What's with the New Girl?

New girl number 1:

I was sixteen years old before I was ever the new girl. I never moved a day in my life (my parents still live in the house they built together when they got married nearly 30 years ago) and never transferred schools. My first experience being put into the awkward tension of not knowing the people around you was when my family decided to change churches. For me, this was a huge deal. I had been raised attending a small Christian church in Fairburn, Georgia on a regular basis. It was a second home to me and I probably spent just as much time there as I ever did my own home. And since it was so small and we were so active I knew everyone and I mean everyone. I felt like we ran the place....just kidding, but really, I had no fears of ever feeling out of place doing something. Then there's the church we switched our membership to, which was a much larger, semi-contemporary Baptist church in Palmetto, Georgia. Once we announced our last week in Fairburn I remember being very afraid in my head of being the new girl at Palmetto. This was going to be a new experience for me which I was unsure of whether it would agree with me or not. Well, as it turns out it wasn't so bad. Part of the reason we moved to Palmetto was because of all the people we already knew there from school and being involved with the church's preschool many years prior. It was an enormously easy transition. I love it there.

New girl number 2:

The second time I was a new girl doesn't really count because I was in a situation where everyone around me was new: my freshmen year of college. I was one of only two of my close friends to move away for school and that aspect seemed quite unsettling on my last night before moving to Milledgeville. However, as I'll discuss in a later blog attending Georgia College (& State University) was by far the best decision I've ever made!

New girl number 3/4/5/6:

I'm going to include the next three times I was new all in one because they are all due to the same cause: work. Number 3 is when I worked as a camp counselor the summer after my freshman year of college at a small camp where most people had been going there for years. But, I think the small, at home, family feeling is probably what made it easier to fit in. It was great. :) Number 4 was when I started working on campus my sophomore year in the International Center. I was in an office full of adults with higher education (mostly anyway). It was intimidating at times, however that was a wonderful experience I will never forget. Number 5 was when I started my first restaurant job the summer after my sophomore year. Oh Applebee's. There are too many stories to tell here so all I will say is that for the past 3 years I have been exposed to things I never would have seen/heard/experienced had I not taken that job. Many good things have come from that job (my love for one) and many bad memories have come from that job. But all-in-all it was a learning and humbling experience that really let me explore many aspects of my inner self that I was afraid to let out. It made me more comfortable to be me....for the most part. Enough of that...number 6. This is where I'm at now. Just this past week I started a new job. It's another waitressing job but at a restaurant where I only know one person. It's a small, local bar and grill type of place with college girls serving. I'm still in training but it seems to being going very well so far. The reason I decided to write about being the new girl is because of this: training to serve in this restaurant is unlike other restaurants I know of....first you start in the kitchen cooking for a week so you learn the menu before you get in front of customers and blank. Smart really. But I have yet to get to know the girls I'll be working with on the floor. I see them come in and out of the kitchen and most of them don't ask many questions of me. Some assume I'll be working in the kitchen. But I see them sometimes look at me and I can't help what wonder what they are thinking. I am the newest girl and I'm sure the ones that have been there forever are wondering what I'll be like. I can only hope that we will get along and they will like me once we are officially coworkers. We shall see.

So, there is no grand story here of some horrible new girl experience, sorry to disappoint guys. But I just think it's interesting how some people react to being a new girl. It's happened very few times for me and most were easy transitions, I know some people have horror stories (God forbid I ever have to deal with that!).

That's all for today,

Later darlings.

Don't let your desires die

As I lie here in bed in this moment feeling completely uninspired, I decide to let my fingers do the writing instead of my head or heart and see where I get. I know I have wanted to blog for some many years now but always let the idea of coming up with some catchy title get in the way. Silly, I know. But that’s the ridiculous pressure I put on trivial matters. Just part of who I am.

My desire to blog stems from my passion for journaling in the past. There was a time where I would sit and journal pages and pages every day. The desire to express my thoughts, feelings and daily happenings has not decreased, but I put it on the backburner for the past couple of years. My senior year of college came and so did many more responsibilities that took up a great deal of my time. By the end of the day I was too exhausted to sit and write after writing all day. Looking back, maybe it would have been more beneficial to my writing skills to take the time to write for myself. I would have developed a better pattern and style that was unique to me and probably would have had more A's on papers rather than B's there at the end. Oh well...such is life.

Anyhoo, I finally started this blog. There is no direct interest in mind, just simply my thoughts at any unparticular moment in time. I have a list of ideas and topics I want to research and post about. But, some days may just be about what happened in my life. I will let this blog take its own course and see where it leads me. I just realized how much I missed writing.

As for the blog's title, I have a love for owls and all things owl. I think they are uniquely beautiful. Not beautiful in the sense America has given the word, but from a more world-wide perspective. Owls are not beautiful to many people, they are dark, wide-eyed and scary at times. They are nocturnal and have a wide wing span that can be intimidating. The association of owls in horror films has given them such a negative image. But if you look at the history of the owl's significance in many societies such as the Native Americans, Greeks, Hindu and Egyptian cultures, just to name a few, owls are creatures of the highest respect. They are a symbol of wisdom, strength and keepers of sacred knowledge. The owl was directly associated to Athena, goddess of learning as sacred and some Greco-Roman currencies have images of the owl, signifying status and wealth. Owls are a hidden beauty and in order to see it we have to look deeper into the meaning they held in the past. Their ability to fly, hide in the dark, be incredibly strong and the associations of wisdom and sacredness is so attractive to my free-spirited soul.

It is a personal understanding and appreciation that others may not get, but I want to pursue my desires in life and in order to do so I believe I have to pursue knowledge and wisdom. Ergo, I am in pursuit of the owl.