My trip up north with the talkative one

Today my class, plus others from the Hospitality major and our professors, drove up to Salt Lake to tour the Salt Palace Convention Center and the SLC Marriott Downtown. Of course, in order to make our 10:30am meeting time, we needed to leave Cedar at 6:30 AM. I got up at 5 so that I had time to get ready and clear the snow off my car (there was a lot! It snowed ALL day yesterday!) and still be on time. I arrived at the school parking lot with plenty of time to spare and proceeded to freeze with the other students while we waited for Prof. Steed and the other drivers to turn up with the vans. They finally came and we all piled in. I some how managed to find myself the only girl in my van of five. I didn't plan it, I didn't even want it cuz two of the guys were Asian, the other I didn't know and he wasn't very cute, and the driver was some old guy I had never seen before. But I stayed put - mostly because I had the back row all to myself - and waited to see what kind of a trip this would turn out to be.

The driver climbed in, introduced himself as Jeff Fisher, and told us that he was someone we wanted to know because he could help us get a job. I took note of that very intriguing fact - I'm always on the look out for a job - and since Jeff seemed nice enough, I decided that I could enjoy this trip. Then the trip began and I started to question my first assumption. Turns out that while Jeff is a very nice guy, he is also VERY talkative. And to someone who is not a morning person and who had to wake up incredibly early, it was too much for me to handle. So after maybe half an hour, I grabbed the pillow and blanket I had brought for just such an emergency and slept till Nephi. I was awake the rest of the trip and tried to participate in the conversation - with enough rest I can be pleasant company - but it was hard to hear or be heard, so I mostly just listened to what I could understand. When we got to Salt Lake, Jeff dropped us off at the Convention Center and went on an errand to try to persuade people to donate money to the university.

(Side note: the next two paragraphs are about the tours of the Salt Palace and Marriott. If you don't care about those, you may skip them and continue to the rest of the story of Jeff, the talkative one. Over and out)

I was SO freaking excited to see the Salt Palace Convention Center! I want to go into the convention industry and to be able to see and tour the biggest convention center in the state just made me happy! And oh my heck! It did not disappoint! I walked around that place open mouthed, just ogling at everything I saw. It was huge and amazing and incredible and just plain awesome! I would so love to work there. They can fit 93 basketball courts with 18 ft buffer inside their exhibit hall. The ballroom is 45,000 sqft and pillarless - that's insane. During the 2002 Winter Olympics the Salt Palace was the media center for all of the different media from around the world. They were in lock down mode and they had their own fire department, medical team, zip code, McDonald's...everything! They were pretty much their own city because the major security needed to keep everyone safe prohibited anyone from entering or leaving without going through 3 different security check points. Can you say huge and awesome!?! Now I know that most of the conventions - plus room nights in surrounding hotels - they put on can fit inside one hotel in Vegas, but I don't like Vegas and it's in a category all of its own when it comes to conventions, so we're not going to talk about that :) Salt Palace just made me happy! The people who showed us around and came to talk to us were really nice, open, funny people and they seemed really cool to work with.

After Salt Palace, we went to SLC Marriott Downtown - which is just across the street. It is a really nice property as well. High end, well staffed, and has a good sized meeting space. I must admit that I didn't pay as close attention as I should have during their presentations. They came off as very knowledgeable, funny, interesting people, but it just didn't have the wow factor for me personally to keep my attention when they were talking about rooms and front desk stuff. The events manager spoke to us as well and I enjoyed what he had to say, that's what I want to do and it was interesting to hear the hotel side of that job.

Once the tours were over, we all piled back in the vans. I ended up in the front seat - the boys all wanted to sleep, but Jeff needed someone to keep him awake and that job landed to me. I was a little nervous that it could turn out to be a very long drive if we didn't find some common ground to talk about. I needn't have worried, we found plenty to talk about. Though it was touch and go for a bit in the beginning. He talked for bit about stuff I don't remember and then he turned to me and told me to pick a topic. Who does that?! No one has ever asked me to pick a topic, usually they tell me it's my turn to talk - meaning that I have to do more than respond to questions. I sat there for a minute trying to think of a topic and guess what I come up with... polar bears. I have no idea why I thought of polar bears, I have even less of an idea as to why I actually said it out loud. Jeff just sat there, in shock, then busted up laughing. He had thought I would talk about some deep question I had been struggling over or some such thing. And I pull out polar bears. It was pretty much epic.

I guess he decided that I wasn't going to be much help in the conversation department because he started asking questions about my family, why I came to SUU, all the normal small talk questions. When I mentioned that Cindy is my aunt, he was all sorts of surprised and told me that he knows Cindy really well (Jeff says Hi Cindy, by the way), which makes us family. Then we somehow found ourselves talking about why I decided to not go an a mission, what music I like to listen to, what Dad does for a living, back to the mission topic, off on another random his family story, where I want to work and what field. It seemed that nothing was off limits, which turned out to be very true because he was telling me something about senior couple missions and I told him that I've always thought it would be fun to go on a mission when I'm old and married. As soon as I said that he just yelled out this "OOHHH you just turned on a light". I was all sorts of confused. He said I had been a mystery, a dark room, and now I had just shined a light in one little section. Then he said something about willing to go with someone I love/trust (I'm not entirely sure what he was saying, he was half thinking out loud at this point) and then he asked me if I'd ever had anyone close to me die. I said three of my grandparents are dead.

"Were any of them tragic?" (I didn't, and still don't, know why he went to this line of questioning. He never explained and I was a little too scared to ask. Now I wish I had.)

"Umm...yeah. Grandpa's was. We lost him to Alzheimer's long before he died. Most of my memories of him are with that disease. And he looks so much like my father that I felt like I was looking into the future. A future that I didn't want."

"Mmmmm.....another light turned on" was all I got in response.

I asked what he meant by the dark room/mystery thing. He told me that I had been hiding secrets, things I didn't want him to know until I felt I could trust him. And that is very true. I do that with everyone. I don't trust easily. I don't tell things about myself, even the little day to day things, to those who I don't trust or who don't pick and prod until I tell. I wish I knew why I don't trust anyone anymore. I use to talk Mom's ear off while cooking dinner and Dad heard all of my deep, scared thoughts. Robby would get letters filled with pages and pages of things I was dying to tell him. Friends would hear all the little tiny details of my encounters with the boy I liked. Not anymore. I rarely call home, I don't write as many emails, friends may know who I like, but nothing more. It's like I've built this castle complete with moat around myself and only those who know the secret handshake or are brave/stubborn enough to cross the moat and make their own door, get to come in. There are many people who've crossed the moat and are wandering around the castle trying to find a weak spot to make the door. I just wish I was brave enough to make my own from the inside out.

Enough of this introspective thinking, though I'm sure I need to spend lots more time on it, it's just not something I'm ready to face yet. Anyways, after he threw that bombshell at me, Jeff was quiet for a minute. Then he started to talk about his contacts in D.C. (that's one of the places on my list of possible job destinations) and how he could get me in contact with them to see if they have any openings. We talked about that for the rest of the trip. When he dropped us off at the school parking lot, he told me that he's got all kinds of ideas for me and that I have to get in contact with him soon. So all in all, my trip up north with the talkative one could turn out to be the best class trip I've ever taken.

To the guys...

Last night instead of doing the sensible thing and actually going to sleep, I stayed up until 2am reading this book:

Sorry it's small - I couldn't find a bigger picture of it.

It's by Alison Armstrong. Whom I love! She has some great insights into men, how they think, what drives them, and so much more. I make it a habit to reread her stuff every few months just to help me remember how to bring out the best in men. Ever since the family introduced me to her work, I have seen a major improvement in the relationships I have with the men in my life. She has a workshop, Making Sense of Men (plus many more), that I would love to go to, but it's too rich for my blood at the moment. Some day I'll save up enough to go.

What struck me the most this time around was the section on how men act when they are Charmed and Enchanted. When they're Charmed and Enchanted the men want to spend time with us, protect us, make us happy, all the things that I desperately want a man to feel towards me. She says "When a man is Charmed and Enchanted, he'll become a friend, mentor or big brother figure. You cannot have too many of them. Treasure each of these men. They'll give you a lifetime of love, care and attention."

As today went by, I had that running through my head. Each time I thought of it, a different guy would stand out in my mind as one who was Charmed and Enchanted. It started off with Dad, and ran down the list of brothers. Then something happened I wasn't expecting. I began to think of the men in my ward and the many, many ways they have shown this attitude towards me. For a lot of them, their affection stops at the friend or mentor stage. And I am so grateful for their friendship. For the few that seem to go beyond the friend stage, only time will tell how that all turns out. I am even more grateful for those men because it tells me that there is hope, that I am Charming and Enchanting, and that I can one day find the guy for me.

So to all the guys in my life that are Charmed and Enchanted, in all of their varying degrees, thanks. Thanks for making me feel special, wanted, loved, and protected.

This morning at 9:24 am...

..the pipes rattled in the ceiling of my ceramics classroom. We all looked around confused as to what would make that noise. Since it didn't last more than a second or two, the teacher continued on without missing a beat. It wasn't until someone in my first aid class was talking excitedly about how they had survived something this morning that I finally figured out that the noise I heard earlier was indeed - dum, dum, dum! - an earthquake. Not just any earthquake, but one of 4.1 magnitude and I survived!

HAHAHAHAHA!!! ahem....sorry, typing all that with a straight face was too much for me.

I didn't even feel the earth move. In fact I completely forgot all about the pipes rattling until I heard that girl talking hours later. Growing up in California has made me somewhat of an earthquake snob, I guess. While most people kept talking about how weird it was to feel the earth move and see their belongings wobble, I stared at them like they were crazy. I bet if I had been asleep at 9:24 this morning (and trust me, I wish I had been!), I would have slept through it. Unless something big and heavy actually falls over, it's not considered an earthquake in my books. But I won't rain on Cedar's parade, I'll just laugh quietly to myself and wonder if this is akin to people looking at me weird when I think a little sprinkle is rain.