Friendly or Friends?

After getting my morning cup of hot chocolate chai from Cupz, the coffee shop on University and College, I was thinking about writing a blog and how I would refer to the guy that I talk to every morning I go in there. I don't know his name, but we talk more and more as though we are friends. That led me back to an idea I've held onto for a while. What makes someone a friend, best friend, or just friendly?

A friend recently told me about the secret garden on campus. Ironically, there is a small sign on the ground with an arrow pointing inside that says, ‘Secret Garden’. It is such an escape from campus. This is my first time actually coming here to write, but it’s quiet. When I first got here, I was the only one. Since then, a few people have walked through, but there is only one other girl here on her computer. So for those of you who have not seen it, I took a few pictures.

This is what you see when you first walk in.

I’m sure you are dying to know how I define friends. Wait no longer.

Most people I know are in the friendly category. People I see at school, work, church, or coffee shop, are all friendly. Until we both make an effort to hang out outside of our usual place of contact, we will only be friendly. This is important simply because once people know you they are generally nice. It doesn’t mean though that they want to hang out with you in their free time. A friend would.

Being a friend is a two way street. Both people need to be willing to make time and hang out. If there is one person always asking to hang and the other always too busy, something is wrong. I have been on both sides of it, but it really works best when both are mutual friends.

I have 3 best friends. For me, I will do anything for my best friends. None of them live in Arizona, but if they needed me, I’d drop everything and go to either Utah or NC. Come to think of it, I think only one of them knows that. All are guys, which makes sense. In fact, if I move out of AZ, 2 of the 3 have offered and want me to live with them. I think it would be amazing, obviously. So really a best friend is someone you love.

What do ya’ll think? Do you hold your definitions differently? Do you care what you call people, whether it is friend, acquaintance, or best friend?

The Life; Busy Weekend

I didn’t sleep a whole lot this weekend. I had too much to do.

I really don’t remember what I did on Friday. Maybe I just went home and relaxed.

NO! I remember what I did. So I start working as a server at Outback pretty soon. I thought I was supposed to go in for training last weekend, the 3rd and 4th. Turns out it is actually this weekend, starting the 9th. So all day I was trying to get stuff done for it. Got my food handler’s card, found some dickies, made an appointment for the liquor certification. That was about it for the day. I found the paper that showed my schedule, so for the rest of the day, I just studied.



Saturday, I played with Brock all day! He beat me up, made my tongue start bleeding. Then in the evening, I got ready for my blind date to the ADPi formal. I timed it. I ironed, showered, shaved, got ready in a shirt and tie and was out the door in under 20 minutes. It turned out to be a very good night. I was really skeptical going into it as I had never actually danced at a dance before. Moe, my Pi Kapp big brother, was asked to go to the formal and his conditions were that I went along with. Hooking me up. We waited at the ADPi house for a long time, people were just chilling mostly. There were about 11 Pi Kapps there, as well as other fraternities. The other guys reminded me why I thought I’d never join a fraternity. By the time we got to the Hilton, I was relatively relaxed with the group I was with. Once there, we had salad, chicken and dessert. I didn’t think we were getting an actual meal, so I ate my dessert before my chicken. It was good though. Immediately after eating, we went out to the dance floor and went crazy until it was time to leave. I met a guy there that told me he’d hook us up with rooms if we would get him into some of the Tempe parties. We’ll see what happens I guess. After several changes to plans, we ended up at an apartment in vista. I brought my hookah out and Moe and I had some amazing deep conversation until 4am. Once that ended, I slept.

Unfortunately, Sunday morning came way too early. I got up after 3 hours of sleep and knocked out a rough draft of our next project in English 101 and studied history and information on Pi Kappa Phi. I missed our first meeting and got behind everyone else in that study, so I feel like I’m trying to catch up to their knowledge now. In the afternoon, I went and got some Ted’s Dogs and then headed to our meeting. I had to leave early though since I had a non-date to go on that evening. I was having trouble finding a date for it, but Shannon, a girl in my ASU101 class, is not only a female engineer, but also a Star Wars geek. I convinced her to come with me to share my excitement. It was so cool once we got there. There were not as many people dressed up as I expected. Mostly it was kids in Star Wars pajamas. It was a orchestral concert that played a handful of John Williams Star Wars songs. There were Lasers, Fog, Fire, and amazingness. After the first song, the Phantom Menace, I was yelling and cheering. I got pretty darn pumped. Music does that to me. Anthony Daniels, C3P0, narrated the entire event. There was also a choir in the back of the orchestra. I really want to figure out what words they actually sing. I wonder if they have to memorize gibberish. After the concert, I made sure we snapped a pic with Chewie, and then we headed home.

That was the weekend. Hanging out with Moe and the Star Wars concert really made it super. Moe and I actually figured out our costumes for Halloween, but that will be revealed later. I’ll for sure be putting pictures of it up.

This week I think is going to be all studying and paper writing. Then the weekend, I’ve actually got the Outback training. Hopefully I don’t bomb it.

My rules of debate

Well, originally I was going to write about my argumentativeness, but I got off on a tangent on debates. Not debates like you would see on a debate team. Rather, the kind you would encounter in splendid converstaion. So here are my rules.

#1 The easiest thing is that it has to be a subject that is interesting. Really the only thing that I could imagine falling into this category would be where people are talking way over my head and I can't picture it in my mind. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I couldn't spin to be an interesting topic of discussion with the right person.

#2 There need to be two sides of an argument. This is a general rule. It can be bypassed, but you have to have a couple people willing to play both sides of the story. When you are debating with someone over the same topic on the same side, you'll have to come up with your own counter arguments. While this works and can still get you new ideas and trains of thought, its not as good as actually having someone with that opinion.

#3 Have at least an idea of what you're talking about. You don't need to be an expert, but you have to be able to challenge the ideas that are being presented to you. Otherwise its a one sided conversation. This is great a lot of times, but more often people talk about superficial things that are not on this same level of deep conversation.

#4 Both parties need to truly be open minded. This is a critical rule. Each person needs to know they are not trying to convert the other to their idea of thinking, but rather convey their own thoughts on the issue in a way the other can understand. Too often, this is the piece that people forget and it becomes a bludgeoning match without any new thoughts.

As a side note, just because someone is liberal, it doesn't mean they are open minded. And just because someone is conservative, it doesn't mean they are close minded. Please remember that.

#5 The last part of a good debate is the structure. You start off with a main argument. It can be as simple as "That guys mullet is awesome." The other side would obviously be the negative of that. From there you will make a point like, "Its a mullet, but he can still get the girls, therefore it must be awesome." The other side will make a counter argument to this. Don't get hung up on the same small points over and over, and don't make lame arguments that have no substance to them. Then repeat this process.

If both of you follow these rules, your conversations will traverse a very wide range of topics. Generally.

So if anyone wants to practice, let me know and we'll go have some good conversations over some chai.

First Essay

So that essay I just posted about the night in basic is actually my very first college essay. Thats got to be some kind of milestone right? At least in the college scheme of things.