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Sunday, May. 23, 2004 - 8:31 p.m. UNTOLD FORTUNE Earlier this week, I was taking a training course where I was the only person from my office attending. The course was intended to last all day, however, the instructor had business to attend to that forced her to cut the class short. This shortened class enabled me to take a longer lunch, so I took advantage of it. Instead of eating lunch at the office like I normally do, I went to eat at a small Chinese restaurant near my house. At the end of my lunch, I received the customary Chinese fortune cookie with the thin piece of paper inside. A couple days later, on Saturday morning, I ventured out to Lafayette to a crawfish boil that would precede today’s religious retreat reunion. There I met a host of people I had met in the past two retreats I had attended, although the turnout was quite low. Personally I owe the turnout to the delayed announcement by the retreat coordinators. Needless to say, Angel did not show up, and I was left slightly disappointed. However, the possibility still remained that she would show up at the reunion today, which resulted in another disappointment, as she was nowhere to be found. Nevertheless, I made the best out of these past two days, reestablishing contacts with people and making new friends. The greatest gain I made were much stronger contacts with two LSU students that have always been very active at the student religious center, but that I have been reluctant to associate with. The reason for that reluctance is my discomfort by the fact that I am not a student. I still feel like somewhat of an outsider who is basically taking advantage of a college campus ministry as a laboratory for social experimentation. These two students also happen to be women, though I am not interested in romantic prospects with either of them. However, I have a may have a great deal of romantic use for them after all. I also made some contacts with people in Lafayette who had just graduated from colleges in that area and were taking jobs in the Baton Rouge in the near future. I made certain that they remain in contact with me so that I might have another branch of social outreach. They seem like really quality guys that would be outstanding to hang out with and have as friends. Whether they truly want to associate with me when they reach Baton Rouge remains to be seen. The most notable experience during the reunion, however, were the number of obvious passes I was getting from certain women. At lunch, one of them who was not even one of the women on the original prayer corps who had complimented my eyes so fiercely that night on the retreat, once again complimented me on my eyes, followed by all kinds of other women who began to chime in with more and more compliments. I had never received so many compliments on my eyes in such a short period of time by so many different women. At the same time one of the prayer corps members that did make the reunion was on me like glue all weekend, obviously trying to win me over. As I was unattracted and uninterested, she was not going to win me. Saturday night, after the crawfish boil, the whole group of about twenty people crowded in a staff member’s apartment to eat pizza and watch a movie. Afterwards, some went home, while the rest of us went to get coffee and then go bowling. I took advantage of this together-time to get to know the two LSU students better. After the bowling game, I clearly felt more comfortable talking to them. Furthermore. whereas I may not have hugged those two students when I saw the group before, I hugged them just as I hugged everyone else I knew on the retreat when I was leaving. As I was saying good-bye to the two LSU students when they were leaving, one of them invited me over to a movie party they were having at one of their apartments tomorrow. I said I would do what I could to make it, as a friendly acceptance of the invitation. They seemed so nice and friendly, even though they were students, their welcome was too hard for me to refuse. So I certainly planned to attend, even though later on, more incentive to attend would be added. I drove back to Baton Rouge this afternoon so that I could attend the Sunday afternoon service at the campus church. On my ride back, I consulted my brother about my next plan of action as to how I could meet Angel. My only alternative now was just to boldly call her up, ask if she has a boyfriend, and see if she was interested in getting to know me better. So the next day, that was my plan. However, when I got to church I decided to make my plan even bolder. I knew that the two LSU students knew who Angel was. After all, she often frequented the religious center as well as staffed the retreat with them. It just so happened that those same two students were attending the service. So afterward, I went up to them and boldly asked if Angel had a boyfriend. I do not claim to be superstitious, nor do I claim that what Chinese fortune cookies say can actually come true. Also, I was once told that if you share your fortune with another person, that fortune will not come true. I do not know if that is correct either. In any case, I just have fun with it, read my fortune and do not share it with anyone, diaries included, just in case that in some far out dimension of the universe, that fortune might come true. Slightly puzzled, one of the students looked at me, said no, and as a huge smile came across her face, she asked why. At the same time, the other’s face lit up, raised her voice in surprise, and mired about how direct my question was. I just smiled, and as I walked away, the student hosting the movie party wryly said that she would be inviting Angel. |