Peoples is Peoples

I meet new people every day here in Denver. Everyday another security system to install in another home. I haven't had to install a system for any jerks yet *knock on wood*, though I think most people get concerned when an installation goes much over 5 hours. Most do not go that long anymore thank goodness. I get most done between 4 and 5 hours. That is for our wireless system. Our hard-wired systems take substantially longer. It mostly depends on how well the system is labeled before I get there. If it is not well labeled then it takes really long.

As I was saying I meet a lot of new people all the time. Most are nice, most are interesting. I had one install in an Indian home on Saturday. It smelled so good, like curry. They were watching some channel that was all Indian programming. As I was working, I overheard some music from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai! I mentioned that I had seen that movie and they were very surprised. I had to tell them of my good friend the Masked Mallard and how he is in their home country for the third time. I didn't make any comments on how I felt about the run time of film. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but I still feel if you cut out all the dance/music numbers you will have less than half of the movie. ;)

As for meeting people at church, that is going more slowly. We actually had been going to one singles ward thinking it was the only one in the area. We have since learned that there are several, almost one per stake. Not only did we learn there was others, but that there was one that was much closer to the apartment.

Well, in the first ward we went to, we started to get to know this one group of girls. One of them likes one of us. But her friend and I don't mesh real well. We went over to the friend's house earlier this week, and started working on a puzzle. I started turning all the pieces face up and laying them out in one layer on the coffee table. I work on a puzzle maybe once a year, so I don't know all the secrets of proper puzzle completion. Apparently, you are supposed to remove all the side pieces first without the middle pieces to get in the way. I was separating the side pieces, just keeping all the pieces on the table. The girl gave me a hard time about this, which made me want to push on the way I was going. But when pressed again, I told her she could remove the middle pieces if she wanted. She did not and told me I could continue the way I had been proceeding. At the first she was not an active participant, so I didn't hear too much more on the subject. After about 45 minutes, she decided to sit down and work on it. Again she gave me a hard time about my puzzle method and questioned how often I worked on puzzles. I reminded her that she could remove the middle pieces if she wanted, and again she declined, but she did not drop her criticism. I said we could start over if she wanted, but she said you never restart a puzzle. When she asked if all the edge pieces were out I started to say we had the corner pieces, but stopped myself to say that I thought we did have most if not all of the edge pieces out. But she cut in and ridiculed the fact that we had the corner pieces saying that was only so much help. Now this girl is rather sarcastic most of the time, but I could not tell how much she was joking and how much she was serious. She does puzzles all the time and has the completed ones hanging around her place. So when she made her remark about the corner pieces I had had enough. I felt I was being backed into a corner, and I could only see two situations, bith being unpleasant, but one worse than the other. So I got up and told my friend it was time to go. He thought I was joking, and maybe I was a little. But then she made a remark about my sensitivity, so I really did want to leave. I played my displeasure up higher than it really was, which makes me feel bad. I need to apologize. But I still feel a twinge of offense when I think about the situation. I feel it would be hard not to make some remark about how I felt I was treated.

I think I can forgive and move past this, but I don't particularly want to pursue a friendship with this person. Is that wrong? I feel the situation could continue if I made myself available for more social interaction with her, just based on our personality types. We probably would not have gotten into the situation if we weren't operating in conjunction with our friends. I'm not sure how to remedy the situation.

Expectations Miscalculated

Well, this has been a lot harder and more frustrating than imagined. I'm sure things will be fine in a little while, but right now it sucks. sometimes 14+hr workdays, no time to eat, and not a lot of support from anyone knowledgable (sp?). Now I know what the phrase 'thrown to the wolves' is reffering to.