An Ode to Wendy Wittwer Knell 

This will be simple because I have very few words to describe what I feel right now, but I love that woman. It was seeing someone you know well in a new context, where life experience should be separating you, and yet you rediscover that you know and love her for all the reasons you always knew.

And there they were, a newly married couple, so happy, and yet the same people I've known. She's still the same her, just progressed, and David's still the same him, just progressed. And I realized that I miss her. And it was beautiful. 

(So this was not really an ode [noun: a lyric poem usually marked by exaltation of feeling and style, varying length of line, and complexity of stanza form]; but the title just was.)

On Growing Strong

"I can do hard things." I saw that every day for probably a year when I shared a room with Lynn Smart. I didn't realize the power of seeing a printed word consistently. Andrea Bassett told me that she thought of that quote the other day too. We both laughed and said, "that one above Lynn's desk!"

This may sound strange because breakups are hard, but I love what I'm learning from this. I love that it's hard. I love that it hurts. I love that I can see growth in myself. I love that I feel stronger. I love that I lost my phone at the most poignant time and had to grapple (verb: to come to grips with) with everything alone with God. I'm seeing again in myself that I can do hard things. And after this, I will be able to do even harder things.

Logic versus Emotion

Observation #152: It's nice when you make it through phase one of the post-break experience. It's the point where you realize you are going to be fine, and you feel like yourself again. Of course logically you knew all along you'd be fine, but your emotions kept putting your logic in checkmate every other move. 

Initially you think your emotions have nothing on your logic; that's the numb phase right after the break up. You think to yourself, "this is right, and I'm totally fine. I've dealt with this before, and I can do it again." For three or four days, you're fine. Then, bam, the game begins.

Initially your pawns are picked off, then your horse, then—worst of all—your queen. Finally you're down to a mangy (adjective: having many worn or bare spots) team of chess pieces. You're in pretty sad shape. Check. Block. Check. Block. Checkmate? Then you remember the best move—switching the king and the castle. After a small go, game over. Your logic wins, your emotions subside, and you are back.

Truth be told, that move is sincere prayer. I felt His healing power today. The Atonement is real.

Practicality.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm such a realist. And then I remember.

Me: "But, dad, what if I never fall in love?"
Dad: "Then don't get married."

Me: "Mom, there's a huge fire over the ridge that's coming our way. The firefighters can't control it anymore. We're evacuating down to sleep at the chapel!"
Mom: "Okay, well let us know what happens."

Me: "Mom, it hurts so bad. What if I never find someone who has as much charity as Justin?"
Mom: "You probably won't. But maybe you'll find someone else with other qualities."

Me: "Dad, do you have any life advice for me now that I am off my mission?"
Dad: "You have the Spirit. Follow its promptings."

Me: "Mom, Rob and I broke up last week."
Mom: "You always thought that X was a problem, though. Well, this is a change of subject, but my mission companion's sons are moving to Virginia. You should look out for them if you move down there."

It's genetic!
(adj. relating to or determined by the origin, development, or causal antecedents of something)

The Editor Unedited

Truth be told, one of the reasons I don't like writing is that I hate coming back and seeing mistakes I make. So I never publish; I only write, get frustrated about it, and then save drafts. No longer. You are going to get the raw writing. Good thing there are only eight or nine of you.

So there's nothing like a hard time to get you thinking about life again. We need hard times to grow; I need to grow. And it gives me something to blog about! Finally a little fodder—a break up. I feel like I'm thinking in manuscript style of A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. I'm my own subject for observation, and I'm going to blog about it, but don't expect any juicy gossip.

Here's something I've noticed about break-ups: we focus too much on the hard things about breaking up, which are a reality—I hurt; however, I want to focus on some perks for a bit—and there are some perks:

Here's the ultimate perk that I will briefly introduce to you tonight: the I-just-broke-up card. The power of that card is amazing (combine it with the I'm-on-my-period card, and you have it made). I have calculated that for every month of dating, you should get two and a half weeks of post-relationship card use. So that means I get about two and a half months, and I plan to put it to good use.

For example, if my roommates ever ask me to cook asparagus, as they are often wont to do, I can say, "no, probably not; I'm just broken up." And if I make a sad face, there's no way they can make me! And the truth is, it never wears out, even when they know I'm pulling the card. How can anyone with a heart say no to that? I couldn't. 

My roommates tried to put a cap on it already, but I told them that the card's powers are unlimited. They finally conceded (verb: to accept as true, valid, or accurate). (Do you like how I get away with picking out the definitions I want?) You can imagine, this is going to come in pretty handy. K, I'm out. Until next time.

I was meant to be born on a tropical island. I'm searching for a shangri-la (noun: a remote beautiful imaginary place where life approaches perfection).

One thing I've learned about setting goals is when a goal isn't working, revamp it. To add to that, when one goal is getting in the way of another goal, choose to work on the more important one (is that an aphorism?). I realized last night that my blog goal was actually taking away from my study time and sleep, and I didn't even finish the post I wrote! I felt like I was working on an assignment that I was passing in late. Not cathartic and actually counterproductive? Yes.

I haven't given up my goal of memorizing ten words a day, but I'll be remembering them with a different technique. And I'll still be getting up at 6:00 a.m. . . . wish me a good score!

Since I already wrote them out, here are yesterday's words:

1. Paean—(n) a joyful song of triumph, a hymn of praise or tribute
2. Evanescent—(adj) fleeting, tending to vanish; transient
3. Abnegate—(v) to deny oneself, to give up something desired or valuable
4. Imbroglio—(n) confused, complicated situation; entanglement
5. Deleterious—(adj) damaging, hurtful; harmful
6. Aphorism—(n) brief, often witty saying that states a truth
7. Myrmidon—(n) one who follows orders unquestioningly
8. Unctuous—(adj) oily, greasy, false and ingratiating
9. Sedulous—(adj) busy, hardworking
10. Salient—(adj) leaps out at you; conspicuous; sticks out; a salient point

Hi, blog followers! It's been a long time. But since my new GRE goal is to learn ten new words a day for twenty-eight days, could there be a better venue than Mad Libs? I say NO!

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to list my ten words, and then if you see me, you have to use them in conversation with me. And YOU get to see me try to weave these words into a story about my day . . . here it goes.

Here are today's ten:

1. Obdurate—(adj.) stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing, hardened in feeling, resistant to persuasion
2. Perfunctory—(adj.) done in a routine way, indifferent
3. Assuage—(v) to make something unpleasant less severe
4. Mitigate—(v) to soften, to lessen
5. Obsequious—(adj.) too eager to please, overly submissive
6. Attenuate—(v) reduce in force or degree, weaken
7. Propitiate—(v) to conciliate, to appease
8. Obviate—(v) to prevent, to make unnecessary
9. Inimical—(adj.) hostile, unfriendly
10. Intransigent—(adj.) uncompromising, refusing to be reconciled

My day started off with a little surprise. A grandfather of a cricket. He was sooooo large! We've had these obdurate little crickets in our apartment for two summers now—so I'm used to them—but this one actually scared me. He was huge and brown and huge and huge and HUGE!

I generally try to obviate any inimical feelings towards these intransigent critters by showing them the door. But sometimes they're persistent. (Crickets have never had a problem with being obsequious, and they certainly don't propitiate.)

So I may or may not have left the room to prepare a mitigated castigation for the giant creature. You would think that getting rid of crickets would be pretty perfunctory by now, but it's not so easy. Observation quickly shows you they lead happy lives jumping around a room. They love making their cricket noises. And they like living their lives relatively free of problems. Anyway, when I came back to my room, that large exoskeleton was gone! All I can say is I won't attenuate the punishment next time. Nor will I assuage.

Did I use them all? May you appreciate an on-the-spot publish.

Singing the Song of an Unsung Hero

You are about to be introduced to one of my unsung (adjective: not celebrated or praised) heroes, and he, by his request, will remain nameless.

We were eating dinner one night. I think we were at Thai food. I love Thai food. We were chit-chatting, and I remember thinking how neat it was to hear his well-educated opinions; initially he had seemed so rough around the edges. At some point during dinner, we started talking about Colette, a love of my life and my sister. She was coming home from her mission that February. "Why aren't you going home to see her?" Simple question, simple answer. "I just don't have the money." I was broke, which wasn't a problem; it just was what it was, and I had accepted it. He kept shaking his head, telling me how tragic it was I wasn't going home. It was impressively genuine, and it spun my perception of him.

Later that night, I opened my e-mail account and saw an airline ad; it was selling tickets from BWI to MHT. I thought, "Whoa! Technology is so impressive. How does it know that's exactly when I want to go to New Hampshire?!" Then a moment of realization. I looked closer and saw it was a ticket confirmation—my ticket confirmation. He had bought me a ticket home.

Fumbling for my phone, which I can never find in my purses, so ridiculous, I called him and thanked him the best way I knew how. I told him I'd pay him back as soon as I could. He was so embarrassed and a little upset: that wasn't his intention. He explained why it would be wrong if I paid him back. I couldn't argue.

There's a reason why this touches my heart so much: this was true human caring. There were no strings attached; I knew it. What he doesn't realize is that every time I see him, for a split second, I zone out of the lighthearted chit-chat at fhe or the low roar in the cultural hall during munch-and-mingle, and I experience a quiet respect for a man I consider a true gentleman.

To distract from the drama of the last post, I'm fessing (intransitive verb: to own up : confess—usually used with up) this up:

http://www.politicsunder30.org/2009/featured/what-not-to-write

Today in an Equation:

Misplaced Phone + Date Tonight = Ultimate Awkward (adjective: not easy to handle or deal with : requiring great skill, ingenuity, or care)

Blamed

Weepuls, rain, crickets, my roommate's secret admirer, and Flight of the Concords. I blame these items/H2O cycles/leaping orthopteran insects/people for my current state of insomnia and lack of sleep. Now, it's not continual (adjective: recurring in steady usually rapid succession [not to be confused with continuous]), thank goodness. I don't think I could survive. But next time I am tempted to prove to my roommate that there are such things as weepuls and that they really were super cool for school, I won't do it at 1:00 a.m.—hopefully.

Why I Live in the Coolest Apartment Ever:

1. I live with nerds and love it! I just had a discussion with my roommate about Machiavelli, Machiavelli! (biographical name: Niccolò 1469–1527 Italian politician philosopher). Did this day really happen? Wow. I'm so happy right now. I LOVED studying Machiavelli in high school, although I completely disagree with his philosophies. I about died when he showed up on an episode of the Simpsons because I was so excited.
   

The question he poses in The Prince is, "Is it better to be loved than feared?" He concludes that it's better to be feared. People will more readily fight for you if they fear you than if they love you. But is that really so? Food for thought.

As you can tell, I am also a nerd.

You Are Wrong.

If I had a dollar for every time I was told I was happy, I, well, wouldn't be rich—that'd be a gross overexaggeration—but if I invested that money in some sweet-action stocks and bonds, I would be wealthy. Well, I'm not always clouds and butterflies. I do have a list, and I'm going to share some of it with you—except for number one, which if you can guess, I will tell you, but I won't volunteer it. Things that annoy/scare me: listed as follows.

• Hair. When it's in food, it makes me gag. Yes, full on dry heave. I can't control it. Connection: tramatic experience in first grade.
• Bikers: When they get too close to me on the side walk, and they're going too fast (anything over two miles an hour), I panic. My heart beats an extra twenty-five beats per minute. Connection: bike accident.
• Big Dogs: When they run at me, it scares me, and I'm grossed out when they lick me on my face, hand, arm, leg, or foot. Connection: bitten by a dog when I was five.
• Vine-Dresser's Son Syndrome: If you're not going to do it, don't tell me you will, unless you have a really good excuse—in which case, I will gladly excuse you. Bottom line: Don't say you're going to do it if you're not. Connection: generally revolves around boys I like. Nothing kills interest faster.
• Cat Haters: Yes, people who hate cats. You know who you are. Why you hate these cute, beautiful, elegant creatures is beyond me. The only thing I don't like about them is they make me sneeze. Connection: 'nough said.
• Being Late: I know you would never guess that, and you are thinking to yourself, "if she hates being late, why is she always late?" Numbers are not my friends, people. Connection: a frustrating daily occurrence. I'm done with trying to find connections to these points.
• My Memory: I have the worst memory of anyone I know. Don't worry that one time I was introducing one of my guy friends—who I had known for three years—I completely forgot his name, and he noticed. What's more embarrassing than that? It will make me feel better if you can come up with something.
• Being Cold: I don't know how this made it to the end of the list, but it's the worst thing I can experience. When it's coupled with being tired and cold, it's even worse. Please never see me in this state. I guess there are times, though, when I'm fine with it, like the polar bear plunge or water skiing in forty degree water. I only did these activities because they were so random; how could I not?
  

Okay, that's good enough for now. And actually, I didn't really like writing that list. I need some counteraction (noun: to make ineffective or restrain or neutralize the usually ill effects of by means of an opposite force, action, or influence). Here's a little bit of the happy list, and you'll have to do without explanations.

• I love silent dance parties! They are my new favorite thing. Nothing is more hilarious than my roommate calling for a silent dance party when my other roommate is sleeping and we can't make noise. I have never seen, experienced, nor created crazier dance moves. So random, so spontaneous, and so fun. You should try it.
• Small planes flying overhead have got to be one of my favorite things ever. I can't help but relax when I hear them.
• Cut grass in the spring. Summer's coming! Summer's coming!
• My roommates' hilarious banter and esoteric references to works of art. When else in my life have I ever heard someone run down a hall to open the door while quoting great poetry of the eighteenth century?
• Daydreaming about traveling. My heart, and I'm not joking about this, skips beats, and, when I'm really excited, I can't breath at times. Isn't that what love's supposed to be like? Sometimes I feel like that song "Brandi, you're a fine girl." I'm trying, relatively, to get over it. I think there's a reason why I don't have money: I'd never settle down.
  

Now, I've been called a lot of things in my life,
but this is a new one.

I should start using it as my alias (noun: an assumed or additional name).

A Haiku (noun: an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively)

Mr. Cricket:

Outside my window
Normally pacifying—
Tossing: 4 a.m.

Life Update:

• Enjoying two fantastic sisters, both born this month
• Studying for the GRE
• Amazed
  
• Grateful to have three great roommates; each is an inspiration
• Starting a side business
• Overcommitted (transitive verb: to commit excessively)
• Alive
  
• Experiencing crazy situations
• Gearing up for the Baltimore Marathon
• Seeing my lack
• Thankful that God has patience
• Overjoyed for friends receiving the best of blessings
• Absorb-ing

Ahem . . . ahhhemmmmm . . . is this mic on? Whoa, those lights are bright. Good thing there aren't many people out there, or I'd be nervous.

I, Ginette Methot, would like to announce that I am fully employed, as of today; miracles have not ceased; and (do you ever run out of things to write in a parallel structure and feel obligated to come up with another statement?) let's leave it at that.

Sincerely,
me

Addendum (noun: a thing added) to the last blog:

July 12: Focused, faithful, planned fast (after last week's success, I thought I'd try it again.)

July 13: Full-time employment with AACAP

Jan. 4: Moved to DC in search of employment

Jan. 4–July 5: Conglomerated, about 30 days of full-time work

June 15 (approx): Interview #1 with Chevron lobbying

July 5: Earnest, specific fast (noun: the practice of fasting) for work

July 6: Interview #2 with George Washington University

July 7: Interview #3 with the Becket Fund

July 9: Interview #4 with the Heritage Foundation

July 10: Short-term work offer with past employer, until full-time job—potential personal financial crisis abated

I've always believed in fasting and prayer. My belief is stronger now.

Mom, I'm nervous about growing up. What if when I'm an adult, I don't know how to pay insurance or buy a house or make car payments or pay taxes, or what if there are things I don't know that I don't know, and I need to know them?

Ginette, you'll figure it out. Don't worry about it.

Are you sure? It seems like there's so much to being an adult. I don't want to grow up.


Dear Seventeen-year-old Ginette,

Being an adult is aWeSOme. Remember that one time you didn't want to be an adult? Well, being autonomous (adjective: existing or capable of existing independently) is great. You won't want anyone else to pay your bills, pay your telephone bills, or pay your automo-bills. There's just something so rewarding in taking care of yourself. And since this is a retroactive message, I'd just like to add a couple, okay a few, suggestions right on in here for next year . . .

• Don't take seventeen credits your first semester of college and work a job and try to date someone. Seriously, play more!
• That first trip to Vegas, try to get some sleep--otherwise you will sleep through the Relief Society meeting you're supposed to conduct in church and feel super guilty about it for a long time, but at least you'll never do it again.
• Call Colette, and keep commitments to Vincent and Chantal.
  
• Maybe you should add an ice cream scoop to that wall; everyone finds out anyway.
• Be excited to ask Scott and Ryan to the freshman dance because you and Liz come up with a sAweeet way to ask.
• Do enjoy Alisa's Zelda calls. Hilarious.
• Don't save your Dining Plus money to buy kitchen supplies. Eventually, you inherit a bunch anyway.
• Get a planner; your memory doesn't get any better.
  
• You might not like country music now, but there will be a few songs you end up liking; be okay with it.
• Get to know everyone. There are some fabulous people from your freshman year that you will keep on bumping into, and you'll wonder why you didn't know them then.
• Don't invite Hans to play spoons. The poor guy will have to redshirt his freshman season after he breaks his arm in a vicious entanglement over the last spoon.
• Switch from archeology to socioculture or sociology. Indiana Jones' life is way more exciting than the real thing. (But still take Anthro 101; you get to take an incredible camping/road trip with your class.)
  
• LOVE Kent's rendition of the velociraptor in the Cannon Center right before you leave for Christmas break. It's AMAZING! Seriously, you will remember it for years to come, and it will make you laugh.
• Meet up with everyone for devotional, and do not miss the modern dance one. Oh man, you will be able to identify with Zoobies on that one for years to come. The flailing arms will never be forgotten.
• Spend more time with Janelle Kisby. She won't be a Kisby for long.
  
• Get to know Lynn Smart better your first year of college. Geesh, she's super cool.
• And as for becoming more adult-like (I feel obligated to offer this in light of the purpose of this blog), I suggest you study harder for American Heritage, try to be better about your sleep patterns, and, seriously, use the planner.
  

Always,
Your older (and hopefully wiser) self