Dining Center

The Dining Center is a place of humiliation.  I mean...really.  You have a tray of food and a glass of liquid balanced precariously on it....just waiting to be tipped.  And where I go to school, everybody claps when you spill your tray.  My school also happens to have a dining center with two floors, so the stairs are prime tray-spilling areas.  Yesterday I was wearing boots that happen to be just a tad too big, and my toe caught on the step when I was walking down the stairs.  Let's just say I was lucky....I stumbled down the next few steps, thrusting my tray out in a desperate effort to prevent my plates and glass from spilling...and succeeded :)  Hopefully nobody saw me scrambling for my balance, but at least I didn't spill my food.  Seriously....it is so hard to type right now!  My teacher in my Spanish class is awesome and she bought coffee for everybody in my class!  Caffeine affects me a lot....so I am totally wired right now!  And I'm still thinking in Spanish!  I better end this post before I damage the keyboard from typing so fast....Signing off!

I have 147 cousins...

So on Sunday, I was walking to a Cafe in the Twin Cities with a friend and we were talking about our extended families.  As we were walking, we passed a building that had a staircase leading down to a small door way below.  In the doorway, a man was leaning up against the frame, a cigarette (possibly with something a bit more than just nicotine...) balanced between his fingers.  Smoke wafted up from the doorway.  His eyes were closed, so I...being the awkward person that I am, stared a bit, wondering if he had fallen asleep in the doorway.  Still looking at the man, I said to my friend, "I have 147 cousins!" (Honest...including second cousin and third cousins...)
The man bared his teeth in a grin, opened his eyes and looked up at me, pushing away from the door frame.  "Wow," he chuckled.  I gulped, and, feeling as awkward as ever, did not reply.  I turned to my friend and kept walking, listening to the man's hacking laughter in the background.  Once in the enclosed area of the Cafe, I burst into laughter...I really do have 147 cousins, I thought, but I wasn't talking to him...

The Camping Trip

Yesterday as I was biking with a friend, a story came to mind that related with the bike I was riding.  It's quite a story, so I figured I'd share.  I think...it could be labelled as the most....interesting camping trip I've ever taken.  My family and I were camping, and we had brought some bikes along for recreation.  My dad and I talked to the campsite director, who informed us that a bike path was about half a mile up the road. So we set off.  It was definitely probably...two miles to get to the trail.  As time passed, my dad and I finally decided to turn around.  On the way back, we had to go down this hill that was completely loss, chunky gravel.  About halfway down the hill, I hit an especially loose patch, and lo and behold....my handlebars had jerked themselves backwards to face me.  Needless to say, I lost control of the bike and wiped out.  The chain went into my leg (still have a scar from that one...) and I must have let out quite the scream, because I startled a deer out of the corn fields nearby.  I'm sure my dad thought I had brain damage or something, because the only thing I could say when he reached me was, "A deer!"  Luckily, a man saw us and offered to drive us back to the campsite.  I tried desperately not to bleed all over the back of his car, but he assured me it was fine, that it was his cattle car.  When we got back to the campground, the directors patched me up and I hobbled back to our site.  I was laying in a hammock, stretching out my injured leg, when my brother came to give me a push.  Well, the hammock suddenly felt the need to untie, and I was dumped four feet down to the ground.  To make matters worse, I landed in a pile of itch weed, which definitely got up my shorts.  Unable to control my urgent need to scratch, I ran back to the first aid area, where the directors gaped at me.  "Weren't you just here?"
"Yes! Ok, do you guys have any...anti-itch ointment or something?   I think I just landed in some itch weed."
They directed me to rub mud on the area.  I was incredulous at first, but once I went down to the river and did so, my itching was soothed.  Then, that night, I must have slept on a rock, because when I woke up in the morning...I had either a pinched nerve or a slightly shifted disk, because I couldn't even bend over!  Eventually the pain passed and the rest of the trip went well.  But...wow!  How can all that happen in one day and night?  No idea.  And I swear to you every word of it was true!

Spanish

As my school year comes to an end....I'm losing it.  Seriously!  Yesterday I totally forgot about a Communications presentation until half an hour before class.  Yeah...my presentation sucked.  And I'm a total perfectionist, so this usually doesn't happen!  Then, today, I was walking to the dining center to grab some breakfast, when I remembered I hadn't printed off my Spanish homework!  So I carried my crumbling chocolate chip muffin into the library five minutes before class and frantically tried to pull up my email to print the assignment.  The computer wouldn't load.  I shoved the rest of the muffin in my mouth, effectively getting chocolate everywhere and making the people around me cringe, and clicked desperately on the black computer screen.  "Welcome!" it said.  Well...five minutes later it still said "Welcome!", my class was starting, and my assignment still wasn't printed.  I tried turning on another computer.  Same deal.  Luckily, a classmate had a computer open, and she let me get on.  However, I kept opening her email instead of mine!  Now...when I get frustrated, I really shouldn't be around technology.  I have been tempted to dump computers on the floor many times.  But I restrained myself and finally, five minutes after class had started, I printed my assignment, slipped into class shamefully, and tried to slid quietly into my seat.  Maybe the experience had rattled my brain...because I found myself completely inadequate when it came to speaking, much less understanding, Spanish.  As I tried to explain an article I read about a cruise ship, I kept referring to it as "bota".  That sounds like the word for "boat", right?  It's the word for "boot".  Just figured that out.  No wonder everyone was so confused as I went on and on about the president of Mexico riding in a "bota".

Sunday School Mess-up #1

Hmmm...so...this past Sunday was quite the day for embarrassment.  In order to preserve your time (it's valuable, I know), I'll just tell you one section.  It happened within the first couple hours after I woke up, so that's never a good sign!  I went to church with my family and was volunteering in the 5th-6th grade room.  My brother just so happens to be that age and he just so happened to be in the group I was supervising.  We were talking about John the Baptist, and my brother proudly informed me that John's father was Ezekiel.  False.  "Not quite," I told him, "His parents were Zechariah and Sarah."
I smiled and shook my head knowingly, caught up in my own apparent wisdom.  Then, the teacher asked if anyone knew who John's parents were.  My brother, confidently believing my answer, shot his arm straight in the air.  It wasn't until his mouth opened that I realized that I had been totally wrong!  John's parents were Zechariah and Elizabeth.  I went to shush him, but it was too late.  His answer was declared wrong and he apparently felt the need....to declare that it was me who had told him that answer.  Numerous pairs of eyes glued to the back of my head.  I gulped.  There you have it.  Volunteer Sunday School teacher messes up students.  Of course.  And I haven't even been in that classroom for more than a couple weeks.  Sigh.

The Beginning

So....I love to write.  And I'm thinking it'll be a major part of my life from now on, so I figured I'd give this blog thing a try.  Plus, I am in the process of publishing a book, and one of the suggestions for publicizing your writing is blogging.  So....here goes.  I figured I'd write about something that occurs on a daily basis for me.  Awkward situations.  And who doesn't love to hear about awkward stories?  Now, I'm not talking about the once-in-a-while, ran-into-someone-I-hate stories....I'm talking full-out awkwardness.  Things like this tend to happen on a daily basis.  And don't worry....even if I don't have a daily awkward story to share, I'm certain I have enough from my past to write for a year. I guess I'm just a pretty awkward person!  So....let's start with today's story.  I'm a squirmer.  As in, I can't sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time.  It earns me some frustrated glances as I cross and uncross my legs for the fiftieth time during class.  I also have long legs, so that crossing and uncrossing?  Yeah....it comes with a lot of bumping of desks.  Anyways.  The squirming gets worse when I have to go to the bathroom....and let me tell you....I had to GO during Theology today.  I was struggling to get into my desk, which is up against a wall.  My backpack, which is like...a third of my body weight, wouldn't fit behind my chair.  My coat, which was unzipped, was caught on the side of the desk.  Through pushing, shoving, and scattering of desks and chairs, I finally was seated.  The person in the desk gave me an odd glance, which only intensified as I squirmed for the remainder of the class period.  When class was done, I bolted.  I had to go to the bathroom so bad!  My foot, enclosed by a boot slightly too big for me, caught on the chair of my odd-glancing neighbor, and the weight of my huge backpack nearly took me down.  I caught myself on the desk behind me, struggled to straighten up, and pracitcally sprinted to the bathroom.  So...there you have it.  May not seem too awkward....but trust me...I make even this situation appear embarrassing to everybody else.  Maybe it has to do with my squirming....