love, joy, peace, patience…

Those of you who know me well – or probably just those of you who know me – know that patience is not something that I am naturally gifted with. I like to do everything fast. My suitemates in Barney will attest to this…I made Becca time my showers so many times last semester just to see how fast I could do it (current record: 3 minutes), and I always beat Gretchen when we washed our dishes next to each other even though I usually had quadruple the amount of dishes as her. Some people would say that I am not thorough…but I prefer to say that I get a lot of things done quickly. I like to walk fast, talk fast, read fast, etc…That’s just the way I am. So, when I opened my email a few days ago and saw an email from Jana Lynn Patterson (one of the deans at Elon) sent at 6:35am, I laughed. The email stated that that morning at Elon, the power went out in some buildings for about 20-45 minutes at 5:40am. I sat slightly in shock at two things: one, that the power had been fixed in less than 45 minutes, and two, that all students in the school received an email about the power outage less than an hour after it had occurred. This kind of communication seems so foreign to me right now…I can’t even imagine getting an email from one of the deans here that would explain why everyone was woken up at 4am one night to sit outside for an hour because of an earthquake rumor. Or an email to explain why our power and water went out for four days and when it would actually come on again. But, then again, do we really need an email? If people had been emailed that the earthquake warning was a hoax, I wouldn’t have been able to hang out with friends for an hour in the early morning, laughing and talking. And the power going out can be fun… why else would I have learned how to take a bucket shower or have had to find things to do that didn’t involve any electricity?

The following events have required me to have patience:

• when I get all ready to take a shower, only to find out the water is out
• when the internet connection goes out every ten minutes randomly
• when I try to skype with Leah for more than two hours, and it still won’t work even though I have full connection
• when it takes five minutes to open an internet page
• when trying to register for classes…see previous blog
• when the electricity is out for five days and your phone and computer die
• when I carry three giant water bottles to the counter of the nearby supermarket only to find that I can’t buy anything because they don’t have change for a ten and have to put them all back
• when I walk to the bathroom and have to go back to my room because I forgot to bring toilet paper
• when you get three different answers from three different people in the international programmes office in response to the same question
• when trying to find the books/articles I have to read for class
• when realizing that the class I was trying to attend had been randomly moved to another classroom

Yes, all of these things have annoyed me because, like I said, I like everything to happen quickly and efficiently. But, at the same time, it’s kind of fun to never know when the power will go out next….when it will be your last real shower for a few days…when you will get to randomly explore buildings to find your class…when you will have to figure out a place that has change so you can get water…

…so I’ve been trying to learn patience :)