I don't really have anything in particular to say today, but I do especially want to say something because I want to hit 19 posts for the month of July. Last March I hit 19 also, which is, I believe, my all time record (one that probably won't be surpassed anytime soon).
Here are some stats for you:
Latest 'duh' moment: I'd been wondering for a while what the origin of a certain curious, drippy noise was. I only just realized that I left the sink running from when I got a drink of water about a half hour ago.
Activity: Playing Sims 2 (I always make literary families) on the Dell, and at the same time constantly checking the firstlinefiction website on my laptop to see if any results have been posted yet (they haven't).
Eyebrow condition: Red and sore looking. Unfortunately, I had to go to work today with the burns seared into my face. Also unfortunately, I read on the internet that waxing burns usually don't scar. Good Lord I don't know what I would do if these babies scarred. Wear a paper bag on my head for the rest of my life? Or maybe do a sort of reverse Phantom of the Opera; have a mask on just my forehead instead of just my cheek.
Current wrist ornament: I'm wearing those rubber band bracelets that don't look like much on, but when you take them off and lay them flat, they revert back into shapes such as peace signs and dinosaurs. They're the very latest preteen fad, and I'm happy to say that I've joined in.
Height: 5'10." Although probably about half that, since I am sitting down. Hmm...I wonder what my actual sitting down height is? Will find out some time.
Reading: *Going Bovine, by the marvelous Libba Bray. This book happened to win the Michael L. Printz Award. It also happens to be completely hilarious and wonderful. Which may be why it happened to win the Michael L. Printz Award.
Writing: Nothing. Well, this blog. And my journal. But nothing else.
Listening to: Nothing as of yet, although I did go a little crazy after work today and talked myself into buying an itunes card. Let the over-priced music buying begin!
*You know, under the facade of reading classics like Never Let Me Go, Fahrenheit 451, and Jane Eyre, I've been getting my Young Adult fiction on this summer. Maybe these side reads of mine don't sound very impressive or English-major-y to you, but I've been enjoying them immensely. Partly because I read the Y.A. authors' blogs online and think it's cool that I can get to know them a bit before reading their books, partly because the Y.A. authors are awesome and all seem to live in NYC and hang out and do awesome things together, and partly because I've always loved the Y.A. genre, and think I may want to write at least one Y.A. book someday.)
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Channeling Amidala
An unfortunate incident happened to me today. So unfortunate (and embarrassing), in fact, that I considered not sharing it. However, the part of me that loves a good unfortunate and humiliating story overruled the part of me that feels the need to crawl under a rock for a few days. So, I'm sharing.
I got my eyebrows waxed for the first time this afternoon. Don't laugh yet (the unfortunate part is yet to come). I've never been particularly bothered by my eyebrows; I mean, I'm not up to Frida Kahlo standards or anything. But my mom was getting hers done anyway, and since I tend to like doing little girly spa-type things every once in awhile (ex: my nail color changes frequently), I thought I'd give it a try as well.
The actual waxing part was fine. What I didn't realize, however, is that the phrase 'getting your eyebrows waxed' actual stems from the word 'wax,' which means a hot, melty substance that is swirled onto an oversized Q-tip and applied to your brow line. Then, a strip of paper is placed onto the searing wax and ripped away suddenly, leaving you lacking in small hairs and wishing you were lacking in throbbing pain.
Okay, okay; it wasn't really that bad. The bad part was when I got into the car and flipped down the mirror to check out my newly-groomed eyebrows. What I noticed instead was that there were bright red burns shaped strangely similar to the smears of wax that had been rubbed in the exact same places about ten minutes ago. Three burns total: Between the brows, and below each one.
First Thought: Ow.
Second Thought: I look kind of like Queen Amidala (except I didn't really)
Third Thought: Oh, I'm going to have fun walking around the mall like this.
And I did have fun. Since the following shopping trip was necessary and unavoidable, I just kept my head down and followed my mom from store to store. The whole time I was praying that I wouldn't see anyone I know.
I saw two people I know, of course.
The humor came in the dressing room. Trying on a shirt: "Okay, Mom. I'm going to cover my forehead with my hand. Just focus on my eyes down. How does it look?"
Despite the eventual okay-ness and fun-ness, however, I'm still hoping that I wake up tomorrow looking normal. While I'm clearly not beyond explaining the situation to certain coworkers, I'm not sure I can take a full shift of curious looks.
Queen Amidala may be ashamed of my cowardice, but after all, I don't have a closet full of epic headdresses to distract from my brow.
I got my eyebrows waxed for the first time this afternoon. Don't laugh yet (the unfortunate part is yet to come). I've never been particularly bothered by my eyebrows; I mean, I'm not up to Frida Kahlo standards or anything. But my mom was getting hers done anyway, and since I tend to like doing little girly spa-type things every once in awhile (ex: my nail color changes frequently), I thought I'd give it a try as well.
The actual waxing part was fine. What I didn't realize, however, is that the phrase 'getting your eyebrows waxed' actual stems from the word 'wax,' which means a hot, melty substance that is swirled onto an oversized Q-tip and applied to your brow line. Then, a strip of paper is placed onto the searing wax and ripped away suddenly, leaving you lacking in small hairs and wishing you were lacking in throbbing pain.
Okay, okay; it wasn't really that bad. The bad part was when I got into the car and flipped down the mirror to check out my newly-groomed eyebrows. What I noticed instead was that there were bright red burns shaped strangely similar to the smears of wax that had been rubbed in the exact same places about ten minutes ago. Three burns total: Between the brows, and below each one.
First Thought: Ow.
Second Thought: I look kind of like Queen Amidala (except I didn't really)
Third Thought: Oh, I'm going to have fun walking around the mall like this.
And I did have fun. Since the following shopping trip was necessary and unavoidable, I just kept my head down and followed my mom from store to store. The whole time I was praying that I wouldn't see anyone I know.
I saw two people I know, of course.
The humor came in the dressing room. Trying on a shirt: "Okay, Mom. I'm going to cover my forehead with my hand. Just focus on my eyes down. How does it look?"
Despite the eventual okay-ness and fun-ness, however, I'm still hoping that I wake up tomorrow looking normal. While I'm clearly not beyond explaining the situation to certain coworkers, I'm not sure I can take a full shift of curious looks.
Queen Amidala may be ashamed of my cowardice, but after all, I don't have a closet full of epic headdresses to distract from my brow.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Winona For A Day
I spent today down in the lovely town of Winona. My younger sister will be a senior in high school this fall, and Winona State University was part of her summer college tour. I'm not going to deny that I sort of pushed Winona on her; I remembered how much I loved the town and the campus when I was visiting colleges, and I campaigned for us to make the trip.
Once we arrived, and while Mom and Am were sitting through the unavoidable powerpoint spiel, I situated myself on a bench in the middle of campus and tried vainly to finish Jane Eyre. I kept getting distracted, though. Even though it's summer, there were still quite a few people walking around, and there were ants crawling all over my feet, and then I wanted to jump up and read the plaques on nearby statues. There was also something sort of unsettling about the place; I couldn't figure out what it was, though.
I did eventually finish my book, but mainly it was interesting to be on a different college campus now that I officially belong to Morris (not in a creepy I've signed my name in blood on the wall of the student center way; I just go there). I was able to look at Winona State from a completely different perspective. A comparative perspective, I guess.
Winona is an absolutely beautiful town, what with the bluffs and the river and the gorgeous old buildings and everything. The campus is nice, too; lots of flowers and statues and nice, updated facilities. It just didn't feel like home to me. That's what was weird, I think. Winona isn't Morris.
I have a concluding fun fact for you: in one of the dorms we saw on WSU's West Campus, there was this huge Hogwarts-esque dining hall. Our tour guide told us that that hall is where they filmed the food fight scene in Mighty Ducks. Awesome!
Once we arrived, and while Mom and Am were sitting through the unavoidable powerpoint spiel, I situated myself on a bench in the middle of campus and tried vainly to finish Jane Eyre. I kept getting distracted, though. Even though it's summer, there were still quite a few people walking around, and there were ants crawling all over my feet, and then I wanted to jump up and read the plaques on nearby statues. There was also something sort of unsettling about the place; I couldn't figure out what it was, though.
I did eventually finish my book, but mainly it was interesting to be on a different college campus now that I officially belong to Morris (not in a creepy I've signed my name in blood on the wall of the student center way; I just go there). I was able to look at Winona State from a completely different perspective. A comparative perspective, I guess.
Winona is an absolutely beautiful town, what with the bluffs and the river and the gorgeous old buildings and everything. The campus is nice, too; lots of flowers and statues and nice, updated facilities. It just didn't feel like home to me. That's what was weird, I think. Winona isn't Morris.
I have a concluding fun fact for you: in one of the dorms we saw on WSU's West Campus, there was this huge Hogwarts-esque dining hall. Our tour guide told us that that hall is where they filmed the food fight scene in Mighty Ducks. Awesome!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Platypus to Chimpanzee
You know, maybe dreaming about platypuses (I looked it up: it's platypuses, not platypii like I thought), and about chimpanzees who are really orangutans is an omen of some sort. I'm going to believe so, at least. Because about an hour after I had that dream, and a half hour after I posted about it, one of the worst mornings of my life began. And after that? One of the best afternoons of my life began.
You see, when I posted this morning, I hadn't yet looked in the mirror. When I did, I got a huge surprise. Bed head. Major major bed head in the worst form possible. Not sexy "oh my goodness I look a bit rumpled this fine morning" bed head, but "holy man there is no way I can successfully flatten this mess out before I have to leave for work" bed head.
Well, I did eventually succeed at taming a particularly cheeky lock that felt the need to sproing out despite numerous brushings, straightenings, curlings, and gelings. A pint of hair spray finally did the trick (note to self: try the hairspray first).
But that's just the superficial part of my morning. The emotional part was when I dashed out to the garage, already slightly late for work, to find that the Oldsmobile was gone. Oh. Okay. Well I'll just take the van, then.
Grab key from drawer in kitchen, jump over dog, fling open door to other garage.
Van's gone too.
Ready? Here comes the emotional part. My family had evidently forgotten that I worked at 10 a.m., and had gone off to play volleyball and go for a run respectively. That's right; vehicles are needed to go running now. It's the new thing.
(Sorry if I'm sounding bitter here. In all honesty, it was probably my fault; maybe I wasn't clear when I said what time I worked. I'm simply trying to convey this morning's state of mind.)
Pure panic. Dialing numbers, pacing back and forth between windows, muttering, wailing, crying...
I called work as soon as I realized my predicament, and when I spoke to the LOD she sounded kind of annoyed, which freaked me out even more. Was this going to be the straw to break the camel's back? I was getting fired. Shoot.
It all turned out okay in the end, don't worry. Mom got home fairly quickly, and I managed to be only five minutes or so late for work. Also, I apologized in person to the LOD and she was totally cool about it. Said that it happens to everyone, and that she's not worried about me and knows that it won't happen again.
That was the platypus part of my day.
Here comes the chimpanzee:
This afternoon was one of the best working days I've ever had. After the initial carless drama was over, I truly began to enjoy myself. A lot of help was needed cashiering, so I was constantly running up there to back up. I like cashiering, too. I like being face-to-face with guests in that way, and I like being able to stand still for a few minutes, and I like seeing all the strange things people buy. I also like that time flies when I'm cashiering.
Besides cashiering, the other duty that took up most of my work afternoon was covering Kyle's breaks back in electronics. I think we were both kind of surprised that I was the one covering; I have very limited experience in electronics, and don't know anything besides the basic "sure I can unlock that game case for you, sir."
Despite said lack of experience, I actually came to enjoy working back there. Electronics is its own little world in a way. If I really wanted to be metaphorical, I might say that the prow of the boat pushes against, but doesn't quite puncture, the bubble of the rest of the store. Waves break over cameras and high definition TVs, and dolphins leap across the surface at the flashing of lights from the Wii display. -end metaphor-
Anyway, what really made my afternoon over in electronics was this elderly man who came over wanting some help finding the correct ink cartridges for his printer. He flagged me down (I was over by the DVDs) by actually getting up out of his power chair and walking over: "Miss? Can I get some help over here?"
He handed me a splattered plastic baggie. Inside were the two cartridges he wanted replaced. Unfortunately, one of them was so covered in splotches of blue ink that I couldn't' read the number on it.
Well, I did the best I could, and managed, through some clumsy deduction, to find the correct package of ink for his printer. Kyle arrived at just the right moment (I think I might have actually let slip a "thank goodness") to confirm that I was right about the numbers.
And do you know what that old man did then? He stuck out his hand, shook mine (I saw Kyle grin from off to the side), and told me that he was one of the original Target employees; he had worked at the very first Target (in Roseville) back in the 1960's. He said that he had hired a lot of people in his time, and that I was one of the good ones.
That, my friends, is what turned my day from a flesh-eating platypus into a best friend chimpanzee/orangutan.
You see, when I posted this morning, I hadn't yet looked in the mirror. When I did, I got a huge surprise. Bed head. Major major bed head in the worst form possible. Not sexy "oh my goodness I look a bit rumpled this fine morning" bed head, but "holy man there is no way I can successfully flatten this mess out before I have to leave for work" bed head.
Well, I did eventually succeed at taming a particularly cheeky lock that felt the need to sproing out despite numerous brushings, straightenings, curlings, and gelings. A pint of hair spray finally did the trick (note to self: try the hairspray first).
But that's just the superficial part of my morning. The emotional part was when I dashed out to the garage, already slightly late for work, to find that the Oldsmobile was gone. Oh. Okay. Well I'll just take the van, then.
Grab key from drawer in kitchen, jump over dog, fling open door to other garage.
Van's gone too.
Ready? Here comes the emotional part. My family had evidently forgotten that I worked at 10 a.m., and had gone off to play volleyball and go for a run respectively. That's right; vehicles are needed to go running now. It's the new thing.
(Sorry if I'm sounding bitter here. In all honesty, it was probably my fault; maybe I wasn't clear when I said what time I worked. I'm simply trying to convey this morning's state of mind.)
Pure panic. Dialing numbers, pacing back and forth between windows, muttering, wailing, crying...
I called work as soon as I realized my predicament, and when I spoke to the LOD she sounded kind of annoyed, which freaked me out even more. Was this going to be the straw to break the camel's back? I was getting fired. Shoot.
It all turned out okay in the end, don't worry. Mom got home fairly quickly, and I managed to be only five minutes or so late for work. Also, I apologized in person to the LOD and she was totally cool about it. Said that it happens to everyone, and that she's not worried about me and knows that it won't happen again.
That was the platypus part of my day.
Here comes the chimpanzee:
This afternoon was one of the best working days I've ever had. After the initial carless drama was over, I truly began to enjoy myself. A lot of help was needed cashiering, so I was constantly running up there to back up. I like cashiering, too. I like being face-to-face with guests in that way, and I like being able to stand still for a few minutes, and I like seeing all the strange things people buy. I also like that time flies when I'm cashiering.
Besides cashiering, the other duty that took up most of my work afternoon was covering Kyle's breaks back in electronics. I think we were both kind of surprised that I was the one covering; I have very limited experience in electronics, and don't know anything besides the basic "sure I can unlock that game case for you, sir."
Despite said lack of experience, I actually came to enjoy working back there. Electronics is its own little world in a way. If I really wanted to be metaphorical, I might say that the prow of the boat pushes against, but doesn't quite puncture, the bubble of the rest of the store. Waves break over cameras and high definition TVs, and dolphins leap across the surface at the flashing of lights from the Wii display. -end metaphor-
Anyway, what really made my afternoon over in electronics was this elderly man who came over wanting some help finding the correct ink cartridges for his printer. He flagged me down (I was over by the DVDs) by actually getting up out of his power chair and walking over: "Miss? Can I get some help over here?"
He handed me a splattered plastic baggie. Inside were the two cartridges he wanted replaced. Unfortunately, one of them was so covered in splotches of blue ink that I couldn't' read the number on it.
Well, I did the best I could, and managed, through some clumsy deduction, to find the correct package of ink for his printer. Kyle arrived at just the right moment (I think I might have actually let slip a "thank goodness") to confirm that I was right about the numbers.
And do you know what that old man did then? He stuck out his hand, shook mine (I saw Kyle grin from off to the side), and told me that he was one of the original Target employees; he had worked at the very first Target (in Roseville) back in the 1960's. He said that he had hired a lot of people in his time, and that I was one of the good ones.
That, my friends, is what turned my day from a flesh-eating platypus into a best friend chimpanzee/orangutan.
A Dream With Good Timing
Have to quickly record a really, really strange dream I had last night.
In the dream, I was watching a bad movie. I mean, the entire dream was literally the movie. Here's what I remember of it:
This little boy's mother was getting remarried to an awful guy, of course, and while the wedding preparations were taking place, the boy and his pet/best friend chimpanzee (in the dream I called it a chimpanzee, but it really looked more like an orangutan...) ran away to a jungle in South America.
While they were exploring the jungle, they came upon a wild platypus that was wandering around. They didn't know what it was, had never seen one before, so they decided to go up and pet it. The platypus obviously wasn't too happy about this, and was getting kind of ticked off (this was where tension rose in the movie), but the chimpanzee kept petting it anyway.
All of the sudden, the platypus struck; it turned around and bit the chimpanzee in the face, and then proceeded to start to eat him. The boy shrieked, "He's eating him!" and ran to save his friend. He somehow managed to drag the chimpanzee away and escape.
Meanwhile, back at the house, the wedding was about to take place. The boy's mother and soon-to-be-stepfather weren't too concerned about the fact that the boy was missing. That is, until they realized that they needed him to be in the wedding photographs.
Meanwhile, back in South America, the boy and the chimpanzee were resting by a waterfall, having successfully outrun the platypus. Suddenly, the platypus popped out of the water, and at the same time my alarm went off and I woke up.
In the dream, I was watching a bad movie. I mean, the entire dream was literally the movie. Here's what I remember of it:
This little boy's mother was getting remarried to an awful guy, of course, and while the wedding preparations were taking place, the boy and his pet/best friend chimpanzee (in the dream I called it a chimpanzee, but it really looked more like an orangutan...) ran away to a jungle in South America.
While they were exploring the jungle, they came upon a wild platypus that was wandering around. They didn't know what it was, had never seen one before, so they decided to go up and pet it. The platypus obviously wasn't too happy about this, and was getting kind of ticked off (this was where tension rose in the movie), but the chimpanzee kept petting it anyway.
All of the sudden, the platypus struck; it turned around and bit the chimpanzee in the face, and then proceeded to start to eat him. The boy shrieked, "He's eating him!" and ran to save his friend. He somehow managed to drag the chimpanzee away and escape.
Meanwhile, back at the house, the wedding was about to take place. The boy's mother and soon-to-be-stepfather weren't too concerned about the fact that the boy was missing. That is, until they realized that they needed him to be in the wedding photographs.
Meanwhile, back in South America, the boy and the chimpanzee were resting by a waterfall, having successfully outrun the platypus. Suddenly, the platypus popped out of the water, and at the same time my alarm went off and I woke up.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Axe Has Fallen
I was doing a pull in school supplies today at work, and one of my coworkers (a guy named Matt) was saying something about not wanting to work, about it not being worth it. I asked him what he meant, and he said that he was being let go, and that he would only be working for a few more weeks.
And then he mentioned that Spencer, another Target coworker of mine, had already been let go. This completely shocked me. Spencer? Spencer John? He was in a bit of my Target story! He was nice! We had orientation together! He took one of my shifts for me when I couldn't work it! I mean, I didn't know him well at all, but I certainly feel the loss! He just...disappeared! I had no idea that he was even permanently gone!
Matt continued by saying (yeah, this guy's a talker) that Spencer had probably been let go because he was slow. Slow on the zone, maybe. Slow to respond to things. Funny, because I always thought that he was rather willing to help out. Very willing, in fact.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not criticizing the management at Target in any way, or questioning their judgment. I'm merely sharing my observations, and my general shock at the loss of team members I had worked with and gotten to know.
I realize that all of this is probably even to my benefit. Fewer people on the payroll, better pay for me, I guess. But boy I hate to look at it that way. I would personally rather have the people.
Anyway, what struck me the most was the fact that I could be next. Now, I consider myself to be a good, contributing member of the Target team. I try to respond and help out as quickly as I can, I don't purposefully dawdle on breaks, I give great guest service (mainly because I simply love chatting with people), and I make good time on the zones (although sometimes I get a little O.C.D. and spend more time arranging things than is probably necessary).
It's easy to play myself up, and I don't want to sound too self-righteous, but I'll just say that the reason I put so much effort in at work is because I constantly remind myself that I'm getting paid. It's my job. I enjoy it, I take pride in doing well, but I'm also getting $8.00 an hour, and I need to make that $8.00 worth it. Not only to me, but to the person who is shelling it out in my paycheck every fortnight.
Gosh, I hope I don't get let go. Honestly, though, it wouldn't even make much sense for them to fire me. I only have a few weeks of work left before I go off to school, and after that I'll only be an asset; I won't be on the payroll except for Christmas and the other main, busy holidays. I'll give them the extra manpower they need without taking too much pay away from everyone else. That's the way I see it, at least.
Okay that was part one of The Axe Has Fallen.
Here's part two:
My good friend Ben (one of my best friends at Morris) will not be coming back to UMM next year. I'm mentioning this not because I know he'll probably read it (Hi Ben), but because this news is really bringing me down, and if I want my blog to reflect the impactful things in my life (which I do), then I can't leave things like this out.
So here we go.
The Top 9 Things I'm Going To Miss Most About Having Ben at UMM:
1. The whistling. You can hear Ben coming from a long way off because he's constantly whistling (or singing or humming).
2. His laugh. Again, you can hear it for quite a ways. Makes him easy to find.
3. Having mysterious messages/drawings appear on my whiteboard.
4. We were going to take/suffer through German I together!
5. He's always up for going on a walk somewhere, whether it be to Pamida, the Student Center, or the Humanities Building (where he waited with me for like 30 minutes just so I could get advised).
6. Somehow Ben always knows everything about everyone. He's not particularly nosy; people just feel comfortable telling him things. He's like a well of secrets (which comes in handy a lot, take my word for it).
7. Watching Survivor! I hate to admit it, but he definitely remembers more about past seasons than I do, although we both agree that Rupert is the best Survivor of all time.
8. Just generally having such a good friend around, one who's always willing to listen, who gives great advice, and who will tell it to you straight up when you need him to.
9. I only have one eyeball, and it's for you! (sorry-inside joke)
Okay this is making me sad. It's not like he's dying or anything.
Now is the time when I have to embrace my new mantra: everything happens for a reason, and a lot of the time it happens for the best. There's a reason for this, which will hopefully become clear very soon. In the meantime, I'll be saving all of my best trips, falls, spills, etc. until we hang out again.
And then he mentioned that Spencer, another Target coworker of mine, had already been let go. This completely shocked me. Spencer? Spencer John? He was in a bit of my Target story! He was nice! We had orientation together! He took one of my shifts for me when I couldn't work it! I mean, I didn't know him well at all, but I certainly feel the loss! He just...disappeared! I had no idea that he was even permanently gone!
Matt continued by saying (yeah, this guy's a talker) that Spencer had probably been let go because he was slow. Slow on the zone, maybe. Slow to respond to things. Funny, because I always thought that he was rather willing to help out. Very willing, in fact.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not criticizing the management at Target in any way, or questioning their judgment. I'm merely sharing my observations, and my general shock at the loss of team members I had worked with and gotten to know.
I realize that all of this is probably even to my benefit. Fewer people on the payroll, better pay for me, I guess. But boy I hate to look at it that way. I would personally rather have the people.
Anyway, what struck me the most was the fact that I could be next. Now, I consider myself to be a good, contributing member of the Target team. I try to respond and help out as quickly as I can, I don't purposefully dawdle on breaks, I give great guest service (mainly because I simply love chatting with people), and I make good time on the zones (although sometimes I get a little O.C.D. and spend more time arranging things than is probably necessary).
It's easy to play myself up, and I don't want to sound too self-righteous, but I'll just say that the reason I put so much effort in at work is because I constantly remind myself that I'm getting paid. It's my job. I enjoy it, I take pride in doing well, but I'm also getting $8.00 an hour, and I need to make that $8.00 worth it. Not only to me, but to the person who is shelling it out in my paycheck every fortnight.
Gosh, I hope I don't get let go. Honestly, though, it wouldn't even make much sense for them to fire me. I only have a few weeks of work left before I go off to school, and after that I'll only be an asset; I won't be on the payroll except for Christmas and the other main, busy holidays. I'll give them the extra manpower they need without taking too much pay away from everyone else. That's the way I see it, at least.
Okay that was part one of The Axe Has Fallen.
Here's part two:
My good friend Ben (one of my best friends at Morris) will not be coming back to UMM next year. I'm mentioning this not because I know he'll probably read it (Hi Ben), but because this news is really bringing me down, and if I want my blog to reflect the impactful things in my life (which I do), then I can't leave things like this out.
So here we go.
The Top 9 Things I'm Going To Miss Most About Having Ben at UMM:
1. The whistling. You can hear Ben coming from a long way off because he's constantly whistling (or singing or humming).
2. His laugh. Again, you can hear it for quite a ways. Makes him easy to find.
3. Having mysterious messages/drawings appear on my whiteboard.
4. We were going to take/suffer through German I together!
5. He's always up for going on a walk somewhere, whether it be to Pamida, the Student Center, or the Humanities Building (where he waited with me for like 30 minutes just so I could get advised).
6. Somehow Ben always knows everything about everyone. He's not particularly nosy; people just feel comfortable telling him things. He's like a well of secrets (which comes in handy a lot, take my word for it).
7. Watching Survivor! I hate to admit it, but he definitely remembers more about past seasons than I do, although we both agree that Rupert is the best Survivor of all time.
8. Just generally having such a good friend around, one who's always willing to listen, who gives great advice, and who will tell it to you straight up when you need him to.
9. I only have one eyeball, and it's for you! (sorry-inside joke)
Okay this is making me sad. It's not like he's dying or anything.
Now is the time when I have to embrace my new mantra: everything happens for a reason, and a lot of the time it happens for the best. There's a reason for this, which will hopefully become clear very soon. In the meantime, I'll be saving all of my best trips, falls, spills, etc. until we hang out again.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Four Parts: Quote, Deep Thought, Deep Quote, and Random List
We begin with a quote:
"Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin and they end with no lasting memory made in between. Most days have no impact on the course of a life."
We proceed with a deep thought stemming from the above quote:
Today was Monday, July 26, 2010. My cousin Kara's 10th birthday.
A lot of things happened to me today, most of which were probably unremarkable.
A mosquito bit me as I rode in the backseat of my mom's minivan. I slapped at at and it disappeared.
I went to the dentist.
I went to the Dairy Queen with my mother, sister, and my cousins Kara and Rachel to celebrate Kara's birthday.
Back at home, I ate dinner with my family, and then settled down to watch 500 Days of Summer.
Mundane stuff, I thought at the time. I still think now. But you know, every second of today I was alive and doing something. Every second was a second I'll never ever have again. That mosquito slap could have blown my chance at true love. That trip to the dentist could have saved me from being hit by a car and killed. If I had watched a different movie, I probably would be posting about something very different right now.
We continue with an original deep quote stemming from the above deep thought:
Life is a culmination of all the seconds we have; how we spend them, how we don't spend them, and how we plan on spending them differently tomorrow.
We end with a list that has nothing to do with the above quotes or thoughts:
My 10 Favorite Songs of All Time:
1. We're Going to Be Friends (The White Stripes)
2. I'm Gonna Be (The Proclaimers)
3. Vagabond (Wolfmother)
4. Classical Gas (Mason Williams)
5. All My Days (Alexi Murdoch)
6. Change Your Mind (The Killers)
7. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show (Neil Diamond)
8. In My Life (The Beatles)
9. Breakfast At Tiffany's (Deep Blue Something)
10.If I Ever Leave This World Alive (Flogging Molly)
"Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin and they end with no lasting memory made in between. Most days have no impact on the course of a life."
We proceed with a deep thought stemming from the above quote:
Today was Monday, July 26, 2010. My cousin Kara's 10th birthday.
A lot of things happened to me today, most of which were probably unremarkable.
A mosquito bit me as I rode in the backseat of my mom's minivan. I slapped at at and it disappeared.
I went to the dentist.
I went to the Dairy Queen with my mother, sister, and my cousins Kara and Rachel to celebrate Kara's birthday.
Back at home, I ate dinner with my family, and then settled down to watch 500 Days of Summer.
Mundane stuff, I thought at the time. I still think now. But you know, every second of today I was alive and doing something. Every second was a second I'll never ever have again. That mosquito slap could have blown my chance at true love. That trip to the dentist could have saved me from being hit by a car and killed. If I had watched a different movie, I probably would be posting about something very different right now.
We continue with an original deep quote stemming from the above deep thought:
Life is a culmination of all the seconds we have; how we spend them, how we don't spend them, and how we plan on spending them differently tomorrow.
We end with a list that has nothing to do with the above quotes or thoughts:
My 10 Favorite Songs of All Time:
1. We're Going to Be Friends (The White Stripes)
2. I'm Gonna Be (The Proclaimers)
3. Vagabond (Wolfmother)
4. Classical Gas (Mason Williams)
5. All My Days (Alexi Murdoch)
6. Change Your Mind (The Killers)
7. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show (Neil Diamond)
8. In My Life (The Beatles)
9. Breakfast At Tiffany's (Deep Blue Something)
10.If I Ever Leave This World Alive (Flogging Molly)
Saturday, July 24, 2010
In a Nutshell
Only two days left in July's firstlinefiction contest. I've had my entry written for about three weeks, and turned in for about one week, but I'm still second guessing myself a little bit. I don't know why this is exactly; I'm hoping it's because I've been thinking about it for so long that I'm simply getting paranoid. No matter, though. There is not much of a chance that I'll find time to change anything in the next two days: I'm absolutely busy between dentist trauma on Monday and work on Tuesday.
Today I was randomly remembering an incident that happened at a long ago Christmas party, and I thought I'd share it with you.
Like I said, I was at a Christmas party, and I was eating nuts out of a dish sitting on the festively-decorated table. Only, I wasn't eating all the nuts. There was quite a variety in the dish; macadamias and almonds and some unidentifiable ones as well, and, being eight years old or so, I was skillfully avoiding all of the gross nuts and picking out the cashews. I wasn't doing this ridiculously, I didn't think; there were still plenty of cashews left for the other finicky children (and adults). I was surprised, then, when all of the sudden my grandpa came over and scolded me harshly for only taking cashews. I remember I started crying because I was embarassed and because grandpa had never yelled at me like that before.
Later he pulled me aside and said that he was sorry, but that Carolyn (married to my aunt's brother) had been glaring at me and was clearly upset at my nut dish pickings. I forgave grandpa, of course; he was really just trying to warn me to stop before Carolyn (who I didn't know very well) felt compelled to come over and tell me off.
And you know what? To this day, I don't like Carolyn very much at all. I haven't seen her in a few years, but I've always thought that someone stingy enough to get upset about a little kid sorting through a nut dish isn't someone I want to associate with.
It's funny how impressionable you are as a kid, and how some grudges, no matter how trivial, never really leave you.
Today I was randomly remembering an incident that happened at a long ago Christmas party, and I thought I'd share it with you.
Like I said, I was at a Christmas party, and I was eating nuts out of a dish sitting on the festively-decorated table. Only, I wasn't eating all the nuts. There was quite a variety in the dish; macadamias and almonds and some unidentifiable ones as well, and, being eight years old or so, I was skillfully avoiding all of the gross nuts and picking out the cashews. I wasn't doing this ridiculously, I didn't think; there were still plenty of cashews left for the other finicky children (and adults). I was surprised, then, when all of the sudden my grandpa came over and scolded me harshly for only taking cashews. I remember I started crying because I was embarassed and because grandpa had never yelled at me like that before.
Later he pulled me aside and said that he was sorry, but that Carolyn (married to my aunt's brother) had been glaring at me and was clearly upset at my nut dish pickings. I forgave grandpa, of course; he was really just trying to warn me to stop before Carolyn (who I didn't know very well) felt compelled to come over and tell me off.
And you know what? To this day, I don't like Carolyn very much at all. I haven't seen her in a few years, but I've always thought that someone stingy enough to get upset about a little kid sorting through a nut dish isn't someone I want to associate with.
It's funny how impressionable you are as a kid, and how some grudges, no matter how trivial, never really leave you.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Just a Phase
I am very good at not finishing stories. Exceptionally good, in fact. Sometimes my lack of follow-through bothers me, but most of the time I see it as a natural part of writing; you lose interest in the things that aren't special, and you move on to other things that have the potential to mean a lot to you. I go through writing phases the same way I go through music phases and movie phases and "I'm going to match my toenail polish to my fingernail polish" phases.
So when (after a week or so) I stopped being excited about my Target story, I wasn't too upset. Don't get me wrong-I think parts of it are really good, and there's always a chance that I'll go back and finish it someday, but for now I have all my creative juices funneling towards another project.
The project? Write a love story. A happy, sappy love story that is original and fulfilling at the same time.
Why this particular mission? Well, the story I wrote for the firstlinefiction contest is quite sad. One of my friends read it over for me, and he said that to balance the gloom, I should try for a romance.
Okay. Easy. No problem.
Not so much.
I'm beginning to think that writing a love story is harder than writing any other type of story, because you have to dodge the cliches that have been thrown at you practically since birth, while at the same time maintaining enough cliche to make the story believeable. Tough stuff.
I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now, and I still haven't come up with a really good idea. Hopefully one hits before I go back to school, because at that point all short story writing (and most pleasure reading) will cease unavoidably. Depressing, isn't it?
Anyway, I thought that I'd give you a bit more of that Target story. Totally, it's about 3 pages long, and is written in the form of a bunch of different scenes that I was hoping to tie together somehow sometime.
I walkied as I left the break room: “This is Holly. I’m back from my fifteen and swinging through electronics.” Electronics was an important guest service area for Target. Whenever a team member began work for the day or returned from a break, they were supposed to walk through the department and ask any guest they saw if they needed help finding something. It kept our guest service ratings in the green, our GPS’s and TV’s selling, and our bodies circulating. Our red shirts radiated availability like monkeys in estrous.
As I hoofed it around the accessories displays towards the wall of flashing flat screens at the back of the store, I spotted Sarah Berg down a shoe aisle, madly grabbing at the piles of sandals strewn across the floor, and tossing them into their respective boxes.
The phone rang from the operator’s desk. Sarah jumped up and sprinted towards it, muttering as she flew past me, “I’m really fucking things up, Holly.” I clucked my tongue in pity, deciding not to lie and say that she was doing fine.
I had heard the conversation earlier over the walkie. Sarah, who was fitting room operator for the day, was going too slowly on her zone. She had been taking her time with the shoes, arranging them meticulously and forgetting that she still had yet to go through baby and men’s. Kristin had chewed her out as politely as one could be chewed out, but the fact that all team members could hear it over their walkies made Sarah’s face burn red as she ran.
Sarah and I had gone to high school together. We had spent an entire year sitting next to each other in two different English classes. Whenever a paper was handed back to us, Sarah would first check her own, and then not-so-subtly bob her head over to check my paper. If my grade was lower than hers, she would cluck her tongue softly, grin a self-satisfied smile, and promptly talk about something else as if she were Wilbur and ‘humble’ was strung into the web above her sty. If my grade was higher, however, her mouth would gape and her desk would be empty in a flash as she danced up to complain to Mr. Manske or Mrs. Nelson about her unfairly low grade. Hiding my graded paper didn’t help, either. Sarah would simply ask me straight out, her ostentatiously blue eyes innocently daring me not to share.
It had been a large shock, then, to walk into my first day of work to find Sarah waiting by the food court wearing red and khaki.
I continued on towards electronics, spotting out of the corner of my eye a pair of stray white flats peeking out from under an endcap. That’s a B+, Sarah.
Kyle was manning the boat, surrounded by cameras and guests looking at cameras and trying to get his attention as they clutched cameras. He didn’t look up as I passed. I had hoped that he would be one of the team members to train me in when I first started work, but no such luck. He had trained Sarah in hardlines; his lean form easily striding ahead of her petite blondeness as they toured the store.
He was quiet, I surmised. Once I had entered the break room to find him staring at the TV, which had frozen into multicolored squares. “This is some riveting television,” I had joked. Silence. Then I thought I heard him say, very softly and very sarcastically, “I can’t tear my eyes away.” Later I decided I had imagined it.
A guest flagged me down by the ipods. “Ma’am!” I always hated being called ma’am. A nineteen-year-old was nowhere near being a ma’am. Ma’ams were middle aged and wore ankle-length capris and short hair with highlights. I got a glimpse of myself in the reflective ipod case while the woman debated over which color nano she should get. My face was as childishly round as ever. My hair had frizzled into annoying ringlets on my forehead, which I tried to smooth down and tuck behind my ears, to no avail.
“The green is rather pretty.”
Kyle was reflected over my shoulder. He was talking to an older gentleman by the phones.
“But black won’t get dirty so easily.”
Kyle’s face didn’t hold the earnest look I caught so often on my own visage; he looked nonchalant as he listened to the man’s wheezy questions, although his eyes were bright.
“What do you think, ma’am?”
I started and looked back at the woman, aware that Kyle was watching us from the suddenly empty boat. “Red. Definitely red,” I flashed a toothy smile, “But I might be a bit biased.”
The woman laughed and decided on the green ipod. Kyle came over to unlock the case without speaking.
So when (after a week or so) I stopped being excited about my Target story, I wasn't too upset. Don't get me wrong-I think parts of it are really good, and there's always a chance that I'll go back and finish it someday, but for now I have all my creative juices funneling towards another project.
The project? Write a love story. A happy, sappy love story that is original and fulfilling at the same time.
Why this particular mission? Well, the story I wrote for the firstlinefiction contest is quite sad. One of my friends read it over for me, and he said that to balance the gloom, I should try for a romance.
Okay. Easy. No problem.
Not so much.
I'm beginning to think that writing a love story is harder than writing any other type of story, because you have to dodge the cliches that have been thrown at you practically since birth, while at the same time maintaining enough cliche to make the story believeable. Tough stuff.
I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now, and I still haven't come up with a really good idea. Hopefully one hits before I go back to school, because at that point all short story writing (and most pleasure reading) will cease unavoidably. Depressing, isn't it?
Anyway, I thought that I'd give you a bit more of that Target story. Totally, it's about 3 pages long, and is written in the form of a bunch of different scenes that I was hoping to tie together somehow sometime.
I walkied as I left the break room: “This is Holly. I’m back from my fifteen and swinging through electronics.” Electronics was an important guest service area for Target. Whenever a team member began work for the day or returned from a break, they were supposed to walk through the department and ask any guest they saw if they needed help finding something. It kept our guest service ratings in the green, our GPS’s and TV’s selling, and our bodies circulating. Our red shirts radiated availability like monkeys in estrous.
As I hoofed it around the accessories displays towards the wall of flashing flat screens at the back of the store, I spotted Sarah Berg down a shoe aisle, madly grabbing at the piles of sandals strewn across the floor, and tossing them into their respective boxes.
The phone rang from the operator’s desk. Sarah jumped up and sprinted towards it, muttering as she flew past me, “I’m really fucking things up, Holly.” I clucked my tongue in pity, deciding not to lie and say that she was doing fine.
I had heard the conversation earlier over the walkie. Sarah, who was fitting room operator for the day, was going too slowly on her zone. She had been taking her time with the shoes, arranging them meticulously and forgetting that she still had yet to go through baby and men’s. Kristin had chewed her out as politely as one could be chewed out, but the fact that all team members could hear it over their walkies made Sarah’s face burn red as she ran.
Sarah and I had gone to high school together. We had spent an entire year sitting next to each other in two different English classes. Whenever a paper was handed back to us, Sarah would first check her own, and then not-so-subtly bob her head over to check my paper. If my grade was lower than hers, she would cluck her tongue softly, grin a self-satisfied smile, and promptly talk about something else as if she were Wilbur and ‘humble’ was strung into the web above her sty. If my grade was higher, however, her mouth would gape and her desk would be empty in a flash as she danced up to complain to Mr. Manske or Mrs. Nelson about her unfairly low grade. Hiding my graded paper didn’t help, either. Sarah would simply ask me straight out, her ostentatiously blue eyes innocently daring me not to share.
It had been a large shock, then, to walk into my first day of work to find Sarah waiting by the food court wearing red and khaki.
I continued on towards electronics, spotting out of the corner of my eye a pair of stray white flats peeking out from under an endcap. That’s a B+, Sarah.
Kyle was manning the boat, surrounded by cameras and guests looking at cameras and trying to get his attention as they clutched cameras. He didn’t look up as I passed. I had hoped that he would be one of the team members to train me in when I first started work, but no such luck. He had trained Sarah in hardlines; his lean form easily striding ahead of her petite blondeness as they toured the store.
He was quiet, I surmised. Once I had entered the break room to find him staring at the TV, which had frozen into multicolored squares. “This is some riveting television,” I had joked. Silence. Then I thought I heard him say, very softly and very sarcastically, “I can’t tear my eyes away.” Later I decided I had imagined it.
A guest flagged me down by the ipods. “Ma’am!” I always hated being called ma’am. A nineteen-year-old was nowhere near being a ma’am. Ma’ams were middle aged and wore ankle-length capris and short hair with highlights. I got a glimpse of myself in the reflective ipod case while the woman debated over which color nano she should get. My face was as childishly round as ever. My hair had frizzled into annoying ringlets on my forehead, which I tried to smooth down and tuck behind my ears, to no avail.
“The green is rather pretty.”
Kyle was reflected over my shoulder. He was talking to an older gentleman by the phones.
“But black won’t get dirty so easily.”
Kyle’s face didn’t hold the earnest look I caught so often on my own visage; he looked nonchalant as he listened to the man’s wheezy questions, although his eyes were bright.
“What do you think, ma’am?”
I started and looked back at the woman, aware that Kyle was watching us from the suddenly empty boat. “Red. Definitely red,” I flashed a toothy smile, “But I might be a bit biased.”
The woman laughed and decided on the green ipod. Kyle came over to unlock the case without speaking.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Post Work Injury Log
I got a bit beaten down by work today (quite literally). All of the beatings did not, contrary to popular opinion, stem from me provoking certain abusive members of the Target team. No, they stemmed purely from a lack of sleep and the resulting clumsiness.
I figure it this way: when I'm tired, I get cranky. When I'm absolutely exhausted, not only is my already existing awkwardness amped up by about one million points, but my clumsiness is as well. I need to start counting sheep or something, because I do not need to get bumped around again like I did today.
Here are the injuries:
1. While putting up signs in the infant aisles, I was having trouble jamming a particularly stubborn metal bar into its slot. I was up on a step stool, I was sweating a bit because the store wasn't open yet so the air conditioning wasn't on, and I was really having trouble with this bar. I think I was actually talking to it. Don't laugh, but it was something like, "you and I both know that you need to just work with me here. If you don't snap into this slot right now I'm going to throw you in the trash. How would you like that? Huh?" Needless to say, the bar responded quickly to my threat and locked into place.
Unfortunately, it took its revenge on me in the process. The skin on my thumb somehow got pinched in between the fixture and the peg board, and a blood blister the size of a tick rapidly formed.
This was the point in the day when all of the tiredness almost crashed down around my head, and I almost sank down onto the floor of the infant aisle and sobbed. The blood blister was gross, it hurt a lot as well, I wanted to go to bed, I was hot, and break wasn't for a whole thirty minutes. It would have been a good aisle to cry in, I'll admit, but nevertheless I managed to man up (so to speak) and keep plugging away.
2. Injury number two was a little bit less dramatic. I was stepping down off the step stool and I bumped my knee on the way down. It actually wasn't a hard bump or anything; it was just a bump in a painful spot. It swelled up, and I'm fairly sure that I'll have a nice bruise to show off for tomorrow.
You know, this has been a whiney post, hasn't it? I really do love my job, so here are some positives:
Good Things That Happened to Me at Work Today:
1. Someone gave me a high five.
2. A customer in electronics needed some help that I wasn't able to give (I know about some technology, but I don't know much about TVs, unfortunately), so while we waited for the real electronics guru to come, we had a really great chat. I'm not one of those people who will just strike up conversations with random strangers (although many members of my family do indeed have that gift), but I do like talking to people.
3. I had a definite bonding moment with a team member that I've judged rather harshly in the past.
4. I got to check out the new market area that's finally been unveiled. It looks great, and it's wonderful to be able to see the product of the remodel team's hard work.
5. I overheard some adults swear rather graphically. I think maybe I looked startled, because they apologized profusely, but afterwards I went into the back room and laughed.
6. I remembered to turn off my car headlights! Yes!
That's all for now. I bought the movie Creation (newer film about Charles Darwin and his wife, starring Paul Bettany (one of my very favorite people) and Jennifer Connelly (his actual real-life wife, which I think is awesome)) after work today. I felt sort of bad spending my school money on something like a movie, but I knew that I would have to buy it eventually anyway. I'm a sucker for period dramas.
Anyway, I think I'm going to put away Jane Eyre for a bit (on page 350!) and get my natural selection on (wow not literally).
I figure it this way: when I'm tired, I get cranky. When I'm absolutely exhausted, not only is my already existing awkwardness amped up by about one million points, but my clumsiness is as well. I need to start counting sheep or something, because I do not need to get bumped around again like I did today.
Here are the injuries:
1. While putting up signs in the infant aisles, I was having trouble jamming a particularly stubborn metal bar into its slot. I was up on a step stool, I was sweating a bit because the store wasn't open yet so the air conditioning wasn't on, and I was really having trouble with this bar. I think I was actually talking to it. Don't laugh, but it was something like, "you and I both know that you need to just work with me here. If you don't snap into this slot right now I'm going to throw you in the trash. How would you like that? Huh?" Needless to say, the bar responded quickly to my threat and locked into place.
Unfortunately, it took its revenge on me in the process. The skin on my thumb somehow got pinched in between the fixture and the peg board, and a blood blister the size of a tick rapidly formed.
This was the point in the day when all of the tiredness almost crashed down around my head, and I almost sank down onto the floor of the infant aisle and sobbed. The blood blister was gross, it hurt a lot as well, I wanted to go to bed, I was hot, and break wasn't for a whole thirty minutes. It would have been a good aisle to cry in, I'll admit, but nevertheless I managed to man up (so to speak) and keep plugging away.
2. Injury number two was a little bit less dramatic. I was stepping down off the step stool and I bumped my knee on the way down. It actually wasn't a hard bump or anything; it was just a bump in a painful spot. It swelled up, and I'm fairly sure that I'll have a nice bruise to show off for tomorrow.
You know, this has been a whiney post, hasn't it? I really do love my job, so here are some positives:
Good Things That Happened to Me at Work Today:
1. Someone gave me a high five.
2. A customer in electronics needed some help that I wasn't able to give (I know about some technology, but I don't know much about TVs, unfortunately), so while we waited for the real electronics guru to come, we had a really great chat. I'm not one of those people who will just strike up conversations with random strangers (although many members of my family do indeed have that gift), but I do like talking to people.
3. I had a definite bonding moment with a team member that I've judged rather harshly in the past.
4. I got to check out the new market area that's finally been unveiled. It looks great, and it's wonderful to be able to see the product of the remodel team's hard work.
5. I overheard some adults swear rather graphically. I think maybe I looked startled, because they apologized profusely, but afterwards I went into the back room and laughed.
6. I remembered to turn off my car headlights! Yes!
That's all for now. I bought the movie Creation (newer film about Charles Darwin and his wife, starring Paul Bettany (one of my very favorite people) and Jennifer Connelly (his actual real-life wife, which I think is awesome)) after work today. I felt sort of bad spending my school money on something like a movie, but I knew that I would have to buy it eventually anyway. I'm a sucker for period dramas.
Anyway, I think I'm going to put away Jane Eyre for a bit (on page 350!) and get my natural selection on (wow not literally).
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Book Buying Money Spending Adventures
As of today I officially have less than a month left of summer left before school starts. Incredible, isn't it? My reactions to this realization have been varied, and range from "Yes!!! School!!!!" to "Holy cow I have so many books I want to get through before going back!" to "I'm going to miss working at Target" to "Wow I have some serious back-to-school shopping to do."
The aforementioned back-to-school shopping begins now, actually. I'm about to hit Amazon.com to buy my books.
Now, for anyone who is heading off to college for the first time this fall, or even for anyone who has been in college for a while and hasn't yet tried ordering books online, I would highly recommend it.
Not only because you save A TON of money (last semester I saved upwards of $200 buying my books off Amazon) by using an alternative to the famously expensive College Bookstore, but you avoid the long lines, the sometimes sold-out shelves, and the general stress of attempting to buy books the day before classes start. In my opinion (although I am, admittedly, a bit of a nerd), it's also fun to be able to page through your books ahead of time. And getting mail is always great, right?
Despite my obvious excitement over this whole book-buying undertaking, I have to say that it is difficult for me to spend so much of my hard earned working-early-Target-shifts money in just one evening. I do have three jobs waiting for me at Morris, however, so it's certainly good to know that there is more money yet to be earned this year.
Here are said jobs (because I don't think I've told you about two of them yet)
1. Information Desk in Student Center
2. Administrative Intern in the Social Sciences Office
3. Tutor in the Writing Room of Briggs Library
Okay, I'm venturing out into Amazon now. Wish me luck!
P.S. On page 256 of Jane Eyre. Seems like it's finally getting its act together and turning into a the classic romance I've heard so much about.
The aforementioned back-to-school shopping begins now, actually. I'm about to hit Amazon.com to buy my books.
Now, for anyone who is heading off to college for the first time this fall, or even for anyone who has been in college for a while and hasn't yet tried ordering books online, I would highly recommend it.
Not only because you save A TON of money (last semester I saved upwards of $200 buying my books off Amazon) by using an alternative to the famously expensive College Bookstore, but you avoid the long lines, the sometimes sold-out shelves, and the general stress of attempting to buy books the day before classes start. In my opinion (although I am, admittedly, a bit of a nerd), it's also fun to be able to page through your books ahead of time. And getting mail is always great, right?
Despite my obvious excitement over this whole book-buying undertaking, I have to say that it is difficult for me to spend so much of my hard earned working-early-Target-shifts money in just one evening. I do have three jobs waiting for me at Morris, however, so it's certainly good to know that there is more money yet to be earned this year.
Here are said jobs (because I don't think I've told you about two of them yet)
1. Information Desk in Student Center
2. Administrative Intern in the Social Sciences Office
3. Tutor in the Writing Room of Briggs Library
Okay, I'm venturing out into Amazon now. Wish me luck!
P.S. On page 256 of Jane Eyre. Seems like it's finally getting its act together and turning into a the classic romance I've heard so much about.
An Explicit Story in Poem Form
Because how else do you tell a story like this?
Como Zoo Afternoon
Lions and Tigers, no bears
Rain fell
Eventually
Eventually also, we left.
On our street,
Dewy with rain
Shone the cars in the neighbors' drive.
On their mailbox fluttered
Gaudily, shockingly,
A cluster of balloons.
One long tan one in the middle
Two round blue ones on either side.
My sister, seventeen and innocent,
looked at the balloons,
then at Mom in the rearview.
"Are they having a baby shower?"
Como Zoo Afternoon
Lions and Tigers, no bears
Rain fell
Eventually
Eventually also, we left.
On our street,
Dewy with rain
Shone the cars in the neighbors' drive.
On their mailbox fluttered
Gaudily, shockingly,
A cluster of balloons.
One long tan one in the middle
Two round blue ones on either side.
My sister, seventeen and innocent,
looked at the balloons,
then at Mom in the rearview.
"Are they having a baby shower?"
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Birds
Work today was an adventure, as always. It was day two of cleaning out the fixture room, and I was happily flinging unwanted cardboard boxes and plastic screws and heavy metal shelves into the large dumpsters left in the parking lot by the remodel construction crew. I had jumped at the chance to perform that specific task; not only was it a joy to be outdoors, to be soaked in sun and wind while working, but it was also fun to toss the various items into the dumpsters. Nobody was watching, so I could throw clothing racks like javelins, toss signs high enough that they floated and flipped in the air, and even whistle. There was nobody in that parking lot to hear me and to be annoyed.
As I was merrily going about my work, I looked up to see a huge flock of seagulls passing overhead. They were, I assumed, the kind of birds that inhabit parking lots across the country, finding comfort in a sea of black tar, and nourishment in empty slushie cups and shredded candy wrappers. Still staring up at them, I suddenly noticed that slimy white bullets were falling from their midst onto the pavement around me. I shrieked and ran for the store, dodging the hail of poop as if I were running across a battlefield through a torrent of bombs.
Once inside, I pawed at my hair and inspected my clothes until I was completely convinced that I had managed to escape the fecal attack unscathed. My coworkers laughed at me, of course. I didn't mind; I'm sure the sight of me bolting across the parking lot screaming was pretty funny. I had a good laugh myself afterwords. Not at my own antics, however, but at what I see as a deliberate practical joke carried out by that flock of seagulls.
And you know what? If I were a bird, I think I would get a kick out of doing the exact same thing.
As I was merrily going about my work, I looked up to see a huge flock of seagulls passing overhead. They were, I assumed, the kind of birds that inhabit parking lots across the country, finding comfort in a sea of black tar, and nourishment in empty slushie cups and shredded candy wrappers. Still staring up at them, I suddenly noticed that slimy white bullets were falling from their midst onto the pavement around me. I shrieked and ran for the store, dodging the hail of poop as if I were running across a battlefield through a torrent of bombs.
Once inside, I pawed at my hair and inspected my clothes until I was completely convinced that I had managed to escape the fecal attack unscathed. My coworkers laughed at me, of course. I didn't mind; I'm sure the sight of me bolting across the parking lot screaming was pretty funny. I had a good laugh myself afterwords. Not at my own antics, however, but at what I see as a deliberate practical joke carried out by that flock of seagulls.
And you know what? If I were a bird, I think I would get a kick out of doing the exact same thing.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
It's a Laugh
I had an interesting dream a few days ago, and I thought I'd share. The dream was so vivid that I actually still remember it, which doesn't happen very often. Here you go:
I was in a library with a bunch of other people (I think it was actually the old Forest Lake library), and there was an award ceremony of sorts going on. All of the people in the room were aspiring writers, and a list was being read aloud to them. The list had a bunch of book titles on it-books that had been written by the writers there, and were now being published (as the writers were just finding out through the reading of the list).
The deal was that if your book and name were on the list, you were supposed to go find the book on the shelves in the library and bring it back to the front. It was a kind of ritual, I guess.
Anyway, the title of a book was read from the list, and my name after it. In the dream I was confused, however, because I hadn't written the book; it was a well-established classic. For the life of me I can't remember the title, but I think it had something to do with a nightingale, or a bird of some sorts. Or maybe it was A Tale of Two Cities? I don't know.
So I went to grab the book, but when I flipped through it I saw that it was just the existing story, except in the form of a new edition. Apparently, a line that I had written made it into that new edition while it was being edited. I was the only one on the list who didn't write an entire book. Just one paragraph.
I wasn't embarrassed about that fact in the dream, however. I remember being honored and really proud of the line I had written.
Strange dream, huh? Especially strange because I never ever dream about writing or reading; my dreams are always (or usually) big, epic adventures. Nice change of pace, I guess.
Holly's Best Ever No. 2
Another thing I would like to touch on this fine evening is the power of laughter. We all know that it's been scientifically proven that laughing is good for you. Besides the science, even, laughing is simply fun. It feels good.
Despite these encouraging reasons to do it, it's not often that I laugh really, really hard. Tears rolling down my face, stomach hurting, lasts for about five minutes laugh. It's quite rare. Most of the time I guess I just do the little heh heh sort of laugh that is certainly genuine, but not as uplifting.
Tonight, however, I really laughed. It was while we were playing Mexican Train, and I won't explain the joke because if you don't know the game it won't make any sense at all to you. Needless to say, however, it was a funny moment. The laugh felt great as well, and seemed to fill me up and bring me down to earth at the same time. It also felt, as always, like something I should do more often. It felt like the best ever.
I was in a library with a bunch of other people (I think it was actually the old Forest Lake library), and there was an award ceremony of sorts going on. All of the people in the room were aspiring writers, and a list was being read aloud to them. The list had a bunch of book titles on it-books that had been written by the writers there, and were now being published (as the writers were just finding out through the reading of the list).
The deal was that if your book and name were on the list, you were supposed to go find the book on the shelves in the library and bring it back to the front. It was a kind of ritual, I guess.
Anyway, the title of a book was read from the list, and my name after it. In the dream I was confused, however, because I hadn't written the book; it was a well-established classic. For the life of me I can't remember the title, but I think it had something to do with a nightingale, or a bird of some sorts. Or maybe it was A Tale of Two Cities? I don't know.
So I went to grab the book, but when I flipped through it I saw that it was just the existing story, except in the form of a new edition. Apparently, a line that I had written made it into that new edition while it was being edited. I was the only one on the list who didn't write an entire book. Just one paragraph.
I wasn't embarrassed about that fact in the dream, however. I remember being honored and really proud of the line I had written.
Strange dream, huh? Especially strange because I never ever dream about writing or reading; my dreams are always (or usually) big, epic adventures. Nice change of pace, I guess.
Holly's Best Ever No. 2
Another thing I would like to touch on this fine evening is the power of laughter. We all know that it's been scientifically proven that laughing is good for you. Besides the science, even, laughing is simply fun. It feels good.
Despite these encouraging reasons to do it, it's not often that I laugh really, really hard. Tears rolling down my face, stomach hurting, lasts for about five minutes laugh. It's quite rare. Most of the time I guess I just do the little heh heh sort of laugh that is certainly genuine, but not as uplifting.
Tonight, however, I really laughed. It was while we were playing Mexican Train, and I won't explain the joke because if you don't know the game it won't make any sense at all to you. Needless to say, however, it was a funny moment. The laugh felt great as well, and seemed to fill me up and bring me down to earth at the same time. It also felt, as always, like something I should do more often. It felt like the best ever.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Our House
I've lived in this house for about 18 years now, which is the majority of my life. I've had my height marked numerous times on the wall behind the door in the laundry room. I've jammed golf balls in the mysterious pipe on the front lawn. I've sprayed a bottle of Coke all over the kitchen. I've had sleepovers on the floor of the living room. In short, I've lived in this house for about 18 years now (yes, the repetition was intentional- dramatic effect, you guys!).
Lived in it, but not really wondered about the history of it. Now, my house is certainly no historical marker. It was probably built sometime in the late '70's, early 80's. A boring period, I've always thought, and surely not a period to cause one to suspect one's house of being part of the underground railroad or haunted by a revolutionary war ghost or anything like that. My house is normal. Dated in some parts, but not antique-y. Not interesting.
That is, until about two days ago, when I overheard Mom chatting with some friends at a party we hosted. She was telling them that the people who owned the house before us sold it because they were in jail. Jail! Holy cow! Criminals slept in my bedroom?!
Well, I got the whole story from her later, and it's really not anything like that. Although my parents did buy the house through dealings with the son, because the parents were indeed in jail, they were not serial killers. They weren't even heroin addicts. They were protesters.
Apparently the couple was very, very pro-life, and was even part of a pro-life group called Lambs of Christ or something like that. They would go to abortion clinics quite frequently and protest, and I guess a few of their protests got out of hand because they were arrested and eventually sent to jail.
Funny, isn't it? My parents never even met them; like I said, they only ever met the son, although the parents had been the ones to decide to sell the house.
Overall it was an interesting story, and it's definitely nice to know a bit more about the people who walked the halls and cooked in the kitchen before us. And while I don't know them or even if they were nutso hippies or just two people with a cause they believed in, I'm glad they stood up for something. It's just unfortunate that they took it too far.
Our house is a very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you
Lived in it, but not really wondered about the history of it. Now, my house is certainly no historical marker. It was probably built sometime in the late '70's, early 80's. A boring period, I've always thought, and surely not a period to cause one to suspect one's house of being part of the underground railroad or haunted by a revolutionary war ghost or anything like that. My house is normal. Dated in some parts, but not antique-y. Not interesting.
That is, until about two days ago, when I overheard Mom chatting with some friends at a party we hosted. She was telling them that the people who owned the house before us sold it because they were in jail. Jail! Holy cow! Criminals slept in my bedroom?!
Well, I got the whole story from her later, and it's really not anything like that. Although my parents did buy the house through dealings with the son, because the parents were indeed in jail, they were not serial killers. They weren't even heroin addicts. They were protesters.
Apparently the couple was very, very pro-life, and was even part of a pro-life group called Lambs of Christ or something like that. They would go to abortion clinics quite frequently and protest, and I guess a few of their protests got out of hand because they were arrested and eventually sent to jail.
Funny, isn't it? My parents never even met them; like I said, they only ever met the son, although the parents had been the ones to decide to sell the house.
Overall it was an interesting story, and it's definitely nice to know a bit more about the people who walked the halls and cooked in the kitchen before us. And while I don't know them or even if they were nutso hippies or just two people with a cause they believed in, I'm glad they stood up for something. It's just unfortunate that they took it too far.
Our house is a very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you
Friday, July 9, 2010
High Noon
I'm especially fond of my picture/quote of the week this week. In case you're reading this later on, I put the picture above. Here's the quote:
"If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real."
-Jacques Barzun
I found that quote in the quote book I got from the library earlier this week. The last few words struck me the most: the speechless real. It's something I think about every so often. What does it even mean to be alive? How can we define it, and what can we even base the definition off of besides what we know? In fact, what is anything but what we perceive it to be?
I feel sometimes like nothing is real, and like we are mere puppets being bobbed from place to place by some great puppetmaster. I'm not talking about God, or even of my perception of God. Just someone or something. Like everything is out of our control and reality is only what the great someone makes it, and opportunities and challenges are placed in front of us while that great being laughs at our failings.
In this random imagining of mine, we're like Sims. We live our small lives and only brush other people when we're meant to. We do as we're told, except of course we think we're acting of our own accord. We eat when we're hungry, play the piano or read the newspaper when we're bored. Our children learn certain things like charisma and mechanical skills when they're only toddlers, although it doesn't stop them from growing up to be criminals if that's what the gamer wants them to be.
Gosh, this is sad to think about. I'm in kind of a sad mood, I guess. I just watched the movie High Noon with my dad. It's my very favorite Western; in fact, it's probably one of my favorite movies of all time in general. This was only my second time seeing it, but that's all it took. Anyway, it's not exactly the kind of movie you can watch often; it is sort of depressing when you really get to thinking about it.
A certain scene in High Noon struck me tonight, one that I don't remember noticing the first time through. It's the scene where Will Kane is trying to convince the judge to stay and fight with him, and the judge is packing his things, intending on leaving town. While they talk, the judge takes down the American flag he has tacked on the wall, folds it, and places it in his saddlebags.
Very symbolic, isn't it? With the removal of the flag, every semblance of the America we know, of the American way, of truth and justice, is gone from the town as well. Americans would never hide like cowards, watching from the windows of their comfortable homes while an innocent man stood alone against four malicious criminals. Well, they did in High Noon. They did in the Kitty Genovese case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese).
It makes me wonder (seems to be a theme tonight). Are all humans fundamentally cowards? When it comes down to it, are we really truly only willing to help others so long as we can walk away unscathed? I don't want to think so. I can't. There are good, brave people in this world. Lots of them. I hope to count myself among their ranks someday. And if we can't put our faith in them, in the belief that we can do as they do when called upon, then I don't think there is much to live for at all. Some people have faith in God, in nature, in themselves. I have faith in all of those things, but I think above all else I have faith in people. Maybe that's a fault of mine, but I'll stand by it nonetheless. We're amazing creatures, aren't we? Capable of so much, and constantly using our capabilities in as many ways as we can think of. It's intriguing and somewhat frightening, and it gives me hope.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Red Means Stop
Hello, my friends.
A few bits of my day that may interest you:
1. I ran my first (and hopefully only) red light. I didn't mean to, honestly! I'm ashamed to admit that I was making up a poem in my head and just blazed right through without noticing the intersection. Luckily, very luckily, I got through unscathed with only a blaring honk to ring in my head for the rest of the day. I felt so bad. I absolutely hate being honked at, but I definitely deserved it this time.
2. Went to the library to check out Eat, Pray, Love. All four copies were checked out (due, I'm sure, to the fact that the movie comes out soon), so I had to put myself on the list. I'm number 19. So it will be awhile, I think.
3. In lieu of E.P.L., I got two items: The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, and the movie High Noon.
4. Wrote a story last night. A three pager. It took me exactly an hour and seventeen minutes to write, and a sporadic day to edit. I'm planning on entering it in the Firstlinefiction contest at the end of the month, so I have plenty of time to make it wonderful.
5. My nose is blistering from the sunburn. It looks gross and is a cruel reminder that I was stupid and didn't use sunscreen.
6. I thoroughly cleaned my bathroom today. Partly because Dad said I had to, and partly because I was in the mood to kneel in the tub with a Magic Eraser and some great music and just go. This mood occurs only about once a year, of course.
A few bits of my day that may interest you:
1. I ran my first (and hopefully only) red light. I didn't mean to, honestly! I'm ashamed to admit that I was making up a poem in my head and just blazed right through without noticing the intersection. Luckily, very luckily, I got through unscathed with only a blaring honk to ring in my head for the rest of the day. I felt so bad. I absolutely hate being honked at, but I definitely deserved it this time.
2. Went to the library to check out Eat, Pray, Love. All four copies were checked out (due, I'm sure, to the fact that the movie comes out soon), so I had to put myself on the list. I'm number 19. So it will be awhile, I think.
3. In lieu of E.P.L., I got two items: The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, and the movie High Noon.
4. Wrote a story last night. A three pager. It took me exactly an hour and seventeen minutes to write, and a sporadic day to edit. I'm planning on entering it in the Firstlinefiction contest at the end of the month, so I have plenty of time to make it wonderful.
5. My nose is blistering from the sunburn. It looks gross and is a cruel reminder that I was stupid and didn't use sunscreen.
6. I thoroughly cleaned my bathroom today. Partly because Dad said I had to, and partly because I was in the mood to kneel in the tub with a Magic Eraser and some great music and just go. This mood occurs only about once a year, of course.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Something Russian
Okay so I'm just going to blog I think. It's about 1:39 a.m. here, and I've been trying to fall asleep for the past 4 hours. No joke. I've done just about everything to try to help myself fall asleep:
I started reading Crime and Punishment.
I put aloe on my sunburn.
I crept out of bed and turned on the air conditioning.
I imagined things.
But if there's one thing I've learned in my almost 20 years of life, it's that there's absolutely no point to tossing and turning in bed when you know you won't be able to sleep.
My Fourth of July (if you'll excuse the abrupt change of topic,) has actually been fairly uneventful (in fact, if you're having trouble sleeping as well, this post may help you). We spent part of the weekend anchored in Big Bay, Madeline Island, Lake Superior, Wisconsin (sorry but I felt clarification was necessary). While Mom and Dad chatted and waded on shore with a bunch of other, older boaters, Amy and I pretty much sat on the back deck with the dogs and read all day Saturday. Hence the sunburn.
We headed back to the harbor Saturday night, and I happily slept through the first few hours of the Fourth. This morning (or yesterday morning technically, but you know what I mean) I awoke to the boat rocking fairly violently. Apparently, there was some sort of storm coming, so we decided to just pack up and start the drive home early so as to avoid it. While everyone else carried stuff to the car, I sat by the dogs to make sure Ruby didn't do another nose dive into the water (she did one Saturday morning and one of our neighbors had to rescue her; she can swim and all, but since she was tied up the leash was sort of strangling her as she paddled).
Once we were home and unpacked, I promptly got into bed and slept for three hours (certainly a factor of my current insomnia). After dinner we played Mexican train, and then drifted off to do separate things. I showered and headed back to bed. And here I am, 4 hours later. Still here, still awake.
You know, I wouldn't mind this at all if I weren't so sure that work will be an absolute nightmare tomorrow if I'm exhausted from lack of sleep. I really do like this time of night (or day (again, if we're being technical)).
Crime and Punishment, eh (gosh, I fail at segues)? I guess I can elaborate on that a bit. I got the book for a graduation present from a neighbor who lives down the street from me. It was actually really sweet of him to give it to me; I don't know him especially well or anything like that. It's a beautiful edition, too. Heavy and green and embossed with gold on the side. Beautifully intimidating.
I've been meaning to read it for this past year, but just haven't got around to it. It is a rather large undertaking. It is Russian. But I'm hoping that if I make a goal of getting through a few chapters a day, and if I have another book going on the side, it won't be too bad. Oh no, I'm sorry if I'm making this out to be a punishment (no pun intended with the title) of sorts. I'm sure that I'll enjoy it once I get started (it's not a classic for nothing), it's simply that with books like this, getting started is usually the tough part.
What is really making me adamant about reading Crime and Punishment (you might as well know before you erect a statue in my honor), is that I had a dream about it the other night. I don't remember much of the dream, just that in it I read Crime and Punishment, and I was telling someone that I had read it, and they were quite impressed with me. That's it.
Above all else, though, I think I'm slightly being guilted by the fact that a 19-almost-20-year-old English major who has never read anything Russian is slightly disappointing, and slightly at a disadvantage to all the other 19-almost-20 English majors who have read heavy Russian novels.
Alright, I think I'll leave off on the rambling and try once again to get to sleep.
A final shout out to the neighbors: the Fourth of July has been over for two hours and twelve minutes now. Please cease the fireworks and the wild hollering so that your lovely neighbor's upcoming attempt to drift off will not be in vain. Thanks much.
I started reading Crime and Punishment.
I put aloe on my sunburn.
I crept out of bed and turned on the air conditioning.
I imagined things.
But if there's one thing I've learned in my almost 20 years of life, it's that there's absolutely no point to tossing and turning in bed when you know you won't be able to sleep.
My Fourth of July (if you'll excuse the abrupt change of topic,) has actually been fairly uneventful (in fact, if you're having trouble sleeping as well, this post may help you). We spent part of the weekend anchored in Big Bay, Madeline Island, Lake Superior, Wisconsin (sorry but I felt clarification was necessary). While Mom and Dad chatted and waded on shore with a bunch of other, older boaters, Amy and I pretty much sat on the back deck with the dogs and read all day Saturday. Hence the sunburn.
We headed back to the harbor Saturday night, and I happily slept through the first few hours of the Fourth. This morning (or yesterday morning technically, but you know what I mean) I awoke to the boat rocking fairly violently. Apparently, there was some sort of storm coming, so we decided to just pack up and start the drive home early so as to avoid it. While everyone else carried stuff to the car, I sat by the dogs to make sure Ruby didn't do another nose dive into the water (she did one Saturday morning and one of our neighbors had to rescue her; she can swim and all, but since she was tied up the leash was sort of strangling her as she paddled).
Once we were home and unpacked, I promptly got into bed and slept for three hours (certainly a factor of my current insomnia). After dinner we played Mexican train, and then drifted off to do separate things. I showered and headed back to bed. And here I am, 4 hours later. Still here, still awake.
You know, I wouldn't mind this at all if I weren't so sure that work will be an absolute nightmare tomorrow if I'm exhausted from lack of sleep. I really do like this time of night (or day (again, if we're being technical)).
Crime and Punishment, eh (gosh, I fail at segues)? I guess I can elaborate on that a bit. I got the book for a graduation present from a neighbor who lives down the street from me. It was actually really sweet of him to give it to me; I don't know him especially well or anything like that. It's a beautiful edition, too. Heavy and green and embossed with gold on the side. Beautifully intimidating.
I've been meaning to read it for this past year, but just haven't got around to it. It is a rather large undertaking. It is Russian. But I'm hoping that if I make a goal of getting through a few chapters a day, and if I have another book going on the side, it won't be too bad. Oh no, I'm sorry if I'm making this out to be a punishment (no pun intended with the title) of sorts. I'm sure that I'll enjoy it once I get started (it's not a classic for nothing), it's simply that with books like this, getting started is usually the tough part.
What is really making me adamant about reading Crime and Punishment (you might as well know before you erect a statue in my honor), is that I had a dream about it the other night. I don't remember much of the dream, just that in it I read Crime and Punishment, and I was telling someone that I had read it, and they were quite impressed with me. That's it.
Above all else, though, I think I'm slightly being guilted by the fact that a 19-almost-20-year-old English major who has never read anything Russian is slightly disappointing, and slightly at a disadvantage to all the other 19-almost-20 English majors who have read heavy Russian novels.
Alright, I think I'll leave off on the rambling and try once again to get to sleep.
A final shout out to the neighbors: the Fourth of July has been over for two hours and twelve minutes now. Please cease the fireworks and the wild hollering so that your lovely neighbor's upcoming attempt to drift off will not be in vain. Thanks much.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Smorgasbord
This is what happens when I'm stuck guarding the back door at Target while the real guard is taking her break. We need a guard because since we have construction going on in the store, there are lots of people coming and going. My job is to make sure no one unauthorized enters or exits the building. And that no one authorized or unauthorized leaves with a flatscreen.
It's a very boring job, actually, because all you can really do is sit there. I doodled a bit at first; I sketched a shopping cart that was parked a few feet away. I tried to make a crossword puzzle (harder than you would think). Then I finally wrote up two lists, which I thought I would share with you.
10 Things I Hate:
1. When people don't laugh at my jokes. Come on folks; surely you can spare a pity laugh at least!
2. Cardboard. It's heavier than it looks, it gives you awful paper cuts, and it is absolutely no fun to handle for hours on end while building gaudy yellow back-to-school shelf displays.
3. First Impressions.
4. Walmart.
5. Allergies. I've been waking up with Voldemort-red eyes for a good week now.
6. That awkward moment when you're walking towards someone who's also walking towards you, but you're still so far away that you don't know if you should start the eye contact right away, or just look to the side or at the ground until you're within 'hey' distance.
7. Fluorescent lighting.
8. Dirty hands.
9. School supply displays in stores on July 1st.
10. Leaving my car headlights on.
10 Things I Love:
1. Conversations like this:
Me: (looking at a pile of boxes of various sizes that we had to unpack and shelve) "I hate to use this word, but what we have here is a smorgasbord"
Matt: (coworker) "What, is that like a Harry Potter term?"
Me: "Uh, not exactly."
*Note-as I was writing up this list, Matt actually walked up and tried to see what I was writing. I covered the list with my arm and had to think of some dumb excuse, because I didn't want him to be insulted or anything. Not that I'm quite making fun of him; it was just a funny/awkward moment.
2. Nice people.
3. Driveway basketball.
4. Movie trailers.
5. Getting through a yellow light right before it turns red so that all the cars behind you have to stop.
6. Subaru Outbacks. Don't ask me why.
7. When men (or women, I guess) smell good.
8. The jar on my dresser that's halfway full of spare change. I can't wait to cash that baby in!
9. When people have smiles that crinkle up the corners of their eyes.
10. Chickadees.
That's all, folks. By the way, I think I love my new hair. For awhile back there I felt like Jo in Little Women after she sold her hair for money for her sick father. Well, my father is fine; he's sleeping on the couch currently. And I feel good and confidant and happy.
It's a very boring job, actually, because all you can really do is sit there. I doodled a bit at first; I sketched a shopping cart that was parked a few feet away. I tried to make a crossword puzzle (harder than you would think). Then I finally wrote up two lists, which I thought I would share with you.
10 Things I Hate:
1. When people don't laugh at my jokes. Come on folks; surely you can spare a pity laugh at least!
2. Cardboard. It's heavier than it looks, it gives you awful paper cuts, and it is absolutely no fun to handle for hours on end while building gaudy yellow back-to-school shelf displays.
3. First Impressions.
4. Walmart.
5. Allergies. I've been waking up with Voldemort-red eyes for a good week now.
6. That awkward moment when you're walking towards someone who's also walking towards you, but you're still so far away that you don't know if you should start the eye contact right away, or just look to the side or at the ground until you're within 'hey' distance.
7. Fluorescent lighting.
8. Dirty hands.
9. School supply displays in stores on July 1st.
10. Leaving my car headlights on.
10 Things I Love:
1. Conversations like this:
Me: (looking at a pile of boxes of various sizes that we had to unpack and shelve) "I hate to use this word, but what we have here is a smorgasbord"
Matt: (coworker) "What, is that like a Harry Potter term?"
Me: "Uh, not exactly."
*Note-as I was writing up this list, Matt actually walked up and tried to see what I was writing. I covered the list with my arm and had to think of some dumb excuse, because I didn't want him to be insulted or anything. Not that I'm quite making fun of him; it was just a funny/awkward moment.
2. Nice people.
3. Driveway basketball.
4. Movie trailers.
5. Getting through a yellow light right before it turns red so that all the cars behind you have to stop.
6. Subaru Outbacks. Don't ask me why.
7. When men (or women, I guess) smell good.
8. The jar on my dresser that's halfway full of spare change. I can't wait to cash that baby in!
9. When people have smiles that crinkle up the corners of their eyes.
10. Chickadees.
That's all, folks. By the way, I think I love my new hair. For awhile back there I felt like Jo in Little Women after she sold her hair for money for her sick father. Well, my father is fine; he's sleeping on the couch currently. And I feel good and confidant and happy.
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