Personal Narrative Draft (just a day late, but better than never.)

On the Worst Possible Night

            “Guys, did you hear?” asked the girl sitting across from me as I slid into my seat in photography class. It was the Monday morning after senior prom; the bell had barely rung to announce the start of another school day and already gossip was flying through the air. I smiled and began pulling out a folder while students all over the classroom, eager to hear the news, turned in our direction, leaned expectantly toward my neighbor, and asked the inevitable “what?”

            “So while my date and I were in line Saturday night for prom pictures, this girl in the line ahead of us just passed out.”

            I froze with the folder halfway out of my backpack, not daring to look up yet.

            “Yeah, I think that she went to the hospital! Someone said she hit her head pretty hard.”

            “I heard she got so drunk before prom even started, she passed out here at school.”

            “I wonder who it was?”

            The last one I heard, that question, made me sit up straight and finish pulling out my folder while a slow grin crept over my face. “I know who it was.” Everyone in the room went quiet and suddenly all my classmates and even the teacher were looking my way. With what had to have been a sheepish look, I admitted “Guys, that was me.”

            Early Saturday morning I woke up, expecting to feel the normal excited buzz that came with the knowledge prom was just a couple hours away. Not just any prom either: this was my senior prom. Yet as I swung my legs out of bed I realized something was wrong; my head felt fuzzy, and my stomach hurt. But anticipation for the night ahead made me brush it aside.

            As the day wore on my hair, make-up and nails started coming together, but I didn’t. At a point I realized something was really wrong. Yet I was determined that whatever bug  or virus I’d caught, too bad for them because I was a seventeen-year-old girl who was not going to miss prom. That’s the state my mom found me in on the couch, wearing sweats and an old tee shirt, right as my date was knocking on the door. With a lot of stalling on her and my dad’s part, I managed to sneak over to my bedroom and change while they kept my date occupied.

            Walking out of my room I had never felt so great; I loved my crazy floral-print mermaid dress and it looked awesome; my hair was perfect. My date gave me an appraising once-over, then raised his eyes to mine and beamed. Instead of beaming back, I suddenly knew I was about to throw up. Luckily for me I ran to the bathroom, because that’s exactly what happened.

            Twenty minutes later, despite having thrown up three more times, we were headed to the high school, where everyone met to take pictures and load onto the buses that would bring us to the actual prom location.. My date and I slapped high fives or ran to hug other friends, respectively, as we made our way to the line of done-up teenagers snaking from the gym where pictures were. We found our group laughing and joking, so we joined them while we waited. In the stone corridor connecting the gym and hallway I suddenly found myself getting dizzy and everything started spinning. With concern, my date grabbed my hand and asked repeatedly, “are you ok?” Every time I smiled and replied that of course I was, although I clearly was not. He was unconvinced; yet being a teenager heard a funny comment and turned away from me, laughing, then turned back as he felt my hand leave his in time to see me hit the floor, unconscious.

            Waking up on the cold, dusty gym floor is not a pleasant experience to have, especially when immediately afterwards you find yourself throwing up into a nasty king-sized school trash can. It was a confusing scene, with my date holding my hand and face while asking “are you ok? What can I do? What do you need?”; behind him a friend and her parents were watching me like a hawk ( as I later learned, her dad- who is the size of a bouncer- was the one who carried me into the gym after I passed out); nearby I saw another friend crying hysterically, wailing something about me dying. Then the principle lurking nearby saw that I was awake.

             “Don’t worry sweetie, the ambulance is on the way!”

            At that, I balked. I was still throwing up but I was not going to leave the high school in an ambulance. I had my date call my parents, who showed up and convinced the principle that they would just take me home and that the hospital wasn’t really necessary. I managed to stop throwing up long enough for my date and I to take the requisite arms-around-each-other prom pictures, and then we made a quick escape.

            I spent senior prom night, what felt like the pinnacle of my four year-long social life, on my couch with my prom date watching Remember the Titans. I was devastated. Over and over I apologized to him until finally he said “Kaley, it’s really not that big of a deal. Life goes on.”

            As I lay there eating saltine crackers and trying not to lose them, I thought I might be holding the hand of the wisest seventeen-year old boy on the planet. Until this point I had never really thought about what would happen after high school; after receiving my diploma, there was this giant blank in my mind. Because of that, I had built high school and all the events in, like prom, up so much that when something went wrong, like missing prom, it felt like my whole life fell apart. And food poisoning wasn’t very fun, but I also had a true gentleman there keeping me company. Suddenly I smiled, glad that not everyone was as shortsighted as me.

            “Your right; it does.”

                

New Job and New Outlook!

SO I want to talk a little about my life on the job because at the moment it's incredibly exciting and quite honestly I want to share it! Sounds like the perfect start for a BLOG POST. 

This story starts the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week when I got a call 

from the zumiez store manager saying I'd been hired as a seasonal sales associate there! (For anyone who is wondering, Zumiez is a board/clothing shop. We have one at the Provo Town Center mall, and the one I now work at, located in the University mall. It looks like this:)

My first day was Black Friday, and I have to say it was extremely intimidating. I'd had about 2 hours of training when I showed up Friday and they said "GO!" Zumiez is a very sales-driven company and in order to do well there your expected to meet a certain sales goal every day. Black Friday, I failed woefully. It was, in fact, a spectacular failure.

My second day of work was today and I was nervous, expecting it to go about like how the first day had gone. This was depressing since I already have a job I'm not too fond of (if your familiar with any of my other posts, that would be the MTC cafeteria worker one.) Especially scary was when I showed up and found it was just me and my manager scheduled for a couple hours; I was positive this day would go just awful. But it turned out to be great! The job didn't get easier today, but my manager took the time to sit me down and train me. He might have taught me how to ring customer's purchases up on the cash register while he was shouting from across the store on a ladder while getting another customer shoes, but it worked surprisingly well.

After he taught me the basic skills of doing my job, the manager set me loose to see what I could sell. At this point I was surprised to find how much a lot of my classes have helped prepare me to be a sales associate. To sell to a customer you have to be able to approach them and start a conversation, experience for which my Mission Prep class has well prepared me. I was extremely grateful for how much easier the practice as a missionary made going up and talking to people in the store. 

Another tactic needed to be a salesperson is good communication skills, which I've gained from every english or writing class I've ever taken, present Writing 150 class included. At some point this semester prof. Steadman told me in my writing I needed to cut out all the unnecessary things and get to the point of what I was trying to say. I was amazed at how well that worked when applied to a sales pitch too. 

At the end of the shift, I had not only met my sales goal but had doubled it. As I walked out of the store my manager slapped me a high five and simply said "girl you killed it today!"

It was a pretty great feeling.

The hard part now is that this job at zumiez is only seasonal, unless I do as good every day as I did today. Until I know if I'll keep this job, I'm keeping my MTC one so I can pay to continue going to school full-time. Sounds pretty fun, huh. But it's amazing the difference there is between a job i don't like much and a job I'm already loving. 

Lesson of the day: for the things we love, it takes a little and sometimes a lot of sacrifice. But to me, I think it's a sacrifice worth making.

Fall-ing through the semester...

Although when I meet people I introduce myself as being from southern California (and it's true), I don't live on the beach, have movie stars for neighbors, or own a mansion and small fortune. I grew up in a small city in the middle of the desert where there are more tumbleweeds than almost any other sort of vegetation. Coincidentally, I've never had a pile of leaves big enough to jump in when fall rolled around. Also, being in the desert we go straight from blazing hot summer summer to chilly winter with about a week in- between.

You could say I've never really experienced fall.

So here at BYU in the midst of classes and midterms and what seems like endless nights studying in the library, I've found a blessing in the changing of the leaves and cooling temperatures. Although I'm rather adverse to the cold, I love this season. Walking through campus and being able to kick leaves out of my way and see the gorgeous reds and yellows is new and kind of fun. It brings back a sense of nostalgia for things i never had.

This was my view one day walking home from the testing center. What a blessing right next to my least favorite building on campus. The days are passing by, and you could say that I've just been
                                                                       falling
                                                                           through the
                                                                                    semester....

Just sayin'. and Chivalry.

It's a definite possibility that I have the greatest boyfriend in the world. Just sayin'. He brought me flowers today just because, which in my opinion is one of the best reasons to do it. As wonderful as that was, and despite it being the opener for this post, it's not my subject matter. Instead, I wanted to have a reflection on chivalry.


 Chivalry is gallantry, courtesy, or honor, or the demonstration of any of these qualities (that's not a precise definition, as the true one involves knights and horses; but for the purpose of this blog I went with something a little more modern and recognizable.)
Many people say that chivalry is dead in our society and that there are no more gentlemen. 
I beg to differ.
I see many examples of chivalry every day; the most frequent one is on campus, while walking through any doorway, I rarely have to open the door myself. Guys always do it, for which I'm sure to say thank you every time. Just as important as men observing the courtesies dictated by chivalry, is ladies remembering their manners and acknowledging when a boy or man does something nice.
Perhaps my interaction with gentlemen is skewed; since I attend BYU it's likely that we have a disproportionate number of gentlemen at my university.
But at work tonight, I saw another example of chivalry that I was personally glad for. It was just myself, a guy sales associate, and our manager closing the store for the night. Around midnight the manager approached us saying one of us could now go home, but the other would need to stay with him until he was finished closing. Without hesitation my co-worker told the manager to let the lady go home, and that he would stay. He also walked me to the mall entrance and watched to make sure that I made it to my car. Although we work together we don't know one another very well, and this simple gesture really touched me. It was thoughtful and incredibly gentlemanly.


From boys who open doors to ones who bring you flowers for no reason at all, I know that there is still chivalry out there. I have faith in society that there is still that much good in us.

Gratitude.

Being that THANKSGIVING is two days away, I think it's only appropriate to write a blog post about gratitude and how thankful I am for everything I have in my life. Maybe a little cheesy, but it's this time of year. I think it's highly appropriate.

The first thing I'm thankful for is my family. They drove down last night and I'll get to spend the whole week with them at my grandparents with aunts and uncles and cousins. But today, I got to hang out with just my parents, brother and sisters. It was a huge blessing and I have not stopped smiling the whole day. I love my family, they are the greatest, and I'm so lucky to be sealed forever with them.
The second thing I'm thankful for is Friday classes. That's because I don't have any, so today being the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and a Friday class schedule instead of a Tuesday class schedule, I had no classes!
The third thing I'm thankful for is my brand-spanking new job!! I've interviewed and called about and gone into the store for this job I really want to get, at a board shop called zumiez. And today the manager gave me a call to let me know I had the job!! It was a little exciting, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity it presents.
The fourth thing I'm thankful for is that I attend BYU, what I consider to be just about the greatest university in the world. It hasn't been easy for me the two and a half semesters I've been here, but I have learned so much and had so many experiences that I would never give up or trade. I love this university, and that as a high school senior I received an acceptance letter telling me I would be able to go here.
The fifth thing I'm thankful for is the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The fact that this item is fifth on my list doesn't mean it's less important than anything else here, that's simply the order I got to it in. I'm so grateful for the gospel, that I have been raised in it, and my testimony of it.

There are so many more blessings I'm grateful for that I could sit and name, but this blog would get a little too long and tedious. I would though like to express gratitude for my awesome roommates, my  wonderful friends, and my incredible boyfriend.
I have a lot to be thankful for.

i have a confession to make.

it's more than a little bit embarrassing, but last night the latest installment of the vampire-and-werewolf-ridden Twilight movie came out. and when midnight rolled around, i was sitting in a dark movie theater with crushing tweens, moms who'd managed to sneak out of the house, and all the couples where the girl had dragged her boyfriend along. yes, i saw it. no, i'm not proud of that.

i like to think of it as a cultural experience i was having, instead of me being dragged to the theater by my best friend cause she "happened" to have an extra ticket.

bear with me, there is hope in this story.

for some reason we went to the movie theater all the way in draper, even though there are about three perfectly good, very nice theaters in the provo/orem area. so by the time we got home from the ridiculously long movie and the overly-long drive it was almost four in the morning. at that point, my friend and i decided we should do something to redeem ourselves from having just watched that movie.
so we stayed up another hour and a half, then went to the provo temple.
although we were both incredibly tired as we sat in there, i love being at the temple and decided that it had been a pretty worthwhile night after all. especially when we came out of the temple and were treated to a view like this:

the provo temple has never been my favorite as far as looks go, but this morning it was one of the most gorgeous things i had ever seen.

It might have made me smile :)

I couldn't resist it; I had to write a blog post about this sign I saw on campus.

When you come out of the testing center and are walking north along the sidewalk, there's a pathway that branches off and leads downhill. Not far from the top of the path is this sign:

It might have made me smile when I was coming home today.

Not that I think a handicapped person in a wheelchair falling down a hill is funny in any way; that's a little sick and twisted. But the fact that the sign shows someone in a wheelchair at the top of just such a steep hill about to go down is terrible enough to make me chuckle. The visual irony of it made my day.

And let's face it, there isn't usually much to be happy about when you leave the testing center. So the fact that this sign exists exactly in the location that it does makes me smile just a little bit wider :)

Another reason to like Provo.

Some days I really miss California, my home, a lot. It's not homesickness as much as I like a lot of things about California much more than i like things in Utah. California is warmer, for instance, and the winters don't get cold and dump snow everywhere. There's the beach an hour away back home, and Disneyland within an hour, and all kinds of other things. It's been so good for me to live in Utah as I attend BYU, yet sometimes I feel like I'm living in a bubble here.

Well one of my favorite things back home is the sunsets; the small desert town I come from has the most beautiful sunsets that you would not believe are possible. The sky turns red and yellow and the clouds turn black and purple as the sun sinks below the horizon. I remember when I was younger climbing onto the roof of our second-story house with my sister to watch the sunset many nights.

The other night I was walking home from class and had reached the parking lot of my apartment complex when I saw the sky lit up like this and had to take a picture. It's not nearly as pretty as the ones I grew up with, but seeing this sunset was actually comforting. I'm not really that far from home,
and I do like Provo a lot. Sometimes I just need a reminder of that.

Re-Capturing Beauty

(This is one of those many blog posts that i physically wrote out on paper and am just now transferring to a blog. Just as a preface for everyone in case the dates being referenced confuse you because they were all about a month ago.)

While walking home from class a week or so ago I stopped to read the fliers on one of the many bulletin boards around campus. I don't usually find anything I actually want to participate in but I like to check anyways; in this case, I did find something. Inside of the Women's Services & Resources center there's a group called Recapturing Beauty. 

If anyone is interested, the link to their website is
https://recapturingbeauty.byu.edu/recapturingbeauty/home/.

They had what was called the 10 Day Challenge, an experience where every day you're given some stereotype of beauty in society or aspect of your body you had to challenge or accept, respectively. One of my dearest friends has had a lot of struggles with eating disorders, so I grabbed a flier to show her and we decided to do the challenge together.

The challenge was an awesome experience and I'm extremely grateful that BYU puts on groups and activities like this. My favorite part though was at the end of the 10 days all participants got a white tee shirt that reads

BEA

UTI

                                                   FUL. The hardest part of this challenge was that to fully participate, every day you had to write in a journal about your thoughts and feelings throughout the experience. So from Oct. 12- Oct. 22 I wrote in my journal every single day; that was tough. I haven't kept a steady journal. . . ever. Whenever I write though I'm always reminded of how much I simply love writing. This realization guilt-ed me into writing a blog post about it, and I'm now hoping blogging will inspire the same affectionate feelings that I have for conventional methods of writing. It may be a little bit of a stretch, but when I have something to say I'm finding that I'll actually write it down. For example, this recapturing beauty experience required me to write daily, but when I got used to the fact that I was going to have to write I found that when I sat down with my journal the words almost wrote themselves.

I love writing. It's that straightforward. And this challenge taught me not only how to re-capture the beauty inside of me, but how to re-capture the beauty of doing something I love.

Just another reason why I'm here.

Lately, I’m come to have a greater appreciation for institutions of higher learning, such as BYU. Never have I appreciated school so much as when I’m working a minimum wage, no-skill level job that just about anybody could do. While there might be some fun in the day-to-day work, that comes from my co-workers or the situations we find ourselves in. You see, being desperately in need of a job this semester I became a cafeteria worker at the MTC and don’t get me wrong, it’s great. I’m extremely grateful for the fact that I have a job and am able to earn money.

                There isn’t much satisfaction that comes from the work though. At the end of the day, I don’t feel excited about what I do or feel proud of a long, hard day full of worthwhile labor; in fact I usually just smell like grease from serving up curly fries.

                So besides a paycheck every two weeks, one of the biggest blessings that has come from working in the food industry has been the realization that I want an education, if only so that someday I can get a job that I love that will also support me. It’s something that had always flitted in the back of my mind but wasn’t a reality until recently.

                I guess you learn all kinds of things in college… 

yeah, i'm old school.

this blog is yet another one where i complain about blogging. i've figured out my problem: i'm old school about my writing. i can't wrap my head around this whole writing online instead of on paper thing.
the thing is, i've written probably a dozen or so blogs - on paper. i'll have an idea and write everything down and tell myself i'll post it later that night.
it never happens.
so all my blog posts are written throughout my various class notebooks, waiting to be put up still. they do exist. . . not as blogs, but they are there. this post, in fact, originated on a piece of lined notebook paper in my Comparative Literature class during a lull in the lecture.
i'll have to work on getting those transferred from the paper world to the virtual one.


i have a couple things i'm going to try with my next couple blog posts that might make them easier to put up (any advice, tips, hints would be most appreciated.) 


1. if you hadn't noticed, this blog is written in almost exclusively lower-case letters. yes, i'm that lazy. but notice how the blog is getting written.


2. i like to play around with the text a lot, doing strikethroughs, underlined, italic, bold or colorful words. it helps break up the monotony for me, and is definitely a perk of blogging that can't be done with traditional pen-and-paper writing.


3. i'm going to try and have a little more direction to my posts. in my first one i was pretty non-specific on what i would write about, simply stating i wanted to get back into writing. but i need to stop complaining about how hard or weird blogging is and find some real stuff to talk about. i'm sure everyone reading would appreciate it as well.


so here's goes nothing as i attempt again to blog.