Of Adjectives, Expectations, and Frozen Yogurt

WARNING: I'm thinking of starting all of my posts with warnings. Anyway, this is extremely long. I hadn't realized how long until I posted it. I could go edit and cut it down... but I've been editing an essay all week, so that's not happening. I would recommend skimming. Or you could just pretend you read it and move on.

Some of you might remember my epiphany in the dandelions that came last year about how all adjectives are relative. (i've since discovered that all words are relative, but this disturbers me less.) You may remember how very annoyed I was to discover that the only way I could define myself was in comparison to other people.... which totally stinks because in comparison it is mandated that someone is the loser. And, of course, that someone is me more than I'd like it to be.

Every time I tell someone I grew up in Hawaii they say, "Why didn't you go to college there?" And I say something like, "I just thought I'd never grow up if I stayed at home." Which is totally true. Like, if I hadn't gone away to college I still wouldn't know how to use a laundromat, I still wouldn't own a wallet, and I wouldn't know how much milk costs.

(ok, we'll be honest. i still don't know how much milk costs. i haven't bought it yet. i don't drink it that much. but i know i'm a grown up because i have a wallet and keys.)

What takes more time to explain is that, cliched as it sounds, I'm curious about me.

I mean, I've been living with my for eighteen years, I kind of want to get to know me a little better. You know how you'll know someone for years, at school maybe, and then when you see them somewhere else they're totally different? I thought I'd pull myself out of the context of my life and see what I was like without it. Silly of course. I haven't left behind my context at all. I find myself giving it no matter who I'm talking to. "Back home..." "In Hawaii..." "Where I grew up..."

I thought I was escaping the labels and expectations of everyone who knew me since I was six. Everyone who sat in sunday school with me and said, "she's haole," or "smart," or "weird." I thought once I was away from all of that something would blossom in my stomach and vola! Look! So that's who I was all along. Who knew?

Actually, even thousands of miles away from my context, I'm terrified of setting it down. Because who am I without it? I'm self-imposing all those expectations on myself now and I don't even have my sunday-school mates to blame for it.

This is not where I was planning on this post going. I wasn't going to really delve into identity. (though i do have a question: is there a healthy thing to base your identity on? honestly? if i think of myself as smart and then i am disillusioned out of this and just crushed, or if it stops me from doing things i'm bad at because that makes me seem less smart, then that isn't healthy. but isn't that true about basing your identity on anything and making any judgments about yourself? now i'm just confused...) I was actually going to note a few things that I've figure out about me. 

Of course they're comparative. You see, you thought I'd entirely forgot that I'd opened with my adjective thing didn't you? Nope, see, I was going somewhere for once. I know. Weird. So, from living with people who aren't my family I've come to some (comparative) conclusions about me. Nothing real earth-shaking.

I'm actually pretty clean. I don't take any responsibility for this. I think it's my mom's handy work and is probably a bit over the top right now as I try to prove to myself that where I am living is actually my home. But still. I have compulsions to do the dishes, clean the bathroom, etc. These are compulsions that my roommates do not have and do not understand. I'm mostly cool with that, but I wish they'd let me do it. I don't need them to do their dishes, I just need their dishes done. I'm good with cleaning them, but for some reason they haven't really borded that train of thought.

I go sleep early. Really. I'm going to sleep later than I used to and I still go to bed early. Yesterday was eleven thirty-ish because I had a paper due today. It felt late then and this morning it really felt late. But try complaining about a eleven-thirty bedtime to college students. See if you get away without a social stoning. I haven't really decided what I think this says about me... but I thought I'd share it. So if you happen to be my floor mate who keeps playing the ukulele at obscene hours of the morning, take pity on the poor socially awkward girl who lives across from you and stop. Or at least learn a different song.

I am socially awkward. Which does seem sort of fundamentally unfair. I shouldn't have to be physically and socially awkward. I really must have been at the back of the line when the stars were passing out skills. Because I'm a self-justifying person, though, I have come up with a perfectly plausible reason for why I'm socially awkward. The meeting new people part is because I've lived in a tiny town my whole life, so even people I didn't know knew me. Now I'm in a place where no one knows me... and I don't know what to do. Do I just walk up to people and say, "Hey. I'm Marissa. I'm a socially awkward Asian Studies major, looking for a job and craving sugar?"

Not really, right? There is some secret to this whole meeting people thing that I am just yet to discover. Right? Like a secret password.

... Hey, guys. Now would be a great time to let me in on the secret. Just saying.

I actually have a lot to tell you. Like I bought bubbles because I decided that I couldn't live without them. And I was walking back from blowing them on Sunday and got invited in by people I'd met that day ("hey. i'm marissa....") to eat a muffin. Which was fun. I felt intimidated though, because they were talking about politics. And I know nothing about politics. I do, however, know a lot about China, and I got into a heated discussion with a Pakistani in my ward about it. I met him, told him what I studies ("i'm a socially awkward asian studies major..."), and he leaned forward said, "Do you think Mao was a good leader?" We argued about it for twenty minutes, until he had to go talk to the Bishop.

My father has mandated that my entire family will eat sugar only once a week (with the exception of holidays recognized by hallmark) and it works well. Most of the time. Everyone once in a while I just really.... need... ICECREAM. ("looking for a job and craving sugar...") Tomorrow will be my once a week, though. I'm going to go get frozen yogurt. As a treat for me doing a whole half of the things I was supposed to this week. Because I'm responsible like that.

Over.

My Corner of the Universe

(Marissa)

Today I exercised, had sweet potato fries, did my homework, registered for all my college classes and paid for them. My corner of the universe is tidy, how about yours?

I'm just going to give you the list of things I know I should tell you but don't want to spend a blog post on:

1. I took the ACT. I don't want to talk about it.

2. Alright, fine. It was bad. I was sick. I'm taking it again next month. We should send science and math to a never to be found desert island where it can rot until the end of time. Forever and ever, amen.

3. I get nine hours of sleep and I'm still exhausted. Does anyone know why this is? If you're going to tell me it's because I get too much sleep, I have mono or I eat too much ice cream, then don't. I have already explored the first two possibilities, and if it's the last one I have no intention of it exploring it. There is a reason I eat the amount of ice cream I do.

Sometimes sugar and sanity are synonyms.

4. We are still not cooking in culinary. And I found out that there are two culinary classes and I'm not in Jackson's. Cue the tragic music. (Hi Jackson! You found us! Yes, Mark Bittman rocks and I did know that you were married. When are you coming back to school? Can you adopt my culinary class?)

5. Today in West Wing Danny still wasn't back and they killed my favorite secret service guy. Keep the tragic music rolling, fellas.

6. You can thank Teenager Number One for the beautiful Flickr highlight. She is currently drowning in AP classes (including calculus), so I'm not sure when (if?) we'll be hearing from her. Because calculus is a time, energy and happiness eating monster that only engineers ever use. We can send it to a desert island too.

7. People keep bringing me sugar. I've had three cookies today. And ice cream. And doughnut holes. I'm not complaining, I just don't know what's going on. Either heaven is being particularly attentive or someone is trying to ensure that I won't be running any marathons soon. If you're reading this, person-who-is-trying-to-prevent-me-from-running-marathons, you don't have anything to worry about. But keep the cookies coming.

Alright, my list is complete. I'll get on with my post.

I am now officially signed up for Creative Writing and International(cultural?) Peace Building. My professors did their best to scare me away with multiple textbooks, foreboding syllabuses that start out with quotes from MK Ghandi ("We must be the change we wish to see in the world") and big words I don't know, but I am nothing if not persistent. I am going to soldier through these classes, darn it, even if I have to get eight hours of sleep a night instead of nine.

Actually, everyone was very nice. My professors signed me in with good grace and did not announce to the class that I am still in high school. In fact, Brother Ford was extremely slick about it and (very deliberately) did not look at me when he mentioned my mom. Last week he offered to give me a fake last name too, just so that no one would know who's daughter I was. At the time I just stuttered no, but I went to bed wishing I told him to put me on the roll as "Bond, Marissa Bond," though it doesn't have quite the ring to it that James does.

I am extremely excited about both my classes, though slightly nervous about IPB (peace building) in which Brother Ford took rather too much delight in explaining how he was going to force us out of our comfort zones and 40% of my grade depends on one group project (in... out... in....... out).

My Creative Writing class messes with my breathing too, but in a different way. A class all about creative writing? I can go? Really? Is it Christmas? I've been doing creative writing on my own since fourth grade. I've written poems, essasys, short stories, one full-length story. I've spent hours on the computer or in a notebook and I obsess over nice pens. Please let me write! Please don't completely crush my self-respect. I might be practiced in being humiliated, but it isn't something I excel at. Please...

OK. Whining done. Basically I'm excited about college. No, wait! I have one more complaint. And a teenage girl moment: Why are there no cute guys in my classes? I know, your respect for me has fallen flat on it's face but, really, I'm a hormonally healthy teenage girl, and I would appreciate one or two cute guys. There are plenty up on campus, couldn't just one of them have signed up for creative writing?

No? OK, then. Never mind. I'm going to go eat my cookies now.

Over.

Op JOY

(Marissa)

So, I think I've pretty much decided that I'll be posting about once a week. That sounds pretty good, right? Yes? I'm just going to assume that you agreed, because I can. So I'll post once a week and maybe Katie will, and then you'll get two blog posts a week. That's right, even after two months of ignoring the left side of my brain, I still have my basic math skills. One plus one equals two. Got it.

This is the last week of summer.

The sentence just above should have read a lot like this Youtube video plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=WwlNPhn64TA&feature=related

Katie and I go back to school on August 3rd. I call this blasphemy. School shouldn't exist until September. In September I would deal with my return with grace and poise. In Spetember I would reflect on how school was really good for me. How summer, like all good things, does and should come to an end and how really, in my heart of hearts, I was ready and waiting to go back. In September I might actually believe it.

But it is not September. And in a week I will once again be in a classroom. In August. August is summer. August screams summer. It also screams ice cream, but so do you, me and all the other seasons, so that doesn't matter too much.

Now I really want ice cream.

Really.

Anyway, while I am finishing my Ap Government homework, which really whould have been done a month ago, and preparing for the psychological side effects of waking up before 8:30, I am also planning to enjoy what little of summer remains.

There are various aspects to this plan (which I am now officially titling Operation JOY), including learning how to ride a skateboard (something that I've been avoiding because I dislike scraped knees and I know I'm a klutz), learning how to juggle (because that would seriously up my level of cool--in my own mind), getting rid of the shadows under my eyes (there are impossible things you should never stop trying to do), and using as many parenthesis as I can before I go back to my grammatically sound English class (me and grammar... not so much).

There are two other aspects of Op JOY, one of which is a secret until Katie finishes her post on it. The other, I am discussing. And yes, it has to do with chocolate. How did you know? Good going, guys, now I want chocolate ice cream.

(Aztec Hot Chocolate Ice cream, muscipb)

I've been going on a baking spree. What do you expect when I have a cookbook that is titled How To Cook Everything? So far I've made a lot of bread and a lot of cookies. You didn't think I was making something productive, like a meal, right? You already know me better than that.

I have made oatmeal cookies, raisin bread, regular bread, chocolate chip cookies and butterscotch cookies, all since my last post. And cereal. But, you know... It's the chocolate chip cookies I want to talk about.

Once again, I did not take pictures. Fortunately I know this great site called flickr (--speaking of which, has anyone noticed our very summery flickr highlight? If summer was food it would be watermelon. If sunlight was food it would be mushrooms or lemonade. If I was food I would be chocolate ice cream. I'm off subject. I've got to stop doing this--), so I found you pictures that look like what I made.

(New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie w/ Chunks, show and tell)

These are my chocolate chip cookies. They're really chocolate chunk cookies. AS far as I'm concerned, the best thing about htem is they come out of the oven melty and come out of the refrigerator chewy. Why is this? Butter, guys. Two sticks. Oh, yeah.

The other cookies were fairly disappointing. The butterscotch cookies were kind of, a little bit, well boring. My mom liked them because they weren't too sweet. To me, this defeats the purpose. The oatmeal cookies weren't bad, there just wasn't anything good about them. Except that I made them with Katie and Jessica and we watch Much Ado About Nothing.

Now that I've made both of us suitably hungry, I'm going to sign out. And find ice cream. And watch Ratatouille. And work on Op JOY.

Over.

Joy, Cream Puffs, and Other Synonyms

(Marissa)

I have several completely unrelated things to say, none of which are big enough to write an entire blog post on, so I'm going to combine them. Thing is, I don't really want to have to write transitions, starting with a rooster and then somehow getting to cream puffs. If I was a good writer, a good blogger I would do it. Or, at least, I would attempt.

But I'm tired.

And I just made bread.

And, yes, I realize that that really has nothing to do with it, but I'm too tired to care. I was up late last night talking to my mom and watching Asian dramas.

So there.

Yesterday morning my family was reading scriptures at the breakfast table. Our breakfast table in on a closed-in lanai that opens onto our backyard, which creates a rather nice environment.
Mei was just reaching Nephi's dilemma about whether or to kill Laban or not when a rooster streaked past, all tail, it's feathers trailing behind it.

Before I go on I should explain a bit. I live in a little village a bit off the North Shore. It isn't pretty. There are no beach houses, but a variety of run down plantation boxes and cinder block squares. I don't notice this, most of the time. Actually, I kind of like it, and anyway we have mountains in front of us and a beach behind to make up for the less-than-scenic surroundings. It's a nice little place with lots of kids, college students and chickens. The chickens are the skinny, feckless descendants of a plump, proud birds that were owned by a dairy shop that closed down. The shop started selling chickens as pets. Now they're everywhere.

People have varying feelings about them which range from acceptance, usually accompanied by the ability to ignore them, to sheer hatred. My parents once bought me a shirt from China Town that read "The Year of the Chicken" and when Sister Huff, who was waging war against her fowl inmates, saw it, she looked at me sternly and said, "The year the chicken dies."

Because there are chickens everywhere the rooster tripping over his own feathers to get gone was not the odd thing. No, the odd things was Brother Handcock, running after it, shovel mounted in such a way that was reminiscent of an ancient warrior, hunting with a spear thrust in front of him. My family looked up from our egg-encrusted plates and our scripture study to watch Brother Handcock chase the offending bird across our lawn. He headed back from the hunt, unsuccessful, and joined us in a short conversation in which he grimly explained, "He was after my mangoes."

This is the part where I go onto something else completely unrelated and forget about transitions. It's a good thing none of my english teachers read this.

When I was going through pictures trying to find a shot of my lanai I came across the photo rendition of our town's flood day and I wanted to show you something. The flood day is a long story, that I may or may not recount at some future time (I have an essay about it I could just post that because I'm lazy), but for right now all you really need to know is that one winter day a few weeks before Christmas the water came down and the floods came up.

And the students from our college town's college still went to class. Well, they didn't actually make it to class, which was, of course canceled due to the rising water levels and the fact that their professors homes were swimming in muck. But they tried.

Because they rock like that. I don't know this guy, but I think he is terrific. The picture makes me laugh. I think I'm going to put it on the front of my binder this year, for motivation and joy.

While we're on the subject of joy, Katie is back. My life is inherently less stressful with her around. This may or may not have to do with cream puffs. We were sitting, in the same lanai my family was on when Brother Handcock made his warrior appearance, with our feet up when it occurred to us that what our lives were really lacking was rounded pastries stuffed with sugar and heavy cream. So we got up and found Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything.

Fortunately, cream puffs are included in everything.

Mr. Bittman, I love you. You have grandson's, right? Or nephews? My age-ish? Right?

(Photo credit: Cream Puffs Out of Oven from Spoon and Chair on Flickr)

I was not forward looking enough to take pictures of the ones Katie and I made, but they turned out well, much like this, but without the shiny silver cooling wrack. We used one of my dented baking sheets and a lid pot we borrowed from Sister Handock.

These cream puffs were... heavenly. Glorious. Paradisaical. Delicious, Delightful and Divine, all with capital D's.

I have decided that cream puffs are the true way to enlightenment.

Next time there will be chocolate involved. This I swear.

Over.