Chapter 28: It's the Little Things

     Anyone remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears?? That one chick who broke into the bears' house and sat in all their chairs, slept in their beds and ate all the oatmeal? Ok great- well you know the part about her trying to sit in the baby's chair? "Oh no! Why this chair is just not big enough for me!" or the bed, "Oh dear me, this bed is rather small and not big enough at all!" Ya ok-- so that's me.
     Alas, normal sized people, you can go throughout your whole day never having to worry if you're going to be able to cross your legs under this desk or not. I hope to point out some of the things in life not made for tall people because most of you are completely unaware of the advantages you possess of being normal.
    First item, chairs. Ok, so most chairs aren't bad, I mean I fit, I can sit down in them but they aren't designed to fit a tall person. The lumbar support isn't in the right place, and your thighs hang over the edge way longer than they should. It's almost like a knife stab in the chest when I look over at some cutetsy girl over in the corner of the class just sitting in her chair, swinging her legs because her feet don't even reach the ground! You know how much fun that is?? That's why I love going to restaurants and sitting at the raised tables so I can sit there and swing MY legs back and forth in bitter spite of all the days I can't do that in class...
     Next thing... tables-- seemingly to go along with chairs. Too far awayyy! I feel as if I'm in Japan  trying to eat off of one of their floor tables. You wonder why tall people are always hunched over a bit?? It's because you don't make our sized furniture, so whether I'm trying to eat some spaghetti or work on my computer, I have to hunch to get close enough to the top of the table.
     You don't even want to know about clothes, but I'll tell you anyway. It's a mess, especially for a girl. Stores carry normal sized people clothes at reasonable prices and they are able to get a rather nice wardrobe. For some reason I stores either think tall people are absolutely rich, or don't exist. The "tall" sizes are a joke and waay over priced, just because you added an extra 1/2" on those jeans does not make them cover my ankles :/ Get it together! Shirts are weird too, I normally look for the "tunic" length shirts that are suppose to go with leggings and cover normal sized people's butts, on me they tend to work out ok as just normal shirts, sometimes.
     Shoes- even worse. I'm not dainty and petite. My bad- I have feet to match my height. Personally I enjoy my feet, if I had small feet I would just be falling over all the time because I wouldn't have a big enough foundation, so I'll take balance and coordination over foot attractiveness. However, no one seems to enjoy my feet. The super cute shoes that I see in magazines or in the stores tend only to go up to a 9 or 10 most times. I come in soooo close with a size 11, but if the shoe doesn't fit... it's really painful.
     I could go on and on about all these little things that tend to add up to make a tall person feel like a giant trying to make it in a Barbie world. No leg room in cars, feet hanging over the bed, small couches, bathroom counters, squatting under short showers,  it's all very distressing and confusing. So next time you look in awe at some 6'+ person walking by and "wish you had their height," think again my friends-- it's not all fun and games. Although we arrrrre pretty good at games, athletic games like volleyball and basketball ;)

But stop asking me if I play!!! Not all tall people are required to play sports!!--- Seriously!

Chapter 27: Defying Averages

     I've been asked to define how tall is tall. I took it into consideration and have thought it over a lot because everyone thinks they should be included in the "tall" group. Sorry- not errbody can get an invite from this club. I came up with my basic definition for being considered a "tall" women and that is  if you as a woman were taller than the average height of the male population I would say you can be thought of as tall.

    In that case I had some research to do- and by research I mean Google searching the average male height and clicking on the Wikipedia link (if you don't use Wikipedia for your own research, you are only denying yourself!). What I found was very depressing for a girl who's 6' 2". Apparently in the United States the average male height is 5' 10"-- dannnnngit!! So based on that research and my own made-up definition I definitely qualify as tall. The problem becomes separating between girls who think they're tall and girls who are just gosh dang gigantic. I've read through some other girl's blogs out there who whine about being tall, just like I do, and they talk about how awwwwful it is and about how they're soooo tall and they don't fit in and they wish they could wear heels and feel socially accepted. Then I find out that their tragic height is 5' 7" REALLY? Haha- you can wear 5" heels and still be shorter than me just chilling flat footed... Thanks for making me feel social unacceptable-- 

     My point anyway is that you can't be considered super tall and out of place until you pass 5' 10" but personally, (even though my pre-existing definition is one I made up anyway) I don't think you should complain until you're over 6'. I sadly found that only Denmark and the Netherlands even have average male heights over 6'! Yikes! I may have to move, maybe pick up a couple new foreign languages in order to have friends my size! Of course this is just male averages, the female averages make me look even worse. In the U.S. the average female height is about 5' 4 1/2"-- crappp! I guess you could also define yourself as tall if you break that 5' 4" average... but I don't think that should count- cause you're not- sorry. 

     Also while reading through the very informational article on Wikipedia about human height, I learned some fun facts that really boost my love of height. Turns out if you're super duper tall, which by all my definitions, I am- you will most likely have cardiac problems! Woot! Neat! Apparently it's because my limbs are soo freaking long, my heart is trying to pump blood all the way through my body for so long with out vacation days or overtime pay it gets a little cranky. Also according to the credible source that is Wikipedia, extremely tall and extremely short people can suffer from social exclusion and discrimination! Awesome! Thanks normal sized people!

    However in continuing to read through the page on height which you can explore for yourselves here Fun Facts I found that normally during Presidential elections, the taller candidate gets elected! Boom! So even if you don't like having tall people included in your friend group and you ostracize us for being super fricken unusual- you still see us as superior in our nation-leading skills- and on that note I will let all the short people get angry about not having nuclear bombs to deploy at their disposal! HAHA! Yay being tall!

Chapter 26: Language, God and a Syllabus

     I've been checking my stats and it turns out that there are people from Romania and Malaysia that are reading this? Crazy! Hahaha shout out to anyone who reads this from outside of the U.S. yaaa buddy, props to you if you can read this and English isn't your first language. Turns out learning a different language sucks.

      I've finally resigned myself to realizing that I will never fully understand languages, it's unnerving at first because I expect everything to have a pattern so an idiot American like myself can understand something. As such, I have allowed myself to not understand French, I don't think I will ever be able to pronounce anything correctly ever in French, mainly because you guys refuse to pronounce half of the letters that are deemed necessary for a word! Why put them there!! 

     I was having enough trouble in 4th grade trying to figure out how to spell dumb or knife that have 1 silent letter that just throws everything off! Bu then the French start throwing out phrases like Qu'est-ce que vous voulez? which it could be easily written and pronounced "Ksk vu vu lay?" You know how many letters I saved by typing it like that??? 12! If you count punctuation- I don't know if God was assigning essays back in the day to the ancient civilizations and it had to have over 100,000 bajillion characters and so to make quick work of it the French cheated and just started throwing in random letters to make it long enough?? Like, "Here God, yay us! we finished first! Woopie! No - I have know idea why there is are "s" or "ent" endings on words which we NEVER PRONOUNCE! Just thought it'd be funzies!"

     I guess the better question would be what God would assign to a civilization to write about? I mean it probably wouldn't be a research paper, right? God's already got all those topics figured out... Or how would God actually assign the essays? Via email/prophet? Does the prophet have an email account?Does He hand out a syllabus? Is that what the Bible is?? God's syllabus to humans? That actually kind of makes sense, a syllabus explaining what we need to do to pass his "class," in which case people should probs check out the syllabus more often before they go to class- that way there's no surprises when you walk in class.

     You know that sinking wanna puke feeling that you get right after you walk in and see everyone start to pull out their freshly printed copies of their. Then each step you take you are closer to your desk and the shame of how horrible of a student will be revealed to the rest of the class as you remain THE ONLY ONE that doesn't have the neatly stapled essay to hand in.... sucks-- Life lesson kids, always check the syllabus before going to class so even if you haven't done the homework you can at least be prepared and come up with an interesting excuse or fancy story...

   Sooo I think I just told everyone to go read the Bible? In which case, yes I would take a glance at that sometime, just to check out if you've got stuff to do before.... class/death? I don't know - this blog doesn't make any sense, I've noticed that now so cheers to not being a paid writer because I don't have to make sense and I'm sure that if you've continued to read this far you're getting some sort of enjoyment from this- or you're my friend and you feel it's your duty to finish this out with me to the very bitter awful end (Thanks for that by the way, the whole being my friend bit), of which you feel obliged because you think I'm funny in person and so the humor should automatically correlate to humorous writing?? Possibly- I really don't know why you people read this but I probably should bring about the bitter end now because I know that there is probably something way more important or constructive that needs accomplished. Seriously who's gunna figure out Global Warming?!? Chop chop, let's get to it people!! I want it to start snowing!! 

Chapter 25: Hipster Blogging

     You all knew it.... Some point this post was inevitable. Here I am just a normal college girl on a Sunday night trying to be smart. Since volleyball's over I have time to try some college activities I missed out on last year, and tonight, thanks to a German project I'm doing something new. Here I am in the Haymarket in a coffee house surrounded by skinny jeans, sweaters, scarfs and hats. There's some banjo music playing and a girl in the corner to the right has the cute messy-hair bun with glasses combo I hope someday to be able to pull off.
     Our project for German was to go to a coffee house and write a 200 word essay over our experience, in German- right. Because apprently in Vienna at the turn of the century die Kaffeehause was very important to society and culture and many smart people went there to share opinions and what not. Soo here I am assimilating into the culture- I've got my tall mocha latte, my various smart people books laid out, a notebook and of course now I'm being super hipster by blogging about all of this. I did my best to blend in a bit, I wore my skinny jeans and did a side braid wore a hemp bracelet  but alas I'm still 6' 2" when I walk in the door and still can't seem to go anywhere unnoticed--Oh and another girl from my German class just walked in- aaaaaand she's already got the assignment done- dangit. Yes... I know it's due tomorrow- good for you you're more efficient.
    Ok soo now there's this dude that just walked in and knows three other girls here... neat- he's got a creeper stash and skinnies with a green sweaterish shirt with those canvas tennis shoe things? I don't really know what I'm suppose to write about for this essay let alone what I'm going to be able to write about in German- blahh.
     Sooo we're just gunna keep people watching-- I awkwardly sat down next to this guy two tables to my left because I didn't really know where to set up shop, he seems to be kind of shy and tentative  ooh ho! He's wearing Nikes! I wonder if that's acceptable?? Hmmm.... More to the left there's a very proud looking girl with three big math or science books open and she's viciously typing away, she looks pretty smart, probably going into Med School. On my right is a girl who is taking up a whole couch with a pea coat and riding boots and a plaid backpack who just coughed, sucks being sick... hmm she's really quiet and not typing maybe she's listening to some sweet music, she was one of the three that knew the canvas shoes man. He is now in deep- HILARIOUS - conversation with some dirty blonde girl sipping out of a Styrofoam cup- ooh shoot! Haha he just brought up the Peace Corps, he wants her to do it, "it'd be an exciting adventure" Wow this is stereotypical. Now the Peace Corps is, "hip and trendy." Alright canvas shoes/creeper stash man who just flashed a Nook... stole my idea.
     Girl at about 11 o'clock right in front of me with an iPad and a nose ring smiling at whatever she's reading who is wearing a green knitted hat also wearing Converse- good on ya. Oh no my neighbor is leaving :( the timid guy who is quickly packing up his laptop shoot. Creeper stash man is now proudly proclaiming that no one ever gets married in the middle of December.... interesting I probably would have never known that. I wonder if they will ever know how creepy I'm being right now by listening to everything they're saying then typing it down? I don't think this is part of the assignment... oops extra credit?
     Oh first interaction! The smart MedSchool girl just asked me if I was using the table to my left that Shyman just vacated  apparently her friend is coming and they are going to need more room for all of their books, which on closer inspection prove to be exercise science related- smarty smarts. Well before the friend can get here I should probably look like I'm actually doing something smart too to try and fit in. Haha ook well I hope this proves to be insightful and makes you just a tiny bit jealous of my new awesome hipster friends.
     Well now I believe I should probably start my real assignment and write this all out in German-- Ich weiß nicht, wo ich anfangen soll!! Stay hipster my friends! Wish me luck-- yikes

Chapter 24: Sharing Some Tall People Love

     The other day I had a great experience that just made me happy. One of those moments that when I'm having a horrible day I can look back on and smile about. I was at MoJava (a coffee house close to Wesleyan) for Kaffeestunde, which is our German coffee hour where a whole bunch of Professors and some students sit around and sprechen in Duestch for an hour (Stunde)- Kaffee, coffee/ hour, Stunde = Kaffeestunde~ yay learning German! I've found that for most German expressions you can keep smashing words together until they describe something and volià [fun fact: volià in French means here it is. yay French!] you've made a new word. Anyway I was putting away my hot chocolate mug (heiße Schokolade) and this gentleman, he was roughly 60ish and about 6' 5" I'd say, came up to me and touched my arm saying, "Excuse me, but I just had to tell you that you wear your height well, it suites you and makes you very beautiful." AHWWW! What do you say to that?? So I just smiled and said Thank you.
     He went on to ask me the usual, "How tall are you exactly? So do you play volleyball or basketball?" I laughed and gushed my familiar routine... blah blah blah. He then went on, "So I assume that you go after the tall ones?" Awkward.... but its only awkward if you make it awkward- so with this complete stranger in the middle of MoJava I quickly explained my philosophy about how I preference my guys: I don't mind as long as they can handle it and not freak out about me being taller, but with that in mind I normally prefer taller guys, its just easier. He just smiled and looked at me and said, "Well I guess you know what to do with all the losers then (insert kicking action here)" then he just walked out saying, "keep your head up and be proud" then left.
      It was so weird and yet awesome it just made the rest of my day even though by this time I had only slept 4 hours of the past 24, midterms they get to you- but I just thought I would share this as another bright light in my daily plight of not being normal. I wouldn't say this guy was the first random person to come up to me and congratulate me on being tall, but normally it's little old ladys that just think I'm neat cause I'm about a foot and a half taller then them. I think this was the first random old man to come up to me... soo that's fun. These moments obviously put me in a good mood and so if I live past 45 then I think I'll be obliged to do the same when I'm old, just keep sharing the tall people love with the next generation- we gotta stick together!