More to Life

The first time I saw her, I thought she was that stereotypical dreary, literary type. She had just the kind of pale, lifeless face that one would assume hides from behind dusty books of 18th century sonnets and tragedies. In class, unless she was talking, she passed her time frowning at everyone she laid her big eyes on.

She sat next to me on the third day of class, when we had to bring in 2 copies of our first essay for peer critique. I cringed a bit when the teacher said, pass the copies to your left, because that meant Missy would get her hands on mine. When we started the peer critique, I heard Missy scribbling voraciously over my paper. Geez, I thought to myself, she's hardly read the first two lines and she's already got something to say?! I thought she was probably all thinking to herself how my writing isn't boring enough, not verbose enough, not tragic enough or lacking rhythm.

I was a bit relieved when I learned that the first thing she wrote on my paper was, "I like this in the 1st person, feels more personal." She wasn't as bad as I thought. Although she took the liberty to criticize me and question me a little, she managed to sprinkle in a few compliments. I was cool with her, that is until I got to this one line. I was writing about my personal feelings regarding the pressure to get into "good" colleges. Missy scoffed at my feelings, declaring in writing, "this is dramatic and unbelievable" and a whole bunch of other negative things.

Whatever. Who's she to tell me how I feel? Throughout the next two weeks of class Miss-attitude continued to grace us with her lovely frown. I half convinced myself that she was just the type of elitist literary snot to go on and judge everyone other than Shakespeare as inferior, so I didn't let her get too much on my nerves.

Then on the fourth week of class our writing teacher decided it was time for us to go around the classroom and introduce ourselves. I was half paying attention as people mumbled their names and one random un"interesting fact" about themselves. Then it came to Missy and she announced she was studying Animal Sciences. Animal what?!? I wanted to do a rewind and check that fact. All my silly theories about her went flying out the door.

It came to pass that we had another writing assignment to write two 250-word paragraphs about two separate words. In one of my paragraphs I wrote about happiness, using one of the techniques the teacher suggested (contrast). So, I built this analogy about my miserable, long nights that are like endless battles to finish my school work. And I contrasted that with happiness.

The teacher seemed to like my paragraph because on the next class she handed out an anonymous collection of four student paragraphs -- two she liked and two she thought needed improvement. Somehow my happiness paragraph made it into the collection. For once I had something to be a little happy about.

We spent part of the next class talking about these four paragraphs. When we came to happiness the class fell silent. Ok, sometimes nothing means nothing bad, I hoped. Then Missy decides to open her mouth. She muttered something about vivid imagery and then went on her rant. "I think this is just so dramatic and unbelievable!" Deja vu. That girl just won't get off my case. "I also have a lot of homework, this just so exaggerated. I have no sympathy, blah, blah, blah" she just went on and on I had to tune it out!

Reader feedback is valuable. I appreciate constructive criticism. But if someone is going to criticize my feelings, and my "emotions" or whatever shit, they need to get their head right! I mean fine, say something, but have some respect, yo!!!

Suddenly it clicked. There was this girl last year in my dorm who was also an Animal Sciences major. We had a lot of mutual friends so I just couldn't avoid her, but she seemed to be just that same blunt, impulsive type. She displayed pictures of her dogs on her desk while her roommate had pictures of her family on her desk. She'd display this utter carelessness about anyone, or anyone's problems, but if she heard about the smallest thing related to an animal she'd become all animated.

I'm going to stop before I start sounding stupid, but maybe you've caught my drift by now...

I've alluded to this issue on my Feb. 14th post, but I need a full post to get this off my chest. Exactly two weekends ago I put in my two weeks notice with the Sierra Student Coalition. I had been thinking about leaving for a long time, and although I delayed the decision for over half a year, the final decision came somewhat abruptly.

I'm at the fortunate point in my life where I have lots of ends and new beginnings. It gives me hope, the chance for closure and starting anew. But starting anew can only be so effective when I bring along baggage from a period I was just supposed to have ended. I guess I finally realized that this semester. My Great Grandma's death, my exhaustion, and my flight and literal luggage problems caused me enough trouble at the beginning of the semester. After the first week back at school I was already behind in work. I just couldn't juggle more than that. When life wears you down too much you gotta kick it in the ass and go to sleep, you know?

So I guess I realized that the time was right now. I had to finally bow out of the comfort zone (I'm quoting you all over these days, Yolanda!) I've been living in for the past 3 years, take a chance, and do what I finally thought was right for me. In those 3 years, I've had my moments of anger and frustration with the Sierra Club. Though it was really tempting to leave in the heat of the moment, I'm glad I didn't. I remained involved and let my fury fits subside. This last semester with the SSC was quiet and productive. So now seemed like the time to just bow out gracefully.

Why did I leave? I'm not sure. There are many reasons, few of which I can explain well. Mostly, I'm just dead busy with school work and jobs. I've been taking heavy course loads and holding two jobs to pay for tuition. Evidently, that's left me exhausted, lacking much extra time. I just can't be an effective or good organizer/leader with so little time or energy to spare. In a way, I felt like it wasn't fair to me or other people to hold up a national leadership position when I felt I couldn't perform anywhere near my best.

It's true, I've also been disillusioned a bit by the SSC and the Sierra Club and the whole "national youth energy environmental movement." I got involved because I thought that there are pressing environmental issues affecting our lives and our health. I wanted to educate myself, then raise my voice, campaign, rally, petition, inspire people to take action, do something. Unfortunately, since I left Minnesota, I'd say that maybe 5% of my time was spent doing that. The rest was just conferences upon conferences upon meetings upon conference calls. I haven't really been moving forward in anything I wanted to accomplish. Instead I've been drowning in a sea of bureaucratic "decision-making" and "strategic planning."

That being said, I had some great times with the Sierra Club. The time I spent in Minnesota was the major highlight. I loved working on the cleaner bus campaign where we managed to pass a law to reduce bus idling before and after school. It taught me how much power individuals have to make a difference if we can cooperate and harness our passions. As I've gone from disappointment to disappointment later on, I've always clung on to the memories of testifying in the state capitol, rallying on the capitol steps, and the gratifying sense of accomplishment.

I don't even regret the bad times. Everything is a learning experience. So now, although I'm still young and idealistic, I'm not as naive anymore. I know that problems exist and I have a good sense of what they are. They brought me down once, but now that I know, they won't be able to get me come round two.

The one thing that I really could have done without was getting dumped by a friend (see here at the bottom and more here) because of my volunteer work. The way that all went down was ugly and mostly just plain hurtful. Months after her sister and Mother stopped working with me on the campaign, for them to decide that I was a horrible, selfish person who takes all the credit just didn't seem right. And the fact they didn't even bother to contact me or to try to work things out?

I felt like a train wreck after that. I never tried contacting any of them again. If they made up their mind that I was such a terrible person, I wasn't going to go out of my way to change that. It just wasn't worth my time and strength. It took me a long time to reach that understanding, though. I have to say, some of the comments you left me on the blog at that time really helped me regain my confidence and put things into perspective.

Lastly, while I don't have any definite plans to return to the Sierra Club or the SSC, this decision to leave will not usher in a new period of apathy in my life. I still care about environmental and social issues all the same. I'm just as passionate about them. There's still a ton of stuff to do to make this world a safer, cleaner, more just, healthier, better place, and I haven't given up quite yet! This break in the short-term is just an investment in the long-term. Hopefully some time to recharge, re-energize, will bring me back stronger and wiser.

I was going to post a somewhat angry entry today after my last class. LOL.

Of course, I didn't have time for that. Who has time in the world for anger? Just playing, we all have plenty of time for that stuff, it seems.

Well, I'm just bouyant tonight because I managed to finish my astrophysics problem set before midnight! Nevermind the fact I have 300 pages of reading for history due tomorrow, too. I'll get on that soon.

Anyway, people, smile it's the weekend. :) Oh, and if you're having trouble smiling, may I suggest you read this post by Yolanda? It's a goodie. :)

Hi, I type to you sheepishly after more than a week of unexpected silence--something that sometimes seems like a major crime on the blogosphere. I've been thinking about you readers and this blog thoroughout the past week.

No, no, don't worry, I ain't going nowhere.

I'm just trying to get my life back on track. Though you might be getting sick of reading that. It seems like that's the theme of every other entry I post. You see, it's just that a tiring winter break blurred into the spring semester way too seamlessly. I'm already heading into week number four, which means the work is seriously starting to pile up by now.

Truth be told, due to some issues, I've been behind on my work since week one. I'm still playing catch up on week one homework, and with everyday that goes by I get more new assignments piled onto my daunting pile of things to do. Whatever though, I've been through this enough times to know that somehow I'll survive.

I've had a couple other issues to deal with. And ever the one to seek closure, I'm still trying to tie up loose ends I've left dangling months ago. More specifically, after half a year of trying to make up my mind, I've finally decided that my 3-year-long involvement with the Sierra Club and its student organization needs to come to an end. So aside from the emotional load that comes along with a big decision like that, I've been occupied making many half-an-hour long emotional goodbye phone calls to many of the people I've been volunteering with. It's still a work in progress, by the way... Well, one I hope to finish by the end of this upcoming week.

I was going to go on a tangent about my classes, but for the sake of brevity, I'll save that for another potential post. So anyway, now you know. Such has been my life in the past week: 5 classes, 2 jobs, 1 big decision.

I'm sorry. I guess a short night's sleep and then being awake for 14 hours afterward prevent me from functioning at my best. If I were a bit more aware, I could have been a bit more discrete, or quiet, or subtle. I thought I was, sort of, but apparently I wasn't enough.

Last night I was exhausted and contemplated taking a nap before heading out to dinner. My nap plans unfurled when my charming neighbors, (yes, the nutritionist and the chemical engineer), invited me to join them for dinner. How could I turn down an offer for good company? Exhausted and hungry, I set out with them to the dining hall.

We ate, we talked, you know a pretty typically nice dinner. At some point, however, I got distracted from our pleasant dinner conversation by an animated character in the background. He sat in the table in front of us, facing me. I could see him all too clearly in the space between my neighbors' shoulders.

He looked like the stereotypical white, preppy, rich college student (which is probably in an of itself a stereotype?). His hair was light brown and looked freshly trimmed, although he seemed like the type of guy who'd always be rockin' the "freshly trimmed" look. His skin was pasty white, the kind of white that was so white it was ruddy. He looked plump and "healthy," who knows, maybe even a little athletic, or at least trying to pull off the studly athletic look. He wore a royal/baby blue polo shirt with a collar.

Nothing about the way he looked struck me that much. If that's all there was to it, he would have blended in really well with the sea of people in the dining hall. His behavior was what first caught my eye. He put on a hat in a funny way and made funny expressions to the people eating with him. His hands flew across the table and he acted out even more. Then he popped the collar of his preppy polo shirt and started dancing in his seat.

When we reached a lull in our conversations, I felt the need to apologize if they felt that I was sort of unfocused during the last conversation. I explained that there was a pretty animated dude right behind them who was kind of distracting me. The nutritionist's blue eyes opened wide and she lengthened her face in curiosity. "Oooh?" She cocked her head 90 degrees to the right but didn't see him.

Her curiosity just egged me on. I smiled back mischeviously. "No, other side," I said maybe too loud. She turned her head slowly and dramatically to look back. I don't think that helped. Then her roommate the chemical engineer, who may have been too busy thinking about organic polymers or something, egged me on even more. "Wait, what did you say? What's going on?" Eagerly, I explained, maybe a bit too loud again, the show that I had been witnessing behind their shoulders. She seemed slightly amused, but not all too impressed, so I tried again.

"Oh, and he just popped his collar a few minutes ago."

"He what?!"

"He popped his collar!!!" and I proceeded to demonstrate.

"Tahahahaha!" the engineer broke out in her typical, hysterically loud laughter.

I smiled back, and seemed content. The girls were amused and I had managed to explain the reason why I wasn't such a focused conversationalist for the past couple minutes.

Then, as my gaze fleetingly passed behind the girls' shoulders, I noticed Mr. Pop-Ya-Collar staring dead at me. His animated self stood still. His big eyes that rolled in their sockets a little too much gelled over, motionless in my direction. I froze and locked my eyes with his.

You got a problem? His lips mouthed at me silently. I noticed that his collar was down. My smile was fading fast, but I decided to reclaim it. I smiled widely and hearitly at him, and mouthed in return, No. I was hoping that if he saw me returning a friendly face that he'd realize there was no beef; it's all gravy, ya know?

I quickly looked the other way, as did he. The engineer sitting across the table from me then proceeded, "Uh oh. I think he noticed."

I smiled uneasily... "Uhh yeah.. oops." I glanced quickly over at Mr. Thang again just to make sure that he was off my case, but unfortunately I found the complete opposite to be true. He was back to his animated self, though maybe a bit more subdued his time and with his collar down. He was talking up his dinner-mates about our little exchange.

Then I saw him flamboyantly imitate me pretending to pop my collar. Then he pointed at me. Then all his possey of ten each took turns contourting their heads over the backs and shoulders of others to try to catch a glimpse of me. Now my smile faded fast. I gulped. I couldn't tell if the looks on their faces were mocking or murderous. Were they all going to try to jump me outside the dining hall or something?

Then I thought to myself: whatever, I don't have time for these games. But as I continued my dinner and conversation and then got up to get dessert, I felt like an animal in a zoo. He wouldn't stop looking at me and talking about me, and his friends couldn't take their eyes off of me. I wanted to offer them a choice of a picture or a poster. Geez, don't think that if you're gonna pop your collar and act like a FOOL in the middle of a dining hall that no one will notice! Period!