#poweroutagesaga

So, earlier this week I, and most other people, got an ominous email from my school saying there is this thing they have to do every year (or every other year, I forget) that involves taking all the power over all of campus and shutting it down so they can do some stuff. Oh, and also that it hadn't been done in the past 35 years.

However, with wanting their new buildings to get safety approval, this must be done. So they set the date for midnight Sunday morning still around 5 pm, no one would have power, except for those places that would have generators for protecting food and such.

This is the saga of what happened today. My morning started out just fine, getting ready to go to church with just sunlight to guide me.

Okay, maybe not so fine. It was first thing in the morning, I think I can forgive myself for not realizing that it takes electricity to toast bread. At least I knew better than to use the stove. My morning continued. 

Me, noting on things it would be nice to have. Little did I know...

For whatever reason, the school hadn't actually turned off their wifi, although I should point out that the school's wifi to my house sucks and it didn't really mean I could do anything, so I remained on my phone most of the time. 

I continued getting ready for church, feeling confident enough in myself to invest in a selfie:

I got complimented on that outfit. Elegant. Made my day. Anyway, after that, I went to church and then there was a worldwide training meeting that I attended with my father and brother, which had it's own drama: 

So we missed a good ten minutes of that while they struggled to get the communication back online. 

Then I came home, ready for some rest, a nap, and hopefully not long waiting until the power came back on. The novelty was slowly beginning to wear off. 

So confident was I that the power would arrive soonish around the time that they advertised, that I invested my meager laptop battery power to our entertainment. Little did I know. 

Still I had no fear. After enjoying the movie and wishing for maybe the millionth time that Starfleet actually existed, we ate dinner. Cleaned up (washing dishes in cold water isn't fun) (or very hygenic feeling) and went outside, where I jammed on my guitar for a bit before we all headed up for a walk. The power still wasn't back, and it was well past 5 pm. I was starting to fear that the power wouldn't come back on before night hit. 

I was very irritated. The power was gone, I had a headache from the fumes from the generators parked just outside, my batteries were all dying, and I couldn't charge them like I had planned BECAUSE THERE WAS NO POWER, and I couldn't really sit down and try reading to relax because the light was quickly going. I even asked for a candle for my room, so I could have light, but then I was bitterly reminded of the fact that open flames aren't allowed. Oops. 

So I sat in my room, sulking, trying to finish my book before the light completely went, when I heard whooping from the other houses. And it was... joyful, something I hadn't felt in the past few hours since I finished watching Star Trek. Hope surged through my veins, as I turned to look out my open window. Indeed, my neighbors' lights were on, and I quickly went and turned on my own. Glorious light filled the room, and I screamed and shrieked, joining the cacophony with my neighbors, all my tension released with electricity returned to my life. 

1 year of this

Wow, guys. It's been one year. One year of blogging and posting things and going for some stretches without posting anything, but it's been a year. Lucky for me, this Father's Day last year, I was bored and wanted something to do, something that was still writing but wasn't stories or anything super long.

And I have throughly enjoyed all this time. I've enjoyed the reactions from you guys, I've enjoyed having the ability to put my thoughts out here, I've enjoyed getting to tell my story. So thank you all for sticking with me and my horrible titles (I really have always had a hard time coming up with titles forever) and some terrible blog posts and some really good ones. Thank you all so much.

Peaches.

Glee is eating peaches with my little sister, our faces inches from each other while we both bite into our half of the peach at the same time, foreheads knocking. Her face smiles while she chews, and I laugh at her expression, her adorable face scrunched up, framed by bright red braids that still attempt to curl into ringlets. We go in for another bite.

It's been a long time since I've eaten fresh peaches, several months at the least. I don't remember. It's been even longer since I've eaten peaches that weren't a horrible disappointment to me.

I love peaches. Call it the fact that I grew up in the Peach State, or the fact that peaches are honestly the best fruit on the face of the planet, I love peaches, and they will always hold a special place in my heart.

It wasn't baby's first peach. It won't be her last. But what was important, for that little moment we shared, was that it was our peach.

finals and endings

I feel like I broke something, like the fact that I didn't write a post during finals week about how stressed I was over finals or something similar broke a pattern that I sort of started for the past two semesters.

But, you know, things have to happen at least three times to no longer be a coincidence.

And for some reason this finals week managed to be the finals week I was so busy I didn't even have time to complain about how busy I was, just a barely coherent blog post last Tuesday written in the dead of night because reasons.

Which seemed odd, because I only took two classes this block, which compared to the regular five or so classes I take during a normal semester that's not awkwardly split in half, should have been a lot easier.

But more than likely due to my fabulous procrastinating skills, I ended having a super intense finals week, which wasn't horrible... it just was slightly overwhelming and I never want to do it again. (Because I'll never ever do it again hahahahahha nope)

But my last day of classes/finals was yesterday. Just a quick little test for my crisis management class and a quick little presentation on my costume for my costuming class. And while that was going on, I was thinking about how anticlimactic semester/block endings really are.

You spend your whole semester just waiting for the moment when you no longer have to go to class and then several weeks later you're done and you hand your teacher your final but you finished early before most of the people in your class and the silence is thick and deafening and you just kind of look at each other and then you awkwardly grab your stuff and leave and that's the end.

No goodbyes. No "thanks for being such an awesome teacher this semester i really liked this class". No witty reparteé (sp?) with classmates and maybe also your professor. No emotional hugs. Just... leaving.

And I get that most of this is because it's college and it's not high school and there's a good chance that you will either see that teacher again (or even have them again if they teach enough major classes) (you know who you are) and then you guys can talk and hang out and all the jazz, and the same goes for most of the students, it's not high school and this is not the only place where you're required to see each other.

But still. It feels kinda empty. Sometimes you won't have a teacher again. Sometimes your class partner is flying out to Utah right after the semester and you find out you didn't have a chance to say goodbye.

And the reason that these endings, I think, feel so wrong and awkward is because there is no chance to say goodbye, even if we know that goodbye is only going to be for a week or so or however long it is until the next semester starts. There is no chance to actually come to terms with the fact that what has become habitual for the past couple months is now ended. There's no formal transition. It just is.

And it feels really weird.

Sewing and Love

I still remember the way he looked at me, like I was an actual human being with feelings and aspirations and dreams and humanness. Not like I was a piece of meat to be selected, used, then hung out to dry. Or a brain to be flattered and picked and complimented, because that is totally the way you will get me to give you the answers for the study guide that you want.

I say that I remember it, but in all reality I actually just imagined that, because I don't actually think a boy has ever looked at me like that. Not to put down men and say they're all terrible and misogynist, but that's just been my personal experience. You think strange things late at night, with silence as your companion and a waistband to attach to your skirt before you can go to bed.

I'm more at home with a needle and thread in hand than I am in front of a sewing machine with my foot on the pedal. The machine goes faster than I'm comfortable with sometimes and there's no love. Not the same kind of love you get hand sewing something, watching the material slowly come together as you dip the silver needle in and out of the fabric, pulling the thread through carefully, but quickly. I'm confident in my skills as a hand sewer. I can do that. I can make tiny even stitches, insofar as my patience will stretch.

Sewing is a beautiful thing. There are lots of beautiful things in this world, but perhaps one of the most beautiful, and dare I even say sexy, things I know of is freely given consent. Perhaps that's why I think about guys who would like at me like I'm a human being. The ones I imagine would be good at getting a girl's consent before doing anything. It's awkward and shy and scary and I can't imagine putting yourself out there and asking a girl if it's okay to hold her hand and kiss her before you do it but I can actually and it is beautiful.

But not just my consent. He has to give it to because that's what's really important, is that consent is given on both sides. I can't make a proper skirt if both my halves don't match up. My seams won't match. You need two sides of consent before anyone makes a move. To ask consent is to put yourself out there and say, "I'm cool with doing this thing. Do you want to too?"

That has got to be as wonderful and lovely as putting something together all by yourself and seeing how beautiful it is.

A Child's Thoughts on a Playground

Eenie meenie miney moe

Catch a tiger by his toe

If he hollers, let him go

Eenie meenie miney moe

My mother told me 

To pick the very best one

And you are

Wait. No. Not him. I can't choose him. I like him. If I pick him, he'll never want to talk to me or play with me again, and how are we supposed to get married and have seven children if we never speak again? 

Not

Wait. I can't pick her, either. She's fun and cool and popular, and if we stay friends maybe I'll get more friends too. Look at her, smiling at me. I can't do that to her. 

NOT

Wait. I can't pick her. She's my best friend. We've played this game every day since kindergarten. But there isn't anyone else I can pick. I can't knock myself out. 

It. 

"You're out!"

"But it's not fair, she cheated! He's supposed to be out!"

"But it landed on you, you have to go leave."

"It's not fair! I want a rematch!"

"The rules say no."

"Fine!"

Don't cry. I'm sorry. But... I couldn't knock them out. You understand, right? 

"Come on. She's just being a whiny brat. She'll get over it. You're better off without her. Let's go play!"

"Um... okay."

Videos and Birthdays

In all reality, I actually made this video almost two months ago, for my friend Daryl's birthday. It seemed fitting at the time.

I mean, after all, she was the one who got me to actually listen to One Direction. She did that by sitting me down and making me watch the Kiss You music video. I watched it and I really enjoyed it, so I decided to give the rest of it a try and the rest is pretty much history. This video was my way of saying thank you and also sharing a part of what I could give her, which isn't much.

I don't usually get my friends things for their birthday. If they're lucky, or Facebook reminds me, I'll acknowledge their birthday and say nice things and give them extra hugs. But not usually. I just don't feel like I have a lot to give, and if I'm going to give something, I want it to be super nice and something they'll actually enjoy.

I'm not very good at many things. I'm not even particularly good at making music videos (as I'm sure you can see) but it is something that I can do and I can do with some small measure of skill. It's something I can create that I can share easily and that came easily as her birthday was approaching. So I decided to do that for her, and it was a bumpy road to get there.

First we had a time crunch for filming, because I wanted the filming to be done with a week left to edit before her birthday, so I would be sure to have time to get it done with finals and two papers I was also writing for my classes.

Then I had to round up our friends and convince them that they really wanted to do this for Daryl. And for me. As our friend Matt put it, "If you had told us beforehand that we were doing a One Direction music video, we wouldn't have come out here to do it. But it was very skilled, waiting till we were already here to tell us what kind of birthday video we were making for Daryl." (In all actuality, I thought I had disclosed everything beforehand, and had forgotten to mention that this great video project I wanted to do for Daryl's birthday and before everyone left the island was also a One Direction music video. But hey, it worked out).

Then I had camera issues, what with trying to check one out, and then discovering I had no way to make that camera actually work, to ending up working with my crappy camera that I had wanted to avoid working with in the first place because that was the last thing we had that would make a good video.

But, it all worked out, in what still feels like divine intervention. I also got the editing done quickly, taking just a Sunday afternoon when I thought it would take at least two days.

Perhaps the waiting was the most painful for me, having not planned on having to wait before uploading the video, and with four days left to spare. So I ended up uploading it a day early, and we all enjoyed it.

So here is my video, and do enjoy it.

Or not. I totally won't blame you.