Confessions of A Working Girl

Well, actually, at the moment, all I’m thinking of are textbooks, but in general, prices are going higher and it seems ridiculous. For example, now, regular fiction books are generally 7 or 8 dollars if you buy them new!

But at the moment my main complaint is about textbooks. Today I spent $154.23 on textbooks. It took over an hour of searching online and comparison shopping to get the prices that low. Total, I needed six textbooks. Two of them I managed to find on the paperbackswap site, so they only ended up being a little under three dollars each. The other textbooks weren’t as easy to find.

At one point I had eight or nine tabs open on my browser so that I could compare prices! I ended up buying the books from a few different sites. One book I found on ebay. I’ve used ebay before, so I wasn’t worried about that one. The other sites I bought from however, were sites that I had never used before.

One of them was Alibris or something like that. I got two of my books from there. The other site I’d at least heard of: it was Abe Books. They have decent prices for used regular books too. And it seemed that if you were not in any hurry to get the books, you could get free shipping, which is awesome.

On another topic: today I went with my dad to pick up Jin from his girlfriend’s house. (Why she can’t give him a ride once in a while I don’t understand). He was supposed to meet us at the nearby stop and shop at 12:30. We got there late…and Jin wasn’t there yet. I texted him after he ignored dad trying to call him, and he texted “We haven’t left yet.” He and his girlfriend didn’t end up getting there until 12:52!

Because of that twenty minutes–and the twenty minutes we had to spend in line at wal-mart, I missed getting to see Ki today. I was going to return her books…and she was going to lend me more to read. ^_^

Ah well. The way it worked out was that now, I’m going to meet her at 3 tomorrow, when she finishes work. Maybe I’ll get to go over her house! That’s always fun, and we talk for hours.

Oh, and I have to remember that Coche needs an oil change before I go back to school on the 18th…

1 Comment » Michelle:

January 29th, 2010 @ 3:04 pm I completely agree! I go to the same college you do, not sure if I mentioned that in any of the comments I wrote. We’re FB friends too. My mom introduced us at a Girl Scout event.

In my experience with Alibris their shipping is really expensive, but Abe Books has seemed pretty good. Chegg.com and Bookrenter.com are great for renting textbooks cheap.

Ok, I admit, the essay should have been done before now, since it’s due in…thirteen hours. But as usual I left it to last minute…

Arra, Sai and I agreed that we’d meet at 6 for dinner. Usually, Tuesday nights, we eat, then play pool, then I go to tai kwon do. Today, Arra and I ate dinner, and wondered where Sai was. She came in just as we had finished. One of her eyes was red, and she said that she wanted me to drive her to the hospital.

Her vision was blurry, she said, and it felt like there was something in her eye. The school nurse had suggested that she go to the hospital, and as she couldn’t drive with her vision blurry…

I’d never been to this hospital before, and neither had Sai. We had to follow the little blue signs with the H and the –> on them. When we got there, it took a few minutes to figure out which entrance to use…then we were told that where we needed to go was the Emergency Room, all the way on the other side of the building!

We went there, Sai signed in, and we sat down. I noticed that the time then was about 6:45. On the tv was playing the christmas carol where Scrooge McDuck plays Scrooge. At 7:30, a nurse called Sai.

On the tv, next came a Winnie-the-Pooh Christmas episode.  Sai came back. The nurse didn’t call her again until….eight something, I think, in the middle of ‘The year without Santa Claus.’ Then on tv was the so called sequel to the year without santa claus.The animation was different, and the voices were different. I liked that they put the Heat Miser/Snow Miser song in again, but that was about it.

Sai came out, ready to leave, at 9:45. Her eye felt better, and the doctor had given her a tiny tube of creme or something to put on it. We got back to the school around…10:20ish, I think. I sat with Sai while she ate her dinner, then came back to my room. Vivian was just getting ready to go to sleep (she has an 8 o clock class tomorrow) so I came out to the suite to write that essay.

My computer has 75% power left, so I better get going. Later, I’ll write about the conversation I had with the woman who was in the emergency room because her 6 year old daughter had a cough and a 104 degree fever.

My 12 o clock class was canceled today. Which in some ways is a pain, since I still have 1 and 2 o clock classes. So I’m sitting here and I’m bored. I don’t really want to start something, because then I’ll be annoyed that I don’t have enough time to finish.

There’s really no excuse for being bored since I probably have a lot to do…including an essay that’s due on Wednesday…but boredom is not ‘not having anything to do’. Boredom is ‘not feeling like doing anything that you could do.’

Anyway…the Touchstones teacher decided that we’re going to read Hamlet next. I read Hamlet in…uh…10th grade, I think. But my copy of it is at my house, not here at school. I didn’t want to buy another copy since I already have one, possibly two. (I got Oliver Twist though, I didn’t have that yet. And it was a copy from 1941! )I was going to check the school library for it, and I probably still will, but Vivian has a copy. And she has threatened that if anything happens to that copy…

It hasn’t been a problem up to now. But all of a sudden, a few of my suitemates are playing music at blasting levels. And now some of them and their friends are smoking on the balcony. A. That’s against the rules. and B. I’m sorta allergic to cigarette smoke. At the very least, it triggers the rest of my allergies, makes it so I can hardly breathe, and I hate the smell.

I can feel the tightening in my chest due to the smoke and my eyes burn a little…I’m wondering if I can get an official doctor’s note or something so that they can’t get mad at me when I tell them not to smoke. That’s the reason I haven’t said anything yet, by the way…I’m certain it will come out sounding pretentious and stuck up–partially because I don’t think I would be able to avoid adding “Plus, it’s against the rules to smoke on the balcony.”

The music started last night. Until past 11 something it was pounding so loud that I wouldn’t have been able to get to sleep if I tried. Plus, Vivien just said that one of them was sleeping with a guy up till like 2 am. I didn’t even want to ask how she knew that, but her exact words were “Be glad that you were asleep!”

I’m flat out astounded and disappointed in my suitemates, though I don’t know why I expected better. I suppose it’s because I always make sure that my music isn’t loud enough to bother anyone. And if it is, I immediately turn it down. And I don’t smoke, for the reasons stated above.

With their music that loud though, I can’t really listen to my own music, or watch a movie, or practice violin, or piano or recorder…

One of them just turned the music down, but that’s only ’cause she called someone on the phone.

If this keeps up, it’s going to be a very long rest of the year. Very long…I’ll be deaf and unable to breathe.

(And just for the record, it’s not all of my suitemates that are a problem. Vivien’s not a problem, and two or three of the others I have no problem with. It seems to be mostly the two in the room next to Vivien’s and mine and one of the ones in the room across from ours. The other three I don’t really see all that often, and when I do they seem to be quiet and polite.)

I went to Tai Kwon Do club tonight, and we had new materials. New paddles to kick, a rubber gun, a rubber knife, and a re-breakable board.

It’s odd…the re-breakable board is made of plastic. When you kick (or hit) it the two pieces come apart. But then you slide them back together and its one board again!

When I first saw the board and tried to kick it, it hurt! So when we had to try again, I was like “This isn’t going to work.” Matthew asked “What did you say?” And then he made me say “I will break the board.” And you know what? I did! Twice! Once with a downward kick and once with a side kick. The funny thing is, it doesn’t hurt as much when you break it as it does if you just kick it.

My goal is that next year, I will not be in the U.S. Not that I don’t like the U.S., but I want to travel and experience other cultures. And its slightly cheaper to do so while you are a student…thus, study abroad.

If all goes as planned, I will spend the fall 2010 semester in Spain, and the spring 2011 semester in Japan. My only worry is that I might get homesick, since both of those countries are far, far from New England.

At the moment, the semester in Spain (or any other Spanish speaking country) is mandatory, since I just decided to double major. I am now majoring in Criminal Justice and Spanish for Business. Part of the Spanish major is that you have to spend a semester abroad in a Spanish speaking country.

The semester in Japan is just ’cause I want to.

Currently, I am still looking through catalogs and brochures to try to decide which study abroad program is best. So far, for Spain, I like the ISA program. Part of the reason, I admit, is the study abroad fair. At the study abroad fair, the representative was very helpful and cheerful, and so I immediately (or almost immediately) decided that I liked the sound of that particular program. Too bad they don’t go to Japan as well–I’ll have to find a separate program for that.

Sorry for the odd title, but I’m still jumpy and nervous. See, about an hour ago at 10:30, all of a sudden the fire alarm went off! It always makes me jump (well, perhaps I shouldn’t say ‘always’ since this is only the second time that I’ve heard it). Anyway, the fire drill only lasted a few minutes. What was weird was when I opened the room door, there was someone from Public Safety standing in our suite. That seemed odd, since we’re on the fourth floor. I started to wonder if perhaps his job was to search the rooms real quick and that’s why they set off the alarm. It’s possible–plus when I texted Arra, she said that she’d just had a fire drill as well! (She’s in a different building than Vivien and I).

My sister Kana is turning 12 tomorrow! I’ll have to remember to call her. According to my dad, she’s been pushing really hard for a computer. My reaction was ’she’s 12. I didn’t get my first computer till I was almost done with high school!’ But my parents seem to like the idea. So they thought that they’d give her my old computer. They told me that. They didn’t ask. It’s like, yes, it is my old computer, but it’s still mine! When I said something to that effect, my dad said ‘its not like we’re leaving you with no computer’ And I said ‘yeah, but…’ *blows a raspberry at dad*

My other problem with giving her the computer is that my stuff is not off of it yet. I can’t remember what exactly is on my old computer, but stuff still is. My parents were all ‘oh we’ll give her a non-administrator account’ But that doesn’t mean that she can’t access my files!

Sometimes I hate being the oldest. Things I had to wait a loooooooonnnnnngggggg time to get, my siblings get years and years before I did. For example, this thing with the computer. I was 17. Kana is 12. See the difference? Arrgh, sometimes it makes me want to hit my head against a tree. Although that never seemed to help Charlie Brown–and it hurts.

Here’s hoping that the fire alarm doesn’t go off again anytime soon…

2 Comments » Dad:

October 6th, 2009 @ 9:39 am Just because the others get stuff (and yes, it’s only stuff…and stuff doesn’t really matter) before you did, doesn’t change the fact that you’re my first born and oldest, and that you were the first one to get everything both good and bad. Consider yourself a trail blazer.

I’m sorry if you didn’t feel that I asked…I thought I did.

P.S. Rasberry right back at ya…

Michelle:

January 29th, 2010 @ 1:29 pm I love your blog! I especially agree with how it stinks being the oldest because your younger siblings gets stuff so much earlier than you did.

Waiting always makes time seem longer, doesn’t it? Time stretches and stretches and did you know that on one of the walls in the campus center at my school there are 156 bricks?

 When I finished with classes at 12:15, I went with Vivien to the blood drive. I wasn’t going to give blood–I hate needles–but she was. And since she suspected that there would be a wait, she thought she would get bored. We both did.  We got to the campus center–where the blood drive was–around 12:30. Vivien got number 63 for waiting. The first hint that the wait might be a little long was that when we got there, number 54 was still waiting. While sitting there waiting, we met two other girls who were also waiting. Funny, but we never actually asked for each other’s names, despite the two hours we were talking. 

Yes, it was two hours. Over, even. Vivien’s number didn’t get called until close to three. And she didn’t get done actually donating blood till about 4:10. I was astonished that it took so long. I thought the whole point of blood drives was to get blood donated quickly. When we finally left, there were people still waiting. O.o 

On another note, that boy from Tai Kwon Do–Matthew? I figured out which class of mine he’s in. He’s in my touchstones of western literature class. And he sits diagonally behind me. Why didn’t  I notice earlier? Perhaps detective wouldn’t be a good idea for a job choice if I miss that much.  

Speaking of classes, I was debating maybe changing to a double major. Criminal Justice and Spanish for business. I mean, I’ve been taking spanish since 7th grade so I’m not completely horrible at it…

I joined the Tae Kwon Do club at my school. Tonight was the first time I went. I went not really knowing much about Tae Kwon Do, except that it is a martial art, and that the kid in charge is in one of my classes. I had to sort of laugh at myself.

The day that the clubs were recruiting people, I walked over to the Tae Kwon Do table, because it sounded interesting. The paper on the table said to call “Matthew”  for more information. So I asked the boy that was standing there, “Are you Matthew then?” he said yes, and I started to introduce myself. “I’m Wen…” His reply? “I know, you were in my class this morning.” I was like Ooooooooh. I felt so stupid. I quickly said something along the lines of “This year I’m all confused!” and then left.

I did go to the Tae Kwon Do meeting though. It was fun! We practiced three kicks and two punches. And we’ll be learning more. Matthew said that eventually, we may even have more than one meeting a week, depending on how many kids show up. Tonight there were only seven of us, but that was fine. I don’t remember anyone else’s names, of course, but I know what they look like! 

As I’ve mentioned before, my roommate Vivien and I get along pretty well. But every so often it seems like she’s mad at me. I don’t know if that’s true, or not, but… Take today for example. I had music on when she came into the room. I went to go fill the ice cube tray (the fridge she brought has an actual working freezer! Yay! Frozen grapes! ^_^ ) and I come back and she’s putting on her headphones. I said “Oh, sorry is my music bothering you?” If it was, I would have turned it off (I forgot my headphones at home, silly me) She mumbled something I didn’t quite catch. It sounded sorta like “I don’t want to listen to that right now.” Perhaps she’s not really angry in situations like that, but it really does seem it a little. In a way, its weird. One minute we’ll be getting along, the next it’ll seem like angry silence. Maybe I’m reading into it too much. 

 Anyway, one of the songs that popped on from my playlist was ‘Someone in a tree’ from Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. The theme of the song is interesting. Instead of saying that the main part is the event, in that song it says that the main points are the little things. The song says (and this is a direct quote) “It’s the pebble not the stream, It’s the ripple, not the sea. Not the building but the beam, Not the garden but the stone, Not the treaty house but someone in a tree.” My dad and I both think that its a neat idea. The idea that its not the main event that causes things to happen, but the small things. Also, at one point in the song, the person in the tree says something about “If I weren’t whose to say things would happen just this way?” I like that view point.