Open Apology

Today, I was kneeling by a coworker's desk drinking a glass of water while she showed me something on her computer.

One of the things she showed me was shockingly funny, and somehow, I ended up spitting a mouthful of water all over her and the floor.

I was horrified. HORRIFIED, I tell you!

It was so, so embarrassing, and I want to publicly apologize to my sweet coworker for spitting on her. I truly didn't mean to. I have never spit like that before, I promise. I will endeavor to never spit on anyone again.

In a beautiful turn of events, however, that coworker accidentally gleeked a little bit on one of our other coworkers.

I feel so much better about the whole thing now.

Still, I wonder if I should surround maybe the 5 feet on any side of me with a blue tarp, like the blue bleachers at Sea World. Anyone who stands close to me may end up covered in water.

**Correction: my coworker has informed me that she didn't gleek on our other coworker; rather, she spit unintentionally, sort of during a laugh/scoff situation...just wanted to keep the story straight.**

Thinking of You

Dear LL:

Today for lunch at work, we're having Cafe Rio.

I'm thinking of you...get here already! I guess I can wait for two weeks...I guess...

Love,

Liz

Date

Today at work, an employee called to ask me a question about how to fix something on a customer's account. As I was walking through it with her, I asked if she was the person who had originally caused the error, as it would be simpler for whoever did it to fix it since it happened today, and a same-person, same-day fix is quick and easy.

The employee paused for a minute, and then said that although it wasn't her, it didn't matter because it happened on the 10th.

I then checked my calendar, and sure enough--it's not the 10th. When did that happen?

Gather Ye Rosebuds

Recently, on three separate occasions, I have seen a great deal for something that I wanted to purchase.

Once, I didn't make the purchase because I was so busy that I forgot until after the sale; on the other two, I hesitated because it was a larger purchase and I have commitment issues.

Now, all three things are much, much more expensive, and I am sad. Now, I'll probably wait for them to be cheaper again, and they won't be...but even if they are, will I just go ahead and make the purchases, or will I debate again?

Applicable poem of the day:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

(part of an old Robert Herrick poem)

He's talking in this poem about something quite different from making purchases while things are on sale, but the idea remains the same: I'm not so good at gathering the rosebuds while I may. I need to work on that.

I quoted that poem to my old roommates the other day when I was teasing them.

It's funnier if you know what the poem is actually about, and especially if you know the title. Google it and read the whole thing. You'll like it. It'll be your cultural moment for the week.

Validation

My old manager had called me on the phone to ask a work question. As we were chatting, I mentioned to her that my current coworker said that I wasn't fun.

Her response?

"Of course you're fun! You brought donuts for everyone yesterday. If that isn't fun, I don't know what is!"

She also agreed with me on the feelings of not wanting to go out dressed like a cow.

I rest my case.

It turns out I am fun; it clearly just depends on who you ask.

Work

Sometimes, I have the strangest conversations at work.

D: Cows aren't dalmations--it's not little black spots; it's big black splotches.
Roo: Fine! I'll make big black splotches.
Me: I'm not dressing up like a cow. It's just not going to happen.
Roo: Then you're no fun.
Me: Yeah, I think we've established that.

And then we moved on to talking about work again.

What was the reason for the cow conversation? If you dress up like a cow, you can get a free meal today at Chick-fil-a.

Not worth it. I love Chick-fil-a, but if I want that for food today, I'll just buy it.

Turns out I am no fun. Truthfully, that's a pretty good assessment, especially at work. I suppose I should be more fun, but the last couple of years of work and school seem to have sucked all of the fun out of me.

I'm getting old and boring.

Oh well. I'm too tired to care.

Memory

One of the things I've been blessed with is a pretty sharp memory. I can remember lots of details about where I was, what I said, and who was there for many situations. It's useful for work, school, and trivia-based games.

Today, I my memory came in handy as I suddenly remembered that I left a carton of milk on the counter.

Unfortunately, I was also blessed with terrible timing.

I suddenly remembered leaving the milk on the counter about 13 hours after I did it.

At least it was almost empty...

The Last Lecture

(This post is not about the book "The Last Lecture," although I do want to completely endorse that as solid, meaningful reading material for anyone out there.)

I just returned from my last lecture at school. It's a very surreal feeling. Now, all that is left is a paper, a presentation of that information, and one essay exam. (It sounds worse than it actually is.)

But as far as sitting and listening to people, I am done.

I am dangerously close to having my degree.

Helpful

My sister-in-law is currently expecting her second son, my seventh nephew, to be named "Shadow Boy."

Not true. Shadow Boy is just the only name that my brother and sister-in-law can agree on at this point. My sister-in-law has suggested several names she likes, such as Zachary. My brother suggested some other great names for the baby on Saturday, including Nathan-Detroit, Jack Daniels, and Beaver. My sister-in-law is a shoo-in for sainthood.

But back to today's topic. As I have with each of my nephews, I registered for a weekly email update as to the baby's development. There's a website that does it (probably several), and I just find it interesting. I like to know how big the baby is, what it's working on in that particular week (inhaling and exhaling small amounts of amniotic fluid this week, in case you're wondering).

My favorite part of the email is how big the baby is and his approximate weight. Each week, the email compares the size of the baby to a common object for visualization purposes. One week, he may be the size of a jumbo shrimp, another week, the size of a small lime, etc. This comparison helps me to understand the size of the baby easily.

This week, the email lists Shadow Boy as about the size of "an English hothouse cucumber."

Huh.

What on earth is an English hothouse cucumber? If it's about the size of a regular cucumber, why don't they just say that he's the size of a cucumber? If it's not about the size of a regular cucumber, why not pick something less obscure for this visualization part of the email?

And I Just Can't Hide It

Today when I got in to the office, I looked at one of my many calendars and saw that on Wednesday, I will have just three weeks left of school.

For some reason, it's suddenly much more exciting than it was. My newly-discovered excitement may have something to do with the weekend that I just finished. I spent both Friday and Saturday night being pretty lazy, bumming around the apartment while I sorted through some boxes from the storage unit (two down, four million to go) and watched movies. It was so fabulous and relaxing--just a wonderful glimpse into my new life of not having school and homework every night!

Also this weekend, somebody's mother and I started the process of making cookies for the graduation party. Yesterday's project was making chocolate chip cookie dough for the freezer, to be baked the day of the party.

This was enjoyable for a few reasons. First, making cookies = graduation party approaching. Second, somebody's mother is super fun to cook with. We laughed and laughed. Third, and probably most influential, is that I ate a significant amount of cookie dough. Probably at least two cookies worth. At least. Mmmm...

If I get salmonella, so be it. One of the guys in my office already had swine flu--salmonella wouldn't faze anyone.

Awesome Indeed

My brave, wise little brother Captain Awesome has decided that he needs to go to college to get a degree. What a smart man!

He decided to start slowly by taking one class during the second half of this summer. He has been going to class regularly like a little champ, taking notes, paying attention, and doing his homework faithfully. This has required extra effort from him because it is a math class, and he has long viewed math to be his kryptonite.

They had their first test yesterday. Today he got back his score--98%.

Kryptonite no longer. That kid is a math genius!

Today's Thoughts

• If I, one of the most paranoid people in the world, think that you are paranoid, you probably should check into it.
• I love clouds, thunder, lightning, and rain. I just do. I will love them in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. Especially in the summer. Sue me.
• Four weeks until I'm done with school. It feels about 27 days too long, but I'll manage.
• I have the cutest nephews in the world. Seriously, the very, very cutest. And smartest. Jealous? You should be.
• My parents are fabulous. Jealous? You should be.
• Thinking lots about this today. Read here and here for some good info from an unexpected source. Don't want to get too political on you all, so I'll leave it at that for now.
• I'm thinking about learning how to play the guitar. I've wanted to for years, and now I'm going to have time.
• Also thinking about learning to play tennis. Thoughts? I can't imagine that I'll be good at it, but could be fun/funny.
• I'm not out to get anyone. No need to think I am, people.
• That jacket I wanted to buy was on sale. I forgot to buy it before the sale ended. Now it's on sale again, but not as much. I'll just wait impatiently for the lower price. Now that I know it's out there, I can't pay more.

Regarding Your Suggestions

Dear family:

I will not be dancing in my spare time. That was a joke. Seriously, can you picture what that would be like? Any dancing would be questionable; belly dancing would be cruel and unusual for everyone involved.

Please try harder...

Love,

Liz

P.S. LL, learning to sew isn't sitting around doing nothing--that's totally productive! Look at all the cute pajamas you make now!

The Final Countdown

*cue background music*

Yes, folks, we did it! We're entering the final countdown to graduation. In about a month, I will officially be done with my undergraduate degree. What a relief!

It's such a strange thing to think about. Today, I've been mulling over ideas of some things I'd like to do, and each time, when I think, "I don't have time for that," I have to remind myself that yes, in fact, I'll have every evening free to do with what I will. I could not be more excited about it.

So, dear blog friends, what do you think I should do with all of my new-found free time? Some sort of arts and crafts? *Gulp* Scrapbooking?? Dance lessons? XBox? Ice skating? Yoga? Decorating my apartment? Professional napping?

So many options...any great ideas out there?

*end music...except in my head. "The Final Countdown" has been stuck in there for about a year*

Relief

Today, I went in for the practical exam game.

Six hours later, I came out.

It went well. It went really well. I'm not the best, but I'm pretty darn close.

It was such a relief. I've been skipping around all evening, hugging my parents, and nearly high-fiving a stranger at Lowe's. (Almost did it. I don't think that's why he actually had his hand up, but there it was, and...but I resisted. Thing I did not resist? Climbing on the front of the cart while my dad pushed it out of the store. I'm not sure I've done that in a million years, but sure enough: still fun.)

So tomorrow, I'll go in for attempt two to see if I can improve on today at all. I might be able to...might not. Either way, I'll be okay.

The real issue was that I was legitimately concerned that I would be unable to achieve enough points on the project to pass the class, due to my team's low score.

Now that I know I will definitely pass, I am greatly relieved.

I'm going to sleep soooooo well tonight!

As LL would say, I am money.

Thanks for all the prayers and support. Hang in there with me for another week, and I promise--I'll be a much more fun friend, kind neighbor, pleasant coworker, etc.

Quiet

All's quiet in the apartment tonight. I had a wonderful, relaxing dinner with an old friend. It's funny how, although we often go a year or more between our visits, it's like no time has passed at all and we just pick right up where we left off. It was so fun to see her and reminisce about when we were tiny girls. So much has changed, and yet some things remain the same.

After I returned to the apartment this evening, I checked on the top scorer so far in the game for my group. I don't want to go into all the details here. All you need to know is that the current leader is so far above my best-ever practice score that the ramifications are pretty sobering.

I've sat in the dark in the quiet for a few minutes now, desperately grasping for some bit of inspiration. I'll be spending the day in the testing center tomorrow, attempting to pull off a miracle. As I lay here on the floor of my dark living room, staring at the ceiling fan spinning, spinning, spinning, I'm feeling fairly overwhelmed. And I feel that I need to get some furniture. But that's a whole different blog posting.

Less than 12 hours until go time. I wish that things seemed more doable. No matter how I try it or think about it or figure it, I'm just not the best at this thing. And truthfully, I'm okay with not being the best at it.

I just wish I were adequate.

Moral Dilemma

The majority of the points in my capstone course (70%) come from a practical exam. It's basically like being judged on how well I've learned to play Monopoly. (Sadly, not well. It's much harder than Monopoly, and I am not as good at it as I would like to be...)

The person who scores the most points in the game (each of us plays individually against the computer, and then receives points based on our respective amazingness) gets 100% of the points, and everyone else is judged against them.

I'm headed in to take the exam on Friday. I had to take the day off of work to do it because it must be done in the testing center, which has pretty lousy hours in the summer. The teacher will take the best of my two attempts. Each attempt takes, on average, about 240 minutes. It'll probably take me all day Friday and all day Saturday to get through both attempts.

I'll be doing a lot of hoping and praying during the next few days. Feel free to join in.

Here's where the moral dilemma comes in: is it wrong to hope that everyone else does poorly? I don't want anyone to fail, but I really don't want anyone to achieve so many points that it becomes impossible for me to get a good score. Why can't we all just be mediocre together and all get A's?

I'd talk to each of the students in the course about it, but sadly, there are about 60 people in the course, and for scoring purposes, we're broken into two halves, and I don't remember who is in my half.

Interesting side note: my half met last night to begin the competition. Of the 27 people who were there, I was the only girl. There are always very few girls in any of my classes, and it appears that in this competition, I'm the only one.

The Future

Today, at work, my email inbox is puzzling. We use Microsoft Outlook here in the office, and my emails are organized according to date received. There are emails from three weeks ago, two weeks ago, yesterday, today, etc., each under the appropriate header.

And today, I can mystically see into the future. Every email I have received today is listed under the header "tomorrow."

I'll try to post a picture from home...suffice it to say, I now know what is going to happen tomorrow. We'll be addressing an important issue with Parameter 12 to enable online account opening to facilitate our work at a local university.

Interesting...

If I could always get tomorrow's emails today, I'd be able to decide what days to take off.

I feel so powerful.

Hey Out There!

Hello, universe! I don't ask too much of you all, besides my prior request to get excited about graduation, but I now have another request. Strangely enough, it's graduation related as well.

My fabulous mother is putting together a "save-the-date" email about the graduation party and my splendid parents are throwing for me.

Thus, somebody's mother has asked for some email addresses of my friends.

Strangely enough, I don't really have them. (The email addresses. Not the friends. I have the friends. I think.)

So, if you follow this blog and actually know me in real life and would like to get on the invite list, post your email address as a comment. I won't actually publish the comment, so no worries there. Even if it's been a while, take the opportunity to come and party and catch up! I'd love to see you all.

If you are in my extended family, I think somebody's mother already has you on the list.

Thank you!

Adulthood

Although I've considered myself to be an adult for many years, living in an apartment on my own has really caused me to reflect about my upbringing.

I'm so grateful to parents who made me have chores. I'm glad that I know how to do my own laundry, how to clean, how to change a lightbulb, etc.

I'm also grateful that those same parents who let me be my own person while being there to support me in the tough stuff. After my friend helped me get my TV to my new place, I spent Saturday night putting together a TV stand that I'm borrowing from my generous older brother who can't use it for the foreseeable future because of his kids. It was a sort of comedy of errors as I tried to get the pieces together, and I finally did it. I felt pretty good about it. I even managed to get the TV up onto the stand. Feeling like a completely empowered, capable woman, I headed to bed. However, there was a tiny voice inside my head that was worried that the TV was going to come crashing down. Empowered, strong Liz proved to be right - the TV stayed in place. I was still very nervous about it. My parents were at my apartment yesterday, and I told my dad about the TV stand and showed him my work. He quickly tested its stability, and then proclaimed it a job well done. Victory!

Last night, while changing a strange tiny lightbulb in my ceiling fan, I somehow managed to remove only the glass around the bulb without any of the parts on the inside or the part that screws in (I may be an adult, but I do not know the names of lightbulb parts). I actually laughed out loud when it happened. No one was here, so I just enjoyed the good laugh by myself and put the lightbulb somewhere where it wouldn't injure me later.

This morning, I was talking with my parents after somebody's mother and I went to the gym. We were eating breakfast, and I was explaining the lightbulb incident. I started to explain that I was pretty sure that I had read or seen that you remove those leftover bulb parts with a potato, and my dad piped in, "Do you want me to come over and take care of it for you?"

Yes. Yes I do. I do not want to electrocute myself. I'm independent, but only to a certain point. And after my dad shows me how to do it, I'll be able to do it on my own the next time it happens. He's a great teacher.

Today, I needed to get some lightbulbs, and I had mentioned that to somebody's mother earlier. She told me that she had to go to a store nearby the hardware store and offered to pick up the bulbs for me.

This evening, when I picked up the bulbs, she mentioned that some of them had been hard to find, and she had actually ended up going to an additional store (not at all near the first) to obtain them. Pretty sweet, huh?

With a mom and a dad like that, full of support for this new stage in my life and completely willing to help when I get a bit stuck, there's no way I'm going to fail.