The Fanfic Author's Act of Contrition--and Other Weirdness
Just a screwball prayer inspired by an AIM convo with candy__chan--no profanity intended!:
O my characters within this fandom, I am heartily sorry for misrepresenting thee, and I detest all my OOC-ness because of my fellow fans' just punishments, but most of all because they offend thee, my fandom creator, whose series is all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of my beta reader, to OOC no more and to avoid the near occasions of same. Amen.
Yeah . . . I come back sleepy and hungry from a terrific youth group retreat, and this is what I write. Mea culpa. ^^*
On a similar note, this entire weekend was just weird:
Most of the weirdness happened Saturday, though, on the last day of my temp assignment. After surviving Friday and learning that my supervisor-of-sorts actually likes my work--gasp!--and wants me to come back someday, I returned to more of a nervewracking situation: not only was it unclear (again) whether or not I was supposed to be there that day, but I had to ask lots of people for help and to endure mountains of confusion. I'd explain more but would like to keep the assignment confidential.
It turned out a girl there, who I didn't realize was new like me, tried to explain how to perform a certain task but ended up contradicting the way another girl who relieved me for breaks explained it. Not wanting to be held responsible for mistakes I didn't make, I tried asking both girls to explain themselves, and they didn't even realize they were contradicting each other. That drove me up the wall, not just because of my nervousness but because I'm a stickler for clear communication and straight answers. Anyway, the newer girl started trying to calm me down as if, well, the problem was me being upset--which it certainly wasn't. But this happens a lot. I'm a passionate, straightforward person, so it's easy for tougher, more stoic people to get rubbed the wrong way by my personality. I tried to tell the girl that her efforts offended me and she finally threw her hands up and told me to figure it out myself. Oy. -.-* At last I told my sort-of-supervisor about it first and emphasized that it wasn't my intention to cause trouble. The other ladies there were super-nice about it, though, and said there wasn't any need to worry or take it personally.
But it gets better! When I finally went home, on my way up Arthur Ave. I saw a man with a large cardboard box full of Good News Bibles who tried to push a tract into my hand. While bopping to my MP3 player, I avoided him as I avoid everyone who hands out fliers or tracts. Then, as I kept walking, I overheard him saying something with the word "ashamed" in it. So I unplugged my earbuds and asked him to repeat what he said, and he asked if I was ashamed of some-Hebrew/Aramaic(?)-term. It might've been Yeshua, which means Jesus. Well, hungry to talk more about my Catholic faith with this man, I asked him what he was doing here, and it turned out he believed in a form of Messianic Judaism--but hated the group Jews for Jesus. And he was totally convinced that the Church worshipped statues, Mary, and the Rosary (um, we don't . . . not at all), and that I was, as he termed it, "hoodwinked" by the Church's impure worship. Le sigh . . . we ended up talking for a looooong time, and he kept trying to give me his pamphlet and pressing me to explain why I refused to take it. Finally, in his words, he "let me go". I worried that maybe I'd gotten too irritated with him, but also that I hadn't been forceful enough. I dunno. Either way, God bless him.
Then there was the LifeTeen overnight retreat on Sunday, which was a whole other (good!) story I'll spare you. I think the teens really got something out of it, so I'm glad. I, however, got home this morning exhausted and longing for my bed, within which I succumbed to a three hour nap after debating whether or not I was more hungry than tired or vice versa. Life is good, and so is God. Chinese food, namely sweet 'n sour shrimp, also helps! Later!