British accents and bravery.

I never have been very brave.

I dog-sat for a summer and was afraid of the dog. I sat on the very top of the couch (like where cats sit, yes, way up there) when I saw it coming towards me. This happened for weeks. Watching a movie was near impossible, believe me.

I haven't been in a Haunted House since third grade, and I remember that experience vividly enough to last me a lifetime. I will not do anything that has the remotest possibility of making me nauseous. Roller coasters, Ferris Wheels, tall buildings, cliff jumping. No. Absolutely not.

And wouldn't you know, somewhere after leaving a basketball game because the mascot was getting too close, (yes, the mascot, absolutely terrified of those things too) I decided I would like to stop living like this.

So I dug up a dream a fearless little girl had. Nine year old me believed whole-heartedly she would step out and see the world. Not just see it, actually she wanted to experience it, to touch it in a way only she could. Me at age nine, convicting me at age twenty-one.

So, I unclenched my hands one day and said okay, let’s see the world.

And lo and behold, this mandatory brave thing started kicking in. I don’t even have a choice anymore, my plane ticket is booked.

In one month I'm going to cling to my mom, probably with a lot of tears, and let her go. I’m going to bear hug my dad, and walk away with the most outfits and chocolate I can fit into two suitcases.

I'm going to leave my America. Leave my comfortable room, in my comfortable house, a part of my comfortable life. And do something extremely out of my comfort zone. I'm going to hop on a plane and cross a huge ocean and go learn things in a gigantic city with a lot of gorgeous lights and bridges and trains. (According to Pinterest.)

It's going to be hard.

It's going to be beautiful. 

Beautiful is learning how to rap my arms around people I can’t always understand, with their thick accents and a different word for pants and cookie. Listening to their hearts and their stories and growing as my worldview grows. To soak in views I've never witnessed before. Being able to thrive in a spot where I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing. To taste a culture I've only read about. To be able to open my eyes and see things differently because I have lived differently.

And to accomplish the obvious goal of successfully saying “water bottle” with my new and improved British accent. That will be a good day. That will be a great day.

I refuse to let this experience not change me. I will be different. In the best ways, I will have learned more about how to live fully, more about how to love all people well, more about how to unclench my hands and step out.

I will know a little bit better about what it means to be brave.

But just so you know, you don't have to leave a country to be brave. You can be brave in whatever you do. Go ahead, be brave. Unclench your hands and see what happens. I know you will absolutely not, no way no how, be left with emptiness. 

You will be met and it will be beautiful.

You, me, let's be adventurers. 

(Also, I will probably do embarrassing things over there in London. I'm hoping none too detrimental, but feel free to follow my adventures. I'll be taking a million pictures and telling you all about it, no doubt.)

I was trying to be a good friend and it ended with a lecture from a stranger about wearing tights.

I hate gas stations. This is a long story to prove that. I've dreaded them since the day I turned sixteen and went to my first gas station alone. It's beyond humiliating when it takes longer for you to screw the gas cap back on than it does to actually pump the gas.

Well, this weekend marked the beginning of birthday week for one of my most wonderful friends. Being a huge fan of birthdays, I rushed out to buy some of those window markers to decorate my beloved car (whose name is Zoe in case you wondered). On my way back from the store, I decided to read the instructions and it mentioned that the windows should be clean. Well, mine certainly were not. And I needed gas, so the logical thing was to go to the gas station.

So far, we're making sense here.

Well, what I did not factor in was that I was in a very flowy dress. Emphasis on very flowy. And it was a very windy day. And of course, it had to be grand central station at the Kroger gas place.

So I get out feeling all giddy about my decorating plan when I notice a large tent. Under it was about five youngerish men and I awkwardly make eye contact with one of them. That's when I realized they were selling something and I was about to get asked to buy it. I'm not a huge fan of these situations because I'm already giving up my favorite kidney to buy my gas, so quite definitely I do not want to spend money on some random product.

Sure enough, this 20-something-year-old walks over to me with some can in his hand. I half-smiled but looked away, the universal signal for "I am acting like I don't know you want to talk to me so let's not talk to me." He did not take my social cue and approached me. I felt bad because he looked scared. He had no spiel ready, and obviously wasn't feeling comfortable with his winging it strategy, so that left us both feeling awkward. He finally got out that in the can he was holding was waterless window washing solution. Miraculous. You simply spray and wipe it off with a towel. Now would I like a demonstration? Wanting to end this agony ASAP, of course I nicely said no, that's okay. Now here is a man who has just volunteered to wash my windows, and I turn him down. What. He walks back to his posse at the tent and I stand there feeling really dumb as I grab the squeegee and start washing the windows myself.

The men in the tent are watching me heroically tackle the windows without this magical can stuff when out of nowhere, disaster strikes. The wind picks up my entire dress. I repeat, my entire dress is blown upward. Not like a cute little breezy swish, no as in my pink underwear are exposed for all to see and my face is pure horror. Flustered to say the least, I hurriedly grabbed it as best I could and looked around at the millions of people at Kroger. My embarrassed brain told me there was no way that freak accident would happen again, and being determined to clean those dang windows, I pressed on. As I'm reaching my arm across the front windshield, the wind decides to pick up again and there goes my dress for the second time. Mortified, I look over at the tent and realize they are laughing at me. Bound and determined and furiously blushing, I stuff my dress between my legs while muttering to myself, and attempt to finish the window. Only that doesn't work. The entire backside of my dress goes up and STAYS UP, PEOPLE.

So there I am. Standing like a person with cramps, a wad of my dress in one hand and a dripping squeegee in the other thinking how the heck do I move. As if I could not be more embarrassed, I see one of the tent workers make his way towards me. The first thing out of his mouth is, "Stop mooning everyone. Let me do this, sweetheart. You just stand there and hold your dress." I literally could not breathe, let alone respond. Finally, I give a fake laugh and hurry to explain why I'm still standing outside when clearly it's hazardous. "You see, it's my best friend's birthday and I'm decorating the car so I have to clean the windows." "Oh, is this her car?" "Um no, this is my car. I'm going to drive her. With the decorated windows. But they have to be clean."

I'm shocked the blood vessels in my face did not spontaneously combust.

The guy then starts attacking the windows with this can cleaner and giving me the entire speech of how wonderful it is and how much I need it and would I just look at the difference?! And I just stood there holding my dress down against the tornado and tried not to cry. I was tempted to scream I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR CAN STUFF and run away, but instead I had to nod my head emphatically and bite my lip as he finished with, "If I were you, I would always wear a pair of boxers or tights. I tell my sister that all the time. Just put it on and it's better for ya." Then he made me look at the difference that stuff made on my headlights.

Great. Just great.

As I finally pulled out of that putrid place, I passed the tent and all the men smiled and waved. That's when I teared up.

I went home and changed. The end.

The couple that can now hold hands thanks to my balcony.

Why hello there. It's been a long forever since I've written and I'm really sad about that because some truly heinously embarrassing things have happened. But alas, here I am.

I have great news. An update really.

I NO LONGER LIVE IN A DORM. What?! Yes. Yes, it's true. No folks, I did not get kicked out of college. I have officially moved up in the world (literally) to the good ole apartment complexes. And life is grand. I also have a bike which is also pretty monumental.

The thing about this apartment of mine is that it is on the top floor. Now this, dear reader, is wonderful news. It means I have this charming balcony that overlooks the parking lot. (However it is not charming enough to keep a squash plant alive. Don't even try. Doesn't matter how much you tell it nice things and give it cute names and shove Miracle Grow down its roots, the things refuse to live and that causes a lot of distress, okay. RIP Squishy.) 

All that's left of my beloved squash plant.

Anyway. It's wonderful and I sit there like an old person sipping my coffee and watching the cars all come and go. But this creeping headquarters comes with a massive drawback. I can see out, but rarely do people look up and see me. Now, what I have failed to mention before is that this little parking lot area is couples central. Lovey dovey touchy feely people walk on by holding hands and laughing while I have to sit and pretend I don't notice and pretend I'm not gagging. (Okay, I'm not gagging. I'm dying of jealously and sometimes would like to shout out and ask how they met. You could see how this could get emotionally taxing.)

One evening while I was playing "Count the Couples" (just kidding, that's not a real thing) these two star-struck people walk RIGHT SMACK in front of my balcony. And stay there. They don't see me. Things I noticed: 

1. They are not a real couple (yet). They are acting extremely uncomfortable and come super close to holding hands, then awkwardly don't. 

2. They look so nervous it's making me nervous. 

3. They want to kiss right in stinking front of me. 

And obviously it's for the first time. There is nothing more uncomfortable about a first kiss than watching one. And without the people knowing you're watching. That puts you at creep status.

Do I start blasting Norah Jones, or watch in silent horror? I started sweating as I debated how much time I had before they went in for it. Not long. She was getting closer to him. Oh good, she lost her nerve. They both backed away. I tried to just avert my eyes, but it was like watching a car crash, you want to look away but you can't. By now, the uncomfortable level has reached a new height. I wait, and try to just pretend that this isn't happening. My poor self must not have been able to take it anymore. They got closer. I let out a pitiful cough.

I'm not sure whose eyes were bigger, hers or mine. The cough didn't even sound convincing, it just sort of came out before I had really decided that's what I was going to do. The girl's head shot straight up. I sunk into the chair as far as I could and pulled my head back until I was probably making like five double chins. I could only see the tops of their heads and I was just waiting for someone to call up to me and tell me what a horrendous person I was. Instead I heard whispering. I could only imagine. "Um hey, yeah, baby, this first kiss thing would have been great and all and helped with this horrible nervous tension thing going on, but there's a total freak up on that balcony and we need to leave ASAP." He must have listened because I've never seen two people dart across a parking lot like that before. 

BUT HEY, GUESS WHAT. THEY WERE FINALLY HOLDING HANDS. 

Yes, it was traumatizing on both ends. Painful even. But in the end, they jumped past the hurdle of hand-holding. And I think my balcony can reasonably take credit for that. 

The end.

I can't parkour.

Can you get a dent in your shin? I would WebMD it, but it would probably tell me my leg is going to fall off. Seriously, if you want to become a hypochondriac, spend like 10 minutes on that site and you'll suddenly be aware of symptoms you never knew you had.

Anyway, back to my leg. It's been hurting for about a week and today I touched it and I can literally feel a dent. I tell you, that's a scary revelation right there. I immediately called my mom and asked if you can get a dent in your shin and she told me that was a muscle. Not a huge help there.

So where did this dent come from? Well, let me tell you. It happened the second I realized I can't parkour. I know...the tears, the agony, the disappointment. (Great news though, when I googled how to spell it, I found there's a training center not far from me. There is still hope.)

It was a beautiful night and my friends and I were sitting outside. And that's when I saw it. A cute little cat was having a grand ole time running down the sidewalk. So naturally, I climbed on over the little cement wall in front of our table and started calling it like the Steve Irwin that I think I am. The cat was too quick and before I knew it, I couldn't see it worth squat. So I gave up on that. That's when a random, shorter version of Channing Tatum walked up to me, tossed a couple choice words out there, reached his arm out and snapchatted a picture of both of us. It was weird. He eventually turned around with his four buddies and left.

My friends and I were still kind of chuckling over that when I came up with a cool little surprise. Instead of just going around the wall or climbing it, I figured I could totally pull a little parkour move and just hop on over and my friends would be impressed and all would be awesome. So I started at a decent little run, put my hands on the stomach-level cement wall, got all the momentum I could and chucked my legs up the side. Yeah, only I missed dreadfully. Instead of my legs going effortlessly over, my right shin slammed right into the corner of the cement wall.

Needless to say I was in massive amounts of pain. I decided to go ahead and lay on the ground and cry a second. My friends were laughing too hard to help, so the moment got even worse. A guy and girl holding hands walked by and I felt like the beat up guy in the Good Samaritan story where no one helps him. They just kept walking. I tried not to take it personally.

Anyway, it was just a traumatic situation. Reenactment pic right here.

So that sums it up. I can't parkour and now I think there's a dent in my leg and I am deeply disappointed.

Kicked out of class and not sleeping.

Here I sit on the cold tile...in the hallway...as in on the floor...outside of my classroom. It's starting to feel like 10th grade geography class again. I got kicked out of class. In a nice way though.

Here's the problem: I have the weakest stomach known to man. Here's the second problem: I am a film major. Now the issue here may or may not be obvious, but I would like you to take stock of what movies exist. Think of every NON chick-flick movie. Did it have any blood? Did someone get hurt? How many people died? Did something or someone explode? How many fight scenes?

Okay. Are we catching it? For some reason film class isn't full of analyzing romantic comedies. We TALKED about one once and I practically peed my pants with excitement.

Anyway, back to this tile I'm sitting on. It's freezing my buns off. And it's pretty embarrassing to be 20 years old and be kicked out of class. It's practically grand central station in this hallway and everyone and their mother is passing me with looks of hard core judgment, like sitting in a busy hallway isn't normal. I'd like to explain to all of them that I am not in trouble. I'm just out here because I can't handle the movies they are watching on the other side of that door. But that sounds kinda lame, too.

I finally get to go in now. I hate returning to my seat about as much as I hate leaving it, mainly because I'm so insanely curious about what I missed. Then I'm reminded that I'm still nauseous from the opening scene I accidently saw on my way out and that helps the curiosity die down a little.

Instead of telling you how much I'm wondering what in the world I'm doing in this major, I might as well tell you all the other embarrassing stories film class has caused this week.

I have this huge project coming up and because of it I haven't been sleeping. Like at all. Okay maybe a little, but it's not a lot. Well, anyway, no sleep affects you.

So my sleep-deprived self started the whole week off by doing a prank that went terribly wrong. And I mean terribly wrong. As if that wasn't bad enough, I ended up having an emotional outburst in front of the person I pranked. Like totally unnecessary tears came out of my eyes and I did this weird sobbing noise. Humiliation sums that situation up.

Next, I was walking somewhere and I passed a girl trying to get into this room. Well, being an RA and all, I had the card-key to the room. I asked her if she needed me to let her in. She told me no, her friend was coming. I stood there a moment staring at the door. I kid you not, I have no idea how my brain legitimately stopped without me dying, but I'm fairly sure it did. So there I am staring, and for some unknown reason I decided to disregard her answer and just stepped right in front of her and scanned my card. I think I even did a "your welcome" type of smile. At the same time her friend opened the door and we three stood there at that entrance just kind of looking at each other until I decided to step out of the way. This might be a poor example of how bad this no-sleeping thing is getting, but because I'm so tired I can't remember the good stories to prove it.

This morning I did this embarrassing  yell-at-myself thing out loud as I walked down some stairs. I looked up in time to watch a former professor of mine watching. I had to cover that one up somehow and that took some thinking.

Basically, expect to see the hallway a lot if you decide to become a film major and you have a weak stomach and are overly sensitive. And don't prank people when you haven't slept in a week. The end.

Fun times at the gas station.

Hi there.

It's been a ridiculous amount of time since I wrote last. This whole write every three months is getting a little out of control. I assure you, one of these days, I’m going to sit down and tell you all the ridiculous and embarrassing things that have occurred in my life. But for now, I'm just going to tell you about what happened yesterday.

It was terrifying, so prepare yourself.

So, I went to visit the homestead this weekend (which was wonderful) and I got to see my family and my dog and all that lovely stuff. On my trip back, I stopped to get gas. So far so good. Well, it just so happened that one of my friends texted me while I was waiting for my tank to be full. Naturally, I stood there like a 21st Century citizen and preceded to text her back. BAM, the gas was finished so I set my phone down on top of the car, put the nozzle thingy back in its spot, grabbed my receipt and got in the car. I crumpled the receipt and threw it on the passenger's side and decided I was super thirsty. And dear reader, let me tell you how thankful I am that I pay attention to that sort of thing. I put the car in Drive and drove up to the little parking spaces in front of the store area. That's when I realized I never finished texting Sarah back.  I went to grab my phone and that's when I realized I didn't know where my phone was. Then the most horrible realization hit me.

 My phone. I put it on top of my car. And drove.

I dashed out of my car and looked at the spot where I just got gas. I was relatively calm, until…I saw it. I saw a smooshed, crushed, mess of a thing lying on the ground. My hands started shaking and all I could think was, "How am I going to call mom to tell her my phone DIED?!!!" I, being the very vocal person that I am, threw my hands over my mouth and gave a terrible little shriek of "OH NO.  NO, NO, NO."

So there I was folks, having a heart attack in the middle of a gas station parking lot. I was literally tip-toeing to the place where I spotted my phone because I was sure I couldn't handle the devastation. By now, people are staring at me. And by people, I mean everyone who was existing at that gas station. I finally made it over to the remnants of my phone. This is when I realized, the thing I am crying about is not actually my phone. Nope. Way off. It's a wrapper. I repeat, I am doubled over on the pavement about to cry and shaking for all the world to see OVER A WRAPPER. In my defense, the light reflecting off of it looked an awful lot like glass.

 Anyway, I quickly took my hands off my mouth, turned around and walked mighty quick back to my car. And wouldn't you know, my phone was sitting on the trunk. I sighed and died all at once because there was a man headed my way to see if I was alright. I give him a nice little wave to signal that I would, in fact, probably survive this little ordeal.  Then I ran into the store to buy some chocolate covered pretzels, because let's be real, after that you need more than a bottle of water. My hands were still shaking when I gave the cashier my money and the guy trying to check on me was still watching me as I came back out to my car. We made awkward eye contact so I gave my nice little "I'm okay" wave for the second time.

You better hope you never see me at a gas station. Who knows what I'll be crying about.