The Scene: I and two of my friends are walking back to Gutenberg in the steady, blustery, gray rain that has characterized the whole day. I’m enveloped in my puffy blue raincoat (be quiet) and clutching my hood, which keeps threatening to blow back off my head.

(Paraphrased)

N: I think we might actually have a white Christmas this year!

Me: Oooh, I hope so.

J: I talked to my mom last week. She said it was 93 degrees back home.

Me: Wow!

N: We went to Disneyland around this time last year, and they were already getting ready for Christmas. They had these Christmas caroler characters wearing wool coats and scarves out in the bright sun.

J: Yeah… that’s why, in California, we don’t sing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” we sing, “It’s beginning to feel a lot like it should be Christmastime.”

We all laugh as we continue walking. J and N both have soaked wool coats. Their hair is dripping wet, too. I’m still clutching my hood. You’ve gotta love Oregon.

• Thinking
• Walking
• Talking
• Living out of my backpack
• Drinking coffee
• Wearing reading glasses
• Still periodically behaving like a five year old

And… heck! The quarter’s not even quite over. Who knows what might happen in the next two-ish weeks.

Who decided that it was a good idea for me to walk out of the house today wearing a bright purple sweater, a bright turquoise cardigan, and bright red shoes?

Whoever she is, I should fire her.

Also, the person who decided that it was a good idea to just fall asleep last night without first getting ready for bed and then was so rushed this morning that she left on the exact same pants—and MAKEUP—that she was wearing yesterday?

She should be fired too. For making me look and feel like a hobo. All day.

(P.S. I don’t think I should be allowed to write blog entries when I am tired and snarky. )

Tonight Gutenberg held a meeting with some architects to discuss the possibilities for a hypothetical future campus. I say hypothetical, because the school does not currently have the resources to realize said campus, but they are recognizing the need to plan because the school is bursting at the seams.

We talked about lots of qualities that Gutenberg has that we would like to carry on and emphasize in any new facilities—a homeyness, a sense of togetherness and community, good nooks in which to study, a total absence of boring sterility… stuff like that.

We also suggested that it look like Hogwarts and have gun turrets.

If that doesn’t sum up Gutenberg and its student body, I don’t know what does.

I would like to think that I am a pretty great person.

I would like to imagine that people like me and that I am in many ways the pinnacle of God’s creation.

I don’t articulate that literally, of course… but, if I am to be brutally honest about it, that is the way I usually carry on my life.

But no matter how many right answers I give or how many smug, self-centered jokes I tell, I still manage to sometimes shove my foot so far down my throat that it is in danger of coming out my rear end.

It is then, in those moments of shocking clarity, when my balloon pops and comes plummeting back down to earth, that I realize I am just as capable of hurting other people as the people that I tend to judge as being hurtful. Turns out I’m really not so great after all—in fact, I am decidedly human.

And that is when I say, “God? Thanks, but… no thanks. I could use a little less ‘being humbled’ right now. It is seriously messing with my plans to be the awesomest person in existence.”

… Add that to the list of “prayers we don’t really want God to answer.”

I am so tired that consonants are too much effort. All I can manage are Wookie-like sounds like EEEEeeeeeaaaarrrooouuuughhh.

Okay, I guess that kind of had consonants in it.

My point is, you’re not going to get much of a blog post tonight.

Adieu till tomorrow, then!

You know what really weirds me out? I am “the lady” now. You know, “the lady,” as in, “Give your money to the nice lady behind the counter, sweetie,” or, “Tell the nice lady ‘thank you.’”

I do not feel like “the lady.” “The lady” is older than me. She is the motherly type who will probably hand me a lollipop because she thinks I am still twelve.

But there I was, standing behind the counter being my 18-year-old self when that little boy looked in awe at the receipt I had just handed him and said, “Dad, look what the lady gave me!”

Excuse me while I go count my gray hairs.

Last night I read the weather forecast for today. “62 degrees and rainy,” it said. When I pried myself out of bed this morning to go to class, it looked like it was about to rain.

At the end of afternoon discussion, it looked like it was about to rain.

As we got ready for the “Qualifying Tea” honoring the Junior class, who passed their two-year-exams last spring, it looked like it was about to rain.

After the tea, I walked outside with my camera.

“Is it raining yet?” I asked the house manager.

“No; but any minute now!” she said.

As I subsequently walked with some classmates to find a location for an impromptu photoshoot, I warned them, “This won’t last long; it looks like it’s about to rain!”

Now, close to midnight, as I sit here safe and snug in my room, I can finally hear the rain pummeling our roof.

Oregon is funny like that.

• Make myself work.
• Go to bed on time.
• Get up when my alarm goes off.
• Get all of my schoolwork done on time.
• Stop myself from being inconsiderate.
• Put others before myself.
• Tell myself “no.”

… But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped trying.

Everyone has struggles in life. These are some of mine. If you are feeling forthcoming, what are some of yours?

Today was kind of a “sloggy” day. For some reason, I was in a terrible, no-good, rotten mood from the moment I got up this morning, and I felt like my head was in a tired fog all day.

After afternoon discussion, as Dad and I were headed home, I told myself, “Okay, Erin. I know you’re tired. I know you just want to go home and pass out on the couch. But you have to find some reserve energy for the rest of this evening because you have a lot of schoolwork to do.”

So I did just that. I drank some tea for a little pick-me-up, and after dinner I was beginning to feel that second wind. I was beginning to feel it so much, in fact, that as I pranced into the kitchen to get a glass of milk, I did a few little jumping jacks. I was feeling pretty darn pleased with myself. I was happy. I was energetic—I was reaching for the sky!

And that is when my reaching, jumping hands connected with the glass lighting fixture on the kitchen ceiling… and it exploded all over my head.

I just stood there for a few seconds, stunned, staring at the white shards of glass and at the frozen expressions of shock on the faces of my parents, who had whipped their heads around from their seats in the dining room when they heard the racket.

I can only imagine what that must have been like, to hear the sound of a million mirrors shattering and then to turn around and see their eighteen-year-old daughter, standing stock still in the middle of the kitchen amid piles of glass all over the floor and on the countertop and in the dirty dishes piled in the sink. If they had any thoughts at that moment, they were probably along the lines of, “I thought she had gotten over this stage…”

After their initial shock, Mom and Dad tried to say comforting things like, “We were thinking about installing track lighting anyway…” Now, after cleaning up the wreckage, we’re left with just a bare light bulb hanging in the middle of our kitchen ceiling.

Oh, and also the knowledge that I actually exploded a light by jumping up and thrusting my hands into it. Not everyone can say that, I suspect.

It seems that God has a way of poking you from time to time to let you know, “No, you really can be even more ridiculous.”

Point taken.