Catching Up

Guys, I’ve been a terrible blogger this whole semester, and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t even post anything during Thanksgiving break, when I had ample opportunity to do so! So happy belated Thanksgiving and happy belated Black Friday, I guess! My family and I went to the Chicago area for Thanksgiving to see my dad’s side of the family. We ate turkey and stuffing and sweet potato casserole and mashed potatoes and green beans and apple pie and pumpkin pie. Yes, it was delicious. Unfortunately, I had homework over break: three papers and an assignment for Spanish. Two of the papers were due on Monday, and the third paper is my final paper for Writing with Style. It isn’t due until next week Thursday, but I finished my first draft before class on Tuesday. I’m now agonizing over said paper. I’m here in an attempt to distract myself from agonizing over said paper. I’m not quite sure what to do with it right now. I’m trying hard, but I don’t know if that’s good enough. I’m getting scared. Tomorrow we’ll do peer review, so hopefully that will help me. Either that, or it will kill me because the general census will be that my paper is awful, and I’ll have to rewrite the entire thing. I’m sincerely hoping that it will help me rather than kill me.

This semester needs to be over. Except for my Creative Writing class. That may continue as long as it wants. It just occurred to me that next week is the last week before exams. Holy smokes! I need to start looking at my exam schedule soon. I need to email professors about classes for next semester, and…wowza! I can’t believe this just hit me. I should have known.

Actually, the end of the semester is looking relatively chill for me. I obviously have exams, even in my writing classes (okay, my Creative Writing “exam” is just a freewrite). I don’t think I have any more big assignments for Creative Writing. I turned in my final project for World Mythology on Monday. I have my big paper in Writing with Style. I’m done with all my big assignments for Intro to Business. We don’t have big papers or projects in Advanced Spanish Grammar. So aside from exams, it’s basically my Writing with Style paper and outside-of-class work that needs to be done. For example, I need to work on my short story, the one I’m planning on sending into Fishladder, Grand Valley’s annual magazine of student art and writing. My World Mythology professor also gave us notice of an opportunity to send in a piece of writing for money (I think it might be a contest or something along those lines), so I’m considering sending in another piece of my work for that.

I’m sorry. Am I boring you with my internal monologue? I’ll stop now.

Yesterday was rough for a number of reasons. This week has been rough for a number of reasons. Every time something bad happens, I’ve decided to remind myself, “Just hang in there until Friday. Just hang in there until Friday. Just hang in there until Friday.” Friday is Jonathan’s birthday (he’s my boyfriend, for those of you who don’t know). My parents invited him to spend Friday evening at our house. I’m looking forward to it.

Just hang in there until Friday, Allison. Just hang in there until Friday…

Unfortunately, most of my problems will not go away on Friday. I’ll just be able to take a break from them.

Better try to see what I can do about that essay. If I can do any more about it at this point in time…

Analysis of Katy Perry and How “Hot and Cold” Relates to Michigan

Today as I was walking to my Spanish class, the song “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry played on my iPod.

This is the theme song of Michigan, I thought. Yesterday it was in the low seventies. Today it was in the thirties, and it snowed this evening. Nobody understands why this happens. We always say dismissively, “This is Michigan.”

Random yet related topic: I’m good at analysis, thanks to AP English. I’ve also gotten some practice from a few of my classes this semester.

So for a change of pace, I’m going to write an analytic “essay” on Katy Perry’s song “Hot N Cold.” My goal will be to convince you that she was not talking about a boy but that she was, in fact, talking about Michigan. In order to accomplish this, I will take the song a few lines at a time and unpack them, applying them to Michigan and it’s crazy weather.

Here we go!

You change your mind like a girl changes clothes
Yeah, you PMS like a [girl] I would know.

Michigan’s weather is insane at times, and it always oscillates from one extreme to the other. When a girl changes her clothes in the way Perry speaks of, she puts on one outfit, decides she doesn’t like it, and tries on a new one, much like Michigan “tries on” one extreme and decides it doesn’t like it so turns to its closetful of crazy weather. As for PMS…ah, this is a fun one! Anyone who is a female or who lives with a female probably knows what PMS looks like: crazy mood swings, long periods of anger and frustration and possibly shouting. Ah, yes. What does that remind us of metaphorically? Crazy weather, blizzards, scorching heat, thunderstorms…yup. Welcome to Michigan.

And you always think, always speak cryptically
I should know that you’re no good for meeee…

Thinking and speaking cryptically are two different things in this scenario. Thinking refers to meteorologists’ predictions. Meteorologists are usually wrong, right? They look at the signs…but it’s all cryptic. There’s really no telling what Michigan is going to do next. Speaking refers to what Michigan’s weather actually does. It sometimes teases us. It gives us hot weather in the midst of long, cold winters. The next week, BAM! Sub-zero temperatures. Or it gives us a refreshing breath of coolness in the midst of a parched summer. Then we’re back to our heat wave. What are you going to do, Michigan? What do you want from us?

Cause you’re hot, then you’re cold
You’re yes, then you’re no
You’re in and you’re out
You’re up and you’re down.

“You’re hot, then you’re cold” is very self-explanatory. Michigan is hot one day, cold the next. “You’re yes, then you’re no” indicates that Michigan is taunting us by saying, “Yeah, I’ll give you warm weather!” Then the next day, it’s all, “LOL, JK. Here’s some snow!” “You’re in and you’re out” refers to the pleasant seasons of Michigan, particularly (late) spring, summer, and (early) fall. It’s in and then it’s out in the blink of an eye. “You’re up and you’re down” refers to the wildly varying temperatures in good ol’ Michigan.

You’re wrong when it’s right
It’s black and it’s white

Surely we’ve all heard people say, “But it was supposed to be sunny today!” Michigan is wrong when the weather report is right (if that makes any sense). The weathermen say Michigan will do one thing, but it does another—the wrong thing. “It’s black and it’s white” is probably going to be one of my favorite lines of interpretation. Clearly the black refers to the way in which the snow melts around February, March, and April and gets gray, brown, and gross from the muddy ground and the dirt sprinkled on the road. The white, on the other hand, refers to the way in which fresh snow covers the gross, dirty snow.

We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up

Many of us Michiganders share a love/hate relationship with the beloved mitten. Sometimes we hate it because of how crazy it is. We threaten to move away to a warmer state that doesn’t get such bipolar weather. Then it gets warm in Michigan or we see the vivid colors of fall or we see the beauty of the first full-blown snowfall, and we realize we love the state in which we live. And then we say, “We’re sorry Michigan! We’re sorry we threatened to leave you!”

You don’t really want to stay, no
But you don’t really want to go, oh

“You” refers to us; it can also be seen as “all of you.” See the above explanation. I think Perry is repeating herself.

Cause you’re hot then you’re cold
You’re yes then you’re no
You’re in and you’re out
You’re up and you’re down.

We already went through this.

We used to be just like twins, so in sync
The same energy’s now a dead battery

This refers to those of us who have lived in Michigan our whole lives. When we were young, we didn’t mind Michigan’s twists and turns. Heck, we hardly even noticed them (or was that just me?). During the first snowfall, we’d be so excited. “SNOWWWW!” we’d squeal. Now we look out the window, slump our shoulders, and say, “Oh, great. This stuff again.” Hence the line, “The same energy’s now a dead battery.”

Used to laugh ’bout nothing
Now you’re plain boring
I should know that you’re not gonna change

Man, this is getting harder and harder as the song goes on…Well, laughter indicates happiness, right? Boredom indicates the opposite (okay, sadness indicates the opposite, but bear with me, here). We used to get so excited and so happy over something so normal and so natural. Now it’s boring and we groan whenever snow comes. And it’s never gonna change. Never. Even though it’s Michigan, and Michigan is bipolar.

Okay, then we have the chorus again…

Someone call the doctor
Got a case of a love bipolar
Stuck on a roller coaster,
Can’t get off this riiiiddeeee…

We love Michigan, but it’s bipolar. So we have a “love bipolar.” And the doctor-thing is just an expression, you know. We’re stuck on a roller coaster of Michigan’s wild weather, and unless we move, there’s no way we’re getting off this riiiiddeeeee.

And that’s basically it, except the chorus repeats itself a few more times.

I hope you enjoyed this! I realized I was forced to stretch some things a few times, but that’s analysis. If nothing else, this post proved that you can derive meaning from anything.

In an Unexpected Turn of Events…

There’s something I’ve never been able to say truthfully before, but now I can. I have a boyfriend.

Yes, I know! I KNOW! I think most of the initial shock has finally worn off by now, but it still feels weird in a few ways. At the beginning, I had trouble calling him “my boyfriend” because the words felt so weird on my tongue. And beneath my fingers when I typed it. It still feels weird, I guess. I wonder if saying it over and over again will make it feel more normal. My boyfriend…my boyfriend…my boyfriend…

I don’t know.

And now you’re going to want details about what happened, am I right? Okay, so here it goes.

Jonathan and I met through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (I’ve joked, “InterVarsity: bringing couples together since however long it’s been around”). We’re in the same small group Bible study. My interest (or curiosity, rather) sparked for him when he came to the large group meeting for the first time. He sat beside me and offered to walk me back to my apartment afterward. That gave me a strong feeling that he was interested in me. He seemed like a nice guy, so I decided to give him a chance and get to know him a bit better. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. Eventually, I worked up my courage and asked him to have dinner with me one Sunday night. Then on Tuesday, we went exercising. Then on Thursday, he invited me to have dinner with him. It was then that he confessed that he liked me and asked me to be his girlfriend. I told him I returned his affections but wasn’t quite ready yet; I wanted to get to know him a little better. He said that was fine with him. We continued spending time together. This past Saturday, he invited me to see Grand Valley’s last home football game. Just to clear things up for those of you who don’t know me, I don’t like football. At all. I don’t like watching it, I hated playing it in gym class in school (even though it was flag football). So it is saying something that I agreed to go (my parents commented, “She must really like this guy if she was willing to go to a football game with him”). It was absolutely freezing at the football arena, and I thought my feet were about to fall off, so we stopped by the commons area afterward, got hot chocolate, sat down in some chairs, and hung out. We had quite a bit of a heart-t0-heart. We were there way longer than I had expected; by the time we finally left, a guy had come up to us and had told us the building would be closing in a few minutes. We walked back to our apartment (we both live in the same building, but on different floors). Rather than parting, however, we continued talking.

“Okay, now it’s your turn to talk,” he said after I had been silent for a while.

I hesitated. My feelings for him had just been growing stronger and stronger and stronger the more time I spent with him, bubbling up inside of me, threatening to surface and make themselves known. I wanted to be his girlfriend, badly.

But still…

“I want to say something, but I’m scared to say it,” I said, mirroring quite well what he had said to me before asking me out.

“Say it,” he said.

I took a deep breath. “You make me so happy. And I really, really like you. And I’m scared as heck because I’ve never had a boyfriend before, but what’s life without risks?” I trailed off.

“Say it,” he said.

“Will you be my boyfriend?” I burst.

“Yes,” he said with a nod of his head.

“YESSSS!” I squealed.

He laughed. “What were you expecting me to say?”

I had no idea. And I still have no idea. I guess it just…happened. My head was spinning, and I was scared and elated and shocked, all at the same time.

And that’s my story.

Funny thing is, he said he started becoming interested in me after something I said in small group. We were talking about prayer requests, and I asked for prayers for strength and purity of mind. That same day, I’d had to read a short story with an explicit sex scene in my Creative Writing class, and I had to read a short story called “Nipple Jesus” for that same class, too. He said he found that very interesting. I find it so amazing how things worked out. God took a lousy situation and used it for something good. If it weren’t for the fact that I had to read those stories, I wouldn’t be writing this post. God definitely works in mysterious ways.

Another funny story about this: the next time we got together for small group, a girl named Claire pointed to the two of us and said, “Aren’t the two of you dating?” or something along those lines. Immediately, everybody was abuzz.

“No way!” a girl named Katie cried. “When did this happen? Lauren and I play matchmaker, and we called it!”

I love my small group.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, yes, I am now dating the guy who dressed up as Slenderman for Costume Bowling.

 

Gotta love this picture!