Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

Tomorrow. Finally! I’ve been waiting so long to go back home again. And this time, not only do I get to see my family, I get to eat unbelievable amounts of food: heaps of mashed potatoes, piles of turkey, oceans of gravy, towers of cranberry sauce. Holidays are beautiful, beautiful things. But in the true spirit of the holiday (giving thanks) my post next Thursday (or possibly the day before, in order to maximize the amount of time I spend with my family on the day of), my post will simply be an enumeration of all that I am thankful for – and believe me, it’s a lot!

I must admit, here, however, that I haven’t been completely honest with you: I don’t go home tomorrow. Not home, home, anyhow. But to one of my homes: my future home. With Dennis. I’m stopping at the halfway point of my journey to stay with him at UVa because his military ball is tomorrow night! I promise to upload pictures and a synopsis of events. I’m sure I’d love to look back at it years from now. Anywho. Back on track!

Yesterday was stressful, to say the least. I went to Wal*Mart and the mall in Christiansburg to look for a semi-formal dress to wear to tomorrow’s dance. You wouldn’t believe what I found at Wal*Mart…or rather what I didn’t find. That’s right. They didn’t have a single dress! Not one! I was thoroughly disappointed considering shopping trips for me tend to be excruciatingly painful – just ask my mother! All the way over, I was hoping with all of my heart that we would walk into Wal*Mart, find the clearance rack (after all, it is Winter, now) and find that the first dress was both cute and modest. But, no. Not only did I not find a cute, modest dress. I didn’t find a much-too-revealing, ugly dress either! I didn’t find a single dress. Disappointed? Definitely. Discouraged? Somewhat. Believe me, though, not quite as discouraged as I would be a few hours later that same day. Just wait.

So after discovering Wal*Mart to be a complete bust, we moved on to the mall. Poor Jason (Nicknamed Krusty after Krusty the Clown on the Simpsons, I believe), who drove us, spent the entire hour or so walking around Dick’s Sporting Goods attempting to entertain himself. Meanwhile, Kaytlyn and I went into every single store in the mall. JC Penney (where the dresses were frumpy and overpriced despite being on clearance), Sears (where there wasn’t a single dress to be found), DEB (where all of the dresses were so short they would hardly cover the butt of a two-year-old), The Gap (where there was only one dress with the ugliest print Kaytlyn and I have ever seen), and several others with one or several of the above results. It was unbelievable! How difficult is it to sell a cute, modest dress for less than a hundred dollars? Or, simply, a cute modest dress? Kaytlyn was right when she said – “What we need is a Kohl’s!” Haha.

So, again – disappointed and discouraged, but still not the worst. On the car ride back, I wracked my brain to think of someone at Tech who had a similar body type to mine of similar height that might have a dress. I finally thought: Kyra! I immediately texted Kyra; her responding text was encouraging: she had several dresses and was willing to show me whenever I had the chance. As soon as I was back on campus, I ran over to her residence hall and followed one of the other residents in (seeing as my key wouldn’t let me in). Once I found her room, she and her roommate, Nicole, showed me the dresses they had. All of Kyra’s turned out to be summery garden party dresses. Nicole had two cute brown ones, but when I tried them on, both didn’t fit.

All three of us sat and thought of whom else I might possibly call. We ended up calling Kerry in the hope that she might have something, considering that we’re about the same height and body shape. It turned out, of course, that Kerry had absolutely nothing. Then, we settled for trying someone shorter than me – Erin. I called her and she informed me that she was still in class and would be for another two or three hours and told me to just go to her dorm room and look through her closet – so I did. She had two dresses: a purple one and a black one. I spent about an hour in front of the mirror in her room trying to get the tops of the dresses to actually be somewhat modest, imagining what a pin here or a pin there might do. No matter what I did with the purple one, though, modesty just wasn’t possible. The black one seemed a little more likely to work, although still not ideal due to the openness of the back of the dress and the unlikelihood of me actually being capable of pinning the front in an appealing fashion. In the end, I took the black one back to my room just to have it as a back up in case something better didn’t come along. This was about the height of my disappointment. I’d tried so many times by this point that I was close to giving up.

Eventually, Kimmie called me back after I texted her. She and two other girls in her suite (Ari and Cathleen) had pooled together their dresses to form a selection for me to choose from. I was overjoyed when I saw them. There were at least three that I could definitely be comfortable in (one of which would have taken a little pinning and adjusting) and finally, we four settled on the cute black one with the lacy v-neck (which I plan to wear a camisole underneath). It’s a very simple dress, but it’s perfect for the function in my opinion. I can’t begin to describe my relief to you in having this all taken care of – and for free!

Maybe it was the relief, or maybe just the comfort of my bed, but I slept really well that night. So well, in fact, that I got out of bed an hour and fifteen minutes later than I had originally set my alarm for. I love waking up in my bed here. I wake up looking out the window – at a wall of windows. The view from our window may not be perfect, but the sunlight streaming and reflecting off said windows? Beautiful. Except, perhaps, waking up next to my husband. But that’s a few years down the road. For now, the sun will have to do. :)

I showered, ate my breakfast while practicing for my math quiz, and then sauntered off to the math emporium to take my quiz. My math quiz, thank goodness, was a success! Six out of six correct. I was worried going into it, because the one last practice quiz I took before finally taking the real thing, I scored a three out of six on, which, obviously, was entirely unacceptable after the hours of studying I did the night before. I rode the bus back to campus and read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal along the way. If you ever plan on reading that particular piece of satire, I don’t suggest you do it on a bus that’s teetering up and down hills. Reading about cannibalism isn’t the best idea when your stomach is already queasy. Believe me. I got off of the bus and walked straight to my English class (for which I was reading that particularly clever piece of literature).

English class was somewhat upsetting today, honestly. I’m so tired of people taking advantage of our poor professor who is absolutely, without a doubt, the most adorable and sweet-natured English teacher I’ve ever had. No one, except for myself (or so it would seem, considering that out of 30 kids, only I had something to say about what we read over an hour’s worth of class time) had actually read the material. She always does her best to have our assignments graded and graded fairly and to give us ample opportunities for extra credit and worthwhile grades. The least they could do is read what she assigns. On a lighter note, I finally got my first paper for her class back – I earned a 92! I’m incredibly proud of this grade. It’s my first college paper, after all! I’m going to discuss ways for me to improve with her sometime after Thanksgiving Break. I respect her advice. Thankfully, though, she and I sorted out the issue of my exam not sending through my e-mail. She believes me (as is the truth) that I completed and sent the e-mail out Thursday night, but my e-mail malfunctioned and tried to send it on an unavailable server and didn’t actually send until Saturday night. Technology drives me crazy sometimes (Says the girl who’s writing on a blog on her laptop at this very moment…)

The rest of the day has been wonderful. I went to choir practice, had ice cream with Marie, Nathaniel, and Laura, and then finally loaned my copy of Twilight to Marie like I’d promised her weeks before. Afterwards, Katie and I watched The Office and I video chatted with Dennis and watched kittens romp around in videos he sent me. I want a cat so badly, but, my dad told me that if I own a cat when I’m older, he and my mother will never visit me, since she’s allergic. Since then, Dennis and I have been looking into hypoallergenic cats. We’ll see. :)

And now, I’m sitting in the laundry room on the windowsill, baking in the heat of eighteen dryers and sixteen washers while wearing a long-sleeve shirt and corduroys. Not my smartest fashion decision. But believe me, what I wish I were wearing for comfort’s sake would not be at all appropriate for public. It’s hot! After my laundry’s done drying, I have yet to fold it and pack for my trip. This is crazy! I’m going to be so sleep deprived. Thank goodness my 9:05AM class was cancelled. :)

While folding my laundry, I was the only one in the laundry room, so I opened my laptop back up and started playing my faith sharing group playlist as loud as I wanted. Another kid came in a few minutes later while "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve was playing and he definitely started singing along. He probably didn't think I could hear him, but I definitely could. Hehe! I love spreading joy at one in the morning!

Edit: Okay, so, I get back to my room, and what do I find? Someone has SPIT on the door to my and my roommate’s door! It’s appalling. How can people be so inconsiderate and disgusting? I just don’t understand. Katie and I are so unimposing. We don’t do anything to bother anyone and yet – this. Humanity is a thing to wonder at.

I can’t wait for tomorrow!

God bless all of you and all of your tomorrows. <3