Cast of Characters

So these are my sibs.

This is Lilly. She likes attention. 

This is Brendan. He's quieter and is in a band. He plays keys. 

This is Turtle. He likes science and he's a spaz. 

This is Patrick. He's a seminarian and he has a banjo that he doesn't play that often. 

This is Megan. She ACTUALLY became a marine biologist. 

Sludge

So I have worked at this wonderful place called Camp Wojtyla for the past two summers.
I have never worked so hard in my life than I did in those two summers.
Camp taught me so many things, and I would not be the person I am today without those weeks in the wilderness.
Just to paint a picture- it is a Catholic outdoor adventure camp without running water or electricity and everyone sleeps in 24 foot teepees that the counselors put up. But actually we don't get to sleep in the teepees, we sleep outside on the ground.

One time a mosquito bit me on my lip in the middle of the night and I woke up looking like Angelina Jolie. well, half of my lip at least.
One time a mountain lion walked by us as we were sleeping.
One time a black bear kept trying to hang out.
So someone shot him.


With rubber bullets.
Maybe.
jk. they were.
at first.

haha.
Ok also, camp allowed me to let Jesus to tell me how to love myself. And what my gifts are- and what it looks like to use them to glorify something real.

It also taught me that I am lactose intolerant.
Now I think this intolerance had been building for awhile. I remember freshman year of college things started to act up. After eating soft serve once a day I started to feel more that just guilt. A few rumblies you could say. By the summer after my sophomore year (first summer at camp) I was forced into facing the facts.

I was really good at living in denial. Who isn't really. But one morning I reached the point of no return.
So we do summit attempts (we like to say attempts so people don't get sad if they don't make it). This means you get up at the butt crack of dawn (3am on a good day), and hit the road to go hike uphill for 10 hours. Its awesome, really it is. Once you get to the top.

For breakfast we get sludge and a piece of fruit. Sludge is a plastic baggie with peanut butter, granola, chocolate and dried fruit all mixed together. You rip off one end of the plastic baggie and squeeze it into your mouth.
Maybe if you love peanut butter and combinations of food that look like throw up you'd dig this stuff. But I am not one of those people.
The reality is, sludge gives you all the protein and energy you need to make it through those 10 hours. Thats a lie, but at least the first 3 or 4.
So I choked this stuff down. Pretended that I liked it (this was my first summer so I was still trying to pretend that I was the happiest human alive).

Well I lasted a few summit attempts with this stuff. Until one morning mid summer we were doing a just staff attempt. We made pizza the night before; and my friend Jayne and I decided we were tired of sludge (this was true), so eating leftover pizza for breakfast would be a much better idea (this was not true).

At the time it seemed great. So I grabbed a huge piece of mozzarella mushroom pizza and hopped in the crowded van to go reach my glorious summit.
Cue in recall of lactose issues.
Also this is the summer I realized I get car sick.

The road to this trailhead was three miles of straight moon crater landscape. Its almost like the CO ranger's way of saying that if you don't have four wheel drive you don't belong so don't even try.
But we tried, 16 passenger van and all.

So I'm already feeling queasy.
About 10 minutes into the hike the cheese hit me.
It wasn't just that I needed to poop, because I did. But I seriously thought I was dying.

I always think that the first hour of a hike is the hardest. Your muscles are still trying to wake up. Youre still trying to remember how walking works. You spend that first hour trying to remember why you thought waking up at three was a good idea. You are jealous of the one counselor with ankle problems who gets to sleep in till 9. Then after about an hour the sun comes up and you remember how good the smell of real pine is, and then you reach a good view and you pee and feel much better about life.

These were my thoughts about 40 min in:
"Emmy don't poop your pants." 
"Ok when you poop your pants how are you going to play it off?" 
"Does this crop dusting need to be addressed?" 
"Why is there an alien in your stomach trying to get out?" 
"What did you eat?!"
"Oh."
"Pizza."
"You deserve this." 

I am proud to say that I made it alive.
I did not poop my pants.
Or throw up.  A strong will comes in handy sometimes.

And I ate sludge for the rest of the summer, and the next summer.
And I haven't had milk in three years.

College Victories

In light of this rapidly approaching exam season, I would like to share one of my proudest moments in all of college.

My freshman year I had to take an econ class. Pretty normal. Let me just say that I am pretty certain that my brain was not wired to understand economics. I can confidently say that I did not understand a word of what my professor said all semester. This could be attributed to the fact that he had a thick Croatian accent; and maybe the fact that I never tried to pay attention could have been a factor.
Also this class was at 8am (which didn't seem so terrible in high school, but college changes that hour dramatically).
 I also hated this class because I wasn't sleeping (sometimes I suffer from insomnia, but that's another story).
But I was a freshman, so I cared a lot, and I went to every single 8am class that semester.
Until one morning.
See having insomnia mean that you lie in bed for hours having anxiety about not being able to fall asleep. Thinking about how terrible the next morning is going to be.Wondering why your brain can't shut off. Hating your sweet roommate for her steady breathing that meant she was happily dreaming and preparing herself to be a successful and kind person for the next day.
This particular morning was in the height of a really bad few weeks of insomnia. By this point I was getting sick and really angry about everything. Not good. The stress of trying to be the best college student in the world but not knowing how because I was 19 probably didn't help this anxiety.
So this morning I decided to sleep in.
 This decision happened around 3am. "I feel terrible, I need sleep, and I haven't missed a class yet, and this class is the worst." Done. Sleeping in.

Around 10 am when I was at work I was bragging to my boss that I skipped my class. "Ha ha, I don't even care I'm so BA. Thats probably not what I said, but thats essentially what it sounded like." I think she was actually the one who didn't care.
I decided to check the syllabus just for the heck of it. To see what all those class suckers had to sit through.
Well...
To my surprise right next to the class date was the lovely word EXAM 2. 
No. No no no. NOOOOO. 
This can't be happening. The world is ending. I'm so stupid. This class grade is made up of four test grades, that is is. I'm going to fail this class. And fail college. And fail life. 

All completely rational thoughts.

I started sweating and hyperventilating (though only mildly).
Think fast. I quickly called our health center and made an appointment to handle my "psychological anxiety problems." I think my game plan was going to talk about the fact that I couldn't sleep, because that was the only real health problem I was having.
I then emailed my professor and told him I was horribly sick and I was so sorry I didn't make the exam and I could show him my doctors note.
He didn't respond.
For two hours.

I spent that time thinking of the best way I could swing a doctor's concern in my favor.
I dramatically held my head thinking that my life was over.

Then he emailed back.
"We are behind in the syllabus the test is next week. Also you cannot make up exams, so don't even try."
Blunt, but wow.
PRAISE THE GREAT LINE OF JUDAH!
I felt just as happy as I did when I found out I made a perfect score on the SAT.

That is a lie.
This feeling was way happier.

So I wish I could say I aced the test when it came around the next week, but I didn't.
By the time finals rolled around I calculated my grades and realized I needed a 100 on the final to make a B in the class. A B! whoops. Sorry mom and dad. College is hard.

So normally I would just throw in the towel. But for some weird reason I decided to study. I blame it on my freshman anxiety and perfectionism that only seldom struck. So I studied for the first time the entire semester, really.
Lo and behold. I made a 104% on that final.

When I tell this story (which embarrassingly enough is more than I should) I usually do not disclose the fact that it was a non cumulative exam that was incredibly easy. Not just easy because I studied. But who cares? I got a B!
From that point on I am proud to say that I never skipped a class nor received anything less that an A on any other college assignment.


That is a straight up lie. But I did learn a valuable lesson.
Always check the syllabus before being a BA.

Braces and Contemporary Dancing

Once upon in middle school I tried to find some happiness so I joined a dance class. A few, actually. I've mentioned it before, but as a dancer I had (and still kind of have) all of the heart and none of the skill. But thats not something I've ever let stop me.
Usually I describe myself as someone who dances, but not a dancer.
Dancers are very much "Dance=life" types. If you want to be good at dance (unless you are some cool prodigy), you have to try really hard. I'm talking all day every day in the studio.
a) I was not a prodigy
b) I did not care enough to become one
c) I don't like looking at myself in front of full length mirrors that long.

So I was a recreational dancer. And I loved it. I liked to make fun of myself as well as contemporary dancing as a whole, and the fact that I never really seemed to get better.

Well this one time my teacher had me and my friend attempt a tricky move. This was actually hard, I'm not making it up. Basically she would grab my legs and do a cartwheel, and then I would go straight into a cartwheel with my arms around her torso.
 Sorry if that makes no sense. But essentially instead of using the ground to do cartwheels, we were to look like a continuous wheel only holding onto each other.

Maybe for a coordinated and or strong person this would be simple, but I am neither of those lovely things. And I was nervous. I have this chronic condition of not being able to trust my body to do what it needs to do, and I was completely convinced that I would fall on my head.

But something inside of me said, "Emmy, you can do this." It is honestly one of the few times I remember pushing myself in dance. Maybe it was the fact that some younger girls came into our studio to watch the "cool older girls" do a stunt.
Or maybe it was the fact that I realized my teacher thought I was a slacker, because I was. But I didnt want her to think that.
So I tried it.
My friend did a cartwheel grabbing onto my legs, and I went straight into my cartwheel, and then she did it again.
But somehow my face connected with my legs, and a bit of my tights near my ankle got caught in my braces.
Riiipppp. 
You better believe my tights ripped all the way up in three bracket sized lines.
I mean thats hilarious.
But also, the pieces of tights were stuck in my braces. About three feet of nylon dangling from my teeth. I tried to play it off super cool and rip the nylon pieces off, but they weren't going anywhere.
By this point, all eyes were on me. I tried to play it off by laughing, "Ha ha he nervous laughing...isn't this funny guys? I...uh...can I get some help?"

I eventually had to go into the dance studio office and ask to borrow scissors and a mirror to get the pieces of tights out of my teeth.
I never tried that stunt again, and my teacher kept thinking I was a slacker.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of this was the fact that I scraped my skin as well, but I never told anyone because that is the weirdest way to hurt yourself.
And I had to retire the one good pair of tights I had.

Oh well, we can't win them all.