Thanks, Stranger

This morning I was walking up the looonnng hill to campus, on my way to my creative writing class, when I heard a male voice say, "hey" behind me. I looked over at him as he caught up, thinking it was probably someone I knew from my apartment complex, but he didn't seem familiar to me at all.

"Hey," I said, and smiled, because what else do you do? Maybe he just wanted to strike up a conversation. I'm all for meeting new people, and it didn't hurt that he was kinda cute.

He didn't respond for what felt like a few seconds, but instead looked at my backpack. I quickly visualized my backpack in my head. The only thing interesting on it is a green pin from the Kennedy Center that says Expand your World.

"Your backpack's open."

"Oh," I said, surprised. I could have sworn I'd zipped that baby up. "Thanks!"

I stopped and swung my backpack around to fix it and he kept walking. The end.

I was MASHed today!

Today when my folklore teacher asked for a volunteer to be MASHed, I jumped at the chance to get a glimpse of my future! Apparently I am going to marry Ryan Gosling, we'll live in a shack with our one kid and drive a school bus. All this on my artist's salary cuz it doesn't look like acting is going to work out for him!

Pineapple or plastic?

Averill and I went grocery shopping this morning and I bought a pineapple (yum!!). I don't know how most people feel about putting pineapples in plastic bags, but I always do it ever since a cashier at Wal-Mart told me it protected her hands from the sharp pineapple leaves. This morning I was putting my pineapple in a plastic bag and shook it around ever so slightly to get it in a good position. The pineapple fell right through the flimsy bag and onto Smith's floor. I looked around like a true American (see blog inspiration), hoping to catch Averill's eye or maybe someone else's so we could share a moment laughing about it, but when I saw Averill she just asked me if she should get one or two heads of lettuce. I told her and then picked the pineapple off the ground and set it gently in a new bag.

Patience

Funny how most of us don't choose to learn patience.

For some of us, it comes naturally. For the many of us, we learn patience through unfortunate circumstances. I suppose that is also a form of choice--to submit ourselves to unavoidable circumstances and allow ourselves to become better because of them instead of hardened, jaded, or cynical. For the rest of us, I don't know; maybe we just never learn patience and we become blinded to many of the good things in life because we're too busy thinking about how unfair life is. As difficult as it sometimes is to exercise patience in the very moment we need it, isn't it better to be patient and happy rather than impatient and perpetually frustrated? 

"Life is all about attitude and choices." -the mother of Zuster Moses

I think Heavenly Father has provided me lately with catalysts for learning patience. In James 1:4, James writes that as we let patience do her thing we can become "perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

Wanting nothing. How would that feel to not need or want anything because I am perfectly content with what I have? Sometimes I think I know. But most often I think, I want more time, I want a faster computer, I want some new clothes, I want a boyfriend, I want a baby, I want to be prettier, I want to not have homework, I want to sleep in, I want to be able to eat all the chocolate and ice cream I want without feeling sick or getting fat, blah, blah, blah.

Have any of you ever thought those things? Probably not because I know most of the people who read my blog and they are all perfect the way they are. Perfect in my eyes, at least.    

For those of us who aren't perfect, patience ultimately breeds perfection, according to James. If we are patience long enough, we will become perfect. (Of course, patience in this sense does not mean waiting and doing nothing, but it means "actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results [don't] appear instantly or without effort.")

If you're still reading you're probably thinking, "Hey, where's the funny stuff? The embarrassing moment? The laughing?" Well, here it is, the reason why I was thinking about patience today:

My group and I had an appointment to meet with our teacher to talk about our research proposal (if you're wondering how you write a research proposal/paper as a group ... it's really, really hard. That in itself is an exercise in patience.) Our appointment was at 12:30, so we met in one of the buildings on campus at 12:00 to add the finishing (and necessary) touches to our paper.

We realized we needed a printer, so we switched buildings. After turning our laptops on, connecting to the Internet, and opening our document, it was about 12:18.

We rearrange some paragraphs. We write our thesis statement. We change some formatting.

"Hey Abby, can you print from your computer?"

Shoot. I can't.

I save the document and attach it in an e-mail to Tom as he walks over to one of the library computers that is connected to the library printers. The rest of us clean everything into our backpacks and meet Tom at his new computer, fully expecting him to already have printed it (at least that's what I was expecting), but he was still waiting for his darn personal settings to load (not his fault, btw). I resist the urge to tap my foot.

Feeling the need to do something at 12:29, I suggest the rest of us can run up to our teacher's office and Tom can meet us there in a few minutes. We only have 15 minutes to conference with her after all.

No, no they say. This will only add a few seconds. It's ok. Ok, fine.

A few minutes later we head back to the first building we were in to meet with our teacher in her office. We are on the first floor and need to be on the fourth, so we call the elevator and then we wait for our rendezvous as it descends from the fourth floor. We all step into the elevator. The elevator continues to descend.

Why are we going down?

A woman was waiting for the elevator in the basement. Ok, no big deal, now we'll go straight to the fourth floor.

We stop at floor one again. ... And then floor two. ... And finally we stop at floor four.

We hurry to our teacher's office 10 minutes late only to find an empty room. Not surprised, we sit in the hall to wait for her.

"Are we meeting with her in the classroom?" Tom asks.

We all look at each other. No one knows. Maybe she did say "classroom."  

So then we hurry to yet another building to meet her in our classroom, and there she was waiting for us. It was 12:45. Our appointment is supposed to be over by now, but the next group hasn't shown up yet so we eat into their time.

They don't show up until 1:00 because they tried her office first too.

Hey, by the way, I have a date tonight. My roommates and I are doing a group girls' choice date, so I asked him. Wish me luck, please.

One of those days

My first mistake of the day: I forgot to transfer my house keys from my purse to my backpack.

After having a pleasant conversation with a boy from my ward, I walked back to my apartment only to discover that the front door was locked and none of my roommates were home. 

My second mistake was bigger. Do you ever get to the check-out stand just to realize you left your wallet at home? If you haven't, you might one day, but don't feel bad because I did it first!

After my meticulous journey through the grocery store (I'm talking take my time, weigh the fruits and vegetables, track price totals on my calculator, and change my mind a few times like I always do), I am finally satisfied enough to approach the cash register. I carefully set all my items on the black slidey thing (anyone know the name for that??) and throw on some tic-tacs for a last-minute splurge. I smile at the cashier and we begin to make pleasant small talk. It's then that I realize I don't have my wallet with me. No cash, no credit card--nothing. It's all still sitting in my backpack at home on my bed. 

I have no choice but to confess this to kind-cashier-lady. Kind-cashier-lady then proceeds to ring up all my items and graciously sets my bags at her feet while I place a phone call to my wonderful roommate, Jenny. Jenny, in all her angelic glory, emerges through the door mere minutes later and heroically hands me my wallet.

Saved by my roommate. 

I hug her, feeling much less ashamed now that she's here.