, and there aren't a lot of Saturday classes offered, but we thought we'd try hitting up some buildings anyway. The King Center was unlocked-- they actually had just finished a choir/band concert for charity-- but it was the only one open. I mean, it's got bathrooms, so it served its purpose, but the basement of the Tivoli is supposed to be haunted (the Ghost Hunters even visited it), and we wanted to poke around and see if one of the doors to the basement happened to be unlocked. Unfortunately, the doors leading into the Tivoli were locked, so we'll have to try to get to the basement some other time.

When we finally got back to Ally's house, Sara couldn't find her phone. I called it, and we didn't hear anything. We checked out in my car, and nothing. The last place she remembered having it was in the bathroom at the King Center, where she set it on the counter to wash her hands. I drove her back really quick so she could run in and see if her phone was still there, but this was like an hour later. It was almost 11 when we got there, and I was genuinely worried the building would be locked and I'd have to drive down early on Mon to see if her phone was there. If that was even where she lost it. Thankfully it was open, and the phone was sitting right next to the sink where she left it.

After we got back to Ally's again, we sat there watching a show about the top 16 scariest haunted houses in America and thinking of ideas for haunted houses that would be better than ones we've been to. It was a nice end to the night. And thus ends my Saturday. It was crazy and busy and fun. And I'm going to enjoy having a day off on... Nov 5th to relax. Haha. Such a long time from now. That's ok, though. I don't have long work days. I'm pretty busy tomorrow, but with fun things. And then I can relax Wed after work, and Thurs I don't work until 6:45, so it'll be good. Life is so awesome.

I love messing with kids' heads.

Sara and I were going to review a burger place last Saturday, but then I remembered that I would be at COPE for the weekend. Rather than put off the rating for a week, we went on Thursday, and I haven't really had a lot of free time to upload pictures since then (except for yesterday morning, before work, and today after work. Turns out, I'm just lazy enough that uploading the pictures upstairs, then transferring them down here is too much work). Also, I really don't want two burger ratings right next to each other. But I promise, I'll upload the pictures soon. And get the next burger place officially rated by the end of the week.

As I said, I went to COPE this last weekend. There's some school that's had the last couple weekends reserved for us at COPE. They had a grant that let all of their seniors and juniors go, in two separate trips. They have about 50 of each, and the first weekend was the seniors' weekend. I wasn't at this one since it was my first weekend working at PDRC, but that was fine because a lot of the kids didn't end up coming. So there were only 35 or so of them. (I use the term "only" loosely, because that's still a ton of kids to try to get through COPE in a weekend. But we were lucky they didn't all show up, or it would have been much more stressful.) They asked the teachers how many of the allotted 50 kids were expected to show up when the juniors came, and they predicted about the same number. Thank goodness.

I'm not entirely sure what happened next. My guess is that the seniors who went, got back to school and told all the seniors who didn't go how awesome it was, and also told all the juniors that it's awesome. Because we had something ridiculous like 22 girls come up, and 24 boys, plus 5 teachers. Making a total of 51 people to get through the program. This is easily double what we consider a big group. Lucky for us, we had scheduled extra staff to come up, because although (pre-weekend) we were only expecting 35 people, we still had to staff for 50. Unlucky for us, a good deal of the staff that was supposed to come up had major problems come up, and weren't able to make it.

This is ok with me (except that these people had major problems, which is never good) because it means that, although I have done a COPE course in just over 2 years, I got to facilitate the entire time-- I was in charge of a group of 8 or 9 kids, sending them through the low ropes courses, making the Land of the Cony come alive for them. COPE is awesome. We pretend they've entered a different world, where magic is real and they have to do certain activities while they're there. One thing we do is tell them that the giant king stole the elf king's ring, and now they have to get the ring (a tire) off the giant's finger (a tall wooden pole), without touching the finger. Sometimes without touching the ring directly. As soon as they get it off, you tell them that the elf king just came and told you that the ring was actually keeping the giant asleep, and they have to get it back on right now, before he wakes up completely!

Another one we do is tell them they have to get across an "acid river," which is just a bunch of woodchips between two beams of wood on the ground-- and one side is a little more narrow than the other. But they can't step in the river (obviously. Who would step in acid?), they can't jump over it-- they must step-- and they have to get their entire team across. Once across, you tell them they did a good job, but unfortunately, they're all now stuck on the wrong side of the river and they need to get back. They usually get over the first time on the narrower side, and if they do it too quickly, you can add a new rule that on the narrower half, the acid unfortunately just concentrated a lot, and if you even put a limb over it, you lose the limb. So getting over on that side is out of the question.

There's tons and tons more elements like these two that we have them do, and they're all challenging and require the group to think. But what makes it really fun is that we get COPE bandannas that represent different handicaps. You can tie them over someone's eyes and blind them, around their mouth so they become a mute, tie up arms or legs to represent a broken limb, whatever. We've tied someone's hand to their leg before and gave them a hunch back. With all these handicaps, they still have to get everyone over, and they have to learn to use the entire team-- handicapped or not.

Another thing that makes it really fun is the kids themselves. They get into so much trouble. I had broken one kid's leg, and he flat out hopped into the acid river with the other leg, so he ended up breaking that leg as well, becoming a bigger burden on the rest of his team. Or as I was about to hand out handicaps while we were doing the giant's ring, one girl made the comment that I was probably going to injure all of the tall people, making it harder to get the ring off. When she said that, I looked her in the eye and said, "Good idea!" then proceeded to break a lot of legs and arms of the taller boys in the group.

A general rule we have set at COPE is that after you give them the objective of their activity, you send them on their way. Any questions they ask you, then answer is no. "Can we use the tree to cross?" "No." "Can I get on the other side and pull people over?" "No." If they come up with something clever that you kinda hope they'll still use, then instead of just saying no, you change it a little. "Can I use my coat as a bridge?" "No, you cannot." Eventually, they'll have asked enough questions and put enough restrictions on themselves, that you just start to feel bad for them, because you really have no idea how they'll get out of it. "Can I stand with one foot on each side of the river and help everyone else over?" "... Are you asking me that?" The idea is to try to teach them to be more independent, and to not look to their leaders to solve all their problems. If you've found a solution, then do it and don't second guess yourself.

And there's some times where you have to throw them a bone. While we were doing the acid river, the kids kept stepping into the river, or falling into it, until enough of them had injuries and couldn't use legs/hands, that I honestly couldn't think of a way they could get out of it. And they knew it, too, because they started joking about all of them just jumping in the river and doing a mass-suicide thing, that way they could start over. Haha. I quickly offered them a better way, by picking up two pine cones and telling them that the elves are watching them, and just feel sad watching them, so they've given me the power to heal two of their handicaps. The only quirk was that they all had to talk together and agree upon which two handicaps would be healed. Once they figured that out, they were still in a challenging place, but at least they had a way to get over.

It was a ton of fun. Those kids were awesome. And, as an extra bonus to me, there was this one point where we were sitting there waiting for somewhere between 15-20 minutes for our low-ropes course to be set up. Now, if anyone has hung with me and Nicky/Alex in the past, oh, two months, you should be fully aware of the different mind games I've been playing with them. I've done "If this is a hand, and this is a hand, is this a hand?" and we've played with my friend Princess Annie (called Apple Annie up a COPE), and we've done "This is 0, this is 1, this is 2, this is 3, this is 4. How many is this?" and Johnny Woop, and a couple others. I only have two of these mind games that they have yet to figure out, and for one of them, I need at least one other person who knows the rule to do it. But generally, they already know the tricks, so I haven't been able to mess with their heads as freely as I used to be able to. But, during this 15-20 minutes while we were waiting, I had 9 fresh minds that I could play with, and it kept them distracted until the course was set up for me. Love it.

We also got to play a couple games at night, like Yee Haw-- which was actually really fun-- and Who Sir Me Sir-- one of my favorites-- and Pineapple/Banana-- which we never got all the way through because everyone was too confused-- and a couple other fun little games. Maybe next time I go up, I'll try playing Wanna Buy a Duck with a few people. They were all having a lot of fun, which makes it like ten times more exciting for us, because we're the ones helping them have fun, and then they're in good moods and want more. And, it's not just the participants I get along with so well, but also the other facilitators. It never fails to amaze me-- I go up there barely remember the name of two facilitators, and by the end of the weekend, I feel like I have 6 new really close friends. It's really cool.

Unfortunately, I had to work on Sunday at PDRC, so I couldn't stay up the entire weekend. It was fine and everything, I was there for most of it, but I just worry that since I wasn't there for the full time, I won't have made as much of an impression on their lives as they did on mine. They were all really awesome kids, all 46 of them, and I wish I could know that they'll remember something about me. Not necessarily my name, but just something so that I know I'll have made a difference to them and made them better in some way. It's times like this where I'm positive that I should be a chemistry teacher, because teachers always change lives, and that's really something I want to do. Make other's lives better.

Coming home early ended up being ok, though, because work was really awesome on Sunday. That's a story for another post though, seeing as this one is already way too long haha. But don't worry! It's a wonderful story, so it will still come. :)

To sum up, though, COPE is awesome all the time and I had a great weekend.

Benefits of Knowing Your Way Around Campus

One of my friends just started college. A while back, while at work, she got desperately lost. It was a hilarious and sad story. And I've totally been there. I've been lost like that. She and I go to school on the same campus, so I cringed with sadness when I read about her going the COMPLETE OPPOSITE DIRECTION from where she needed to go. Especially because, if she had known where she was going, it would have been like a three minute walk.

Thankfully, now that I've been going to school there for a couple years, I know that campus like the back of my hand. So after reading her sad story, I texted her and told her how to get to all of her classes, and I also told her that if she ever gets lost again, she can text or call me and I'll help her. She could describe to me what she sees, and I would be able to tell her where to go. I've done so with mom and dad both before, so it really is something I could do. I could even tell her where some of the bathrooms are in some of the buildings.

[I have to say, this is an exciting thing to be able to offer for help, because I'm the youngest of 6. I've never had anyone who needed my knowledge before, but I've had many siblings help me out. With these exact same problems-- on the exact same campus-- for Chaelomen. So it was exciting to be all big-sister-ly for a little while.]

Today was the first day of class. I, clearly, am not doing classes this semester. At least, I think that's clear... I think I've mentioned it multiple times on this blog. So I had my phone not on silent, that way if she got lost, she could call and I would actually wake up.

So it happened that at 8:30, I indeed got a phone call. It started off just vibrating, which woke me up, and then I started flipping out. Kylee is lost! Kylee is lost! I have to answer the phone! I have to be conscious enough to help her! And MOST IMPORTANTLY, I have to go upstairs where I won't have really shoddy service! I sit up, flailing everywhere, trying to do several things at once. Find phone. Stand up. Get blanket off. Stand up. Find phone!

I end up throwing my phone to the foot of the couch, and once I have it in my possession again, I have to turn to run upstairs and answer before it goes to voice mail! Must help Kylee before she is late for class! And so, of course, instead of keeping a firm grip on it as I turn, I toss it in the air, and it falls between the couch and the wall! Bah! I go diving after it, and when I finally have it in hand, I actually look at the phone (to make sure the battery didn't get disconnected a little bit, which would make the phone turn off and on, and I would lose the call). The phone stayed in tact, but I realize-- I have no idea what number this is.

And I have Kylee's phone number. There's no where else she'd be calling from.

THIS MUST BE A CALL TO OFFER ME A JOB! :D :D

And it was. I started today (just filling out payroll paperwork and getting fingerprints done), and hopefully my boss will email me back soon, telling me when they want me to work next. Because I sure would hate to show up late or not at all to my first day of work. That would be embarrassing. And probably not be so good for the whole "keeping a job" thing.

And so, on my list of things to get done before starting up school again in a year, I have one thing down. :) And progress is being made on the rest of them... mostly.

Side note-- Kylee did text me later, and since I got the phone call, I was already awake and could answer. She wasn't late or lost or anything, but she was concerned about a lack of people in her classroom. What a great day. I hope she enjoyed her first day, as well.

The time that we kill keeps us alive.

So I'm sitting here texting my best friend, killing time until I decide it's appropriate to go to sleep. Or until I become less hungry. It is hilarious. We are awesome. Here's some examples:

"Who's Dustin?"
"Uh, did you know Kiki in high school? Her boyfriend."

"She still dating Dustin?"
"I don't think so. His profile picture looks like not."

"Hah I looked her up and the guy in her profile pic is not David."

"Ha. Dustin?"

"Whatever lol. Shows how much I knew him."
"Haha the name is in this text conversation!"

"But then I'd have to exit my text box to re look at it."

Heh. I love how she said his name TWICE and still forgot it. :)

"Still didn't pass my gateway, but still better than last time."

"How much better?"

"One point."

"Well that's something.?"

[Side note-- the gateway test is something they do in math classes. It's this one quiz that you have to take, and if you don't pass it, you don't pass the course. It doesn't matter how you do on everything else. Also, if you pass it, but fail everything else, you still fail the course.]

And, the best of the best:

"Hey, did I dream that Kim Kardashian died, or was that real?"

Hahaha. Oh dear. I love my friends, and I just would like to formally say how grateful I am for them. You can't find anyone better than them. I guarantee it.

100!

I wanted to have a really epic blog to celebrate that I now have 100 blogs, but nothing super epic and awesome has happened... Sorry ha.

However, something is happening with my car that made Chaelomen and Berserk laugh. So I'll share that story here.

The other week, I was driving home from Alli's house, and my car was just not accelerating. It wouldn't get out of second gear, so I'm just sitting there going like 30, revving the engine. I was getting pretty frustrated, until I looked down.

I was in neutral. Heh. So I put it in drive, and kept going like a normal person, at a normal speed.

And today, I was driving, and a black cat crossed my path... Any bets on how long it takes my car to die now?

$710,000

Did you know, if you have a scratch ticket and "win a million bucks," after taxes and all, it turns out to be $710,000? Yes. How do I know this? Not by winning a million bucks myself, sadly. But one of my physics lab partners came into class yesterday, and told us that his friend just won a million on some scratch ticket. I actually heard a commercial on the radio for it later, and the odds of winning the million are like one in six million something. So it would be extra dumb of anyone to go out and buy a ticket hoping to win, knowing that someone just won yesterday.

Anyway, we did some math, and if he put all his money into an account that pays 6% interest, he could live off of the interest happily for the next 10+ years.

And then we talked about what we would do with that kind of money. The other girl in my group said she would not be smart with her money and she would go blow it all on useless things. The two guys in the group would drop out of school.

I've actually thought about what I would do with a million bucks before, and it doesn't involve anything extravagant. I would buy a car that's actually worth something, but nothing too fancy. I just want it to go in reverse and not break down after 5 miles, be a stick shift, and have ABS (That's my current car's flaws ha). And then, I would put the rest of the money into a bank and just go to school for the rest of my life. I would probably still get a job somewhere down the line, and I wouldn't buy a ridiculous house or car or anything. I would just go to school forever. :) Always learning, always becoming better.

At some point, I would probably take a really nice vacation.

I would also like to give some of it to some charity or good cause, just so that way I'm not selfish. You know, help the needy, be a good person, blah blah blah.


Or-- if I decided that school's for fools (look at me!)-- I would instead put my grand 2-year traveling plan into motion. I haven't really looked at the cost of this, so a million might not be enough, but this is just a fantasy, so I can do whatever I want. It would involve: Live in France for about a year (perfecting my French-language skills), and then spend 3 months visiting the rest of Europe. Germany, Spain and Italy are specifically on my list. Maybe a month in each of those. Then I'd want to go to spend about 6 or 7 months in South America, visiting Chile and Argentina, and working my way up to Brazil, maybe Peru. Then for 1 and a half or 2 months, I'd go to Jamaica, and finish off the year with Quebec (which would be quite a climate change), and polish off my French a little more. Then I could come home and be thoroughly traveled, and then I would buy my car and go to school with whatever money (if any) I had left. That seems like the better option between the two, probably.

Older than the Internet.

For the record, I have no idea what I am still doing up. I have class tomorrow. A long, long day of class. In case you don't know, my day starts at 8:20-8:25 am when I have to leave for my 9:30 class, and doesn't end until about 8:50 pm, when I get home from my last class that ends at 7:45. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it. I'm currently choosing to be optimistic), I have a nice, big 3 hour break from 10:45-2. Anyway, it's later than I should still be awake, I just want to announce this properly, before I head off.

In 3 days, it will be my birthday, and I will officially no longer be a teenager. So far in my life, I've graduated high school, worked 1 or 2 jobs (depending on if you count ILP), lived on the other side of the world, totaled my car, started learning 2 foreign languages, held the lives of many living creatures in my hands, started writing a book (which has a solid plot, but only a couple physical pages. I think I'm too afraid it won't turn out to be as awesome as I once hoped it would be), and I've lived through a year that's divisible by 100, but was still a leap year. I think it's been a successful life so far, and I intend to keep it going in awesome level.

Mostly, though, I think I've hit this point where I don't really care that my birthday's on Saturday. It's just another day. To be fair, nothing exciting happens when you turn 20. Still can't book a room at picky hotels. Still considered an adult by society. And it doesn't really seem that far off since I turned 19.

Come to think of it-- something exciting is happening this Sat. Mom is going to Disney World! Not with me, though. I wasn't even invited. Ha, I'm kidding. Well, no I'm not. I wasn't invited. I just don't mind. I would've turned down the invite anyway. I have too many awesome classes this semester. Which reminds me... I should go to sleep ha. Night everyone! Happy February!

Hang on. Qualifier.

Ok, so we've been back from vacation for about 5 days, and although I feel like I love it here more than I did before I went to Beijing, I don't think I love it as much as I did while in Beijing. And I don't think that actually has anything to do with me loving Beijing. I'm pretty sure I can pinpoint exactly what it is that made me love China so intensely.

Friends.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lonely little girl with no one to talk to. That's not it at all. I believe a couple months ago, when I got to China, I said I'd write an email about my awesome roommates. I think I'll now actually do that.

Annalisa. She's my head teacher, and she's a great one at that. I feel like I've learned a lot from here, and she's definitely helped me to become the teacher I am. More than that, she's helped me become the person I am. She's been a great influence on my life, and I love the example she sets for me. She's loud and funny. She has about twelve different voices she uses. She has the strangest dreams. And I know that she really cares about me. I think she's made the most effort out of all my roommates to become my friend. Which is very nice, because we have pretty ridiculously different personalities. She is a wonderful person. I love her :)

Mandy. She's so awesome, I love her. She and Anna have a LOT in common. She makes weird faces. She has a couple of her own weird voices. She's very nice, and she genuinely cares about the people in her life. Her laugh and smile is very contagious. We share a lot of interests when it comes to media-- How I Met Your Mother, Relient K, Friends... Other TV shows and bands. Haha. Aside from that, our interests are pretty different, but I love her :)

April. She's my literal roommate. We've had our fair share of late nights talking about nothing. We get along well. And man! Can that girl get crazy hyper! Our personalities mesh best when she's in a calmer state, or when I'm in a more excited state. She's loud. She laughs all the time. She's sweet. She's gets on my nerves occasionally (though nothing specific comes to mind), and I'm sure I've gotten on her nerves before. I mean, we live in the same room. I'm with her constantly, it's bound to happen. And I love her anyway :)

But (there's always a but, isn't there?), had I met any of these girls back home, I don't think we'd be the friends we are now. I think I'd see them at church, and we'd sit next to each other and talk and laugh, but I don't imagine we'd randomly decide to run to the store together really quick. I don't think we'd decide to go out to dinner. I don't think we'd go get our hair done. I could be wrong, but I think I'm so different from them that if I weren't forced to be close to them, I wouldn't be. It just wouldn't have happened naturally.

I'm not miserable, or even unhappy. In fact, I'm more than content. I love being here, and I love being with these people. But none of them are really people who I clicked with immediately. Even after 3 months of being here, I'm still the quietest one in the group. And it's not because I'm shy or anything, I just don't have a lot in common with all of them, personality-wise. Which isn't a bad thing! We have totally different personalities, and that happens. I'm not better than them, and they aren't better than me. We're just different.

However, we went to Beijing with 2 other schools. There were 12 of us total. 4 from our school, 6 from the school in Xioulan and 2 from another school, which name I do not know. Because there were so many people, there was a wide range of personalities. And there are 4 or 5 girls in the rest of the group that I do click with right away. So while I was in Beijing, I was able to be with people who I think I would naturally gravitate toward back home. And having that closeness with some of the other girls, PLUS being in an awesome country that I love with my entire heart, I realized how much I don't want to leave.

So yes. That about sums it up. I love my roommates, and I'll be so sad to have to leave them all in a month. It will be strange, to say the least, to not be with them 24/7. I just wish that my relationship with them was a little more natural, like their relationships with each other.

My Last Day of Work

Last Saturday was my last day of working at Target. It was wonderful. Well. It wasn't wonderful, it kinda sucked. Day before Easter is always super busy. But the not being there anymore was wonderful.

Target's not a bad place to work or anything, but Christmas is a really busy and awful time to work there, so everyone hates it. But that's just Christmas, and once Christmas is over, the people who work there can be divided into 2 groups: those who still hate it like it were Christmas, and those who go back to liking their job fine. Apparently I fall into the former, so I put my 2 weeks in. I'll go to school this summer (I'm taking Ethics, Logic Language and Persuasion, and Abnormal Psychology. Ethics is for my major, logic and persuasion is for my communications credit, and abnormal psychology is for my minor) and then I'll be in China this fall. When I get back, I'd like to try to get a job as a waitress. Which is a weird aspiration, I know, but I'd really like to work in a sit down restaurant until I can start my career. Don't judge.

Regardless, this post is actually (supposed to be) about some prom kids I met on my last day.

I was backup cashiering, and I was checking out a lady in my lane. She was talking to 3 boys who were in line behind her. Apparently they go to the same school as her son, and they all had prom that night. After I finish with her, I start checking out Prom Kid #1. He bought a bouquet and some gum, and paid with a card. While he's messing with the card reader, I look at the Prom Kid #2's stuff, and he only has one thing:
A box of condoms.

So I kinda laugh, then I smile and look at him, pointing to the condoms and say, "Classy." He just looks down kinda bashful and all embarrassed and just says, "Yeah..." Then after a few seconds he's like "I'm still a good kid!" I just laughed and said, "I'm not judging," then I scanned his stuff (and btw- he definitely wanted a bag. Said please and everything) and after he paid, Prom Kid #1 and#2 went off to stand with their dates. I checked out Prom Kid #3 (bought a bouquet) and told them to have fun at prom. Then I turned to Prom Kid #2 and said, "And you-- have fun at after prom."

Unfortunately, Prom Kid #1 and #2 were busy talking to their dates, so they didn't hear, but Prom Kid #3 thought it was funny, so he relayed the message for me.

I take joy in knowing that those kids will never forget me.

For those of you who thought you could only be locked OUT.

I work on the sales floor of Target. Usually, I close. This means that at the end of the night, around 11 or so, the LOD (Leader on Duty, aka manager) arms the building, that way if anyone breaks in, an alarm goes off and police are probably notified. I don't the specifics, but the point is that the building get armed, and you can't open the door until the LOD puts in his code, which will unarm the building for about a minute. Just enough time to get everyone outside so we can go home.

On Friday, Ally and I were working in softlines (all the clothes areas) and when everyone was done zoning, our LOD had everyone bring up all the abandon (merchandise that guests left lying around somewhere in the store where it doesn't belong. This gets sorted and then put back on the shelves later, except for perishables, which get defected out of the system) and then we were all leaving. However, in softlines, instead of bringing the abandon up to Guest Services, we take it back to the fitting room to be sorted out there into Infant's, Ready-to-Wear, Men's, etc. So we took our two carts of abandon back to the fitting room and put away all the empty hangers and then took up our empty carts back up to the front of the store. We put our equipment away and got ready to head out.

We were maybe-- MAYBE-- five minutes behind everyone else. As we got up to the TSC (break room/ employee entrance and exit/ locker room/ LODs offices), we paged the LOD overhead to ask him to come let us out. Nothing. We paged him one more time. Still nothing.

Ally went to go get a walkie and try to get him to come up from there, and I went off to see if he was in his office or anyone else's. His office was locked, so that wasn't really a good sign. He wasn't in anyone else's office, also not a good sign. He wasn't answering on the walkie, a pretty bad sign. Ally was a little concerned, but to be completely honest, I thought it was awesome. She was ready to just walk out and let the alarm go off, but I was pretty sure there was something else we could do.

I told her to call her mom (who also works at Target) and get the number of the softline's TLOD (Team-Lead on Duty, which is a step just under LOD) and maybe she could come let us out. And if she couldn't, then she might have the number of someone who could.

So while Ally is talking to her mom trying to figure this out, I remember that they have our numbers all on the system. They have to so that they can call us to ask us to come in early or to pick up an extra shift or whatever. So I go to the computer behind the desk in the TSC (which was already logged on) and I sit there looking at the icons on the desktop. None of them look promising to have a list of numbers. So I open up the start menu and see Excel, which would be a PERFECT place to have a bunch of phone numbers. The 2nd most recent open file there was filed as ETL's Numbers. (I don't really know what ETL stands for. But it consists of all the managers and the general store manager.)

At this point, Ally got off the phone with her mom (who had just given us the softlines TLOD's number) and we called the LOD that night.

"Hello?"
"Hey, this is Samara."
"Are you guys still in Target?"
"Yes, we are."
"Ok, I'm still close-- (he lives about a half hour away)-- I'll be right back."
"Sweet, thanks."

We waited there for a few minutes and he came to let us out, apologizing profusely. Apparently he had let the "last person" out and when everyone got into their car and drove away, he saw two excess cars in the parking lot. He waited around for a few minutes in the parking lot to see if anyone else came out of Target, and then left to go get gas and go home. Cue phone call. Although he was a little confused about how we got his number... Muahahaha!

And that's the story of how Ally and I got locked inside Target.

This story has a happy ending.

So about 2 or 3 weeks ago, now, I went online and I searched for all the classes I want to take next semester. I was being really prepared and I saw which classes I should take so that the time wouldn't overlap or anything. The classes I wanted were: Intro to the Criminal Justice System, Gen Chem II, Gen Chem Lab, Trig, Freshman English II, and Intro to Stats for Behavioral something (that's a psych class). After I got it all figured out I had a week until I registered for classes, which I mentioned earlier.

Then I learned that I had an Immunization Hold on my account. I went down to the Health Center and asked how I get it removed, and they told me. It was a really simple process, all that I really had to do was get a copy of my immunization records and give it to them.

But I had plenty of time to do that, so no rush. I was mostly worried about not getting certain classes. For instance, I want this one Gen Chem Lab class, and I want this one Gen Chem II class. The Lab teacher is my chem teacher now and he's really good. And Chealomen said that the Gen Chem II teacher was pretty good, so I kept checking the availability on those two classes to make sure I'd still be able to get them. They were getting pretty full, but I was going to be able to register soon, so the chances were still decent that I'd get all the classes I picked out.

So, being busy and a pretty bad procrastinator, I waited until the Monday I could sign up for classes to get that in. But that shouldn't have really been a problem. I had a hold on my account last semester, and it took all of 15 seconds to get cleared. I even turned in the papers a good hour before freshmen were allowed to register, just in case. I went to the Health Center and turned in the papers and the lady at the front desk there looked them over then told me I was good to go.

"Cool. How long until the hold is taken off my account?"
"The hold should be released within 72 hours."

Oh. Wow. 72 hours. That's quite a long time to have to wait. I went and looked at the availability of all my classes again. At that point, the trig class I wanted was full, as was the psych class and my gen chem lab. It was pretty upsetting, but I could probably go through and rearrange everything and get the classes I wanted still, even if I didn't have the specific teacher I wanted for lab. And then I spent the next couple days checking my account every couple hours to see if they released the hold yet. And everytime I saw that they hadn't released my account, I had to check to see if I'd still be able to get my classes.

It was Tuesday morning one time when I checked, right before chem was starting, and I looked at the gen chem labs. All full. Not just Ball's, the one I wanted, but every single one of them. There wasn't even one seat open. And I still couldn't register :( I had no idea what to do. It's kinda important to my major that I get into a lab class, since they're only offered in the spring.

I talked to my teacher and he said that I wasn't alone and that they'll probably open up another class because so many kids need to take it. Then he asked if they were to open up a seat for me in any of the classes, which teacher would I want to have it with? I told him that I was really hoping I could take his class, and he said he'd let me know if a new class or anything opened.

After class was over, I went to check and see if they had released my hold yet. They hadn't. So I checked on the Gen Chem Lab classes instead. They had opened a new class (which was at the same time as the gen chem ii class I wanted) and added 6 additional student to each existing class. I was so excited because I would be able to take the chem lab with Ball if they released my account soon enough. So I kept checking in on that.

Later that night, Ball emailed me to let me know that the opened a new class and had a few more students in his class. He said that he can't override my immunization hold, but he'll try to hang on to a seat in his class for me as long as he could. I kept checking in on his class and it was filling up pretty slowly, so that by Wednesday (I still had 24 hour to wait for my account to be released) there was only 1 seat yet.

Now, I'm getting really really anxious. It would make my semester so much easier if I could just get this class, and there's only one seat left. I decided that rather than wait the 24 hours, I would just go to the Health Center and ask them to clear my hold for me. So I went and talked to a different girl than I had talked to before.

"There's a hold on my account, I was just wondering if you could get it taken off for me."
"Did you turn in your paperwork?"
"Yes, I did."
"When?" Oh dear. I'm going to tell her, and she's going to tell me I have to wait another day and then come back if it's not released yet.
"On Monday." Wait for it.
"Oh, it should already be released." Well that was a pleasant surprise. She took my ID number and said she'd give it to her supervisor and get my account released by 5 pm. It was already 4 pm. :)

Then, as I was leaving campus, some guy stopped me and asked if I had a minute to talk. He was with a guy who had a camera. I said sure and he got my name, then showed me some pictures of dead people, or grave yards, or smoker's lungs that they're trying to push to be on cigarette boxes, and he asked if I thought they would be effective for teens and people in their 20's. I said no, because the smoker's don't really think that kinda thing will happen to them, or if they do think it'll happen to them, they don't care because that's pretty far ahead in the future, so no need to worry now. It was weird, but he got what he needed and let me go on my way.

I went home and signed up for classes. I got into Ball's class, and also the other chem class I wanted. My original schedule plan had me going to school every Mon Wed and Thurs from 9:30 to 3:50, and Tues from 9:30 to 10:45. My actual schedule has all the same classes, but instead on Mon and Wed I go from 9:30 to 3:50, on Tues I go 5:00 to 7:45, and on Thurs I go from 12:00 to 7:45. And I've got a break for lunch/ dinner Mon, Wed and Thurs. It'll be cool :)

And, if you were wondering what the little smoker interview has to do with anything, it was apparently a part of a thing they were doing for the Today Show. Guess who was on National TV? :D Although, they don't mention my name so I don't know why he asked, but it was still cool ha. I didn't even know this was for something real, I thought maybe it was for a class. But then my friend told me she saw me on TV. Sweet! If you want to see the clip, it's on my facebook. :)

For such a stressful week, it sure made for a happy ending.

A Monster in My Car.

I went to the bank last week to try to figure out how to get them to stop charging me 3 dollars every month. Something about not having the correct account, because I'm a college student and I had an adult account or something. I don't really know, but I got it all taken care of. Hooray!

The funny thing happened when I was leaving. It was a fairly warm day, and so I had my windows cracked while I was inside. I usually do in the summer. Now, I don't actually know if everyone knows this about me, but I have an awful fear of bees/wasps.

I was trying to think of why I'm so terrified of them, and I'm pretty sure it comes from this one time when I was playing outside with my friends. I might have been in 3rd grade at this point. We had been riding our bikes around, and so we all had our helmets on and we were sitting in the shade. A wasp flew over to us, and Ashley and Tyler jump up out of the way, but I recalled Scooter telling me once that if a bee comes near you, you shouldn't run away, just hold still and it'll go away. So that's what I did. Which, for future reference, is not the thing to do with wasps. Anyway, the wasp was crawling around all over my face and by my mouth and eyes, it was truly one of the scariest experiences of my life. It would crawl into the holes in my helmet, and I've since decided that it was looking for a place to nest. I had to tell Ashley and Tyler what to do, too. I tried having them go get Scooter, but the doors to the house were locked. So Tyler got his mom, and she came out and got the wasp off me. To this day, I still have not been stung, and I do everything I can to ensure it stays that way. I have more scary stories, just ask if you ever want to hear any.

But back to the present. After I was done at the bank, I got into my car and put on my seat belt, and started to drive away. I had just breaked to exit the parking lot, and I heard a buzzing coming from right by where the driver's seat belt feeds into the car. Since I was already stopped, I looked over to see what it was, sorta assuming it was a fly. It wasn't, and you guessed it. It was a wasp.

I flipped out. I was kinda screaming in a hysterical way that wasn't very loud. But I'm proud to say that I had the presence of mind to put my car in park, I put the parking break on, and I took off my seat belt, probably hitting the wasp in that process, and then crawled over to the passenger seat. I turned on the hazard lights, because I was RIGHT THERE, blocking off the exit to the bank, and if someone needed to leave, I wanted them to go around. I tried opening the car door, but it was locked. So I hurried and unlocked it, nothing on my mind except trying to untrap myself and get away from this monster.

I finally made it outside, and I walked around to the driver side of the car. I can see the wasp, it's at the bottom of the window and trying to escape, but my window was only cracked like maybe 2 inches, so it was hopelessly confused. I tried helping by opening my door, but at that point, it had settled in nicely and didn't look like it was trying to leave anymore. So I started tapping the other side of the glass trying to get it to leave. I even yelled at it. "Get out of my car!"

I stopped, clearly that wasn't working, and I looked around. And there's this guy and this lady standing there, they were previously talking while he smoked before going in to the bank, but they had just sorta stopped and were staring at me. They're just staring openly, and I can't blame them when I think about how ridiculous I must have looked, and they don't even see anything in my car from there. So they're both just staring at me open mouthed and confused.

So I called over to them, being pretty friendly. "Hi."

The guy answered. "Are you ok?" haha.

"Yeah, I'm fine... There's just a bee in my car."

The lady starting laughing lightly, and I can't honestly say I blame her. But the guy asked if I wanted help. I told him that would be great, if he wanted to. So he came over and hit the wasp with his glasses until it flew away. I said thanks and told him that I'm just really scared of bees, and he said it was fine.

Let me tell you, that experience really restored my faith in the kindness of strangers. I would have probably stood there for hours waiting for the wasp to fly away on it's own if they hadn't been there.

And, needless to say, my car windows have since been completely rolled up. I'd rather deal with the heat.

Happy Friday the 13th

This is me spilling salt on the ground to celebrate. We also broke a mirror, and stepped on many cracks. Unfortunately, we failed to find a ladder to walk under and a black cat to have cross our path. Oh well, there's always May 2011.

And no worries, we made sure we got the glass from the mirror all swept up.

Don't worry, we have a pocket knife. And an Indian.

So, as I'm sitting here reading an awesome new blog, I really want to tell someone about it, but I got the awesome new blog off of MJ's blog, and so pretty much everyone already knows about it.

But then I realized that I've got a few of my own friends, (a whole 1 person comes to mind) and so everyone should check out this new blog :)

And since I stole that from MJ and the majority of the people reading this probably already know about it, I'll tell you about our hike we went on really quick. Last Tuesday, I wanted to hang out with some of my friends and do something awesome and free, so we went hiking in Boulder. It's this random little place, but it was really pretty. It's 3 miles up and 3 back, and it runs along a little river. And we saw a lady on a horse coming down the trail as we were going up. It was really pretty.

We didn't get a chance to get to the top, though, because Ally had to get back home by 2 or something, but we're gonna try to go up again sometime in September or maybe October, so I'll let you know how it turns out. :D

I gave Sara a pine cone, which she later threw into the river.

It looks kinda like we're standing on a green screen or something, but we're actually standing on a little ledge on the side of the mountain.

Looks like someone left an offering for the Gods.

We didn't actually see a mountain lion, no worries.

Hooray 2010!

So graduation was this week. It totally rocked. Chaelomen's was on Sunday, then mine was on Monday.

Chaelomen gave me bunny ears. I didn't notice for the first picture, but I did for this one.


We all look the same, so I circled me. Within a 2-person radius.

I played cymbols for my last concert. Woo haha.

I got my Five Star Diploma :D

(Which means that I:

-earned 23 credits

-had at least a 3.5 GPA

-got proficient or advanced on all my CSAP scores

-got a 23 or more on my ACTs

-met CDHD requirements

-participated in all state-mandated assessments)

He refused to give me a kiss haha. But politely.

It was fun. Definitely a lot better than the ones I'd been to the past few years, playing in the band.