5/19/21

 I don’t know about you...but I’m feeling 22!

Cheesy, yes, but I am all about the cheese more often than not. I’ve been listening to 22 by Taylor Swift all day and it hasn’t gotten old yet. That song is actually almost 9 years old now. Crazy times.

Today is my 22nd birthday and I feel like I’ve been smiling all day, it has been so fun. I woke up with some pretty gnarly bedhead (pictured below) which I tamed with a straightener. I’ve always had trouble with my hair just turning out limp and super flat after using the straightener, but this morning I pulled off a new little hairspray technique that I think helped quite a bit. End result also pictured below.

Side rant about my hair: my hair has been weirdly curly/wavy since I was like 12 years old or something and I feel like it has evolved quite a bit over time (probably over hormone is more like it). As it stands today, the front right side of my hair gets quite curly and bouncy when I let it dry naturally. The problem (well, one of them) is that the rest of my hair is actually pretty straight/flat in comparison. Example pictured below. So my eternal struggle is to get the left side of my head to look like the right side. More often than not, I give up and throw it up in some configuration of a ponytail.

So once I had my hair done and things packed up, I went off to pweshool. I was a little early, so I parked on the side of the street to sit for a bit until it was closer to 9 and I could park in Rachel’s driveway and go inside. After only a minute or two, Heather and Charlotte come knocking on my door! They came bearing many gifts. From the Utah Coles I got some delicious lemon frosted cookies and lemon poppy seed bread (because Heather knows I love lemon) and a cupcake and two little wrapped gifts and some homemade birthday cards from the kids. So so nice and so appreciated. Heather said she wanted me to feel special on my birthday and she very much did. Charlotte’s card in particular was so sweet, so I had to take a picture and share.

Then when I finally went into pweshool, there were two or three kids there, Charlotte being one of them (I had to situate my gifts and pull the car into the driveway and such, so Charlotte beat me there). When I walked in, she immediately said “Happy birthday!” and proclaimed loudly to everyone in the room that it was my birthday. Rachel greeted my with french toast with whipped cream and raspberries and a candle. The kids present sang Happy Birthday, Charlotte providing the “Cha cha chas” dutifully. The french toast was yum!

As more kids trickled in, every time a new person walked into the room, Charlotte said, “It’s Kylie’s birthday!” with equal enthusiasm every time. So cute. The rest of pweshool was great. At the end, Rachel also gave me a huge haul, which I was so grateful for. I had mentioned to her that I really liked games and was going to get myself one or two at the DI, so she bought me Ticket to Ride, which I have heard about, but never played. Looking forward to taking it for a ride! She also gave me a cute children’s book that all the kids signed. The book is Hip, Hip Hurray for Annie McRae by Brad Wilcox (Yes, Brad!). The story is about Annie McRae who goes through her day being generally kind and helpful and people always say, “Hip, hip hurray for Annie McRae!” Except one day, the people who usually praised her happened to be busy or otherwise occupied when she was around and she was so sad when no one said hip hip hurray. The next day, similar events happen, except she says hip hip hurray to herself and she realizes she doesn’t need other people’s praise to make her happy, she can choose to be that way herself. Great message. Rachel also gave me a glowing reference to show future employers which I thought was incredibly nice and thoughtful. Included in the gift giving was also a sweet card and some dove chocolates and an amazon gift card. She said it was a combo of a birthday present and a thank you for coming to pweshool. People are just so overwhelmingly nice sometimes.

I went home and barely made it to my room without dropping all my stuff. I called Mom so she could see me open my gifts from her. One was a cute pair of leggings (which I have yet to try on…), one was a couple trendy necklaces, and the last one was a pair of earrings that will have to be returned because they were just made badly. Those were some great gifts, I was and am so grateful.

Another mention about pweshool gifts: at the end, Hallie (pictured below) gave everyone a little gift. The kids got juice, but Rachel and I got gift cards to Crumbl, a fancy cookie place in Provo.

Anyway, I went home and opened my presents from Mom and read all my cards and felt very happy and celebrated. Then I had to get some reading done for my Isaiah class, but Lydia and I actually coordinated that I would go over to her apartment in the afternoon to play some games and make a cake or something if we felt peckish. We scrapped lunch for a number of reasons, one of which being I was still full from delicious breakfast, so that was just fine. So I stopped my readings about ⅔ of the way through to go play Last Word with Lydia and it was as fun as I remembered. It was just the two of us, but it was still fun. It’s better with more people, but still good. She also gave me a cute picture frame.

Then I finished my reading and went to class. I happened to see my friend from class, Corban (actually he coincidentally parked in the same place I always park, which he found out the week before, and he happened to see me getting out of my car as he was getting out of his at the same time) in the parking lot, so we walked to class together. This is important because in our conversation, I told him I had to leave class halfway through. While we were waiting for class to start, we joked about some “worst case” scenarios, especially since he knows I’m relatively shy. The issue is that the doors to the room are literally right next to where the professor stands, so there are a lot of awkward possibilities. I was fairly confident I’d still be able to slip out. I knew people (and the professor) would notice, but I’d just keep moving and it would be fine.

Except that when I was just about at the door, the professor turns and says, “Good luck,” which...what? I did not need luck, thank you very much! I have no idea where he thought I was going. But he wasn’t being vindictive or anything, he was genuine. And then he didn’t just leave it at that. He apparently realized what he was doing and said, “Hm, I guess I really didn’t need to call you out like that”. I politely/awkwardly laughed and waved and quickly fled the scene of the crime before he could say anything else. I texted Corban later that he jinxed me. It wasn’t really that bad, it was just kind of funny. Awkward funny, but funny.

So then I was off to pweshool graduation! It started out with the kids singing a few songs and then Rachel handed out an award to each kid. She was actually having a hard time thinking of awards for kids, so she asked me for suggestions and I was very gratified to see that I probably contributed more than half of the awards. Which is not to say that Rachel wouldn’t have come up with the awards just fine herself if she had spent more time or whatever, but it was still nice. Then we watched a little slideshow of pictures and videos Rachel had taken of the kids throughout the year. I was featured in a few. Rachel also thanked me and had everyone give a round of applause, which was nice. Then the kids sang two goodbye songs. The last one was the song we always sing as the kids walk out the door right when pweshool is ending. It was kind of emotional, to be honest. As I get older, I find myself getting emotionally touched by more things and I definitely got a little choked up. I really do love those kids and feel so so so grateful to have had the opportunity to “teach” them with Rachel. This has definitely been my favorite “job” by far.

After graduation, I went home and had to do some studying for business class. A little ways into it, I hear a knock on my door and it’s Kylee and Markelle with (funnily) a crumbl cookie and a match as a candle. The cookie was churro flavored. I’ve eaten half of it and it was really good, but kind of just like a snickerdoodle with yummy frosting. From my other roommate Hannah I got a cafe rio gift card. They had also decorated the hallway and my doorway, which was also very thoughtful and nice.

Then I took my dumb test and played some stress relief guitar (The new song I’m semi-learning if I don’t get bored of it is the guitar arrangement of River Flows In You by Yiruma, which is a somewhat famous piano piece.). I realized I also reaaaally needed to pack for my Arcadia trip, which commences tomorrow at 1pm, so I did that. And now I’m finishing up this post.

The weekend will be spent in Arcadia, so I’m sure there will be more exciting things to tell then.

A, B, C you later!

(the other pweshool goodbye song)

Pictures:

- Curly bedhead

- Flat/Curly bedhead

- Hair done

- Morning haul + Mom's packages

- Necklaces from Mom

- Hallie from pweshool

- Churro cookie from Kylee

- Picture frame from Lydia

- Various apartment decorations

- Cutest card ever from Charlotte