Technicalities

This is my, er Katie Arnold's, official job rejection letter:

Technically, technically I didn’t get rejected from that credit union I interviewed with. Katie Arnold did, not I, Kate Arnold. What a slap in the face. Not only was I rejected on a premature phone call to the company, but two weeks later I was also rejected via snail mail in a standardized letter and the only personal touch to whole thing was incorrect. I guess I didn’t make as good of an impression on them as I thought I did. It’s ok, I don’t want to work for anyone who calls me Katie anyway.

In other news, in my hunt for a future career or a passion/direction in life, I considered being a mentor. I tried typing “become a mentor” into the google search bar, but instead google guessed I wanted to become a mermaid. I ran with it. I’ll be getting my scales in seashell bra in no time. 

Attempting to be an Oregonian

For about four years now, I’ve been a Californian masking as an Oregonian. Sometimes I think I was meant to be an Oregonian, and other times I think they should kick me right outta this state and back down to the big ol’ golden state. As far as I can tally, there is one reason why I’m a close to being an Oregonian and two reasons why I can’t shake the CA stamp on my forehead.

Reason 1 for being considered an Oregonian: In an attempt to become more like a real Oregon resident, I bought a Bi-Mart card. I’m aware that Bi-Mart isn’t necessarily a super Oregonian thing, so let me explain: you need a Bi-Mart card to get into the store, and for four years of college I refused to spend the $5 to become a lifetime member because I didn’t think I’d be in the state for life and because I’m cheap. Once I moved into a real-person house in Independence and was no longer a student but rather a townie, I decided to make the leap and splurge for the card. I’ve used my coveted green piece of plastic about three times since making the purchase and I already feel more like a perma-Oregonian. Plus it’s green, so I consider it my green card for the state. Worth it.

Reason 1 for being considered a Californian: Speaking of plastic cards, my CA license makes me feel like a 17 year old with a fake ID every time I try to buy alcohol in Oregon. I’m 22 years old and yet I still get twitchy and nervous when I go to buy a six pack of beer or a bottle of wine. Every checkout person takes about a full minute (I’m really not exaggerating) to examine my license. They usually can’t find my DOB or they bend and twist it a lot to see if it’ll burst into flames revealing all its fake glory. The other day I actually had a young register attendant ask me, “um…where’s your birthday?” and I had to point to the highlighted & centered DOB. So every time I try to buy a little 21-and-up beverage, I’m blatantly reminded of my California roots.

Reason 2 for being a Californian: Getting gas still makes me awkward (and I’m not just referring to the bodily kind). For those of you who don’t know, in Oregon it’s illegal to pump your own gas. You actually have to be waited on while a gas attendant pumps it for you. So. Awkward. I still can’t get down the sequence of events for proper gas retrieval. Is it car in park, ignition off, radio off, card out of wallet, window down, card to attendant, gas request? Or window down, car in park, ignition off, radio still on, card out of wallet, gas request, then card to the attendant? Am I forgetting some steps? Did I do too many things? Does every attendant I deal with get a kick out of my awkwardness? Probably. I’d really just prefer to drive to any other state border and do it myself.

-Final score-

Oregonian: 1

Californian fo life (and an awkward one at that): 2  

Middle Schoolers Are a Weird People Group

I had the privilege of chaperoning a middle school dance at the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis last night. Apparently schools stopped hosting dances a couple years ago, so the BGC started putting them on as a way to provide safe weekend activities as well as an outlet for all that pent-up dance frustration that middle schoolers harbor. It was a hilarious good time. I used to think airports were the best place for people watching, I now think any gathering of middle schoolers is.

Allow me to set the scene of the night: There were about 450-500 middle school age kids from all over the area. The hundreds of kids dispersed themselves among four different rooms that were open for the night. Room one was a small gym for basketball and volleyball, room two was a game room with foosball type activities, room three was the Teen Room that consisted of computers and videogames, and room four was the main attraction of a dance floor. The theme of the night was a black light party, which meant neon colors, white clothing, and special highlighters for body decorating were abundant (most of the boys drew mustaches on themselves since facial hair is still about a decade away for them). The dance floor and Teen Room were both black-lighted for the evening. I spent my night rotating between the Teen Room, the dance floor, and hallway patrol.

There’s no way to recap all the awkward awesomeness that was last night, so instead I shall mark my top five highlights:

1. In the Teen Room, my first post of the night, a girl walked into the room with the brightest neon yellow shirt with some kind of animal print on it. It was potentially the most obvious shirt of the night. About ten minutes later, after that girl left, a guy came in wearing the most brilliant neon yellow pants. Later, while I was on hallway duty, I spotted those two walking down the hall holding hands. I was glad they neon-completed each other.
2. As I moved to the dance floor, I quickly realized I was too short to be a chaperone of anyone over the age of five. The majority of the room was taller than me, so I really didn’t have much authority when I tried to tell the kids they were dancing too close (I actually never had the gumption to do that—I did yell at a boy for slapping a girl’s butt though, now that Mama Kate shall not stand for). And for those of you who are curious, no I did not get asked to dance. I may be short, but I either have an old face/stance or I’m still not appealing to middle schoolers. 
3. Middle school boys smell. Bad. A lot of the boys didn’t really know how to dance, but they did know how to fist pump, which caused a pumping of odor throughout the room. I had to back myself into a corner near the door just to breathe.
4. It was interesting hearing the music that kids dance to these days. Most of it I listen to or it’s just popular on the radio. Two songs were shockers though. One of which was “SexyBack”. I was so proud that my JT, though out of the music bizz for nearly five years now, is still bumpin’ on the dance floors. The other shocker was Rebecca Balck’s song “Friday”. I thought that song was a joke, not a real play-it-at-dances song. And all the kids knew the words and sang at the top of their lungs. I still can’t get over the lyric about trying to decide which seat to sit in. Most of these kids are still too small to sit in the front seat of their mom’s minivan, so easy choice there.  
5. One of the best awkward moments encompassed everything that makes middle school great…and awkward. In the hallway, I caught the tail end of a convo in which an elaborately decked out girl was apologizing to a boyishly dressed girl. Her apology went something like this: “I’m so, SO sorry! I really thought you were a boy! I’m so sorry I hit on you, it’s just you looked kinda like a boy, and a cute one too! Like totally the ones I usually go for. I’m so sorry GIRL!” It was pure hilarity. Normally I would feel really bad about this incident, but the boy/girl had a Justin Bieber kind of haircut and was wearing exactly what all the boys were wearing. The boy/girl wasn’t phased by it and just wanted to get away from the weird hitting-on-her girl and go dance. Oh middle school, what a special, magical, awkward time in life. 

Goodbye facial piercings, hello…continued unemployment

Ok, Interneters. I’ve been keeping something from you. A couple of weeks ago I had two job interviews with a local credit union for the part time position of a teller. This job had everything I want right now in life: a salary that pays the bills, real person benefits, customer service interactions, the draw of the potential dangers of bank robbery, and much more. Once I got the second interview, I thought I was in. I was so convinced of this that I went around telling every brother and their mother about the interviews (simply because I was excited to tell people something more than “I’m just searching for a job” when asked what I’m doing in life). I also took out all my piercings: the rook, the lip, the nose—everything except two classy pearls studded in my lobes. I got my hair cut, I neglected to paint my nails any brash colors, I pondered an entire new professional wardrobe…the whole corporate shebang. But, as you probably could have guessed by the title of this blog entry, I was kindly rejected from the position. I was in a park next to a river when I got the rejection news, and if it weren’t for the old lady walking/talking to her dog I probably would have burst into tears right then and there. I was crushed. But the more I thought about it the more I realized I wasn’t actually crushed. I stared into the flowing Willamette before me and I was overwhelmed with these hymn words:

“When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot,

Thou hast taught me to say, 


It is well, it is well with my soul”

And then I realized I was not crushed. I was momentarily thwarted, but certainly not crushed. For a period of time, I had put my hope in that potential job rather than in something much more hopeful. I don’t even want to be a credit union teller. From this small experience, I’ve learned that I want to help people. I don’t even need to get paid for it (of course, I say that mid-month when I don’t have any bills to pay and my cupboards are fully stocked), I just want to make people feel good about themselves and to make days brighter. So that is what I shall seek: a way to brighten days and The Hope that I know is more long-lasting than any part-time position.

“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.” –Ecclesiastes 8:15

 As a small rejection coping method/professional rebellion, I painted my nails all the colors I could find. 

It’s Official: I’m Not a Runner

About two months ago I signed up for a race. This was pre longboarding accident and also right when I was in the thick of reading that book that caused me to go on the fateful longboard ride. That booked really screwed me up, but I still recommend it. Anyway, so a couple months ago, mid motivating book, I was inspired to sign up for an organized run. I thought about being ambitious and pushing for a 10k, but then I chickened out and signed up for the 5k run/walk. I’ve run 5ks in the past and I do 3 mile loops fairly regularly, so in theory this wasn’t supposed to be a difficult run, but then I went and effed up my knees and stopped running for a month. Oops. Subconsciously I think I signed up for the 5k because I knew I’d eat it somewhere between registration and race day.

Enough lead up, on to the real story: today was race day. I woke up at 6:00am sharp, ate a psych up breakfast of multi-grain cheerios, changed into my prearranged race outfit, and I was out the door by 6:45. I made it to the race location at 7:12am, which I thought was good timing because online it said registration was from 7-8am. Turns our the 5k wasn’t scheduled to start until  9:00am. Yeah. In the world of runners, 5kers are a joke. There were three different runs with three different start times: a half marathon with an 8am start time, a 10k with an 8:30 start time, and then the 5k at 9:00am. This makes complete sense to start the race in such a staggered fashion as to attempt to get all the runners to finish at around the same time, but really it just felt like the race was for half marathoners, the 10kers were semi-respected, and then it was like “oh, yeah, you left over old people and moms with strollers can run in circles if you want after all the real runners clear out.” At least, this was how I felt for my painstakingly long hour and 48 minute wait between arrival and race time. Although, I can’t say I wasn’t entertained during those near two hours. The race was for Habitat for Humanity and it was staffed by the most hilarious elderly people. As I was going to get my bib and free stuff from a table of four adorable grey-haired women, an intense half marathon girl was in front of me and asked them in an all-business tone, “where’s the start line?” The women looked at each other, chuckled in that hearty old lady way, and one responded, “oh honey, you expect us to know that?” That intense girl seemed frustrated, but she ended up winning the half marathon for females, so I guess she found the start line. I just hope she ran off some of her aggression. I was also entertained by the elderly announcer man. He announced the entire day like it was the Olympics, or something else of high importance. He also had a massive white fluffy dog with him, and when the race got really hard later on I wished I could ride his dog instead of run.

Speaking of me running, I should probably speed this up and get to the part where I actually do that. Ok, so after the half marathoners triumphantly strode off, and the 10kers trotted after them, and waaaay after my multi-grain cheerios wore off, it was finally time for us 5kers to start. I positioned myself behind a mom with a stroller and next to a woman well into her sixties. A guy rang a cowbell (which I didn’t particularly care for since it made me feel like a fat farm animal) and we were off. The course began on a slight incline that evened out onto a nice, flat, shaded road. After rounding the first corner, a volunteer was standing at the base of large gravel hill. I thought, “oh good, I’m glad she’s there to keep us from accidentally going up that steep hill, that’d suck if someone accidentally did that.” But I was wrong. That woman was the devil. She directed us straight up the steep grade and did so with a cheery smile that said “I’m glad it’s you and not me, suckas.” I continued up the hill at a snail’s pace, but my goal during runs (since I’m neither fast, nor a distance runner) is to always keep running and never walk. So even though it was probably the same pace as a walk, I did my best attempt to imitate a jog the whole way up. Somewhere after the hill and before the finish line, I became a beotch of a runner. I kept doing this annoying thing where I’d tuck in behind someone, stay awkwardly on their heels, and then pass them after too many minutes of stalking behind them. I ended up doing this on the last stretch of the run behind that same older woman I started next to. She was an excellent pacer and motivation. But then I left her in the dust once the finish line was in sight. Suck on that, grandma (I don’t mean that, in all honesty I wanted to hug her at the end and thank her for pacing me, but I resisted because I thought it’d be sweaty and awkward). My other motivation at the finish line was my support crew: my roommates Wendy & Alison. They showed up just after I started the race, cheered me on at the end, and then went out to breakfast with me afterward. They’re the best.

Oh, this is out of place, but at the halfway point on the run there was a water stand and even though it’s only three miles and my body didn’t technically need water I decided to grab it because it was there and a smiley old woman was offering it to me. This was a bad idea. I choked on the water and spat it everywhere. Luckily, I survived and prevailed because I ended up getting 3^rd in my gender/age division…I think. I’m not actually sure if I read the results correctly. Meh, you people will never know, in which case I GOT FIRST PLACE FOR EVERYTHING EVER!!

Overall it was a good experience, one worth noting, but not necessarily one worth repeating. I’m simply not a runner. I don’t love waking up early, I don’t love the pre-race jitters, I don’t love slipping up gravel hills or choking on water, and I just don’t love running. I like it, we’re in a healthy relationship, but I’m just not ready to make the commitment to declare myself a runner. I do, however, love the race paraphernalia.

It was worth it for all the goods.

Shenanigans in the Hood

I’m living in a new neighborhood now and a new neighborhood means new problems. In our old place, we shared a wall with our neighbors and came across problems like hearing them party into the late hours of the night. In our new place, we don’t share any walls, but we do share a street. Our street is technically a circle and on this circle there are children: a lot of children.

Within hours of moving in, we met two neighborhood kids. Each day since then I’ve met at least one more. They range in age from 4 to about 12…or however old you are in sixth grade. These kids are the most forward bunch I’ve ever met. They routinely knock on our door just to ask us simple questions like “whatcha doin’?” or “what time is it?” or to express other pressing concerns. When I was their age (says 80 year old Kate), you couldn’t force me to talk to anyone other than my sister or my exclusive neighborhood set of friends, and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to get me to approach the new college-age neighbors. But that’s not the case with my new neighborhood hooligans. Apparently these kids used to be friends with the college guys who lived in our house before us, so they feel like that grandfathers them in to befriending us. Since they see so many college kids come and go in our specific house, it seems as if they feel a sense of ownership over our house because they’ve grown up with the place and we’ve only been here a week or so. I’d equate it to a child growing up with a single mother and watching her reel through boyfriends. But enough psychoanalysis, on to story time:

The other day I was moving the last bit of stuff from our old place to the new one. When I pulled around the corner to enter our circle, a brigade of children came out of the bushes, out from behind cars, off of roofs, and materialized out of thin air in order to greet me. It was both terrifying and oddly flattering. The leader of the pack, a little sixth grader named Caelen, was waving frantically at me and shouting “HI KATE!” before I could even get out of my truck. Then, once I exited my vehicle, Caelen summoned the others and called “Let’s do it! Now! C’mon!” I was fairly certain the “it” they were going to do was kill me. I imagined them as the Lilliputians and me as the giant about to be tied down to the ground with ropes and strings and painful things. But then, only slightly to my relief, they instead formed a barricade at my front door in order to prevent me from entering my house. I bantered with them for a minute or two before declaring game over and asking them to knock on my door for me, as my hands were full of boxes. Unfortunately, my two roommates inside didn’t answer. Turns out they were screening knocks because these kids had been banging on the door all day. After a few more tiny-fisted knocks, Alison, my roommate, answered the door. We hurriedly attempted to unload my truck as Wendy, my other roommate, (who was called out by one of the neighbor kids for hiding inside) distracted the children at the door. Us three semi-grownups then created a barricade of our own in the doorframe as to prevent any wiggly bodies from wriggling their way inside. Eventually we told them it was dinnertime and securely locked ourselves in the house while the young voices slowly drifted off in the distance.

This was only one of many, many neighborhood shenanigans. I’m sure there will be more stories to come with these bold hooligans. For now, I’m just going to sit inside my dead-bolted home and make as little noise as possible.