What I did this summer was...

While home for the summer after my first two semesters of college, I found it necessary to find temporary employment. Of the half-dozen places to which I applied, only one scheduled an interview with me: a "research" company which shall remain nameless. "What does one do when employed at such a company?" you may ask. Well, my position was euphemistically labeled, "telephone interviewer," aka: those people who call you during dinner with an opinion survey. My dreams had at long last been fulfilled! Actually, I didn't ever have dreams about scoring such a job, and if I had, I now realize they would have been nightmares.

It was easy enough to get hired (it should have tipped me off when the people interviewing after me came in ripped jeans and dirty tank tops... in fact, my interviewer was wearing baggy jeans and gangsta-style sneaks), and I foolishly thought, "How bad can it be talking to people on the phone?" This is the Hannah that still has to work up enough courage to call and order pizza. This oughta be good...

I breezed through the training like I was born to use that computer survey system, and the training supervisor seemed spitefully amused at my light-hearted wit. Then it was time to make real calls... to real angry people. And the blood pressure started rising. It wasn't such a big deal when people turned me down, I mean we get paid by the hour and there are no quotas because they want legitimate survey results, but I soon learned that it takes a very specific kind of person to handle a job like that: the kind with tattoos and missing teeth and tobacco breath. That kind of person really excels. I'm pretty sure if that job was all I had to look forward to for the rest of my life, I'd smoke too.

Words cannot describe the dread I began to feel as I prepared for each shift (hours are voluntary - just call to sign up). It didn't take long to discover that more than two hours of smelling my smoker coworkers gave me a headache and after four hours of sitting at that computer I wanted to cry. In fact, with one particularly irate batch of registered voters, I did just that. I'm a tender person as it is, and after an already tolling day, an ignorant man insulting my intelligence for some coworker's negligence was just too much. And it's difficult to respect the supervisors when the most advanced word in their vocabularies is "verbatim" and they often misuse it in their sentences anyway. Finally, I just stopped signing up for hours - and what a relief it has been.

Anyway, I have just a few points I want to make with all this narrative. Obviously, I want to encourage you all to be kind on the phone. I know it's annoying when someone wants to conduct a twenty-minute survey with you but please don't yell; it's just his/her job. So if you must decline, do it in a way that does not belittle the messenger. In the time between calls, as I looked around at the older people who have been telephone interviewers for years, I knew that nobody worked there because they liked the job. It's just the only way these people have to support their children and pay the bills. Now, more than ever, I am truly grateful that I have a future and it starts with my next semester of college. I will never go back to that dump, or any other such job. I learned what poverty smells like (a mix of cigarettes and scalp grease), and whether I live alone or have a large family I intend to avoid that smell forever. I will make something of myself, and that is a choice.

Getting Schooled

As I prepare to head back to college this fall and many of my friends embark on journeys at their universities of choice, I am brought to consider how infinitely superior college is to high school. I never realized just how much I detested the latter until I experienced the former. Sorry if you don't like lists, because it looks like I'm making more! (It is my blog, after all)

So

Ignoring the obvious monetary aspect, overall college life is better than that of high school because:

1. You have more flexibility with when you take classes

2. There are all kinds of people to meet

3. Plenty of courses outside the areas of math, English, science and history are available

4. You can be more independent (decide when/what to eat, make weekend plans, etc.)

5. Cliques are either nonexistent or far less rigid

6. Most people there chose to be there

7. It really doesn't affect you if other people skip classes or show up late (except in the case of lab partners)

8. Yes, there are still immature nincompoops, but the chances of a competent-person sighting are far greater

9. You start anew every semester!

And now for some observations of why my university is uniquely better than my high school (and in some cases, other colleges and universities):

1. With a student body of over 30,000, I can't be singled out as the nerd, teacher's pet, lame single girl, or other shameful labels

2. I'm not the only - how do I say it tactfully? - non-desecrated person on campus

3. Teetotalism is enforced

4. Although there are still annoying couples, at least they don't [publicly] practice premarital reproduction

5. In a stadium of 64,000 fans, the football team actually wins multiple games a season

6. There are dance teams/clubs with members that do something other than shake their giant rear ends to dirty music

7. I don't step in gum every other day on campus and the grounds are impeccably clean

8. Nobody writes profanity - or anything - in bathroom stalls

9. Being honest, caring about grades and keeping yourself pure are actually considered admirable qualities. Who knew?!

Well, there you have it - just a few of the reasons I have found to prefer college over high school. To my friends who will soon begin 13th grade, and to everyone returning to school, I say, "Make it a great year!"

My Life is a Poorly Composed Melodrama?!

Warning: This post contains references to the Twilight "saga" (I shudder to admit).

For those of you who are unaware, I am not a fan-girl of Stephanie Meyer's teenage [blood]lust series. I have not read the books and plan on continuing to abstain from the literary meth that has ravaged the lives of so many of my contemporaries. I have relented and viewed the "films" that are already on DVD for the purposes of 1. understanding the "culture" in which I am forced to live - by, well, being alive in 2010 - and 2. having a good laugh at poor acting and such. Anyway, I make mention of this so you know that I do not write this as a fan-post.

Awkwardly enough, I feel the need to publish this because in the months since seeing New Moon, I have been shocked - and rather disgusted - at the comparison I've been able to draw between my own life and that of main "character" Bella. One moment; I need to go vomit.

Okay, here we go...

I'm the teenage daughter of divorced parents. My skin is the kind that some might call "ivory". This year I went through my first breakup ever, which was with a hard-to-read, pale-skinned, (dare I say soulless? Perhaps not quite) teenage boy who has weird eating habits and was still 17 when I turned 18. The relationship had a strange beginning; even though he was relatively withdrawn for most of the time I knew him, one day a switch seemed to go off and he decided I was worth a relationship. He promised to protect me and said I was so very important to him, and just when I started to believe him, he changed his mind. Oh, did I mention his absurdly large hair? Yeah, that too.

It's not clear how much of what he said to break things off was true, but he had to leave the state - or country - and didn't want to hear from me ever again. I didn't go into the woods and fall to the ground in mourning, but I did waste many tears longing for what used to be and agonizing over what went wrong. It took a few months for me to feel like myself again and let go of my anger. Unlike Bella, I did keep living and I did a lot of thinking (*huge divergence*). Like in the movie, whenever I do something thoughtless or idiotic, I am reminded of this former boyfriend, like his ghost is following me. Go figure.

For the remainder I'll provide a list of what similarities and differences remain, because paragraphs seem too formal for such subject matter.

Similarities

~ I still have an occasional dream crashed by ex-bf and it ruins my day (I don't screech like a banshee in my sleep, however)

~ I like dog-people, ha ha

~ Being with friends helps the pain go away

~ Vampires can't use their powers on me

~ Guys dig my wheels

Differences

~ When my warm, cuddly rebound comes along, I won't reject him and go back to the unhealthy relationship

~ Hopefully, I don't attract abusive relationships and volunteer to beat myself up like Bella does

~ I won't be jumping off any cliffs

~ I-i-i-i t-t-talk and think pretty well

~ I don't want my blood - or soul - sucked out

~ I can make a rational decision

And there you have it. If I think of any other items to add, I will. Here's hoping that I don't have to write another such post after seeing Eclipse...

On Embracing

Just over a year ago, someone showed me how to hug. Having grown up in an environment where little, if any, affection was displayed after surpassing toddlerhood, hugs were understandably not my thing. When I realized what I'd been without for so long, however, a simple hug came to mean the world to me. That simple, effortless act of caring - when received on enough occasions - served to remove the distrusting and doubtful reservations that had kept me from living happily for eight years.

But life changes and I don't get as many hugs anymore. While most of the hurt has healed, it feels like that void will linger, only to be lessened by the occasional embrace of a friend or perhaps a dream that makes me dread wakefulness. I never knew how much joy a touch could bring, or how much sorrow its absence could cause.

I don't publish this to invoke pity (although sympathy hugs would be appreciated, ha ha), but to call the reader to consider the value of a hug. I appreciate the loving people who give their kind embraces freely and I remember being one who felt awkward receiving a hug. If you're one of those, just smile and let it happen maybe it can change your life.

It's difficult to know what the future will bring, and while past embraces cannot return, let's all look forward and hope hard for lifetimes of sincere, fulfilling hugs.

Progress!

All right, the blog is looking a million times better! Oh, and apparently "Writes of Passage" is a fairly common play on words used in many contexts, so I've decided to go back to one of the other awesome names on my list. The design changes were all courtesy of Eli, big brother extraordinaire, and the background is a photo I took last summer. For now, I'm trying to think of a clever post to make, so check back soon!

Origins

By now you are probably wondering who you are, why you are here, and how this blog is so lame-looking and yet has my name attached to it, but I know you came for The Hannah, and You know you came for The Hannah. So now that we're on the same page, let's discuss how this blog came to be, and be assured that I will be working on the appearance for all you shallow critics out there.

I've actually been thinking about starting a blog for a few months now, since I've been making a lot of observations on people and the world as of late - so many, in fact, that Facebook just can't handle all the posts it would take to get my thoughts out.

The title of the blog is one of many I considered but it seemed the most pertinent. I consider myself to be in the thick of "growing up" experiences, enduring many rites of passage in the last two years. So it applies to much of what I'll be writing, and it's win-win, because who doesn't love a good play on words?

I intend on writing any deep or hilarious thoughts that come to mind because you all know laughing is one of my greater strengths. For any fans of a certain vampire "saga" that seems to be popular beyond all reason at the current time, I probably will write occasionally to comment on it so I'd suggest working on developing a sense of humor about these things because I won't be apologizing. No worries, though; this isn't going to be a bashing blog. Most of all it will be about my experiences so all my fans can keep track of what I'm up to. Bwah ha ha!

I hope this will be enjoyable for us all. Good luck.