Remember That Time You Lit Yourself On Fire?

It happens around my birthday, and it’s protested by the on-campus Feminists: WooFest. When the freshmen and sophomore guys attempt to get the most votes through song and dance, I know I’ll be in for a hilarious evening. But I’ll never forget my first WooFest, which turned into trouble.

It was my freshman year at Vanguard, and my friend and I forced my roommate to dress up and go with us to NMC’s sanctuary for WooFest, where there were flowers and pretty lights and nicely-dressed escorts offering flowers to everyone. Oh, and something else: there were candles.

I really like candles, I honestly do, but I was very distracted, walking the pathway to the door with my escort and holding a flower. I would never intentionally destroy a candle, unless there was some sort of weird emergency or it smelled unbearably awful. But that night I was so distracted that I didn’t see the candles lighting our path until I stepped in one.

Wax dripped, hot and painful, on my leg and in my sandals, down to my feet.

“Aughhh!” I screamed and looked down. Candle residue, sloppy and smoky, was the only thing left in the path. The pathway looked like this: nice candle, nice candle, gross mess, nice candle, sanctuary door. I was terrified.

My escort, observing my hopping around and panicking, said “Be careful of the candles.” My friends, smiling from the other line, told me to watch out for those candles! No kidding.

I stumbled over to the door and then limped to my seat with my friends. I looked at my leg helplessly. It might as well have been on fire. Amidst my friends’ “how-did-that-even-happen” and “this-could-only-have-happened-to-you,” I looked for something with an edge to help me get the wax off, since it was still painful to the touch. All I had with me was the rose, given to every girl by her escort. I seized it firmly by the stem and used the end of the stem to scrape the wax off.

It didn’t work.

The wax was still not entirely dry. I scraped harder and only succeeded in breaking my poor rose. I again tried to remove the wax with my hands, burning my fingers.

By then, WooFest itself was getting ready to start. The lights were dimming and second floor was beginning their performance. After watching it, I turned back to my wax delimma with limited success.

I spent the rest of the evening, in between watching the different acts, picking wax off my leg and shoe. Some of it I couldn’t get off, and I later endured a painful shower to remove all the wax that dried and was firmly attached to my calf.

Other than that, it was quite a fun evening. Now I know what it feels like to be set on fire, only the whole thing happened because I often forget to look where I’m going.

Puzzle

Despite being fully capable of performing such academic tasks as writing an in-depth literary analysis in Spanish, I was almost run over by a car in a parking lot because I got excited about my new Post-it note tabs. I didn’t even see it coming because of my all-consuming enthusiasm for office supplies. This worries me.

Whether I’m forgetting to turn off appliances or completely missing your point because you said something minor that caught my attention, I have become increasingly aware that while I do well in school, practical, everyday life is difficult for me.

Even the simple things, like remembering to watch where I’m going and not step on a lit candle, covering my foot, ankle, and shoes in hot dripping wax, take lots of effort for me to remember.

It’s quite confusing, really. On the one hand, I remember how to perform gel electrophoresis on sample DNA, determining its mutations and genetic code, yet I got the question wrong about what happens to sugar when you put it in water.

This has been a common theme throughout my life—I’m wondering why everyday mundane tasks become nearly insurmountable obstacles for me. I have to try so. hard. to remember to pay attention to where I’m going so I don’t run into people or things, or so I don’t get run over. To remember to look for things in obvious places first, so I don’t spend all day trying to find what’s been right in front of me all along.

But I want to be one of those people that can do daily things, one who remembers little details and doesn’t get so caught up in unusual tasks, such as my ongoing battle with a yarn sculpture/mass, that it seems a wonder she can get dressed in the mornings.

Me vs. Scrug

So, it started out simply enough: another new hobby.

The only consistent non-academic interests I have are: running, piano, ukulele, guitar and swing dancing, which I consider more than mere hobbies, but as integral parts of who I am, of my creative identity.

Anyway. My other hobbies change constantly, with no discernible pattern. One day, I decided I simply must be good at planning parties. Ashley and I had decided to have a Pumpkin Patch Party, and I was going to pour my heart and soul into making it unforgettable. Two weeks later, after the party, I had another hobby: our secret writing project, which is still in process.

But off and on, knitting comes into my life. Things were off to a great start: After my friend knitted me a scarf, I decided that knitting would be my new hobby. It looked fun. Which it is. But I’m terrible at it.

I went to Michael’s, where I bought a book about How to Knit. I bought a couple different-sized knitting needles. I bought yarn, which I now recognize as terrible quality. I was all set.

I went home and I read the book. My friend showed me how to knit. I told her I was making a small rug. I knitted fervently. I knitted furiously. I sat myself down and I just knitted and knitted. Pretty soon, I had what looked suspiciously like a scarf.

“I thought you were making a rug?” My mom asked me.

I looked at my deformed scarf, which looked appropriate for someone with the neck of a giraffe, only three times as wide.

I wanted my knitting to be functional, but no. So I started over.

I knitted off and on. Went to Vanguard. Brought my knitting. Freshman year, it turned into an outrageously disproportionate rug, which I tried hurriedly to fix.

Sophomore year came, and I now had a neither a scarf nor a rug nor a scrug. What I held in my hands, the product of several years’ labor, was . . .

A giant mass of yarn. Twisted. Knotted. Hideous. Incapable of practical purpose. A green yarn mass, a blob.

That’s all it was. Heartbroken, I unraveled the whole thing. By this time, I got Ashley to show me how, and she looked at my yarn in despair, shaking her head.

“Chelsea, what have you done?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to knit. I want to be someone who can knit.” I told her as I held the yarn mass at arm’s length, as if it might come alive to bite me any second.

She took the knitting from me, unraveled it, and started it over.

“Here. Try again.”

So, a year later, it still looks completely unrecognizable as a scrug or anything functional, but my goodness, I’m going to get it right one of these days.

I’m sure of it. It shouldn't take someone five years to knit a simple scarf and/or rug!

Autumn > Winter, Summer, and Spring

I've begun using mathematical equations to describe my feelings.

Even though autumn here isn't the best geographically speaking, it will always be my favorite season.

For me, this autumn is great because:

Guitar + Piano + Ukulele = Happiness

NaNoWriMo is going well, and my birthday is coming up!

I've been going to a lot of Goodbye Luna concerts.

Swing dancing!

My schedule for next semester is perfect.

Ashley and I have a special writing project going.

I love my jr high group.



God is so good to me. And so very faithful.

Creative Writing Blog

So, I made a different blog just for creative writing. It's exciting, really.

rewrittenword.tumblr.com

:o)

I'm Sorry, but I Don't Have Elbows, Either

This person clearly has kneecaps*

“I don’t even have any kneecaps, so I really need you to give me $150.”

“Oh. Um . . .” The woman at Starbucks got uncomfortably close to me. Like an inch away from my face.

“I thought, since I saw you wearing that cross necklace, you would help me.” She was walking surprisingly well for someone without kneecaps.

“Well . . .” What could I do? I wasn’t about to give her money, but not because I am heartlessly cruel. This woman needed something else more than she needed my money for allegedly nonexistent kneecaps.

I looked down at my green cross necklace. It was my favorite, and it had gotten me into this. I was also in a hurry, as I was supposed to be meeting someone.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but I don’t have $150. If you want to, we can pray together. Do you know Jes—”

“—Yes, we will pray together.” She interrupts me quickly. “If I’ve ever done anything wrong, I’m sorry for it.” Grabbing me by the hand, the woman led me to the bench beside Starbucks, where I prayed softly over her.

[It was far more awkward than practicing my Spanish by having accurate yet agonizingly slow conversations with native speakers, where it takes me a million years to say one paragraph because I am so fearful of incorrect verb conjugation. Yes, I am even a stickler for Spanish grammar.]

Immediately afterward, the woman invaded another customer’s personal space with talk of her missing kneecaps, her commanding presence startling the unsuspecting man. So it may not have been profoundly life-changing, but perhaps something stuck. Who knows? This woman has been in my prayers.


*Photocred:http://www.indiamart.com/company/1488707/rehabilitation-aids.html

Just a Little Higher . . . 2,425 Feet Higher, to be Exact

I rarely post serious personal experiences, since those seem more like they belong in a journal rather than a blog. However, below is what happened to me at camp. Skip this post if you want to read higher-quality writing.

Do you know what it took to make me a different person?

Did a life-changing mountaintop summer camp experience come strictly through opening my mosquito-bitten arms to a few hundred children?

No.

Through learning to be a lumberjack? Tree chopping, wood chipping, yelling “Timber!”, or laying a phone line?

No.

It came through the days when no children were at camp, through hours of sitting on a stump amidst a broken pile of trees with nothing but God and His Word. Flipping through pages with dry hands, reading them with wet, weary eyes, and pouring out my heart—straight from chapped lips to an Almighty God.
And it came through having Him answer me. He answered me from a point beyond confession, when my English-major mind could think of no more words.

Change comes from asking God to do whatever it takes, whatever He needs to, to make you into the person He wants you to be.

At camp, I did many things I’m too intimidated to do, like jump off a 40 foot ledge attached to a tree on a zip line. Like going swimming 2,425 feet in the air in the pools of a waterfall in Yosemite. Like being a stand-in mother to several girls a week, 24 hours a day, getting up at 5:30 a.m. and cleaning for hours on end.

I listened to people’s life stories and hold their secrets. I listened to the kinds of things that no one would ever admit, except to an understanding listener with whom they are watching the stars until 4 in the morning. People will say a lot of things when you’re alone with them on top of a mountain.
In return, I told people some of my secrets.

Even here at school this year, I'm doing stuff that would normally scare me, like being president of things and speaking to groups of people.

There is nothing more freeing than doing things you’ve never done before--maybe things that scare you to death--if God is with you.