August 29, 2009: A Book About Birthdays and Hell

Today was the day for celebrating the birthday of myself.

Unfortunately, it was also the day for a double-shift back at that hell-hole

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQL3PtiZH0Q)...

Last night was NOT a good one at work. Besides half of my section having been given away because I could not handle all of the tables, I was apparently unable to handle the two tables I did have. One was a party of six, and the other, a party of two.

To the six-top, I brought out their soups and salads after submitting their drink order to the bar, and literally went straight back into the kitchen, only to have the owner of the restaurant tell me to run the food for the six-top. So, of course, I had to. The floor-manager was....well, out on the floor.....right beside my table, to make sure I didn't screw up. As soon as I administered the meals to each person, (two of which ordered more drinks, before I had time to get their last order of drinks to them...), I headed to the bar to get their drinks. My manager stopped me midway and started chewing me out because of how my customers got their soups and salads at the same time as their entreés (which I knew was bad, but what could I have done at that point?). She made me so upset, I couldn't get the drinks from the bar; or go back to the table for a few minutes, for that matter. Fortunately, the bartender realized this whole situation and brought their drinks for me.

Meanwhile, however, I was taking entirely too long to get the food and drinks out to my second table, a two-top. Not only that, but once I did bring out their entreés, it turned out I screwed up their order. Bad. The woman at the table asked for no bacon on her meal, and I forgot to inform the kitchen. So I told the manager, she took it back to the kitchen, told them to fix it. She returned to the table to calm the customer down, while the kitchen simply took the bacon off the top and added more breadcrumbs to the top, to make it look new. As soon as I was about to take it back out to the table, however, my manager returned to warn us that the woman was allergic to bacon, so the whole meal had to be re-done. I was furious, mostly at myself.

In the end, I made $36 off of the six-top. Not much off of the other one, but I don't blame them. We took her meal off their ticket though. I made $57 all night.

Today was another story, (and this is where my birthday dinner comes into play). Sometime on Tuesday, my mom texted me that my birthday dinner was going to be at 7:30pm at 195 (that's the name of the restaurant), on Saturday night. I texted her back that I was working at 6:00pm on Saturday, and asked if we could reschedule it. She said we couldn't because Saturday was the only night that my brother could come (because he lives an hour away at college). I offered for me not to go then, my mother said that was ridiculous (for me not to be at my own birthday dinner), and I pointed out that either I couldn't be there, or my brother couldn't be there....which made her mad. She drove me to the pub where I work and took me inside to ask the manager if I could switch shifts with someone. Just my luck, there was only one girl who, either was not already working, had asked off, or had already switched shifts with someone...and my manager did not want her to cover my shift (because she asks off too much). My mom explained the situation again, using different words and inflections, so my manager offered for me to come in at 3:00pm, so I would be out by 7:oopm.

Today I worked from 10:00am until 2:00pm for my first shift, fortunately with the same manager who promised to get me to my birthday dinner on time. I returned at 3:00pm for my second shift, only to find that another manager was working the dinner shift. (This is also the manager that makes the schedules...the one you NEVER ask about switching shifts or getting off early.) I was unaware of the fact that my first manager never said a word to the second manager about me needing to be out by 7:30pm for my birthday dinner, until it was 7:15pm and she was still seating me a party of six. The hostess (who knew about me needing to leave) gave the table to someone else, my manager found out, got pissed, came to me to mention she knew nothing of this "drama" (as she called it), and told me to transfer out all of my remaining tables to other servers so I could pay her out and leave. At that point, all of my remaining tables had finished eating and were paying me out....which made my manager even more mad. She told me to transfer them out anyways, but I was not about to give away my money like that (I was the one who waited on them).....after they paid me, and I paid my manager, she pretty much kicked me out the door. Then my mom was mad that I was upset when I actually got to my birthday dinner, 15 minutes late.

Work aside, my birthday celebration went very well. My brothers said some really cool things about me that pretty much made the entire night. After dinner, I watched The Time Traveler's Wife with my sister and her friends, and my little brothers. (I had already seen it, but it was still good.) After the movie, we all went home and soaked in the hot-tub for awhile. It was nice.

Tomorrow, I'm going to some place to do some kind of weird-name yoga....It sounds interesting. But I'll blog about that another day.

Goodnight, reader.

August 27, 2009- To Do: Extinguish Fire!

Today was a busy day...

I got to sleep in today for the first time in awhile, and it was very nice. My grandmother called me early this morning to let me know that she did not need me to sit with my grandfather today because he was having a "bad day", and she did not want to leave him. So I went back to sleep until around 11:00am, when my mother invited me to run errands with her.

My mother, of course, had a large list of things she needed to get done today, so she had me create a To Do list for her (in no particular order):

• Get lunch for my Michael (my little brother), dad, and Bruce (the guy that works with my dad)
• Go to Lowe's to pick out hardwood floors for the laundry room, bathroom, and my parents' bedroom
• Go to the bank to make a few deposits
• Go to work to deal with some issues
• Go to Staples to buy a new printer
• Pick up Patrick (the oldest of my younger brothers) from school...(my sister, Brittney, picked up Michael from school)
• Go to the health food store to get some ingredients for smoothies (Yum!)
• Haircut (for me)
• Go go the car wash

We got everything done on the list, except for the last two items, before it was time to go to the yoga studio to set up for tonight's class. My mom taught tonight, and it was an amazing class! Very different from the Teen Hot Yoga class that I go to every Sunday night from 7:30pm-9:00pm. There were only three people there besides me, my sister, and my mom. Although the rountine was the same, it was a nice change to have a very small class tonight, as opposed to the very large teen class.

Oh my gosh! I almost forgot! The entire fire department came to my house on Tuesday night, around 9:30pm. My mom, dad, and I were all downstairs when we started smelling smoke. We looked everywhere but could not find a source, so after almost five minutes my mom called 911. They dispatched the fire department and some police officers, and told us to get everyone outside immediately. Within two minutes, we had our entire street blocked off, with the policemen directing traffic on the streets next to ours, and an entire fire squad searching our house for the source of the very potent smoke-smell. The team was absolutely amazing--they were like "a well-oiled machine", as my parents called them. But not one of them hesitated upon arrival: each had a job, knew what is was, and was not going to let anything stop them from executing it. (That included getting the fire hose positioned to spray directly into our front door, filling the hose with water, and making sure it was working properly by testing the hose on the trees and bushes beside the house---It was very exciting.) I became kind of nervous when reporters and photographers started showing up, along with a mob of neighbors.

Finally, after forty-five minutes of investigation and making sure it was not a structure fire, (with flames inside the walls of our all-wood house, that cannot be seen until the damage is unstoppable), the firemen discovered the source of the odor to be our dryer. (We were very surprised at this because our dryer was serviced a week before, by our local appliance-repair company.) To be sure, they turned the dryer on, and it immediately began smoking profusely. The chief came to the conclusion that it was a motor fire, and ordered his men to remove it from our house completely. Unfortunately, the only way to remove the dryer was to remove the washing machine first; but, fortunately the problem was much less scary than it could have been. Before all of the people and action left, the chief fireman got some information on us, as well as the appliance-repair company, and informed us on how we could get a copy of our filed case.

In the end, everyone was safe, and my gossip-y sister was jealous she missed all of the "drama". (Because she was out with her boyfriend-of-the-month.)

August 24, 2009-Okay, maybe I'm serious this time...?

I think I know what I am officially majoring in now: Communications. (And I want to minor either in Music, French, or Art Studies [in music and film]...but that will be a whole other issue.)

(Not that anyone cares, but...)

The deal with transferring ALL of my credits now, rather than just some, is that I need to get the Pre-Major Associate in Arts Articulation Agreement in Communication/Communication Studies.....as they call it at my school. Which is basically just an Associate in Arts in Communications, (as I mentioned in a previous post). I researched it a little bit more and discovered that I can totally pull it off in the time I have left at my school, before I transfer to a university (another whole separate issue...). After this semester, I will need 9 hours of Humanities/Fine Arts, 4 hours of Natural Sciences, a college transfer course, another P.E. class, Intro to Communications, then 9 hours of "other" courses (electives). So I will either take 18 hours next semester, and 9 hours in the summer, OR I will take 15 hours next semester, and 12 next summer. (Which does mean that I cannot do my internship in Ireland in 2010...it will have to wait until 2011; that might actually be better.)

I think I'm really serious this time...you have NO idea how huge of a relief it was to finally come to that conclusion. Business was just too boring; Communications can still involve business, but is more creative, fun, and interesting. I'm pretty excited....I'm thinking of going into some sort of journalism, or media broadcasting, in the long-run. (I want to work for CNN, haha!) At this point, I need to stick with my major, and decide on a school: it's a toss-up with East Carolina University (where I was going to attend until I switched from Vocal Performance/Music Education to Communications), NC State, and Appalachian State University.

Anyways, I was house-sitting the crazy dogs again this weekend...that plus an 8:00am Calculus class this morning (plus sitting with my grandfather tomorrow at 8:30am) equals me going to bed now.

Goodnight!

August 19, 2009

I may not have decided for sure, but I have set myself up better than I was. I changed my schedule again, mainly to get credit toward the Transfer Core Diploma, rather than blindly trying to match Business course credits. So my new schedule is as follows:

• Brief Calculus, 8:00-8:50am, MWF
• Principles of Microeconomics, 9:00am-9:50am, MWF
• Business Law I, 10:00am-10:50am, MWF
• Public Speaking, 7:30pm-8:45pm, Tuesday, and online (It's a Hybrid Course)
• Music Appreciation, online

Now I'm taking 15 credit hours instead of 19, so my schedule is much more manageable. Also, next semester I will only need one literature course, one humanities course, and one natural science course. However, in order to maintain a full-time status, students are required to take a minimum of 12 credit hours per semester. Since I will only have 10 hours in required courses, and because I am in Business Law I this semester (which does not count toward my Transfer Core Diploma), I will take some Communications courses next semester. Taking the extra courses in Business as well as in Communications will hopefully help me decide which subject I will pursue at a university.

So that is settled for now, but don't be surprised if I change my mind again!

August 18, 2009: Will I Ever Decide??

I think I need to change my major again...I still want to do Communications, but right now I'm still going for business. Well, technically the Associate in Arts degree, but that won't transfer as anything more than the general education core of a B.A. or B.S. in Communications at a senior institution, so why should I waste my time? What I need to do (while I can) is switch to the Pre-Major Associate in Arts degree for Communications, which will be so much more valuable when transferring. The only downside right now is that not all of the credits I already have go toward that degree; that means I will have to spend even more time than planned at my community college (by a semester or maybe two...) The upside is that, either way it will take more time than planned to obtain the Bachelor's degree, but at the community college it will be the most cost/time efficient. So I need to change my schedule and major...again.

Ugh, this is frustrating. (I still can't sleep at night!)