Work and play

Hey all. Sorry to anyone who read this that I haven't kept in touch with as much the last little while. I've been a busy Pinetree

I ended up moving in with Smurf. It's not a bad setup. We have one roommate named Joaquin who is from Valencia (pronounced "valen(big fat lisp)ia") Spain and another roommate from Baltimore, Maryland. The Maryland one is sort of a nerdy movies junky. He is a film major and his favorite movie is the Ninja Turtles. He seems pretty nice and chill. Joaquin is into motorcycles, home-remedies, bathing in vinegar and the church. He actually doesn't smell as bad as you might think (the vinegar smell fades quickly and leaves you clean and with shiny hair I guess). And he makes us have apartment prayer at night which is cool. Unfortunately he also found out that I'm 19 and haven't served a mission, so now I'm his new service project. I guess I should just expect that though from people who mean well. He does mean well.

The whole arrangement isn't bad. The apartment is small and old, but I'm hardly ever there on account of I'm working all the time. I'm the only one in the apartment with my own room, which is good because I inherited a lot of crap from my last roommates after cleaning checks and also I need to get rid of some of my own. Smurf is in a room with Nathan, and I am in my own room and Joaquin shares a room with the only roommate who is never there, Jo-gie. (I thought I had a cool name!)

Been working tons. Today is the first day of women's conference. I'm actually writing this in the library at BYU on my break between shifts. I'm working something like 14 hours today. Women's conference is cool for the women who come to it I'm pretty sure. It's sort of like a giant EFY for women. They all come with family or friends or all 13 of their daughters to go be spiritually uplifted and socialize and shop with other LDS women. I smile when I think about how wonderful and inspiring anf fun it must be for all of them.

Working anywhere in Provo during Women's conference blows. It's this constant blur of stress and stupid questions and money and women and sets of 13 daughters and credit card debt and high pitched annoying voices and 50 year old women trying to look like they're 21 and arrrrgh! I'm so worn out and I still have quite a few hours left, not to mention tomorrow and the next day. I do like looking at all their name tags though to see where everyone is from. I always ask them about it. And I can say that I've checked out hundreds of womens' chests today. I really can't claim to have done that very often.

Smurf finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower yesterday. I was relieved that he liked it. It's one of my favorite books, but sometimes Smurf doesn't like emotional kind of stuff like that, but he says it's one of his favorite books too, so I'm glad.

Tuesday night was mentoring night for Gilmore Guy and I. We went over to pick up the kids with Gilmore Guy's new ladyfriend Kimberly and their mom wasn't home. She works until 8:30 at night I guess. This wouldn't have been a problem except that the little sister of the kids we mentor was also there and going hiking with only the boys would mean leaving her home alone. Not a good idea. So instead we decided to take their little sister as well. It was fortunate that we had Kimberly there so that she had a mentor too for the day.

The hike was definitely a challenge for the kids (with the exception of the littler sister, who rocked.) The two boys are a little "corpulent." My mentee kept complaining about how he was going to die and he couldn't make it anymore and he hated this hike and was never coming back and he was sweating and his legs hurt and on and on. I kept telling him that we didn't ever have to go back but he could make it this one time and just keep going and he was doing great. And he really was, all things considered. There was some other kid his age who would pass us every now and then on the trail and my mentee would feel all challenged and start running or walking fast for a few minutes until we passed this other kid again. It was this awesome little competition. But around switchback 9 (there are 11 switchbacks on the trail) he was feeling beaten and decided to sit down on a rock for a while even though we were so close. This took me back to freshman year, on one of the fist days of cross country...

We were in Rancho San Antonio running in the hills. I was not very good at running but had held my own so far. I decided to do cross country just because it was something to do and I got so tired I couldn't really think about other stuff and afterwards I would always get that endorphin rush that made everything just fine for a while, no matter what. This was the first time we were running in the hills. It was raining off and on and all us new kids were running on the shortest trail (about 2 and a half to 3 miles up a hill). I was dying but determined to finish the whole thing running. My shoes kept sticking to the mud and that made it harder to run. Dirt would fling up the back of my calves and on to my shorts. I went up and up this series of endless switchbacks. The track was getting dryer as I got closer to where the sun was shining. My heart was pounding and my lungs were burning and I was getting a little bit of the asthma I had through middle school. I finally decided to stop and walk. I put my hands on my waste and walked with my head down along the dirt path for about a minute before I turned another switchback and saw the end of the trail about 200 feet ahead in the distance. An overwhelming feeling of anger and disappointment in myself washed over me.

Most times we stop working towards something just before we reach it. I don't think my mentee picked up on this grand moral lesson, but I was reminded at least.

We finally got up and kept hiking again and soon reached the Y. Everything changed there. My mentee was happy and we ate the Oreos and granola bars I had packed and cheered on everyone else as they came up the trail and just sat and enjoyed the view and the company.

Fast Forward

It's now a couple days since I wrote the post above. Last night was a horrible day at work. Tons of drama and stress and people getting talked to by the manager and one lady even running into the bathroom crying. After work we went home for a few minutes, but then decided we were hungry, so we went to Guru's but it was closed and then back to work to see if anyone there wanted to go eat anything. Or at least give us a ride to somewhere we could eat. Anyhow, we met up with Brigetta, one of our coworkers, and decided to just go get some frozen pizza and ice cream and take it back to her place. Brigetta is in our new ward and lives just across the street. So we did that and ended up talking to Brigetta for a really long time.

My first impression of Brigetta was, as I told Jessica and Smurf, "I think she's really easy to get along with but also kinda dumb." She always seemed sort of ditzy and talked like there was no filter between her brain and what would come out of her mouth.

Well, she's not really that dumb. Just very forward and blunt. Some people think she is mean I guess, although i never really got that impression. Just dumb. But she's not. She's actually very observant and really clever. And she has this long history of corporate management and professionalism you would never believe from just seeing her a few times at work. She's also not as young as she appears (or acts) to be. Shes like 24 or something. Cool. I told Brigetta I was glad we had gotten to know each other more because of my aforementioned impression of her that is now changed.

So now it's Sunday and I'm a little anious and nervous for church to start for several reasons. I'm going to meet the new bishop who I will have to talk to sometime. I'm going to again throw myself out there for any chances left that I might still go on a mission. I've gotten pretty used to the idea that it just won't happen, but I'm going to work at it as though it could. Remember the running analogy?

...I do hate having to go through all this talking every time I get a new bishop, though. I really, really hate it.

Brigetta is teaching the lesson in Sunday school, so that will be something to look forward to.