The benefit of the doubt.....or something like that

I know, I know....it's been a long time.

I had an interesting experience last night that taught me about forgetting. I went out with a good friend from high school. While we were talking and catching up, she mentioned that she had seen an old boyfriend of hers and recounted a humorous exchange they had. The third member of our party didn't go to high school with us and didn't know who he was or why the story was relevant. My friend quickly helped her out.

"Mark doesn't like him at all," she whispered conspiratorially. The friend looked at me for confirmation.

At this moment, I did a mental double-take. It was true that in our high school days, I had vehement feelings against this particular person. My friend was in relationship with him and he hurt her very, very much (even for high school). Feeling the protector, I was quick to demonize him as a no-good, manipulating blowhard. However, at this point--five years later--time had healed my once-fervent dislike of this person. I of course hadn't forgotten what he had done to my friend, but she herself had healed and moved on, as had I. I was even a little surprised to remember that I did have such strong feelings.

I was a little bit troubled by this experience. I am someone who tends not to forget things. I'm good at remembering names and (unfortunately) people who have done things to hurt those I love. In this case, everyone involved had moved on, and I wish I had made it clear that I was included in "everyone." While this was an innocent reminiscing experience, it made me think of how I remember people and what they've done--even those who haven't been the perpetrator of a heinous offense (like me in this story). I certainly don't want to be remembered as "the one who hated your old boyfriend," and it made me want to give people the benefit of the doubt more often. Just because someone said or did something that may have been hurtful, I'm not in charge of remembering it just in case the need ever arises to pull it out of my arsenal of past experiences to use against them. It made me want to be optimistic about the possibility of change.

What Works and What Doesn't

About 24 hours ago, I was putting together a lesson plan for a class I teach. For the first two days of this class, I tried to create my plans from scratch. This was clearly not the most efficient way to do thing, as it took me three or four hours to do one fifty-minute plan. But I was determined to do it on my own so I pushed through it. I was also completely miserable. I finally put my pride on the shelf and asked a much more experienced instructor for her lesson plans. Now it takes me half the time to examine the prepared lesson plans and tweak them to my own style and preference.

Lesson #1 from this experience: most people (and certainly God ) are more than willing to help if you just ask.

Back to 24 hours ago.

The lesson plan was going a little bit slower than usual this night, even with the help of the already-made plans I used as a base. For the big activity in the middle of the lesson, I decided to just copy and paste the original activity since it was already "clear enough" and easy to explain without my making adjustments to my own way of teaching and explaining.

The next day--today--my lesson was going quite smoothly The class was engaged and participating. I came to the middle activity, the one I stole, for lack of a better term. As I tried to ask questions and explain the concept, I found myself fumbling. I was trying to make sense of the graph that the experienced instructor used. I paused and tried to figure it out while the class waited expectantly. Time slowed down and I'm sure my face started to redden. After I got things figured out, the students started asking questions from the chart I drew on the board. Still trying to recover, I had to think and think and think about their questions. It was a small disaster.

Lesson #2 from this experience: you really need to be yourself and do what works for you, because what works for someone else won't always be the best thing for you. If I had taken the time (24 hours ago) to revamp the chart in a way that made sense to me and a way that I could easily explain - in essence make it my own - the awkward pauses and silences and regroupings today could have been avoided. My students need me and my style to learn, not someone else's, just in the same way that the students of my instructor/benefactor needed her and her style to learn. This is a lesson that is easy to learn in this situation but a lot harder to learn in real life, I think. The feelings I had today after class were very similar to the ones I have after an experience where I knew I was trying to be someone else because I thought that would work better. But in reality, it just makes things harder and worse. It sounds really campy, but people really are basically different for a reason.

On Feeling Pensive and Opening Up

Tonight I went to a volleyball game with an old friend from my freshman year. We were supposed to meet up there with a few of her friends, watch the game, and then head to her apartment and watch a movie. We've done this before and she is one of my favorite friends to spend time with and especially to watch movies with because she reacts in the right spots and always makes just the right amount of comments. Last time we watched a sappy Nicholas Sparks novel-turned-movie and we made snarky comments every few minutes. It's rather enjoyable.

Tonight our plans shifted a little bit. A new friend from one of her classes came to the game with us, but I wasn't too worried. The original plan still held, as far as I knew. After the game, he said we were both invited to his apartment to hang out with some other people and we'd decide from there what would happen. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I've known for a while that I need to try to break my bubble, put myself out there and meet some new people. Here was a perfect opportunity. Still a bit unwilling, I agreed to go. He offered to drive us both there so we wouldn't get a boot in his parking lot. This was very nice, but it made me uncomfortable since I wouldn't necessarily be able to leave early if I wanted to. But in the name of friendliness (or a lack of it on my part) I just went along.

Now, the funny thing is.....nothing really went wrong. Nothing happened that made me want to run screaming from the room. There ended up being about 9 people there, which is not exactly what people would call a large party. It wasn't even a party. Nobody was rude to me at all, nobody said anything offensive, I was making nice conversation with a few people, they were asking me questions, everything was relatively normal. But the whole time, I just felt really uncomfortable. I wished and wished that my friend and I had been able to watch a movie at her apartment like we had originally planned. We started playing a board game that really required getting out of one's comfort zone. My discomfort skyrocketed. I knew one out of nine other people and the tasks of the game were really embarrassing. The thought finally formed in my head in words what I had been feeling for about 20 minutes. "I want to get out of here. I want to be at home. Alone."

My freshman year of college, I would have loved this sort of thing. I was all about meeting new people and making as many friends as I could. I liked to run around and do stupid things like spray mustard on random people's windows with a large loud group (I was only 18). Friends of friends became my friends. My Facebook friend count escalated. I liked to play crazy games that would let me show off a bit.

So tonight, I'm feeling pensive. To make sure this is what I was really feeling, I looked up the adjective in the dictionary. This was the second entry:

expressing or revealing thoughtfulness, usually marked by some sadness.

I'm feeling pensive. I feel very philosophical which is laced around the edges with a slight bit of sadness. Two and a half years later, I feel no need to meet anybody new. There are even people in my life that I knew before that I have no desire to see again. When I first came home from my mission, I thought this was a normal thing and that it would pass. Now, however, I know that although it is normal, it is not going to pass. I've discovered that I'm an introvert and while many people who know me wouldn't label me as 'shy,' I don't need a lot of people around me to be content.  I 'gear up' for life by being alone. Being alone is what 'recharges' me. And if I'm not alone, being with some or all of my small group of 10 or less close friends is all I need. In addition, when I'm with those friends, I'm perfectly content just sitting around and talking or playing a board game (one of the suggestions for tonight was a scavenger hunt with a pre-written list of things to do. Get 3 strangers to serenade you? I almost died).

Meeting new people and being the first one to be friendly and say hi, for me, feels very vulnerable. I usually end up replaying the scene in my head, hashing out all the dumb things I said and then wonder what that person thinks of me. It's hard for me to really 'be myself' around people and let them see what I really think and act like. And, in my brain, I don't see any reason to open myself up to vulnerable situations when I already have enough people who I know care about me and like to spend time with me. The rest of the time I enjoy being alone.

So in my uncomfortable situation tonight, when I really started to yearn for my dingy apartment, I announced before rolling the die that this would be my last one. It was. I got up and awkwardly left after my turn. Nobody else left. My friend stayed there. I declined a ride from the kid who had brought us there and said I would walk. It really wasn't far. While walking to my car, all the thoughts I just wrote out went through my head again. Those people were very nice but I have no desire to see any of them again (except for my friend I originally went to the game with). I don't need to. For some reason, this makes me feel a sweet kind of loneliness. Upon arriving home and being in my room - alone - I felt comfortable and happy again. Will I eventually reach out and make a few new and, hopefully, close friends? I hope so. But for now, I'll probably just eat a sandwich, watch an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore show, read a little bit and then head to bed. Let the real charging up begin. Alone.

A Terrible Experience Relived...Or Nearly So

If you know me at all or if you have spent any amount of time around me in the past three months, you know two things:

                     1. Science and I have never been friends.

                      2. Last semester I had a Biology class that nearly caused me to lose my mind with frustration until I hit a point where I stopped caring completely and totally.

Without going into too many details, suffice it to say that material covered on tests did not accurately reflect in any way what was covered in class, to the point that I wanted to hurl things at the professor and the TAs. It's an established fact: it was one of the worst, one of the most drawn-out, one of the most painful experiences of my life. Period.

In contrast, this semester I do not have any classes that will not be useful to me in someway in the future - not one - be it in my career choice or more advanced classes in my chosen field of university study. One of the courses this semester is a once-a-week British Literature class that lasts two and a half hours. With my regular work schedule and because of other prerequisites, this was about my only option for this class even though it was definitely not my first choice, but we do what we have to.

Last Wednesday was the first class period. On Tuesday at about 4:00 PM I received an email from the professor of this class welcoming us all to the world of Romantic and Victorian Literature. The syllabus was also attached along with a large reading assignment and a short (1-2 page) response paper due the next evening. This was odd, but what I found odd wasn't necessarily the fact that we had an assignment due the first day, rather it was the volume of the assignment and the fact that we had about 24 hours to do it in in addition to all of my other homework. But, I said to myself, that's college life! I read through the syllabus and spent a few hours on the assignment, although I still only did three-quarters of the reading, opting to read the huge summary of the Romantic Period and writing an overview of it and neglecting to read two pieces of literature written by authors of that period.

This evening I got to class and the professor instructed us to pull out a sheet of paper first thing. "We're going to have a little quiz," my professor said. Hmm. I immediately regretted not having read the two assigned readings and was about to pay for it on the first day of class. But it turned out that the quiz wasn't on our readings...

"Question number one. What are my office hours?"

What? Are you kidding me? I'm supposed to have retained your office hours, of all things on that syllabus?! That's why I have this thing, so I don't have to memorize your office hours!

"Question number two. What is my attendance policy?"

This is a joke.....why would I be worried about the attendance policy before the class even starts?? I mean, I had read over the entire syllabus, including the attendance policy, but I was a little more concerned with what kind of assignments we would be getting and what the weekly workload would look like, wasn't I??

The quiz continued. "How many children do I have? What is my late work policy? What are your reading journals supposed to look like?" And on and on for ten questions. This is outrageous, I thought to myself. If this is any portent of things to come in this class, I'm dropping it this very evening. Where had I experienced this before....? Ridiculous questions, no way of knowing on what we'd be tested...it was Bio 100 all over again!!! But...but this is supposed to be British Literature!

I felt that familiar sensation right around the bottom of my ribcage, as if a literal substance called anger or temper were rising up through my body and, unchecked, would come out of my mouth in the form of unrestrained, insulting fury. There is no way I'm staying in this class, absolutely no way! I started to think of other free times in my week when I could look for a British Lit class at home this evening when the time came to correct our quizzes. This is unbelievable, I thought. Who tests their class on the syllabus before anything on it has been explained?! Of all the stupid and pointless things to have to commit to memory!

Then, in a split second, my professor went from being cursed over and over in my mind to an elevated position rarely attained by any teacher I've had (well maybe not that high...)

"Of course I'm not quizzing you on the syllabus! Quizzes on reading material are stupid and only show a lack of trust between the professor and the student. If you say you've done your readings, you've done them! And if not, well....we'll see that in the papers and on the tests."

A wave of relief spread over my mind and heart and I'm sure my facial expression lightened considerably. Bless this man, this antithesis of my biology professor and all her ideals! I wouldn't have to drop the class at all!! In the hour that followed (we got out early since it was the first day and all), I not only was glad that I wouldn't have to drop the class, I was really looking forward to keeping the class and looked forward to some of the assignments and readings. With only two papers due and no silly quizzes on the readings? I don't think British Lit is going to be bad at all.

Pre-New Year's New Year's Resolution

I've been thinking about what to write about next. The last two or three posts were all about things that I reflected on throughout the day when I didn't really have anything else to think about. Finals week is about to start and that takes up a large part of my thinking time, whether it's organizing in which order I am going to take the unscheduled ones or double checking the days, times, and places of the scheduled ones and when I'm planning on studying what. And nobody wants to read about that!

So I've tried to come up with other things that I consciously or unconsciously think about during the day. It didn't take long before I realized one thing that I see nearly every day that triggers the same thought over and over, every time somebody runs past me in jogging shoes or I walk in between the two athletic buildings on campus and see sweaty people coming out of them:

I should start doing that.

Who can say aught against the benefits of working out? During the last three months of my mission, I became a convert to daily or at least regular exercise. My companion and I started running (at his insistence, I might add) two or three times a week in the morning at 6:30. It only took about fifteen minutes if that, but I was severely out of shape and am not the cheeriest of souls at such an hour of the day. After a few weeks we started running farther than just to the bridge and back and started doing laps around our block. One lap was about a mile and a half and we started running every day. I'll never know why I agreed to such a thing and while I never really looked forward to it per se (does anybody ever really look forward to working out at 6:30 in the morning?), I did begin to like how I felt after running. I also started to watch my eating habits and nearly eliminated Nutella from my diet (a far cry from one year before when two of us were downing one jar a week). In addition I started doing pushups in the evenings before bed and this is where I really started to see some improvement. My companion even convinced me to run two 5Ks or two laps around our block. I felt great!

Fast forward about two months to my first few weeks back home. One morning I woke up at 7:00 (it seems so much later than 6:30) determined to take up the same schedule. I put on my running shoes and shorts like an old pro and set out to run around my block two, maybe three times considering how much better I had become in those last three months. Perhaps I tried to go too fast too soon and overestimated my aerobic abilities and capacity, perhaps it was the change in elevation my companion warned me I'd see in returning to the mountains of Utah. Whatever it was, before I'd even gotten around the block one time, I was on the verge of cardiac arrest. Few things are more discouraging than feeling like you are about to give up the ghost after having run a quarter of a mile at age 21.

Ever since that day I have never gone running or done any intentional exercise of any sort. As a result, every time I see anybody running I get a little twinge of guilt that still hasn't stopped needling at me.

Now, I'm not a large person. I've stayed at the same weight for a couple of years now and I usually can eat whatever I want and nothing happens. I'm quite thin and I take a certain amount of pride in it.While I am infinitely grateful for this, there's one thing that's been nagging at me for a while (this takes place after I get that twinge of guilt upon seeing some proactive, in-shape soul), and that's the fact that I'm not getting any younger. I may be able to eat whatever I want now, but that surely won't be the case in ten or fifteen years. What am I going to do then?!

It usually takes me a long time and a lot of thinking before I make any sort of large personal change or decide to take on something that will require regular effort on my part (this blog for example), but I think I'm pretty close to deciding to take up running again. I figure that if I don't put my pride on the shelf now and work hard, I'll have to put it on the shelf in ten or fifteen years (maybe sooner, perish the the thought...) and work a lot harder then. I guess it's kind of my pre-New Year's New Year's Resolution. Since I've decided to make it a resolution, I should probably start running this week.....

Meh. I'll wait until after Christmas.