The Social Porcupine

Dear Girls, Who Secretly Want An Adventure,  Parents were scared of me when I was a teenager. They feared my quiet mysteriousness. I was really just sullen and shy, but not really at all sly. Sure, I read and had a bit of sass. They heard about the essays my mother would assign as punishment: "Write something on how children should obey their parents." Too gleefully (because I loved writing and loved scripture) I'd quickly hand back a paper that explained why parents shouldn't provoke their children to wrath.  Homeschooled parents will say they teach their children to be independent thinkers. And yet they feared my independence and creativity. They tried to keep their children far from me. "What if she causes our children to leave home and become like the world?"  I never would have dreamt of that. They heard about the essays. But what they didn't see was how I quietly loved my chores, loved our ways, loved feminine things and anything old fashioned and ...

I've always wanted to go to college.  And to be honest, I'm not really sure why I didn't. For a while, I was very determined. And then for a time, I thought maybe it was wrong for girls to attend college, though I only thought that for a few months.  I think, mostly, I just decided college wasn't for me, and that I could be successful without it and the burden of debt that comes along with it, and that I could learn on my own as I've always done and loved to do best, anyway.  All that being said, one of the craziest reasons I was excited about being an Au Pair is that they paid for classes.  Now, money was never a problem for me. And the course I would have here would be such a small thing, a couple days a week at the most, and only fifty euros a month paid. But, even so, I was excited. And my classes turned out to be very fun.  The first course was on Monday nights. Sometimes it was a bit of a cold, dark ride on the bike, and a few times it...

We writers love words. Many of us love speaking these words aloud almost as much if not more than writing. That's because we have opinions - opinions we believe ought to be shared. Even to the point of friendly   discussion unless that's impossible because someone completely stupid won't understand . But sometimes we opinionated verbalists take a moment and realize we need to fuel our minds and stabilize our opinions with facts.   That's why, occasionally, we choose to listen . lis·ten ˈlis(ə)n verb 1. give one's attention to a sound. synonyms: hear , pay attention, be attentive,  attend ,  concentrate noun 1. an act of listening to something.                                                                       ...

I have this really great friend - we love to debate like crazy (both of us say the bluntest things and laugh our heads off the whole time). One would think that we would have offended each other by now...yet we've been friends for years and our friendship just seems to get deeper and more opinionated ;p This may have something to do with both of us being passionate ENTJ's ;)  Anyways, a while back (sometime in February or March) we were texting right before I left for a trip. Life was very good , and some great things were happening.  Like a good friend, she was pretty happy for me. "You deserve this," she said. Now the opinionated me disagreed with her (as normal) . I was sure that I did not deserve what was happening in my life.  It was just too good - I felt unworthy.  I mean, seriously, who deserves anything good? Sometimes we observe some awesome, kind, loving people.  But we know that all fall sh...

Early November I went to Tennessee to volunteer for Above Rubies for my second time. I was only planning on staying a month and half, but as life has it, plans changed numerous times so that I ended up staying over six months! Back with family .... ..and friends. I just arrived back home about two weeks ago. In some ways I feel like I'm home... But then  other times I still find myself thinking of TN and everyone there. Six months is a long time. A lot can happen in six months. One of my friends married. Another had a baby. Another entered a relationship. Friendships went through rough times. Many were strengthened. I learned a lot about life and people in general during my time there. I learned life skills, people skills, conversational skills. I had troubles and trials during my time there. Some involved others, while some did not. Either way I learned a lot even during those times. In some ways I...