The One Where Rachel Quits

RACHEL: I'm training to be better at a job that I hate, my life officially sucks.

JOEY: Look Rach, wasn't this supposed to a temporary thing? I thought you wanted to do fashion stuff?

RACHEL: Well, yeah! I'm still pursuing that.

CHANDLER: How... exactly are you pursuing that? Y'know other than sending out resumes like what, two years ago?

RACHEL: Well, I'm also sending out.... good thoughts.

JOEY: If you ask me, as long as you got this job, you've got nothing pushing you to get another one. You need the fear.

RACHEL: The fear?

CHANDLER: He's right, if you quit this job, you then have motivation to go after a job you really want.

RACHEL: Well then how come you're still at a job that you hate, I mean why don't you quit and get 'the fear'?

CHANDLER: Because, I'm too afraid.

---

GUNTHER: Rachel?

RACHEL: Yeah.

GUNTHER: Remind me to review with you which pot is decaf and which is regular.

RACHEL: Can't I just look at the handles on them?

GUNTHER: You would think.

RACHEL: Okay, fine. Gunther, y'know what, I am a terrible waitress, do you know why I'm a terrible waitress? Because, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care which pot is regular and which pot is decaf, I don't care where the tray spot is, I just don't care, this is not what I want to do. So I don't think I should do it anymore. I'm gonna give you my week's notice.

GUNTHER: What?!

RACHEL: Gunther, I quit.

CHANDLER: Does this mean we're gonna have to start paying for coffee?

I'm not a terrible waitress, because I'm not a waitress. But this pretty much sums up my feelings of late. I don't care which pot is regular and which pot is decaf (or which form is the correct one or which report I need to run). I just don't care, this is not what I want to do. So I don't think I should do it anymore.

I'm not giving my two weeks notice yet, but man oh man I get closer everyday.

Calamity Change!!

Introducing (*drumroll*) Calamity Change: Unique jewelry featuring coins smashed on the railroad.

Since no one reads this site it doesn't matter that I haven't listed anything yet. But it exists!

New things in 2011 =)

random in 2011

As of 7am this morning I had spent 84% of 2011 in my pajamas. I imagine that would start to get old if I kept it up for the whole year, but I'd still have liked to try.

Yesterday I ran my first mile of 2011 on the treadmill. Gonna run my second mile of 2011 after work.

Speaking of work, I still hate it.

My new year's resolutions are:
-Run a 10k
-Quit my job in August
-Make some money selling earrings on etsy

I wish I could quit sooner, and indeed I had applied for a job that would have started next week (no interview even, boo). I realized last week while reading Crazy Aunt Purl's account of 2010, wherein she recounts getting laid off in June, that I really wished I could be laid off too. It's a completely awful thought, I know. But I feel so trapped by this job.

I gave handmade earrings to my sister and mom and my boyfriend's sister and mom for Christmas. Both mom's have worn them in my presence, but I don't know if that's because they really like them or if they want to make me feel good about myself. But I do feel good about myself for having made them and I like them. So whatever. I'm gonna open an etsy shop. I just need a name.

I made baby cupcakes for boyfriend's sister's baby shower. And I knit booties for her too, but they came out really big. Oh well. I almost finished a matching hat yesterday, that will fit the baby a little sooner I hope. I need to put up pictures. Well, I need to take pictures.

If you are actually attacked by a bear...

I've been daydreaming a lot lately about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Haven't worked out any firm plans yet, and probably won't for a long time, but for some reason I am totally fascinated by blogs about and information on planning a thru-hike of the AT.

I've spent an obscene amount of time looking at gear. An extraordinary amount of time reading about dehydrating food. More attention than I knew I had to discussions on how to pee with your pack on. And hours and hours and hours reading every portion of www.appalachiantrail.org, where I found the following piece of information:

"If you are actually attacked by a bear, you should fight for all you are worth with anything at hand – rocks, sticks, fists." (see the section about "wildlife")

I wonder how I would do at punching a bear.

mawwiage....

Friday, early evening:
Cab driver: So y'all look dressed up!
Me: Yeah, my sister's getting married tomorrow so we're on our way to the rehearsal.
Cab driver: That's wonderful! So is she following in your footsteps or will you be following in her's?
Me: (awkward pause while I try to figure out how to answer this) Umm, a little of both?
Cab driver: Uhhh.... Ok. (*crickets*)

Earlier today:
Me: Oh, I wasn't in yesterday because my sister got married this weekend.
Co-worker: Oh, that's wonderful! (looks at my left hand, sees no ring) Is she older or younger?
Me: She's younger.
Co-worker: Huh.
Me: (mentally slams head down on desk)


My sister had an incredibly lovely wedding this past weekend. My new brother-in-law is great, I love them both, and I'm totally happy for them. They're coming for Christmas this year and I'm very excited to get to see them again so soon. The reception was a rocking party during which I witnessed an incredible of amount of dancing by all of my relatives. It was outstandingly fun and I've been having a great time looking through the pictures.



................................. however.
I just wish my grandparents didn't give the same shit that I don't give about when (or just even whether or not) I ever walk down the aisle again. Multiple times over the weekend both grandparents said "Maybe now you'll get a ring!" Grandma kept saying how it was good to bring my boyfriend to as many weddings as possible so that he'd get the idea. During the reception, she pulled me close and started hashing out the details of my hypothetical wedding. Right before we left the hotel to drive home, Grandpa not so subtly implied that I should get married as soon as possible because they'd really like to be there and they aren't going to be around for too long.

Last year over Thanksgiving Grandma declared, "Well don't worry, you won't be alone forever." And when I stared blankly at her, not knowing how to respond, she clarified by saying "I mean, you'll get married again someday!"

It mostly bothers me because the message I get from all of it (and I've been getting it since before the ink was dry on the divorce decree) is that I am somehow not complete unless I'm married. I'm like a loose end that they want to see taken care of before they die.

And I seriously dislike the implication that I must be dieing to get married and it's just that my boyfriend needs a little prodding to pop the question. What if I don't want to get married right now or potentially ever? Why can't my grandparents get that? I do my best to brag about grad school and other things that I'm proud of and talk about how great my friends are and how full and fun my life is. But that all seems to just fly over their heads. It always comes back to when will I get married.

The rest of my family is great great great about this. My mom (having seen more closely what I went through before) is in absolutely no hurry for me to get engaged to anyone. My dad has repeatedly said he doesn't care what my tax status is so long as I'm happy. My aunt and uncle, who got to meet my boyfriend for the first time this weekend, simply said how much they liked him and they were happy that I'm happy.

So I suppose I'm actually lucky that it's only grandma and grandpa. But still. I hate to say it but I'd call and write more often if we could have a single conversation without this coming up.

a list

Was just thinking about all the things I keep meaning to do once I have some "free time"

Currently, we're up to:
-finish knitted dishcloths for wedding present (wedding which occurred in May '09, whoops)
-knit all kinds of baby stuff for the all kinds of friends I have who are knocked up
-knit a hat for myself (I've wanted a hat for so long and I keep not doing it or doing it but messing it up somehow, hats are not supposed to be that hard)
-read Harry Potter #5-7 (I read #1-4 all in a week around christmas 2000)
-read the three other books that have been languishing on my bedside table
-come up with some sort of organization for my crafts stuff (right now it's in various bags and boxes all over the house)
-use all the crafts stuff for collages
-get into a regular exercise routine again and train for a 10k
-watch all of Dead Like Me and Dexter (could go well with all the knitting)
-watch Avatar (Am I the only person you know who didn't see it in the theater?)
-experiment with the feasibility of my drill bit and shiny things project

Too many ideas, not enough time between semesters. There's been some stuff happening during the semester though, like a couple failed hats, knitted slippers, a pot roast, cleaning, sister's bachelorette party and bridal shower, football games and a couple of basketball games now too. I guess I have had free time, I just feel more guilty about it during the semester.

did something about it ("it" being the subject of the last post)

I don't particularly like just complaining to complain. So with that idea in mind, I complained to my academic adviser. Being in the social work program means that my adviser is a social worker, which means she's good at the problem solving.

So I was like GAH! and she was like Oh! and then she steered me towards a couple of opportunities. We'll see how they pan out, I made a spreadsheet about all of my options at this point and I think I've got a clear direction, just waiting to see if the door opens or not.

In the meantime, I've cultivated a little idea that might just turn into an etsy store if I get my act together enough on it. Once the semester is over and sister's nuptials are over, and I have some "free time" this little idea is getting tested out. It involves drill bits and shiny things. I'm kind of excited.

take this job and

I hate my job. I just hate it. My supervisor is great and (most of) my peer level co-workers are great. But the fact that I'm responsible for a lot of the operational logistics of a small unit within a large large large organization with a tremendous amount of central - yet not cohesive - structure and tons of layers of authority, means that I can never be good at my job. If I learn how to accomplish something, chances are the process will be different the next time I try to accomplish it. And the people who were made aware (and who arguably should have made me aware) of the change never seem to have any patience for me if I'm a step behind. Or heaven forbid, if it's the kind of task that comes up once or twice a year, I forget a step. The consequences of my not accomplishing some of these tasks are, on occasion, that a person may not get paid for work they finished a month ago. Messing up someone's income is not something I ever ever ever want to be responsible for.

This stresses me out.

I've had two other administrative jobs like this before, jobs where I had to learn processes and procedures and lingo and stuff like that. I learned from those two jobs to cut myself some slack for a while in the beginning, give myself time to learn and understand what was expected. In both of those jobs the learning curve was about four months. There were other things that took a little longer to master, but I had nailed about 90% of it in the first three months.

I've been at my current job for two years. Two years, and I'm still calling people asking for help as though it's my first week on the job.

In undergrad as a Sociology major, I learned about different theories of organization, Weber and his idealized bureaucracy sticking out in my memory. It made so much sense at the time, if you let people specialize then the whole organization can do more than the sum of its parts. Efficiency is increased and profits and productivity can go up. But when I'm trying to figure out how to accomplish something for my unit, I have to call four different "specialized" people before I get an answer. And the first three people are virtually guaranteed to be annoyed at me for bothering them when it's not their job to answer my question.

A friend of mine posted this a while ago on facebook, basically yet another article about how stress is killing us. The focus of this article though is that it's when your work is demeaning or feels endlessly frustrating that you're at the greatest risk for stress-related bad health outcomes. I should get better health care benefits.

Just went for a walk

Because even though it's 82F outside at 9:30pm, and even though my apartment has central ac, I could not spend one more minute inside.

In the 20 minutes I spent walking around my neighborhood, I saw teenagers playing basketball, two girls walking, a couple of guys playing guitar, a little boy catching lightning bugs in his backyard, and an old woman talking on the phone about a medical procedure that involved "gettin' a tube in there to drain it."

And this is why summer is my favorite season. =)

Oh, long suffering readers

I just turned in a take home final. And with that, my academic obligations for the semester are complete.

So now I may actually post here again sometime. I said on multiple occasions over the course of the past few months that I was getting good grades in grad school and barely passing grades in rest of my life. But now I have a whole month (!) before the crazy starts again. So many books to read, tv on dvd to get addicted to, random things to knit, I hardly know where to start. =)

Jello shots are the new shark cupcakes

Today is A Day Without Cats so I thought I should get that tiny kitten off of the top of my page. I was going to do a weekend wrap-up, but I don't have the energy since I got sick because the weekend was so awesome. Instead, I'm posting just one aspect and I'll let you deduce what kind of weekend I had based on that.

WVU had its first football game on Saturday and in honor, I made these:


We won the game. And the tailgate.

'Scuse me while I feed this tiny kitten

We found a tiny kitten back in a box behind some crates at work yesterday. Took a forklift to move all the stuff that was in the way. And then my co-workers went to PetCo and bought a little bottle and some milk. And then I spent the better part of the afternoon doing this:

Cats 'n Racks


Cute or Sad? ResQte™

I really like my accessories in this picture.

I crack myself up

Yesterday I was driving downtown and I came up behind a woman in a Smart car with a vanity plate that read PILATES.

I thought to myself, "Now does this woman make her own granola, or DOES THIS WOMAN MAKE HER OWN GRANOLA? Amiright? I mean, seriously what's up with that?"

Thanks I'll be here all week.

It's Still There

I like to include pictures as much as possible, but I think you'll thank me for not doing that with this post.

Remember that bat? The one that woke me up from my clothing optional beauty sleep? The one that my landlord killed and then laid to rest in an Amazon box, placed gingerly in the bottom of the trashcan? Because I can be a paranoid person, I had a lot of issues surrounding that trashcan for quite a while. Allow me to share them with you.

The entrance to my apartment is on the side of the house, right next to where the trashcans live. So until trash day, I had to think about that dead bat body in the bottom of that trashcan, less than a foot from my door. I got very very good at keeping my gaze far away from the inside of that can. And then on trash day I had to muster up all my squeamish-girl-living-on-her-own guts and carry that trashcan/coffin to the curb. And then I went to work and spent the whole day imagining what I'd come back home to. What if the garbage men don't shake the can enough and the bat doesn't make it out? What if they throw the can back and it falls over and the bat comes tumbling out onto the curb and I have to see it??? How will I ever manage to bring the trashcan back to it's spot beside the house if it potentially still has a dead bat body in the bottom?!?!?

I avoided this by coming home as late as possible on trash day, increasing the chances that one of the other women downstairs would bring it back for me. And that worked well for a few weeks. Then I realized the trashcan was light enough when it's empty that I can carry it with my arm stretched out far away from me so I can't see inside. And that worked even better. I had no idea whether or not it was still there, and that was fine because I could just pretend it wasn't. I shared all this with my boyfriend and he looked, but I made him promise not to tell me what he did or did not see.

Well the other day I had some junk mail and I thought I'd just toss it in the can rather than take it upstairs. My guard was down, and there were no bags in the can, and I leaned over just a little too far... I saw the box, smashed. I saw something black underneath it, smashed. I stifled a scream and managed not to faint, turned the key and went upstairs to pour myself a stiff drink.

Lord help me, I'm a Phan

If you make it to the end of this monster post, there are pictures as a reward. Or, if you just want to skip ahead to the pictures I won't be offended.

When I was 16, I threw myself a birthday party and told all my friends if they wanted to get me a gift, I would love a copy of their favorite cd. This turned out to be one of the best ideas I've ever had. I don't remember all of what I got, but one standout was Phish's Rift. Now I have to say I didn't love it then. But gosh darn, I tried to love it. Most of my friends at that point were Phish fans, and I think almost all of them went to at least one concert while we were in high school. They never asked me if I wanted to go. I don't know if this was because I tended to not be allowed to go to stuff like that, and so they assumed it would just make me sad to be invited and then have to say no, or if they were just awful people. (I know it's the former, but I've always been a little insecure about being left out of stuff!)

So anyway, when I got that copy of Rift, I listened to it as hard as I have ever listened to anything. I wanted so desperately to "get" whatever my friends found in Phish, so I could be as gung-ho and avid a "Phan" as the rest of them. And then maybe they'd talk to me when they were making their concert plans too. But try as I might, I just couldn't totally get into it.

Twelve years later, I've got it.

My boyfriend is probably the biggest Phish fan I'll ever have the privilege of meeting. When the reunion was announced, and summer tour dates set, he had counted me in before I even understood what was happening. And this, to me, was a huge compliment. We went to two shows this summer and about two songs into the second show, I knew I'd never be the same again.

The first show was at Starlake, near Pittsburgh, on June 18th. I had fun for sure (photo evidence below) but I only heard one song that I recognized at all, "Free" which I only sort of knew from hearing it randomly at a friend's house. I loved the crowd, I loved the energy, but I didn't totally love the band yet. Yet.

Over the course of July, my wonderful boyfriend redoubled his efforts in mentoring me towards Phandom. He let me borrow his copy of Rift (that original copy that I had got lost somewhere in the 15+ times I've moved in the last 10 years) and then Hoist and then Billy Breathes. (This all combined with the fact that anytime we were in his car he'd play live shows from the summer tour.) Hearing the album version of "Free" on Billy Breathes and then immediately getting hooked by "Character Zero" and "Taste" and then realizing that I had real preferences for different songs and albums ("Character Zero" is still my favorite song, Billy Breathes is my favorite album, with Rift a solid second and "Silent in the Morning" makes me love it a little more everytime I hear it), all of it started to really grow on me.

And it was just in time to get me really, really excited for the show at Merriweather Post Pavilion outside of DC. I can't really explain what it was or why it clicked, but even though they only played two songs that I knew ("Taste" and "Time Turns Elastic"), I finally reached the point where I felt like I really connected with the music. It was great! And I know that the more Phish I listen to, the more gems I'm going to find.

Carrie Brownstein had a similar, if truncated, journey this summer too.

This is at the Starlake show. Look! I'm pumped! But I think you can kind of tell in my eyes that I'm not as pumped as I could be.

Tailgating at Merriweather. Our friend Lisa randomly had a baby picture in her bag with her. We stuck it up in my trunk and told people that it was a kid that we lost two shows ago. We got some funny looks. Shockingly, the omnipresent police force didn't question us about it. (Also, look at my hippie top! Patchwork corduroy?? I must be into Phish!)

Sometime in the second set, Aaron managed to finagle us this amazing spot right in the front of the lawn. The screen that you see in the upper left was huge and cast this cool funky glow all around us. I've learned that the best thing for me to do at concerts with Aaron is to hold his hand, stay alert, and keep as close as possible when we're moving. If I do that successfully, a great view is my reward. He's a master at getting up close.

Mental Test, La Marseillaise

I took French for three and a half years in jr. high/high school and another three semesters in college. I never really got fluent with it, but I did pretty darn well in Paris on the class trip we took. And I was starting to get to the point of thinking in French, as opposed to thinking in English and then translating, when I was writing papers for that last semester in college. But there's not a ton of it left now. I was in Quebec a few years ago and I understood a decent chunk of what was said around me, but I couldn't really respond to complex questions. And my pronunciation is for shit.

It turns out a co-worker of mine is friends with my jr. high French teacher and she came into the office a while back to chat. I was shocked that she remembered me and my sister (sister took German, but our teacher is Swiss so we got a combo deal there), but I was also really scared that she'd ask me something in French and I would only be able to stare blankly back at her. So as a mental exercise, I decided yesterday to see how much of the French national anthem I could come up with off the top of my head.

Here's what I got without looking anything up:

Allons enfants de la Patrille
Le jour de gloire est arrive!
Contra nous de la tyrranirer
Les tendarts blah blah blah blah blah
Repeat that line I just made up
Entendez vous dans les compangnes
Muirer quelque chose les souldats
There's a serious change in the melody here
And can't remember how many lines it goes on for.....

(ready for the big finish?)
Aux armes les citoyains!
Formez les battaillons!
Marchons! Marchons!
Quelque chose autre!*
Nice, uplifting closing line!

And the entire country erupts into applause over my mastery of their beloved anthem. (*"Quelque chose autre" I think is French for "something else")

Hmmm, doesn't look great. Let's look up the real one shall we? From Wikipedia:

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé!
L'étendard sanglant est levé!
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Egorger nos fils et nos compagnes!

Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Huh, well it certainly could have been worse, but I'm still disappointed because I could sing this thing in my sleep in 10th grade. You can go look up the translation if you feel like it, it's kinda gory actually.

I want to ride my bicycle

This is my bicycle. I bought it at the Wal-Marts with my birthday money from my grandparents. I love that it looks kind of retro, but it's from Wal-Mart so I feel like that aesthetic actually just makes it a little dorky. I'll show you a real picture of the actual one I bought later when I'm not blogging at work and stealing images from walmart.com.

I rode it to work the other day (I'm partly lying here, I drove with it down to the bike path and then rode it from there to work; if you lived in WV you'd do the same thing) and it was pretty fun. Not as fun as riding it just for kicks, cause when I'm riding it just for kicks I'm not also trying to carry stuff with me and I'm wearing clothes that I don't mind sweating in. So clearly I need to bring a change of clothes with me if I ride to work again. I also still need to bring the entire contents of my large purse. I can go without my large purse for short periods of time and on the weekends, but I can't go without it at work.

Dear Internet, should I do the very easy and sensible thing and carry my stuff in a backpack when I bike? Or should I do the thing that this bike seems to require in order to make it whole, and put a basket on the front? And if I do, should it be this one?

Keepin it real

I'm sorry I whined yesterday about how I wish I were funnier. I don't particularly like it when bloggers whine on their blogs about how they wish their blogs were better cause it feels a little insulting to me, I am choosing to read that blog. I don't want to hear about how I picked a lame one. So, I'm sorry for doing that here. I'll stop it now.

One thing I have realized about blogs that I like is that the authors tend to tell embarassing stories about themselves. And then I realized that I left out the funniest and potentially most embarassing part of The Good, The Bat, and The Ugly.

The real reason I was so happy that "I managed to miraculously end up with a bra, sweatshirt, and yoga pants in the completely random fistful of clothing I grabbed in the dark," is because I was sleeping in the buff that night. Yup, you heard me.

When I told my boyfriend the whole story he said, "Wow baby, I'm so sorry that happened but of course now all I can think about is the fact that you were sleeping naked. And I'm so sad because I'm guessing you'll never do that again."

And he's right, I haven't been able to sleep nekid since. And I have to say my world is a little less bright because of it. I really liked sleeping that way, especially because I received the fanciest sheets I've ever owned last Christmas and they feel so nice.

This one's about knitting

I like how in my last post I wrote "So even if I don't blog for a long time...." I know myself.

I've been reading a lot of Whoopee lately and wishing I were funnier and British. I'm not. But I do knit. Here's a link to my facebook album of "Stuff I have knitted". You should mentally add to this three failed shrugs, as well as things I have given away without photographing: another pair of fingerless gloves, another head wrap thing, a couple of early not very good scarves, and a handful of baby hats and booties. Feels like not a ton for almost three years. Though I suppose I often feel like I don't knit as much as I want to. Sorry no pictures, click the link.

Check me out!

I have finally made it into relative currentness with the interwebs here. Along the techno-phile/phobe continuum, I'm a mid to late adopter usually. Stuff has to be around for a while and enough of my friends have to have started using something before I start using it. I might get an iPhone or a Blackberry eventually, but 75% percent of the people I see/talk to regularly will have to get one first.

For example, it took me a while to get on myspace, and then it was mostly because all my friends started having conversations there and when we hung out in person I didn't get the jokes. And then there was the migration from myspace to facebook, and I was a little late on that bandwagon too. I was relatively early amongst my friends to gmail (I got it when you still had to be invited!) and that helped with using blogger. But I was so late with rss feeds (I just started using Google Reader and I LOVE it, can't believe I didn't do it sooner) and my current cell phone doesn't even have a camera.

But now look what I've figured out! I'm using Twitter with my phone and I even set it up to update my facebook status as well as this cute little box here on the blog!!! It's awesome! So now I can tweet from the middle of the Shark Week party. With just a text message! I can't upload a picture via cell phone, but I can change my online status in three different sites with just a text! So even if I don't blog for a long time, there's still something being updated here. And it's so simple.

So while I have to admit that this is definitely not cutting edge or early adopting in any way, it's still fairly early for me to be doing this. I'm proud of myself. =)