Awkward Juice

It's natural to find yourself in awkward situations.

Picture this.

I'm in the grocery store with my mother the other night. Those of you who know my mother might have already begun conjuring a preconcieved story in your head involving expired coupons and a bag boy or two.
But fear not, this is one of the few awkward moments in my life where she has not been the main contributer to the situation.

My mission was to pick out some orange juice, which, theoretically should not be that difficult. But it turns out there are about a million different brands and flavors of orange juice (yes, there are different flavors of ORANGE juice) so it was taking longer than I expected.
As I was trying to decide between the pineapple orange Tropicana and the pulp free Simply Orange, I spotted one of the librarians from school coming up the aisle.

We've all been there.

The all too familiar conversation I have in my head when this kind of situation rears its ugly head goes a little something like this:

Do I want to talk to this person, or pretend like I don't see them? I definatley do not want to talk to this person. Okay, how can I get out of this without them seein..OH CRAP WE JUST MADE EYE CONTACT.

There are three main reasons why I did not want to talk to said librarian:

1) I had forgotten her name
2) I owe over five dollars in late fees
3) Our previous conversations typically went as follows:

me- I would like to check out this book please.

her-Okay.

click...click....(thats the computer)

beep....(Thats the checker outer thing that looks like a taser)

her-It's due in two weeks.

me- Thank you!

her-You owe over five dollars in late fees.

me- You have a nice day too!

I typically say that last part as I'm running out the door.

As you can probably guess we ended up talking and it was weird and all I wanted to do was go back home, drink my orange juice and watch Friends reruns.

But as I contemplate this specific episode of uncomfortableness, I wonder if SHE had that same conversation in her head when she spotted me. I mean, librarians are people too, even if they do wear unfortunate sweaters and want to marry Dewey (As in the Dewey Decimal System if you aren't up on your library references).

And if you know me, you know I have quite the intimidating physique, so I could understand if she was threatened meeting me outside of our safely guarded school and in the perilous grocery store.

Either way, I wish I was allergic to awkward situations.

Then I would have a medical excuse to leave.

But then again, whats life without a few moments lacking in dexterity?

Nazarene Squirrel

It's natural to think about the future.

Decisions. That has been the word on every senior’s lips these last couple of months, whether they like the taste or not. We are no longer promised another year safely tucked away in the halls of High School, identification badges around our neck and a hall pass in hand.

This, personally, is fine by me.

Recently, I visited Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee. Being raised Presbyterian, I was unsure to the inner workings of this “cult” called the Nazarenes. Given that we both worship the same God (I think), I decided to give the school a try. I asked God whether or not Trevecca was somewhere I belonged. I figured getting accepted was a good sign.

We arrived at the church early that Saturday morning, and my weariness mixed with the annoying fact that I knew no one beyond my friend Jenna, put me in a mood as we loaded the church vans. I felt very much like Mr. Darcy. Our van contained a variety of characters, and I soon found that I couldn’t keep pretending to sleep. Two guys from Charleston, who referred to themselves as “big daddy” and “big nasty” provided the entertainment during the 8 hour drive. While I contemplated the largeness of these boy’s egos, and unwillingly, the origin behind their nick names, "big daddy" proceeded to inform me that he had a grand total of 10 Brittany’s in his contact list. He then prank called every one of them, pretending to be Radio. As in the movie, Radio.
Inappropriate? Maybe. Entertaining? I’d say so.

This is a public apology for all the Brittany’s of the world.

It was strange being the only non-Nazarene on the trip. I felt like they were all in a club that I just wasn’t apart of, like there was some sort of unspoken bond between all of them.

When we finally arrived in Nashville, we went straight to Trevecca to eat dinner and attend the basketball game. I was excited to finally get out of the van due to the deadly combination of teenage boys and Wendy’s chili. What is it with church vans having no ventilation at all?

As soon as I stepped foot on campus, there was this guy just sitting on a bench playing violin. There was something very beautiful about it. I immediately loved it. The campus was peaceful at night. You could see all of Nashville lit up with lights and the dreams of hopeful musicians. The next day we drove around downtown Nashville looking for Tim and Faith in hopes that they might adopt us.

We stopped at the Parthenon (which is just a replica of the real one in Greece) overlooking this huge park. People were playing music and Frisbee and reading.

It was very much my scene.

To begin our tour, the President told us about his first day at Trevecca. They had planned on placing a huge Jesus statue in the middle of the school, but only the pedestal was done when the president arrived.

Jesus was apparently getting some work done.

That night, some students got together and created a six foot tall paper mache squirrel, and placed it on the pedestal. The squirrel wore a sign around his head that read, “Jesus is coming!”
My next thought was:

Where can I sign up?

More thoughts on college to come.