Monday, May 9, 2011

Woah.



It has been quite a while since I have blogged, and the fact that I am actually writing this right now is making me think "Woah. I somehow just got super motivated. Now why would that be? OH YEAH. Because I should be studying for finals, but blogging suddenly sounds like loads of fun." So there. Here I am.

I feel the need to update everyone on the happenings of my life since I last blogged. Even though it's probably not that exciting. But that's ok.

Sine the last time I blogged I have:

- Worked. 
In case you're curious what that was like, you can just reread any blog I have that has to do with work (which is most of them) and that should pretty much sum it up for you. We don't enjoy change at my place of work. That's not what we're all about.

-  Went to school.
This was also very much the same. The only thing that really changed was the amount I did not want to go. I swear, college is turning into a never-ending case of Senioritis and I might be dead before it's officially over with.

- Booked my "before summer vacation"
Yes. That is correct. I need a vacation before I start the summer vacation from school. Where am I going? Chicago. Mhmmm. Yes indeedy. Most of my family lives there and I am going for like, 5 days. I got really cheap airfare, so that's why I'm going. Plus, I need a break from work and my family before I have to be stuck with them (both work and my family) all summer. I think it's kind of sad how burned out on work I am already. That is not a good sign. Working this summer is going to be like being strapped to the physical embodiment of the deepest circle of hell. 

- Decided that I am going to get my Bartending Certificate
This is probably one of the most exciting things ever. I'll get my certificate and then they will help me find a new job and then I will make lots and lots of money and I will be so much happier because instead of making food for people all day, I get to make drinks for people all night. Which I won't mind because then when I'm 21 I can move to Las Vegas like I want to and get a job at a really awesome club or something and then I will meet my future celebrity husband, and then I will quit bartending and go work for the Travel Channel. And then I will have a very very sexy car and everything will be good in the world.

- Bought a ton of incense
One of my friends who lives like 2 hours away because of school came back to town this last weekend and we went shopping. We went to an Independent Records store and picked out sooo much incense. I love incense. It's really nice too because my mom just walked in my room and told me it smells like cigarettes even though it doesn't. This is nice because it means she won't want to come in here and ask me weird questions all day.

So that is what I have done. Now onto what I am going to do.

- Finals
I have one final each day this week, meaning I am officially done with school on Thursday. I already have my class schedule for next year done and I need to finish my financial aid thing, but once that is done, I won't have to think about school for three months. Hallelujah. 

- Not work. 
Since I have finals this week I am not working at all. This makes me so happy I could cry. I think I actually might have when I found out they'd given me the whole week off without me asking them to.

- Going to a concert.
I am going to see Hail the Villain and All That Remains on Friday. They're playing at my favorite venue of all time and I am going with one of my favorite people of all time. I am seriously so stoked. 

- Leaving for Chicago.
The morning after the concert I am leaving at 7:25 A.M. for Chicago. I am also super stoked about this. I love Chicago so much. Even though I am going to be so tired. But I don't care. It will all be so worth it when it's all over. I just know it. 

I'm thinking about everything that has happened and everything that is going to happen and I'm seriously like, "Woah." My life is actually going to be pretty freaking awesome here in a minute. 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Sunday Can Eat Shit

This is basically how I felt going in to work today, except I wasn't hung over or out of coffee, and I don't smoke anymore. This would be more accurate if it said
Worked all weekend, have better shit to do, and Easter is a shit holiday to work on. So why the hell am I here? (The cigarette would just be there for effect. And I am not cool enough to own a shirt with a monkey with wonky hair on it. My shirt is dark blue with bleach stains on it, naturally.)


Now, I am really not religious, so the fact that I had to work on Easter didn't bother me on a spiritual level. Really what bothers me is the fact that the owners of my place of work are arrogant enough to think that people give a flying rat's ass about their rinky-dink shit-hole on a huge Christian holiday. I didn't even get paid overtime for working today. And do you know what I think about that? I think that is some really shitty shit and I almost wanna kick someone's ass. 

Allow me to paint the scene for you: It is 8:30 A.M. and it is cloudy, windy, cold and rainy. There is still ridiculous amounts of heavy snow on the ground from last night's mid-April snow shit-storm. The beat up, slightly cool-looking, but secretly shitty sports car that is reluctantly driving down the road did not want to start and is still pretty pissed off it had to leave the driveway on this asswagon of a day. The disgruntled girl driving said shitty sports car is late to work (again) and is extremely peeved at having to come into work today because she is smarter than the airheads she works for and knows today is going to be slower than molasses in January. The disgruntled girl begins her work day, thankful for the lovely radio in the prep room- the only reason she enjoys work most days- and tunes to her favorite radio station. The day doesn't seem so bad at this moment. She continues with her morning prep work and pals around with her coworkers when they all arrive. They finish the prep work early and continue to waste time until they must announce they are open to the three people in the entire store. Soon enough, the time comes for the announcement. By this time there are maybe four people around and guess what? None of them give a pig's fat arse. 

A few hours pass. The cafe workers are disgruntled and bored, to say the least, and have maybe served one person. They have literally cleaned everything ten times and have taken to making invitations to a fake tie-dye party that only girls are allowed to attend. This party actually becomes somewhat legitimate and the workers seriously consider marking it on the calendar.  

And then, out of nowhere, this huge ass family comes in and decides they want to eat the crappy food the workers have been anxiously waiting to serve. The workers are surprised, and kind of put off. There are people who actually want to eat the garbage disguised as food on Easter Sunday? This family seriously had nothing better to do than come here today? Holy shit on a mossy log. I never thought I'd see the day. They make the food. And guess what? This annoyingly large family who obviously lacks the mental ability to recognize a shit-hole when they see one started a trend. Because another huge, weird family came in and ordered food. 

By this time, the main character of this story is seriously annoyed with pretty much everything. This is stemming from the fact that she is kind of the odd one out here. This means that although she loves her coworkers because they all have wonderful senses of humor and don't mock her for her strange and uncontrollable cat noises she sometimes makes, they are all still fairly new, and she has been at the chopping block for four years now. This kinda sorta leaves all the responsibility on her. The management staff is counting on her to be responsible and make sure everything gets done the way it needs to be and people get their food in a timely fashion, and there is no paper stuck to the cheese slices and the burgers aren't burned to a crisp. Now normally the main character doesn't mind. But today she does because the whole damn day is just annoying her. For whatever reason she starts thinking about the fact that every weekend she is left to fend for herself with no proper title of authority. No one in the cafe listens to her or takes her seriously because she doesn't have a gold name tag that tells everyone they have to. This leads to management always coming in and bitching about the fact that no one is doing anything. 

So guess what? After this mind-opening revelation, the main character stops caring. She realizes that being responsible on a managerial level is not in her job description, so she no longer makes an effort to be the bigger person. And then she gets sent home early because she gets seen not doing anything. Does this surprise her? No, because that's the way the shit clogs the toilet. 

     




Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Walking, Breathing Birth Control



I am one of those people who is not really at all worried about having children. It is my opinion that they are cute to look at up until a certain age, and then after that, I want nothing to do with them. I also think that it is disgraceful that we can't take care of the numerous amounts of children who don't already have parents or homes, yet humans just keep on procreating like it's nobody's business. (Even though in the end, it becomes everybody's business.)

I just got back from Khol's, and let me tell you. It was like it had been temporarily turned into a daycare or something. I was thoroughly disgusted with the amount of parents who had brought their children along with them so they could shop at 8 P.M. What I will never understand is why women feel the need to not only drag their children along with them to the store, but also their husbands. I am willing to bet my nonexistent left nut (I don't have a right one either, it's just an expression. I definitely only have lady parts.) that 98% of the husbands/boyfriends in there tonight did not want to be there. I took one look at most of them and saw that blank stare that most guys get when they are super bored because they got dragged to the store. So here's an idea: let your husbands stay at home WITH your children! That way everyone is happy. Your husband gets to get out of going shopping, and I don't have to listen to your children scream and cry and fight all over the store, and then I can shop in peace.

In all seriousness though, when I see children screaming and crying and acting completely obnoxious out in public, that is seriously all the birth control I need. I take one look at that crap and it makes me seriously consider becoming a nun. Ok, maybe not something that extreme, but I definitely cringe at the thought of ever becoming a parent. I think that some people are cut out to be parents, and some people are not. Luckily, I have realized that I fit into the latter description at a very early age. 

Question Box Extraordinaire




If you are in college, I have no doubt that you will be able to relate to this, because I have had a conversation about this with almost everyone I know at school. 

There is always one (at the very least) in every class: The Question Box. That one person who has to ask a question about every single thing the professor talks about. This person, or people, seem to not be able to figure anything out for themselves. Or they ask a question about something completely irrelevant, leaving the rest of the class to all look around at each other silently asking themselves, "Who the hell let this nut case in here?"

Well, needless to say, I have the pleasure (not) of having one of these people in every single class I have this semester. Well, I take that back. All of them except one. But I think that's because it's a continuing class from last semester, and there was a Question Box in there that asked enough questions to last 4 semesters, and thankfully, he no longer resides in that class. 

The first class I have that has a (I'm going to abbreviate now) Q.B. is my American Cinema class. I have nicknamed said Q.B. in this class Scooter Girl because even though this classroom is only, at maximum, a two minute walk from the parking lot, she still rides a scooter to class. And I don't mean a motorized one. I mean the little foldable metal ones that you rode when you were like, 5. This is also the person who seat-jacked me in one of my previous posts, so I already don't like her, but to intensify my great dislike for her, she also feels the need to ask incredibly stupid question all the time. For example, we watched "No Country For Old Men" the other day, and when the movie was over, she was the first one with her hand up, and do you know what she asked? She asked if the film was supposed to be considered a Western, even though for the past two weeks we had been watching Westerns, because we are in our WESTERN genre unit. I wanted to reach over and hit her with her scooter. It's a MODERN western, you insufferable fool. 

The next class I have  Q.B. in is my TV Production class. This girl, I don't have a nickname for her yet, somehow has an internship at a TV station already, and it is beyond me how she got it because her IQ cannot possibly be higher than that of a blade of grass. She has no common sense about anything and is confused practically all the time. It is exhausting to be within 20 feet of her.

And then in my math class, there are these two older ladies that sit right next to each other and I'm pretty sure are in cahoots with each other as far as asking stupid questions go. They always try to correct our teacher, who happens to be a very well respected engineer teaching the lowest level math class there is, and they are constantly trying to prove him wrong. It is insane the kinds of questions they ask, and I am always so baffled by them that I don't even have an example question because I feel like if I remembered any of the questions they asked, I would lose IQ points.

Finally, I would like to talk about Baldy. He was the Q.B. from last semester in my Energy Science class. He sat in the front row and he was bald (hence the nickname) and this guy was a wannabe know it all, and would always confuse the crap out of my professor with the questions he would ask. He was the kind of Q.B. that makes everything more difficult than it has to be. The typical over-thinker. He drove everyone bonkers. I always felt bad for my professor because he would always try to ignore him for as long as possible, but because Baldy was in the front row, he always had no choice but to call on him, and you could just tell he was dreading it. Poor guy.

It's too bad no one has come up with a way by now to weed out the Q.B.'s and just take them and clump them all together in classes with other Q.B's and just let them ask questions until their mouths fall off or something. Maybe one day someone will. I can hope, right? 

Sunday, April 17, 2011

You're In A Cult?!

I am happy to report that my day today was considerably better than yesterday. The main reason for this was because the cafe manager, we'll call him Shorty because he's short and always gets made fun of for it, was there today, and I will tell you, this guy always makes work fun. He has a great sense of humor.

One of the best parts of today was when we were cleaning up during a lull between customers. He was wiping down the salad station and stepped on a crouton. He proceeded to say, "Awe, I crunched a crouton!" But because all the equipment we have makes it absolutely impossible to hear anything that's not two inches in front of your face, and I wasn't looking at him, I heard him say, "Awe, I punched a crouton!" Which obviously made me stop what I was doing and ask, "You punched a crouton? Why?" We had a laughing fit and he told me what he really said but then turned around and handed me a crouton and asked me if I wanted to punch it. Naturally, I accepted the offer and proceeded to punch the crouton. It broke into a million little crumby/ garlic-y pieces. Shorty asked me if it broke and I said, "It sure did!" And as he was walking away he said, "Oh man, you're so strong!" To which I replied, "I know! I'm like the Hulk!" And because of the equipment, yet again, he heard me say, "I know! I'm in a cult!" And then the whole thing started all over again. We had a great little laugh, and we now have a nice little inside joke. "Why are you so strong?!" "Because I'm in a cult!"

Saturday, April 16, 2011

I Don't Have a Clever Title Because I Am in a Mood.

A bad mood to be exact. And as I sit here and reflect on why I am in such a bad mood, I realize that I was not meant to have a good day from the start for several reasons.

Reason #1: I did not have time to finish my coffee this morning.
This is never a good sign. My coffee is my jumper cable in the morning. Without it, I have no chance of being coherent or functioning past noon, especially when I'm up at 6:30 A.M. (This in it of itself is a crime, but that is a story for another day.) But, as the world would have it, I had to be at work from 8:30 until 5 today, meaning I had no chance from the start without my coffee.

Reason #2: I was running late.
This is also never a good sign. I hate being late, so naturally, I'm late all the time. In my defense though, I honestly really did try my hardest to be early, or at least on time, to work today because I was supposed to meet the guy fixing the dishwasher and show him where the breaker switch was for the power and whatnot.

*I am going to pause here and explain this. I work in a cafe, right? Right. That being said, we obviously have a nice, big industrial dishwasher because of the high volume of dishes we have. However, my place of work is the embodiment of Murphy's Law.

So, have you figured it out yet?

If you guessed "The dishwasher broke", Congratulations! You just won a virtual high-five! Because, yes, that is exactly what happened. This thing, which I'm willing to bet is older than I am, and has also probably never been properly serviced, decided to go on the fritz. Apparently there was a short in one of the wires causing the big turney-thing on the inside that sprays the water to just... not stop spraying water, even when you opened the door. So not only did we have our own faux Vegas water feature, we also had a sopping wet back room with matching employees, and a metric asston of dishes to do. Which we ended up doing by hand. Le sigh. Therefore, it was imperative we had the dishwasher fixed.

*Un-pause

Reason #3: Because I was running late,  I was frazzled. And I am ĂĽber grumpy when I'm frazzled.
So in addition to being ten minutes late (which will be explained in reason #4), I found out that I didn't need to stress out about getting there exactly on time because the guy had been there since a quarter to 8 anyway, meaning he had already found the breakers, and was practically done when I got there. By this point, I was thoroughly annoyed.

Reason #4: Traffic lights and the people on the road are always 10x more annoying/rude when you are running late.
I shall explain. I was annoyed with the people driving because they were all driving like, 25 mph. It was like they all had a meeting and decided to just clump together and drive as annoyingly slow and as in the way as possible. The stoplights were just plain rude. Almost all 15 stoplights on my way to work were red. Mind you, this was at 8:30 in the morning when there are not that many people on the road. The lights where I live simply just like to be assholes to you, especially when you're trying to get somewhere. What do I mean by that? They turn red when NO ONE IS ON THE OTHER SIDE. As in, there is absolutely, positively, without a doubt, no reason they should be turning red. These lights are a spawn of satan himself, and I have a personal beef with every single one of them.

Reason #5: The people just kept coming.
Once I had been at work for about 4 1/2 hours, we got our huge lunch rush. This means there was a steady stream of rude, demanding, obnoxious people ordering food for a good two hours. And I don't know what it is about the kind of customers we always seem to get, but for whatever reason, they all think they've walked into a damn Burger King and they get to "Have it their way." I would absolutely love to tell all of these people that you get the food the way I make it, and that's that. You don't like it? Well, I think there's some nice tree bark outside. Have at it, pal. However, to make today (insert sarcastic tone here) even better (/sarcasm) after the huge lunch rush had died down, we got... another huge lunch rush! (Which was really more like a 3 pm "who the fuck wants to eat this kind of food right now?" rush.) And do you know what? They wouldn't stop coming. At this point I was pretty effing peeved and really just wanted to drag everyone outside and lock the doors and tell them we were closed. But I didn't, and I really don't know why. But eventually I did get to leave, so that was a good thing. But this post is not about the good things today.

Reason #6: When I came home, my own mother ignored me.
Not even a "Hi, how was your day?" She walked right past me and didn't say a SINGLE word to me. And then, later on in the evening (after still not having said a word to me), she proceeded to fawn over a certain person that I do not like because this person is a cheater and a liar and just basically the world's biggest douche. She of course paid all the attention in the world to him, even though just this morning he basically blamed all his life problems on her. CheaterCheaterMomStealer, for the record, I hate you.

And finally,
Reason #7: I'm missing something awesome.
Because I had to work today, and tomorrow, I am missing something I really wanted to see. The Decemberists were putting on a concert at my college and I wanted to go, but I couldn't because I worked all day today and I must work all day tomorrow. Can you say, "Story of my life"?

If you made it this far, I applaud you. I am done whining now. But I do hope this was slightly entertaining and didn't sound quite as bitchy as I feel. If it did, I apologize. Hopefully next post I will be back to making fun of life, instead of bitching about it.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Stranger Things Have Happened, But This Is Near the Top of the List

My mom and I made a trip to the always charming Wally World today. And I would like to start off by saying that every time I go there, I always have a list of the things I need to get, and then end up in the check-out line with about 50 other things that I don't need, but when I try to convince myself that I don't really need the five candles, and the new Fuzz-Buster that I found, I just can't seem to part with them. So needless to say, I always end up spending at least $50 at Wal-Mart. However! There is hope for me yet! I walked out of The Big Blue Giant without spending over $20 today. Victory is mine!!

In other news, aka the real reason for this post, on our way out to the car, my mom decided she wanted to stop in the eyeglass place and look at some new frames, because she needs new ones. And I mean that. She hasn't had new glasses in about ten years, which means her glasses are like the ones Fuller wears in Home Alone. Eek. (Ok, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but still. They're pretty bad.) Well, we had been in the little shop for about twenty minutes and she had actually found some frames she liked that I approved of. ( I had warned her she was not allowed to look like Harry Potter when our excursion was over, thankfully she listened.) We had narrowed down the frames she liked to about three pairs, and they were having a deal that made it cheap enough that she could get two of the three pairs if she wanted to. Well, out of nowhere, this slightly hyper looking woman came at us and started babbling about how the frames she had picked made her look old (which they didn't), and she shouldn't get those she should go for a "fun" look instead, and she was talking at about 500 miles per hour. It would be an understatement to say we were surprised that a.) she was so bold, and b.) how hyper she was. Not to mention the fact she was like, 50 something and had flaming red hair. At first all we could do was sit there and stare at each other like, "the fuck is this hag going on about?"

After the woman had dragged my unsuspecting mother away from me, and taken over my consulting job, she tried to force about twenty pairs of glasses on her face that didn't fit her at all. It was like she was trying to get my mom to look like she had just stepped out of a Teen Vogue "Glasses Edition" or something. And let's be honest. My mom dresses like a mom, not a fashonista, so there is no way she has any business in a pair of bright pink glasses with rhinestones on the side in the shape of a heart. Soon enough though, my mom was able to escape the wrath of crazy glasses lady, and we hightailed it outta there like nobody's bidness.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I Don't Like the Procrastination, But the Procrastination Likes Me

Blogging is slowly taking over my life, for real. I'm sitting here writing this even though I don't really have anything in particular to say, but writing a blog about nothing is naturally better than doing the work for school that I really should be doing. And I also didn't really feel like alphabetizing my entire DVD collection or cleaning my room, so this was the best choice, really.

Said school work consists of several things that I have been putting off for a while now, and the due dates are rapidly approaching me like a boulder that's been flung from a ginormous slingshot straight at my bemused face, but do you think that has affected my position on doing the work? Not at all. Maybe if a huge, scary black guy jumped out in front of me and screamed, "Bitch you be trippin'! You best work on that school shit!" I would be a little more inclined to work on it, since no one wants to get beat up by a big, scary black guy. Unless you're in Fight Club. But even then you wouldn't be able to tell anyone. (And I know there was no big, scary black guy in Fight Club, but if there was there would no doubt be quite a few people who wanted to fight him.)

On a different note, I was thinking about a way to make people follow the rules of the road earlier today, because I'm pretty sure the city I live in has the most horrid drivers I've ever seen (except people in Iowa. Now that is some truly disgraceful driving. Just because you live on a farm and it takes you 45 minutes to get to town every week does not mean you should take that frustration out in the tired girl driving in front of you who's simply passing through. I honestly felt like I had a raging growth on my ass or something with the way people there tailgate.) But anyway, I was thinking about how smartphones can pretty much do everything and anything these days, and you can practically take over the entire world with the help of all the apps that are out there, so why not take that wonderful technology and apply it to cars? Make a truly "smart" car that doesn't let people drive like raging idiots! I think it's a brilliant idea. I'll accept my Nobel Prize now.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

My Violent Tendencies Are Apparently Not So Surprising.

This is not really very surprising to me or anyone I know, but I think it makes for a good read, so I'm going to write about it anyway.

I will start by recapping what just happened to me that made me think of this.

I'm sitting on the couch searching through various blogs when my mother gets home from work. She proceeds to sit down at the table and ask me how my day was. I answer "good" and she then asks me if I'm working tomorrow.

I will pause here and explain something about my work, even though I've kinda already explained it a little bit here.

I have been working at this cafe for about four years now, so naturally one would think I have at least a little bit of say in what my schedule looks like, right? Wrong. I have asked several times this semester to not be scheduled every day of my weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I got lucky and have no class on Fridays, yay!) because when I have to work all weekend and go to school all week, I find that I have no time for anything else, i.e., a social life (big shocker, right?). So, I asked to work on Wednesdays instead of a weekend day because I only have one class on Wednesdays in the morning.  However, the lady that does the scheduling at work just really likes ignoring me, even though I think she's afraid of me since I give her deathglares every time I see her. So, this either means she's pretending to be afraid of me, or she's really dumb. Or both. Whatever the reason, I still always end up working the entire weekend. So, as you might guess, I'm a little more than annoyed.

Back to reason for this post. After my mother asked me if I was working tomorrow, I proceeded to say, "No. I get to work all weekend. Again. I think I might set her computer on fire and hope it blows up when she's in the room." <-- I was referring to the lady that schedules me, in case you didn't pick up on that.

I think it would be only natural for a mother to be at least a little concerned about her child's mental soundness should her child say something like that, but what did my mother do? She brushed off my comment and started talking about what we should have for dinner. Why would she do this? I shall explain.

Ever since I started high school, I have pretty much hated 95% of the people that I come in contact with. This is mostly because I find that most people are either incredibly stupid, obnoxiously immature, or disgustingly self-absorbed, and I absolutely cannot stand those kind of traits in a person. So, instead of trying to change people and be a saint, I decided to take on a darker, more violent persona. This means that for approximately six years now, I've been sending empty threats to everyone that pisses me off. And this adds up to about 20 death/bodily harm threats a day. And that is why my mother ignores me when I tell her I will cause bodily harm to someone. And I will admit that she is right to do this, because I cannot even kill a spider the size of my fingernail. Go figure.

From Turn Signals to Seat-Jacking, the World is Intentionally Trying to Piss Me Off

There are a few things in life that I find to be perpetually annoying. Two of those things would be people who don't use their turn signals, and those pesty kids in school who seat-jack you every chance they get. And today, I experienced both in a matter of minutes. Lucky me.

Some of you might wonder why I find these things so annoying, and you know what? I'm going to tell you.

First of all, we should take into consideration the actual reason for the turn signal. This little blinking light of joy is there so that you may inform the other nice people on the road what the hell you are doing, or about to do. These little blinky lights are not just there for optional entertainment, despite what 99% of drivers today think. These are so that when you start to slow down when I am driving along my merry way behind you, I don't get extremely pissed off at you because you are suddenly doing 25 in a 40 zone.

I would also like to add that in addition to being practical and courteous, your little blinkers are not that hard to use. There is absolutely no reason that any driver on this whole entire continent cannot use their turn signals. All you have to do is give your little finger on your left hand a flick! and voilĂ ! You have successfully used your turn signal and made everyone around you happy. That literally probably took about .2 seconds. However, for some strange reason, people seem to think this is completely optional. Well I have news for you. It is not. My blinkers don't even really work because the fuses are blown and I have neither the time or the money to go get them fixed, but guess what? I still use them! That's right folks, this courteous citizen sits there and manually moves the lever for the turn signal up and down whenever she turns. And believe me, it gets annoying and I don't want to do it, but because I am a good and caring person, I do it. So, guy in the brand new black truck ahead of me this morning, what was  your reason for not using your turn signal again?

On to the next order of business: seat-jacking. Approximately 5 minutes after falling victim to the laziness and self-absorbed person driving ahead of me on my way to class, I walk into my morning class to find that the seat I normally sit in has been taken. Now, I could understand if this was the second week of school and everyone is still getting used to the classroom and whatnot, but this is April, and the semester started in January. AND, I have been sitting in that seat every Tuesday since January 18th, and said seat-jacker was more likely than not, aware of this. As I write about this I feel like maybe this is a little bit trivial, (and in all honesty this person bugs me anyways because they sit in the front row while we're trying to watch a movie and play on their laptop), but I think that this maybe bothers everyone at some point. Mostly just because one seat-jacking leads to more seat-jacking, however unintentional it may be. And mostly it's just inconsiderate, especially when there are about ten other seats to choose from.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Being Honest Can Sometimes Offend People. Who Knew.

So, I have this night class that I am required to take for my major, and to clump it all together in a nutshell, I pretty much hate it. Not only is it at the worst time ever (aka 6 p.m., the exact time I should be eating dinner and maybe watching a movie or something) but it is also full of very strange people who I feel, for whatever reason, don't like me very much. Since Day 1 I have been nothing but friendly, mildly chatty, and open-minded towards these people and what do I get in return? Strange looks and that little, uncomfortable laugh people do (add in the shifty eye thing too) when they don't want to talk to you. I really don't understand it. At all. But, whatevs. I've been received in worse ways, so I'll take the subtle uneasiness along with the shifty-eye, I guess.

Onwards with my story though. Tonight we were doing a run through of a few interactive projects that we have due starting next week, meaning we all had to interact with each other. I was surprised at how well it was going for me- I wasn't getting as many strange looks as I usually do- when it was my turn to be in the spotlight. (These "projects" are more like fake interviews and since they were just practices, none of us really had anything written down, so we just talked about whatever we wanted.) Both myself and my interviewer had no idea what we should talk about for four minutes straight, so I went with a safe subject (or so I thought): Music. Well, we started talking about how most anyone can get a record deal these days, and I went on to say that this is something I find absolutely atrocious. I mean seriously. In today's world, you can get signed if you can choke out your ABC's/ days of the week into a mic attached to a computer that has auto-tune on it. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Rebecca Black, or whatever your name is. Does Friday really come after Thursday? I keep getting confused. Maybe I'll go listen to your horrific song once I've stopped puking and it will remind me. But then I'll have to go puke again, so, maybe I won't.)

But anywho, I then started talking about the bands I'm into who aren't completely awful (like Florence + the Machine and Mumford & Sons- love them!! They seriously need to tour together. It would make my life.) And then, once I was done gushing about how awesome they are, my interviewer asked me to name some of my least favorite artists. Big Mistake. I should have lied. However, I suck at thinking about that kind of thing on the spot, so I went with the truth. Not only that, but I had absolutely no idea it was a trap. (But I should know better. It's always a trap.) And who should I name off but Justin Bieber and Nickelback. The two things I despise in the music world. And right then and there, I was no longer even slightly popular with some of my classmates who had decided I was OK to talk to.

After I was finished being interviewed, there were a few people in my class who wouldn't even look at me. It was like I had insulted their dead grandmother for a full four minutes or something. Had I known I was in a class mostly full of people who have been struck with Bieber-fever and Nickleback-lovers I would have dropped the class the first night. I suppose I could still drop the class if I begged the Dean and explained my nightmarish situation to him, but I still wouldn't get my money [nickel] back. (My attempt at a bad pun. Sorry it sucks.) Therefore, I will be the object of my fellow classmate's hateful deathglares for the rest of the semester. Not only that, but I will now always second guess myself before I decide to be honest. Well, more so than usual at least.

On and end note, it is possible that I've blown this completely out of proportion and mistaken the three people who glared at me for the entire class, and the rest of them still just think I'm weird or something, but seeing as none of them will talk to me either way, I guess I'll never know. Whatever will I do? o.O

Go With the Flow



There is something so wonderful about a person that is able to 'go with the flow.' I do my very best to be one of those people. I think in order to be one of those people you have to understand that the world and the events which occur in it are constantly changing. 

What made me think about this was a flight change I had to make today. I've decided to go visit some family in Chicago at the end of May and I was talking with my aunt after I booked the flight. She forgot to mention that my cousin is graduating from preschool the day I was scheduled to leave and wondered if I would be able to stay a day longer, if changing my flight wasn't too much of a hassle. I of course want to be there when my absolutely adorable cousin graduates from preschool, and since I had just booked my flight minutes before, I had no problem changing my returning flight schedule. 

It was then that for some reason, I thought about how a change in plans like that would completely wreck someone's day if they weren't able to go with the flow. I think I feel slightly sorry for those kind of people. I've always been pretty easygoing when it comes to things like this, so it didn't bother me in the least. I just did what I needed to do, and that was that. No big deal. I just can't imagine getting worked up or angry over something like that like some people I know would. I guess it all just depends on how you view things though. To me, life is too short to make a big deal about things that are trivial and it also takes way too much energy. But maybe that's just my lazy persona talking. 

However, at the end of the day, I'm glad that I can just float on the water and simply go wherever the currant takes me.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Can I Just Say...



I absolutely love Mumford and Sons. I look at this picture, and I am seriously in love with it. I just love how mysterious it is. But at the same time there's something friendly about it too. I'm going to see them in June and I absolutely cannot wait. I've waited to see these wonderful, amazing human beings for such a long time now. 

One thing I absolutely love about them is how unique they are. It almost makes me sad that they are so popular. But that's mostly because I'm selfish and want them all to myself- but who doesn't, so alas, they are popular. But despite their popularity, I still feel like their next album will be as wonderful and unique as the first one. I feel like these are men who can avoid being sucked into the mainstream thinking/living style. 

Another thing I love about them is the imagery that goes along with their music. It's truly captivating. Being a film student, I've had this idea for a music video for "Dustbowl Dance" for sometime now and it would be a dream come true to actually take that idea and make it real... I think I'll add that to my "Life Goals" list. 

And I don't know if it's just me, but the mere thought of these guys and their music makes me want to go live in a countryside somewhere in the UK. I'm planning on having a second home when I make enough money and I think a home that reminds me of Mumford and Sons would be just peachy!

Personal Bubble. Do Not Invade.

So, I work at a cafe that is situated inside a very large tourist trap. We are not a fancy restaurant and none of my coworkers have degrees in Culinary Arts or anything like that, because to be honest, it's not needed. My job is not a hard one, unless you have no common sense and don't have the brain capacity to understand "the rules." "The rules" is in quotes because theses are unspoken rules.

To explain a little more thoroughly, this place is owned by three family members: the father, the brother and the son. All of whom are diehard control freaks, and have no sense of why one actually starts a business in the first place (so you can hire people to work for you so you don't have to be there.) The reason we, as in the employees, have unspoken rules is so that we can survive. There are certain things we have all learned that simply make out lives easier. However, life becomes considerably harder when the new people, and the owners who are there every day, don't pick up on or understand the rules.

For instance: when I am the person cooking on the grill, that is considered MY station. My space, my area, my whatever. The number one rule here is that you do not come along and try to take over MY station and then attempt to try to tell me how to do my job. Especially when I have been doing what I'm doing 4 years longer than you have. I am not going to come over to your station and tell you there is too much lettuce on the plate you're preparing, or that the bread you're toasting is done and you need to take it out of the toaster. I won't do that because that is disrespectful and annoying, and INVASIVE. Not to mention that I am well aware you know how to do your job, so it would be an insult to your intelligence if I were to say something like that.

That being said, these kind of "rules" are not hard to pick up on and it irks me to no end when someone is too dense or self-absorbed to catch on.

Another thing that irks me? When two out of the three owners of the place are constantly breathing down your neck and looking for something to bitch about. This is the real reason for this post. This happens way too often, and if it weren't for the fact that I live in the hardest city to get a job in, I would have quit a very long time ago. However, I am in college and I need money. But back to the point. I would like to say that two out o the three owners are considerably older than the third, and as much as they believe differently, have no idea how "things" work in today's society. They don't understand that I consider it disrespectful and insulting when they attempt, and fail, to be discrete about coming into the kitchen and looking for ways to condescendingly tell me how to do my job.

Looking deeper into this issue, I realize that this all stems from their dire need to be in control of every little thing. (Not only that but I really think they just enjoy being unpleasant to everyone.) However, I would like to say that I pride myself on my tongue-holding abilities. If it wasn't for this, I would have said something that probably would have gotten me fired a long time ago.

I don't own this picture, but I saw it and thought it really describes my situation sometimes.


Saturday, April 9, 2011

Learn to "Let It Be"



Yoga: a derivative from the Sanskrit word yogic literally meaning "to unite."

I thought about this after my daily practice today, and I'm finding that this practice is not only one that grounds you, but one that sets you free. Yoga is meant to unite body and mind while simultaneously quieting it, and I think every single human being on this planet could use a little yoga.

One of the main things I've always liked about yoga is that even in the difficult postures, we are required to reach within and find the strength to hold on through the pose; We must find strength and comfort in each pose to reap the full benefits. The more I think about this, the more I see it applies to life in general. In yoga, you push yourself through a pose and also try to relax in it so that you can increase your mental and physical strength, but shouldn't we apply this philosophy to other areas of our life as well? The first real-life  example that comes to mind is that less-than-pleasant job we all have or have had. My current job is only temporary, and I know that, however, I can't help but sometimes feel that this job will be the rest of my life, even though I know this isn't true. However, I've realized something tonight: I have to push through and find it in myself to relax and let things be for the time being in order to get to a better place.

In adopting this philosophy I believe that I will be able to be at peace with my life as it is currently. I have to accept that although this phase is tough, I have to reach within and find strength and comfort so that I am prepared for the future. In this phase of my life I am going to learn patience, perseverance, and strength.

This also reminds me of a quote I read about yoga not that long ago, and it has come to mean a lot to me. I'm even thinking of getting a tattoo of it. Hopefully, if any of this made sense to anyone, this quote will mean something to you too.

Here there is nothing to fight 
Except willfulness. 
Some lean too far 
Into the past. 
Others stretch way out 
Into the future. 
The true warrior 
Stays in the moment, 
Burning deeper 
Into whatever comes. 
Or sometimes with 
Even more difficulty, 
What doesn't.

~Leza Lowitz