Today was my longest day of work thus far, and actually my longest day this whole school year thus far. I had classes at 8, 10, and 11 and my 11 o'clock class got out at 11:50, leaving me the needed 10 minutes to walk to work. Actually, I warned the teacher beforehand (because she has a tendency to go at least five minutes over time) that it took me approximately 8 minutes to walk to work, and if class wasn't done by then I'd just have to leave.

Then I worked from noon to 6. It was fun. It rained all day today, without letting up once. It was raining when I woke up. It is raining now. I walked in the rain all day long. My sweatshirt got really wet. My hair got really wet. My shoes got really wet. So did my backpack. And my pants. In fact, today is just a really wet day.

But I had an epiphany as I walked down now-familiar 82nd and turned into Glisan and saw a glimpse of Sutcliffe Hall, the first sign of Multnomah visible from the intersection. Dusk was setting in. I had taken off my glasses because the large drops on them made it harder to see than with my glasses on. It was dusk, it was blurry. It was ever-present rush hour. I waited about five seconds after the "walk" sign came on to cross the intersection - I used to be frustrated. Why doesn't "red" mean "red"? Why does "red" mean "two or three cars can go on red, and who cares if there is a pedestrian there." Now, I just wait patiently and take it as a matter of course. Car headlights were glaring in my eyes. I looked down the street where Dr. Garry Friesen lives. I looked over at Montavilla, the park that seriously gives me the creeps at night. It was rainy and cold and a new smell, usually unpleasant, hit my nose every minute. People getting off a bus bumped into me and gave me ugly looks. A car pulling out of a driveway and trying to get onto the main street backed off the sidewalk so I could walk without stepping in an ankle-deep puddle. The next car didn't back up and I ended up tiptoing around the front with my hand ready to catch its front bumper in case I fell (I could have gone around the back, but this was shorter.)

My epiphany was this: I love Portland. I don't really know why. Actually, it probably isn't too different from Seattle as far as the weather goes. As far as coffee goes, there are some differences. Seattle is considered "Starbucks city." Portland is known for its many small, independently run coffee shops.

Maybe I don't always love Portland. Maybe it was the dusk and the long-awaited rain that made me feel so happy. Or the feeling of finally getting off work and being damp and wet at the same time (damp from wearing the same sweatshirt that had gotten soaked earlier that day, and wet from the new rain adding to the moisture and running down my face and making it look like I was crying but I wasn't!) and looking forward to a very long, very hot shower (since no one else would be taking one, the water pressure should be good, and my favorite stall, the one that will actually get my hair wet in under a minute, should be open) and maybe a movie at Jessica's house tonight, who knows.

Anyway, I feel very content now. I have the room to myself this weekend; I had forgotten that Toni would be gone. Actually, all week I have been having this craving for having to be around my friends, but tonight, for the first time in a long time, I don't really. I just want to lay around and drink some of the tea becca sent me (thanks becca!) and clean a little, read a little, do a bit of homework, do some memorizing/quoting, and maybe eventually go over to Jess'.

I think I will clean a little bit now.

But before I go, I must tell you about the customer I had today, just to get it off my chest.

I was making a Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich for his girlfriend,and I put three lines of Ranch dressing on it. Now, Ranch dressing is much runnier than, say, mayonnaise, and so when you put it on, it kind of spreads out to cover the sandwich instead of staying in little distinct lines. The guy said, "Hey, when did you start putting so much Ranch on? Gosh."

I said, "Actually, that's the standard amount - three lines across."

He didn't say anything until a minute later, when my coworker was putting mayonnaise and mustard on someone else's sandwich. Then he pointed at it and said to me, "You see that? Now that is the right amount of Ranch. You put way too much on. She put just enough on."

I said, 'That's because it's mayonnaise. Ranch is more runny! I'm sorry!"

He said in a mocking tone, "Are you arguing with me?" I said, "No." He went up to the cash register to wait for me to wrap up his sandwiches. I could hardly concentrate enough to finish up the order. He said he wanted it to go, and I pulled out a tray. He handed me a 20 and I hit the button that said 50.

Then I went in the back, and - I couldn't help it - I cried.

Karen came back. Karen is an older lady who has worked there for six years. Or five; I can't remember. Anyway, she was so sweet. She was like "Well, I'm Mom Karen around here. Don't pay him no mind, honey; he was a jerk." She used a few words that I won't repeat here, but her heart was so kind to me. It made me happy. She kept complimenting me on my speed and accuracy. Keep in mind that I have never been complimented on my work before except by a customer, because my former job SUCKED.

Also! Karen had been worried about working with me all day on a Friday (busy day). Apparently she told my manager (and this story was told me by both Karen and my manager), "You're putting me with a new girl on a FRIDAY?!" One thing was, she didn't realize I had worked at a Subway before. Once she saw that I could handle things, and only had questions about where things were located and stuff, it was all good.

About people who constantly call me "hon", "honey", and "sweetheart" - there is no way they will get away with it unless they are over 20 years older than me. Oh, and they have to be female, too. Karen calls me all that stuff, and I don't mind, because she's at least my mom's age.

Gah, there was this 35-40ish man today who just kept smiling at me. I normally don't consider this to be a bad thing, but when I start to feel really uncomfortable, I tend to trust my intuition and assume that I don't want to act too friendly toward that character. Gah, it freaked me out.

But! We made like 7 bucks in tips today, so we split it, and I finally had enough to buy myself some deoderant! Well, I'm kind of lying. I don't want to use the money currently in my savings account unless I absolutely have to. I'm really anticipating my first paycheck. I want the money spent during the school year to be made during the school year, and the money left over from this summer should be saved.

Anyway. Bye now!

okay okay okay okay okay.

Since I'm at the library and using the computer, I'll post something. But I came here to print out music. Which I'm doing. So this won't be long. I don't think.

Uh.

I don't really know what to write about. Today has been a really good day! haha. I've been in such a good mood all morning. I think part of it was how I ended my night last night and part of it is because of how my morning has gone, and another part of it is just that I have a lot to be happy about. I got sent home from work early too. My boss actually wouldn't allow me stay more than three hours because it's my birthday and I should be out "enjoying the day." Weird concept, I wanted the hours. ha. Anyway, now I don't really know what to do. Actually, I do, because I have plenty of things to get done. I just wasn't expecting to get them done today so now it feels like I don't know what to do.

um.

I really am in a weird mood.

Amber called me today. haha. She got my package. woo. I'm glad you liked it. My phone was set to silent but it started making noise anyway, and it sort of startled me so I dropped like three boxes of tap shoes on my head. I had to move about 100 of them today.

I'm going to write about something really boring that I would probably never talk about otherwise. Well, I might talk about it. But, I only ever write boring things on here.

At work today, one of the dance teachers/fill-in receptionist brought a letter over to the boutique, and she set it in the fax machine for my boss to proof-read when she came in. I read through it. Every line had at least one obvious mispelling or typo, and the grammar was so bad, I had to read several of the sentences over and over again before it made any sense. She had already double-checked it and fixed the mistakes. Or, mistake. She pluralized "dance." But, she missed "hurrican," "victum," "gendre" and a few other words, and plenty of run on sentences with commas all in the most nonsensical places you could think of. Not to be critical or anything. But, she's getting paid for this. It seems to me that if she's writing a letter to represent the business and in this letter, wanting to clearly communicate an event which requires a lot of coordination - on everybodies part - that it shouldn't be entirely made up with poor english. It doesn't seem quite as reassuring that something is actually going to happen smoothly if the information about it is difficult to understand.
And maybe you're reading this rant and counting up the mistakes I've made in my own writing. My point isn't really to criticize anyone's writing ability though. It's just interesting, after working from place to place, to see the different levels and standards people have - business to business and mine to theirs.

When my boss came in, I told her that it had some mistakes and then she looked over it and said, "um, what mistakes are you talking about?" and so I pointed them all out. I don't consider myself much of an english buff - I mispell plenty of words and my grammar or "writing technique" would be embarrassing to brag about. It's just interesting that it would've been sent off like that if I hadn't said anything. That would've been such a poor letter to send out, and it was one asking a favor of the studios. Not that the grammar is ever going to come to a perfect standard of "correct!" But, it should convey what the author is trying to say, and in this case, show the line of professionalism the business is trying to draw.

Actually, I think I'm just trying to get a raise.

wow, this got long. I need to leave.

-becca

I just woke up from a fun nap dream. Allow me to share.

I was at some event. A lot of people from school were there. We all sat in rows of chairs outside. We were singing choir songs as worship songs. I was sitting between two second sopranos, but suddenly I was a super high first soprano so I switched places with the one beside me. The song was really fun to sing, but the guy who was leading it had a bad attitude. After the first two verses, he said out loud, "Man, there's not very many of you here." And halfway through the third verse, he stopped singing, stopped directing, and said "That's all. There's not enough people." I was kind of disappointed that he had stopped in the middle of the song, jerk.

Then I was helping him clean in a very dark house. I kept seeing a small shadow scurrying around, and I knew it must be a squirrel, because we were in the woods. I tried to open the window to let it go out but there were screens on the window. So, finally, I went and stood by the door, flipped on a light, and knelt on the ground with my hands out. The squirrel ran across the room into my hands, shivering with fright and squirming. It had really long eyelashes. I was afraid it would bite me but it didn't. I opened the door and threw it outside, and it turned into a grandma deer. I think it had glasses. And it had on a nightgown that was half hot pink and half blue. It said in a gravelly voice, "You know, I would have stayed longer, but you don't have any butter in your house." Then it leaped away.

At this point, my phone rang and woke me up, but I didn't mind too much because it seemed like a good place to end my dream, and I had good feelings about the cute little squirrel that had run into my hands.

I wasn't going to post about my first day at work, since I didn't think it would be that exciting. But I have to say, this is going to be really fun. For one thing, the building is at least three times as big as the one I worked in this summer. This means there is actually space to put things and to walk around. It's hard to explain how wonderful that is, but it gives a whole new, relaxed atmosphere to the whole place.

My manager is young and very nice. I like her a lot. She actually paid me for the time I came in to be trained today! I didn't start getting paid for my hours at my old job until a few days after I started working there. I was lucky; other former coworkers of mine didn't get paid for their first week of work!

Which reminds me; my old boss still hasn't sent me my last paycheck, as far as I know. I should call my parents to see if it's come.

It was so, so nice learning the correct way to do things, and it helped that I already knew almost everything. The people who work there are nice, and they've all worked there for at least a year - this compared to my former workplace, where on average we had someone quitting every week over two months.

Anyway, today was kind of full because of my first work day. I had classes and work straight from 8 am to 8 pm. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm very happy about that.

I think I have made it clear that my summer work experience was not enjoyable. I hope I have made clear the reasons it was so. In case I didn't, let me explain.

-I like Subway food.
-I like promoting a healthy product in selling Subway food.
-I like making sandwiches.
-I like customer interaction.
In other words, I like the actual WORK part of Subway.

Here are the reasons I did not have a good experience:

-There were communication issues with my boss.
-There was a major lack of organization everywhere.
-There was not a very strict adherence to the health code.
-In fact, there was not much adherence to anything.
In other words, my only objections were not the fault of Subway itself; they were problems with the ownership.

The above justifies my recent actions in filling out a Subway application, making a follow up visit and phone call, going in for an interview tonight, and getting a job there.

The place is clean. There is a standard, very organized procedure for everything that I really care about. My boss is down to earth, flexible with my schedule, and nice. I have still never had a real interview. My first job interview was "Okay, customer service, it IMPORTANT, okay, now you come and I show you how make sandwich." This one was just, "So, what hours are you available? Okay, can you come in Thursday? Okay."

I am super excited about actually getting trained.

I now have to go.

Oh, and for those who keep asking (or who I haven't talked to but I know would ask me if I did talk to them), classes are great, church is pretty good, I like my friends, and my roommate and I have not exploded each other up yet.

Bye!

I'm typing this as a drug bust is going on directly outside of my window, in the park. The two police are picking up all these syringes and talking to a sobbing lady in handcuffs about where she got the money for the drugs. Oh, they just led her away.

Just thought that was interesting; now, back to MATH!

The scent of musty cardboard boxes wafts through the room as I sneeze from the unsettling dust in the air. Three hours pass, I sit down with a sigh, reach for my water bottle and look at what I've accomplished. Books, papers, stuffed animals, and clothes congregated into categories of "to keep," "to get rid of," and "for kaitie to decide" sit on the floor in heaps. Things that were once on shelves are now on the floor, causing the room to seem much smaller.

It's official: We're moving.

We found a nice little house about ten minutes away, fully remodeled and soon-to-be landscaped. Same square footage, but the bedrooms are bigger and there are two showers instead of one. And a very nice kitchen. So, maybe I can be more excited about it. It's just a weird time for it to happen, because everyone in our family is doing so much right now, it's really hard to find time when we're all home together for a day. None of us can really get time off of work.

But I'm thankful that we were able to find a house so quickly - we had to move one way or the other, and God provided something right away and it really is a nicer house than where we're living now. I just pray we'll be able to just do it and get it over with. But I know we will. I guess I'm not really worried about it at all.

I'm kind of sick of talking about it though. I just thought I should, since it's the most interesting thing I could think to write about, and blogs are supposed to be interesting.

Amber, I still haven't sent your package. It'll probably be a few days before I do. I got your letter though.

Oh I could tell about my class last night.

The class I'm taking with CEF - Teaching Children Effectively 1 - started last night. I pretty much really enjoyed it. It's fun taking a class taught by people I've been working with for the past three years. I've been looking forward to it a lot more because I knew the instructors would do a really good job. There were a few things that I didn't really agree with, but that happens, and they weren't very important. It's like CYIA training all over again, except with adults this time. It was a lot of fun going over the worldess book again too. I haven't done it in a while, since last October at a street fair.

It was funny filling out the questionaire/registration they had. I guess it gets sent to the teaching institute in warrenton, MO. It asks these questions like "how do you serve in your church" and "what do you expect to do with what you learn from this course." Because, of course they want people to go to their school. But, filling it out, I didn't really know exactly. I guess I just wanted to learn more about teaching kids, but not necessarily teaching kids with CEF. I might still go to their school, I'll probably continue to volunteer with CEF as long as it feels like what I should be doing, but I don't really feel a life calling to working with CEF. But then again, I guess I've never really been in one ministry for longer than a couple of years anyway, so I don't know. I never expect to stay in any one thing that long. I've always looked at this as I'm able to be used by God to teach kids this way while I'm being trained to serve him another way.

anyway.

I should get back to packing/cleaning. I only have a couple of hours left before work.

I'm so sick of computers right now, I don't think I can even tell you how much. This laptop is going in the bag.

-becca

(there, I've posted.)

Oh good, becca posted. For a while I was afraid this had turned into a monoblogue. (ha, hahahahahahaha...)

I'm memorizing Ruth for a class.

My favorite class is O.T. History with Ray Lubeck. Man, I'm so glad I have a free hour after that class, because afterward I feel like just thinking about everything. This is a class where I am unashamedly, genuinely amazed and interested in everything that is said. This is a class where, if it continued for an extra hour beyond class, I would stay and listen. This is the only class where my pen is constantly causing smoke on either my notebook or my Bible. If I were ever to use a tape recorder in a class, it would be here. Ray makes the Old Testament come alive. Not only that, but he's constantly emphasizing the importance of viewing the Bible as one story instead of examining each individual book.

I am constantly writing down quotes.

Here's a few from this morning's class (I can't tell if they mean the same thing without the context of the rest of the lecture, but here they are):

-"The Bible is a chicken. It's not merely a box of nuggets." (on the importance of stepping back and seeing the Bible as a whole story.)

-(not an exact quote). We tend to be an instant gratification, quick fix society, and we treat the Bible the same way. So we take a few "significant" verses at a time, read/memorize them for our "spiritual buzz", and we "like" those verses because they "mean so much" to "us". In other words, the Bible is all about making "us" feel warm and happy about God.

-(direct quote) "Our tendency is to read the Bible individualistically - as if it's about 'me' and 'Jesus'." This is because we are not a communal society - we are completely individualistic.

-Every sin has this idea behind it: "I can make myself happier than God is going to make me." There's other stuff too but I don't think it would make sense without the rest. Kind of in the same way that the way we interpret the Bible is often skewed because we only read a book at a time, and it's out of context. He gave this example today - Suppose you read the Chronicles of Narnia a chapter a day, but every day you read a random chapter from a random book. Eventually, you may or may not get through the whole series, but it doesn’t make sense unless you take the series as a whole.

I had written other things and copied other notes, but blogger deleted them. I got an error message when I tried to publish that I’ve never gotten before – “blog not found.” Uh. At least I was able to recover about half the post, which is probably as much theology as you could stand anyway. It’s not really theology though, just notes from a theology course, and really stuff that we should all know anyway.

I can't believe it. It happened again. I typed more stuff and tried to post and I got, "the blog you were looking for was not found. This SUCKS! I might have to do something drastic if blogger continues to have such poor service!

hi amber!

I had a flat tire tonight. It was raining. I was actually really enjoying just sitting in my car listening and staring out into the pouring rain. My sister was with me. We were quiet for a little bit, but she seemed kind of tense. She kept saying that I should call and tell someone other than my parents where we were, even though my parents were almost there. I was just ranting about how stupid I had decided Triple A is. I can't believe my dad makes me pay for them. We eventually just decided to quote James back and forth, verse by verse, until we ran out of material we knew. It was nice. My parents showed up and my dad talked to AAA FOREVER then he told me to drive home in his car. But, I couldn't leave because he needed the light from his car anyway. Then he changed my tire and he told me to get back in my car and drive home and they'd follow. Then he passed me. It was funny, I don't know why. It's not really a big deal. It's just a car and maybe an hour or so of my time. Well, and my dads. And moms. Things happen and you deal. There's no need to worry about it though.

I was only a block away from the Thompsons house anyway.


I think the only time something like that has really bothered me was when I hit that deer at 4:30 in the morning. But, that was because a deer is really quite a large animal and it's rather startling when one hits your car - especially when you happen to be driving 40 miles an hour - I was in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't really have anyone to call and tell, because I was at work by myself and uh, it was 4:30 in the morning. Besides that being too early to call anyone, I wasn't entirely thinking straight since I hadn't really fully woken up yet, and I wasn't hurt or anything. Just kind of jumpy and shook-up.

I am really tired, so I think I'm going to go to bed. I have a feeling I might play guitar for a little while though. If my fingers will hold up for anymore today. ha. I'm already enjoying using the amp I'm borrowing. It's nice to be able to play my strat again. Thanks michael!

ooh. I had a wierd dream last night about a car accident. It was weird, because it woke me up, but I wasn't like, frightened or anything by it. I just didn't get back to sleep right away because I started thinking about a bunch of stuff. That's probably why I'm so tired.

-becca

hi! I'm at school. Just so everyone knows:

-I love my roommate.
-I like my classes. For the most part. I think.
-I am happy to be here.
-I am not homesick (yet).
-I do not yet have a job. Please don't make me go into details about how hard I'm looking; I am looking, I promise.

Now, for those who want the details about things:

-My roommate's name is Toni!
-My classes are: Old Testament History and Poetry, Advanced Writing, Precalculus, Choir, and General Psychology.
-I am taking 15 credits.