The weekend in review

If you've been following you might have noticed that I missed a day. It wasn't intentional or because I didn't have time, I just felt that I had a few other priorities that I need to address first. As you might have been able to tell from my last post, I started the weekend feeling rather melancholy. I wouldn't say that all of that went away, but I did make some steps in the right direction. I have had a lot of work to do over the last few days and will finally have some room to breathe after the second large job of the last few days is handed in tomorrow. I spread my work out so that I wouldn't be completely swamped and actually made time to do some things other than work this past weekend. Saturday was full of some bizarre as well as wonderful moments. After making a dent in my work Saturday morning, I set off to help my mother do some shopping that afternoon. We made our way to the mall, thankfully were successful in finding what she was looking for in a rather short amount of time (we both dislike shopping), then ventured out into the mall for a few moments before deciding that we needed to escape from that environment. I rarely go shopping and particularly like to avoid weekend shopping when all the masses are out. This particular shopping trip made it more clear to me than ever before of just how radically this area has changed from when I was a child. The influx of people with money or rather simply the abundance of people with money in this area was apparent by the labels in Belk, which seemed far less like a department store and more like a high end boutique. The lady in front of my mother in line spent over $800 on regular clothes without even batting an eye. I didn't even know the names of the brands and could have cared less, but just by looking at the price tags could tell they were not generic. The mall just seemed to be full of people whom I couldn't have related to even if I'd tried. It just seemed to reinforce my belief that this is not necessarily where I want to stay.

I also saw something that I had never seen in the United States before and was transported back to things I had seen in Russia in 2000. As we were walking in the very crowded mall a woman wearing a long "gypsy" skirt and dark hair pulled back was walking with two children - a tall boy with a V line haircut in the back who was probably between 10-13 years old and a young girl, no more than three years old with pierced ears and hair that had clearly been shaven off no more than a couple of months ago. Instead of holding onto the youngest child, the woman simply let the little girl almost disappear into the crowd, walking far ahead in front of her as we watched in disbelief and disgust. The little girl just stopped walking and the "mother" or whoever she was didn't seem to care. She instead was putting her hand out to other shoppers, begging. Eventually she came back for the child, grabbed her by the arm and put her up on her shoulders. She then walked into Journeys and started begging again. Roma, I thought. It was clear from the appearance and the behavior that these people were gypsies from Eastern Europe. But what were they doing here? As my experiences with the Roma from living in Europe had not been particularly positive, all I wanted to do was get away from them. We quickly turned around and notified a police officer that there were people begging in the mall. When we went downstairs there was what appeared to be a Roma man waiting around in the mall - probably waiting to see what the woman and children would come back with. All of this was very characteristic of what I had heard and observed of Roma behavior. But it still baffles me that they are here!? Maybe I'm wrong, but my instinct tells me I'm not.

Despite the strange experience of the afternoon and my general distaste for shopping, Saturday night ended up being a lot of fun. When I got back from helping my mom, I immediately put on my dirndl, braided my hair and headed to an Oktoberfest/Rocktoberfest celebration at a German bakery in the area that had a live band visiting from Dresden. I danced for a couple hours, ran into my 80 year old German friend Mea who was there with her friend Hermann and we danced to our hearts' content. I met a couple of other new people - law students including a couple of German exchange students. I had so much fun!

Sunday turned into a mostly family day. For the first time in years I agreed to go to church with my parents and it actually wasn't so bad. I've been avoiding churches and organized religion for years for various reasons, however, I figured given all of the things I've been feeling lately it might not hurt to give it a try. I was relieved that it wasn't the kind of church that requires you to say hello to everyone, shake hands or even hold hands in prayer. All of that makes me uncomfortable. I actually felt like the message spoke to me. I might even go back.

For now it's time to go to sleep and leave further thoughts until tomorrow. Goodnight!