3 compliments in 3 minutes

This was a long week for me. It was mostly filled with goodness, but still, long is long. It was like the universe came together to make sure my week seemed longer than it was, but not quite long enough to make me give up anything.

First of all, there was the first paper I have had to write in 8 years. The paper itself was only 2 pages, but it felt like 20. Trying to remember what a hypothesis was supposed to look like and then how to sound smarter than I felt (or as my cousin Zach put it 'you just have to make it sound cool'. Best paper writing advice ever, by the way.) took a lot out of me. Not to mention it was due the day after my busiest day. (I know, I should have started it before the day before it was due, and I did, kind of. I mean, I had worked through the problem part of it, mostly...kind of)

Speaking of Wednesday, also known as 'Rachael's-crazy-busy-day', I accidentally called my professor 'Buddy', which embarrassed me to no end, but he apparently liked it. This is my Meteorology class, which I was expecting to hate. I'm not a big science person, or maybe I should say I haven't had the best luck with science classes. My experience has been that science classes existed solely to take interesting things, like how the universe works, and make them so boring you would rather eat rusty nails than have to listen to one more minute of it. But this class has turned out to be fantastic! This is the class of 100 that feels like 7, with the 3 professors from Wisconsin. Wednesday is lab day and between class and lab we have 15 minutes, which is just long enough to chat with my table mates a little and get sort of relaxed and out of the learning mood. So when my professor came over to give us our assignment, my mind was still in casual conversation mode and I instinctively said 'whats up buddy' before realizing that that could be completely inappropriate. He chuckled a little and moved on. I was mortally embarrassed and when he came back later to explain something to us he said 'ok, buddies, I want to show you something' and I apologized profusely, but he brushed it off and said it was fine.

Fast forward to Friday, back in class, I am worn out from paper writing (and all the stress that comes with it) and the lecture is ultra depressing. We were talking about global warming and climate change and the news was not good. My professor even stopped in the middle of the lecture to say 'man, i'm just being a Debbie Downer today aren't I?' needless to say by the end of it I was really feeling done with class and just wanted to get out of there. We had one last activity before we were free though, in our groups we were given a statement that someone in the general public might say about global warming such as 'its too big of a problem for me to do anything about' and we were supposed to come up with arguments against it. I was tired and easily confused at that point and found myself listening to my table-mates discussing it and feeling very grateful that this was a group project and that I could ride their coattails on this one (something I rarely think, let alone do). But of course, the universe had different plans.

Our professor wanted to hear from just a few groups before we left and he turned to our table and said 'I want to hear from my favorite group, c'mon Rachael'. Remember when I said I was excited for our professors to learn our names? I stand by that, but I was a little less excited about it at that moment. I gave a short (and completely bullshitted) answer to the class at large while I turned BRIGHT red (turning bright red was the most embarrassing part). After I had said whatever I said (I honestly don't have any idea what came out of my mouth) the two cute guys at the table who I have a crush on (yes, I have a half-crush on both of these guys simultaneously) both complimented me, saying I had said it very well. So there it was, three compliments in 3 minutes.

Some people might have been overjoyed by this. I was not. It is a little known fact that I don't like getting compliments. In fact, it makes me really uncomfortable. I have just recently developed the ability to not be openly angry and somewhat hostile to those who give me compliments. So I took my over-complimented self on a walk and while I walked I thought about what these compliments might mean, both for me and for the people who gave them.

These particular compliments felt uncomfortable because they were genuine. My professor called our table his favorite and then called on me by name, not because I sucked up to him, or because I told him what I thought he wanted to hear, or because we all did outstanding work, but because I was accidentally myself. He caught me off guard and I showed him a version of myself that was natural and pretty true. My classmates complimented me because I did a good job, not because I was pretty, or because I had agreed with them, but again, because I was myself. This scares me. No, this terrifies me.

What if people start liking me for who I really am?