Technological Mishap

I have never been good at getting techmology to work for me.  My mom and I joke that I have some electromagnetic field around me that shuts down computers, causes cell phones to misfire, and other calamities of the sort.  We can only hope that I will never need a pacemaker.  A lot of my problems stem, however, from a complete lack of common sense on my part.  The following story is one such tale.

Having recently moved and started a new job, it is quite a common occurence for me to get calls or texts from unknown phone numbers.  I try to save them as I go, but occasionally I forget and end up with a few unknown numbers floating around in my inbox.  Last week I had a few of those mystery numbers and went through to save them all.  It was just then that I got a text from "Justin," asking me on a date for that coming Sunday.  I was floored.  Justin is a coworker who has been going steady with his girlfriend for a year or two.  Why was he asking me on a date?  Why did he want to go out with me?  Out of sheer curiosity, I said yes.  When the appointed "Date Day" came, I was a bundle of nerves.  Frankly, I didn't want to go.

Understandably, I was thanking my lucky stars when I got the text canceling our date for that afternoon.  It said that there was a family emergency, and I never heard anything back after I sent a text that it was okay.  I was left feeling slightly jilted, even though I really didn't want to go in the first place.  I was anxious to work with Justin the following Sunday, hopeful that I would receive an explanation.  However, when I arrived at work, no one was there.  I reluctantly texted "Justin", asking where he was.  The conversation went like this:

Me: Where are you guys?
"J": Um, I'm good, how are you?
Me: Well, I'm alright, but I asked where you and the clients are, not how you are.
"J": Are you texting me from work?
Me: Yes.
"J": We don't even work together, Shae.  What are you talking about?  I'm confused.
Me: I've been at work for an hour but no one is here.  I'm starting to get freaked out... Enough is enough, Justin!
"J": Are you aware that this is Stacie?

I was so embarrassed.  Luckily, Stacie found the situation funny, and my anxiety was dramatically decreased when I found out that it was Stacie who just wanted to hang out, not a guy I don't know very well asking me on a sketchy date.

I am such a stupid human sometimes!

Finally- an update!

It's been a long time since I've posted about my stupidity. That's not to say that I haven't done things that are stupid, but actually that I haven't had the time between a car accident, my family coming to visit, and the dreaded finals week which almost killed me.

As some of you know, I was in a minor car accident about a month and a half ago. My car literally had no damage, but I sustained some emotional trauma at the accident. Those details are snip-its of my life that simply are not appropriate for the internet, but would, regrettably, make for a great blog. I digress.

When I got into the accident, I was driving to pick up one of my clients from her work. Even though I work 6 days a week, I coincidentally haven't driven with this client yet. It's been so long that I didn't think twice when I offered to drive this particular client to her bank this afternoon. I felt immediate anxiety as we pulled onto the main drag through our town. So much anxiety that I started crying, in fact. This intrigued my client tremendously, so she asked me why I was crying about fifteen times in two minutes. Our conversation went as follows:

Client: Shae, why are you crying?

Me: I'm not crying.

Client: Yes, you are.

Me: No, I'm not.

Client: Yes, you are.

Me: No, I'm not.

Client: (after a period of brief silence) Why are you crying?

I am a child of the 21st Century, and because of this, I have never in my whole life used a check before getting my current job. The majority of the client's finances are handled through checks. My task today was to withdraw some petty cash from my client's bank account. One of the other staff members gave me a two second overview on how to do this, but obviously the information was inadequate, given how confused I was when we pulled up to the teller's window at the bank. The teller gave me instructions as to succeeding at my given task. They did not help my already panicked brain make sense of what was going on around me. When the teller walked away I felt completely alone. I found myself quietly pleading, "Come back... please come back... come back..."

Life lesson: Tellers always leave their microphones on.

God damn it.

What can I say- stupid human tricks!

I haven't posted any stupid human tricks in a long time. This is not because I haven't done anything particularly stupid lately, but is due to the fact that I have no time any more. I am working constantly, doing school work in my free time, and sleeping if I get the chance. I will try to write down some of my silliness soon.

Until then, happy Spring!

NEDAW

This post has nothing to do with my stupidity as a human- well, I guess it sort of does, in a perverse way, but that is not a topic for this particular blog at this particular time. :)

Anyway, it's National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2012! I have dedicated my various blogs, twitter accounts and social networking sites to spreading awareness to the diseases that have taken so many lives for hostage. Please take a few minutes out of your day to watch the following video from the National Eating Disorders Association; it is swell.




The theme this year is "Everybody Knows Somebody." Everybody knows somebody who: has tried every fad diet, makes degrading comments about their own weight, skips meals, exercises to compensate for eating... the list goes on and on. Everybody knows somebody who: purges, binges, or fasts, or maybe some combination of the three. Everybody knows somebody who struggles with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), binge eating disorder, or some other eating disorder. Everybody knows somebody.

The point of this week is to bring awareness to a topic that is often tabooed in our culture. Eating disorders are not fads, nor are people with eating disorders just "doing it for attention." And, it's not about the food.

Please use this week to spread awareness. Awareness can be as big as holding a conference about eating disorders, or as small as becoming more internally aware. I urge you to do one thing to spread awareness this week.

Until eating disorders are history,
S.A.

Hello, my name is Shae, and I am not Mormon.

As many of you know, I live in Utah- a predominately Mormon (LDS) state. Wait- let's get real. Everyone's Mormon out here. And, as you can infer from the title, I am not Mormon. I have run into a plethora of problems surrounding this, ranging from being completely excluded during church sanctioned Speed Dating to simply not understanding the Mormon Lingo that is thrown around in daily conversation. The thing is, everyone out here assumes that everyone else is Mormon, and this assumption is safe, most of the time. Well, until I throw a wrench into the machinery, like I usually do. I am the official wrench thrower of 76.8% LDS Utah County, Utah.

Today, I sat at work, nonchalantly eating with my coworkers. Typically, if there is a common word thrown into conversation that makes no sense to me in context, I assume it is a Mormon word and I sit quietly until I understand what is going on again. For example, the sentence, "My ward played in the stake volleyball tournament last night," means, "A group of people from my church played volleyball against a group of people from other churches in the area last night." When I first moved to Utah, I assumed it meant something along the lines of, "My group home played volleyball with delicious chunks of meat last night." Clearly, there is a very different meaning. In any event, this evening, conversation turned toward "institute." I had no idea what that was, so I sat patiently until I felt that I understood enough of what they were saying to actively contribute to conversation. Unfortunately, my plan was foiled when a coworker asked me, "So, Shae, have you ever been to institute?"

It is important to note what my first thought of the definition of "institute" could be. My mind jumped to the word "institutionalized," so I inferred that "instutite" must mean a state mental hospital. I was shocked that she had asked me if I'd ever been. Luckily, I was taught excellent critical thinking skills and I realized that since this word made no sense to me in context, it must be a Mormon word. I looked at her, confident in my ability to problem solve, and said, "Oh, I'm not Mormon." The entire room grew quiet, literally. One girl raised her right hand and said, "Well, that's alright," and the conversation was promptly killed. We all sat in awkward silence until someone graciously changed the subject to something more neutral. The situation, though awkward and unfortunate to my coworkers, was wildly hilarious to me, and I giggled to myself while retelling the story to my roommate, who is also LDS.

I will be working on a blog delineating Mormon Lingo- what I thought it meant, and what it actually means. Look for this in the future.

Until then, this non-Mormon is going to bed.

I am exceptional at embarassing myself.

I love writing. That's why I keep various journals and write regularly on different blogs. I love sharing my thoughts with an audience.

My most recent writing endeavor was submitting an essay to This I Believe, a project that publishes the personal philosophies of writers. I love the project, and was introduced to it by a beloved therapist. So, when my English teacher asked, "Has anyone heard of This I Believe," I was overwhelmed with an inexplicable joy. I am nearly always silent in school, so it wasn't surprising that all heads turned to me when I said too enthusiastically, "Yes! I love This I Believe! I just submitted an essay!"

I turned about as red as a tomato. I have no idea where this outburst came from. I was even more embarrassed when my teacher said, "Oh, great, Shae! What is your essay about?" I think I died a little bit. My essay is about intuitive eating and recovering from an eating disorder-- NOT something I wanted to say in front of my class. I stammered quietly to myself.

Luckily, my teacher was running out of time, and he moved on almost immediately after asking this question. Even if I had wanted to respond, I wouldn't have had the chance to do so. "This I Believe," he droned, "Is a project that began in the 1950s..." I was officially off the hook.

My face was red for the rest of the 45 minutes of class. I left five minutes early to avoid further questions.

I believe that I am the president of the I-EMBARRASS-MYSELF-ALL-THE-TIME Club. Whatever!

The Stages of Grief While Cleaning a Kitchen

Water was everywhere. I was completely overwhelmed. The fumes in my apartment were overpowering, and I could feel my throat burning from inhaling them for too long. With soaking feet, I trudged over to the window and stuck my head outside, breathing in the clean air. It was delicious. I hadn't realized that I was crying.

Cleaning my kitchen is hard. Really, really hard. I seem to be the only one who cleans up her dishes immediately after using them, so there is more often than not a huge stack of dishes in the sink. It drives me crazy.

The smell of bleach was nauseating and my dishwasher was exploding, literally. Soapy water was gushing all over the floor, leaving me stranded and alone. I felt myself going through the cycles of grief over the mess I had created in my kitchen: first, denial. This is not happening. The dishwasher is fine. There is not water all over the place. Second, anger. Why is this happening to me? It's not fair! All I was trying to do was clean up! I didn't do anything to deserve this. Then, barganing. God, if you stop this dishwasher from exploding, I swear I'll handwash the dishes for the rest of my life. (This was probably a lie. Also, by this time, I had moved away from the window and was staring helplessly at the dishwasher, dripping rags in hand.) I fell into a brief state of depression next. Why bother clean it up? There's just too much water. There's too much to clean. Maybe I'll just go to bed and pretend like I had no idea it was happening.

Eventually I learned to acccept the fact that the dishwasher was exploding. I seemed to jump back into the anger stage: I grabbed my keys in a huff and ran to my car, ignoring the calls from the boys loitering around pool. Walmart in Utah on a Saturday night is a really interesting pace, mostly because it is so crowded. Every Saturday night, everyone comes out of their hobit-holes and gathers at the local Walmart. As I was already angry, this drove me nuts. I swore like a sailor when I dropped the paper towels I was balancing on my knee, enough that everyone around me stopped and looked at me. I was too annoyed to feel embarassment. I used my Frebreeze as a weapon while battling the crowd of 20 someodd teenagers outside of the door. Literally. I sprayed them. I am not proud of this.

When I got back to my apartment, my roommate was standing in the kitchen, laughing so hard she was crying. I had used the wrong soap, which caused the overflow of bubbles and water all around us. She thought it was wildly funny. I, on the other hand, did not, and continued to swear as I started mopping up the soapy, watery mess. I cycled through the stages of grief again, this time mourning my reputation for having any semblance of a brain and the death of my Saturday night.