Two Dates

I decided to treat my car right, since she's been so good to me, and I took her out for a full work-up. I got the tires rotated, oil changed, and new windshield wipers put on. I must say, being able to see out my window when it's raining is quite a treat. Since I've been driving between seven and eight hours a week, I thought Susie Mae deserved a little treat for all her hard work. Hopefully she will continue driving smoothly, even if I ignored the mechanic about all the new things he thought my car needed. At the beginning of the ordeal, he said it'd be about an hour. Two hours later, he still hadn't called, so I stopped by to see what was taking so long. He said it'd be another five minutes. Half an hour later, I very politely told him that he told me at 10:30 it'd be about an hour and now it was 1:00, and I wasn't very happy. I told him if it was going to take three hours, he should say it's going to be three hours, because it was very frustrating for me to be sitting there two hours after I expected my car. So he took ten dollars off, which I thought was better than nothing. I've been getting better about speaking up when I'm paying for something and not getting what I paid for. You'd think after living with my mother for eighteen years, I'd have this down ( I can't count the times she's gone back to the grocery store because of smashed bread) , but it's still something I'm working on. I'm always surprised, too, when I get a discount! I was pretty excited about ten bucks off.

Kevin surprised me, too, with an early Valentine's date. He said this way it's more of a surprise, and we won't be together on Valentine's Day anyway since it falls midweek. He hand-picked a card for me (something rather rare), wrote a whole paragraph of all the reasons he loved me (which gives me a whole other reason to love him!) and then took me to the Texas Steakhouse for a nice meal. They have the best bread there!!! And good steak. And I indulged in a pretty tasty margarita. It was maybe the best early Valentine's Day I've ever had.

Now we're at the library and he says he's doing homework, but he's really looking up x-box games online - I can see him! Boys will be boys will be boys...

Already the Same

It's only the second week of the semester but it already feels like the twenty-fourth week. I feel like I've been in this routine, with these classes, for ten years and I would do anything to be able break free of the horrible cycle. I think the proper term is senioritis. The exciting thing is that I have less than four months left until graduation. The awful thing is that there are four months left. I really have liked it here, but I am so ready to move on. I'd be lying if I said that a large part of it wasn't wanting to be able to spend more time with Kevin. I've known from the start that a long distance relationship would be hard, and we have worked out most of the kinks, but I miss him.

School-wise, everything is going fine. I think classes will be generally mild and about half of them will be interesting. My creative writing class is not at all what I expected, but it is challenging me to think and write in new ways, so I guess it's accomplishing it's task.

I wish I had an interesting story or something exciting at all, but at this point, life's pretty ho-hum.

Pictures At Last!!

This is all of us playing Disney Scene-It. Amber, Kristin, and John's team won in a BIG way, though things got a little close at the end. Kim and I, overall, didn't stand a chance. Joel and Phil fared well enough to make me think they may exaggerate their disklike for Disney.


The last two are pictures of my oh-so-cute boyfriend, one in the suit he bought for the wedding (you have to imagine the red tie we bought, which he chose not to try on for the picture) and one on his way to the hospital, all decked out in his scrubs. So cute!

Lesson Learned

Despite Kevin telling me not to drive up, and Aric Ho telling me to choose life over a trip to Iowa, I decided that I could actually beat the snowstorm and arrive to Davenport safely before the bad weather hit. About a half hour into the drive, I started thinking of all those stories about young adults who thought they were invincible and so braved conditions and ended up in ditches. About an hour into the journey, I hit the blizzard. Luckily, I was right next to a Best Western in Fairfield, Iowa, where I spent the next 15 hours or so. I had to get a room and pay a heart-wrenching $68 (I had no idea a hotel in a tiny town in Iowa could charge that much for a room for one person!), but I figure in the long run, it was cheaper than buying a new car or a new leg or something a little more heart-wrenching. I would have done much better to have stayed put in Kirksville like everyone told me to. I guess I was a little stir crazy - Kirksville does that to me sometimes. Next time, I will stay in Kirksville and brave the stir-craziness rather than trying to brave a snowstorm. This morning, when I got up, I had a nice long chat with the front desk girl to make sure there was no more snow coming and that the roads were nice and clear. They were perfect the rest of the drive up and it was actually a nice day for driving. As I passed more than fifteen cars in ditches the remaining two hours of my trip (I guess those people chose not to pull over when the snow hit, or else their pulling over was much less successful), I was really glad I stopped in Fairfield - it was definitely worth the money. But the next time I see a snowstorm on the news, I will automatically assume that the storm will win any sort of race with myself, which will save me some money and a whole lot of stress.

My Last First Day

Classes so far have gone pretty well. I saw my romantic relationship seminar professor after class and asked her what I should do about the tempermental professor. After relating my story to Amber and Elizabeth, they said I should talk to someone about it so that an unsuspecting visitor didn't get the same treatment. Elizabeth even talked to the division head, who said he needed a name so he could teach that professor how to talk to students, even students who are parking illegally. Before I got him in trouble, I wanted to talk to another professor to get their opinion on the situation. I told her briefly that I had parked in the wrong place and a Truman professor had yelled at me in a threatening manner. Phil and I had done some detective work earlier this morning and we had discovered this man's name. I saw him in McClain and got scared, and that's when I decdied to talk to my professor. She asked for his name. I gave it to her. She said, "That's my husband!" I was mortified. Apparently, she did not take his name. I told her I was embarassed. She said he was a very kind man. I said he really didn't come across that way last week, but I was sure under normal circumstances he was. She also mentioned that he aims for cars that he thinks are too close to the yellow line while he's driving. I started to become concerned. Then she mentioned that he also yells at her for not screwing jar lids on properly. I became even more concerned. Then she reassured me once again that he was a very kind, generous, wonderful person. I remain unconvinced, but still embarassed. What are the chances that the person I go to for advice would turn out to be married to the person that I was asking advice about?

I have my creative writing class and 3, and after that I'm done for the day, with classes anyway. I told Eric I'd stop by his apartment later, and then Kevin will be calling at 7, for our one conversation of the day and then I have APO and afterwards, a very important TV date with Amber. It's so nice to have a day full of things to do.

Sunday

I have spent an incredibly boring couple of days holed up in my apartment, so I decided to take a break from the stuffy, somewhat chilly (have you seen the gas prices!?) air and venture outside. I walked, to avoid any parking lots whatsoever and arrived safely and unharrassed. Though my days in the apartment were spent with minimal human contact (I did talk to Kevin on the phone and had friends over twice), I managed to get a lot done. I finished all my wedding invitations, which took approximately twelve years, then I sewed boxer shorts originally for Kevin, but I tried them on and I like them so much I may keep them as PJs. Then I started on the baby quilt for Alissa. It's Disney Princess in theme. I've been dying to make a Disney princess quilt and was really pulling for one of the three pregnant ladies I know to have a girl. Alissa really pulled through for me because my cousin and my sister-in-law are both having boys. There is no totally awesome boy fabric. I mean, I'm thinking about making a superhero quilt for little Miguel, but it will be nowhere near as spectacular as Disney.

The weather outside is lovely, a huge change for Kirksville. I'm soaking up the sunshine and the non-use of my heater. If I don't use it at all, it's between 60 and 65 in my apartment. I've become fine with this because my gas bill last month was $55, and I had the heat turned down to fifty degrees for two of those weeks while I was out of town. I am terrified of what a whole month of seventy degrees is going to cost me, so I've been keeping the temperature a little cooler and layering up on the clothes. I have about twelve blankets on my bed. I remember complaining to my mom when I was little about how cold she kept the house, and now I finally, finally understand. Mom, seriously, 68 was generous. I don't even allow myself 68 and I'm just heating a one bedroom apartment.

School starts on Tuesday and then I have my interview with Yale on Thursday. I am so excited and nervous I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. There's also the exciting and sad fact that this is my last semester with all the wonderful friends I've made here and then I'm off to start my own family, a little two person family, far away from everything I've ever known. That was on my mind a lot in the wee hours of this morning, too. I'm as excited as I am scared. I know Kevin and I will be happy, but I also know how much I'll miss my friends and family. It's nice being able to drive down and see everyone when I want, and for the last four years my best friends have only been a few blocks away. Yet moving away and getting married means I'll get to see Kevin every day. I'll get to wake up to his smile and go to sleep with him beside me. I can't think of a nicer way to start out and end each day. I was reading last night about the Buddhist theory of impermanence. The monk that wrote the book was talking about how everything is constantly changing, that nothing can stay the same for even two moments in a row. He said we must embrace it because nothing would be possible without change - we could not be born or fall in love or have children. He said we must take every moment we're given and be grateful for it, because it won't last very long. It gave me peace, thinking about it. Sure, things will completely change in May. But things will also change tomorrow. Today I have friends meeting me for dinner and then coming over to play Disney Scene-It. Today I will laugh with them, eat with them, love them while they are around me, and let tomorrow take care of itself.

Jerk

I'm currently upset because a jerkface professor yelled at me for several very long minutes in the parking lot. You see, they took down all the signs saying you had to have a red parking pass to park in this one particular lot. There used to be one in front of every single parking space. Since the signs are gone, I assumed I was allowed to park there. I thought this was true because term hasn't started yet. I thought they would put the signs back up once term started. I pulled into the last open space and got out of my car. A professor pulled up behind me, blocking me from walking away from my car and started yelling at me and then, still preventing me from moving, called the cops. I pointed out that the signs were gone and he said that there was a sign. Sure enough, he was right - there was one sign at the entrance of the parking lot, but I had completely missed it when I drove in. He said some very mean things to me in a very angry voice and didn't believe me when I told him I didn't see the sign. I recognize him from campus, but I don't know his name or even what department he works for, so I guess there's nothing I can do. But I'm pretty sure he gave my plate number to the cops. I moved my car as soon as he moved out of my way, but I'm not sure what's going to happen now. I didn't park illegally on purpose and I was only there for a few minutes while he yelled at me. I honestly would NOT have parked there if I had known I wasn't supposed to. I know I was in the wrong, but it was an honest mistake. I was more than willing to move my car to another space and walk to campus as soon as I was aware I wasn't supposed to park there. After spending several days in a quiet apartment mostly by myself, this confrontation was a very rude awakening to the real world. As silly as it sounds, I'm still recovering from it. I'm just not used to being treated like that, like a stupid, deceitful, disgusting person. I don't think anyone has a right to treat anyone else like that, no matter how wrong the other person is. I never thought a Truman faculty member would speak to me like that, or that another person could make me feel so small. Maybe calling him a jerk on my blog isn't the best way to deal with it, but it does make me feel better.

Now, I think I'll go home and sew.