conta–whaat?? part 2

So I got contacts on Wednesday. Weird. Seriously, they’re really weird. I’m getting more used to them now, but it’s still weird putting them in and taking them out. I thought yesterday there was something seriously wrong with the prescription in my right eye, but I put the contact back in the cleaner and it was fine—I’d probably just smudged it with finger oils or something. The optometrist still thinks I’m weird because it’s such a weak prescription, but it is nice to be able to see street signs. And I think it’ll get better when I’m more used to them. Right now I kind of get a headache if I stare too hard at something. Well, if they still bother me after a couple of weeks I’ll figure I’m not meant for contacts. I guess we’ll see! The adventures continue…

some happy things

Number one: It turns out I like running! I have always loathed running, but if I have a buddy and we take it slow and chat while we’re at it, I can actually do it and enjoy it at the same time! What’s more, I can do about two miles if I pace myself. Now that’s something. I haven’t even run a mile since we were required to do it in high school. Now if I could just keep up the running when I’m actually in school (time-management has always been a problem, and I don’t do well with cold air in the winter months), I’d be set. And, frankly, this is more about keeping my heart healthy than anything. I do not exercise for vanity (okay, I admit, the hardening muscles in my legs are a perk!).

Number two: I started riding my bike to work again! The air has been much better for some time now, but I was already in the habit of driving and suddenly I couldn’t be ready early enough to ride my bike. But now my parents are back in town and I have to actually juggle for a car again, and the weather has been so nice, and so I decided it was time. Oh, it feels good. I’ll have to go to the library soon (I think I have an overdue DVD, while I’m at it).

Number three: I finally went to the yarn shop in Campbell! A boy in my ward, Kaden (he’s about 10 but I’m not really sure), likes to knit too, so I took him to Green Planet Yarn in Campbell. And we had a blast. I had known for a few years that there is a yarn shop in Campbell where you can go and sit and knit, and I’ve always wanted to go. I’m so glad I finally did. Now it turns out that Green Planet has only been there about three months, and it was another yarn shop that used to be on the same street, that closed some months ago. But that’s all right. I got to know the owner and some of the regulars, and OH MY GOSH they have the most scrumptious yarns. That’s right, scrumptious. Kaden bought some beautiful silk yarn and I got some delicious Inca cotton from Peru. I’ve already started what is going to be a beee-utiful cable-knit scarf for myself (that’s right, finally something for myself). It was so much fun. I went back today and hung out for a little while too. They know me now.

Number four: I can knit hats! I finished that checkerboard scarf and promptly gave it to my best friend as an early birthday present. So I was itching for a new project. Laurie Perry gives great easy instructions for a simple rollbrim hat in her book Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair, so I rode my bike to Michaels after work yesterday and bought some circular knitting needles and some double-ended needles. Perry recommends starting with the circular, and then when you have to decrease the stitches to come to the top of the head, switching to the double-ended. Well the circular ended up being the wrong length, so I just started with the double-ended (they let you knit in a circle by knitting from one needle to the next), and it’s actually not too bad! And today one of my new chums at the yarn shop showed me something called “magic loop” where you can pretend to shorten the cable on the circular needles. Anyways, I’m excited! I went to downtown San Jose today to have lunch with my dad, and I had pulled out the hat I was working on, and the Italian waitress got all excited because she didn’t know that Americans could knit. Haha

So yeah, life is good.

conta–whaat??

In the seemingly endless chain of medical-type updates I’ve been doing to prepare myself to go away for a year and a half, today I picked up my new retainer and had an eye exam.

I didn’t need a new retainer through any direct carelessness of my own. The old one is in perfectly good repair and is still in my possession. But it no longer fits my mouth. Two root canals (and thus two crowns–two completely new teeth in your mouth) will do that to you. That’s right, in the past four years since I got my braces off and got my first retainer, I have had two root canals. Sheesh. Well after the first crown I could somewhat fake it with my retainer but after two crowns I had to throw in the towel and realize that the inside of my mouth just has a completely different terrain now. Goodbye, two hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Then I drove straight to an opthamologist’s to have an eye exam. I got my first pair of glasses two and a half years ago, and they’re just not quite doing it for me anymore. My eyes are pretty good—I can survive without glasses if I have to—but, being an English major who also likes movies and detail-oriented hobbies, it’s nice to be able to see things clearly. In my previous editing job at school I spent hours staring at text on a computer screen. Then for homework I would spend hours staring at printed words in a book. Etc etc. So I thought that, since it’s been a few years since my last prescription, and I’m going away for a year and a half, and my medical insurance will expire before I get back, I thought the eye exam would be a good idea. I went to a new doctor, and he was really nice (and cute. Seriously, they shouldn’t let good-looking people become doctors. Seriously. It’s too distracting.), but he and his assistant seemed surprised that (1) I had glasses at all and (2) I thought they weren’t good enough. I guess it’s a weak-sauce prescription to begin with, and only my left eye has changed since then, a teeny-weeny bit. I felt like an idiot. I’m not a hypochondriac, I swear! I know I can see the tiny letters, if I squint and kinda tilt my head, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to read them all the time like I have to do every day. So anyway, he wrote a new prescription and told me that any action was my choice.

But here’s something new: apparently I’m eligible for contacts. He said that since I just want to be more comfortable seeing what I can already see pretty well, contacts would be a good idea, since instead of sitting a ways away from my eyes, they would rest right on the cornea and, essentially, change its shape (the shape being the problem in the first place—I have an astigmatism). Weird! Contacts have always scared me—touching my eyeball is just kinda gross! Which seems kinda inconsistent for me, since my favorite exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco was the one where they dissect a cow eye in front of everyone every half-hour. But then I thought about it there in the doctor’s office, and I realized that contacts really don’t seem so creepy as they used to. I even took out my roommate’s contacts for her once a couple months ago, as a joke, and it didn’t bother me. This is one of those moments where it’s like, pshh, what was I afraid of?? It’s strange what walls fall down for us when we look past them to something more important.

Well, they’re ordering me a trial pair just to see if I like them. Then we’ll see.

mission thoughts

Well my mission papers are in. In about two weeks, I’ll know where I’m going and when. It’s all vaguely surreal. My papers had been put off for so long, mostly because of health issues, that the prospect of a mission seemed to get further and further away. And now they’re in. They’re done. They’re one hundred percent, totally and completely off my hands. And now all I can do is pray.

People keep asking me where I want to go. I always thought that having a place I want to go is rather ridiculous, because in all the returned missionaries I’ve spoken to, that seems to have a reverse effect, if any, on their mission call. One friend didn’t want to go anywhere cold, and she went to Sweden. One friend said the only place he didn’t want to go was Salt Lake City, and that’s where he was called. I heard of one guy who figured he’d go somewhere Spanish-speaking, because of the plethora of rapidly-growing missions in South America, so he studied Spanish and went on splits with Spanish-speaking missionaries until he was pretty dang fluent in Spanish, and in missionary Spanish to boot. He went to Finland. Even your language study doesn’t always determine where you’ll go. There is a flip side to this coin, however. While in Finland he met a man from South America who only spoke Spanish, and was able to teach him the first lesson. I’ve been studying Swedish at BYU, and have gotten fairly proficient at it. So a lot of people say I’m going to go to Sweden. But every classmate I’ve had in my Swedish classes wanted to go to Sweden, and none of them has. One went to Finland, another to Washington, D.C., another to Hungary (or so I heard), and so on. So I don’t see Sweden being particularly likely. I do, however, believe that wherever I go, something I have learned from taking Swedish–be it the language itself or just some obscure interest I’ve developed as a result–will come in handy in teaching or serving someone, or just brightening someone’s day. I firmly believe that. And while it is my dream to go to Sweden someday, it’s okay if I don’t go there on my mission, because no matter what I’ll go there eventually.

My philosophy has been to not have a place where I don’t want to go, because I would just end up cursing myself as they say. Granted, somewhere in Utah or Idaho might be kind of disappointing, but I know that I would learn to love it. The only places I’ve ever gone that I truly, honestly didn’t like were New York City (Times Square) and Logan, Utah. Both places were smelly. But I’m sure I could even get used to either place if that was where the Lord needed me to be. And really, no offense if you’re from either of those places. I just wasn’t there long enough to get over my first impression. And I don’t believe much in first impressions. You almost always end up learning something about a person or place that makes you understand them so much better and makes you wonder why you ever looked at them askance.

One last thought (and kind of a change of subject) on my mission before I sign off here. This past week I’ve been staying up heinously late every night, not really making up for it during the day, and eating nothing but junk. And it occurred to me today (halfway through the Gilroy Garlic Festival, by the way–but don’t worry, it didn’t ruin my fun ) that if I’m going to be healthy on my mission (because there’s no guaranteeing that my health problems won’t pop up again like daisies), I need to start taking better care of myself now. Junk food is fun every once in a while as a treat, but it certainly shouldn’t be a staple. And, as a previous sufferer of mono, I need my sleep. The easiest way to do that (other than quitting my semi-lucrative job) is to live more moderately and go to bed a little earlier. And hopefully exercise should come into the picture. I’ve never been a health nut, for heaven’s sake, but I’m starting to learn the hard way how to recognize when my body needs more than I’ve been giving it. I could of course just keep praying that I’ll be healthy enough to go, but, as a picture that hung on my grandfather’s office wall for years says:

Just sittin’ and wishin’
won’t change your fate.
The Lord provides the fishin’
but you have to dig the bait.