it's been a whirlwind of a week
so wednesday i moved to houston. Manny helped me. he carried the heavier stuff. like a good boyfriend. then we went out to Crescent City for dinner and beignets and then brought beignets to Lauren. Lauren approves of Manny. :)
night before last i made new friends. Mohana and Trad are best friends and both are from Saudi Arabia. they are very nice and very funny. Omar is from Libya. he's extra cool. he's only been in this country for three months. after about two hours of sitting outside near the entrance to the apartments and meeting other people who live here (like Ricardo who is very cool and comes off as very gay), Mo and Trad went off to Mo's place and left me and Omar to talk about everything. we talked so much. another two hours. finally at 1:15 i looked so tired that he said he was worried about me. but before that, he gave me a nickname! Koka i think is how we decided to spell it. it is pronounced somewhere between "coca" (like coca-cola) and "kooka". it's the Arabic accent. of all the nicknames that my friends have tried to give me, i think this is my favorite. i've been using it to introduce myself ever since.
yesterday morning i got an email from my sister saying how much she loves her job over in Greece and the ladies she works for/with want her to come back next summer but only if she brings her sister with her. after spending the previous evening/night with these Arabs i couldn't resist and agreed befor ei could change my mind. so apparently i'm spending next summer in Greece. i'm so freaking excited!!
work yesterday sucked. this store is a lot bigger and lot busier. at my old store the most dogs i ever did in one day was seven and two or three were little. yesterday i had 8 big dogs. fortunately only two were crazy and they weren't that bad. what was horrible was that this place has twice as many kennels as well as the higher traffic. also, at my old store we would clean kennels throughout the day. before someone was allowed to go home they were expected to clean a bit and they would usually clean kennels. this place doesn't do that. so at the end of a long day, i still had to clean every single kennel. and the bathing area. to make things even more fun, the girl who was supposed to help me close left 30 minutes early. so i was there forty minutes late. i was ready to quit. not two weeks notice, just quit. if this happens again when school's in, i will quit. i don't need that kind of stress.
but after work, before i had even gotten to my room to change into jeans, i saw my new Arab friends again. and then i met some of their Arab friends. and because it is Ramadan and they cannot eat when the sun is up, they stay up all night so they can eat just before sunrise. so i had dinner with them. at five am. and then around six i just lay down on the ground and they immediately gave me a pillow and covered me with a comforter. how sweet is that? then i woke up around 9:15, folded up the comforter, and then came back to my room so i could get my contacts out and washed. they needed it bad. it was all too much fun.
so except for work, this whole adventure has been far better than i could have ever expected.
night before last i made new friends. Mohana and Trad are best friends and both are from Saudi Arabia. they are very nice and very funny. Omar is from Libya. he's extra cool. he's only been in this country for three months. after about two hours of sitting outside near the entrance to the apartments and meeting other people who live here (like Ricardo who is very cool and comes off as very gay), Mo and Trad went off to Mo's place and left me and Omar to talk about everything. we talked so much. another two hours. finally at 1:15 i looked so tired that he said he was worried about me. but before that, he gave me a nickname! Koka i think is how we decided to spell it. it is pronounced somewhere between "coca" (like coca-cola) and "kooka". it's the Arabic accent. of all the nicknames that my friends have tried to give me, i think this is my favorite. i've been using it to introduce myself ever since.
yesterday morning i got an email from my sister saying how much she loves her job over in Greece and the ladies she works for/with want her to come back next summer but only if she brings her sister with her. after spending the previous evening/night with these Arabs i couldn't resist and agreed befor ei could change my mind. so apparently i'm spending next summer in Greece. i'm so freaking excited!!
work yesterday sucked. this store is a lot bigger and lot busier. at my old store the most dogs i ever did in one day was seven and two or three were little. yesterday i had 8 big dogs. fortunately only two were crazy and they weren't that bad. what was horrible was that this place has twice as many kennels as well as the higher traffic. also, at my old store we would clean kennels throughout the day. before someone was allowed to go home they were expected to clean a bit and they would usually clean kennels. this place doesn't do that. so at the end of a long day, i still had to clean every single kennel. and the bathing area. to make things even more fun, the girl who was supposed to help me close left 30 minutes early. so i was there forty minutes late. i was ready to quit. not two weeks notice, just quit. if this happens again when school's in, i will quit. i don't need that kind of stress.
but after work, before i had even gotten to my room to change into jeans, i saw my new Arab friends again. and then i met some of their Arab friends. and because it is Ramadan and they cannot eat when the sun is up, they stay up all night so they can eat just before sunrise. so i had dinner with them. at five am. and then around six i just lay down on the ground and they immediately gave me a pillow and covered me with a comforter. how sweet is that? then i woke up around 9:15, folded up the comforter, and then came back to my room so i could get my contacts out and washed. they needed it bad. it was all too much fun.
so except for work, this whole adventure has been far better than i could have ever expected.