Making Friends, Impostor Lakes and Other Anecdotes

Making Friends here is tough. I've found that I dread each weekend, because I really don't know anyone here to do anything with. I lack the drive to go out to some place by myself to meet people, so I generally spend Fridays moping. It's not a good pattern I've gotten myself into and I am looking to get out of it. Labor Day weekend, I spent Saturday at the lake with OfficeMate and some of his friends and had a grand old time. It's amazing how social interaction can instantly make you more optimistic.

A friend of mine at UVA sent me an article about how difficult it is for 20 and 30 somethings to make friends here. A lot of people who move here in my age demographic are actually quite likely to move away due to the lack of friends. You can read the article here. Roanoke is a town of families, not so much for the youngin's like myself. I tried to befriend the girl at the library who hooked me up with my library card, and I think I frightened her. Perhaps I was to forward? I feel like I'm living the movie, "I Love You, Man." Making friends sucks, officially. But, I will not be brought down. Si se puede. I can make friends. One day at a time.

Until then, I intend on making long drives to visit old friends from college. I am now two for two on my weekends.

The Lake
Okay, so the lake here is fascinating to me. Smith Mountain Lake is, first off, huge. It's 32 square miles with 500 miles of shoreline. It's average depth is 55 ft. (Thanks for the stats, Wikipedia!) This thing is enormous. What gets me, though, aside from it's size, is that it's man-made. Around the 1920s, people were like, "Hey, we should have a lake here!" and by the 1960's, an entire valley had been flooded to create this lake. So, underneath the lake are trees, houses (probably some dead bodies, who knows?) and things of that nature.
The whole thing is so bizarre to me. Out of this lake, random mountain tops just appear. It gets super deep impressively fast, and I couldn't help worrying about kicking a tree the whole time I was swimming in there. Impostor lake.

But it is beautiful.

I took many photos, and went to upload them (along with various other photos I've taken since I've been here) only to discover the I left my cable at my parents' house. Sorry internet. I'll post photos as soon as I can. Until then, make do with whatever Google Images gives me.

Work, the whole reason I theoretically have this blog..., is scary. We sit down at staff meeting and I hear about my coworkers raising thousands of dollars with a few phone calls, progress being made from every angle by everyone, and I just feel like I'm falling behind. I haven't raised thousands of dollars. I found out my enormous two-weeks-of-work spreadsheet has been rendered obsolete, and I'm just generally disillusioned. I know I'll have good days and bad days, but today was rough.

However, and I hate to be vague on this, but vague I must be, after work some very exciting events went down, and I am crossing my fingers for some non-work-related activity to go my way.

The Penguin Club. While creating a list of local civic organizations, I came across the Penguin Club. Not knowing what this was, I googled it, much like I did with the Order of the Moose. A Google search will take you to Club Penguin - some Disney channel creation where, I think, you make a penguin avatar and make friends. I think the internet is trying to tell me I need friends. I still don't know what the Penguin Club is...

Sorry about the general pessimism, amigos. It's rough coming back after a three-day weekend.