Highlights

A lot has happened and nothing at the same time. We are in Sofia, Bulgaria, where people, just like in Turkey, have the 13-note cell phone ring that gets stuck in our heads and makes the classical song whose title has escaped us no longer appealing. On the way here on the bus, we saw two women stuff cigarette packs in their pants and up their shirts before showing their passports. They tried to talk to us later (probably afraid we'd tattled), but we just replied in German and shrugged our shoulders. Should we have said something to the friendly guard who spoke to us about Dresden in German? I'm still debating in my mind. Was that dishonest of us?

Then someone decided to smoke in the bus so the last hour and a half was misery for me and made me very sick. Handing the baton over to Petula didn't work too well as she is terrified of asking people for directions (even though she's the one who can read Russian letters) and would rather stand around freezing.

Saturday we saw some sites in the freezing rain, wearing summer clothes. I still laugh when I think of being under the eaves of an enormous socialist building eating bread and strawberries for lunch when the closest lightning and thunder I've ever experienced brought on a downpour and made Petula jump and grab my arm. At least we had our umbrellas with us. I was amazed to see a monument to Bulgaria because during the Holocaust, people gathered together and saved their 49,000 Jews by getting them safely to Israel. The churches here are very, very dark. And the art museum fascinated me because the artists seemed to have adopted new styles at least 50 years later than other countries. In the evening, after we finally found our way back to the hostel, we bought lots of goodies at the bakery. The day also included some nice gospel-sharing with the hostel owners.

Sunday we were an hour early for church in our still-wet shoes. We couldn't believe the amount of missionaries here. One of them asked us if we'd yet been confused by the nodding for no and shaking of the head for yes. We hadn't even noticed but that might have explained one bit of confusion we had in finding a famous old church. (Which we never found, by the way.) We got to hear some sarcastic tidbits included with the translation of the talks and some deep, insightful comments in Sunday School. I hummed all the hymns since I haven't learned all the Cyrillic letters. Then a guy who had served a mission in Germany invited us to lunch, but we ended up being with him all day, even gracing a fabulous free Easter concert in a hall amazingly like Abravanel Hall. We also found out there is a YSA conference next weekend in Varna where I wanted to go. We have made several connections to Petula's old mission companion, friends of mine from high school and dating, and my cousin Dave.

Today we are going to see a monastery and then to family night (which includes the entire ward), and then we'll take the midnight bus to Bucharest. I'm a bit sad to not see Varna or the Rila Monastery, but we're out of money and, frankly, energy. I hope I can get a lot of reading done (I'm still debating my thesis subject) and then sleep deeply on the bus. I'm also hoping for warmer weather.

Shockıng Döner

Last nıght after spendıng an hour on the cold but sunny beach ın Kuşadası, we went to eat some dınner. I decıded to try the fısh döner for 2.50 Lıra (we are tryıng to spend as lıttle as possıble as money ıs tıght) and Petula stayed wıth the classıc döner. What showed up was a cut up döner covered ın tomato sauce--a lıttle surprısıng, but okay. The real surprıse came when we went to pay.

The total was 19.50. Her döner cost 17.00.

Pamukkale and Kusadasi

Pamukkale, and now Kusadasi, redeemed Turkey, despite having "slept" on the bus. Walking up the mineral pools with an extremely friendly older Australian couple was lovely. (They also have 12 kids and are Catholic.)

Then I learned some Turkish in the bus on the way here. The hotel is the nicest we've been to. They paid for our taxi, gave us lunch at 3, and showed us how to get to the beach. What more can we want? Oh, and this is the first place where the internet didn't measure up with my parent's internet. (How do you like that, Mom? Your internet is at the same level as that of a country where they still have holes for toilets.)

Petula and I have been playing this hilarious game that reminds me of my dad. When people talk--on the television, on the street, wherever--we translate what they're saying into German. It makes for some interesting stories, like the soap opera on the bus where they fought about who had the chocolate . . . for hours.

More on Turkish later. It is awesome.

Türkiye Untıl Now

Well, ınternet has been less avaılable than we thought. (Sorry there are no pıctures. And sorry I'm beıng lazy and usıng the Turkısh letter I here. I hope your computers understand ıt.) So here's a short revıew up untıl today:

Istanbul:
-The conference was very ınterestıng and I was even able to make some ımprovements to my presentatıon before I had to gıve ıt. Although I presented wıth two other women, most of the questıons were aımed at me. Of course, there was a questıon about why I was ınterested ın Mormon women, polygamy (Bıg Love specıfıcally), me beıng a femınıst, etc.
-There were thırty or so kıds at the hostel who arrıved at 4 ın the mornıng. They forgot to sleep and were loud for the next sıx hours that we were there. Most of the guests complaıned, but the teacher saıd they were kıds and were tıred. There was also a German there who talked to everyone about how he was waıtıng for hıs dıvorce papers. Blah. He was the only one who fıgured out that I wasn't really German. Fakıng a German accent has helped me wıth everyone else.
-We looked for the church but never found ıt, but we dıd fınd Lıttle Caesar's and ate some crazy bread!
-Aya Sofıa ıs old.
-The Blue Mosque ıs bıg and smells lıke feet.
-The prayers are loud, but on the other sıde of the rıver, ıt ıs much more modern.
-I bought lots of pretty copper earrıngs that were really cheap, but only from people who dıdn't pressure us by callıng "Ladıes."

Ankara:
-The cıty was ugly and we arrıved at 2 ın the mornıng. We had to take a taxı to the hotel, and the drıver had to call the hotel to fınd out where they were. The hotel here was nıcer, wıth the ıncluded prayer rug ın the drawer and the smell of moth balls.
-We found the church, whıch was labeled as "LDS Charıtıes." There were 8 people altogether (countıng us). I played pıano, Petula prayed, and we heard the announcements ın three languages. Then we watched General Conference.
-The humanıtarıan mıssıonary couple there ınvıted us to lunch, whıch we also shared wıth a guy who works at the Amerıcan embassy and who speaks a zıllıon languages.
-We learned somethıng about the Turkısh language and the tradıtıons, fınally.
-We saw the Atatürk mausoleum. He. ıs. a. relıgıon. We had already seen hıs pıcture everywhere, but now we know why. More on that later.
-We walked up the hıll through the slums to see the castle that can't really be reached unless you trespass and let yourself get attacked by a wıld-lookıng dog. At least we had a cool vıew of the not-so-hot cıty. On the way down, we found the museum we wanted to go to that was supposedly closed on Mondays (accordıng to the hotel personnel).
-We got back on the bus and watched as cıty turned ınto southern Utah-lookıng landscapes.

Göreme:
-Although we bought our bus tıcket for Kopodokya, the bus attendant (lıke a flıght attendant) was nıce enough to let us stay untıl Göreme, where our hostel ıs. Sınce there are underground cıtıes and caves here where the Chrıstıans had to hıde out, we booked a place at the Emre Cave Hostel, whıch ıs more lıke the last hole you would ever want to sleep ın, but at least the guy woke up to welcome us wıth some tradıtıonal Turkısh apple tea and gıve us some ınfo about hot aır balloon rıdes (160 Euros) and the lıke.
-We just ate an enormous amount of clay-oven bread fılled wıth meat and vegetables after fıghtıng wıth a man who trıed to convınce us that ıt was cheaper to go on a tour tomorrow than to guıde ourselves. We wıll some how fıgure out two bus connectıons tomorrow, see some underground cıtıes and early Chrıstıan churches, and then hıke through the Rose Valley whıch looks quıte a bıt lıke Goblın Valley.

Turkey, Day 1

I am sitting at a really old-looking computer surrounded by Turkish art. The computer is set to Korean, the keyboard looks Turkish but is typing American, and my Google is still in German. I. am. exhausted.

Today started off with the worst feeling ever. I woke up to realize I had somehow missed my alarm clock going off. Petula was already waiting for me at the train station and had no helpful advice. I finally called the guy who was supposed to give us a ride and he was nice enough to pick me up at home. The only problem was, I had no time to meticulously pack (I grabbed the wrong allergy medicine bottle!) or to go print off my presentation so I could work on what to say. I did get some continuously interrupted Zs in the car and had a nice conversation about our beliefs. I have no idea how we made it to the airport on time, but we did and we were some of the last people to board. On the plane, I was able to get almost all of my work for Professor Dr. Baerenfaenger done. I have decided that planes should really have seat backs that go up and down to adjust to heights, because it is completely unfair to short people that they have to sit with their heads forward where the seat should be supporting the neck.

I had to pay 15 Euros to buy a beautiful sticker to go in my passport. I guess it shows that I am allowed to stay for 3 months at the longest. Oh, what I would give to have a European passport.

Istanbul is not as beautiful as I thought it would be. There are some really old buildings and some unique architecture, but mostly everything looks worn out. Petula and I have noticed that there are hardly any women in public. The men in the streets are horrible. They follow us even if we do not reply to them, they are always calling out, and the taxi drivers honk. There are also homeless cats all over the place.

We ate some bread soaked in thin honey with cream in the middle, some noodley-cheese stuff, and a peanut buttery mackaroon. Tomorrow: turkish delight, Doener pocket, and roasted corn. I bought some earrings and the silver cardholder I have been looking for since I first saw Tanya's ages ago. I was also tempted to get some of those shoes with the curled up toe. They were so intricate and purple and I could have used them as house shoes. Petula was mad at me for looking at the earrings for so long, and her anger just got worse and worse as the guy tried to talk to her and then turned to flirting with me and trying to get me to go out with him despite the fact that I do not drink alcohol, tea, coffee, or go to sleep late (usually). I have to admit, he looked really good, he smelled like my favorite men's cologne (Acqua diGio), and he was very well-dressed. And, his name was "volcano" in Turkish.

I am going to bed. I hope I wake up on time for the conference tomorrow. And I am secretly wishing that they accidently printed my essay with my name spelled wrong so no one will ever read it. Yesterday, as I reviewed it, I wanted to die. It is hands down the worst essay I have ever written. You would think people would get better at it after a while. I at least hope to say something intelligent in my presentation. And it wouldn't hurt if no one had read my essay yet.

Belated Birthday Shoes Story

So I just realized I never posted the post about shoes that I was planning on posting. Do you realize how spoiled I was this birthday? And it was so fun to have contact with so many people I love.

I love presents that are useful, and I definitely was in need of shoes. I mean, check these out:

That's my finger sticking out the side.














This is the very stretched-out heel, which caused a girl in my ward to tell me that my shoes were too big. And see how the strap had been sewn on by two different shoe repair stores?













That's a chunk that somehow went missing. You can't really see how deep of a chunk it really was.













Those shoes had served me well. They were the best for working at the FHL and awesome for travel since they were comfortable but versatile. (Thanks Mom!)

But I needed some new ones. And my friends and family made my birthday awesome by fixing that problem.

-Apparently my mom had a heyday at a sale, because she sent me four pairs of Sunday shoes!

-And Amy got me supportive new jogging shoes which I already took out for a run.

-And Mike, who has seen me pining away at the shoe store before, worked with Jenny to get me the shoes of my dreams. Rewind 13 years. That's more than half of my life, people. I was a dorky, scrawny fifth grader with long brown hair (wow, except for the scrawny part which I wouldn't mind now, I'm back to that status). Craig (of my Pink Lightning story) and John Barrett had the shoes that started the fad in our grade. Pretty soon, it seemed like everyone except me had Sambas--the black indoor soccer adidas shoes that looked so sporty and cool. But they were always too expensive for my parents and when I started buying my own stuff, I could never justify such a purchase. Sambas have had a firm grip in the clothing industry the whole 13 years I've wanted them, Adidas never saw a need to lower the price. Now, living in a city with a large population of students, I see even more Sambas and it wasn't long before Mike noticed me noticing them everywhere. So he asked a lot of friends of mine to donate a bit until there was a sufficient amount to get me the shoes. Yay yay yay!

Here I am, sporting the shoes I'd waited 13 years to get:














And notice the diagonal picture. Those German guys! (Click here and here for more about that.)

Thanks to Mom, Amy, Mike, Jenny, Seppl, the Dixons, Aaron, Antje, the Bertholds, Alex, Victoria, Robert, Petula, Jakobis, Dajana, Steffie and Holger, and Judith and Daniel.

Lessons Learned from a Blobfish

Take a good look at the following picture, people. That is a blobfish, arguably the ugliest fish out there. How awesome is that?











I think I would like to poke it with a finger just to see it jiggle. And its nose-like projection adds everything to its image. Sometimes I feel like what I imagine the blobfish feels like. I also have jiggly parts and a unique nose. I also get rather pasty because of my aversion to encouraging skin cancer. And I have some complexion problems that go beyond what appears on the blobfish's chin. I guess the blobfish is at least pretty clean since it floats around in water all day, or if the water's dirty, then at least I can say the blobfish's slimy skin/scales/whatver is/are impervious to it. I feel like I should work harder on my appearance, until I think about all the effort it takes. Then I'm satisfied to let my hair dry as I ride my bike over cobblestones, to wear my out-of-style clothes, and to continue donning sun screen, as long as I'm clean and [fairly] presentable.

Another similarity would be my tendency to do things on my own. But I'd like to think that the darkness of the deep waters where the blobfish is found is symbolic for the lack of social relationships in its life.

Unlike the blobfish, I go to the food (Vilja, you know that). However, sometimes I let things like decisions and deadlines come to me.

So, what have I learned from the blobfish?

-You don't have to be gorgeous.
-You don't have to be embarrassed about your looks if you're clean.
-Being alone is a dark way to live. (Even though my inner hermit rebels against this idea.)
-Don't let things get under your skin.
-Take initiative.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! What I'll be missing . . .

And see how peeps are made here.


I'm glad to have a Savior who suffered for me so that I can try my best, even though it's not good enough, and still return to live with my Heavenly Father. Knowing His plan is the only way to true happiness in this life, and I'm grateful to know that.

And now I'm going to take an allergy-medicine-induced nap.

Sweet Old Couples

While transferring trains last week, I saw an old couple. Both were wrinkled and stooped, but I purposely situated myself to watch them while I waited. Why? Because I was impressed by the obviousness of their love for each other. They were talking like old friends, looking each other in the eyes and smiling. His arm wasn't exactly around her as his hand was gripping a handrail, but it was open and she was leaning into him. There was such a lovely feeling of companionship.

I love old couples like that. I used to also watch the old couples at Cottonwood Mall who would make rounds there so they wouldn't have to be out in the cold. The way they held hands as if they were still young and in lovey make me want something similar in my future, in my older days.

That's what I want some day. I think that it is an especially difficult temptation these days to only give as much in a relationship as the other one does. People think that if each give 50%, it will work out. But truthfully, that is selfish. I hope I can overcome my selfishness no matter how much he gives. Because even if it's unfair, I know that I will be doing my best, that I am loving him unconditionally, and that the chances of him returning the love go up if I give my all. Like I read in Crucial Conversations (an awesome book), it makes no sense that we treat people badly in order to get them to treat us well, such as with the silent treatment.

I don't see as many of those couples in Germany. A few minutes later, she got on one train, and he left to wait at another track. Individuals are awesome. But some couples complete each other.

Wish me luck. Maybe I'll find someone to complete me at the Young Single Adult conference this week.

I Don't Know Anything About Coffee or Alcohol

We went on a tour of Leipzig in preparation to give our own tours at the Easter Young Single Adult conference. What I found the most amusing wasn't the tour guide from Wittenberg's historical costume, his wittiness, or even the tidbits he told. What was hilarious to me was the fact that he didn't know we were Mormons. He kept making jokes about coffee and alcohol and tried to apply them to us.

"Goethe wrote about students getting drunk in the Auerbach Keller. You," he said, indicating Andy, "you know what that's like, don't you? Oh, yes, I can tell by the way you laugh." Ha ha. One time when he was talking about a famous lady, he brought up a word that I'd never heard of that had to do with coffee. I guess because I was paying close attention to understand everything, he said to me, "We all know what that is, but we don't know all know where the word came from. What is it? [Nodding to me.]" He didn't believe me when I said I had no idea and finally explained it himself, saying I shouldn't be so shy.

Then later when he said something about coffee drinking habits, he remarked, "Americans may still like it that way, but not Germans . . ." and Christina elbowed me. He thought she meant that I like it that way, so he said, "Sometimes Germans do, though, don't they?"

I wanted to clue him in afterwards, but he just left as soon as he was done. Then Jenny, Seppl, and I walked all the way home because the next train wasn't for 35 minutes. The train beat us.

I <3 Warmth

I love warm, sunny weather enough that on Friday, I stopped walking home from the store and sat down on a bench to read a novel. The sun shone, the sky was blue, birds were chirping, the ice cream shops were crowded. And, just to enjoy the warm weather even more, I was the only person I saw who was wearing a coat and gloves (if you can be warm, why not be extra warm?). I never wanted it to end.

But the warm weather also means it's time for two other trials besides cold weather of my life: spiders and allergies. Yippy. But I still vote for warm weather.

I hope you enjoyed the LDS conference this weekend (I'm always amazed how they talk about whatever is on my worry list), and have a happy Jesus's birthday.

German Vehicles for James Video

I made this video for my nephew James. (He had his third birthday on Thursday.) Although it's not exactly professional, it was fun to make and in the works for a long time. Enjoy!



Here's what I wrote for the description:

Happy 3rd birthday to my nephew James! Four sections of vehicles: construction, farms, cleaning up after people, taking people places (sorry, there are plenty of cars in the video, but they weren't addressed). Music: "I've Been Working on the Railroad" by the Rooftop Singers, "Bob der Baumeister," Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," "Ich bin 'n Farmer" ("I Am a Farmer") by Die Prinzen, "Die Müllfahrer" ("The Garbagemen," hilarious video, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFoFmt... from Sendung mit der Maus ("Show with the Mouse"), "How do you get from here to there?" from Sesame Street, "Der Kinderradsong" from Sesamstraße (German version of Sesame Street), "Helikopter" by Beetje Spelen, und "Zu Deinem Dritten Geburtstag" ("For Your Third Birthday") by Reinhard Mey. I did most of the videos and pictures myself and put this video together using iMovie.

Longest Links List Ever (Sorry, Kind of)

Since I have so many links to share (again), I'm splitting them up into subjects.

Artsy stuff:

Have you seen these scanned sandwiches? (And here's a lovely color roundup, including the scanwiches.

What about the tiny art director blog, where a little girl tells her artist father what to draw and if it's any good?

I like umbrella art. Here and here and here.

What a cool idea: a YouTube flip-book of stock images:



High-speed photography is cool.

Cassette tape art. (Thanks, Melissa.)

This Color Freak Series are photographs made of colors samples made by people at colourlovers.com.

The posters for Where the Wild Things Are are so great. I always loved that book. "He sailed in and out of weeks . . ." I'm excited to see the movie.

Salt Lake architecture blog, especially this silo house.

Dreamy packing tape.

Even though this bedspread looks like a wedding dress, I luf it.

I love this Weather Girl etsy shop. I don't know how to describe the art, so go look at it yourself.

Similar art is at the etsy shop described in this post, but the portraits are especially cool.

Photo surgery: one half is young, one half is old. Cool.

This equation for modern art makes me think of my dad:












Little-known color names, A-L. And M-R (I could have sworn that mauve is a different color). That's all so far.


Literary stuff:

Like NieNie, I also like to smell new books, and I also liked to smell the book order paper. Mmm.

These "most interesting bookstores of the world" are pretty interesting. :)

In China, self-publishing of novels online is booming. I think it's interesting that the article says, "Now everyone can read the slush pile." I think part of the purpose of having a slush pile is so that we don't have to read that. However, many famous and enjoyable books made it there at first, so who knows?

Sony Reader and Google are offering 500,000 free books!

Literary tattoos. (Not that I like tattoos--on the contrary--but it's interesting to see what people chose.)

Peter Leeson, a pirate scholar, asked his girlfriend to marry him in his new book. Click here for the story.

Internet:

For months now, I've been switching my Gmail to English every time I wanted to incorporate something from Google Labs, and then switching back to German. Now Gmail Labs is global! Wahoo!

Speaking of Google, someone cut a piece of grass out so there'd be a dead pixel on Google Earth. Ha ha. I also noticed a flag that someone put out in Leipzig with words on it and knew it had to be for Google Maps. I think the words are in Dutch (in front of the Altes Rathaus to the right of the A):



View Larger Map

And Gmail is five years old! I remember getting my invitation to join in 2004. So awesome.

Last, but not least, the name of this wireless connection reflects my own feelings about secured networks. That's especially the case in Germany:













Randoms:

Music by Melissa Horn is nice.

There will be a Spanish LDS Bible coming out soon. I'm totally jealous. I really miss the footnotes in my German Bible.

Here's an interesting article about paying attention to one conversation amid many.

Since I've been trying different breads recently, I was excited to see NPR's broadcast about no-knead bread. After I read the instructions, though, I shook my head because it's not easier at all.

Would you pay more attention to the announcements on a flight if they were rapped?:





I've been waiting to go to Paris until I can go with Tanya. And now that John (of Johnya) will be getting his Master's in French lit at NYU, they might live there for a while. So cool. Plus, a blogger whose blog I enjoy will be moving there for the summer. Speaking of French things, look at this cute video:



I'm not sure what this Russian website says (Jeff?), but I like all the new ideas they came up with for one of those huge garbage cans (or whatever it's called) that you can order when you're doing yard work or moving or whatever.

I just had to laugh at this one. I thought there was a time where I couldn't live without my USB, but I don't think I would ever use it as my finger.

Here's an inspiring story about a guy who supported his girlfriend as she passed away.

"Take me out to the ball game" organ being repaired.

This creepy baby holder made me laugh:















I already hated shrimp, but Lawsons' shrimp adventure just made my hate stronger.


"Za," "qi" and "zzz" were added to Scrabble's word list.

Tonsil Tales

Yesterday, caught up in awkwardness, I forgot to share the following:

I finally went to a different ENT. She agreed that my CT scan looked fine, but told me that I had horrible tonsils (I'm glad she could see that even though they don't hurt at the moment--the pain always goes away when I have an appointment. Always). She then said two impressive things: 1. Having a tonsil infection three times a year is reason enough to take them out. 2. She has only seen me once and would like to be sure before doing something like surgery, so I should orally dissolve some tablets three times a day and come back as soon as the tonsils are inflamed again.

I'm not sure what I think about getting my tonsils out here, though Germany is a very modern country. How do I know which surgeon to go to? How do I know who to trust? And will I be sick more often if I don't have my tonsils stopping the bad guys? Plus, I hear it's a horrible process for adults. How much worse will it be in a country where they don't believe in a lot of pain medicine and where I don't have anyone to baby me? Then again, this sore throat has kicked my rear at times, like last October when I had a breakdown because I had dealt with it for so long and my appointment fell through.

Out-of-Culture Story of the Year

Since Melissa gave me a deadline for my paper, I was determined to get it done this morning before 11:34. As I often do when I have something due, I got up at 5 to work on it (I'm more productive in the morning, and I have to get my scripture reading and stuff done first). I thought about going next door to the (warm) school since I had to be there later to teach a class anyway, but I ended up finishing it at home in time to go teach my class.

I put the signs out, and then walked towards the door, key in hand. One unfortunate thing about the placement of the light in the hallway is that you can't see the keyhole. As I noisily missed it on the first try, I saw a shadow walk into the office through the door's blurred glass. It's not unusual for people to be there before me, but today I was earlier than usual. I had a split second before the key fit to think of two things: one, how I had seen the light on as I passed by yesterday evening around 10, and two, how I've thought a few times that it would be fun to sleep there just to say I'd done it, but which I would never actually do.

Boy am I glad I didn't go earlier and that I didn't get the key in on the first try. As I opened the door, I discovered all the lights out, a (male) co-worker of mine on the couch, and a pile of clothes on the floor. I don't know how I was able to think so quickly, but I said hello, stuttered out, "Did you work late?" and went straight into the classroom instead of into the office. There I busied myself with anything I could do to get the room ready as if I always went there first--erasing the chalkboard, turning up the heat, pulling some papers out of my bag, etc.

Awk.ward.

I knew someone else was also at the school, but I wasn't about to go out and meet her. After I heard some voices, someone left. A moment later, I looked out the window, and to my surprise, saw someone leaving who looked unbelievingly like one of my favorite (female) coworkers! I finally went into the office to retrieve the book and acted like nothing was up. But the office was in shambles (more than usual). There were wine bottles in the corner, a razor in a bag on the table, and, next to the razor, the keys of the second (female) coworker, which I knew were hers because of a conversation we'd had about keys just yesterday (I have to admit, I thought about hiding them).

Awk.ward.

After the first (male) coworker left, I answered the ringing phone three times and had someone hang up on me. I knew it had to be the second (female) coworker who had left her keys but didn't want me to know it was her who had spent the night. During class, the doorbell rang and I opened the door to find her. She said she had brought toilet paper for the bathroom and forgotten her keys. She even slipped in the word "yesterday." I could see that she had on the same clothes and that her hair wasn't clean.

Awk.ward.

I didn't say much then, and I didn't say much later when the first (male) coworker thanked me for waking him up and again talked about how he had worked until 2. (His being extra-polite can only be his kissing up to me in hopes I won't mention it to anyone.)

Awk.ward.

Part of me wants to let them know I can add 2+2 and that there's no reason for me to say anything about it (is there?), but another part of me just wants to act like nothing happened and hope it never happens again. What I don't understand is if people have such casual ways of life and don't feel bad about it, why do they hide it? Maybe it was just the fact that it was at the school . . .

What do you think? I'll tell you what I think.

Awk.ward.