For the Money...
At church on Sunday, Nikki told me I work too much. I laughed it off, but that night I was still working at 11PM after starting at noon. By Monday night, I had worked 36 hours since Friday and was pushing overtime pay. Delivering is nice because I get a lot of time to myself as I drive from place to place and I get a little window into lots of different people's lives. However, the job's pretty repetitive so it all tends to blur together. My entire weekend was kinda like that, nothing really distinctive. Monday night I did get off a little early, mainly because they don't want to pay me overtime, and I got to spend some time at BW's and watch A Love Song for Bobby Long with Adam. We'd seen previews at Castleton Arts for the movie, but never actually got to see it since we were at school. Kinda like, I never got to see House of Flying Daggers; then again, I had heard all that movie was people who "kiss and kiss and kiss, naked."
The one benefit of working loads of hour on the weekends is a fairly laid back middle of the week. I work 4 hours this week from Tuesday to Thursday. My weekends are basically inverted from those of normal people. Like today, no work at all. Although I did stop by Donatos to grab my first paycheck of the summer, and I could see the long hours finally paying off. (I attribute all my bad puns to being friends with Patrick) This paycheck felt pretty huge, 75 hours in the first two weeks, and at least one week I hit overtime. That's right, a good 6 minutes of overtime. If work keeps up like this, money won't be a problem next year.
After picking up my check, I stopped by a Chinese restaurant I had seen advertising a $2.99 lunch special. The whole experience reminded me of Taiwan. Not just the food, but everything. They didn't have the air conditioner on, but just let the muggy, 90-degree breeze blow through. The owners' children were playing under the tables. The walls weren't covered in "traditional" Chinese decorations, just a few signs in Chinese scattered around the place. Even the chairs were creaky and worn in. The smell of the food just took me back to last summer. But the guy sitting at the next table speaking Spanish on his cell phone reminded me I wasn't back in Taiwan. It makes me wonder what everyone over there has been up to. I tried to keep in touch via email, but it never worked out. Susan Wu mentioned a team might be going back next summer, which would be amazing.
I found Adam at my house when I got back from the restaurant. BW's had let him off early, so we decided to go see Hostage at the Dollar Theater in Greenwood. We got there late and found a giant line outside. I guess everyone comes the day they lower the price to 50 cents cause a dollar is just way too much to pay. Seeing that they were tearing tickets at the counter outside, it was tempting just to ditch the line and walk on in, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. We thought we would have tried to bribe the ticket taker had there been one, because, at least, we'd feel like we'd paid for the movie. The old lady at the ticket counter carded us, because obviously we both look like we could be 16-year-olds trying to sneak in. We just kinda looked at her in disbelief, I haven't gotten carded at normal theater since I was fifteen, but this lady has carded me twice in the last two years. Young people must all look the same to old people; sometimes it feels like all old people look the same to me.
BW's went well tonight. I got my first win of the summer, number 25, and I hope for many more. With Ross and Adam vacationing so much this summer, I'll get plenty of opprotuinities to further my lead. BW's still feels incomplete without Ross and Nick. This summer is a lot different than last summer when I could count on Nick coming over everyday. I work more dayshifts, but it still feels like I have a lot more down time, even though Nick and I never really did anything productive when he came over. We usually just ended up playing Perfect Dark or going out to eat.
I finished my second book of the summer this weekend. Another 400-page beast of a book. Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History. I saw this book one time at Barnes & Noble's, but never bought it. Ross read it this year and reminded me of it this summer so I picked it up at the library. Andy enjoyed mocking me because I was reading a book about salt, but I had never realized how big an effect salt had had on the history of man. It's really common nowadays, but it used to be very rare. Everyone needs salt so access to it was a major factor in the rise of cities and governments. The book did get a little slow whenever Kurlansky started reciting old recipes for using salt. I'm about a week behind on the "one book a week" goal, mainly because the first two were so long, so maybe I'll find a shorter one next time. I keep wanting to go to Half-Priced Books and get new ones, but it's a lot easier to buy books than read them. I still have an entire shelf of books in the "To Read" queue. Though my book collection only pails in the face of Nathaniel's, which I kepy meaning to tap throughout the year, but never found the time. I'd like to say I was studying too much, but we all know that's not true.
The one benefit of working loads of hour on the weekends is a fairly laid back middle of the week. I work 4 hours this week from Tuesday to Thursday. My weekends are basically inverted from those of normal people. Like today, no work at all. Although I did stop by Donatos to grab my first paycheck of the summer, and I could see the long hours finally paying off. (I attribute all my bad puns to being friends with Patrick) This paycheck felt pretty huge, 75 hours in the first two weeks, and at least one week I hit overtime. That's right, a good 6 minutes of overtime. If work keeps up like this, money won't be a problem next year.
After picking up my check, I stopped by a Chinese restaurant I had seen advertising a $2.99 lunch special. The whole experience reminded me of Taiwan. Not just the food, but everything. They didn't have the air conditioner on, but just let the muggy, 90-degree breeze blow through. The owners' children were playing under the tables. The walls weren't covered in "traditional" Chinese decorations, just a few signs in Chinese scattered around the place. Even the chairs were creaky and worn in. The smell of the food just took me back to last summer. But the guy sitting at the next table speaking Spanish on his cell phone reminded me I wasn't back in Taiwan. It makes me wonder what everyone over there has been up to. I tried to keep in touch via email, but it never worked out. Susan Wu mentioned a team might be going back next summer, which would be amazing.
I found Adam at my house when I got back from the restaurant. BW's had let him off early, so we decided to go see Hostage at the Dollar Theater in Greenwood. We got there late and found a giant line outside. I guess everyone comes the day they lower the price to 50 cents cause a dollar is just way too much to pay. Seeing that they were tearing tickets at the counter outside, it was tempting just to ditch the line and walk on in, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. We thought we would have tried to bribe the ticket taker had there been one, because, at least, we'd feel like we'd paid for the movie. The old lady at the ticket counter carded us, because obviously we both look like we could be 16-year-olds trying to sneak in. We just kinda looked at her in disbelief, I haven't gotten carded at normal theater since I was fifteen, but this lady has carded me twice in the last two years. Young people must all look the same to old people; sometimes it feels like all old people look the same to me.
BW's went well tonight. I got my first win of the summer, number 25, and I hope for many more. With Ross and Adam vacationing so much this summer, I'll get plenty of opprotuinities to further my lead. BW's still feels incomplete without Ross and Nick. This summer is a lot different than last summer when I could count on Nick coming over everyday. I work more dayshifts, but it still feels like I have a lot more down time, even though Nick and I never really did anything productive when he came over. We usually just ended up playing Perfect Dark or going out to eat.
I finished my second book of the summer this weekend. Another 400-page beast of a book. Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History. I saw this book one time at Barnes & Noble's, but never bought it. Ross read it this year and reminded me of it this summer so I picked it up at the library. Andy enjoyed mocking me because I was reading a book about salt, but I had never realized how big an effect salt had had on the history of man. It's really common nowadays, but it used to be very rare. Everyone needs salt so access to it was a major factor in the rise of cities and governments. The book did get a little slow whenever Kurlansky started reciting old recipes for using salt. I'm about a week behind on the "one book a week" goal, mainly because the first two were so long, so maybe I'll find a shorter one next time. I keep wanting to go to Half-Priced Books and get new ones, but it's a lot easier to buy books than read them. I still have an entire shelf of books in the "To Read" queue. Though my book collection only pails in the face of Nathaniel's, which I kepy meaning to tap throughout the year, but never found the time. I'd like to say I was studying too much, but we all know that's not true.