Confessions of A Working Girl

So, obviously, I'm really bad at remembering to update this journal. I remember to pray every night, but I can't remember to update with even at least a photo? But I'm going to start. That's my early new year's resolution. Starting Samhain (Oct 31, the wiccan new year) I will post at least a photo every day.

Anyway, updating for now. Well, I'm "graduating" in December. That is, I'll be done with classes in December, but I won't get the piece of paper saying that I have a Bachelor's in Spanish for Business and an Associate's in Criminal Justice until I finish paying off the school. And then there will be all the loans to worry about. But I don't want to think of that yet...

Speaking of Criminal Justice, I had a speech due for that class today. Luckily, it was a group speech. But, because the teacher kept stopping us to add in information, we didn't quite finish, and will have to continue on Thursday. I'll have to talk more too...I was pretty quiet today.  I was nervous though...I was twisting my hands behind my back so hard that I made my arm numb. I don't think anyone noticed...

A photo that I meant to post was from last week when I saw my grandparents. Grandma already decorated for Halloween, a little.

Rhi decided to sit there talking to the witch, so I had to take a photo. ^_^

And here's today's photo:

This is a photo of the back of my dorm (the newest dorm on campus) and the little pavilion they built that's next to it. Also a mountain. I liked the fall colors.

This is today's picture of the day. ^_^

Oh, and the play ended up working out fine. I just panic and get annoyed too easily. They did apologixe for being late, after all. The other kids arrived, and the play was cute. Which is good...cast party for the kids next week. I saw their mom filming it, but will give them each a copy from what my brother filmed as well.

We went to visit my grandparents this morning--my dad's parents. Their situation has changed a lot since I last blogged about it. Now they live in an apartment in a senior community instead of at the house. They managed to sell the house too, despite the bad seller's market. So they live at the apartment now, and have for about a year.The wooden clown in the picture is something my grandfather made, and it stands in their apartment in the corner. (The other clown is just something glass, I think....)

Oh, and dad, the comments thing should be working fine...

My grandfather’s back at his house now. From what I heard, he’s much better. I even talked to him on the phone today, and he sounded fine. 

The busy part I mentioned is my schedule. It’s a lot busier than any other semester so far. I know it doesn’t look terribly busy, but try doing it! And I still need to fill out the study abroad forms and find a program for Japan…the teacher said she’d help me with that on Thursday. I have an idea of what program I want (It would let me stay in Japan from Jan 2011 to July 2011) but I’ve never heard of it before so I wonder if the teacher has… it’s  Japanese Language School - Study Abroad in Japan - Japanese Language Studies at KCP International Japanese Language School –Tokyo - Japan

And I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned, but the program I’m using to go to Spain is

http://www.studiesabroad.com/

According to my aunt, dad, and grandma, my grandfather’s better. The test was postponed until tomorrow though.

Yesterday there was a girlscout meeting. Most of the girls didn’t say much about me coming back after break, but one of them was like “You’re back!”

Also, I found out that cookie orders weren’t neccessarily due yet, since we’re getting the cookies from a cookie cupboard–something new, I guess.

One more day and then the first week of classes will be over. Which is good, since I’m exhausted! It doesn’t help that, since coming back to school, I haven’t had a whole night’s sleep. For some reason, I’ve been waking up one or more times in the middle of the night. It’s really annoying, and I can’t figure out why!

Just from the first meeting with all the classes, I have the feeling that I will work harder this semester than any semester so far. My schedule is like so:

Monday: classes from 10-1 workstudy 3-8

Tuesday: class 11-12:15 workstudy 2-4

Wednesday: classes 10-1 workstudy 2-4 class 7-9:30

Thursday: class 11-12:15 school newspaper meeting 12:30-1:00 class 6:30-?

Friday: classes 10-1 workstudy 2-6

Well, the workstudy on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is slightly longer than I said due to travel time. And between all this I need to schedule in field experience for criminal justice. It’s possible that I’ll try to do some of my field experience during February and/or April vacation. I suppose if it really gets hard I could cut back on workstudy hours. But I don’t want to…since I’m going abroad next year, I need money! And as much as my parents may want to help, I know for a fact that they cannot afford to. As it is, they’ve already done more than enough by letting me pay them back for car insurance when I’m able instead of demanding the money every month.

The only other school news I have at the moment is that I found out that I spent $80 on the wrong book! When I’d emailed the teacher for that class at the end of next semester, she had told me the name of one book (the one I bought for $80) but when we got the syllabus the first day of class, a totally different book was listed! The teacher must have gotten confused. Ah well. I found the correct book for $15. I’m going to keep the other book because it is a class that I’m going to take in two years. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to take the class anyway. Hopefully they’ll use the same book. If not, I will at least have gained another valuable resource for information on criminal justice.

Today, my dad called. Apparently my Grandpa M is in the hospital! I was stunned. According to my dad, it started when my grandpa fell down on Christmas. Everyone thought it was nothing. But recently I guess there’ve been problems, so yesterday my dad drove over to my grandparents house so that my grandfather could go to a doctor’s appointment. The doctor sent him immediately to the emergency room. It turns out there was some bleeding in his brain…and he needs some colon thing…colonoscopy?  And his blood count was too low–low by like half!

So obviously they kept him in the hospital. They gave him more blood and he seemed to perk up. When my dad and grandma left him last night, he seemed fine. But then today, when they went to the hospital again, my grandpa didn’t seem to know where he is. He seems to think that he’s at a friend’s house….and he yelled at my dad and my Aunt M (my dad’s sister)  about leaving him without his pants and his wallet. I don’t know about the wallet, but my dad said that his pants were in the room, on the window seat. My dad said that being with my grandpa today was like being in the twilight zone. Apparently, my grandfather alternated between that confused anger, and trips down memory lane.

I was told that he’s going to have the colon-whatsis operation tomorrow, and he should be fine and out of the hospital by monday. The hospital people don’t seem concerned with his confusion, they think its ICU-itis, or something like that.

About now is the time that I slightly regret going to a school so far away from my family. Although, in this case, there’s nothing I could do, even if I was there. My Grandma seems to be taking this at least semi-calmly. When I called her, she was of the opinion that they’ll fix up my grandpa and he’ll be fine in no time.

So between classes, workstudy and scheduling field experience, I’ll be praying….

…oh, and I have Girl Scouts on Saturday.

1 Comment » Mrs. A.:

January 23rd, 2010 @ 10:11 am Your grandfather is in our prayers. Keep us updated about his status. Eat any Girl Scout cookies lately?

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.

Tonight, after dinner and presents, my dad and I brought my nana back to the nursing home type place where she now lives. It’s kind of sad to think that she’s getting old…but I’m afraid that it’s pretty obvious. My other set of grandparents, while older than my nana, are a lot more active, and don’t seem quite as old…even though, at this point, I think my grandfather is 86!

On the drive back, my dad and I were talking about it, and I remembered reading somewhere that older people often fare better if their significant other is also still around. My dad’s parents (my grandparents) are still both alive. But out of my mom’s parents, at this point, there’s only my nana. Her husband, my grandfather (let’s call him Grandpa J) died…wow, close to nine years ago!

It was 2001, and I was in the fifth grade. At the time (and up until tonight, in fact) all I knew was that I came home from school one day…June 14, and saw that my parents had odd expressions on their faces. They didn’t tell us what had happened until the three of us that went to school had all come home. (For my family: I was 11, Jin was 9, Ido was 8, I think,  Yoi was 7, Kana was almost 4 and Tomo was one and a half.) Well maybe there were four of us in school then…but I remember that mom gathered all three of us into her arms and said that Grandpa J had died. I couldn’t say what my brothers felt…all I remember feeling was, at first, total shock. That shock lasted until after we had gone to pick Yoi and Kana from a “playdate” at a friend’s house. We walked into their yard and Ido announced “Grandpa’s dead.” But he didn’t say it very loudly, so I’m not quite sure who besides me heard that statement.

My understanding of Grandpa J’s death then, was that he’d had a heart attack and died. It was his second heart attack–he had had one a few months before I had been born, and the doctors had told him that he had only maybe a year to live. He had outlived their estimate by about a decade…then the second heart attack was too much.  I’d always known that the heart attacks had probably been brought on by the fact that, at one point, Grandpa J had been a heavy smoker. But before I was born, he had quit, cold turkey. I remember being proud of the fact that he was one of the few people that could suddenly quit one day and never look back.

Tonight, my dad mentioned some new information. Grandpa J had been sick for at least a week before he had his heart attack. I had never known that. I had thought that the attack had happened suddenly, coming from no where. But no. It seems he had been sick…and if he had lived, it would have most likely only been for another couple of months and those months would have been pain filled. I also hadn’t known that on the very day he died, he was supposed to go in for tests to see if he had cancer or something. While interesting, and most definitely information that I want to know, it changes nothing–none of my memories, that is.

After Grandpa J died, almost the next week! One of my cousins got married. They had decided not to call the wedding off, because, at that point, it was best to just go on. They probably regret that he was not able to be there. I have regrets about Grandpa J too. I regret that he wasn’t able to see me go into 6th grade, which, by all accounts, was his favorite grade (he was a former teacher) I also regret not being able to ask him about 9/11. I wonder what he would think, since he was in the navy in World War II. I regret that I was only able to know him for such a short time. I regret that he never got to meet Dori, who wasn’t born until almost a year after his death. More than the regrets though, I try to focus on the memories.

I remember one time, after school, Grandpa J was babysitting Jin and me. He made us toast for snack. I wanted more, but when he went to make more, he decided that the toast hadn’t been dark enough to begin with. So he turned it up a little. And my mom had left papers on top of the toaster. The papers went up in flames. I remember Grandpa J stomping on those papers that he had pulled to the floor. He had also pulled the–now black–toast from the toaster and put it into the sink. Once the flames on the papers–and in the sink–were out, I went over to the sink and looked in at the toast. And Grandpa J asked something along the lines of “Do you still want it?”

One thing that was a direct result of that is that ever since then, we have had a fire extinguisher in our kitchen.

I remember another time, Jin and I were in the backseat and Grandpa J and Nana were driving us to their house, after Grandpa J had run into the store to get a snack–which we weren’t allowed to see yet. I remember that Grandpa J told us that if we guessed what the snack was, we couldn’t have any. But Jin guessed–ice cream sandwhiches–and he was allowed to have some anyway.

The thing I remember the most, was that Grandpa J was always threatening us with knuckle sandwiches. When we said something a little odd, or a little rude, he’d always make a fist and tease “Do you want a knuckle sandwich?”  But if we were more than a little rude, or if we outright would not listen, he’d get stern, and we would know that if we did not start listening, we would get in trouble. And he was stern in a different way than mom and dad were.

I remember one time, Nana, Grandpa J and I went to IHOP. I think what I did was something as little as not wanting to put my coat on as I got out of the car before we went into the building. But I think Nana had told me to. When I didn’t, she kind of shrugged it off, and started to go into the building. But Grandpa J got stern and gave me a little bit of a talking to. I don’t remember anything of what he said, but I remember that when he was done, I felt bad about not listening.

(Maybe that’s where my dad gets it–my dad too is very good at making you feel bad–bad here being partially defined as “guilty” when you don’t listen or don’t try hard enough)

I have other memories of Grandpa J, but these are the most defined, the clearest. The others are much blurrier, and I don’t remember nearly as many details.

A while after Grandpa J died, I dreamed that I was in his and Nana’s house. Everyone was bustling around, getting ready for some holiday celebration or something, moving food from the kitchen to the dining room. Grandpa J ‘appeared’ and stepped forward. “Don’t cry” he told me–so of course I suddenly was. Or had I been crying to begin with? That part is no longer clear…what is clear is the memory of being surprised at hearing his voice again, even though I think the only words he said to me then were the two–”Don’t cry.”

And then…I wrote a poem. I mixed the timeline about the dream, but I feel that the poem does justice to the attempt to describe a now gone loved one:

Once a night long ago,

I dreamed of you; tell me why?

How was I to know

the next day you would die?

I know you’re safe in heaven

but I can’t help but miss

the way you used to talk,

the way you used to walk,

the way you would threaten with a “knuckle sandwhich”

There’s no one quite like you

and I know there’ll never be

But I can’t help but miss

the way you used to 

talk

and laugh

with me.

 Looking back now, I think that’s a pretty good poem. I know there are probably better poems out there written by better poets…but hey, those poets didn’t know my Grandpa J. Besides, I was eleven years old when I wrote that poem…maybe twelve.

So I suppose, on this Christmas Day Eve, what I want to say is remember the people you’ve lost. Remember, even if it hurts a little, the people that you’ve shared this holiday with in the past. They still love you as much as you love them. And I bet they think of us just as often as we think of them.

And remember the people you spend the holiday with now. Don’t waste that time…every moment is precious.

Note in response to dad’s comment: I like my spelling better!

1 Comment » Dad:

December 28th, 2009 @ 5:13 pm It is a pretty good poem, except for the fact you spelled sandwich wrong…

First, let me say that this is not (entirely) about the people who run the country. It is more about the first people in the title, the people that are in charge of the visitor’s center.

My dad has worked at the Route 25 visitor’s center in Massachusetts for over ten years. Today, today! They told him that the visitor’s center will be closed as of Saturday night, October 31st. They gave him two days notice. Two! Isn’t the law two weeks or something like that? If there’s not a law about there being two weeks notice for firing someone there should be. And everyone that my dad talked to today is startled and appalled by the fact that the visitor’s center is closing.

My dad pointed out that the members of the chamber also have a right to be mad, since they are paying the chamber money to distribute their brochures for a year. 12 months. And now, that same amount of money will be paying for maybe 6 months…and that’s only if they do open again in April like they told my dad.

I’m a little mad because I have a summer job there. But I’m mostly mad on my dad’s behalf. He’s been the manager of that visitor’s center for most of the ten years that he’s been there. And yet today, when his boss was laying him off, she had with her the person that they hired a little over a year ago.

Maybe I had better back up and explain a little. The Route 25 Visitor’s Center is owned by Mass Highway, but is staffed by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. Or at this point, it was staffed by the Chamber. In any case, the Chamber is always complaining about money. So last winter, they decided to single staff the visitor’s center. The visitor’s center is in the middle of a freaking highway. How safe is it to single staff? Especially when the visitor’s center gets…oh I don’t know, at minimum 200,000 visitors a year? (Usually there’s more than that, but when doing the math I picked the lowest numbers possible to illustrate my point.)

Anyway, so a little while before they decided to single staff during the winter, the new girl was hired. Let’s call her Susan. Her job was to be my dad’s boss, but she had no power. So basically, what would happen is that my dad would have to ask her permission for something, then Susan would have to ask her boss, the chief executive officer, whether or not my dad could do something so simple as buy more coffee. (We sell sold coffee to the visitors–good New England Coffee) So basically, Susan didn’t really do anything. I’ll admit, there is the slight possibility that she does more good where me and my dad do not hear of it.

Susan, by the way, is the person that was with the boss when my dad was getting layed off. God, that sounds horrid. Oh, and what my dad considered the best part? Apparently, while firing him, the boss invited my dad to the Chamber Christmas Party. Wasn’t that just so nice of them? Not! Sheesh, what the heck were they thinking?!

Now that I’ve worked off some of my aggravation, back to my worries (or rather, on to my worries since I don’t think I mentioned them yet)… my health care was already messed up since I’d turned 19…now that my dad won’t have a job, he said that that effects me more. That’s the only thing that I’m worried about that concerns me. Well, that’s not quite true. I want to go abroad next year, but the way things are, I may have to think about it. If my family’s situation does not change, then I’d spend the whole time in Europe worrying. So I’m also worried that I’ll have to cancel, or postpone my trip.

The rest of my worries are for my parents and siblings. Jin and I are both away at college, so that’s a stress on my parents. But even more stressful I think, is that they still have 5 mouths to feed beside their own. I know that money was getting tight even as my dad worked as much as he could (I do have two brothers in high school after all–they eat a lot!) So I worry about what it will be like now, if he’s not working.

And that’s another problem in and of itself–there are practically no jobs. I can’t even find a workstudy job on the campus of my college!   If this does not change, I may have to do the dreaded phone-a-thon again. I hated that job, I hate it! But especially if my dad can’t find a job, I’ll take it. I’ll hate it the whole time I’m doing it, but if they offer, I may take it.  If, of course, is the big question, since I doubt that they are unlike the rest of the campus and not inundated with job applications.

So I’m worrying about my parents, all 6 of my siblings, the car payments, the school loans, can I find a job? can my dad find a job?…I know I’m not the only one who’s been worrying about this stuff, especially recently. But it is different for each person. My heart goes out to all the people in my situation, and all the people who are worse off. Because on the whole, at the moment, I’m still very lucky.

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.

To get to my grandmother’s house from where I live, it should be about an hour drive. It took me three. I couldn’t believe it! I got lost, found the right highway again, got lost, figured out where I was, then got lost and stayed lost until I called my dad.

Anyway, once I was finally at my grandparent’s we had a lovely weekend.

I got back from my grandparents’ on Tuesday afternoon…Tuesday night I went to Ki’s house. We wanted to watch Pirates of the Carribean 3 since I’d never seen it before. It wasn’t a bad movie; I kind of liked it.

Then, we were about to watch another movie when Ki’s sister who is my age, “Lea” came home. She brought with her her dog and her bosses dog. Both immediatly ran over to jump on me. Why? It always startles me when they jump, so I don’t understand why a lot of the time they come running to me.

Anyway, the second movie Ki and I watched was called Miss Pettigrew lives for a day. That movie was good too. It had Amy Adams in it…I can’t remember any of the other actors.  It was a very interesting movie actually. The story took place in approximatly 1940 or so.

Ki lent me the Princess Tutu anime, so that’s probably what I’ll go watch now. Well, that or Get Smart. Both are good series.