(no subject)
I haven't been posting much lately, under the excuse that I'm too tired and stressed. I am tired and stressed, but I shouldn't be tired, and I've certainly been more stressed before. So I'm just a lame, lazy excuse of a human too pathetic to even keep up with her emo journal.
That said, I have been slightly less pathetic than usual in that I have actual events to write about! I'm too much at loose ends to choose one to really sink my teeth into, but let us start at the very beginning... which is usually the end of something else. In this case, I'm talking about the end of last semester. I was increasingly anxious about my lack of a job for the coming summer, and totally unwilling to just go home. I also had a 15-20 page Beowulf paper to complete, countless typology assignments to make up, pages of language acquisition outlines to memorize and most of the morphology curriculum to digest. I found a job, did about half of the typology assignments, pulled off the language acquisition cramming, and did what I could with morphology. But I had to take a temporary grade for Old English and I haven't had time since this inauspicious beginning to even look at the jumbled mess of readings I compiled in the hopes that I could produce some thoughtful, coherent pages of literary brilliance.
I apologize for my characteristic writing failures, and we shall soon return to the proper sequence of events.
After that last final, I dashed to my dorm, showered, went to the doctor (who prescribed rest, even if it was at my dreaded family home), and went to a job interview at a cardiology group practice in East Brunswick. My father took this rare opportunity to remind me of how terrible the economy is, how unqualified I am for living an independent life, and just how flexible I would need to be in order to gain even the most menial employment. He refrained from announcing his predictions concerning my ability to retain said employment, and I appreciated his struggle to internalize his truths. The interviewer was a familiar face from good ol' UC, and at the end of the matter-of-fact conversation, I had somehow managed to pressure myself into showing up the next day at 9 am, ready to work. I immediately went to the dorm, packed everything, dropped it off at home, and got back in the car so that I could be dropped off somewhere close to my new job. I walked a mile-or-so to work the next morning after 3 hours of sleep- the first sleep I had gotten in 48 hours.
I spent the next month trying to enjoy learning how to be a medical billing assistant. I am not entirely unintelligent, but my eyesight is poor, my attention span is painfully short, and my tolerance for extended contact with most humans is weak. I also dislike phone calls excepting those to a favored few, and have issues with the medical field in general, especially the financial side of it. But I believe in working hard and being polite while I'm on the clock. I try to corral my hazy sense of time into German punctuality. I will bend over backwards to try to become your perfect employee.
Meanwhile, I was spending some nights at my uncle's home in East Brunswick (terribly awkward, because I almost never see him), some torturous nights at home (between the guilt, the commute, and trying to sleep with no roommate... it was deliriously awful), and otherwise inconveniencing my family (because I cannot drive from Paramus to East Brunswick). After two to three weeks (there's that hazy sense of time again), I moved into Jugglehouse 2.0. This subtracted from the commute and family stress, but added 2.75 hours of German 3 evenings a week plus homework and endless distraction to to the mess.
Meanwhile, I became increasingly burned out on the job. I had hated having to run around for hours in the pharmacy, but sitting at my desk was physically painful to me. I felt as if someone was sitting on my chest and the air was denser than lead. I was twitchy and nervous and uncontrollably sad. Every part of my body ached in a way that no amount of Advil or massage or sleep could relieve. I had to take frequent breaks not just to rub my eyes and yawn, but to try to regulate my breathing and bring my pulse down.
After a bit more than a month, I quit and started working at a day camp in Edison. During the school year, it is a Chinese school and general social/cultural hub for the families that patronize it. In the past, attendance was high enough to warrant holding the camp at the AACC on Livingston campus and having the "teachers" there full time (and possibly better paid). I enjoy my job despite the difficulties (including both the obvious ones expected from working with children and others more specific to the situation), but I have bills to pay (tuition, rent, gas, food, etc.).
So I have started working a second job promoting cell-phones. Between the two jobs, I spend about 40 hours a week working, more if you count travel and prep. I am out of shape and exhausted, and increasingly broke. I yell and scream and spend money I don't have on necessities (new tires, because I ran into one too many curbs and absolutely destroyed one of my front tires) and small luxuries to bribe myself into good behavior. My brain feels more unusable than ever. And I have two temporary grades to rectify before I leave for a family vacation to Prague. Two, because I smashed my computer in a fit of rage before my German final, and was therefore unable to put my final portfolio together. I later discovered that my computer works if I plug it into a monitor with an S-video cable, but at the time, I thought that all was lost. I still have not printed/edited everything and sent it to my teacher. I am not a fan of myself at the moment. I doubt that anyone is, unless you are one of my crazy-tolerant friends.
That is about all you need to know (if not more), unless you're terribly interested.
I had a point that I wanted to address once I got through the recap of these past few months, but never mind that at the moment. Hopefully I will be back soon.
This is the schedule for now:
Today: figure out what I need to do/redo for German, start doing it.
Tomorrow: work on German, shower, run errands with Victor, eat lunch, work, sleep
Sunday: finish German, shower, eat lunch, work, pick up ingredients, prep pastry shells, sleep
Monday: shower, drive to work, plan lessons for week, execute lessons, drive home, prep pudding, fruit, and chocolate, teach cooking lesson, clean up after cooking lesson, drive home, clean, do laundry, shower, sleep
Tuesday: teach, call around for fall work, prep for music lessons, go to comp lab to print/scan tax forms, start process of Beowulf, shower, sleep
Wednesday: teach, do some work on Beowulf, teach music lesson, go home and work on Beowulf, shower, sleep
Thursday: teach, eat, work, shower, sleep
Friday: Beowulf, shower, sleep
Saturday: Beowulf, eat, work, shower, sleep
Sunday: laundry, eat, work, lesson prep, shower, sleep
etc.
I think that you've all been too kind. Please feel free to purposefully neglect me until I have rejoined the land of the respectable.
That said, I have been slightly less pathetic than usual in that I have actual events to write about! I'm too much at loose ends to choose one to really sink my teeth into, but let us start at the very beginning... which is usually the end of something else. In this case, I'm talking about the end of last semester. I was increasingly anxious about my lack of a job for the coming summer, and totally unwilling to just go home. I also had a 15-20 page Beowulf paper to complete, countless typology assignments to make up, pages of language acquisition outlines to memorize and most of the morphology curriculum to digest. I found a job, did about half of the typology assignments, pulled off the language acquisition cramming, and did what I could with morphology. But I had to take a temporary grade for Old English and I haven't had time since this inauspicious beginning to even look at the jumbled mess of readings I compiled in the hopes that I could produce some thoughtful, coherent pages of literary brilliance.
I apologize for my characteristic writing failures, and we shall soon return to the proper sequence of events.
After that last final, I dashed to my dorm, showered, went to the doctor (who prescribed rest, even if it was at my dreaded family home), and went to a job interview at a cardiology group practice in East Brunswick. My father took this rare opportunity to remind me of how terrible the economy is, how unqualified I am for living an independent life, and just how flexible I would need to be in order to gain even the most menial employment. He refrained from announcing his predictions concerning my ability to retain said employment, and I appreciated his struggle to internalize his truths. The interviewer was a familiar face from good ol' UC, and at the end of the matter-of-fact conversation, I had somehow managed to pressure myself into showing up the next day at 9 am, ready to work. I immediately went to the dorm, packed everything, dropped it off at home, and got back in the car so that I could be dropped off somewhere close to my new job. I walked a mile-or-so to work the next morning after 3 hours of sleep- the first sleep I had gotten in 48 hours.
I spent the next month trying to enjoy learning how to be a medical billing assistant. I am not entirely unintelligent, but my eyesight is poor, my attention span is painfully short, and my tolerance for extended contact with most humans is weak. I also dislike phone calls excepting those to a favored few, and have issues with the medical field in general, especially the financial side of it. But I believe in working hard and being polite while I'm on the clock. I try to corral my hazy sense of time into German punctuality. I will bend over backwards to try to become your perfect employee.
Meanwhile, I was spending some nights at my uncle's home in East Brunswick (terribly awkward, because I almost never see him), some torturous nights at home (between the guilt, the commute, and trying to sleep with no roommate... it was deliriously awful), and otherwise inconveniencing my family (because I cannot drive from Paramus to East Brunswick). After two to three weeks (there's that hazy sense of time again), I moved into Jugglehouse 2.0. This subtracted from the commute and family stress, but added 2.75 hours of German 3 evenings a week plus homework and endless distraction to to the mess.
Meanwhile, I became increasingly burned out on the job. I had hated having to run around for hours in the pharmacy, but sitting at my desk was physically painful to me. I felt as if someone was sitting on my chest and the air was denser than lead. I was twitchy and nervous and uncontrollably sad. Every part of my body ached in a way that no amount of Advil or massage or sleep could relieve. I had to take frequent breaks not just to rub my eyes and yawn, but to try to regulate my breathing and bring my pulse down.
After a bit more than a month, I quit and started working at a day camp in Edison. During the school year, it is a Chinese school and general social/cultural hub for the families that patronize it. In the past, attendance was high enough to warrant holding the camp at the AACC on Livingston campus and having the "teachers" there full time (and possibly better paid). I enjoy my job despite the difficulties (including both the obvious ones expected from working with children and others more specific to the situation), but I have bills to pay (tuition, rent, gas, food, etc.).
So I have started working a second job promoting cell-phones. Between the two jobs, I spend about 40 hours a week working, more if you count travel and prep. I am out of shape and exhausted, and increasingly broke. I yell and scream and spend money I don't have on necessities (new tires, because I ran into one too many curbs and absolutely destroyed one of my front tires) and small luxuries to bribe myself into good behavior. My brain feels more unusable than ever. And I have two temporary grades to rectify before I leave for a family vacation to Prague. Two, because I smashed my computer in a fit of rage before my German final, and was therefore unable to put my final portfolio together. I later discovered that my computer works if I plug it into a monitor with an S-video cable, but at the time, I thought that all was lost. I still have not printed/edited everything and sent it to my teacher. I am not a fan of myself at the moment. I doubt that anyone is, unless you are one of my crazy-tolerant friends.
That is about all you need to know (if not more), unless you're terribly interested.
I had a point that I wanted to address once I got through the recap of these past few months, but never mind that at the moment. Hopefully I will be back soon.
This is the schedule for now:
Today: figure out what I need to do/redo for German, start doing it.
Tomorrow: work on German, shower, run errands with Victor, eat lunch, work, sleep
Sunday: finish German, shower, eat lunch, work, pick up ingredients, prep pastry shells, sleep
Monday: shower, drive to work, plan lessons for week, execute lessons, drive home, prep pudding, fruit, and chocolate, teach cooking lesson, clean up after cooking lesson, drive home, clean, do laundry, shower, sleep
Tuesday: teach, call around for fall work, prep for music lessons, go to comp lab to print/scan tax forms, start process of Beowulf, shower, sleep
Wednesday: teach, do some work on Beowulf, teach music lesson, go home and work on Beowulf, shower, sleep
Thursday: teach, eat, work, shower, sleep
Friday: Beowulf, shower, sleep
Saturday: Beowulf, eat, work, shower, sleep
Sunday: laundry, eat, work, lesson prep, shower, sleep
etc.
I think that you've all been too kind. Please feel free to purposefully neglect me until I have rejoined the land of the respectable.