Dancing (not with the stars, but that's ok)

I'm taking a social dance class this semester. It's tons of fun. Tonight I got to go take the Medals Exam for the Foxtrot and Cha-cha, and I got this nifty little pin and a neat certificate.


The Medals Exam is basically you go, you dance, and these judges give you a score on a national level. It's pretty cool. You dance with the instructor of your dance class (or the TA, however that works out), and you hope that you can remember the Foxtrot steps because you learned them all so long ago. And you hope that your instructor (or TA) actually knows what they are doing because otherwise you are pretty much screwed. I didn't have to worry about this. My instructor is a pretty awesome guy, and he can dance (you gotta hope right? He IS teaching the class!)

So I medaled on the bronze level (for Dance 180) in the Foxtrot and the Cha-cha. And I can skip out on the Swing final. Yeah, I don't know how it works out that if you do well on those two dances you can skip out on the Swing. So now all that's keeping me from knowing I have an excellent grade in that class is the Waltz test which takes place on Monday.

Oh yeah, and just because I was already nervous about my test, I got this crazy little twitch in my eye. Because that just helps everything so much, you know? It went away as soon as I got my score. *mutters* stupid nerves . . .

Dancing makes guys hotter. Just as a note.

Mail Order

Ok, so I spent Thanksgiving at a friend's house. Mauri is going to Scotland next summer. Actually she is going to Ireland, England, Wales, and France, and will be spending a day in Edinburgh, Scotland. Can I just say that I am more jealous over that one day than I am over everything else? I mean, what is even in Scotland? Why do I have this insane obsession with Scotland? The world may never know. Let's just go with it.

So because we are crazy and weird, Mauri and I decided to see if you can get a mail order husband. Preferably from Scotland. Alas! 'Tis not possible. At least not as far as we could tell. No mail order grooms to be found, let alone Scottish ones. Sad day.

I was talking about this with Seth and Charlotte, and we pointed out that there are some definite drawbacks to buying a guy. So we decided that instead I can buy an army of mail order brides and they can be my slaves and make knock off Nikes. I don't know how we reached this decision. It was odd. Seth said I would be the Goddess of Discord and Lord of the Cobblers.

This is all very random. I told Mauri to bring me back a Scottish guy. Too bad she only has one day to find him.

I'll Meet Your Belt and Raise You a T-shirt . . .

Last night my roommate and I were over at a guys' apartment because we were going to play game of some sort. Through the course of waiting for everyone to show up, it got to the point where it was just me and her sitting there in the apartment, with no one that lived there present. Just then, Bishop showed up looking for the engaged tenant, Mike.

Bishop: So are you just moving in here?

Me: No. We were going to play card games or something and then everyone just kind of drifted off and it ended up just being me and Char.

Bishop: Well as long as you aren't going to play Texas Hold 'em that's fine.

Thinking it was odd that he would veto one specific type of poker and not mention the others... Me: No Texas Hold 'em, OK. Can we play other kinds of poker?

Bishop: Sure, as long as you keep your clothes on!

At which point I died laughing.

The Wonders of Technology

I love email. It's amazing. It's better than a letter (other than the sheer joy of getting a letter in the mail) because it's nearly instantaneous. It's better than a phone call because you can really think through what you are saying and word everything exactly right. It's better than instant messenger because there are no long pauses while you compose the perfect message. You don't have to know that the recipient is right there waiting for the message because you know they will get it eventually.

And it's great when you just get the urge to hear from someone that you haven't talked to in a while. A phone call in that situation might be a little odd, but an email? It's so easy! "How's it going? I haven't heard from you in forever! Such and such is going on in my life etc."

Not to mention that it's practically free. If you have access to a library you can have free email. Otherwise you might have to pay for the internet connection (hey I wouldn't complain about having internet!) and you can send music and videos over it. No stamps, no long waits, and no awkward pauses.

I can't wait until they can figure out how to send other stuff over the internet. Like people. Or groceries. Instantaneous travel and grocery shopping. Brilliant.

PS Some drawbacks would include that it doesn't offer the vocal tone that a face-to-face or phone conversation affords, so that does leave some speculation as to intended meaning at times. And another would be that if it's urgent you better make sure they know that it's on it's way.

How Did This Happen?

I've been kind of down the last day or two. Here's why:

I got a wedding announcement in the mail today. At first I was excited to get it (I had been expecting it for about a month now), but after opening it, reading through it, and thinking that my friend looked really cute in the photo, I went to hang it on my fridge. I reached for a magnet and the first one I found was a picture of the Hawaii temple. It was all I could do to keep from crying. My friend isn't getting married in the temple.

How did this happen? I've been asking myself this question for the last while. How did someone so set on having everything the gospel had to offer, settle for a marriage outside of the temple, outside of the church, and an extramarital pregnancy?

It's sad. For years we talked about where we wanted to get married, which temple, and all that. So many hopes and dreams. She, our other friends, and I would jokingly say "marriage first, then kids," every time the topic of children came up. It was one of our biggest jokes as teenagers. I can't say that anymore. It brings too many sad memories with it. Memories that should be happy, but are sad because of reality.

It's sad because the idea of being pushed into a marriage, something that should be so happy and joyful, because of something so preventable, yet so significant, freaks me out. I never want to be in that situation. To feel like any part of that decision is taken away? No thanks.

It's sad because when I say something about it to my friends here, they try to be optimistic and say things like "maybe he'll join the church," but I know the odds of that. They aren't happy odds. Maybe it will happen, but it's not encouraging. We can't live our lives on those kind of odds.

It's sad because I don't know if it's going to last. She was raised by her dad and her step-mom, and saw her mom and step-dad twice a year. How will she know how to make it work? How did people with divorced parents know? How will she know how to be a mother? She's never really had one. I just wish I knew how this happened so I could fix it.

Angel Tears

I weep for the children.
The dear ones that are lost.
The soft footsteps in a dream.
The whispered kisses on a cheek.
I weep for the ones that are lost.

I weep for the fathers.
The gentle voice that is cracking.
The strong arms that are empty.
The loving hands that aren't held.
I weep for the voice that is cracking.

I weep for the mothers.
The aching hearts that are breaking.
The eyes that are empty from crying.
The yearning arms that hang low.
I weep for the hearts that are breaking.

I weep for the children.
The angel tears that show,
The love that is always given.
The ones there to break the fall.

More Pepsi?

Today was my fourth day of work at Health Plan Operations. As I have told numerous people before, my job consists of entering numbers into a computer, sending the information to an analyst (someone with a real job) and then I take the sheet of paper that I was copying the information from and add another number, the claim number. That is the basics of my job. Can you read? Can you recognize numbers? Can you remember what F7, F3, F5, and F12 do? Then you can do my job.

Today was different. First off, we were having a Hawaiian themed lunch party today so everyone was wearing Hawaiian shirts, sarongs and leis (who's gonna wear the lie now? That's for you, Mauri). And today we sent out checks to the various hospitals and health care centers to pay for people's drug rehab, hospital stays, ear infections and bladder control problems. My new motto? Don't do drugs, rehab is expensive.

Checks were fun. I held in my hands a check for $62,000 and wished with all the fiber of my being that it was made out to me rather than Corvallis Clinic. I was also introduced to a very pleasant machine. The folding machine. It's amazing, and possibly my best friend. You turn it on, choose how you want your letters folded, and there it goes. In less than five minutes 400 sheets of paper were folded into lovely letter sized thirds. I simply added checks and stuffed the envelopes and sent them on the next step to mailing. In a conversation with a friend about how awesome the folding machine was, my friend asked, "can it fold a paper crane?" I told him that I didn't know, but that he was welcome to come and fold papers for me next week. Though I doubted he could do it as fast.

There are over fifty people working in my department, and as you can probably tell no one's job is all that riveting. People get bored easily, and they tend to deal with it in interesting ways. Whether I was too job focused the last three days to notice, or whether Friday certain inhibitions were lost I can't tell, but the three ladies that work in the back are absolutely hilarious.

Today, to break the monotony, they wrote poetry.

A walk in the woods
A bear pooped
Nobody heard.

(Someone then replied, "and that's the epitome of loneliness.")

They also decided to find how many different ways they could wear their sarongs. Then they modeled them. Later, as the shift was ending, one of my coworker's husband showed up. He started talking about sarongs and how a guy would wear one. Another coworker asked, "would you wear underwear underneath?" (honestly, where was that question coming from??) He replied, "I don't wear underwear, I wear panties." Which is something, I'm sure no one wanted to know.

That all spurred another conversation which ended with one woman laughing so hard that her Pepsi came out her nose. Aloha!