- no, goo goo dolls, it doesn't make me sad to know that life is more than who we are.
- yes, vanity fair, women are funny too...and i would like to be best friends with tina fey. btw.
- stride, your gum does last too long. sometimes i forget i've been chewing it for like 3 days.
- mom, stop being so fabulous. or at least make me work for it.
- it makes me sad that the only time all of your best friends are in the same room are at your wedding and your funeral. why don't we have "life" parties where all of my friends come from their respective states/countries and we just hang out. i really think you'd all like each other.
- buttons make uber-trendy earrings.
- and i think Thor or Bruce would make amazing names for chihuahuas*.
Ok, so I was talking on the phone today with my bff (Angela) and we were remembering some of life's funniest moments. She reminded me of this one time, at SNU my Sophomore year.
I was in a Reading the Bible as Literature class with Peggy Poteet at 12:00 on MWF, composed of about 20 people. For our final grade we had to meet at her house, and talk about our favorite Bible story from the semester and why it mattered to us. So on a Friday morning during finals week at something like 5am we gathered. It was awkward that we were meeting at the prof's house let alone for a breakfast and care-n'-share with our entire class. Of course no living room outside of maybe Oprah's can hold comfortably 21 students, so here we are with our little paper plates filled to the brim with finger foods (mostly consisting of lil' smokeys but a few baby carrots for good looks), sitting on random chairs from through out the house (dining room, lawn chairs, stools) and each with a plastic cup filled about halfway with some generic brand of orange juice that tastes more like watered down tang.
Seated in a circle, I'm half hoping that as I am seated two down from the professor I will be next to last rather than second out of the gate. I wanted to get a good feel for what everyone else was presenting. As luck would have it Dr. P. decided for counter-clockwise and I had only one individual between myself and what turned out to be complete ridiculousness on my part.
So the first guy takes his turn. Of course he's the most articulate and seemingly intelligent person in the class (maybe even the universe). He goes on and on about alliteration and analogies and dichotomies and Greek and literary technique. It half-sounded like he co-wrote the selection he chose. He ended and received a response just short of a standing ovation (if not for all those little smokeys sitting so sweetly on our laps).
So then, Jessy, would you like to present your favorite story from the semester?
Would I!
I started out strong. I had brought my New Oxford Annotated Bible with me and had marked two different passages I found to go quite well with one another. I flipped to the first, the story of Jacob and Esau reuniting in the Old Testament. I started with "Well, let me just read the passage to you, and then I'll explain..." And then something happened I know not one of those 20 students will ever forget. I got LITERALLY two words into the first sentence of the passage and began to weep. WEEP. Not cry; not sweet droplets of tears streaming down my face; not even a quick "sob-and-quickly-compose-yourself-so-your-passion-is-observed
-but-your-intellect-is-admired"; no, I was in a full on weep. Similar to a reaction after seeing children starve in Africa, or watching Titanic for the first time. My face was so contorted that maybe I had a large invisible man attempting to squeeze every ounce of my facial flesh into a small can used for pickling okra or something. The physical contortion was my bodie's attempt to keep my mouth from making a sound like that coming from the depths of a deep, dark cave in some B horror movie. This is what weeping is like for me: Either physical or vocal ludicrousness. The greatest part is that I could not get my mind off what was making me react so seriously. So it just kept on going.
Meanwhile as I am trying to compose myself, my fellow classmates and professor are all looking at each other in astonishment/confusion/and eventual irritation. I'm sure some of them were wishing I had at least said something compassionate, or sorrowful, or even remotely spiritual, so that they could also tear up and empathize. But I had literally said two words the entire time. So unfortunately, no one knew what was going on. The room was silent, save my occasional attempt to speak the words, "I'm fine..." Which would have probably been humorous had I been able to slip more than "I..i'm FFFFFFFFFffffffff....."
This went on for at least 5 solid minutes. I'm not exaggerating. Please never let someone sit for 5 minutes trying to compose themselves from a fit of weeping. Just shoot them or something...don't let them go on scrunching their face. I stared at a wooden sailboat in a glass bottle set on a table in front of me the entire time, wishing I had some sort of excuse to be so emotional. Like a gushing hole in the side of my head.
So eventually I composed myself. "I'm just going to move onto the next passage," said in a sheepish voice with a hint of laughter (which I'm sure just creeped everyone out more). So I moved to the passage of the prodigal son. One sentence. I got out one sentence before the large gaping hole re-opened in the side of my head. This time I only went on silently weeping for 3 minutes (I'm being literal with the timing).
We had a limit of 10 minutes. So my presentation was over without my having to say anything. I don't really remember the transition used by my prof. to move on to the next person but I'm sure it was something like, "my God...next."
I only had to sit through 19 more discussions, making eye contact with no one and wishing I had chosen something out of Deuteronomy.
