The Princess in the Castle

This past weekend was Spring Retreat for one Mickeyla & I.

Retreats are always interesting, in that you get to learn so much and hang out with your class, goof off late into the night and wake up with the sun to avoid dealing with foggy mirrors and puddly sink areas in the communal bathrooms.

The joys of below 40 {possibly 30} degree temperatures in SoCal and ants the size of roly-polies, snow late at night that doesn't stick and is gone by morning, scalding hot chocolate in small styrofoam cups and Costco muffins for breakfast.

Me, actually. Someone else's camera, though.

The number of cameras attempting to capture every photographable moment was amazing to see. I've learned over the years that there is really no point in me trying to do that since there's always someone who's got the shot. And especially since I don't have a fancy-schmancy camera, they probably got a clearer, brighter, more beautiful shot than I could've caught with my trusty, little camera.

---

Bananagrams done right.

One of the things I learned this particular Spring Retreat that I just had to share has to do with guy-girl relations, specifically all this secret vocabulary that the guys in GOC have that the girls aren't aware of at all. See if you can follow this analogy.


"There's a princess in a fortress. The princess obviously stands for the girl of interest, the fortress is any and all obstacles that either she puts in the way or that just happen to be issues that need addressing before the guy can get the girl. There are four ways to get to her: using a battering ram, digging a moat with a spoon, being a ninja, or posing as a violin teacher. 

The Battering Ram is obvious in his intentions. You can spot him a mile away and everyone knows that he's interested. He's relentless and persistent and eventually gets past all obstacles to get the girl.

The Spoon-Digger is much more subtle, taking his time and carefully and methodically wearing away at the obstacles in his path. He's intentional and quietly gets past her defenses without her knowing that's what he's even doing.

The Ninja appears out of nowhere, vaulting over the walls and surprising everyone. Basically, if she asks 'Who are you?'-- this can work out for some though, as can be seen by those couples whom you never saw coming {Who got together? I didn't even know they knew each other... *O.o*}.

The Violin Teacher is someone who was invited in-- never having to deal with the obstacles that kept out others. She's unsuspecting until one day, she realizes she really likes him. This could be that guy the girl never considers as possible significant-other-material, until she suddenly does."


These categories aren't exclusive and possibly not all the methods that could be used, but these are the ones that the GOC guys use and keep secret from the girls. A perk of being friends with a lot of guys is that, at some point, someone will explain all this secret lingo to me. *grins* And goodness, is it hilarious.

Relevant fact about me: 


Way, way more excited for berry season starting than the semester ending.

zomg. 


The disappointing thing about berries in New York is that most of them get shipped in from California anyways, so they have that shipped-across-the-nation taste and the carbon guilt is kind of overbearing. (As a general rule, fruit-and-other-things-that-bruise (namely, tomatoes) are shipped green/relatively unripe to prevent bruising, then gassed with ethylene to force ripeness. That's why most supermarket fruits-and-such, especially out of season ones that are shipped in from somewhere else, taste like wax. They're not naturally ripened. Eat fruit in season, kids! It tastes better and it's better for the earth.)


BUT. I am home for two weeks and a half weeks. I am back in the land of sun-ripened berries and eternal sunshine, and sometimes (especially in December, when its' sub-freezing in Ithaca and California is a balmy 65 °F) I question why I left. 


There are a lot of little things that are different on the East Coast. I probably don't have the best sample size of experiences either, since the people (college students) I interact with tend to be from all over the place anyways. But there's definitely a pervasive culture that I've picked up. I guess the easiest way to describe it is that people on the East Coast take themselves more seriously. Not in a necessarily bad or good way, just in a different way. You know how there's a lot of weird in NorCal? Maybe a dude with electric blue hair, or the guy on a Segway, hordes of hipster kids who dropped out of college to do their own social media Web 2.0 startup? Not so much in New York. And it sort of goes without saying that the chill sun-and-surf attitude of SoCal is out of the question when you can only get away with wearing Rainbows a third of the year. People in California can get away with being irreverent. I mean, that attitude practically defines Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Do stuff. Do it differently. People on the East Coast seem to feel like they're part of some sort of legacy that they can't break. 


Anyways. Hi. I'm going to say other things in the future, hopefully more fun and less serious than I just did in this post, and probably involving food.


Right. Catch you...later. 


[Jim Moriarty singsong: No you won't!]


-Deborah

Birthday Reflections: Twenty-One is Plenty-Fun

The friend-of-the-feminine-persuasion gave me googly eyes for my birthday, among other things.

I turned tventy-one (gasp!) last week, but I haven't had much time to document the events. I probably won't put everything here, to preserve the mystery and to prevent boredom, so here goes:

I spent the day before my birthday hanging out with my brother, who drove down from the Irvine area to celebrate. We spent the time:

• Introducing him to the friend-that's-a-girl, whom he had yet to meet.
• Applying seven dollars worth of those non-permanent tattoos you get for kids for their birthday party. We went to Walmart and picked up a box of "girl rocker" tattoos. About three square-feet worth of butterflies, hearts, and little stylized monikers like "Punk Rocker Chick." Managed to cover a large swath of my back and both arms from shoulder to wrist.
• Having dinner and fruitful conversation about life and the church.

Then I got kidnapped.

A few tips on getting kidnapped:

• If your significant other calls you at any time near your birthday and asks to be walked home, your Spidey-senses should be tingling. On the other hand, you're a jerk if you say no. Proceed with caution.
• Expect to be tackled. The trick is to try to land as flat as possible--if you extend your arms to brace yourself, you have high odds of breaking your wrists.
• When they tie your wrists, tighten your muscles and turn your wrists so that your thumbs are against each other. Afterwards, you can relax your muscles and rotate your hands palm-to-palm to prevent rope chafing and create slack to escape (not that you should try to escape, but when they finally deliver you to the target location and everyone yells "Surprise!" you can slip your bonds effortlessly, thus impressing the ladies.).
• Struggle enough so that your friends have fun...and don't suspect that you are simply biding your time until your daring escape.

Had my first beer ever while watching Aladdin. Personally, I'm still partial to milk tea, but maybe it's just a matter of time?

Spent the rest of the evening scrubbing vainly at my arms, because I realized I was going to be serving on worship team in front of the entire church the next morning. Tip: if you're going to apply loads of tattoos, don't put them anywhere where you have significant amounts of hair. I think my arms are far less hirsute than they were two weeks ago.

Sunday evening I was taken to a classy bar to continue exploring the wonders of alcohol. If you ever go drinking with people, choose people who

1. you trust to care for your well-being, and
2. are good conversationalists. I'm pretty sure the majority of the fun comes from having deep and revealing talks with people who usually have more inhibitions.

Also, don't do anything stupid with your phone while inebriated, even if only mildly.

Ended the evening when the lady friend sent me a package--a shoebox containing

• three kinds of tape
• wooden skewers
• paper clips
• a ball of string
• post-its
• two kinds of markers
• 75 self-adhesive googly eyes
• Band-aids (for me)
• a note

All in all, probably one of the best birthdays to date.

(Other swag included:

•  A real man-wallet from my parents. Leather. Manly-looking. Also full of money and thoughtful notes from Mom, Dad, and the little sister.
• Shadow of the Almighty, by Elisabeth Elliot. A biography of Jim Elliot. About one-third through so far--it's very good.
• Android Karenina from SamJ (of this blog!). My bookshelf is now 3% classier.
• Boba from Tea Station.)

[insert pithy statement about life here]