About that time, eh, chaps?

Right-o.

Who wants to go to Bodies with me?

Tonight, to unwind from work, I sat in Ronda's room and chatted with her once I got back a few minutes after midnight. As sometimes comes up in our conversations, we each expressed how much we missed Tuebingen. Then two other related things came up that surprised me and made me reflect a little:

1. Ronda said that she got the impression that the Kyla I am in the US isn't the same as the Kyla I was in Germany. Kind of a weird observation, we felt; as Ronda remarked, I'm still the same person, obviously. But I agreed, in a way: circumstances were different there, and I reacted to them differently. I had less to do, and as a result I got more sleep and did less activities than I ever did in the US. It was a year of rest, and a year of fun. And here in Seattle - I don't know, I guess I'm just more stressed, busy, and sleep-deprived. I wonder, if I go back to Germany, can I get that relaxed lifestyle back? Would it work? I think I'd like it better than this daily frenzy that I'm currently a part of.

2. We couldn't believe we'd spent a whole year in Germany. This has come up before. The year really flew by, so of course it felt shorter than it really was. But sometimes I think back on it, and it seems like a distant dream that never really happened. And in a way, it is a dream, because I will never be able to recreate the experience I had in Tuebingen. My room is gone, most of my friends are gone... Tuebingen is still there, but it's not the same, and never will be.

I can't wait to get back there, or go do something else besides school and work. Only one quarter and already I'm bored. What's next? I need to start planning my next great adventure...

...which is, by the way, the way I'd like to view the rest of my life. A series of great adventures, the next each picked out because it's something exciting and amazing that I want to do before I die. Yes, a series of great adventures is exactly what I want to do with my life.

The weekend came and went quickly, as weekends are prone to do. It was a good one, though, since we had Friday off. That enabled me to drive to Western with 4 other CHS grads to visit more of our old high school buddies. This ended up being the highlight of my weekend for a few good reasons:

1. I saw old friends, including old blogger buddy Rowan. We hadn't seen each other for a few years, and we had been good friends in the last two years of high school. So our reunion was nothing short of spectacular. Being able to pick up where you left off is always an indicator of a great friendship.

2. We all went to 80's night at a bar in downtown Bellevue, and

3. We danced to 80's music in our 80's clothing for 3 1/2 hours straight.

All in all, it was a fantastic evening. Sadly, we had to leave at 10 the next morning because people had to work in Seattle the next day.

Friday I basically wasted by hanging out at home, making one outing to see the Borat movie. The Borat movie is hilarious and I recommend that everybody see it. I especially like the naked wrestling scene because it is sheer genius.

Saturday I worked for parking for the football game. It was the last one of the season, so we stuck around for a bit afterwards and ate some food that people brought, and asked each other if we were working next season. My reply? "I'll think about it." The best part of working that day for me was at the end, when one girl, who we'll call "Ann", was telling our supervisor the problems she had encountered that day. Ann and I have been working parking on and off for about 3 years (she might have an extra year on me). I for one do not take parking to be a hugely serious job, so I have fun out there, chatting with the customers and joking with my co-workers. Ann, however, approaches this job a bit differently, and reflected it as she told our supervisor about the most outrageous thing that had happened that day:

"This lady was driving a white Mazda and raced out of our exit. I don't know where she came from, but somebody must have made her mad, because she flipped us all off! All six of us!"

A few of us were standing around. One guy (a big fellow who has also been around since the season I started) chuckled and said, "You shoulda thrown that one right back at her."

I laughed, and jokingly agreed, "Haha, yeah! I so woulda done that."

But Ann did not see the humor in this. She looked at me and said, without an ounce of humor in her voice: "That would not reflect well on the university."

Is she serious? I thought incredulously. There was no way. But as I stared back at her in disbelief, I realized that Ann was not joking, and that she truly believed that if I had seen this rude woman commit her little act, I would have turned around and shown the lady some fire power of my own.

"It was a joke," I said in a tone that was probably more condescending than it needed to be. "I would never do that." And it's true, I wouldn't. But I can certainly joke about it, which is more than I can say for Ann.

Alright, enough about my weekend. I have to go eat and then study for a quiz. After that, I'll go think of ways to celebrate my birthday on Friday...

Oh yeah. Happy birthday to Ashley and me! 20 and 22 (respectively). I was greeted this morning by Ashley, who burst into my room and woke me by pounching on me. She presented me with a gift wrapped in what she referred to as a "bunny hat". To me, it looked like a crunchy white cellophane-like spherical mass with bunny ears protruding from it. I asked if it was really a hat. Her reply? "I wore it on my head once."

It was a great start to my day. Love you, Ashley darling. Have a wonderful birthday.

Edit: I forgot to mention that on Saturday night, Jeff and I went to Die Bierstube to check it out. Result: nice place, great German beer, definitely going back.

Blogger's new version is out. Rah. Guess I'd better switch.

Also, I wanted to call everybody's attention to this well-written blog entry about the health care situation in America. Read it and learn.

Going to see the Borat movie tonight. Is nice. Very excited.

A bit from Matt's blog, your Daily Dose of Ann:

"History was made this week! For the first time in four election cycles, Democrats are not attacking the Diebold Corp. the day after the election, accusing it of rigging its voting machines. I guess Diebold has finally been vindicated."

We all know Ms. Colture is crazy, but I think she has a point here...

Anyway, I'm going up to Western tonight to hang out in 80's clothes with friends I haven't seen for a year and a half. It should be super-exciting! I'll be back pretty early tomorrow, hopefully in time to go to the symphony matinee. Sweet!

Alright, time to get to my physics homework so I can have some fun tonight.

yay for eddie izzard.

boo for school. can't I just be done with it, already?

can't wait for the holidays... or just some days where I don't have to do much and can enjoy life for a bit, instead of letting it drag me around by the heels like most of the time.

at least I have the next 4 days off from work, and 2 of them off from school. This brings me immense joy at the thought of not really having to do anything for 2 days after I get out of class on Thursday. yes!!!

I'm going to Western on Thursday afternoon to visit some old friends. should be a grand time.

I'm awesome.

Not only did I sleep late yesterday, causing me to miss my German proctor class, but I slept late again today, waking up at almost exactly the same time. 10.46.

Today was not so cool, though, because I had a physics exam that started at 10.30. Yeah.

So I rushed to get ready and headed out on my bike, cursing myself for staying up late and wondering how I was going to rush through this exam and still get some semblance of a good grade. I ran in with 20 minutes to go. The professor handed me a copy of the exam, looking worried for me, and said I could stay late and get the time I missed to work on the exam in his office. This was very relieving.

The professor actually was very sympathetic. After the class period was over and everybody else had turned in their exams, we took the elevator together up to his office. I broke the awkward silence, saying that I couldn't believe I had slept in and that it's such an awful feeling when you look at the clock and realize you're late. He came back with a story about how he was supposed to proctor a really important exam for grad students one year, but he had had a visitor from out-of-town the night before, and they had gone out to Pioneer Square. He slept in by accident, and awoke to a massive hangover and urgent messages on his answering machine. He got there late, and had to suffer 4 hours without aspirin as people yelled at him for not being there on time.

So that was a bonding moment, and it turns out that my professor, while being a horrible lecturer, is a cute, nerdy old science guy with a social life.

But I still did badly on the exam, on account of being half-awake, having had no breakfast or coffee, and being rushed to finish the exam. Yeah, so we'll see how that one turns out.

Rest of the day looks better: just have to finish a summary of an article, go to my last class, start studying for my midterm on Monday, go to a review session later on, and then have a little bit of fun this evening at the Senate show and the parties afterwards. Gotta unwind, because after tonight, it's power-through until next Thursday...

There is no way I will not be using this.

I'm still alive!

I'm in the Honors computer lab, finishing my homework for my next bio class. Comments from the really annoying kid sitting at the computer across from me (imagine this being said in a really nerdy, better-than-thou voice):

"This mouse is dead."

"This computer is OFF."

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Just keep typing and eating your sandwich. Don't talk anymore.

Once in a while, you have a weekend so good, you forget that you're even in school. This weekend excelled in convincing me that I am not taking classes at the U, and that life is wonderful.

Friday after class (well, 5 minutes early, so I wouldn't be late), I raced up to 45th and Roosevelt to pick up my 2nd new bike. This time, I was smart about it and bought a bike from a Craigslist posting. The guy was nice, and so was the bike. It's a maroon ladies city cruiser, and it's beautiful! I love riding it. It was only 50 bucks, which is about the maximum I was willing to spend after my original new bike got stolen on Wednesday. I just bought a lock today for it, which is supposed to be much more secure than the last lock I got.

I had to work Friday evening. Saturday, though, I had completely off, and I was ready to make the most of it. My sister, who was supposed to come up to Seattle that day, unfortunately couldn't make it, and so that was disappointing. But there was plenty of other stuff to do that day, for it was my 1st year anniversary of dating Jeff! Yay! So whatever we were doing that day, we had to be going by 5.30 to make our 7 pm dinner reservations at Salty's. Ashley and I had decided earlier in the week to bike to Ballard together, so we got up at 9 am and did just that. The ride to Ballard is very flat, very scenic, and just plain awesome. Ash and I did our "Ballard Breakfast" routine, which we hadn't done in over a year, and which goes as follows: 1. We go to Great Harvest Bakery and buy a loaf of delicious, warm, gooey bread that we just want to bury our faces in and make satisfied noises, and 2. we take our bread down the street to Cupcake Royale and ingest a delicious latte or mocha along with our bread and maybe a cupcake. We had our coffee and our soul-warming loaf of apple cinnamon bread, and then we pedaled our way back to the U-District.

Next up, we had Ben's barbeque at his house. Although Jeff and I knew that we could only stop in for a bit on our way to dinner, we ended up getting behind schedule and missing busses so that our hour of Ben-time turned into about 25 minutes. Still enough time for a Heinekin, though. And it was nice to see Ben up on his feet again and moving around, as opposed to covered in iodine stains and lying half-naked in a hospital bed. He had the bike on display, the one he was riding when he was hit by a woman in a car doing 30. It was pretty mangled, as one might expect. So we had just enough time for a few stories, and then we were on our way again.

We used the bus system to get our classy selves over to Alki for our dinner at Salty's. Unfortunately, we missed our stop and got off at the end of the bus line. We walked about a block down the hill through a residential area before we stopped on a corner, wondering which way was the best way to get down to the water. At that moment, a car pulled right in front of us into their driveway. The driver opened the window and said, "You guys look confused. Where are you trying to go?" When we told him Salty's, he and his wife laughed. The wife explained that Salty's was not withing walking distance, especially if we had to make reservations. They offered to take us down there, and after a few modest declines, we agreed to let them take us in their car. It really was a huge blessing, because although not that far away, Salty's was down a big hill, and definitely a 20-minute walk away from where we had been. Our reservations would have been long past if we hadn't. We thanked the couple profusely for single-handedly saving our night. We were seated at a table in a darkened corner with a view of the water and of downtown Seattle and the Space Needle. Needless to say, it was very romantic. Our waiter was of course courteous and professional. It was really nice to be served for once, and we were very appreciative of his efforts. We had a wonderful crab and cheese dip for starters, and then we had a nice champagne along with our dinner. Jeff had a ribeye steak with bleu cheese, and I had apple wood-smoked salmon. For dessert, Salty's gave us a piece of their signature white chocolate cake, and we ordered a creme brulee to share. It was all delicious, and classy, and while I felt somewhat out of place with my dreadlocks and my lack of reverence for all things classy (I definitely burped at an inopportune moment while asking Jeff a question, which made us giggle for a solid 5 minutes), we had a great time, and I loved it. I felt like I wasn't a student anymore, but a real adult who has a life, and can afford things like a fancy dinner.

Of course, that feeling vanished after dinner, as Jeff and I left to trudge up the hill and find the bus stop. The walking directions from the Metro website led us up a dark hill in the middle of the woods. It was kinda creepy, but things were okay until we realized that the bridge that was way above our heads was the bridge we were supposed to be on to catch our bus. There were no stairs or any other apparent way to get up there, even though Metro wanted us to "take a left" onto it. So we had to keep walking up the hill, and do a 180 back around to the bridge. We were a block away when we saw the bus zoom past. So we killed time by walking around, going first to Starbucks and then to Safeway to stay warm. Starbucks had one customer sitting at a table, and the employees were cleaning up, so we went to ask if they were still open, since it was 20 to ten, and all we wanted was a place to stay until the next bus came at 10.26. The following humorous conversation took place:

me: "What time do you close?"
Starbucks Girl: (looking at the clock) Nine-forty. But we can still make you something, if you want."
me: "Um... no, that's okay."
SG: "You sure?"
me: "Yeah."

Nine-forty? Was she serious??? It's not often that you read the clock, and then tell the customer that you closed the minute before. Whatever. We had Safeway to keep us warm and entertained.

We finally caught the bus to downtown, and from there immediately caught a 71 headed to the U-District, so that went relatively fast. As the bus made its way up the Ave, Jeff pointed out Finn MacCool's, reminding me that the Senate was playing that night. So we went in and listened to the show, which was really fun. It was an interesting transformation, to be back in student-land once again, drinking microbrews along with the rest of the twenty-somethings in the pub and listening to a great local band.

We got back at 1.30, and I had to be at work at 10 this morning, so we didn't stay up too much later. Now I'm back from work, and I think I'm going to eat some food, take a shower, and go to bed - this weekend has completely worn me out. But Saturday was a wonderful, wonderful day. Can't wait for next weekend - it won't be quite like this one, but it's Halloween weekend, so it's sure to be fun and exciting, and full of sweet costumes. I'm going to be a mermaid!

I was having a good week. And it was gearing up to be a pretty good weekend, too. A bike ride to Ballard with Ashley. A visit from my sister. My anniversary dinner with Jeff.

And then tonight, my brand-new bike got stolen.

This week just got a whole lot worse.

I forgot how busy life can be here at UW. There's always something I can fill my free time with. Sometimes, I have problems visualizing the concept of eternity, but right now I think I have a pretty good comparison: it's my life right now, where there are no breaks for rest or for fun. Every gap between classes and work has to be filled with homework, or some other sort of productivity. Thank goodness that's only in theory, not in practice, or else I'd have to shoot myself. In reality, I do allow a little bit of fun to slip its way in there. Probably not how my professors would like to have it, but it's definitely necessary...

Constant sleep-deprivation is also something I have to reacquaint myself with. In Tuebingen, I always had enough sleep because I had enough free time. Now, I consider it success if my lack of sleep doesn't result in me getting sick.

Other random notes that relate to my life at this moment:
-I am addicted to avocadoes. I eat at least one a day. I hope they are good for me. God knows I probably shouldn't be buying them, considering how much they cost.

-At work yesterday, there was a 4-pack of avocadoes in the trash because one of them had split open. The other three were fine, but they had to be tossed anyway because that's the policy at TJ's. Last time that happened, I wrote down the price on the spoils sheet and took the other 3 to the breakroom so people could eat them. It kills me to see such good food go to waste. Andrea would have a fit working at TJ's.

-I am going to buy myself a bike in the near future and ride it everywhere. I should do it sooner than later, or else I won't get to enjoy it in connection with the splendid weather we've been having lately.

-My neighbors are the coolest bunch of people ever. We all play dress-up every day.

-Being back at UW, I feel like I encounter a whole bunch of walking cliches as I make my way through campus. Sorority girls in their North Face jackets and their straightened hair. College boys with long hair and cargo pants. So much of the same thing. I'd rather see some diversity; I love seeing it when people are different and wear things they like, and do things they like to do. That's why normal is boring, and why my neighbors and housemates are so cool.

-My physics exam this morning wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. Sweet. Hopefully my bio stuff on Monday will go just as smoothly.

-I love and miss my family. They will be up tomorrow for the UW/OSU game, and I can't wait to see them.

-The sun is out, and I'm going to go enjoy it a bit before it's time for work. Ciao!

Work and school are, in an increasing effort to make me go insane, taking over my life and consuming all my time. Consequently, I have little room in my schedule for much besides working hard and then relaxing. As such, I rarely get around to blogging anymore. Maybe it's just as well, since I don't have much to blog about except for work and school...

... but since I am already posting, I might as well post a little bit of something. And it's going to be about customers in stores, especially at Trader Joe's, and what you should or should not do as a customer.

My list of do's will probably be short. But what else can you expect from the employee?

-DO ask the employees where stuff is. We'll help you find it faster than you just wandering around, and we don't mind.
-DO apologize for getting in the way of an employee, especially if they apologize to you first.
-DO be at least a little friendly when you interact with us. We're people, too!
-DO bring your own bags - either old paper ones or reusable cloth bags. Save a tree.
-DO bring things to our attention. We need to hear feedback, because we want to offer stuff that you people want to buy. We need to see when something is missing a price tag, or is located in the wrong place, because that way we can get a price on it, or move it.

Now, the list of don'ts:

-DON'T dig in the back for the freshest milk or cheese or meat, unless you need it to last a while. You should see the stuff that gets thrown away at night at a grocery store.
-DON'T just sit there and watch us bag your huge cartful of groceries. The checkers at TJ's don't usually have baggers, and it's stupid to just sit there and do nothing while the checker scans everything, then bags it for you. Help out!
-DON'T walk up creepily behind an employee and start asking your question. Say "excuse me" or "hi, can I ask you a question?" This is basic human decency. If you fail to lead into the conversation, how are we supposed to know you're talking to us? I think this has to be my pet peeve, when I'm doing something and a person behind me just blurts out something like "do you have any rice noodles?" It shows complete arrogance on the part of the customer.
-DON'T scold us for things like high prices or low quality of a product. Low-level employees have nothing to do with these things. Submit a complaint or talk to the management. They get paid more to deal with that kind of crap. We get paid low wages to stock shelves and lift boxes.

There are many reasons why customer service is crap. In Germany, they don't give a flying frick about customer service. You gotta eat anyway, right? So you have to shop at a grocery store. They win their consumers over with low prices. That way, they cut out this whole thing where you have to kowtow to the customers' every demand. The customers know that the employees personally don't care if you find everything you're looking for or not. In the US, the employees don't care either, but they have to pretend they do. It's really just a bunch of BS, and it's nice that Europeans tend to bypass that.

I'm sorry, I don't know how I got on that rant. I'll just go to bed now, since it's almost 3 am anyway. Have a good night.