Red Hair Girl, I salute you!!

Today I was driving back to work from my lunch break and I saw the coolest hair ever. My first instinct was, "Whoa!" in a bad way. But then, I looked again, and I approved. The girl had a pretty face and the weirdest/most amazing urban/classy/business sense of style. She was coming out of Guru's which also helps define her type (the "I'm cool in a way that's not normal trendy but yes, still trendy in my own way" restaurant in town). I needed to put my finger on the red. It was not the normal orange/autumn of a natural red head or the maroon/purple of a fake red. I kept thinking and it came to me...it's superhero red. Yep...I couldn't decide how to explain it other than superhero red. I could picture it in any comic strip or cartoon for that matter. I'll have to check with Crayola of course. I think they're the ones who coin color names. Anyway, in that moment, driving down Center Street, she was my hero! Red Hair Girl, I salute you!

Blinders

Narrow-mindedness...I suffer from it...I won't deny it. I am not informed about the financial crisis in the country, I'm too busy thinking about how to save money for tuition and balancing my own checkbook. I don't focus on other lives enough because I am to busy going to my job, then home to study for my math class/fall asleep/run errands alone/go to the meetings and activities I have to go to. I don't like living like this. I'll admit that sometimes I wish I lived with a family or had more constant companionship just for the sake of getting out of my own head more often. I started this blog to share an experience. Back ground knowledge facts: 1) In the religion I attempt to practice, there is a meeting for young adults in the middle of the week and it's called institute. 2) Also, when I was a kid I wanted to grow up I wanted to be a mommy (and still do). I have since begun to pursue other things like the next best thing as I get my education in teaching but generally, the idea of being a wife and mother has occupied a great many of my spare thoughts during my adult years (for good or ill, still true). Story...last summer I was in a relationship, however short it was, it was a relationship...and that was new and fun. I found myself in this institute class with the wonderful kid I was dating and had the strangest, best, most out of self experience I'd had in a long time and have maybe had since. Those things spoken about in the institute class, things like faith, hope, patience, anything speaking to the mortal experience of progress and change and waiting through the bad and being excited about the good suddenly applied to everything but the all-encompassing thoughts of marriage and children. Those are great things to be concerned with but, for the time, a relationship was in hand and that aspect of my life was not a worry! It was so refreshing. There is life outside of my/our little bubble of concern. One day something that has concerned you for a what seems like forever will suddenly not exist any more and there will be a new (for a moment refreshing) set of concerns. The object of remembering and sharing this experience is an attempt to promote the ability and awareness of the world outside of my/our little space in it. So, I listen to NPR and the more conservative KSL. I sidewalk chalk a friend's doorstep. I join a volleyball team. And I do my math homework and make my lunch before I go to my job. I also work out so that in my attempt to be well rounded, I don't just become round...haha! Here's to removing the blinders (please don't actually think to hard about the purpose of blinders for a horse...there is a purpose and it makes sense but it does not apply to this analogy).

Leaves fall and so do cars

Today I went for a walk. I went for a walk on my lunch break in my favorite burnt yellow coat and favorite scarf. I had been having a good day at work and was stressed about some things I had to take care of before a meeting that evening. It is Autumn and the trees are beautiful and, though it had been a cold weekend and was about to get warm for a while, at that moment it was a most beautiful October day. And then a little pop sound and car was sideways on the side walk on the grass about a block and a half in front of me. I had just stopped to fix my shoe and looked up and there it was. Five or six people ran out of near by houses on phones and I saw an old car in the middle of the road. These things all happened before it really sunk in that a car accident had just happened. There had been no screeching or smashing metal, just a pop and someone's world had been turned completely upside down (both literally and figuratively). Can I just say that my first instinct really was, "Someone must have misplaced that car." But no really, I wondered (briefly) if one of those car-carrying big rigs had accidentally dropped something. No, that was not the case. Then, I couldn't get myself to walk any further. I had no phone on me, just my keys, and others had just made that call. I am also no longer CPR certified...these all went through my head. I also shouldn't go because if I did, then the ambulance that quickly got there would also have a shock case on their hands and I didn't want to detract from the matter at hand. In all honesty I was terrified of what I'd see. I then stood there for the next twenty minutes as three police cars, two ambulances, and a firetruck arrived and did things I couldn't see behind the car. I waited on the corner, first pondering why I didn't run toward it and then offering my prayers as my way of contributing. I wanted to see what was going on but didn't want to go further to goggle. I waited. I wanted to see stretchers move to the ambulance with people sitting upright or at least not covered completely in a white sheet. I did see one go out from behind the car but couldn't see details because of all of the emergency vehicles parked in front of it. Eventually a walker came by from that direction and I asked her what she had seen. The car in the middle of the road was a Cadillac. This then explained the older man just being wheeled into the ambulance sitting upright. A Cadillac can hold it's own and an old man would be the driver of this old car. I had seen that the other car had flown to the grass like a toy and was told that the Cadillac only had some damage in the front. The woman I talked to hadn't seen anybody coming out of the cars and walked on. I worried about the first stretcher I saw go out. They had taken a long time and yet, the ambulance didn't rush away with him/her. Why wasn't it moving? Were they in stable condition or...
Someone's life had been critically altered, or ended... people were out with their children, traffic was zooming by in importantly busy lunchtime traffic, going to meet business colleagues to discuss important matters or friends to relax with, the trees were changing and a light breeze moved them in and out of soft light, and a young woman staring from the corner about a block away just stopped worrying about "things."

Two sides to every coin

I am not always right. But in my head I am...unless I'm not, in which case the right thing is to apologize or change my ways. If I don't change, the evidence would show that I must no think there is anything to change...or that I am human and though I have the desire to change, the ability or will to do so is weak.
In the past week or two I have observed a couple things that have shown me that there are always two sides to every story. Experience 1: I heard two colleagues talking about the education system (Note: when I grow up, I will be a teacher). The one mentioned that a grandchild with a special need was not being helped by the public school system in the town in which she lived. Her mother had decided to home school her because of the inability of one teacher to give her the attention she needs due to the other 30 kids in her class...understandable. She was frustrated though because the school was not offering her much assistance in her home-schooling endeavors. The comment was made something to the effect of, "Well of course not, they're not getting money to work with her." It came out in a tone that would imply that the school wouldn't care because they were not receiving money to assist that student. I understood this as a frustrating experience. On the other hand, I've spent some time in the field of education in my preface to the real time I will get to spend again in a couple years. Yes, the school is not getting money for that child and so yes, they are probably take a lighter interest in her. But, if it is hard for a teacher to work with the 30 students in her class and to come up with ways of helping a student with a disability in her class, then having the student out of class and having to come up with even extra materials to help her will be even more difficult. On another note, the student's disability is one that is accommodated for in the public school system and is one that can be helped by more peer interaction, not less, so the school probably thought they could offer her help within the programs they provided. And lastly, though districts are concerned with money, educators don't choose their field because of the yachts and mansions it promises. Generally, or at least at first, it is because they care about children. And as for the adage, "Those who can't do, teach," I've seen many teachers who could have been a lot of things and who run a "would be" crazy classroom with the skill that would be required to run any company or office. Those who can do much and choose to be with children are not choosing a lesser employment. Example two: a friend of mine recently spoke with one of the higher management in her company. They spoke of the propriety of personal conversations between employers and employees in a company. The CFO/ COO/CEO (choose your acronym) spoke of the wish to be one of the girls and get to talk about normal things with those below her in the company's hierarchy but knew that would be inappropriate. She said she hated the more formal, pinched, nervous edge she saw everyone get when she entered a room. Her view of the employees views on her were fairly accurate...she scares people. But turns out she's fairly human: excepts the occasional personal call during the day, laughs, eats, etc. Interesting...
So weird. My problem comes in when the fact is that sometimes one side is right. I know people whose senses of reality are so wrong (If you're the only one thinking something or if everyone else is the bad guy and not getting along with you, look at the common factor in the equation. It may mean you're unique or a revolutionary...or it may mean your just wrong). The problem there is trying to convince that person that you're side of the coin is the right one!!! Overall this week made me feel very connected to the rest of the human race...each peson generally and genuinely believing something and very often completely misunderstanding each other. Maybe, if it's not life or death, or on a subject on which you have a real moral drive to defend, then let it go. Good luck with that...I know I'll need it! In the mean time...HEADS OR TAILS!

Putting the "re" in rejected

So, let's look at the suffix "re." "Re" at the beginning of a root word makes that thing happen "again," or, "over." So, to reenter means to enter again and redo means to do over. Now, I don't think "ject" in reject is a typical root word because it has no meaning on its own. But, for the sake of this blog, I have been re-rejected...rejected again, and over again. So...story begins when BFF HRH inherited tickets from her sister and 4 is the number of the both of us plus dates. Ahhh, to get a date...frustrating! I tried three times! Three times! And still didn't get a date. Now, the last one seemed like he was sad he had other plans (we received the tickets two days before the event). But the first two...I'm not kidding...it was a lot like they needed to "wash their hair" that night!!! The first one said he thought he would be able to but then TEXTED that he had looked at his calender and had a big project the next day. I don't know about you, but if I even like the guy as person, I get the project/homework done in time to go on the date! Whaaaa! The second, without a heart beat's pause said, "I'm sorry, I have plans that night. But thanks for asking." That translates to the way we've been taught to gently say no to a date invitation. For being a boy, he sure knows the routine (I'm thinking boys in this town probably get asked out more than they should and so they've learned how to be on the other side...gracefully bowing out). WOW! Ouch! Pain! And yet, how fun to have the experience of being rejected outright! It's...new anyway! Yeah for experience! I've never been just rejected. I've never been in the position to be rejected. I've gotten hints or I've just not been asked out by guys I may be interested in, but REJECTED! Also, earlier in the month, I went after a new kid in the neighborhood (translated to, invited him to two activities I planned and spoke with him for a minute at a church activity...so not like scary...just putting myself out there). At the church activity, I'm not even joking, I'm talking to he and a friend for a grand total of 3 minutes. Their sitting down eating and I join them. He then goes to "get seconds" and never comes back! Then, his wing man that I stay talking to, ups and leaves too and, no we're not in a group with other people to talk to. He leaves, and I'm sitting alone! DO I SMELL? Something is up...but back to the problem at hand..Masochistically I plowed on and got through three phone calls with no date. Then a roommate who wanted to set me up with her cousin sometime in the near future anyway decided this would be a good opportunity and saved me from more torture! It's been a (no adjective encompasses it all...annoying, interesting, trying, laughable) month!