Observations of a Bored Teller (15)
Alternative Title: No, I'm Not Dead Yet (Though My Body Would Argue the Point)
So I started night classes at the Nevada School of Massage Therapy in January. 1900 to 2230 M-Th every week until graduation on December 12th. Fifty weeks straight. No breaks, no vacations, no missing classes. My social life which was so minute as to be invisible to begin with is now non-existent.
In a typical week I leave for work (two or three exits from leaving the city going north) at about 0815 in the morning on Monday and get home just after 2300 at night. Unless I take someone home, in which case you can add a minimum of a half-hour to my driving time except when I took Lorenzo home - from Windmill/Eastern (south - Henderson) to 215/Aliante (as north as you can get - complete opposite end of city) and back to 215/Charleston (extreme western side)? If I pull out of the parking lot at exactly 2235, I pull into my own parking space around 0010 the next morning. Then I have to do homework, get my stuff for work and class the next day all sorted out, and will hopefully be in bed by 0130. Tuesdays are spent washing four sets of sheets, towels, bolster/face rest covers, and dress clothes; Wednesdays are spent cleaning, washing my own sheets and towels, and all of the other clothes that I've worn throughout the week. Thursdays I leave the house at 1000 and get back, again, just after 2300 at night.
Fridays I have a little leeway - leave for work around 1030, work until 1815, and then either go to my parents' house to be lazy, go home to be lazy, do more laundry/cleaning or homework, or go home for Bible study. Saturdays I leave by 0845, work until 1615, stop by my parents' for a quick dinner or to check my mail, then it's church at 1700 on Vegas/Buffalo (kinda central northwest in the city) followed by Anatomy study group down in Henderson (about as south as you can get, i.e., forty-five minutes of driving on a good day with no speeding). And finally, Sundays I either sleep in, go to church if I didn't on Saturday, then I either do three or four massages for various family members three out of the available six, thus far and their add-ons (aka boyfriends) or go back down to Henderson for a second study group. After all of that, I make sure my homework's done, my stuff's together for Monday, maybe do another load of dress clothes, and finally to bed.
Then I have weeks like this one where I was sick over the weekend, which meant no laundry got done except for the sheets and towels on Friday, so now I'm scrambling for clothes to wear to school (dress code means some of the pants that are fine for work I can't wear to school), working six days this week in order to attend a three-day new accounts class for work, and the next chance I'll have to do laundry (and get clean pants) without waking up my roommates will be Friday, when I won't need them. On top of sneezing, coughing, stuffy/bloody noses and nausea and no sleep.
Fun fun.
So in my copious spare time, I've been looking over some of my various stories and trying to figure out it I should massage them into something I can present to a video game company, nuke and forget, or actually work on writing. Turns out the time I've spent away was a blessing - I finally found the story in the events for TSW!!! Instead of telling it through the eyes of Corine like I've been doing for the last fourteen years, it needs to be told from the POV of her Devonian doppelganger. Corine's too private - too controlled - a person for me to get inside her head and see what she's really thinking, to understand what really motivates her. I feel like a stranger in her head, and that's how the story needs to be told.
I also took a look at WOWL, which has languished on the back burner for quite a bit longer than I intended it to. It's gonna take a little bit yet to get myself back into that particular mindset, but I need to work on it - poor thing's got two chapters (plus prologue) posted and hasn't been updated in over a year. Problem is, WOWL deals with the very end of the Separatist War, or at least a very major part of it...
In the meantime, I stumbled upon BBC's Merlin and fell absolutely in love. I've been singing its praises to everyone I even halfway know - roommates, people from church, school, work...there's a user on Youtube, NathanDucNguyen, that has the first season on a playlist. I've already got one person hooked, several others are interested... I love the fact that it takes Arthurian myth and turns it on its head - utter crack and so much fun. I discovered boxofmagic a couple of days ago, and now I can barely wait until June when they start posting the stories. At least June is a closer deadline than September or November, when Season 2 starts!
Familial Quote of the Day:
Orvana: "So what all was going on in the sixties?"
MADr: "Weed."
Orvana: "...anything else?"
MADr: "Peace, sex..."
Random Fact of the Month:
While Reflexology is utterly fascinating and I intend to pursue further education in it, acupressure - which has a lot of the same basic philosophies - is something I can barely even tolerate, and will learn just enough to pass the course and pass nationals.