Brave

In thirty minutes, two things which, for me at least, constitute being brave.

First, I went to a field to sketch insects. Next, I asked someone if she'd like to go see the Boston Ballet with me.

Neither one of those seems like particularly hard things, right? But I'm pretty squeamish about insects, and I'm shy.

The insect sketching was for Design Nature. Our first class involved Legos and seemed like it couldn't get any better, and then the first homework assignment involved going out and looking for live insects to sketch. I'm not very good at sketching, but I'm quite willing to fake it. Insects, though. I was actually okay with the specific insects I was going out to sketch (froghoppers!), but there are other insects in the field, including flying and buzzing ones. That just made me jumpy, so it was really hard to calm down and quietly look for hoppers.

I understand why we're basing our first project, our hoppers, off of insects. Hopping insects get a lot of acceleration when they jump, and it's impressive. Nevertheless, I would really much prefer to be watching toads. I like toads; I used to name the toads that lived near my house.

In any case.

Walking back from the field, I saw one of the girls, known as Irene from here on, who is a freshman and is auditioning for Babson Dance Ensemble next week. (There are three of us as far as I know.) I bought two student tickets to see the Boston Ballet earlier this week, and I've been looking for someone to go with me. My first thought was to ask one of the others auditioning for BDE, but BDE does every type of dance, so Irene wasn't necessarily a ballet person.

It probably seemed to come out of nowhere, but I asked Irene what types of dance she mostly does. When she answered ballet and modern, I told her about the tickets and asked if she wanted to come with me, and she said yes.

So hooray! I survived the insect experience, and I have someone with whom to go to the ballet.