Take the Time

A big theme at Whitworth this spring semester has been "balance." An administrator put together a report on Whitworth culture, and one of the 11 points was the idea that Whitworth students, for whatever reason, tend to "always be busy." Whether that's running around from student government job to Frisbee game to band concert all in the same night, or even just the perception that time is always escaping us, it's a definite vibe on campus. For most.

Going into college, I knew that the lifestyle I led in high school was not going to cut it anymore. After a junior and senior year that included two varsity sports, the Altitude, club volleyball, a relationship, six AP classes, a part-time job, two other almost relationships, church youth group, a district investigation, and trying to support my friends in their other activities, I was pooped. Sarah always would tell me to just "chill out." This is to you, Sarah: I'm finally listening.

Last night, I looked at my day today and perceived another frantic, pit-stained frenzy. (To be fair, the pit stains come regardless of stress levels. Oh the wonders of overactive sweat glands.) I didn't have essay writing in the morning, but after my afternoon class I was booked straight until 6 p.m. with interviews, training, and other meetings. I knew on top of that I had another draft of my literary essay due, a chunk of reading, and a scholarship to finish. On the surface, my life seemed no different from my usual patterns of stress.

But after two walks around campus with James, dinner and two innings of the Mariners, and an hour of just laying still and breathing, I realized that we are only as busy as we let ourselves believe. Sure, I had a lot of list items in my planner to check off, and the list will probably loom for at least another two hours. But I'm more relaxed that I have been in at least a month. It's all in the attitude, in our perception of stress, and not necessarily the stress itself. I could have a day with one meeting and be freaking out. I could have a day with 10 meetings and midterms and be perfectly in control. It's all in taking the time for the little things, like walking around the Loop or cheering on Bloomquist for part of the 8th inning. Sure, they took "time." But that hour break seemed like the longest hour of the day. I wasn't rushed, I wasn't running around, I just existed. And sometimes, that's all it takes.

the day has come

For any of you that knew me before college (or really I guess anyone that knows me at all), this next statement might come as a bit of a worldview shocker:

I'm becoming a morning person.

I know. I can hardly believe it myself. After years of having the covers pulled off me two minutes before breakfast starts and alarm clocks that might as well be in another room of the house for all the effect they have on me, my ways are changing. Oh sure, I still love to sleep in past a normal lunch hour or just lay in my bed because I have no good reason to act otherwise. But I'm slowly discovering all the things I have missed by sleeping through one of the most peaceful times of the day:

1. There was no line at the coffee shop when I got there. None. They had my drink ready before I even finished scanning my card.
2. I have the bathroom to myself. So when, like today for example, I experiment with a new hairstyle that ends up looking like a space helmet, no one is there to mock me.
3. I don't feel rushed about anything. Sure I have things to do, as usual, but it just feels like there is more time in the day to get it all done at a rate that doesn't drive me to insanity.
4. Like the coffee shop, I also have the media office to myself. No one ranting about the latest primary, no one freaking out because yearbook proofs are still missing. Just me, and my coffee, and the keyboard.
5. I won't be late to my first morning meeting (breakfast with James. I'm always late. No one is surprised.)
6. I can actually read today's morning headlines in the morning.
7. I don't feel as lazy as I sometimes project myself to be.

I've got to try this whole "get out of bead" deal more often. Just not this Saturday.

treasure

The other day I was searching through my desk drawer, scrambling for a writing utensil in order to write down a phone number for an interview. I used a pink highlighter. But when I went to re-organize the drawer, I found an old friend: the Quality Inn pen.

This is, without a doubt, the best pen I have ever been privileged to have in my care. I picked it up at the Quality Inn in Tacoma (or some indistinguishable suburb of Tacoma) in March 2005. Alyssa was actually the first one to find it, since she had been staying at the hotel two days prior to my arrival. We were there for the 3A state basketball tournament, in which the Hanford High boys team was competing. Alyssa went over with her mom early that week, and once the team proved they would be sticking around for more than one game, my mom brought me over and we took over responsibility for Alyssa.

She told me that the hotel pens were of an unusually high quality, ironically, and I would be a fool to not snag one before the trip was over. The pen I have now is actually snag No. 2, since the first one fell out of my purse during the prom dress shopping excursion. I used it to take all my notes in coverage of the tournament, including locker room interviews and signing myself into the Tacoma Dome through the press entrance. Yeah, it was that cool.

The pen is white, with a bold but friendly green lettering down the middle with a phone number, in case I was writing a check one day and suddenly got the urge to make a hotel reservation. The cap is also green, and fits snugly onto both the end and tip of the pen. I like caps that fit snugly. The ink is black, and confident. None of this faded grey or sporadic ink flow. This baby is solid, and almost always works the first time on impact. No licking or coaxing required.

But I think what I love most about this particular pen is its ebb and flow in the past three years. I usually only have it for about a month until it gets lost in a drawer or at the bottom of the handbag of that season. Once I found it in a roommate's cup of writing utensils because they had borrowed it months earlier and forgotten to return it. It's probably disappeared a dozen times since I've had it. But it always comes back, and at the most delightful times. It's just nice to know that true treasure is never really lost, it just changes hands for a while.

glimpses of the newsroom

A lot of people over the past three years have asked why I do it. Why I spend over 14 hours each Sunday editing and name checking and searching for 20 minutes for the correct spelling of our science center. They say, it's not worth your time. It's so draining. You seem like you never sleep. All of those criticisms may be valid. I'd be the first person to assert that more sleep would be a delightful change in the past few weeks. But sitting here tonight, on issue 16 of volume 98, I realize yet again that it's the little things that pull it all together:

• Arguing over whether Duvall's pod system or elevator are its most unique features as a residence hall.
• Watching people jump out of their chair in excitement when a headline fits its space allotment.
• Eating our Taco del Mar together on the grass and being able to joke about cheerleaders.
• Hearing the assistant copy chief yell a profanity as our news editor was on the phone with the dean of faculty.
• Listening to the sports editor get the last-minute sports interview.
• Finding a new spelling in the AP stylebook. I think I love AP style more than is healthy for a journalist, or even copy editor.
• Knowing that Tuesday morning, over 1,900 students will get at least one piece of mail for the week.
  

the beauty of disaster

If you though my vendetta against mother nature was fierce a month ago, you would see it as a tame attempt compared to my righteous apathy at this point. Every day we can expect some combination of hail, rain, snow, sunshine, or blasting winds, not necessarily in that order. Normally my reaction to any of these occurrences is one of disdain and disgust. But once, this morning around 11:12 a.m., I sat in the coffee shop and was memorized by the hail storm that swept in. The sky went from a foreboding sense of rain to a slightly darker filter of the sun, and then the clouds opened. It's as if the sky had been holding it's anger inside to be polite as businesspeople commuted to work and the day began.

But it could no longer contain itself, and the hail (that surprisingly always looks like a Dip ' Dots food fight across a cafeteria) threw itself at the ground, as if trying to penetrate the surface. I sat, mesmerized by its force and sheer curtain of white speckles, watching through the large bay windows across the room from me.

And as I sat sipping my tall white mocha and holding a book of Christopher Howell poetry, I was floored. I could do nothing but stare, in the same way you can't take your eyes off a cripple who is succeeding at getting on a bus. It was the experience of something I normally see as an annoyance or damper to my day become magical. At 11:18 a.m., it was over.

word nerds unite

Warning: do not visit this website if you only have 5 minutes to spare. I was going to just glance at it, and an hour later I had racked up 5,000 grains of rice. It's rigteous.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php