Postscript: I need a good rant on celebiacy of some sort, I think. Just a reminder to me tomorrow, given some of it being related to work and all.
posted by Amy Borden 5/8/2000 1:18:25 AM
Singing the Caffeine Song, LoudlySort of like banging the drum slowly, only more screechy and less dismal. It's basically warbling "Cafffiieeeeeeeeeeiiine!" at the top of your lungs, annoying neighbors and dogs in the area. Done whenever you're really in need of caffeine, or to praise the existence of that sweet, life-giving liquid one uses to keep awake, be it coffee or my personal drug of choice, two-liter bottles of coke. You know you have an addiction when you calculate an area's cost of living by the price of an average two-liter in a local grocery store. If I get going good enough I start giggling maniacally and talking to myself as I type away on extremely disconnected subjects.
And aren't YOU comforted by the idea of this womb raising some of the possible future leaders of America, huuuh?
Sadly, my most recent dose is wearing off and I'm starting to think in all consonants again. Not good. I should go to bed. And preferably not salivate into the pillow.
In other news, I tried art today but it's been mixed results. I think stress from a lot of stuff is getting to me, because when I was at ze Auntie's in January and feeling at least good and with family I really liked and all and could be really flakey with the auntie and her two attack doodlekitties, I was whipping out some bang-up work. Now though, the lines are constricted by worry about things. Which is a pity when you think about it...
I need to try to get some more stuff organized. And also get to the auntie's place again so in addition to knocking my butt out in getting something really cool and joblike, we have cheap excuses to stay up late watching Buffy, Angel, X-Files, Milennium, and BBC America. The DC area gets all the good channels, I swear. Blarg. Right, going to bed before I yawn so hard I drool. Disgustin', me pretties. Talk later.
posted by Amy Borden 5/8/2000 1:15:17 AM
Hey, Robot Girl! Neenerneenerneener! AHAHHAHAAHAHAHA!There, my personal bit of smartarsedness for the day.
posted by Amy Borden 5/7/2000 5:06:23 PM
I wonder if Lancelot's nekkid butt would become a factor in any portion of becoming filthy rich through being eccentric. Especially if it were attached to the rest of an equally nekkid Lancelot. I'd be happily foaming mad in no time.Hey, we all gotta have our little dreams, baby.
posted by Amy Borden 5/7/2000 1:30:19 AM
Damn dwarves. They didn't even ask "please" first.Now if I could make a living off having people back away from me nervously, with placating motions, I'd be filthy stinking rotten rich. I play a good twisted eccentric, and unlike most of the people who are like that and disturb you in areas you can't get away from them, I'm actually even sane. Well, mostly. Part of the time at least.
posted by Amy Borden 5/7/2000 1:15:01 AM
HoongaReasons why I use Blogger:
1. It's incredibly nicely free and convenient for those like me who don't know enough HTML to do a really bang-up journal page but know enough to really get themselves into trouble.
2. I'm a lazy little bastard.
I'd give you more insightful reasons, but I need to chase after the damn dwarves who just took off with my brain and have them give it back to me.
posted by Amy Borden 5/7/2000 1:08:04 AM
Mrg. That was a long rant, and not exactly coherent. Brain starting to go bye-bye! But it was nice to vent to my readers, all three of you!The voices in my head say hi.
posted by Amy Borden 5/7/2000 12:31:21 AM
The Big-Ass Sword of Damocles And YouI hate being in debt.
I have two graduate degrees. Obviously, this meant my applying for loans to do something about the costs for those two graduate degrees. Sadly, however, for whatever reason, I did not get any GAs to deal with the fact of those two graduate degrees. It's likely because I've always been in a perpetual state of light confusion about what the hell I'm supposed to do next. And incredibly bloody embarassing when you think about it.
I probably should have done something different, or been more organized, or been more *something* in the process. If I'd had my shit more together, I maybe could have finagled a scholarship, or maybe I could have gotten a Real Job and covered the debt that way, instead of foodling my way through school as I have had most of my life. But no, I accepted a big-arse load of debt, while probably the majority of my peers got their lives together, have nice jobs, and are productive members of society (tm).
I hate being in debt.
It's not the money I owe, really. I'm not that materialistic all told. It's what you do with what you got that makes the difference, not how much you got. It's just the fact I can't do right by the people I owe it to and pay them as they deserve, because I don't *have* the money. It goes towards piddly stuff like oh, food, shelter, making sure I don't stink, internet...so on. And meanwhile the interest accrues and capitalizes, and the Sword of the title hangs over my head more. And the guilt grows.
It's very like a mark of shame when you come down to it. Pride and shame are dumb things to feel on the face of it, but they are there. Pride keeps me from asking for help, and shame and pride keep me from going to my graduate school to look there, because I'm afraid that they'll see my ignomony, and see how little I have my life together, and feel contempt for my flakihood, while my peers were able to actually Dedicate, know what they were doing, get things done, and while maybe aren't *rich*, are at least pulling down a satisfactory amount of money a year. Meanwhile, I serve pizza. Riiiight. Imagine telling your old professor *that*.
It's a vicious positive feedback cycle of debt->worry/depression->despair->not doing anything->not getting anything on what I *do* apply for->more despair->more capitalizing and accruing interest. I hate being helpless and I *really* smegging hate feeling like there's something wrong with me for feeling like I don't fit in, and scared that I just might not, no matter how much I try to ram myself to fit in the hole I think I need to fit into.
In short, I'm getting scared and pissed off enough at feeling helpless it's making me mad enough hopefully.... hopefully I get the real drive to make a change. To hopefully find something I feel like I can do some good in, that I'm actually good at for the first time since graduating from college. And that I can get the bleep out of this place where there's too many bunnybushtail student employee possibilties and not nearly enough jobs, and get somewhere where I can be *me*, flakihood and all, and feel happy with it.
I hope. Because debt sucks, man.
posted by Amy Borden 5/6/2000 11:41:12 PM
A Quick Trip Through English Literature, Part The FirstSo, being a BA with English Literature in my distant and semi-glorious past, I must needs examine Authurian Literature. Er, well, okay, Excalibur. It's close enough.
Most of all:...
My GOD, if someone goes traipsing around in black Goth-chick "Hi, I ran into a spiderweb and dyed it" coture like Morgan Le Fay did in that movie, shouldn't other people in the movie get a frigging *clue* that, gee, maybe this is the Evil Sorceress Type and do something appropriate about it? Of course, Merlin, the only person with a clue, well...he wasn't exactly thinking with the brain *between his ears*, waaaas he? Up to and including getting trapped by Goth-Coture Woman. Man.
Of course, Merlin's common sense was pretty questionable even before Arthur was born, especially the part letting the damn fool horny warchief through his rival's barriers so he could have a quick shag with his wife, hmmm, and letting Lil' Morgan see the event. It was only naturally that she'd have Real Issues on growing up, which includes Really Loving Your Brother. Ahhh yes, Jerry Springer, back when they didn't have good TV. That and Camelot looked like a bunch of Jedi architects got lost, on crack, and then went native in Britain in the middle ages. I think. It's been a while.
But hey, it had Lancelot's nekkid butt, so hey, I'll forgive all the rest.
posted by Amy Borden 5/6/2000 7:34:19 PM
So, I'm awake again. I'm not entirely sure about the wonderousness of this move, other than well, hey, it's a nice evening outside. Okay, perhaps that's reason enough.So, anyway. Work.
For those not in the know, I work in a fast food pizza joint in the local mall. Snrk, right, two graduate degrees, and I'm serving pizza. Ah well, it's steady pay. And it *is* good 'za, and my supervisors are good people.
However....there are....the customers. This is not to say that they are, necessarily, bad people. In fact, I probably get a far fewer amount than I would in a far larger city. However, being in a university town means I have to put up with some....interesting people nonetheless. And, as anywhere, there are some who think that just because you're across the counter, you have no feelings, are a machine, and if you're not automatically psychic about their every whim and desire, you deserve getting pissed off at.
The customer is always right. Simple, innit? And true...you deserve to be treated nicely when you go somewhere, instead of being grunted at and having food slung across the counter at you. But there is also, I think, an opposite corollary to that. Politeness is a virtue, and the cashier is a human. If they have any commitment to what they're doing, they'll make sure you get what you want, but it doesn't help their morale over the long term to be treated like a thing. I know it hasn't mine, and I try to be pleasant and do what I can for customers. Now if the cashier does the aforementioned grunting, well...
Other pet peeves of mine, from the workplace:
1. Argh! Why do they assume I'm psychic when they order a combo meal, and tell me the kind of drink but not kind of pizza? I don't know the steenking slices of pizza if you don't tell me.....
2. I'm over HERE at the counter, not there AAAHHHH! What do you expect me to do, somehow magically come over there my register isn't over theeeere... (Foghorn noise)
3. The one that really gets me.... (drumroll)
READ THE MUCKING FENU, PEOPLE!!!
Ahem. Thank you for your cooperation. It's just how many *times* has someone asked, chirpily and cheerfully, "What kind of pizzas do you have?" when the answer lies a couple feet above my head in back of me, in Big Friendly Glowing White Letters (tm). Or better yet, "Can I have a Super Slice in cheese?" when we don't carry that. We've *never* carried that. We just carry sausage & pepperoni and the Slice of the Day, and Cheese is very much not a part of the Slice of the Day panel, which they might get a clue about if they read *that*. I mean, good lord, I knew we had a literacy problem in America, but *that* bad?
4. When they have a dollar amount that will suffice for the total but they have take out the coin purse, with three other people in line behind them, and slowly and carefully and even more slowly make sure they have the cents amount even if it happens to be all in pennies while the other people fume and froth and wait and aaaarrrghh er sorry. I understand the impulse to get rid of the loads of copper breeding in the purse but when it's busy, um...no....please?
5. The carousel. It's in the food court. Calliope music playing. Loudly. Repeatedly. Interfering with my ability to hear customers, which isn't all that great to begin with given the levels of background noise. Making them snarky when I don't automatically get everything on the first time, all the time, like a good little computer and not a human. After a while it becomes less a jolly symbol of childhood and turns into something from Something Wicked This Way Comes and I start sincerly fantasizing about missile launchers. I feel like such an apostate.
I'm sure by now I sound like a sniveling ungrateful example of What's Wrong With The Service Worker In America. After all, we ought to be able to take any abuse the customer dishes out and be *grateful* for it, gosh darn it, because after all they help give us money that keeps our lazy butts off welfare which we wouldn't have to worry about in the first place if we were more *motivated*, like them. And of course, the customer is always right. Even when they make a right pillock out of themselves.
But...no. I just want to vent. And to let any of you good people out there that actually read this blog realize that when a fast food worker is doing their best to be polite to you instead of just grunting and slinging food at you...they believe you deserve to be treated decently and humanely, even when the stress shows in their eyes and they're tired. They believe in that number one motto of customer service. The least you can do, as a polite and decent member of any society, is give them the same.
posted by Amy Borden 5/5/2000 7:19:31 PM
To add insult to injury, I seem to have put the bolding tags on the *title* portion of my page, not the header, so when people access the sucker they get dippy "b"s in carats at the top of the window. Must fix later when I'm not pondering mumbling in all consonants. Grumble.
posted by Amy Borden 5/5/2000 3:45:07 PM
Mrg. Must sleep to get mental tone back. Or rather, kiss pillow because I *like* it, damn it! Hopefully, I can say something amazing and insightful about the general idiocy I must put up with at work when I wake up again. Oh yes, and yet *another* of a long and amazing string of "being in school again for some mysterious reason and not knowing what the schedule is, or indeed, if I've done the homework and I have this sickening feeling I didn't" dreams. I hate those. My neuroses do *not* need any more stoking, brain....
posted by Amy Borden 5/5/2000 3:42:31 PM
Okay, I've joined the Borg Col^H^H^H^H the dribbling mass^H^H^H^H the exponentially growing clan of Bloggers. More happy fun things tomorrow. This will possibly include ranting about work. I'm sure you all tremble with anticipation. Unless that happens to be that rather nasty case of rampaging colon you told me about.
posted by Amy Borden 5/4/2000 11:07:25 PM
Testing....testing....bananananananana....
posted by Amy Borden 5/4/2000 7:54:21 PM