safety week.

So. Two weeks ago we had an event called "Safety Week" at our lovely little institution. This "Safety Week" consisted of various activities including random door checks, a safety seminar, and a "Stoplight Dance" for which we dressed in clothes that displayed our current relationship status for all to see. Red if you're taken, yellow if it's complicated, and green if you're single. The abundance of green was apalling. I wore black. Interpret it as a metaphor for my love life, or interpret it as my protesting the idea that all personal information should be posted for the world to see, I don't care. I fell asleep through the safety seminar. But hey, I got 100 points out of doing everything I did that week, the maximum anyone could get. That got me free ice cream and some Jolly Ranchers. Does that mean I'm the safest? Doubtful. I walk down Freshman Hill alone all the time in the middle of the night, probably not a good idea. Last night in our hall meeting, our next door neighbor told us about a group of guys who fly down here to our lovely little town specifically to rape Mormon virgins. Joy. My roommate says she'd die to protect her virginity, girl's a fighter. Me? I've got my pocketknife and rape whistle, I think I can handle my own.

ahh, college.

So I'm in college. Big deal. Classes, I can handle. Roommates, I can handle. But something I was not prepared for was the abundance of... couples. That's right, boys, girls, the whole shebang. It's really the PDA of the couples, it's simply the vast plentitude of couples. They're everywhere. Seriously. I can't even go work out in the student gym without seeing at least one. And they're cute, too. Always holding hands, toting babies, sporting their diamonds. You might think I'm embittered, being single and all, and that this is my way of lashing out on the male population for not noticing me, but on the contrary, I love couples. They're adorable. They just, frankly, are not particularly what I'd like to see every day between classes. A change of scenery would be nice, is all.

highlights of my day.

Only one casualty, a plate in the dishwasher. Heaven knows how one plate in the middle of the dishwasher can get broken with the others around it intact, but hey, they make it happen.

"Umm... Excuse me? Excuse me? Umm... I love you."

The guy in the redneck truck who whistled at me as I was turning onto Jeff Davis.

The African American girl with blue, purple, and neon green tye-dyed hair walking into Walmart.

swiss miss 3.

22. They drive on the same sides of the road as us. And their cars are as big as ours too. They have SUV's.

23. Every toilet flushes differently. You might look for the pull for at least 6 minutes before giving up and then mentally picturing the stall and figuring it out after you've left.

24. Teenagers can wear the "f" word on their shirts without getting too many weird looks.

25. There is a strange abundance of Asians.

26. Really. Every little kid is aesthetically beautiful. Even if his or her parents aren't attractive at all. They are all adorable.

27. Church in French is really difficult to stay awake for.

28. There is no shortage of man-capris.

29. Men wear two large balloons under their shirts and walk around looking like women. Because no woman has boobs that big... Right?

30. Lesbians tongue each other on the metro.

31. Old men in Speedos strip in front of you.

32. Old, fat men in Speedos play in the water fountains with small children.

33. Blogger logs you in in German.

The end.

swiss miss 2.

12. You are expected to only use one square of toilet paper. This is implicitly, but strongly, encouraged because bathrooms only dispense this amount at one time or the toilet paper is ridiculously thick.

13. If you have to pee, GO. Never think that you'll "be fine." You will not.

14. Sometimes completing number 13 requires money. No matter how badly you have to go.

15. Electric fences are for cows.

16. Alpine flies are really stupid.

17. Rivella = Coke

18. Rick Steves = God

19. Leggings pass as appropriate bottoms to an outfit.

20. Any falling water is potable, even if it is spewing out of the side of a 9th-century castle. However, water from a bathroom faucet is not.

21. Hiking down to Murren requires unleashing your inner Freud.

Still to be continued...

swiss miss.

In Switzerland...

1. All small children are absolutely adorable.

2. It is perfectly acceptable to pat the butt of the guy next to you to the beat of "Get Ready" at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.

3. No one says anything offensive enough to you to make you change if you just happen to leave your home wearing an entire outfit of neon green.

4. You can swim around a castle, complete with centuries-old poop.

5. If people want to stare at you, they will.

6. Couples are mismatched. Ex: Short man, tall woman; old white man, young Phillippino woman; attractive man, hairy woman; etc.

7. Every one of said couples is DEEPLY in love, complete with hand holding, groping, and the occasional holding of the towel in front of your girlfriend while she changes, without bothering to avert your eyes or stop making out with her.

8. What looks like apple juice is really unsweetened tea.

9. The train leaves on time, whether you are the only one of your family on it or the rest of them have managed to accompany you.

10. Everyone smokes. They all look like they're just regular cigarettes, but I can smell better. Then again, marijuana is legal here.

11. Most guys you can smell while passing them on the street actually smell pretty good. However, the ones that happen to sit across from you on the 45-minute train ride back home do not.

To be continued...

the bros.

My brother has officially become one of those boys. You know, the ones who grow up to be the boys previously referred to as those who only use girls for making out. Today he "got some play" with a girl who we will refer to as D. Necessary? No. Fun? Probably, ask him. He is currently standing around his friends, including A, who is obsessing over his facebook status. (Which is now "[A] and [G], [my brother], [the kid who introduced himself to me last night as "Flavius"] discovered the Greatest insult known to man its the " Sea Gypsy" let it be known all throughout the land on July 8 2010") They're playing DJ Tiesto's remix of "Adagio for Strings" and none of them know what it's called. Except my brother. Who, despite his knowledge of Samuel Barber's most well-known work, is slowly spiraling down the drain towards the eminent high school male personality disorder, which my friends and I have a tendency to refer to as "durhur." "P (Flavius), I think I have one thousand friends!" This is what society is coming to. And you ask me why I don't date.

car maintenance.

If there's one thing that's out of my comfort zone, it's car maintenance. Even the simplest of oil changes I have difficulty with; I always drive out of that BP confused/not satisfied with myself/lacking something I came to get done, etc. Today it was an oil change. My little car has 252, 902 miles on it. I checked my gas mileage yesterday, 35 mpg. It rocks. However, beyond that, I am severly lacking in my knowledge of the inner workings of the modern automobile. And it doesn't help that everything my buddy M (full name has been withheld to protect those not here to defend themselves) is said with a serious southern twang. (Though I am well-versed in the twang, I can't really understand him when he's behind my hood, pumping oil into my car.) "Do you want it on or off?" I asked him. Easy question, right? I still don't know what his response was, but I have reason to believe it was not one of the two options I gave him; whatever he said in response was comprised of multiple syllables. My other task today was "steering fluid." When my mother drove my car the other day (so I could eat something on the way to pick up my charges when I had woken up late), she said, "You need steering fluid." What is that? Oil for your steering wheel? So when I drove up, I said, "Oil change and steering fluid," clear as day. But, of course, human error comes into play, people forget things, I am victim to an imperfect hippocampus as well as the vast majority of our species. Needless to say, I don't think I drove out with this illustrious "steering fluid." It was not on my receipt, though it did say "taxable amount: $16.00, total amount: $31.99." I just handed my card over like the typical clueless customer. Also behind the hood, my buddy M mentioned to me that something is "looking really dirty... And I recommended it to ya last time and I'm mo recommend it to ya 'gin; it's a killer for gas mileage." (Mileage. Which on my sticker for my next oil change is spelled "milage." Once again, humans make mistakes, maybe it was a rough day at work.) I have no idea what that "something" is, and I was too confused about my total to really ask anything. So. Upstairs in my room is a book I borrowed from the library, entitled "How Women Win the Auto Repair Game." This must be my karmic cue to crack it open.

sundrenched world.

This is my favorite song on Joshua Radin's album We Were Here. The entire album is amazing, but this one is my favorite. Not only because I thoroughly enjoy listening to boys who play guitar and sing. (A little too much, if you ask me.) Not only because I love the combination of an acoustic guitar and strings. Not only because I love a 9-8 suspension in a minor chord. But because, as a songwriter, I know every song has a deeper meaning. And I believe the best songwriters use elements of their songs to contribute to the message they are trying to send. Much like poets. Because true songwriters are poets, not just people paid to compose. And this song draws upon the literary element of consonance to make a point. This is also the only song on the album that contains a curse word. Consequently, the curse word that I find the harshest, the "f" word. I only listened to the word once, on accident, now it's almost brandished into my brain. Now I turn off the volume when I get to that point in the bridge, because the word is almost painful to listen to, much like the pain the singer feels remembering the past and the way it has cut a jagged hole into his own world, while the girl who left him to be safe in hers while never completely letting go of him. The pain he feels knowing that what happened is just a repeat of history, an endless circle of this girl closing herself up to him and any guy before and after him. Not only is his heart breaking because she won't completely love him, but hers is as well. He's angry, he spits this word out. But everything else is sung almost as a whisper... Though it's not explicitly stated in the song, he knows she's tender. Even through all the pain she causes him, he doesn't want to lose her, he doesn't want her to lose him. She sings along with him on the chorus: "I'm talking to you, but you're not listening. I don't know what to do; my heart is (hands are) blistering" He sings alone: "Writing this song, tell me I'm not wrong (I belong)." Neither of them can make the other understand, though they are both saying the same thing to each other. Both of them are alone in being together. It really is an endless cycle. "Tell me I belong." But neither one can say that to the other while flailing in this loneliness. They love each other, but they're too weak to hold onto one another. "Tell me I belong." But neither one of them ever can.

6.25.10

They have now realized the joys of spitting water into each other's faces. I, for once, have decided to forego my swimsuit and simply wear shorts and a white v-neck in the hopes of the scorching sun being a little less relentless. I hear thunder. "What's that?" they ask me. "Sounds like an airplane." I explain that that is thunder. And that it sounds like a storm to me. They ignore me and proceed to ask for more sunscreen, out of the can that, though empty, defies my logic by unleashing enough 50 spf sunscreen to cover both of my charges and give my leg a good dousing. No lightning, so I allow them to continue swimming. And then the rain. And the shade. Hallelujah. I pull my chair under the roof of the pool house to watch them. (I promise I'm a good babysitter, the thunder has stopped; no possibility for lightning now.) Then I proceed to ponder my sad existence. Just kidding. My existence really isn't that sad. I live in a fabulous home with my family. I am blessed to have parents that still love each other and root our family in our faith. However, small pity parties are necessary when you're a girl. The thing about me is that I didn't discover the reality of a social life until this year. And now that it's summer, and I will be attending a college in the fall that is approximately one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one driving miles away, trusting that a blonde babe with a pixie cut who currently attends said college's calculations are correct, people you may have hung out with during the school year now only want you for gossip (girls) or making out (boys). So, as a remedy for that situation, I have a job. I babysit. I'm not a terrible babysitter, the children are well-behaved (excluding the fake-crying) and get along very well with each other. They are even well-mannered. ("Excuse me... Excuse me!") But I realized on the first day of babysitting that I am not ready to be doing this every day for the next ten years. Which leads me to pondering the subject of teen mothers. I think I'd miss out on a lot as a teen mother. I would have no social life at all. Because I wouldn't deposit the children back at home at 6 o'clock and go out to watch a movie with my friends (the ones who don't use me for gossip or making out) or go shopping with my mother. I wouldn't have a mother on hand to feed the little ones in case I fell asleep while they were watching "Muppet Treasure Island." Heck, I might even have a real job myself, with taxes and managers and co-worker drama and I'd have to pick up my children from daycare after I got off. What if I didn't have the children's father there to support me? What if their father didn't even care? So my existence isn't that sad. I could have it worse. Wow, I think that sometimes I think too much. Oh, crap, they're crying. Snack time. Then quiet time. My mother is a saint. She's coralled them at the pool table with popsicles.