pieces of grace

Our school decided to be kind to us this year and give us an extra two days off for spring break, and so, here I am trying to catch up on a crapload of work. I decided to check my school email, hoping to find answers about a certain paper from a certain teacher, whom I had tortuously emailed over break. Instead, I was met with a huge array of spam mail from, yet again, colleges – the kind that they email to everyone but pretend they don’t so that you can feel special when you really aren’t. My usual routine with these types of emails is to just quickly scan the titles and briefly check what colleges have decided to “single me out.” If my mother happens to be there, I’m often treated to a brief rant of disappointment about all these “bad colleges.” And just so you know, bad = any college that isn’t Stanford, Berkeley, or Ivy League.

After being treated to this rant, an email from Mills College caught my eye. It wasn’t the Mills College part that intrigued me. Oh, no. It was the title: “Smarter than Barbie AND Stronger than Ken.” Needless to say, I was deeply interested and amused and decided to open up the email, only to find this very unique and personalized message: “That’s what we say makes the students at Mills College so distinctive, Grace” along with a little link that said “Find out more about the dynamic students here at Mills.”

My gut reaction was to just laugh my head off, because, really, if Mills thinks that their students are unique (excuse me, I mean DYNAMIC) because they are all not just smarter than Barbie but also stronger than Ken, then they are wrong. Because we all know that this broad category of being smarter and stronger than little plastic Barbie dolls includes every human being on the planet (well, most of them anyway). And even if Mills’s Admissions Office was going for a figurative meaning, then they need to get their priorities straight – since Barbie’s brain is usually filled with statements along the lines of, “Hi! I love being your best friend. Let’s go shopping!” But if Mills was going for a good marketing strategy, then they succeeded because I definitely opened up my email out of pure curiosity and amusement. The only problem is, I now think Mills is somewhat ridiculous and now only look forward to future emails from Mills as sources of entertainment.

yes, i know the title makes it sound like i’m some sort of child abuser/pedophile. but i assure you i’m far from it. just because i adore babies and toddlers and want to hug them all the time does not make me a child molester.

today at church (interesting things never fail to happen to me at church) we were celebrating the retirement of an elder, and so naturally there was this huge farewell ceremony with a mass amount of (what else) food. that’s all everyone was staying for – you could tell, because by the third prayer in Cantonese/Mandarin/English everyone was already talking loudly and showing no respect (okay, so what if it was me?).

i always manage to pile up food on my plate because i want to eat everything and end up only eating about a third because i’m just not hungry enough. so i dove for the barbecue pork puns, carrots with spinach dip, little sandwiches, and – the best food on earth – fruit. unfortunately, there were no room for grapes or strawberries because i had grabbed about three BBQ pork puns and now had to hold them pressed to the plate in order to prevent my lunch from falling to the ground and being crushed by all the Asian people rushing to get food.

pushing my way through the horde of people, i decided to be brave and try to find a place to sit down and eat. i thought i found the perfect place and burst into the room, jubilant, only to find a room full of little toddlers and their mothers, each staring at me as though they didn’t know what to do with the giant Chinese girl who had just stormed their party. awkwardly backing out, i found another quiet, small room where there was a lone table in the center. i decided to walk in cautiously this time, for fear of storming yet another little-kid party. and lo and behold, i find myself in the midst of two young boys, eating their food and coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) glaring at me. and this is how the conversation went.

kid #1: You can’t be here. This is an all-boys’ room.

kid #2: Yeah, no girls allowed.

me: I understand that, but I need a place to put my food.

kid #1: Okay, we understand. (now he was a mature fellow)

me: And don’t eat my food. *glares at kids suspiciously* Okay?

*kids eye each other as though they’re sharing a conspiracy*

kids: Okay.

And so I left very quickly to gather together a plate of fruit. I was quite worried about the huge plate of food I had left behind with the kids, and therefore only managed to compile a plate of grapes and tomatoes, as the strawberries were on the other side of the room. needless to say, i was highly disappointed, since strawberries are only the best fruit in the world. but weighing the costs and benefits, losing an entire plate of food to kids less than 10 yrs old provided greater harms than the benefits of a couple strawberries.

For these reasons, I returned almost immediately after satisfying my fruit fetish. I was surprised and yet delighted to find that my plate of food had gone untouched.

(after setting down my second plate of fruit and starting on the first)

kid #2: You can go away now.

me: Sorry, I don’t take orders from 10-yr-old kids.

kid #1: He’s not 10-yrs-old. He’s less than 10-yrs-old. (he seemed to take pride in this fact)

me: Oh, well then, even better.

kid #2: I never respect my elders, except my sister. She’s scary.

me: That’s no good. You should respect your elders.  I can tell your parents about that. (the biggie threat; perhaps a little too mean)

kid #2: Sorry, I don’t take orders from weird people.

me: Too bad, because that would include yourself.

kid #2 knew he had lost at this point and proceeded to kick my Bible, which was next to my purse, creating a domino effect. so technically he kicked both my Bible and my purse.  I decided I should leave as soon as possible, because I’m pretty nonviolent and would definitely not win a fistfight with this kid, due to my complete lack of upper arm strength (or just body strength in general).

me: Thanks for kicking my Bible. I can tell your parents about this.

and that was the end of my verbal sparring. I wonder if one day that kid will grow up to own me. He looked like he had potential, anyway. But I have my drawbacks, because I shudder to think what will happen to him if he responds violently every time he loses a bantering war.

no, this is not about what you think it’s about. i’m terribly sorry if this puts disturbing images through your head. because if it does, you might want to go see your doctor – perhaps it is some Freudian repression of your own desire to have bathroom struggles. but all kidding/lame weirdness aside, this is an idea i had a while ago, and i’m just trying to get away from AP studying for about 5 minutes…so let’s see if I can do this.

one day after church, i was sitting around waiting to go to dance class. (the fact that my dance studio is a 45 minute drive from my home means that we stay at church because it saves an extra 20 minutes of driving) Anyway, I was trying to figure out derivatives and running around church like a madwoman asking anyone if they understood derivatives so they could explain it to me. Turns out, everyone already knew about the shortcut (Power Rule, anyone?) and therefore could not help me with my extra-long, complicated a+h way. After about 1 hour of this frustrated madness, it was time to leave – which for me, means time to go to the bathroom, because I have a rather small bladder.

I was in the bathroom, merrily doing my business, when SUDDENLY the door creaked open and I heard the water running, which meant that this person, whoever she was (let’s hope it really was a she), was fulfilling her sanitary desires (aka washing her hands). I was just about finishing when this mysterious stranger decided to conserve energy and turn off the light on her way out the door. In the midst of stupidly trying to decide whether I should say “Wait!” or “Dude, there’s someone IN HERE” (that’s more my style), this person, of course, left, leaving me alone in my helpless state of darkness.

I decided there was nothing else I could do except try to turn on the light. So here I was, groping my way through the darkness, struggling to open the stall, and then stumbling my way over to the paper towels, where I knew the light switch would be. I desperately ran my hands along the wall for a few seconds, but to no avail. I then decided that the next best alternative was to actually open the door so light could flood through and I would be able to see where the light switch actually was. Praying that no one was actually outside to see me in this most embarrassing state, I tentatively opened the door enough for me to see the light switch, flicked it back on, and then shut the door as quickly as possible.

Moral of the story? As soon as the light turns off, just make a sound, any sound – even if it’s an incomprehensible one. And make sure that sound is as loud as possible – like a little Redwall badger Eulaliaaaa cry. Or, like my dad said, when anyone enters the bathroom, just clear your throat so they are aware that there is something alive in the bathroom, something that is more important than conserving energy.

It’s now too late for this, but I originally had an entry planned about Heath Ledger’s death. It was going to be entitled, “A Knight’s Tale: The Impact of Heath Ledger’s Death on an All-Girls’ School.” Except the timing is no longer right. Because everyone who’s anyone has heard everything there is to know about Heath Ledger’s death. Though I will say this: I mourned along with the rest of the 700 or so girls at my school when I heard the news by saying tearfully and pathetically shouting, “Noooo he can’t be dead” while waiting around for some girl to check online if it was true. And yes, I almost did cry. And I think I might almost-cry again when I see the Joker this summer. Because if Heath Ledger was still around, he could have gotten an Oscar for it. Obviously I haven’t seen his performance, but from watching the trailer multiple times he looks absolutely brilliant.