Gumption? Hullo?

When I went home for the summer, I spent a few days recovering from two long semesters and one very long flight from Utah to Maryland. Kelly and I set up camp on the couches in the living room, slept until noon, ate food and chatted all day, watched Ugly Betty and the Office until 4 in the morning, and occasionally looked for jobs online. But it was just a few days. This is perfectly normal for two healthy college students.

Unfortunately, my dad didn't see it that way. He tried anxiously to be patient with us at first. But then....okay, maybe a few days became two weeks, and he became concerned. I remember one morning in particular, at about 10:30, waking up to a familiar monologue. My dad was sitting by the couch, talking animatedly at me. He said all the usual things: "This isn't normal, Heather. I mean it." "You've got to get up, and get out there, and get a job." "Come on, sit up, come on." There were the occasional interjections: "Oh my pillow! Heather, Heather stop! You're drooling on my pillow!" As I opened my eyes and wiped my mouth, I vaguely remembered getting the same speech the day before, and the day before, and probably the day before that. But then, my dad said something new: "I've never seen you like this. It's like you've lost all your gumption."

Fast forward to this semester. Well, first -- fast forward to two weeks after this speech. I had one full time job, two part time jobs, and one very very part time job. Now, fast forward to this semester. It's probably been the hardest semester for me yet, where classes are concerned. I'm taking 16 credits, and, even though I've taken this many before, it wasn't this difficult. My classload this semester is full of classes that are much less interesting than my classes in previous semesters, and much more rigorous. In short, I don't want to learn about the things that are turning out to be more difficult to learn, making it even worse.

I started out with plenty of gumption. Winter break was a nice refresher for me. I went home, played with my family, visited some friends, and came back ready to tackle the new semester. I tried to be interested in my subjects. Most days, my classes don't start until 12, but I tried to get up at about 8 or 9 every morning to study and work on other things I needed to get done. I signed up to be a mentor at an elementary school. I got a job at ColdStone. I was overflowing with gumption!

Then, suddenly, something happened.....midterms. All of a sudden, school decided to hurt my feelings. Last week, I was slammed with five tests. I was also asked to give a talk on Sunday. As an FHE mom, I had to plan an activity for this Monday. Furthermore, my laptop was stolen on Tuesday, right out of my apartment. Oh, and the mailman told me he hates me and thinks I'm ugly.

I'll recover, I told myself. I can come back. There's still time before the semester is over. After one particularly bad test on Monday that might as well have been a list of derogatory comments on my appearance for how good it made me feel, I called my dad. He told me how pretty and intelligent I am, per my request. I felt better. I went to bed that night, determined to wake up the next morning at 7 to get ready for a group meeting for a project at 8. I knew, as I closed my eyes, that I would wake up to a better world. I woke up at 7:30. Hmmm. That wasn't really what I had planned to do, now was it? I hurriedly threw on some clothes and make up and miraculously made it to the bus stop in time for the 7:42 bus. I went to my group meeting, then to my floral design class, and then to the library for a nice nap in the fourth floor bathroom with all the couches. I went to my New Testament class, had lunch with Kelly, studied, and went home. I felt pretty good about how well I was recovering so far.

On Wednesday, I intended to wake up at 8 to give myself time to clean for cleaning checks, do my homework, and go to mentoring. I told Aimee and Chelsea both that I need to be up at least by 9, and if they would be so kind as to yell in my sleeping face if I wasn't, I would greatly appreciate it. They gladly obliged, but somehow, I didn't get out of bed until 9:30. By the time I had gotten ready and finished my homework and cleaning, it was too late to go to mentoring, and too early to go to campus. So of course, I decided to take a little nap before going to my first class. It was 11:41 when I woke up again, and I had missed the last bus until 12:12. I considered my options. It was a nice day, and I could walk to school. (I was sure I would be able to make it if someone gave me directions.) My other option was going back to sleep. Which option do you think I took?

I had to drag myself out of bed at 12:35 to get to the bus in time to get to my 1:00 English class. Chelsea reminded me that it was Saint Patrick's Day and picked out a green shirt for me to wear, so I sluggishly changed my outfit and stumbled out to the bus. From there, my day did improve. While on campus, I was very productive. When I went home, I was determined to continue in this streak of gumption.

Sadly, my natural me won, and I ended up at Kelly's apartment, making and eating cookies, chatting, and wandering Raintree with some boys who were considering moving in and had requested a tour. I went back to my apartment and spent about two hours on facebook and other time-wasting websites. I finally eeked out some homework at one in the morning and went to bed.

This morning, my 9:30 floral design class was cancelled (thank goodness). I planned to take the 10:42 bus to campus to work on some homework before my 12:00 New Testament class. I hope no one took the 10:42 bus hoping to see me there, because they would have been sorely disappointed to know that I was still in bed at that time. In fact, I was in bed until about 1:05. All I could think as I sat up and called out, "Hullo??" to my still-at-home roommates was:

Whelp. Guess it's gone again.

My gumption, that is. I really think it's gone. Today marks the second day in a row that I slept through my 12:00 class. HOW PATHETIC!

Tonight, I had quite a bit that I needed to get done. I made a To Do list and turned on Chelsea's laptop. (Since mine was stolen, my roommates have all been super-nice about letting me use theirs whenever I need to. It is making my life a lot easier!) Then, something that shouldn't be so surprising to me happened: I wasted more time. Chelsea came home right when I had started being productive and asked if Aimee and I would like to go see New Moon in the dollar theater. I did want to. It started at 10:05. I could finish my paper, go to New Moon, and get back in time to get to bed at a decent hour.

I didn't finish my paper by 9:40.

I went to New Moon.

How could I refuse? Aimee and Chelsea were ditching their boyfriends, and we were all wearing our respective boy's clothes. Furthermore, on the subject of clothes, Taylor Lautner doesn't wear many in this movie. I can look past Edward's pale chest and sadly lopsided nipples because of this fact alone: Taylor has 10 ab muscles. I counted. This was definitely an event I had to be apart of.

And now, here I am. It's almost 4 in the morning and I am blogging. Blogging.

Of course, I have had good intentions throughout this whole ordeal. Tomorrow, I plan on waking up at 9 and taking the 9:42 bus to campus. I will meet with my group from 10-11, work on my application for the Writing Fellows from 11-12, and go to class from 12-2. I will eat lunch with Kelly and then study until who knows when. We will see how well this plan works out, I suppose. If my gumption continues to be MIA, I really can't be held responsible for my lack of motivation.

Thankfully, I have at least been getting all my homework done. When I am actually awake, I do my assignments. I just did one before writing this blog, in fact...a writeup for my humanities class. The assignment was to pick 3 sins and assign creative punishments to those who commit them, in the style of Dante. Here's what I came up with:

Sin #1: drawing graffiti. People who do this would have to spend eternity trying to graffiti a building while someone bumps their elbow every 2 seconds, messing them up repeatedly. If they get frustrated, someone else will spray spray paint in their face.

Sin #2: stealing a college student's laptop. People who do this would be shrunk down and put inside a laptop keyboard while the college student they stole from types out their term paper.

Sin #3: flirting with missionaries. People who flirt with missionaries would be sentenced to the nunnery. They would spend eternity in a convent, getting smacked across the face every time their thoughts drifted to boys. Also, all the girls whose missionaries ended up marrying a girl who flirted with him while on his mission would flick rubber bands at the flirting girls.

I think those are pretty appropriate punishments. I can't say I've been personally affected by graffiti, but I feel a much stronger connection to the other two sins.

Let's talk about sin #3 for a minute. (I mean, why not. Four hours of sleep is totally enough to function on.) I have seen a growing trend recently that bothers me quite a bit. It's called, missionaries marrying girls they met on their mission. In every case, they will insist that they didn't do anything wrong. There was no flirting while they were on the mission. Things just turned out the way that they did. They were perfect for each other. The circumstances that they met under are inconsequential, since they didn't start dating until after the mission was over. And who am I to say that this isn't the truth for every one of these couples? I really can't. I'm just saying, it's a growing trend. And as someone who sent off a missionary, even if I'm not waiting for him, I am annoyed by it.

Believe me, I understand the appeal of missionaries. As 19 to 21-year-old boys, they are right about my age. Typically, they are good boys, in tune with the Spirit, happy to serve others, good at talking to people, hard workers. They walk around or ride their bikes a lot, so they're probably pretty fit. They keep their hair a respectable length and never look too scruffy or unkempt. And there's two of them.

So, that's great that you didn't flirt with him. That's awesome that you just really connected over the scriptures. Good for you abiding by mission rules as you purely lusted after the cutie with the name tag.

But if all those things are true, then why the hey are you two getting engaged three weeks after he's released?

This is why I included flirting with missionaries as one of my sins.

Well, I guess I'm going to bed now. Wish me luck in waking up tomorrow?