Life on a College Campus

Oh how sheltered I have been....

Middle school and high school classrooms are kept in check by a number of rules.  One of my favorites is the "finger-tip rule."  As in, When standing straight with your arms hanging down by your sides, your skirt/shorts/whatever your bottoms are classified as must reach wherever your fingertips end.  And no, you cannot cheat by raising your shoulders.  Another rule that most students comply with (for fear of the principal's office, or mommies and daddies being called), is no cursing out loud. 

So, the college campus is a little different.  I have mentioned before that I really, really enjoy working here.  It is pretty, the atmosphere is great, I have a great boss (Love you Maggie!)...but sometimes the lull of happiness brought on by the smell of boxwood is shattered by reality.  These are young adults whose parents are not close enough to have an impact on clothing choice or what comes out of their children's mouths...and there are no principals to be afraid of.  The result?  The finger-tip rule is gone.  I think, actually, that some girls think that since they lived under the thumb of dress codes for so long that they are going to break out and experiment.  More power to you, girls.  Here comes the but.

Yesterday I had to forcibly stop myself from staring at some girl's booty.  Not because it was a nice booty that I would aspire to have, not because it was gigantic and blocking my view, but because it was HANGING OUT!!!!!  Seriously.  If I could see the bottom of her tush while she was standing up and I was in my car, what would happen if she sat down?  Where would the skirt go?  What would people see?  AHHHHH!  Where is the finger-tip rule?????

Okay, the cursing.  College students must feel like they are obligated to do this.  Maybe to make up for all the perceived violations to their freedom of speech that they experienced in K-12 education?  I don't know, but somebody needs to give them a bar of soap.  Seems like when I walk across campus to the post office, another building (okay, Starbucks), I hear conversations peppered with some very colorful speech.  They use the four letter s word like valley girls use "like."  Maybe they will grow out of it, or maybe they will at least start to lower their voices.  Oh well. 

I still like working on a college campus...I will just be more aware of people's rears and people's voices. 

A Few Pictures

Sleepy Friends

So Happy...

Greatest Big Sister Ever!

Baby Burrito-Three Days Old-Doesn't She Look Yummy!

Halloween 2009

Just a Test...

This is just a test...I don't make a big habit out of filming my animals...but it the only video I have with me right now (who knows what that says about me)...so I'm trying it out.  This is Tori, a.k.a. The Cat Who Won't Die, with Kiley and some catnip.  It is a horrible clip, but I'm just trying to become familiar with how this works.  Check back later for clips of Kiley and Marianna playing, and also of Marianna walking!

Our New Home

Greg probably got used to the fact that central VA was our new home in a matter of seconds. I'm still on the fence.  In the spirit of Rory Gilmore, I have thought about it in a pro/con kind of way.  A big pro is that we are now within a 1-2 hour drive of some pretty cool stuff.  For instance, late last week, Jessie texts me that they will be in Charlottesville for a Heritage Harvest Festival on Saturday, and could we come?  Well, yeah, because it is less than two hours away from our new home.  So we went, and we had a great time.  It was relatively cheap (free parking, tickets to the event for $20 total).  It was at Monticello, so the setting was absolutely beautiful.  There were free tastings of produce (Marianna and Greg stayed at the watermelon table way too long, Leah probably ate way too many tiny toothpick portions of tomatoes, and Kiley?  Instead of just taking one toothpicked green pepper piece, she took the whole cup.) 

We sat in a music tent where the kids could play all kinds of instruments, played in Thomas Jefferson's vegetable garden, and just had a really good time.  Driving back to Lynchburg, I just kept thinking to myself, "This is our life.  This is where we live.  This is okay."  It is nice to be able to do these sorts of things.  Though, on the con side of the list is of course, the distance from Greg's family.  Kiley misses everyone in Wise so much...she talks about Aunty Riss and Aunty Kar all the time, especially when she sees something sparkly or any shade of nail polish.  She makes lists of things she wants to get Autumn.  She talks about Pappa's cucumbers, which she hasn't had any of this year, and she brings me stuffed animals that desperately need Mimi's sewing needle.  When we talk about visiting, she talks about who she is going to visit, when, and for how long.  She is a planner.  Maybe someday she'll make pro and con lists about her new home.  For now, I'm still adjusting.