Back to School Again

What started off as a good day soon went downhill. On the good side, two of my professors decided not to ahve classes on Friday, so I only have one, sometimes two, classes on Fridays. My Begining Acting professor is awesome too. He is just a very funny person. It also looks like all but my Creative Drama class will be easy. The bad part of my day happened when I got to work. I left my dorm and got all the way to Holmes before I realized I forgot my lock for my locker, so I had to run back. Luckily, I wasn't in the dish room today, I started off serving at Home Plate. It's super hot back there and I got mashed potatoes all over my shirt. It's also very hectic over there. Halfway through the shift, I got transfer to the deli. I'm not sure if that means I wasn't doing a good job or what. At least it's cooler back there. While I was I was still at Home Plate, I kept having to serve mashed potatoes to all these football players and they kept saying "thank you ma'm." It was weird hearing people call me ma'm. They also kept wanting a ton of gravy on their potatoes. After work I was so tired that I started being super clumsy. I also got severely mosquito bitten at "Northern at Night" last night. I have about ten bug bites. My ankle is three times it's normal size. And I've had no time to run and get Benedryl. It's not fun having to work when you are swollen and itchy all over.

I Can Feel the Earth Moving! It's Moving Too Fast! Raj! Slow it Down!

My first day of work was a double shift on dirty side dishes both times. On dirty side dishes there is a conveyor belt that carries the trays four high from the eating area to the dish area. Someone then takes the silverware off and divides them up into a tray of soapy water. Someone else takes the trays off the conveyor belt, while the other two dump the food into the pulper and puts everything on the conveyor belt to the dish washing machine. Breakfast shift was nice. There was only a count of around 100 to 200 people, so we didn't have much to do. Every once in awhile there'd be a tray or two and the four of us would take turns cleaning off the tray. While we weren't busy we we played a game where one person asked a question and everyone else answered. Me and one of the other guys both love hockey, so we got along really well. We also did dish room yoga and all did trees. When it got too hot we also had time to put the hose in front of the fan and mist everyone.

Lunch shift, however, was an entirely different story. We had a count of close to 1400 people. I was on silverware duty. There were so many trays that I could not keep up. I stared at the tray conveyor belt for so long that I started feeling dizzy. After two hours, my mind had turned to mush. My entire train of thought consisted of "fork, fork, knife, spoon, fork, too fast! slow down! fork, spoon." We didn't even have time for drink or bathroom breaks. And then once the dining hall wanted to close, people would not leave and we kept getting trays when we wanted to start cleaning up. Cleaning up was also not fun. The floor was super wet and dangerously slippery. I almost fell a bunch of times. And I soaked myself while using the hose to clean everything off. At the end of the day I was exhausted, in pain, and soaked. At least I don't have work tomorrow.

We're Going on an Adventure Charlie, An Adventure!

I'm currently writing this post while watching "Sherlock Holmes" on our new tv. Carlin moved in yesterday, while everyone else on campus moved in this morning. Carlin's side of the room is practically overflowing with stuff. At least we got all the boxes out this morning. Last night we had unloaded about half the boxes, but were so tired that we gave up till this morning. After we had unloaded everything westill had a million boxes to get rid of. Not wanting to go all the way to the dumpster, we secretly put everything in the room next door where the glass and aluminium recyling can is. We have also dubbed that room as the "spare oom." Today, we had to run out and get a surge protector and coaxial cable, among other things. We went to Walmart first, thinking that it would have all that stuff. But all they had were 100 foot cables and unhelpful employees. When we left the store, it was starting to rain and it looked like a big storm was going to come in. We figured we could run to Target and be back before it got to bad. Oh, how wrong we were. We got down the road a ways until we came to an intersection where we had to cross three lanes of oncoming traffic, then four more lanes of traffic to get to where we needed. All this during heavy traffic and pouring rain. It took forever to get an opening and I thought we were going to be hit. With much diffuculty, we got over onto a road that was filled with so much water I thought we would hydroplane. It was the scariest driving trip I had ever done. We managed to get Carlin the last egg chair in stock at Target and finally found the cable at Best Buy. Later, Carlin went across campus to find on of her friends and I had just changed into my pajamas when the fire alarm rang. I quickly managed to yank on a pair of jeans, but still had on my pajama shirt. I then had to stand outside for a half an hour before they let us back in. Tomorrow I have my first actually day of work. I have to get up at five to work a double shift that I won't ever work again, so that'll be fun.

The Work Song Nanocluster

Well the train came back last night. And earlier when I started writing this. I've kinda started to expect it. Same with the cow smell. I had my first day of actual training today. It was long and mostly common sense stuff. I had emergency training, then customer service training, then chemical training, then lunch, followed by food allergy training, then a tour of Holmes, then paperwork. At least I go a hat out of it. Although the hat comes out of my pay, so it's not really a deal. Most of the training was lecture stuff. But during customer service training, we got to watch a video called "Cliff's Customer Service Adventure." It was like one of those lame movies they make you watch in school, one of those movies that tries to be funny, but isn't. And most of the training was cramming a ton of information in our heads. I don't think I retained much of anything from the entire day. Especially since us Holmes kids missed half the chemical training. All I know is: chemicals = dangerous. And that you're supposed to hold knives like psycho killer guy when you carry them. And be careful with food allergies (duh). And the typical customer service spiel about being polite and pay attention to the customers. And that you can think mean things about the customers, but don't mutter them, cause the acoustics in the dining halls pick up everything. Tonight's not being able to sleep problem will not be because of noise; this time it will be from the heat and the fact that I am starving and no food. I can't wait till breakfast. Mmm, coffee and oatmeal.

Homesick is a Type of Being Sick

I thought I'd do better today with homesickness, then it started to storm. Nothing like thunder and strong winds to make a person feel less lonely *holds up sarcasm sign* But I had awesome oatmeal and banana bread for breakfast this morning. It's nice how little things like that can make a person feel better. Watching funny tv shows help too. I've been watching more episodes of "Drake & Josh" and "Big Bang Theory" while laughing hysterically out loud. If anyone on my floor can hear me, they probably think I'm crazy. Ah well. Laughter really is the best medicine. So is the grain food group. Mmm, bread. That's one thing we don't enough of up here. That and air conditioning. It's super hot here, then it rains and gets hotter and muggy. But I know in a few months I'll be freezing my butt off. I look forward to fall. No snow and it's cooler. Oh and something Greeley forgot to mention in the brochures is how close the train tracks are to west campus. And that really long, really loud trains tend to go past in the middle of the night at the same time as loud helicopters. Greeley does not like me to sleep apparently. Well see what happens tonight. Maybe a plane headed to crash on a mysterious island will add to the noise levels tonight.

A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Or today in Greeley. But Greeley still seems super far away. And super boring. All I've done today is eat and watch episodes of "Drake & Josh" and "Big Bang Theory" on my laptop. Well that and felt homesick. It's like when I helped at Outdoor Lab. Everything"s all peachy keen during the day, but once it gets to be late you start feeling lonely. And it doesn't help that I'm alone up here. I'm the type of person who doesn't like being alone. I like time by myself, but only when there's other people nearby. At least I only have a few days of this total aloneness. Although i won't like all the extra noise from the neighbors. It's already too loud for my taste. I constantly hear people walking upstairs and chairs scraping against the floor. And there's a group of really loud people that were outside for hours last night. But enough of my whining. I"m just going to get ready for bed early and watch more tv. Hopefully I can get sleep, unlike last night. It's super hot in Greeley and that makes it even harder to sleep.