Sunday, September 30, 2007

Don't pretend to know

One of my biggest pet peeves: "I know how you feel."

I cannot stand it when people say that because it's a flat out lie. No one knows exactly how I feel. It wouldn't be so bad if you said "I can see how you would feel that way" or something of the like but do not come out and tell me that you know how I feel. Even people that go through the same experience don't have the same feelings because they have different backgrounds and other experiences that shape who they have become and how they feel now.

Yesterday there was a stake Relief Society thing all day, we each had two workshops to go to with lunch in between. The day started with me only getting about 5 and a half hours of sleep, having a bad hair day and then not having time to eat breakfast. We got to the stake center (an hour drive) and had an opening song and prayer together before we split for our first workshops. As we left we had to take a small cut out heart because whatever color we had is what table we had to sit at for lunch and each color had a different dish. My first workshop was the sport activity where we did a little yoga and I was quickly reminded of how unflexible and weak I am. It was good though because I've been thinking about doing yoga since I have so much free time.

We ended class a little early so I pulled out my ipod and listened to some music and went through the pictures I have on it. They are all from back home and brought the memories flooding back, which at the time I didn't think was bad because they were all good memories of fun that I've had with friends or funny pictures from the internet.

When it was finally time for lunch I went and sat at my table and knew right away I wasn't going to like it. The salad was... I actually don't even really know what the stuff is but it's purple and gross. I thought there were slices of apple on top so I was excited about that but when time came to eat them they turned out to be pears which I'm not such a fan of. Then we had this soup which seriously was lacking some spices/seasoning (gewürtz). I'm not sure what all was in it except for carrots (I don't like mushy carrots) and snow peas or something... pea pods which I do like. Then there was stuff that kind of looked like wheat that wasn't so tasty but I ate it just for the mere fact that I was starving and I needed to eat something. Then we got to dessert which I was looking forward to because the bowl of pudding had been mocking me the whole meal. I dug into that. And then stopped digging and more played with it. It was kind of gritty and tasted like there was wheat in there and it wasn't very sweet. It was like fat free sugar free pudding or something. I ate less than half of it. The only good thing about the lunch was the water and that wasn't even the best because I'm not such a fan of lemon water but it sure beats the heck out of the nasty mineral water they drink here.

I finally got tired of staring at the disgusting food so I got up and walked out. But that also has to do with the fact that I was on the verge of crying and I certainly didn't want to do it infront of the whole stake. So I went to the bathroom and tried pulling myself together and when I thought it was safe to go out again I went to the gym to grab my bag and I went to the room where my next class was. As I walked in the teacher came in with me and she started talking to me. After asking my name she asked me where I was from (I have a very unGerman way of pronouncing my first name even though it is pretty popular over here.) and what I was doing in Germany. That's when I lost it for the second time. I again went to the bathroom and tried pulling myself together. I went back to the classroom and she asked me if I wanted to talk about it. (That's what you should do, FYI. Ask if you can butt into someone's personal problems, not just rush over and gawk at them and pester them until the forget their problems and end up just being mad at you.) I just shook my head and she said OK, asked me if I understood when she and her brother (the other teacher) spoke German, I nodded, and she left me alone. I tried to preoccupy myself with writing so as to not have to look up and have people notice that I was crying (and luckily we weren't supposed to be talking anyway when we came in the room because the class was 'good thoughts through good music' so we just had to listen to the music) but that only worked so long.

The class started and since there were only about ten of us we went around the circle and introduced ourselves. I had planned everything out in my head as to what I would say and how to say it so that it was mostly grammatically correct but for some reason when it got to be my turn I just couldn't do it. I waved them on, waited for about 30 seconds and couldn't take it anymore so I left and went to the bathroom yet again. This time there was some one in there and she asked if I was ok. I just told her that I'm American and I was a little homesick and that's when a lady from my ward came in. She was in the workshop with me and came to check up on me I guess. I first started to get annoyed with her when she basically pushed the other lady out of the way. The lady had asked me a question that I hadn't answered yet and Sabine (from my ward) was just like "Thanks but I'm here now." That bugged me. If people want to be nice, let them. No one asked you to come in here and check on me, at least I know I certainly didn't. Then the next thing that bothered me was that she stood there and watched me blow my nose. Now this may be more information than you want so if you get squeamish by the littlest things skip this part until the five asterics. I had more snot yesterday than I knew was humanly possible. I mean when I blew my nose it soaked through all four layers of the paper towels I was using (which hurt by the way). But Sabine just stood there and said "Blow it all out." That's when I went into a stall and didn't go back out until my nose was empty and I knew she was gone. ***** I was just getting things composed when Sabine walked back in with Erica, also in our ward and the stake RS president. So now I had two people with their panties in a twist over me. Now comes the next thing that annoyed me about Sabine, what I opened this blog with. She told me that she knew how I felt. When she was younger she moved to a new town and didn't have any friends. But oh wait, she still lived with her family and she was still in Germany where she knew the language. It was her own freaking fault she didn't have friends. That is absolutely nothing like what I'm going through.

What am I going through? I'm more than 5,000 miles from home in a country with a different language that I'm still learning and no friends. There are two other people around my age in my ward (branch really) but one of them is a strange boy who is moving to Hamburg pretty soon and whom I've hardly said more than two sentences at a time to and the other one is almost 5 years older than me and has a 1 and a half year old girl. The only "friends" I have here are more acquaintences and all live an hour away from me. Either that or they're missionaries and can't hang out. The closest we get to hanging out is talking for an hour or hour and a half on Thursdays because no one shows up to the English class that they started. Also, my guest parents are leaving on Thursday for two and a half weeks leaving me alone with the two girls to basically fend for myself. Aforementioned Erica is basically in the family and she told me if I needed help I could call her but I'm pretty much alone. But here's the kicker, my guest parents are going to Salt Lake for half of their time in the US and they'll most likely meet up with my parents and have a grand ol' time in my town.

Any way, I finally got back to some what normal and went back to class. I cried a few more times, not too serious though, more just like a leaky faucet that drips occasionally. And it was because of the stupidest things, like listening to a song by Elvis, or knowing that the song was called Give it to Me and is by Timbaland, Timberlake, and Furtado or not knowing the German national anthem or talking about the American national anthem. It was just all really weird and random and I felt really stupid because I couldn't stop crying. It was just months worth of emotions that had all built up and I finally erupted. I was a volcano of emotion, unpredictable and uncontrolable.