Sleeplessness and Nostalgia

So I'm chilling in bed, unable to sleep, and started feeling a little nostalgic for the Spratt Cave. I went to iphotos to find some photos and decided to see what I was doing this same time in 2009. Here is what I found that is the closest to today:

Me and my bestest, Andrew in the Spratt Cave. I was always over there.

Dave wearing my boots. What a stud! That up on the wall next to him is the quote wall... I only made it on the wall once. I choose to forget what I said. However, my finesse on the quoting frontier has not changed at all. :)

After missing Dave, Meagan, Andrew and Robby I decided to check what I was doing around the same time in 2008 and began searching. Mission photos came up and nostalgia REALLY set in. Man, I miss Japan! I miss my Elders and my companions! I miss the Ume trees beginning to bloom and waiting for the sakura to bloom! I miss morning schedule and DTM's and Zone conferences and train rides. I miss my bike, Bruce, and my bright blue rain kappa. I miss Grandpa Tsukada and Mr. Kondo and his family. I miss Kanazawa and the smell of the street by Kenroukuen on the way home at night. I miss feeling like I am doing something worthwhile. I miss feeling the spirit almost every second of ever day! I miss nightly phone calls from the District Leaders and trying to guess where we would go for transfers. I miss knocking on doors and stopping people on the sidewalk. I don't miss the earthquakes or typhoons, but I miss the excitement they used to bring. I even miss getting lost!!!

February of 2008 I was in my 1st transfer in Kanazawa. Beautiful, beautiful Kanazawa!!!!! It was the one place I did NOT want to go to... but I fell in love with the people and the area, and cried when I got transferred out 3 months later.

P-day in Kenroukuen as a district

While cleaning the apartment Sasaki shimai and I found tiara's, bead necklaces and wands... we wore them during planning session on hard days to make ourselves feel better. Notice our matching shirts :) I wonder where that shirt is....

Our Valentine's concert. Elder Fuller and Williams baked cookies for the decorating contest, and Sasaki shimai and I decorated the room. I have never cut out so many hearts in my entire life, and the elders even found a mirror ball that we were able to use. An investigator played jazz piano, Alex (Elder Fuller) played the sax, and I sang. It was an amazing night and we all had a ton of fun!

It's funny how time flies... Life has not turned out at all how I thought it would... but I don't think I would change a thing. Ok, that's a lie, I would, but it's good enough :D

Huh... how bout that.

I took a personality quiz on facebook today and this is what it said about me... pretty sure it is almost right on. It's even kind of cool that it coincides with what I wrote about the other day!!!
Type 2 - The Helper

Basic Desire: to be loved Basic Fear: of being unloved World View: "People depend on my help. I am needed." Childhood Origin: Ambivalent to father-figure. Twos are generous and strive to be genuinely helpful to everyone. They are caring, but can also fall into people pleasing. Twos find their place by enlivening others with their appreciation and attention. They believe that others come first, but this can cause them to forget about their own needs and avoid their own problems. At their worst, twos fall apart from feeling selfish or feeling that they have harmed others. At their best, twos can take care of others without forgetting themselves. warm, concerned, nurturing, and sensitive to other people's needs. How to Get Along with Me * Tell me that you appreciate me. Be specific. * Share fun times with me. * Take an interest in my problems, though I will probably try to focus on yours. * Let me know that I am important and special to you. * Be gentle if you decide to criticize me. In Intimate Relationships * Reassure me that I am intersting to you. * Reassure me often that you love me. * Tell me I'm attractive and that you're glad to be seen with me. What I Like About Being a Two * being able to relate easily to people and to make friends * knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better * being generous, caring, and warm * being sensitive to and perceptive about others' feelings * being enthusiastic and fun-loving, and having a good sense of humor What's Hard About Being a Two * not being able to say no * having low self-esteem * feeling drained from overdoing for others * not doing things I really like to do for myself for fear of being selfish * criticizing myself for not feeling as loving as I think I should * being upset that others don't tune in to me as much as I tume in to them * working so hard to be tactful and considerate that I suppress my real feelings Twos as Children Often * are very sensitive to disapproval and criticism * try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding * are outwardly compliant * are popular or try to be popular with other children * act coy, precocious, or dramatic in order to get attention * are clowns and jokers (the more extroverted Twos), or quiet and shy (the more introverted Twos) Twos as Parents * are good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren't) * are often playful with their children * wonder: "Am I doing it right?" "Am I giving enough?" "Have I caused irreparable damage?" * can become fiercely protective COPYRIGHT: Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele The Enneagram Made Easy Discover the 9 Types of People HarperSanFrancisco, 1994, 161 pages 9types.com

Here is What I know...

Here is what I know I don’t like poetry, gory movies, chocolate, peanut butter, the smell of roses or feeling like a failure. I don’t like spaghetti with marinera sauce, Hawaiian pizza, people who talk in movies, slow drivers, insensitive or rude people, self-righteous or judgemental people, and mothers who pawn their children off on anything from a playground to a best friend, mother, or street corner whenever they have a chance Oh, and ungrateful people (which sadly includes myself at times). Ok… that’s a lot of negative. Let’s brighten things up a bit! I love babies, butterflies and flowery fields (but not the bugs that come with it). I love the divinity of smelling cake batter and cookie dough, being needed, appreciated and loved, hugs, kisses, random e-mails, texts or calls just to say “I love you”, good surprises, praise, feeling important, and eating out. I love hearing my own name (it’s still weird not to get called “Mills” or “twin”), reading for pleasure, feeling smart, driving fast, listening to music, swimming, being with my friends and family and of course the internet and my phone.

I also recently discovered that it is very hard for me to trust other people, especially with information about myself. I choose people I want to be friends with and try to get them to open up to me, and then after sufficient information and secrets received I open up to them. If someone doesn’t open up to me when I want them to it really frustrates me, if I like them enough, and if someone ever betrays my trust I do not forgive easily. I speak too quickly… I forgive, but our friendship will never be the same. Now, mind you I just discovered all this a few days ago. I do not agree with my own way of thinking and intend to renovate my brain, but until then…

Oh the life I live!

Du du du duh! Ladies and gentleman; I have FINALLY time to relax and blog! I am SO glad this week is over!!

I worked from 3pm Sunday night to 7am Monday morning. I went home and slept for a while then went back to work from 3-11pm. That's right, 24 hours.

Tuesday I had a Mental Health quiz and a test review for Stats.

Wednesday I had a meeting with my professor, a Child Welfare exam (an hour and a half for 5 multiple choice, 5 true/false, and two essays), then went DIRECTLY to a meeting & work till 11pm. I stayed up till 3am studying after I got home from work.

Thursday I got up at 7 (that’s right, 4 hours of sleep) and had a Statistics exam, a Social Work Practice 3 quiz, my visiting teachers visited for over an hour, then I went out with a friend that I'd been putting off all week.

Mom wanted carrot cake for her birthday (did you know that’s her favorite??) and the only person I knew had a recipe was one of my professors (she brings it whenever her phone rings in class) so I asked her for the recipe. She gave me her home phone number and asked me to call her at home for the recipe if she forgot... awkward. Anyway, we went to the store to get the ingredients and made the cake and didn’t get to bed until nearly 2am.

Friday I got a text from Erica at 8:22am that woke us up. Anthony had class at 8:30 and I had a meeting at 9:30... Can I just say how happy I am for random texts that wake us up on days when we didn’t set alarms? Heavenly Father sure was nice to give her a little prompt.

I met with my counselor, had a choir rehearsal, had my practicum interview (details below), frosted mom’s cakes, had mom’s birthday lunch, then performed in the choir concert, and now I’m home.

What a busy and stressful week it has been!!

On January 9th I posted a blog titled “Randomness” which, in part, explained the whole Practicum process. If you didn’t read that post, or don’t remember what it said now is a great time to catch up. You’re going to need to know what I’m talking about for the next little bit. I’ll wait....

We had our practicum buffet on Anthony’s birthday, which was kind of stinky. As a Social Word (SW) major we do a practicum our senior year, kind of like student teaching.

The practicum buffet was where representatives from ALL the different practicums in the area were in one room and we went around to different booths to learn more about what they were about.

Here's the thing, there were like 35 booths and we were allotted time slots which allowed us to go to 7 of them for 15 minutes each.

That night the practicum people could decide if they did want someone for their practicum, or didn't want them. The best part, we don't choose where we get to go. We're placed. Dr. Calloway-Grahm (Dr. Di) & Dr. Browne place us where they think we'll fit the best. We had to fill out this HUGE survey answering all kinds of questions about ourselves and where we'd like to do our practicum and why we think we'll be good social workers, and what SW type experience we've had in the past, etc. Seriously, it was like 5 pages long. We also turned in a GPA worksheet and our transcripts.

Then Dr. Di and Dr. Browne set up a 20 minute one-on-one interview with everyone so they can "get to know us better" and get a better idea of where to place us. My interview was today.

I was wearing heels, which is not a normal occurrence for me, and had to book it from the choir rehearsal ALL the way across campus is 15 minutes... in heels. I had a smart idea before I left home and put one of those giant knee Band-Aids on each heel before putting my shoes on so I wouldn’t get blisters, but I hadn’t thought about the front of my foot where the shoe rubs against the side (those of you who have work heels know exactly what I'm talking about). My feet were literally blistered and bleeding by the time I got to my interview.

The interview wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. Dr. Brown told Dr. Di I’m the youngest twin in a family of twelve, small talk, small talk, small talk, Dr. Di took a phone call and talked about how she was going to eventually take the Christmas music off her ring tone, Dr. Browne asked me how I thought I did on his Child Welfare exam, etc, etc, etc.

They asked why Bear River Mental Health was my #1 choice and I told them I’ve worked with individuals with Schizophrenia, Autism, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Depression, Anxiety, etc. and just felt like it was where I belonged... like I'd been led in this direction for a reason.

They asked why I put Sunshine Terrace & Hospice as my next choices and I said I had NO interest in gerontology until I went to those two booths at the practicum buffet and for some reason they both “spoke to me.”

I told them Bear River is by far my first choice, but they only accept two people at that practicum and 5 of us want it. I let them know I could adapt anywhere and if they felt someone else would do a better job, or wanted it more, then I was willing to step aside and give them what they wanted and I'd take something else... but I really wanted it.

We talked about what would happen if the practicum supervisor didn’t like me, or I didn’t like them, etc. That was pretty much it. Really, not a big deal at all.

After Spring Break we’ll find out where they’ve placed us, we have an interview with the practicum supervisors after we find out so they can decide whether they’re ok with the decision or not, then next year we get started.

It is SO weird to think that I’m already at this point. This semester has gone by really fast.

So, that was my week.

Sing! 2010 USU Choir Concert

The USU Performance Hall will resound with great choral music as the combined choirs of the Utah State University Music Department present SING! 2010 on Friday, February 19 at 7:30 p.m. The USU Women's Choir, under the direction of Professor Bonnie Slade, will present a variety of choral music culminating in a rousing performance of HARK, I HEAR THE HARPS ETERNAL, accompanied by 16 auto harps. Dr. Cory Evans will direct the USU Chamber Singers (ANTHONY IS IN THIS ONE) as they present selections from their upcoming CD recording, PRAYER FOR GRACE: THE CHORAL MUSIC OF DANIEL E. GAWTHROP, joined by a string quartet and special guest oboist, Bonnie Schroeder, of the Orchestra at Temple Square. The USU Chorale (ALISHA IS IN THIS ONE) will complete the concert with choral selections from Thomas Tallis, George Shearing, and Mack Wilberg. Tickets are available at boxoffice.usu.edu, by calling (435) 797-8022, or at the door.

Possibly the worst day ever :(

Today I have been in a grumpy mood... it is all because of yesterday!!!!! I got up around 5 and went to the gym, which was great, and got my Poe reading done, then I came home with the intention of taking a shower, getting ready, and reading some Lais of Marie de France for Dr. Cooper-Rompato's class. I hadn't even begun to read the book yet but figured it wasn't due unto 4:30 that afternoon so I would be fine. Wrong!!! I took a shower and dried my hair but decided to finish getting ready until after I read. I lasted for maybe... 25 minutes before I fell sound asleep. I woke up when some of my residents started banging on the apartment door because we had an appointment. Needless to say, after our meeting I was frantically running through the apartment trying to get ready in time to catch the bus. I was successful! So I had two classes back to back and then had an hour break before my counseling appointment. Yes, for those of you who don't know I go to the counseling center. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in my first appointment, but since then my appointments have seemed pointless. Yesterday however, things changed. I sat down in my usual chair and waited for whatever silly breathing exercise he was ready to teach me. Sure enough, he says "Today Erica, if you have nothing you want to discuss, I want to start with another exercise." great. "Close your eyes" he said "and go to your safe place... now think of a time when you did not feel happy... what was going on? How did you feel? What would you say to so and so in such a situation if you could?

Ok, now think of a time when you had a similar feeling when in a situation with just one of your parents." This one took me a lot longer because... well I was never really alone with only one of my parents. So I thought of one... and started to get a little teary. "Now" he said, "try to think of a situation, a recent one with absolutely anyone, when you felt the same way" and here I broke into tears. The tears streamed down my face. Tear after tear after tear. I couldn't stop them. The room started spinning and I felt in complete un-control. Finally I was allowed to go back to my "safe spot" and then "3...2....1... come back to the room". Everything was still spinning, tears still streamed down my face, and my counselor had such a sad look on his face. "Well" he said "Now we can see where your issues of self-sacrifice came from... and your abandonment issues too." Yeah. Rough. After I got the mascara off my cheeks and calmed down enough I again read the book for Cooper-Rompato's class in the hour I had before class began.

Class went well. There is a boy in class who I think is super cute and we're kinda friends (we're more texting friends. It's awkward in person), but he likes a different girl in our class. He, of course, doesn't know I like him so he asked me to help him get a relationship going with this girl. We decided to invite a bunch of people, including her, over to my apartment for Japanese dinner one of these days so they can interact in a non-classroom situation. Until then, Just this boy and I and one of our other friends come to my apartment after class and do dinner. yesterday was no different. They came over and helped make udon and opened my bedroom door which got jambed shut, ate dinner and then had to run home to do homework while I went to staff meeting.

This week instead of staff meeting we had staff meeting and went bowling. I got only an 80 :( Then we went to Village Inn "real quick" where I got the chicken caesar salad which, by the way, was not that good, and ended up staying until 11:40pm. One of my co-workers had asked me to come to his apartment when we got home because (happily) he feels like I am the only person he can tell some things to. So I went to his apartment around midnight and didn't get home to mine until almost 1:30. It was a good talk.

When I got home I decided to spray our apartment with Raid because of all the ants that seem to love us so dearly that we do not love in return. I didn't think about the smell before I acted though. The smell of our apartment was dizzying and choked me so much that I had to open all the windows to air the place out! It was starting to get very, very cold in the apartment so I decided to take a shower while the place aired out. This, my friends was a mistake. I got halfway undressed and went to put my towel in the bathroom when the unthinkable happened. The breeze from the open window caught my bedroom door... and closed it. Usually it would not be such a big deal, but again, like in the afternoon, it jambed shut. Great!!! I twisted and turned, juggled and jounced the doorknob and even went to the extent of throwing myself against the door trying to get it open. Nothing. My phone, keys and clothes were in that room. So I put on my coat and went into the lounge to call maintenance on-call. After the 6th ring the guy finally answered and came to my apartment. He tried, in vain, for 20 minutes or so to get the door open before he said he would either have to saw the doorknob off or break it off with a hammer. Great. But wait!!! my bedroom window was open! It's a good thing I am on the 1st floor because the maintenance guy was able to remove the screen, crawl through my window, and take the doorknob off from inside the room. However, once the doorknob was off we couldn't get it back on. I told him not to worry, that not having a doorknob until the next day wouldn't kill me. He had closed the window when he crawled through, and within minutes it stunk to high heaven of Raid so I had to re-open the windows. I left my bedroom window open and tried to sleep on the couch but could not get even close to sleep because I knew my window was hanging wide open with no screen, and that the Logan Lurker was still at large (don't worry, the police got him today) so I went into my room to sleep. I closed my bedroom window but kept the living ones all open and blocked my door open as well so I wouldn't suffocate on bug-killer. The only downfall... it was Freezing!!! I put on sweats, a hoodie and thick socks and climbed under a blanket, down comforter and quilt. By this time it was after 3am and it took me even longer to fall asleep. The next morning I was awoken by a phone call from my sister. I looked at the clock and read 7:54. I had to be on the bus by 8. Great. Needless to say, today was a baseball hat and hoodie day.

I came home after class and, feeling crappy, decided to clean the apartment from top to bottom. 2 and a bit hours or so later the apartment smelled of bleach and you could see the stove reflecting on the kitchen floor :) *sigh* yes! Then Cal called and invited me out to dinner so after I took a super fast shower (like seriously, super fast!) and brushing my hair and putting mascara on, I ran to El Toro Vijeda and had dinner with Cal, Christophe, Cory and Kelly. During dinner Andrew called and said his date for tonight was cancelled so I was the first one he called to do something. Awww :D so after dinner Andrew took me to see Sherlock Holmes. You know, even though we don't hang out much because his schedule is crazy, and so is mine, he is still my best friend. He really is an amazing guy! All my friends are amazing!!!

Anyway, so that is the story of my terrible, awful, horrible, no good, very bad day!!! :) Aren't you glad it didn't happen to you? Lol

Food + Gravity = Messy

Last night at work I was sitting on the couch feeding Skylor, who was sitting in the chair next to me, a calzone. I dipped each piece into a small dish of marinara sauce before feeding it to him. Everything was going fine and the only mess was on Sky's chin, which was ok, cause that means he was enjoying it.

Well, he ate the last bite and let me know he wanted more food. Fine, there's plenty more. Somehow, in my movement to put down the plate so that I could stand up I ended up dumping the marinara container on my lap. Here's the weird part, I was sitting cross legged and ended up getting sauce all over both knees, but not the couch in-between. I shouted "oh no, uh, oh, grr!!!" as it tumbled off my lap and down over the edge of the couch. I loudly said "oh crap, I got it on my pants" to which Skylor giggled.

Then as I stood up I saw the sauce hadn't merely dropped off the edge of the couch as I had thought, it landed smack dab on my book-bag. My OPEN book-bag. Marinara sauce all over my laptop charger cord, a big clump in the small outer pocket, and even traces all along the zippers and a little bit even got on my binder & papers in the main pocket. I noticed this as I was rising from the couch and said "on man, it got all over my bag," to which Skylor's giggle became a soft laugh.

Then, in my movement from the couch to the kitchen a little marinara sauce dropped off my pants onto the carpet. The light colored carpet, and I said "oh you've got to be kidding me!! I just got some on the floor too!!!" to which Skylor lost all control. He laughed and laughed and laughed (everyone who knows Sky knows exactly what I'm talking about).

I scrubbed the floor, my pants and my book-bag, but the smell of Marinara sauce still wafted up at me from all directions as I fed him the last bits of his second helping of Calzone. Needless to say, the bit of Calzone I ate was NOT accompanied by Marinara sauce.

I got off work at 11pm and, not ready to go home, I picked Anthony up and we drove around for a while and I told him all about my night, Marinara sauce incident included.

I decided I needed some dessert and we stopped at Burger King for an ice cream cone. I was admiring the sculpture in a cone the kid had given me (didn't really resemble the beautiful upside down cyclone of ice cream it is supposed to look like) and took a little bite out of the side and thought to myself "huh, it's kind of soft." I held the cone in-front of Anthony and asked if he wanted a bite and he said no. He never refuses ice cream so I held it there in-front of him longer and asked why he didn't want any. Just as he was answering that he 'just didn't want any" the ice cream, which I had earlier thought to myself was soft, gracefully slipped over the edge of the ice cream cone and landed with a satisfied plop right on Anthony's belly and slid down his coat onto the seat of the car. His first reaction was anger, why hadn't I just moved it when he said no the first time?? My first reaction was to push his bum out of the way and take a large scoop of ice cream into both hands and throw it out the window. Just then the kid who worked at BK came to the window and asked if there was anything else we needed, as I'm flicking ice cream off both hands. I began uncontrollably laughing and said "you didn't tell me it was soft! Can I have some napkins please?" He handed me a gigantic stack of napkins and I began wiping off my hands, the car seat, Anthony's coat, my coat, etc. He reappeared at the window with another ice cream cone and said something about making me another one. I asked him to put it in a cup for me cause neither of us had hands free to hold it. He seemed very confused that I wanted him to tip the cone over into the cup and hand it over to me, but after very concise instructions he did what I asked. I was hysterically laughing the entire time. After a little while the boy came back and asked if there was anything else we needed and I said no. He went back inside and I saw him staring out at us and talking to someone out of my sight, then his supervisor with a little "manager" tag came to the window and asked if there was anything else we needed, more napkins or anything? I said no again, we were just staying there until we got everything cleaned up. It was 11:30 at night, no one was in line behind us... were they afraid the ice cream spill was a distraction so we could rob their Burger King??

The whole way home I was laughing and laughing and Anthony was pouting cause he'd gotten ice creamed and he crunched away on the remaining ice cream cone. I don't know how he got that cone... did I hand it to him before I scooped the ice cream up? Did he grab it out of my hand? I don't know. I do know that while I enjoyed an ice cream cone in a cup with a spoon he did not enjoy an empty cone with the ice cream all over his coat. He hadn't even wanted to get ice cream in the first place.