What does Post-dancesport+Pre-mission equal? Climbing on furniture.

When you ballroom dance, you think you have friends. Or at least, you tell yourself you do because you see the same people for three or four hours a day. And then dancesport hits, the culmination of all your practice with all your partners the entire year. And it's great! You wear pretty dresses and look like a carrot with a lot of make up on and have a blast! And then... it's over. And then... you don't need to practice. Congratulations, you now have an extra four hours a day! At first it's great. You come home and cook dinner, and clean the house, read a book or two, and then brush and brush and brush your hair... then maybe paint some more... I'm sure there's room somewhere. (who caught that reference? probably just me, since, I'll probably be the only one blog stalking myself, I mean it still makes my blog views go up and then at least I feel cool).  

Well, anyways, one day you say to yourself, "Hey, where did all my friends go?" And you realize, all those people you interacted with all the time were just trapped in a room with you for several hours a day. Doesn't exactly count as friends. In addition, if you are going on a mission, as I am, no one wants to dance with you after dancesport because the investment won't yield any fruit since you will be gone before the next big competition. So even if you wanted to listen to "Love the way you lie" for three hours a night again as people practice rumba (this seems to be the current obsession at BYU for a rumba song), you couldn't. Bummer. 

So now, you say to yourself, "Hey, what about my ward??!! I'm sure there are some reasonably cool people in it". Well too bad for you, by the time you try this, there is less than a month left in school. And you are leaving on your mission soon. So who would want to indoctrinate you into their friend group at this point? Tried this option, I even started going to FHE, which is revolutionary for me, and I'll spare you the grief, doesn't really work. 

Not to mention, the free food outlet of dates is completely gone, because no one wants to go on a date with a "pre-mi" (pre missionary). It's a total loss of an investment in boys' minds since they can't up and marry you any time soon, which, in Mormon culture is what people are looking to do. I mean, really it doesn't make a difference in my case since marriage still and always has sounded like being trapped for eternity, so them asking me on dates in the first place was always a loss of an investment, but THEY didn't know that, only I did, and I got free food out of it, so I wasn't complaining. 

So now you just must resign to the fate of spending a good 5 hours by yourself every evening. Now you ask, what to do with this all this time?

Let me tell you what I've done... maybe it'll give you some good ideas..

1. Interpretive dance. A lot. There's a solid two hours every evening where I turn on some LOTR or something of the sort and start jumping around and rolling on the ground. It's a good thing there's no video camera in my apartment. I'm pretty sure every thing that can possibly be climbed on and jumped off of dramatically has had the pleasure of enduring that. Couches, tables, counters, chairs...  Every spot of floor has had some sort of headstand/crazy invented acrobatic move done on it. You'd be amazed what sort of awesome dance moves you can come up when you're this bored... Okay... three more hours left...

2. Talk to yourself. Just pretend that you are going to be a screenwriter and you need to run over every possible outcome of every possible conversation you could have with everybody in order to find the best result. You are just practicing to write screenplay one day... right?

3. Take up journal writing. This is just a more socially acceptable form of talking to yourself. 

4. Take up blogging. An even more "in" form of talking to yourself.

5. Stalk people. Don't worry, you are leaving in a month, by the time they get REALLY creeped out you just get to use the mission escape card. Nothing to lose. 

6. If you live somewhere with walls that have absolutely no sound proofing, listen to your neighbor's conversations. And then yell things through the walls every now and then when you feel the need to participate in their conversations. They were waiting for your addition in their social life, they really were. 

Basically... I'm livin the life. Can't you tell? 

........

......

...

.. 

2 months and three days till my mission.

that's not so long.... right.......?