Day 23: Most Awkward First Impression I've Given

   I'm really not in the mood to answer days 19-22's questions, so I'm skipping ahead again.

   A better question for me would be, "What's an UN-awkward first impression you've given?" because that would be easier to narrow down. I think I'll explain a comment I made on an entry a few days back, though (but I won't tell you which comment it is because it'll give away the ending).

  So, EFY. Not my favorite thing. I felt out of place, I wasn't that into a lot of the stuff we were doing, and I basically made zero friends and never went again because it was lame. BUT, there was one glorious moment of the week: when I got into John Bytheway's lesson. I (like every other LDS teenager) grew up listening to John Bytheway's talks and song parodies. He's one of our little celebrities, like Ken Jennings. So I was super excited to see him live. I hadn't counted on everyone ELSE being super excited to hear him live, too, though. So, when I got there, I was behind a huge crowd, all shoving and pushing and cursing each others' existence to try to make it into the room to hear about a topic like "loving one another". Anyway, I REALLY wanted to get in. I prayed very, VERY fervently, and even kept muttering, "Oh please, oh please, oh please" to myself, causing some people's "Weirdo-Meters" to start going off, and they edged away from me. But that's not where the awkward first impression comes in. Oh, no, not yet!

  I was one of the last chosen to be graced by Brother Bytheway's presence. I sank into my seat with a satisfied sigh. The boy next to me immediately turned to me and said, "Hi, I'm TJ."

   He was BRITISH. I'd seen the British boys around, of course, but I never thought I would be fortunate enough to actually TALK to one! Geez, was this my lucky day, or what?! I thought ruefully about how my brother James would know just what to say to be best friends with this boy as I extended my hand to shake his.

  "Hi, I'm James." I responded in a cool, confident voice. We stared in horror at each other for a few moments, not knowing exactly what just happened. Finally, my brain snapped back. "I mean, Julia! Julia!" He mumbled something about it being alright, and turned away from me. Oh, well, I thought.

  I hadn't realized before, but John Bytheway gives the same talks over and over and over. I guess it makes sense--he goes a lot of places and doesn't have time to write new ones constantly. But I'd already heard this one on tape so many times, I was sick to death of it. Once, TJ tried to give me a chance to redeem myself and whispered a comment to me. Unfortunately, I cannot understand whispered accents. At all. I asked him three times to repeat himself, and finally just decided to fake it, and gave an "Oh", followed by light laughter. "It wasn't funny." he responded.

  The end.

P.S. Helena's Heartbeats has also been updated.