Identity Crisis

A dad is talking to his son at church and trying to help him get the courage to introduce himself

Dad: Son, don't be afraid.  Say, "Hi, I'm Aaron.  What is your name?"

Son: <looks at me> What is your name?

Me: Erin.

Son: No, it's not!  

Me: Yes, it is.  What is your name?

Son: Aaron.  What is your name?

Me: Erin.  

Son: No, it's not!

<He stares at me incredulously> 

Me: Well, what do you think my name is?

Son: Melissa.  

I Don't Think That Means What You Think It Means

Me: I'm going to DC tomorrow to hang out with my Japanese professors and Fujita-san and Makino-san at the Air and Space Museum.
J-Money: Hahahaha!  That is so quaint!
Me and Annie: Quaint?!
J-Money: Yes!  It's just so perfect.
Annie:  I don't think that means what you think it means.
J-Money: Really?  Quaint?
Me: That's like a farmhouse in the country. <looking it up on my phone> Quaint: Attractively unusual or old-fashioned.
J-Money: Scroll down, to the other definitions.
Me: Picturesque, charming, sweet, attractive, old-fashioned, old-world or cunning.  J-Money, you think I'm sweet and attractive?
J-Money: I was thinking more along the lines of 'charming'. If someone were to ask me where you were and I had no idea and I were to make it up, I would say, "Oh, she's at the Air and Space Museum with some Japanese person."
Me: Charming?  Sure, I'll take it.
Annie: I think you meant 'idyllic.'  Erin is living out her ideals.

In any case - this.is.happening.

Baby Love

So, I spent the past week and a half in Utah and just got back last night.  I confess, I spent most of the time with my friend and her son, E.  In fact, that about sums up the trip.  I know that E won't remember me.  But I still hope, that in some future time, a lifetime away for him, he will not be afraid of me and he will understand that he knew me once and that I love him still.

I also saw a few other friends but visits were limited, which just serves to remind me of all the people in Utah that I love and still hope to and need to visit.

It was an interesting trip, one in which I felt ungrounded and the longer I spent away, the less sure of myself I felt.  Part of that was the job searching I was conducting.  Part of that was having difficult conversations with friends.  Part of that was realizing that out of the past 28 days, I have been away from Cville for 21 of them.

Hanging out with my new pal, E.   

I would love to live on this street.  It's a gorgeous view of the temple.

My jiejie and I were trying to take a picture to prove we had done something "pioneer-ish"  but I'm not good at getting us and the snow-covered statue in the shot. 

Climbing up to Ensign Peak.  It was gorgeous but not quite this blue.

The Salt Lake Valley - it was a fun, short hike.  It was nice to talk about life up here and watch all the city lights down below and feel far away from the worries of it all.  

E and I hanging out while E's mom was working.  The camera distorts our heads so we look like we're the same size.  But he's so adorable, isn't he?  

Questions for Siri

Siri, where does the Vice President live?
- She answered with what the office of the Vice President is.

No, Siri, where does the Vice President of the United States live?
- Her answer was a bunch of websites.  Did you know that no official residence existed until 1974?  Most VPs would just live in their own housing (or housing they separately arranged) but I'm sure with DC housing prices, that became inordinately expensive.


Siri, which has higher alcoholic content - champagne or wine?
- She answered, "I'll call you a cab.  Just don't breathe on me."  We started laughing.  But it wasn't a helpful answer.  For a bunch of Mormons playing Trivial Pursuit, we were trying to figure out if "wine" was a good enough answer when "champagne" was called for.  Is there a difference?  Siri apparently thought we were just trying to get drunk.

Siri, who first gave Brigham Young his nickname the Lion of the Lord?
- Apparently, his followers.  I wanted more specifics.  Give me names!  The sister missionaries at the Beehive House had told us the Native Americans had given him the name, which had struck me as historically inaccurate since lions are from Africa.  My friend and I then wondered if they meant he was a "Mountain Lion of the Lord" but then why add the word "Lord" when their God was not our God?

Siri, where did the phrase King of the Jungle originate from?
- We found no good answers at all.  However, the word Jungle derives from the Sanskrit meaning, "wilderness."  Which makes sense, that the lion could be king of a wilderness known as the Savanna but not of an actual jungle forest that we think of today.  The word "jungle" has just changed meaning.

In Waking Hours

I should be sleeping, I know.

But there I was, lying in bed, panicking about the things I should be doing and the courage I need to do those things that I'm panicking about.

I let my mind wander a bit to other happier subjects and that led me down a road of thinking about Japanese and some of the vocabulary I learned/reviewed today.

Then suddenly, it clicked.  So, here I am, giddy with the realization that I now know a little more than I did about present continuous action in Japanese.

If ganbarimasu is "I will do my best" and ganbatte is "Do your best," I have now figured out that ganbatteimasu is "I am doing my best."

Tomorrow, ganbarimasu.  But in the meantime, I will stop panicking about my life because, honestly, ganbatteimasu.

And that's all that I can ask from myself.

Food Distinctions

A friend and I were trying to figure out what to eat for dinner yesterday and all I could think was that I wanted vegetables.  She said she needed protein.  So, we thought we'd try Siri.  

This is how that conversation turned out:

Friend: Siri, find us a healthy restaurant.

Siri: I'm sorry, can you please define that?  

Me: Ok, that's not going to work.  We need to think of food genres.  

Friend: Genres?

Me: What's the word?  Ethnicities?

Friend: Types? Categories?  This feels like a bad game.  I can't seem to think of it.  What is the word?

.... <We both think about this for a while>

Friend: Maybe we should stop trying to think of the word and actually think of a characterization.  

Me: Characterization?  That's not it either.  Ok, um...something Asian?

Friend: Siri, find a Japanese restaurant.  

Siri: I found a few a little ways away.

Friend: That is so vague.  What does that mean?  

Me: I have no idea.  Wait, how many Japanese people are there here anyway?  Siri, how many Japanese people are there in Salt Lake City?

Siri: Let me think for a moment.  The answer is 480.  

<My friend and I laugh>  <We ask about various populations for a few minutes>

Friend: We have to think about food!  

Me: Middle Eastern!  That's healthy and it includes vegetables and protein.

Friend: Good call.  

Where did we end up going?  An Ethiopian restaurant we came across on our way to the Middle Eastern restaurant.  It was great.  

But I still have no idea what food classification is called.  Any takers?

Writing My Story

I've made my resolution.  I'm going to write my story.  And by write it, I mean live it.  I'm still working out the details...

Yesterday, my friend and I invented our own dinner.  We didn't want to go to the store so we started pulling random ingredients together and baked them together in the oven.  We kept her husband away from the oven and giggled to ourselves over our experiment, wondering if we would have to go to the grocery store and buy one of those already cooked rotisserie chickens and pretend it was something we'd conjured up (on a rotating spit no less).  Turns out dinner tasted delicious and between the three of us, we almost ate the entire pan.  Success!

Today, I've been working on going through my stuff.  I have a new policy - throw away half of my stuff.  I don't quite have the heart to throw away all of my stuff.  I keep hoping that my letters from high school and my journals and photographs will mean something to someone one day.  But in the meantime, I have to figure out how to live with owning "stuff".  One friend suggested I turn it all over to the Library of Congress so that in a few hundred years, I'll be famous!

In a car ride today, traveling 70 mph down the highway, a rock flew out of a dump truck ahead of us and hit the passenger side of the car where I was sitting and left an indent and small cracks radiating from the indent.  While my friend bemoaned her now cracked windshield, I marveled at the science of windshields.  I'm grateful for engineers.