The Bloomington summer lifestyle: Bible camp and battle wounds

Hi there, just checking back in to update you on my glamorous summer in the 812. Where even to begin? So many adventures, so much excitement. I suppose a fun place to start would be a (semi) full report about my Housing Assistant job with RPS. Don’t worry, I’ll only include the events worth mentioning. Since I last posted, the summer camps have been rolling in. My favorite thus far was Impact, which catered to campers interested in learning more about Jesus. I believe part of the camp’s goal was to teach the youngsters how to give an effective conversion sermon. Serious apologies if that’s not the politically correct term for when a person tries to convince you to adopt his religion.

Anyhow, I was led to believe this was the camp’s goal as I sat at the center desk and received one of these talks from a 16 year-old boy. It started off with some innocent small talk. For a second I thought he might be trying to hit on me. Then, next thing I know, I’m being asked “Do you believe in God?”, which was followed up by a 10 minute lecture (where I sat silently nodding, unable to get a word in edgewise). Side note: I think the hitting on me thing was definitely an ulterior motive as at one point during his sermon he said “I’ll admit I first came over here because..well..I thought you were beautiful.” 1. You’re 16. 2. You just told me you used to be illiterate before you began journaling (?? I’m as confused as you are here). 3. Telling me about God’s virtues is probably not the most effective approach for picking up a girl. (Further tangent: Earlier this summer, a man hit on me by calling me stocky and thinking it was a compliment. In his defense, I think he was unsure what the word stocky actually meant. He profusely began to apologize and take it back after he saw my face drop and a witness explained the definition of the word, but the damage had been done. So clearly I’m striking gold in the guy department this summer. Although, shout out to the Impact camper for actually using a flattering adjective.)

Yes, immediately following the incident, I googled the definition of stocky in order to screenshot and tweet about it. No shame.

Moving on..my favorite line from the Impact camper’s enlightening talk was when he said, “You’ll forget me until one day you’ll be driving in your car and you’ll hear a song that’ll remind you how difficult the abyss of life can sometimes be, and then you’ll remember what I told you about how our savior has a plan for us even if we may be suffering.” Technically I’m not sure I should be using quotation marks because unfortunately I couldn’t pull out my recording device in time for the ambush sermon, so the story’s been reduced to paraphrasing. But trust that he was actually very suave and well-spoken. I was kind of jealous of the dude’s ease with talking to be honest. Long story longer, my boss finally came out from her office in the back (where she had been listening to the entire *one-sided* conversation). She made up a task for me to do and shooed the boy away. When I asked her why she didn’t come to my rescue sooner, she told me she was having difficulty stopping her laughter for long enough to gain a serious composure. Well thanks boss, I’m just grateful that you eventually found the strength to stop laughing at my expense.

So, aside from making money for listening to conversion sermons, I’ve found other means to earn an extra penny or two through the blessing of my college student status connections. Okay, so technically I’m not actually a college student anymore. But I promise I’m still in that weird limbo between “graduating” and having a big girl job with ~benefits~. For those of you fortunate enough to bypass this limbo, let me fill you in. This fun stage of life means all of my groceries/cleaning products/contact solution/you name it are still Kroger brand (or that “P$$t” brand..my fellow low budget *college students* know exactly what brand I’m talking about), and I think I accidentally became a vegetarian because meat costs more than spinach or yogurt. This limbo also means I’m still clinging onto my .edu account until they pry it out of my cold dead Umail hands. Oh, and I definitely logged into Oncourse (yes Oncourse, not Canvas, I’m old) while at a bar this past weekend because I saw a past professor (who was a bit inebriated hehe), and I needed to jog my memory to remember her name. Wow, it seems I’m apparently innately wired to get defensive about post-grad life.

Here’s a low quality photo of me water skiing during 4th of July weekend as a reprieve from all the weird things I’ve been sharing.

ANYWAY, so why is being a “~*college student*~” in Bloomington this summer a blessing? I promise that tangent had relevance. The answer is that I get to browse through IU Classifieds to find experiments to participate in to make some side cash (which occasionally goes toward my brand name contact solution budget..I splurged this month and got Clear Care!!!) See? Full circle. Well, my favorite of these said experiments thus far was the one wherein they put me in a big hat/helmet doohickey that connected wires to my head to record my brain’s electrical activity (EEG if you will, shout out to my psych nerds who didn’t need that clarification). So, basically, a man from the psych department spent an hour rubbing gel on specified places around my head so he could then attach the thought receptors (this is totally *probably* not the scientific name for whatever those wires were, but I will gladly take credit for coining that term because let’s be honest, it sounds pretty cool). Following the long process of placing the doohickey on my head, I listened to some sounds and pressed some buttons and made $40. I only came away with two scabs. I was assured the procedure would be harmless and would cause no damage, but we should all know by now that as a general rule, I tend to be the exception to the rule. For fear that my readers do not believe this EEG experiment actually happened, see pictures below. But seriously, obviously you believe me because who in the hell would make a story like that up? This is truly just the epitome of a Rachel thing. The pictures are more so just for you to laugh at my expense. You’re welcome.

Luckily I could not see how silly I looked as I made small talk with the experimenter

It was not so fun washing all this goo out

Battle wounds I suffered for being the exception to the rule

Now that we’re on the subject of battle wounds and scars, I feel the need to report my other scars are healing (slowly but surely) as well. It’d be unfair to say something like that without giving context, so I guess it’s time to delve into explanations for the injuries I’ve suffered this past year that seemingly only I would incur:

1. The Twinkle Light Incident of ’16: This one was a doozy. In the midst of a long, hard week of classes and minimal sleep, the sleep deprivation finally hit — hard. In the interest of flattering lighting and chill vibes, I have Christmas lights/twinkle lights/whatever you want to call them hanging on my wall. Usually I unplug them when I go to sleep, but my tired mind would not allow this on that fateful night in February. The next morning I awoke to weird white bumps/blisters all along my left leg. And they hurt. Did I have an allergic reaction to my sheets? An allergic reaction to my dream? After pondering the possibilities for this sudden apparent disease I had developed overnight, the answer finally came to me the next day. (Yes, embarrassing that it took so long to realize). My lights had fallen onto my bed in the middle of the night and I had rolled onto them causing a faint but persistent heat pressed against my leg throughout the night..causing second degree burns the next morning. Many may ask how I did not realize this as it was happening (yes, also embarrassing that I did not). My weak defense is that I felt it but it was faint enough (and I was tired enough) that I thought it was part of my dream. Needless to say, I now (yes, it’s been five months and they’re still there) have a few small circle-shaped scars scattered on the outside of my left leg and I am an avid user of Bio Oil. Though I think I may have to make a switch to the hard stuff soon and splurge on Mederma. Thank goodness for that EEG funding.
2. The B-town Summer Popcorn Massacre: My wonderful summer roommate, Katie, believes in good old fashioned popcorn. You know, the kind where you buy the kernels and pop them yourself. She even has her own popcorn popping bowl. It’s great, the theme of our summer has been popcorn, wine, and Gossip Girl. So, after Michelle moved out this past week (extreme sad face, best of luck in California boo), she took the microwave with her (also sad face). However, we remembered we could still pop our beloved popcorn kernels the REAL old fashioned way (on the stove, in a pot). Problem solved, right? Well, the following night Taeler (shout out to my awesome new Arizonan friend) and I painted the town red and upon our arrival back to my place determined we wanted a little popcorn snack. This was my first popcorn night sans Katie, and Katie had always been the professional popper.
   

   WOW this was actually quite painful

   

   LOL what is my life?

   Turns out, I’m not so good at old fashioned popcorn..I forgot to put a lid on. The next morning I woke up to a kitchen covered in popcorn, another second degree burn on my pinky from touching the hot pot in an effort to stop the violent shower of the salty snack, and a popcorn kernel burn on my chest from a particularly feisty rogue kernel. Are you starting to get the gist of what I mean when I say “just Rachel things”?

I think this brings my list of wounds to a close. I’ll probably have another one to add to the list soon after I publish this post due to the trials and tribulations of being a “~*college student*~” in Bloomington. (But more accurately, just the trials and tribulations of being me.) I would love to go into more detail about my wonderful Fourth of July weekend in “up north” Michigan with Katie (wave runners, water skiis, sand dunes, fireworks), but I’m too happy to end the post talking about weird scars, so I’ll leave it at those four things that basically sum up the weekend anyway. I know, the Bloom gets rowdy in the summertime. Until next time, my friends.

Your stocky klutz,

Rachel