lessons of a college checkbook

Things that store brand is perfectly acceptable for:
-juice boxes
- facial tissue
-dish soap
-milk
-butter
-nail polish remover
-pain killers
-gushers

Things that make buying name brand necessary:
-Any sort of feminine product
-Razors
-Nilla wafers
-chapstick
-popcorn for my air popper
-nail polish
-allergy medicine/decongestant
-fruit roll-ups

square one

For the past week, I've been escaping into the worlds of the West Wing and Stars Hollow whenever I began to feel overwhelmed by the looming future I will eventually have to face. Jan Term, housing, jobs, relationships, they all pile up into one frenzy of anxiousness. And it always seems that just when I have a handle on things, the pitch from left field hits me square in the forehead. Who decided we were grown-ups?

"Whatever happened to my lunch box? When came the day that it got thrown away, and don't you think I should have had some say in that decision?"

Wise words, John Mayer. Wise words.

Smiling in amusement

Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location

I can't even begin to write a worthy commentary, so I won't try. It's just delightful.

I know now why Alyssa and I are friends

Thursdays are my longest days as far as time commitments. I either have class, writing center hours, or Whitworthian meetings straight from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. And then I get to start my homework for Friday. So the fact that Valentine's Day fell on a Thursday actually was, I thought, going to get me off the hook. I've only had a significant other twice on the fateful day, and since one was in eighth grade and the other was a long distance relationship, my expectations for the day have never been high. That's the way I like it. (If you haven't read Alyssa's latest post, it's a precursor to my next point.) I have extreme anxiety about any occasion that requires a gift or strongly implies that if you don't give a gift, you are a terrible heartless human being. And since James' birthday was the 9th, I had two instances that required thought and creativity in a week.

I did alright with the birthday. But Valentine's Day, especially for a male, is tricky. There are no default gifts, like the flowers and chocolates of the female world, so its either something material or something thoughtful. And then the one thoughtful idea I had (making chicken parmesan, his favorite food,) was shot down when he returned from South Africa and declared that if he never ate chicken again it would be too soon. So there I was, February 14, with nothing to wrap and no plan in sight. We even ended up "celebrating" on Friday instead, because of my schedule. And even with an extra day, I was still stumped.

I think my main hesitation lies in how I define love, and how I choose to express it. My idea of love, or even just friendship, is not based in equally reciprocated events or adhering to traditional ideas about anniversaries or gifts. Sure, I always love the occasional flower or creative birthday surprise. But my love language is acts of service. I do for people what they don't have time or are too stressed out to do for themselves. In this case, I have a feeling I won't completely fail as a mother. I fold people's laundry, or take out their garbage, or bring them an apple when they've been studying too hard to remember to eat. I do it in the daily stuff, in hopes that my feelings, at any level, won't just be noticed on calendar dates. They, at least this is the goal, will be seen as part of who I am. And because of this, I find it hard to go much beyond that. I want people to feel special and loved and worth something in this world and in my life every day.

back into action

Classes are again in full swing, and it feels like no time has passed at all. I've said this before, but I find it so odd, and yet so necessary, that we are able to compartmentalize the different aspects of our lives and our experiences in other places or situations. We fill up the shelves of our lives with carefully labeled groups of friends, trips, or circles of influence, and the shelves are stacked and excluded from one another. People can tell I'm a little tanner, but beyond that they really aren't interested in sitting down and including themselves on a shelf of my life that they don't exist in. It's the same way with camp. I occasionally hum a song or repeat phrasology that isn't significant for my friends at school, but it's not to mesh the two worlds, it just slips out.

Every college freshman learns this coping skill the first time they come home, usually at Thanksgiving. You create the 1-minute answer to the inevitable question of "how is school going?" You learn to say that classes are going well, and you're making a lot of friends. And unless you surround yourself with people who have a genuine interest and patience to learn about one of your shelves, that's the only piece of the school world that is allowed into the home world. You begin to live two almost mutually exclusive lives, because it's the only way to not always be in want of the life you're not living in at any given moment.