Today, in the newsroom, a few of us--Danny, Chanet, Katharine, and I--reminisced about old TV shows we watched when we were kids. Wishbone taught us literature, Arthur, Big Comfy Couch, and The Wild Thornberries were just plan awesome. Chanet mentioned that she once passed a guy on campus who had the Kim Possible alert tone and I remembered my freshman year, when someone's phone went off in class and it was the same tone. Everyone noticed and everyone laughed because we all knew what it was we all knew that everyone knew. I love those moments. They feel like community. Like when half the room sang along with Rainbow Connection during a showing of Muppets in the campus theater. I nearly cried. Maybe I'm just a sap, but moments like those give me a little hope in humanity, or at least assure me that even as college students, we can still be grounded in memory of our childhoods and be brought a little closer together. Just maybe. Moments like these remind me that we're all the same. We were all kids once. I mean, who didn't love Kim Possible? I think, if more people held tightly to their childhood instead of trying to be cool, we might not have so many douchebags and drama queens. We're not grown-ups yet, guys. Let's all take a chill-pill and watch the Lion King while gorging ourselves on cookies and milk. You know you want to. 

Tonight in the newsroom, work was super efficient. My copy desk team was done by 8 (we start at 7), I was done by 9, and all of the other section editors and Katharine (the editor in chief) were done by 9:30. So we all went to Winegars. It's Tuesday, so we all got dollar scoops. My friends from XA were there, and I was glad to see them, since I usually only see most of them outside of lunchtimes every other day because of work. I miss them! So I stood with them and we got to hang out for a little while. Everyone left at quarter to 10 and I sat with the other editors because Katharine had offered to give me a ride home. I didn't say much; I just laughed along with the jokes and wished I understood the references to other people in the communications department. When Katharine and I were back in her car and she was driving me home, she said, "I'm really going to miss the newsroom next year. Not the work, just the camaraderie."

"Yeah," I said quietly. For the last few weeks, I've been feeling like I am surrounded by high school students when in the newsroom. Rap videos, dramatic antics, nicknames, jokingly vulgar headlines tossed about before they're changed to something reasonable... I know they were all friends, classmates, and co-workers before I entered the picture. Now I feel slightly more included in the atmosphere of controlled chaos than I was as just a copy editor last quarter, but I still feel like I'm a little on the outside. It is only the fourth week and we do have six more weeks together on the Observer. Many of us are graduating and going on to bigger and better things. Katharine got the internship at the Huffington Post and is moving to L.A. for that and be closer to her boyfriend. The Huffington Post! I'll be editing for the Daily Record (ideally), getting married, then eventually doing some kind of writing or editing in Seattle. I think I will miss it. I asked Katharine how different the atmosphere is in a real newsroom. 

"Well, I worked at the Yakima Herald last summer, and it was a lot quieter, but that was probably just because it wasn't during the school year so there weren't all the school-related events going on. It's quieter, but there's still the camaraderie there."

"Hmm. I can't to do that after college." And then we discussed our plans for after graduation. It was discovered that she didn't know I was getting married. She congratulated me and I told her that Kurt is moving here after getting his math degree and plans to get his teaching certificate. I'm excited. 

I feel like I'm just now starting to fit in, but life is moving on so quickly anyway. Does that make sense?

So... that last post about my angst concerning Kurt and dancing and Chris and dancing and marriage and dancing... was awfully ansgty. I'm going to start this post out with a follow-up: Everything is okay now. In fact, everything is better than okay. No, I did not suddenly find out I can go on all the dancing trips that I was skipping because of XA commitments. I still can't go. But I talked to Chris, I talked to Kurt, and I talked to A-Train, and new information is this: Kurt would love to go on dancing trips with me but acknowledges that he's still only a beginner. He understands that Chris and I are (and will only ever be) just friends. Really good friends, but no more. (You'd think this wouldn't be an issue at all, but people were indeed talking about it and were concerned. I found out, we all had a long talk, and now everything is good.) Therefore, Kurt is absolutely fine with me going to workshops, random dances, and the occasional Lindy exchange with Chris. Thank goodness, because I'm not ready to give that up. Eventually, he will want to join us and dance with me too, and that will be fine. I wonder if we'll still sing showtunes at the tops of our lungs while it's snowing on the pass... Then again, northwest summers typically don't involve snow.

Concerning Kurt's dancing skills, or potential lack thereof: I have calmed down. Everyone was a beginner at some point. Yes, some people are more naturally adept than others, but that doesn't mean only the more naturally adept can become good dancers. They just take less time. Kurt, with his scarily large feet and lack of a working inner left ear, might just take a little longer than others. So you know what I think this is?

I think it's a lesson in patience. I have never been a patient person. But all my life, God has been throwing lessons in patience at me. He gave me three younger brothers who are very different from me. He gave me parents who are both completely deaf in the same ear and who are also very different from me. He gave me a boyfriend who is also completely deaf in one ear (other ear though) and lives in MISSOURI. He gave me a job as a writing tutor, where I often work with high school-level English writers. And now I have to be patient with Kurt in his journey toward becoming a dancer and immersing himself in my world, the dancing community. I think God is telling me it's going to be extremely important for me to have patience one day. Or maybe just that it's always a good thing to practice. Who knows. All I know is I need to work on that.