A Less than Triumphant Return

Oh hello, WordPress blog-o-mine.  I’m quite sorry that you fell by the wayside.  Really, really I am.  You were a Creative Nonfiction project dropped promptly as soon as the class was.  Now that the requirement is gone, however, I think it may be time to slowly work you back into my life. We’ll see what happens, intarwebz. I am fairly noncommital, after all.

In Defense of Spring

Spring in Minnesota gets a bad rap, or none at all.  It’s a slow, timid season that’s always late to the party; it’s that relative that always arrives an hour after Thanksgiving dinner starts, but brings booze to make up for it.  Spring never gets any credit because it hides away until April and by the time we can appreciate it, we’re all locked away working.  So, fuck you nice days, you should trade places with winter.

An Essay to Offset the Forthcoming One About the Sad End of the Year

After realizing that most of my friends would be moving across the country in approximately 1.5  weeks, I’ve become a blob of academic apathy and social sadness.  In order to remedy this, I’ve spent my time compiling a list of things to look forward to for this summer.  All things I wish I could be doing instead of homework:

Books

• Fast Food Nation
• Brave New World
• Catch-22
• The Complete Sandman
• The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• Harry Potter 1-7 (British versions)
• American Gods
• Neverwhere

TV

• All seasons of Buffy
• Angel (If I enjoy Buffy)
• Finish Planet Earth

Games

• GTA 4
• Fire Emblem (Wii)
• Fire Emblem (DS)
• Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Zelda: Majora’s Mask
• Oblivion Extra Content
• Chrono Trigger
• FireRed
• Half Life 2 (Plus expansions)
• Skies of Arcadia
• Fix up my Dreamcast
• Finish cleaning up my Atari

Just Stuff

• Teach kids about the planet for an amazing summer internship
• Learn, think, and talk about participatory culture (Fitting nicely in with my earlier entries on the to-do list)
• Garden with Ua

I’ve discovered my interests are not terribly varied.

Hiding the Happiness

The woman twirls on screen, her smile wide and face blemish free.  A magical vial of face cream floats by and the voice of God is in my ear.

“Signs of a good youth, laugh lines and freckles, are exactly what age you.  Revitalize your skin with this” generic moisturizing cream “and feel like laughing again, without the lines!”

Now, I know I don’t have this conventional beauty thing down, but I can’t think of a worse thing to do with your face than erase the signs of a happy life from your face.  When I am old and grey, I want the world to know I had a life worth smiling about.

They Tricked Me Into Thinking Adulthood Was Different

Ever since I could hold a job, all I’ve ever done was work with people.  At age 16 (almost to the day), I started my first job working at Tiger Time, an after-school program in my hometown (we’re the Tigers, you see. Ferocious.) working with kids Pre-K through 6.  In the almost 6 years I’ve been working there, I’ve moved up from “Teen Helper” to “Group Leader.”  It’s mostly a semantic distinction, except now I watch over the teen helpers as well as the kids and they look to me for some sort of divine wisdom.  Really, I’m just more willing to clean up snotty noses and bodily fluids than most people.  My dad, a man who is the most conventionally successful person–a high management professional at a large successful bank–I know, teases me frequently and reminds me that I’m heading down the road to management like him.  I reminded him that I couldn’t think of a more boring way to spend my time.

Once I got to college and floundered around the life goals I thought I maybe wanted to pursue, my parents mentioned management.  I refused, preferring to dive into novels or catch bugs to Econ and Management classes.  But I was bored my freshmen year and, at the prompting of a friend, got into Residential Life.  I was hired as an RA in Blakely Hall.

It sucked. My staff was great, the residents were a hoot, but they were  much more productive than I wanted to be at age 19-20, so I was relatively bored.  Plus, it wasn’t really giving me what I wanted–giving other people the resources to do their jobs better.  Given that I loved ORL and I felt my options were quit or give Hall Directorship a try, I went for the latter.

This year as a Hall Director has been infinitely rewarding and challenging.  Lately, I’ve been struggling with issues in hall that I can’t seem to find solutions for.  It’s frustrating.  A couple nights ago I called my family to say hello and ended up spewing resident woes onto my dad, who instead of being sympathetic thought it more appropriate to laugh at me and remind me that that’s what management really is.

“Sometimes, it’s their problem and not yours.  Tomorrow, I have to tell one of the employees that he either has to shape up  and stop being ridiculous or leave the job.  Basically, he’s just crazy and immature.”

“Wait, no no no. People are not supposed to…act like college students…or high school students….or whatever in the real world.

“Sorry to say, kiddo, but sometimes people mature, sometimes they don’t.  Some people are the same at 40 as they were at 4.  Welcome to the real world, you’re already in it.”

They tricked me into thinking it was different.  At least I’ve got experience, I suppose.

Pain Equals Beauty

She wipes her forehead with her sleeve; already the day is as hot as a day in June.  She is engrossed in thought, staring at a tree from her pedestal high above the student body.  Carefully and efficiently she snips away at leafless branches.  They fall into a heap at the base as fingers deftly pull at sinewy branches hanging by threads.  She climbs down from the ladder, hand blocking out the sun as she inspects her work.  Without leaves, she has effectively cut hair blindfolded.  Uneccessary death for aesthetic beauty sits in a heap at her feet.

Skinned Knees and Staff Meetings

I love my staff.

Normally, I like to start a little bit more eloquently, but no English-major power I possess can equal that sentence.  As we near the end of a year as a staff, I realize how lucky we are;  we are ending the year as friends.

A year ago, I received a letter that said I would be running a building, all by my lonesome, making sure residents got through the year mostly unscathed.  I would be responsible for hiring, training, and running a staff of four of my peers.  After over 20 hours of interviewing, I settled upon 4 individuals.  Based on my mere 45 minute interactions, I made the most educated guesses into forming a workable team of individuals who would play off one another’s strengths and weaknesses…and hopefully not kill each other in the demand of the job along the way.  It has turned out better than I could have imagined, despite the paperwork, resident issues, and late weekly reports.

On Sunday, my staff and I joined the Apartment staff for a game of laser tag.  During the ride, we chatted between the five of us like old friends, playing music to match everyone’s tastes and dancing ridiculously to songs that warranted it.  Stories began with “Hey, I know you’ll appreciate this…” and ended with laughter.  We got to the Skatin’ Place for our hour of laser tag, and failed to appear intimidating through grins.  For the next hour, we acted like children, scraping knees, faking death, and shooting each other with what appeared to be a refurbished barcode scanner.  We spent the rest of the day eating, shopping, and doing all sorts of things that friends do.

Our time as a staff is ending soon, and it will be bitter sweet.  Some of us will continue on in Residential Life, some will not.  But I remember every time we laugh at an inside joke or pose for a picture that I joined ORL to be a part of something.

And I am.

Growing Up

I can feel you creeping in and you’re not welcome here.  You’re there every time I make small talk, forcing me to talk about the weather, but I don’t really care about the weather. Not really, I tell myself. Just the nice days. You’re there in the evening, pushing me to bed at an embarrassingly early hour.  What happened to that girl who stayed up til 3 or 4 in the morning. Are you crazy? You’re even affecting my friends.  Friends who gossiped about boys and video games are now planning weddings and moving across the country and graduating.  Have I mentioned how scary life changes are? So fuck you, Age.  On a night where I feel old and bitter, it only seemed appropriate to blame you.

Signs That Spring Is Here

1. A group of people sitting outside that you spot at 8 am is still sitting there at 5 pm.

2. At any given time of day, someone is playing frisbee.

3. Impromptu Irish dance lessons are watched with interest, but not surprise.

4. You can wake up from a nap in the sun to pony rides happening around you.

5. You can nap in the sun (and in Morris, not have to worry about anything getting stolen.)

6. You see friends pass by five to six times in an hour that you only saw around campus once during the entire month of February.

7. The amount of students on the Mall is inveresely proportional to the amount in TMC.

8. 20-person handstand contests are not uncommon.

9. Some sort of stringed instrument is always within earshot.

10. Professors take little swaying to have class outside.

Today was the first chance I had to really enjoy the Morris spring.  From the poiont I woke up to when the sun went down, there was always someone outside my window reading on the mall.  It was a chance to remember why I’m here at this campus because, to be honest, aside from a few professors, winter does not give me reason to be here.  In the span of two hours indoors, I watched some t.v. and wrote a paragraph of a paper.  In the span of two hours outdoors, I read a critical article, put dreads into a friend’s hair, tried out my newly lubricated heely wheels, took a nap, and got sunburned (a failure of my genetics, to be sure).  In the process of filling up on Vitamin D, I chatted with anybody and everybody who passed by my slice of slightly dead grass.

Spring is the most social of seasons.

Friendships

“How are you two friends?”

The evolution of friendship, at least mine, is interesting and complicated.  In class, we had a mini-discussion about friendship; why do friendships form, how do they vary, etc etc etc.  My dear friend Athena stopped by for a visit this weekened and Ben had asked us just exactly how we were friends.  To be fair, the question is absolutely justified.

I am optimistic.  She is the most cynical person I’ve ever met.  I love being social and around people.  She is a self-proclaimed misanthrope.  I spend my free time playing video games.  She writes poetry in Spanish.  I am incredibly non-competitive.  She lives for watching soccer and playing rugby.  I’ve never touched a cigarette and I have little taste for alcohol.  If she could, she would get a beer and tea IV, along with an unlimited supply of “ciggys” at her disposal.  This isn’t to say we aren’t without our similarities, we just seem like unlikely acquaintances, much less good friends.

***

Athena and I met in airport on the way to New Zealand.  We would be spending the next three weeks traveling together and already everyone was forming groups.  I ignored the “fuck off” face she was sporting and in her words, “wouldn’t leave her the fuck alone.”  In three weeks time, we knew each other better than people we had grown up with because it was three weeks “THIS FRICKEN’ CLOSE!”–her hands squished together for emphasis.

Despite living across the state from one another, love and friendship is sent in form of letters, pictures, and knick knacks of life.  Where other friendships have deteriorated because of distance and lack of communication, we remain steady.  We share laughs, poetry, kumquats, nicknames, heartbreaks, and wanderlust.  We miss each other when we’re gone and waste time blissfully when we’re together.

How are you two friends?

No idea. We are an unlikely pair. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we are.