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| happy easter! i figured i should probably get at least one post in before second semester finals set in and i lose interest in my extreme annoyance towards patrons of an unnamed coffee shop (this has been building up for a while). for the record, i do realize that my posts tend to rotate between annoyance at school and annoyance at work, but with my upcoming graduation, you will be happy to take note of the fact that i will forthwith be devoting all of my xanga-related energy (which we all know is a lot) towards annoyance at work. i hope you understand. anyway, i don't actually have too much to say other than two quasi-forceful requests for starbucks customers that have recently become something of an issue at my specific non-disclosed location: 1) please do not ask me to price check things with my mind. please especially do not ask me to price check things with my mind when i am very clearly in the middle of making 18,000 drinks. just because i happen to be the employee who is physically closest to you when the question first comes to your mind does not mean it is okay to lean over the counter, make me stop whatever time-sensitive thing i'm doing, and then get exasperated when your drink isn't ready four seconds later. furthermore, 98% of the time that this happens, the price is freaking ON the merchandise. seriously, let me just use my specially-honed starbucks skills of LOOKING at the price tag for you. i mean, come on, go-go gadget flip the mug over, people. 2) i understand that while you're busy trying to find the price tag on merchandise you're not going to buy, it's easy to lose track of whether or not your drink has been prepared yet. now, listen very closely to my advice: if you're not sure if the drink on the bar is yours, the proper course of action is not, i repeat, is NOT to perform a taste test. if you're going to drink out of a random cup on the counter, then you'd better as hell be prepared to drink the whole damn thing, because making a face and telling me i need to remake yours and the one you just drank out of and oh-by-the-way-how-much-is-that-coffee-maker-on-display is not going to make me want to not spit in your drink.* well i feel better. see, the trouble with keeping a journal that you're only motivated to write in when you're supremely pissed off, is that it makes you sound like you're a supremely pissed off person all of the time. and i'm not. i'm only a moderately pissed off person all of the time. SIX WEEKS TO GRADUATION!!! (expect to hear from me when the final final exams hit...) *i never do that. | | |
| ugh, finals. if there were some sort of smiley face that has a nervous breakdown and passes out on the floor, i would so be pasting that in here right about...now. it's funny, because you'd think that by senior year i'd have figured out how to take a few tests without losing my cool (shut up, i had cool to begin with), but apparently i have made very little progress on that front. so far all i can say in my defense is "well at least i go outside sometimes." that seems like more of an accomplishment when you take into consideration the fact that freshman year i stayed inside for two full days and lived off of cheerios and anxiety. i'm not even kidding. anyway, i would like to take this time to give a brief public service announcement/reality check to some of my fellow bc students. okay, when you're in the library during study days--nay, any days--and have two bookshelves between you and 18,000 people studying, YOU ARE NOT INVISIBLE. nor do the two bookshelves act like a sound barrier between you and other people--just because we can't see you does not mean that we can't hear every precious, bumbling moment of your whiny cell phone conversation. i swear, if i hear one more person answer his/her phone (and don't get me started on the ring tone) with "hello? oh nothing." 'OH NOTHING' MY ASS! you're in the library! it's not "oh nothing, i'm just in the library" it's "actually i'm in the library, and the disgruntled senior i can't see two bookshelves away is about to stab me in the jugular, can i call you back?" ::sigh:: how's that for christmas spirit? two more days and i can start doing fun things again, like going to work at 4:30 in the morning, and writing my 100 page thesis... | | |
| and now, the forces of no motivation and transatlantic nagging combine to bring you this abridged version of "what i did over thanksgiving break": you know how when you go to the airport with your parents and 23-year-old sister and the lady checking you in asks to see id from "just the adults" of the group, and then when you laugh and reach for your wallet she says "no, really, only those over 18"? awesome, right? next time i'm gonna check in with a bottle of tequila and a sign that says "i bought this." anyway, once we were through airporst security, we began/continued the arduous process that is driving to new hampshire to fly to detroit to fly to milwaukee to drive to madison. i think by doing it this way we saved about $20 per person. and it's a good thing, too, because we had to buy about that much in magazines per person to make it through the trip. at one point, our flight from detroit to milwaukee sat at the gate for 45 minutes while they replaced a seat cushion (you don't want to know why. no, really you don't. no, for real. okay, it was vomit. see? i told you you didn't want to know). i would have been all worked up about the waste of time, but what was i going to say, "come on, hurry up, you guys, i want to go to milwaukee"? even i don't believe that. but negativity aside, thanksgiving was actually pretty fabulous. we got to meet up with 18+ of our relatives (which is actually a downsize for us); try out deep-fried turkey (just when you thought they couldn't make thanksgiving any more american); and finally meet my four-and-a-half-year-old second cousin (inventor of the game "killer pain"). all in all, a success. i'd elaborate more about it, but at this point i've been back for three days, and don't really remember much other than being strangled by a four-year-old in a neck tie (damn killer pain...). | | |
| can we talk about how i tried to quit my job yesterday and damn near came out with a promotion? what. the hell. how can anyone be THAT unsuccessful at quitting something? seriously, i started out all "i can't work past january," and before i knew it was promising to let my manager know when i'm home so he an get me signed up to move to freaking seattle or something. this is not good. and the worst part is that for the first time ever i know EXACTLY what i want to do in this situation (which is NOT to work at starbucks for the rest of my life) but i couldn't even tell him that. i mean, how exactly does one say "i'm sorry, but i can't even imagine how empty my life would be if i devoted it to a company whose greatest aspiration is to make a really swell cup of coffee" without indirectly implying that the manager who HAS devoted himself to the "swell coffee" cause leads an empty and meaningless life? that's just not a very nice thing to say to your boss. so instead i settled for very subtle and reserved hints implying i would never say yes (which, interestingly enough, isn't the same thing as saying no). this, in turn, posed the problem of being TOO subtle and reserved to get the point across to a guy i've only met about four times before. i told him my degree wasn't in management. he told me i didn't even need a degree. i wanted to point out that that is just about the last thing he should tell someone who's worked her ass off for the last four years in college. it's not exactly gonna make me want to move to seattle or anything. anyway, it went on like this (with him having an answer to each of my half-assed attempts to say no) WAY past the limits of my attention span, until it got to the point where i'm not entirely clear on what i've agreed to, but i'm pretty sure it involves someone else owning my soul for a while. i love those types of meetings. | | |
| oh. my. God. that’s all i have to say about this weekend. well, that and the following time-consuming rant:
so we begin with me leaving my dorm AN HOUR before i had to be at north station yesterday. i walked to the bc bus stop to get to
cleveland circle, so I can get on the d line, which would pretty much guarantee me to get to north station in about 20 minutes. except that the bc bus sucks ass. they were only running two busses on that route even though the football game had just gotten out and EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER was trying to get to cleveland circle. so when the bus finally did come 15 minutes later, the driver mouthed at us “too full” and drove right on by. fuck. now i only have 45 minutes to get to north station, and no choice but to take the b line (it was right there) which is pretty much just as effective as walking. backwards. very, very slowly. so i’m sitting on the train just STARING at my watch, practically biting my fingers off (and i don’t even chew my nails), physically SHAKING over the stress. it was at about this time that i notice that the specific train i was on was only going to go as far as government center, so i was going to have to get off there and change trains. fantastic. i called my mom, who thought outside the box for me and told me to just run from government center to north station. okaaaay…that makes it slightly better. i started to calm down and actually think i could make it, until the train pulls into kenmore AND JUST STOPS. for NO reason. the conductor actually came on the intercom and said “hi folks, we’re just gonna sit here for a few minutes.” oh really? cuz i couldn’t tell. i’m so glad you were able to shed some light on the situation. jackass. anyway, so the t starts up again (after “a few minutes”) and i decide i can’t even wait as long as government center, so i jump off at park street and start SPRINTING to north station (look at a map if you really want to know), with my heavy-ass bookbag, and heinous running style. i had seven minutes to get to north station. i made it in seven minutes and thirty seconds. i honestly thought i was gonna cry.
see, i had to get the 5:30 train so that i could get to acton by 6:30, so i could take chester out, who had been home alone since 10am (we were pushing it as it was, to be honest). but now i’m stuck at north station, the next train isn’t going to leave until 7:30, which means i wouldn’t get home until closer to nine, which meant that i would effectively be leaving an 11-year-old dog home for ELEVEN HOURS (and cleaning up the not-so-fun results awaiting me on the carpet). again, shit. so i get on my phone and spend the next twenty minutes calling ANYONE i can think of who lives in/around acton (all of whom are now dead to me) trying to get someone to pick me up at alewife. nope. three no answers, one “i don’t have a car” and one “just plain no” later, i’m STILL at north station, and am now just painfully aware of the fact that i have no friends. and then the bruins game let out. so now i’m stampeded by about 20,000 drunk hockey fans who don’t understand the meaning of “personal space,” with nothing but the prospect of cleaning up dog pee to get me through. oh, and it was about this time that i started coughing up my lung. ever since i had that problem in london with the air pollution (if you don’t know what i’m talking about, just run with it), i can’t do things like spontaneously sprint a mile in cold weather without sounding like i have tuberculosis. it’s a great party trick. also, FABULOUS for crowded train stations.
anyway, so i finally get to south acton, and have to walk home from the train station (because God knows i don’t have any friends who could drive me anywhere). naturally, all of the street lights are out on high street, so i’m walking up in the pitch black light literally afraid for my life (honestly not using sarcasm there, folks). so i do the only thing i can think of, which is to turn on my cell phone on and hold it in front of me so the oncoming traffic can see me (or, you know…my cell phone). i kept hitting the enter button to keep the screen lit, which worked fantastically until i got to my driveway, and find out that i had somehow enter-buttoned my way onto the internet. ::sigh:: so there’s an extra $4.95 surcharge cap on the evening. just cuz. now the good news was that after all of that there was, in fact, no dog pee on the floor (i'm just as amazed by this as you are). i was too busy checking the carpets to pay attention to how fast chester was eating (neglection brings that out in him), so just when i was breathing a sigh of relief that i didn’t have to clean up his pee, he starts throwing up his entire dinner. and then wants me to feed him again. which i did, because I CAN’T SAY NO TO PEOPLE (/dogs) (which, ironically is why i was coming home in the first place—damn me and my love of brownie points).
so in conclusion, saturday just about made me want to cry (and who’s to say that i didn’t). the best part was that i got to get up nice and early on sunday because during the course of my whole crisis-at-the-train-station, someone from work called and asked me to open for him, which meant that i would have to show up three hours earlier than i would have for my original shift. luckily, stress and sleep don’t go together very well, so i was up bright and early at
3:30 this morning, and able to work a UNGODLY HECTIC 8 hour shift on about two hours of sleep. naturally, all of the irate customers decided to come in and give me a hard time because i happened to be working with all of the incompetent new hires who prefer when i do my job AND theirs.
so basically i am really, really close to quitting my job right now, which will go along great with the fact that i'm about to fail out of college since i have two impossible midterms this week and i got ABSOLUTELY NO studying done this weekend (other than taking my books for a run on saturday) since NOBODY WOULD PICK ME UP AT THE TRAIN STATION and THE MBTA IS A GIANT, FLAMING DICK ON WHEELS.
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