test Comments for your JibberBook 5 One summer during college I stayed on campus and worked in a quarry from 6am to 4pm. Dusty, dirty work. I drove home one weekend to visit my family and generally refresh. On the way back I took my favorite back road, which took me winding through the countryside past creeks, abandoned farms, and tall corn fields. I slowed down somewhat to cross train tracks in the middle of nowhere. As soon as I passed I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that a train was now rushing by on those same tracks. The song playing on the radio in my ol' VW: Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:28:03 -0700 Last year I was selected to be a juror twice. I was actually looking forward to it, because I had been summoned repeatedly, but dismissed at the end of a day of sitting and waiting. Once all the jurors on the case were assembled, we discovered that another female juror shared my last name. The judge asked if we were related, (which we are not), and we looked at each other in surprise. Even more coincidental was that we both lived in the same suburb of San Diego only three blocks from each other! We ended up sharing a ride for two weeks to the trial. Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:57:02 -0700 I always wanted to go to BYU but went to SUUinstead. That is where I met my husband. There were many times before and while we were dating that I was thinking of going to UVU where my mother works, because I could go for free. Something always kept me in Cedar to attend SUU, eventually we ended up getting married and I think back that if I went to school somewhere else I would have never met him. We have been married 5 yes now and have 2 girls. Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:05:58 -0700 It is hard to tell when something is fate or coincidence. I originally enrolled and began attending Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL. I became very homesick and just did not feel like that was the place for me. So, home I go to Tallahassee, FL. I started attending Florida State University and became very good friends with a girl in my major. One day she invited me to go out with her and a few friends, asking me to PLEASE go with her as an ex-boyfriend of hers was going along and if she went along it would be pairings of couple and she and her ex. So, along I go and meet a funny, burly guy who I instantly take a liking to. We started dating and it just felt right! We moved in together about a month later and have never looked back. He and I have been together for nine years, married for six and have a beautiful five year old son. I cannot imagine my life turning out any differently. Now, whether my meeting my husband is fate or coincidence is up to the you to decide. I feel it was fate as I would never have met him if I didn't move home, start attending FSU and gone into Psychology as my major (I was going to Flagler as a Secondary Education major). If it is coincidence I have a strange twist for you: my husband ended up getting his Business degree from a satellite campus of....Flagler College! Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:58:14 -0700 Every summer, something different happens to my mother. One summer, she almost had a heart attack. Last summer, her appendix burst. Each summer, I find myself back in that same hospital waiting room with my family, waiting for any news. Each summer, I find myself standing next to my mother's bed, reading and crying, telling her I love her every few seconds. My mother is always fine. We pull through, my family. I look forward to the summers, the things that will happen, ways I will grow. I know that, if something happens to my mother, that I will be alright, in the end. Fate, coincidence, has been on my side so far. Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:40:30 -0800 On the way home to DC from NYC where I'd been visiting a friend for the weekend, I snagged an aisle seat in the train and spread my stuff all over the inside seat to discourage invaders. It worked until Trenton where a guy who looked, to me anyway, like Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent, asked politely if I'd mind if he sat next to me. He said it was the last empty seat in the car. He sat. We had the kind of open, tell-all conversation for the next several hours that I only have with people I assume I'll never see again. Looking back through 25 years of marriage to the guy, I wonder what would have happened if there had been another empty seat? Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:20:00 -0800 On the flight to Seattle where I was going to visit a friend, I began reading a novel by a Norwegian author (in English translation), Jostein Gaarder. It was the first time I'd read any Norwegian writer. In Seattle, to my surprise, my friend introduced me to a good friend of his -- who was from Norway. I pulled out the novel from my bag and brandished it before my new (and now astonished) Norwegian friend. He told me about some of the places mentioned in the book, on the south coast of Norway. It provided a flying start (which was so much faster than the flight to Seattle) to this new friendship. Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:11:26 -0800 Growing up, I wanted to be a cop. My dad was a cop. Whether I should connect those last two sentences with "even though" or "because" or "and" I don't really know. He always told me he liked helping and protecting people and I told him I knew girls liked men in uniforms. One day, a girl who liked men in uniforms called our house and my dad became summer vacations, but I still wanted to be a cop. Shortly thereafter, my sophomore American Lit teacher convinced me that I wanted to be a writer. I should write, study writers, study writing and enroll in college to access teachers of writing and other people who wanted to be writers, she said. I wanted to go to college. Dad wanted me to be a cop, like him. He offered to help pay for college only if I majored in Criminal Justice so I could help victims (and maybe wear a uniform). Why not? He'll never know which classes I enroll in. So, I told him I wanted to be a cop. Tuition bills for the first two years of general study were paid and transcript records were cared less about. During the same summer which I officially declared my major as "English" and subsequently enrolled in a majority of poetry and fiction workshops, some type of funding for college tuition became available through the township police department that my dad worked for. To get these monies, documents had to be furnished which proved a course of study related, even remotely, to law enforcement. Dad contacted the university for my enrollement history, and the rest is history. I told him I didn't want to be a cop, anymore. Among the few pictures I keep of my dad is a black and white one of him walking the beat in downtown Canton with his parter. The picture is taken facing them. They are in full dress uniform, full stride, stone-faced, ready to help and protect. I glance at it every now and then and try to know my father better, but I can't. I don't know how I'll feel when he's dead. I hope I can tell him before that I wanted to be a writer. Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:47:52 -0800 I think that fate or destiny or coincidence has played a big part in my life, from my meeting my husband, to deciding on the name of our youngest two children. You see I had broken up with my husband to be and I was actually seeing another guy. He wanted me to be with him and to move off with him. But I said I didn't know why but I knew that my husband and I were meant to be together, and one day we would be together again. That same day my husband to be came back into town and the rest is history. We have been together from that day forth. I know too many of the advantages I've had in life were do to be in the right place at exactly the right time. If I had been there earlier or later I would have missed out. Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:29:51 -0700 I never will forget this year. My parents decided to separate during my last year of high school. This had really taken a toll on me. I slowly went from going to school everyday to maybe only 3 days out the week. When my dad left there was more pressure on my mom. She had to pay her bills and my dad's since he stopped paying, the lawyer fees, she was more than ready for a divorce by then, and also buying groceries for our house. Eventually her hours got cut until she was soon laid off. I graduated high school that same month. The next month i was able to hold a summer job for a month. I was so proud to help out around the house and to lessen the stress off of my mom. I am 18 and two months ago i got back with the boy who gave me my first kiss when we were 11. My mom,my brothers, and i are trying to start our own bussinesses. My mom has court for the divorce in a week or two. We are also planning to move very soon. Since my dad stop paying on the house, our current house is in foreclosure. Everyday i feel like my family is going to make it through. We went through so many unexpected things. We are waiting for so much better to come in our future. I have a gut feeling about this. Wish us luck ; ) Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:59:54 -0700