Time of Your Song

I never knew I was a klutz. Yesterday I was walking around with my fly open for who knows how long. Two days before that, I was walking up the escalator with the rush of people off to work when mid-step, lost all balance and landed directly on my left knee. Kneedless to say, it was funny. My friend next to me told me I started laughing before I even hit the ground.
Whoever first acknowledged that the ability to laugh at oneself is absolutely necessary to survival should have a monument built somewhere.

I just got back from grocery shopping--it's like...my FAVORITE thing to do. One of my favorites, and something I will truly miss. For some people, when they step into a bookstore they are in heaven. Others enter malls and drool. I, however, am one to lose track of time simply admiring all a grocery store may offer. Today, I accidentally bought the wrong yogurt. Twice. I bought two puddings instead, but then me tell you, it was NO mistake! It's a dish I will probably crave the rest of my life. It was no accident that I went ahead with the purchase. I mean, the little containers looked a little different than usual, but I didn't pay much attention and just kept on truckin'. It's sort of like that thing called life...where there are times when things seem a little strange, you can't put your finger on it, and then things end up working out anyway.

How lovely.

Mom, Grandma, Aunt Jean, and Lynn were all here in this last week. We had a tremendous time doing too much walking and eating soups that are far too salty for my tastebuds. When they all came to see my room, it had been several minutes when all of a sudden--and having nothing to do with the conversation--Grandma said, "You know Karen, your place is about the size of my walk-in closet." Haha. She's soooo right. I like her honesty and her bluntness.

I'm still renovating my room. I will always be renovating everything in my life, because there's always room for improvement. Figuratively speaking, however, I just haven't got the room.

On Wednesday, the first day of my literature class, I had something funny happen to me. An unexpected something. My professor, whom I had last semester, stopped in the middle of our discussion. In German, of course, he proceeds to address me (in front of the entire class...) with something that went a bit like this: "You know something, Karen, last semester...I really thought you understood completely nothing. I mean, nothing. You had no idea what was going on. (Insert Karen's nervous laughter at herself, which increasingly becomes more normal in her life.) But when I read your final paper... you had EVERYTHING right. You completely understood everything."

I don't think you'd ever have an American professor call you out on anything like that. But this was mid-thought, mid-class, and so, so odd. I couldn't really believe he was saying this to me. In the end, sure, it was praise. But I was mildly humiliated in front of my peers--and the new JYMers who don't know me--because I was made out to be an oblivious goon.

What I've taken out of it is affirmation regarding how much easier it is for ME to make sense of things on paper; how much easier it is for others to make sense of me when they're reading my words. I enjoy that. I truly, truly do.

(Watch, now there are probably tons of sentences where you don't understand what I'm saying.) Yet I don't quite think that's any writer's job. I don't think that a writer is just spoon feeding you information. I think it's a writer's responsibility to make someone else stop dead in their reading tracks. It's a two-way method of communication. (Oh, how I MISS studying my communications major. Yes, I already know I'll be there before I know it. You need not remind me of such things.)

Hans-Peter, during our group gathering yesterday, brought in a clock and made the timer go off. He was giving us a loud reminder about time being nearly up. I don't know why this is such a surprise to anyone. I don't know why people think time works differently while abroad. I barely understand what "time" even is--how then, am I to manage it?