How to survive... out of college

Well, thanks to a recent inspiration from a friend, I think it's time to start writing again. I've entered a new chapter in my life. It's called "On My Own."  Don't let the title throw you though. It's not depressing or anything of the sort. Rather, I'm finally living life--not the college life that I had become accustomed (and regretfully comfortable) to, but a real 8-5, go out with friends, go to bed (sometimes) kind of life. The routine is good for me. It keeps me out of trouble for the most part, and pays most of the bills.

Though I haven't figured out the meaning to life past the number 42, I'm still praying that God will guide me and help me figure out what to do. I love my job right now, but I know it's not the career path for me. I've fallen in love with this town, but it's challenging to be 29 and living here at times--especially since I don't have a family here. However, I've had enough people in this town adopt me over the last 4 years that it's comfortable enough to survive. For the last 3 or 4 years, all I've wanted from Vermillion was to be accepted as a townie (in the good sense), and I feel like I might finally have my foot in the door. VCT has helped a lot, and I am more appreciative of the friendships I've made in that circle than I can possibly describe.

Next project: how to share my talents and abilities with this community...

Epic Chamber Football Game and Picnic... in College

Well, we lost. Once again, the tenors and sopranos gave a surprising upset and beat the altos and basses by two touchdowns. This year we went all out though. We made signs, we had face paint, I had my cape on, it was epic.  I was especially impressed with the bass section--every single one of them showed up. Granted, a few of them took the game a little too seriously, but they're boys, so I guess that's to be expected. The Chamber Picnic was also a great success with the majority of Chamber Singers showing up. We ate a lot of food, we killed a lot of mosquitoes, we sang a lot of silly songs, and we enjoyed each others company--a lot. A LOT of good things happened this weekend, even if we were all black and blue and sore on Monday :)  

proud altos!

One Day

Well, as everyone knew, I was eagerly anticipating Tuesday this week because of our ValleyFair trip. I had been looking forward to it for about three weeks. It was nice to get out of this town, even for one day. It made all the difference in the world. It was my one day vacation and I needed it--badly. Of course I envisioned the entire day going smoothly, but something quite different occurred.
First there was the monsoon that we drove through to get to Sioux Falls. Then we suffered through Kayla's driving to the Twin Cities. During the insane driving, there was a brief respite in rain, a quick nap, a brief decision to cancel ValleyFair for the morning because of the grotesque thunderstorm, and then a unexpected trip to MOA. Once there, I finally got my Chipotle that I've been craving since January. After that, we finally made it to ValleyFair where I went adrenaline crazy.  If my feet wouldn't have hurt so much, I might have asked the gang to leave me there and pick me up in a couple of days. We stopped at Applebee's on the way home where some of the best jokes came out. My favorite being the one with Hitler and Barbie. I fell asleep for most of the drive home, but we had a lovely conversation about "Life is like..." and I'm very sad that I missed out on Kayla talking to her car "Milton" and Chris acting out the voice of the car.  I will admit I was a little freaked out when Kayla and Chris saw a UFO on the way home--twice.  That made for an interesting conversation on the ride from Sioux Falls back to Verm.

We drove again through rain and thunder and lightning and bugs and puddles that swallowed us whole. We survived Power Tower, Wild Thing, Steel Venom, Renegade, Thunder Canyon, and the $5 Family Dryer.  It will be a day to remember and to certainly to talk about next year.
Once allWild Thing!!! said and done, I still say Kevin and Ashley owe me about $50 for all the snogging they did on the trip though ;)

The Guilt Complex gone Kusch-style

The guilt complex, my friends, is something that I have always been tortured by. Though at the same time, I feel like it has kept me out of lots of trouble too.

It seems that my own guilt complex has altered itself though in the last couple years, and I can't make sense of it.  

Chris always tells me that I apologize too much, but I don't think I can help it. I always feel like everything is my fault, or like I'm the cause of everyone's inconvenience. I'm not upset about this, cause I don't think it really hurts anyone, but I don't understand it.

Here's an example that someone brought up a couple weeks ago. 

--All of my friends know or at some point knew that I can't eat gluten. I've had to explain to everyone what it is, what it does, show them the rash on my hand that acts up when I eat it, etc, etc, etc.  I don't mind sharing that with people, but I feel like I inconvenience them by it. I try not to mention it if food isn't brought up, and it usually comes up by someone talking about pizza or something, and I'll say something to the effect of "ooo, I wish I could eat that" or something like that.

The part where this gets distressing is when people invite me out to eat---at a place where I know I can't eat anything. It works out fine if I already ate or if I'm not hungry and I can just get a drink, but 98% of the time, it's during a meal time when I actually need to eat.  This whole blog could probably go into another blog about how I can't say no, but I'll leave that for now.  

I feel bad that when people invite me out, I have to put a stipulation on where we go. That doesn't seem fair to me. I tried to do the whole "stick it out" kind of thing during the school year and I went to Pizza Hut with Chamber Singers a couple times for lunch...but... 1) That doesn't exactly leave me anytime to eat when I get back since I have a 1pm class, 2) Technically I could scarf down some salad at the salad bar, but it tastes like shit, and cost $5.99 or something like that for crappy lettuce and horrible toppings...3) I can't even begin to describe how hard it is to sit and sip on a root beer or coke and watch everyone around me eat one of the primary foods that I miss most, not to mention the wonderful aroma of pizza surrounding me! I wanna cry, but I don't want to look weak. I want to leave, but that would look bad too. I want to complain, but then people are like "oh, well that sucks..."-- and whether they mean it or not, I don't want people feeling bad for me.  That just makes me feel even guiltier. 

Well, I don't know where that leaves me. I don't feel resolved about anything, but at least I got it out of my system, right?

BTW, I just found out that the Flinstone Gummy Vitamins that I have been eating for many months have gluten. SOAB.

The Pains and Joys of Living with Boys

All my life, I have lived with either my family, or in a dorm/apt with girls. This is the first time that I've lived with two guys, neither of whom I am dating. I loved it for the most part, especially since for some reason, I always feel safer around guys.
I thought that the hardest part would be the schedule differences between us. Kevin works from 7-3 usually, I work from 4pm-9pm, and Chris works overnights. That has actually worked out alright for all of us I think. We haven't had any problems regarding that.

Pains-
1) Dishes don't get done as often as I'm used to, but part of that is my fault as well
2) The boys never shut up about their girlfriends. EVER
3) Kevin doesn't know how to put the seat down and loves to slam doors shut


I guess that wasn't as long of a pains list as I thought, lol.

Joys-
1) Kevin likes mowing the lawn
2) I have two boys to kill bugs and spiders for me :)
3) I live with two gamers
4) Chris and I are both Bing Crosby fans
5) If I can't reach something or lift something, I have two guys to ask
6) Both guys happen to hate how gluten free food tastes... hence, no stealing :)

Regardless of the joys and pains though, I love my boys. They are both good guys and I've enjoyed living in the house over the summer--so much so, that I want to move into Tim's room when he moves out :) 

The Official Music Camp Rant...

First and foremost, music camp was a blast. I was on my own this year as far as running things behind the scenes without D!, and I survived . Also, a huge thank you to Mike Bossman for being one of the coolest coworkers I have ever had the pleasure of working with. His humor was one of the main reasons I made it through the week without getting terribly crabby.  Also, I will never forget the rap that Bossman and I left on Holdhusen's voice mail. The other reason I survived music camp and especially Sunday night was due to my awesome volunteers--Amanda and Andrew. Both Holdhusen and I noticed that when everyone else went to bed and left the FA, it was Andrew and Amanda who stayed behind and helped us till 1 am when we finally finished at the FA. They even stuck with me after that while I had to bring everything over to the the dorms and only made it out of there around 2am. 

Important lessons from camp:
1) never piss off a camp parent, even if it is over something stupid like a chair placement in the secondary jazz group...
2) always keep a full stock of food and pop for the counselors, and you better make that 'real' pop, cause the RC Cola was not appreciated...
3) (for me) buy one of those special hearing aid thingys you see on tv that allows you to pick up on conversations better, so that when Holdhusen calls and asks you to do something quickly, you don't have to ask "what?!" three times....
4) (also for me) don't play with the sousaphones on Thursday night knowing full well you will never make it out of bed early enough Friday to play them and wake up the kids
5) don't eat the gluten free bread served at the Commons... I thought it just tasted bland and like crumbly something or another, but according to Dave Earll, it tastes like sawdust.

The rest is just pure rant.
1) I love my counselors, but.... when four counselors are sitting in Knutson and just chilling and I'm setting up gear and I need someone to go close the doors so that parents will stop coming in, and I ask if someone will do it, it would be really nice if someone would just stand the heck up and do it, instead of me standing there awkwardly staring.

2) I love music camp parents, but.... when you and your child come up to me at the question table, and you let your child yell at me for their own mistakes on their applications, that is not cool.  It is not my fault that your kid signed up for every ensemble offered and therefore has no time for electives and musical activities.

3) I love music camp kids, especially vocalists, but.... I have been dealing with my share of divas in the last couple years and I have no desire to see more in the making. To 'Diva' as we so aptly named her last week, you need to grow up and realize that the world does not spin around you, and neither does music camp. No, I will not go out of my way to schedule your "extra" voice lessons during World Drumming because "it wasn't fun when I took drumming at this other music camp last year..." and no, I will not pull you out of show choir just because " the pop music they chose gave me a migraine..." I feel horrible that Dr. G had to put up with you for four voice lessons! Oh, and just so you know for future cases, coming into the office and having a full fledged meltdown in front of me and all of the counselors is not the way to win people over. It only gives us something else to laugh at after you leave the office.

4) 

How to Make a Friend

People all make friends in different ways, and mostly without thinking about it. There are several techniques used when making a friend, but once again most people don't think about that aspect.

I've debated with my friends about this on several occasions because of how opposite we work in this department. One of my best friends explained to me the process someone has to go through in order to get to the "friend" status.
#1 person must have strong and dynamic personality
#2 person has to be able to hold their own in a group setting
#3 person must prove themselves (which apparently is determined by my friend)

After hearing this, my jaw had to be removed from the floor. I was appalled! My friend explained to me that this was his method of not getting hurt in the long run and not having to deal with "fair weather" friends.

I thought about it for awhile and figured out my own technique to making a friend :
#1 approach stranger by myself or through friend and say "hi" and carry on conversation
(optional)#2 look up on facebook and "friend" them
#3 hang out with them in large or small group setting
#4 be friends?

I'm fairly certain that I consider someone a friend after step #1.

It was just weird to hear that people actually think about how they make friends, instead of worrying why they need a specific process to abide by to make a friend in the first place.