So, I met the neighbors from across the street...

It went like this:

2 big black dudes down the street as I get out of my car (bbd - big black dudes... yes, I'm terrible at being politically correct, deal with it):
"HEY!  HEY!!!!  HEY!  HEY YOU!"

me:
*ignores them thinking their talking to someone else*

bbd:
"HEY!  SUU HOODIE!"  

me:
*turns around in confusion* ... "Are you talking to ME!?"

bbd:
"YES!  I'm sorry.. we just have a question."

me:
"Oh.. Okay..."
*staring at them trying to decide how sketchy they are*

bbd:
"I'm sorry, I promise we're not creeps!"

me:
**walking with very cautious steps and fearful eyes... because we all
know how I feel about rapists (well.. we all know how EVERYONE feels
about rapists)**
"Okay... you can ask me a question, just as long as you don't rape me!" 

YES, that is a DIRECT QUOTE folks.  Awkward, much?  

bbd:
 "We promise."
**walk over**

bbd:
"We're your neighbors from across the street."

me:
"OHHHH!  Hi!  Nice to meet you... what do you need help with?"

bbd:
Can we borrow like.... a really really big POT.

Pretty normal, right?

me:
Ummmm... sure. wait here. 
ain't no way they way they were comin in my house, no matter what promises they made...

*searches for pot.. grab our biggest one*
Is this big enough?

bbd:
"Uhhh... Awwww...." 
**look at each other like disappointed bbd do**
"naw.... I don't think that'll work actually, thanks though."

me:
"We have a slowcooker, will that work?"

bbd:
"How deep?"

me:
*fetches crockpot*

bbd:
"awww.... uhhh.... naw, that prolly won't do it."
**look at each other like there is some inside joke I don't know...**

me:
Can I ask what you're doing with it?

bbd;
*look at each other like... somethin suuuuper sketchy is goin on that
they don't want to tell me about*
"uh... cooking?"

me:
"Umm... I don't believe you, like... at all."

bbd#1: 
"We're conducting an experiment."

Me: 
"An experiment??? come on, you've gotta give me more than that.."

bbd#1:
*looking at bbd#2*  
":Naw, naw man, it's fine, I'll tell her.  Nothing we've gotta hide..."

**** MIND YOU:  At this point my mind is like, goin CRAZY trying to
think of what terrible things someone could do with a big pot... catch
a pool of blood, store cut-off fingers... IDK,.. but I was
concerned.*****

*looking back at me*  

"We were going to cook up some alcohol in it."

Me:
"Aaaaaaaah.  I see.  No can do boys.  You see... I'm actually a molly mormon."

bbd:
"Oh... well, yeah this is awkward.  Nice meeting you."

Me:
"WAIT!  Did you say you were going to cook alcohol?  Umm.. I'm no
expert but....... pretty sure you can't ferment something in an hour."

bbd;
"Yeah... well.. like we said, it's an experiment."

Me: 
"Yeah, I'd say sorry we don't have something you can use, but... I'm not."

bbd:
"Yeah..... well... it's just because, it's a celebration."

Me:
"A celebration?"

bbd:
"Yeah... it's a birthday!"

Me:
"Ever hear of CAKE?"

bbd:
"Whaaat?"

Me:
"Cake, ya know, you eat it to celebrate birthdays."

bbd:
"Awww, right!  Yeah.. that's pretty much what this is supposed to be like."

Me:
"Once again... I'm no expert but... I've never had a cake that tastes
like alcohol before."

bbd:
"No no no the alcohol tastes like cake."

Me:
**raises eyebrows**

"Ahh.. welll.. goodnight. It was nice meeting you.  I'd say sorry I couldn't help ya but... I'm not.   Uh...Good luck...?  Not really? I hope you find something better to do?   I don't know... this is awkward."

bbd:
"Yeah.... goodnight."

MORAL OF THE STORY:  Do not come to my home at 10pm asking for ANYTHING that has to do with alcohol.   

I really do love my job.

Guess who's job it was to deal with...

directing hundreds of high schoolers and their coaches,

dealing with football players who think public nudity is funny (actually, one of my volunteers dealt with most of that since I was off dealing with other things, I'm just going to be dealing with the aftermath),

finding out I was going to be stage managing a show... less than hour before the show starts, 

being a nurse to injured students, 

calming down crazy parents, 

getting money back from vending machines for poor little kiddos,

running around and around and around and around,

calming down an entire auditorium (and a half.. people were pouring out) of high schoolers and their crazy parents and coaches,

getting free pastry pub veggie wraps (score!),

teaching a ballet workshop to Billy Joel, Joe Bros, and Adele music, 

make sure everyone was where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, 

keeping a smile on.


....and that ain't the half of it....  yep, I coordinated a HUGE dance competition this weekend, and I must say... for what my job was supposed to be and how much I actually took on, I did pretty swell. :)  
*pats self on back*

Sounds crazy right?  Well, I loved it!  Favorite part of my job so far, I LOVE event planning and problem solving, and I love being in a position where people come to me for help. :) 

Life's not fair.

I just need to let this out, even though I shouldn't.  I tried writing a letter and not showing anyone, but I'm being an emotional teenage girl right now, who needs to tell the world about why she's upset.  So, since I don't have anyone to tell, and no one really reads this. I'm putting it here... and I'll probably end up deleting it tomorrow because I'll realize it was stupid and negative of me to post it, but I'm posting it.   I'm sick of no one knowing what's going on and I'm sick of everyone being afraid to ask.

Sometimes life isn't fair.

I want to be the skinny, talented girl going to China again with all of my friends.

I don't want to be the one who was told that I wouldn't be invited back for reasons I don't know and understand.

I've been dealing with it fine for the past few months, I was just happy for my friends who get to go.

...but for some reason, last night... I just cracked.

Last year I wasn't the skinny, talented girl who deserved to go to China with all of my friends.  

For some reason, Heavenly Father decided to let me have opportunity I didn't deserve.   For some reason, Heavenly Father felt like I deserved to have adventures and learn some lessons on the other side of the world.

For some reason, life wasn't fair.

It would have been fair for the older, more talented dancers to go.  They had worked hard for longer and were much more skilled in both technique and performance than I was.  They deserved it, but life wasn't fair, and I took a place that many of them should have had.

For some reason, Heavenly Father wants me to stay on this side of the world this time.  He wants me to be the one left behind this time.

For some reason, this time, life is fair.  

Guess what... sometimes it's harder when life is fair.

The way-too-previous adventure...

Hey, remember how I went and danced in China like... over a year ago? 
Well, while I was there I sent out weekly emails to people who love me/ love to stalk me so that they could stay updated on my life.  Every once in a while a funny comment would pop out and people would say "OHEMGEE Tiana you are SOOOO funny!" (not quite in that lingo though, because mostly they were Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents) and then I sent my follow up email out and some people were like "You should write a book about what you learned on your adventures!"  But... I don't actually think that anyone would read that book... I definitely wouldn't.  So... as much as I know you were all dying to turn my emails into a best seller... NO BOOK.  

I did however, promise those peeps that I would convert my emails into a blog that has pictures included so that they could read it.  

So I started doing that... earlier this week.  

Because I might have a SLIGHT procrastination problem. 

So really no one cares that I went to China and had awesome experiences anymore.  

But I promised.  

So... here's the blog: http://www.previousadventure.blogspot.com/

It's not very juicy yet... but I'm going to try to post something every day, and I think in about a week I'll be posting the one about squatters, that one was pretty clever.

There will probably be no one who reads it, because it's kind of boring and in the past.. but I promised, so I'm posting this little link in case someone decides to read my blog one day and sees this and thinks "Wow!  I'm so super bored I want to read about stuff that happened a year ago on the other side of the world!".

I'll write a real blog post someday.  Sorry they've all been lame as of late (I mean really.. school supplies??? I blogged about SCHOOL SUPPLIES????? Oh well, what's done is done.)