Kkfilly's Blog

Life Lessons of a Shower Cleaner

kkfilly — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:44:26 +0000

I clean showers in my dorm house on campus. Twelve stalls, every weekday. There are certain things you learn to do and not to do, and certain things you observe that only come from the experience.

1. Never drop a power-spraying hose on its head, because it will land on the handle, thus activating a stream of pressured water, and no matter which way said stream is originally aimed, it will end up aimed at your face, especially if you are in no mood to be splashed.

2. Never spray a moldy shower curtain with a power-sprayer, because the mold will come off, and the mold will fly at you. (fyi, it’s my supervisor’s job to keep the curtains clean, not mine)

3. Always keep a poncho in your pocket. Or even more sensibly, just wear the stupid thing. Why? Because, when cleaning twelve showers a day, it is inevitable that at least one of them will be unwittingly turned on by you. If this does not happen, then it will be humid enough to rain on you from the ceiling. Regardless, you will get wet.

4. Pretending to be a spy or secret agent can make anything fun.

5. The right music can make anything feel like a dance.

6. Pride comes before a fall… and some really gross stuff from the drain on your hands if you for some unknown reason choose not to wear the stinky, dorky, elbow-length, bright yellow, rubber gloves.

7. Again, pride comes before a fall, especially if you choose to wear high heels on wet shower tile. (this was not me)

8. When your favorite shirt encounters shower bleach, you will be in need of a new favorite shirt, so just don’t wear it.

9. Hoses can be very stubborn. They whine if the water isn’t flowing through them properly, but when you go to get the kinks out, they fight against you and often curl up to protect the kink, messing themselves up further.

10. When it comes to God and friends, I am that hose. Likely, you are, too.

Girls Drive Me Crazy

kkfilly — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:09:17 +0000

Yes, I am a girl, but I am apparently not typical, as I am discovering recently and rapidly. I’ve always thought I was in the majority, but whenever I express my opinions of certain behavior, people generally give me glances as though they are thoroughly convinced they just discovered the life supposedly on Mars. My First Year Seminar class is a class of “self-discovery.” During a discussion about the roles of guys and girls in dating relationships I shared my opinion. This is not unusual. The class was silent. This was not unusual, either. Then, one guy said, “Psh, she’s not like most girls.” No. No, I guess I’m not. This was most brought to light, however, at a concert on campus. I, like most girls there, wanted to visit the “meet the band” table. I wanted to have him (the lead singer) to myself, however, because I had a weighty question I wanted him to answer, and so I waited for the eternal crowd of spazzing girls to clear out. The audience had been small (we have a very small concert to begin with) so I didn’t have to wait all that long, but I became increasingly frustrated as I stood aside and watched. For our purposes, the guy’s name was Bob. The gist of every girl’s “conversation” was this (in high-pitched, rushed, enthusiastic tone):

“Oh, Bob, I love you! You’re so hot! Oh, I-I can’t believe I’m actually meeting you! You’re my hero! I stare at your poster every night to help me sleep! Oh, sign this poster of you! Oh, I don’t have a pen… here’s lipstick, use that! Oh! Oh! Bob! You’re so hot! Oh! (runs around table, grabs Bob, and takes self-portrait with camera – maybe several portraits) Oh! Sign my shoe! In pink! I love you so much! Sign my other poster! Oh, and the cd! And my shirt! AHHH!” And then she runs away with her friends and screams. Very rarely is his profession mentioned, and even more rarely is Bob given chance or reason to respond. If he’s very lucky, the girl wasn’t jumping up and down like a little kid let loose in a mattress store. Unless Bob enjoys being attacked in that manner, I sincerely feel sorry for celebrities. However, it was his decision to make himself available to the fans, so it’s his own fault. I, however, don’t really care how much the celebrities enjoy it, this behavior drives me insane. After all, a celebrity is still a person. Rather than going crazy, I’d much prefer to get to know the celebrity for who he really is. At the very least, I want to speak to him in a way that acknowledges his humanity. I would like to say I had a very nice talk with Bob and got to know things about him the other girls only wish they’d taken the time to find out.

Girls in general tend to irritate me, especially in dating relationships. The guy must be perfect. He must always pay for everything and may never glance at another girl, even if she’s taking his order at a restaurant. He’s male for crying out loud! He’s gonna look! It doesn’t mean anything! And then there’s the whole instance where he talked to another girl he’s known all his life, so his girlfriend breaks up with him. I want my guy (this is for when I have a guy) to have other female friends. I would actually be worried if he was totally consumed by me to the point that I was all he saw. I should be his world, eventually, but I should not be the world. And right now, I just want a casual relationship, if any relationship at all. I’m actually quite happy being single. Maybe this is why I get along with guys generally better than girls. Except when they’re acting like manly perverts, guys are more mature than girls in a lot of social instances. No wonder guys get so frustrated with girls.

Moreover, it blows my mind the way girls dress like sluts and then get mad when a guy checks her out or catcalls. Enough said.

Okay, okay. I’ve said all this about girl behavior, but I cannot end this without including a little something about male behavior that would drive me crazy in any other circumstance. Anyone out there seen those Trojan Ecstasy commercials? The first time we saw this we had been discussing Monks. The end of these commercials lands my roommate on the floor laughing uncontrollably and I usually join her. Every time. Never fails.

Just Look For It

kkfilly — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:16:26 +0000

Need-to-know fact 1: I am the bari sax in the absolutely amazing Bluffton Jazz Band. Okay, so that’s really the only need-to-know, but it sounded… professional. We had a concert tonight for Family Day on campus that seriously could not have gone much better. I’ve been playing in Jazz bands since seventh grade and had many prominent performances, including an appearance at the OMEA Jazz Conference in seventh grade and a week’s worth of concerts in Disney World as a sophomore at Greenville Senior High with their Jazz Scene. All that to say, I am really no stranger to the stage, and I have been in numerous other musical performance ensembles, as well as extensive solo work. This concert, however, was different from the others in the amount of legitimate anxiety I experienced beforehand. I was on bad reeds. For all you people out there who possess ignorance in the area of saxophones, bad reeds=bad sound. Occasionally bad reeds will even result in the high pitched squeals heard in the midst of beginner bands. I had no way to get new reeds, and even if I did, I had no time to break them in. That meant I would simply have to go in early and get completely warmed up. Problem: the sax I use was being used by someone else in the performance before mine. I would have a maximum of five minutes to warm up. That’s the short version. Here’s the result: a (as far as I can tell) perfect performance. I’ve never gotten better sound and hit more right notes in the intricate parts. I felt the typical adrenaline I get on stage. It almost didn’t feel real, almost like a practice that happened to have an audience. I’m usually light-headed by the end of the lineup because the bari requires a lot more air than alto or tenor, which I’m used to playing on. I felt great the whole time though. I left the stage slightly exhilarated. Lesson: God never leaves you. I didn’t pray to Him to help me play well except that one line I uttered after that first duck-quack note I eeked out in warm-up: “Oh, God, I’m in trouble. Please let this work!” I didn’t think about it again until long after the concert. This is proof not only that God watches out for me even when I’m not consciously petitioning His help, but also that He cares about the small things. People say He doesn’t care about the smaller details of our lives or about the routine things, but I say He does. How could He not? He wants my happiness, and, as long as it doesn’t clash with His will, He works things out. He always works things out. He cares deeply for me… every part of me. He cares about what I care about, again, if it doesn’t contrast with His will. I have witnessed this on countless occasions, never failing to throw me into indescribable awe of His power and His love for me. He’s always there for me. He proves it on a daily basis to every one of us. People report different accounts of how active or inactive God is in their lives. I believe the only difference between these two people is simply their level of receptivity to the hand of God. God works in all of us. All we have to do is recognize.

Hello world!

kkfilly — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:11:50 +0000

Okay, so, about the writer of the blog you’re reading. I am a nineteen year old college freshy at Bluffton University. I have a Twitter account where you can follow me. The link is on the right side of this page. I write with an indescribable passion. The only thing that defines me more than writing is Jesus Christ. Without Him I don’t know where I’d be, and so I follow Him with every part of my life as a trusted friend once advised me to do. Or rather, I try to follow Him wholeheartedly. Much easier said than done. I was saved at three on my kitchen counter while baking cookies with my mother, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit a year and a half ago at a high school retreat. I see God in stars and water and I feel Him in wind, and I occasionally hear Him in the air around me. I see lessons for spiritual life in every little thing and can generally find the God-given benefit of every situation. I don’t have a specific reason for blogging except that there are things in my life that I believe the world should know. I’m hoping that this will help you get as much out of life and the beauty of nature as I do.