It's Raining, It's Pouring

1. Sweatshirts are perfect for chilly weather.
2. Milk is necessary.
3. It's a sad day when one runs out of Tang.
4. Don't forget rain boots.

For the past few weeks, I have been volunteering at a local elementary school in their Spanish immersion program. I was placed in a classroom of 2nd and 3rd graders and boy, has it been interesting. I think I have learned Spanish more than I have taught it.

When I got to the school this morning at 8:00am, it was just starting to storm. The teacher was trying to teach the kids some new vocabulary words, but every single one of them was distracted by the approaching storm. Then suddenly, there was a thunder clap and quite a few of the kids jumped and started jabbering on about the storm. Naturally, the teacher became frustrated and told me to help her close the blinds on the windows. Her theory was, "If they can't see it, they won't think of it." The storm raged on outside and the class day continued. I left at 10:00am, which meant I had to walk to my car in the rain. I was only wearing flats for shoes and let's just say my feet became quite wet. I made it back to my dorm, but not without being drenched with water.

Some of the people around me are going through some rough times. They are not only battling their internal demons, but there seems to be a storm raging outside of them. For me, when I'm going through situations like this, I feel nearly helpless. My mind plays a mantra of "I just can't do this" - I can't handle my own demons and deal with the storm around me at the same time. Sometimes all I need is for someone to shut the blinds to the storm, calm me down, and make me focus on the task at hand: myself.

But shutting the blinds doesn't make the storm disappear - it only masks it for a while so you can figure things out in yourself before running out into the storm. And if you were to ignore the outside forever, how would you know if the storm has passed and it's sunny again? How will you know if the storm did any damage and needs repair? While closing the blinds to the storm may help for a while, it is only temporary.

And when you do run out into the storm, which I highly recommend, wear rain boots. Sure, we can wait until the storm passes, but why wait when you can move forward, experience new things, learn from the rain, and have the dirt be washed off by it (ever notice how when you go through tough times, the little petty things don't seem to matter after a period of time?).

Sometimes the rain does come, but there's always a rainbow, something to be learned.

Peace!

-Nicole

Can't Breathe

1. Teaching in Spanish is not as scary as one would think.
2. Phone cases made to look like a cassette tape are epic (even better if they glow in the dark).

New phone case!

3. 6:45am does exist.
4. Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.

Last night was rough - I couldn't stop laughing. It was one of those laughing fits where there is no cause and everything is funny. I am fairly sure all my friends thought I was going insane, but hey, I made them laugh. And because of my laughing fit, I was having a hard time catching my breath.

I've always had issues breathing. I developed allergy-induced asthma when I was about 12 and for a few summers, I had to be on a low-dose inhaled steroid to control it. It's scary when you are having an asthma attack and you can't find your inhaler. Another issue I experience is sometimes, it feels like a large needle is being stuck into my lungs and every time I breathe in, the pain gets worse. When I was little, I use to hold my breath so I wouldn't have to feel the pain, but nearly every time, I had to take a gulp of air in so I wouldn't pass out. My mom told me, after I had experienced a few painful instances of it, that I just had to endure the pain; take a few deep breaths in and soon enough the pain will go away.

I have a few friends who are suffering like I will never know - family members are dying, depression is tormenting them, self-esteem issues are tearing them apart, and other things I may never know about. Even for me, I am having some issues with my anxiety. Although the only thing I want to do is sleep through it, ignore it, and pretend it doesn't exist, it won't help me.

Sometimes it has to get worse in order to get better. Sometimes you have to fall a bit farther to appreciate what you had before and to notice things you couldn't before. But that doesn't mean you should hold your breath during it all. Like when I was little, if I held my breath, the pain eventually disappeared, but it took twice as long for me to not feel the pain any more. And sometimes you need someone to tell you to breathe.

Don't be afraid to fall - it always gets better. And don't be afraid to tell someone about it - whatever it is - they may just help you.

Peace!

-Nicole

Story Time with Sally: State Fair

1. Chicken fingers are delicious.

2. Make sure you actually know when your classes are or you'll be embarrassed.

3. Watch your head when you get into your bunk bed, or you will hit your head and it will hurt.

4. Doctor Who will give you all the feelings and it will be the best and worst thing to ever happen to you.

Hi everyone! I'm Sally, another friend of Nicole, Megan, and Melissa. I live across the hall in 707. I'm not sure how this works yet, but I think I'm just going to wing it and see what happens.

I'm a new feature on this blog, called "Story Time with Sally"; at least, that's what Nicole tells me. This came up because Nicole and Megan have this strange ability to coax the stories of all of my deepest childhood traumas out of me, and apparently they're the most hilarious stories they've ever heard. Obviously I don't see it that way, but hey, whatever makes them happy. So I guess I'll just start out telling my stories and maybe making you laugh a little, and we'll go from there.

When I was seven, my family and some friends went to the state fair. Sounds like a normal family outing, right? Well, naturally, something ridiculous has to happen because that's how my life works. There was some sort of dancing skeleton display that we were all looking at. It was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen in my life (at that point; I was only seven). I honestly think I was in love with that dancing skeleton; I remember it so clearly and I remember laughing really hard. So I'm standing there watching this dancing skeleton and I don't realize that my family is walking away without me. I turned around a couple minutes later and my parents were nowhere to be seen. This is the state fair, remember; there are hundreds of people wandering around. Being seven, I followed the rules: stand still, shut your eyes, and count to a hundred. If Mom doesn't show up in that amount of time, then find a mother with kids. Mothers are safe, apparently. So I counted to a hundred and no Mom, so I looked around and didn't see any mothers with kids. I started to cry. And I mean cry, like wailing, wrenching tears. A lady with a stroller was going past and she stopped and asked me what was wrong and where my mom was. I remember our conversation like this:

LADY: Oh, sweetie, don't cry. Where's your mom? Are you lost?

ME: FDJSKLOIHptuqoihjweSDPFHUREW I DON'T KNOW SHE'S GONE AND I JFIDSITHYUTWT

LADY: It's okay, we'll find her. What does she look like?

ME: She's short and has brown hair and she's wearing a blue shirt!

LADY: Okay, what about your dad?

ME: He's short and has brown hair and he's wearing a blue shirt!

It's a good thing my parents had the smarts to come back looking for me a few minutes after that because I'm certain there was no way I would ever have found them otherwise. But I didn't go to the state fair again until I was seventeen, ten years later. I only went then because my friend made me go. I tried to tell her I was traumatized, but she told me I was being silly. I wouldn't let my friend out of my sight the entire day.

I'm a complex individual.

MORAL OF THE STORY: That dancing skeleton was totally worth looking at for two extra minutes, regardless of the trauma it later caused. Don't be afraid to be on your own for a minute; sometimes you get to see something awesome. Other times you get left behind and you feel alone, but in the end someone will find you, and you'll have seen something really cool.

(That would be me trying not to trivialize this lovely blog my friends have created. Sorry, guys. I'm not very good at life lessons.)

I don't know, I think my story-telling loses a little something in transcription. Hopefully this is up to snuff with my philosophical friends.If you're still reading at this point, I admire your fortitude. Tune in next week for another ridiculous childhood trauma!

Geronimo!

-Sally