education week.

As a freshman at BYU I was faced with the choice of whether or not to move home during the summer. Going home would mean continuing to date a young man that didn't deserve my attention ["Wow she's so conceded..." huh], living at home under the jurisdiction of my parents, and putting my Provo social life on a cruel halt in order to "save money" for the upcoming year. Staying at BYU for spring/summer term= new apartment, new friends, new classes, new opportunities, new [another] job, new major, new outlook, new etcetc. I chose the latter and my expectations of the summer were met ever so nicely. However there are cons in nearly everything... efy children, loss of sleep [meh, not necessarily a con], and having to pay cp 99 precious bucks a month to sleep in a bed and use their freezer for my otterpops. Another con that the majority of BYU's population gets to experience is the first week or two before fall semester begins. Apartment complexes start to over flow, campus gets a little too crowded, and all the sudden you become just a number again. Am I speaking of students... no, not a student number... a number among the hundreds and thousands of old ladies and their leashed husbands at education week. Education week... it's like efy for retired folks. They get to relive their younger years by coming back to campus and living in a dorm [that they totally could have really lived in 40 years prior] and taking classes from some of the best professors Provo and surrounding areas have to offer. Many if not all of the students residing in Provo have a hard time dealing with these gung-ho oldees. "The Buicks flippin' take up two parking spots!" or "Just because he doesn't usually get banana peppers on his Subway doesn't mean he has to explain why!" I relish in this humor and put probably too much effort into observing these prehistoric specimens and their attempts to become hip. At first I, too, was rather annoyed... it was like, "Get off my domain, I've got somewhere to be and your walker is taking up the whole sidewalk!" Yeah, that might have happened like once...uh... until they started coming to me in my youthfulness and practically asking me to save their lives! One after another would stop me and ask, "Where in sam hill is the JSB?" or "Could you help me read this map... I think I'm headed to the Clyde Building but it seems to be gone..." With my powers combined [powers being- my innate sense of direction and map reading skills] I directed mobs upon mobs of old molasses men and women. I never even got tipped... yet as a friend of mine suggested, I have heard of plans to erect a statue near the ASB of me just standing there, in action, pointing to the Wilk. A hero they called me and it wasn't like people didn't know who I was. This praise even followed me to the Bookstore basement at my dearest department of Pack'n'Ship. As a result of ed week we were open until 10 pm instead of 8 pm... sick nast! First off all the carriers have come and gone by 4 pm, secondly all the ed weekers go to bed at like 8 anyways! So... from 8-10 every night I found myself either reading "Princess Bride" or helping straggling customers that would come in at 9:45 wanting to ship all their belongings to Thailand. I could handle this though... because from 3-8 [when said ed weekers would come] they would of course recognize my face from the statue mentioned before and they would shower me with gifts and compliments not found anywhere else! They would begin by complimenting on my name, "Katelyn, what a name, that's a very pretty way to have a name." Sense? This has none. The next gentleman basically started throwing money at me! "A dime for your Christmas party miss" here, or a "keep the change" with a grandpa wink there. I was getting famous... and fast. Another favorite of mine was when they would ask how late we were open [of course they are used to the post office closing at 5]. "10 pm... unfortunately..." I would grumble. "Oh my! Look at you! Such a hard worker! Making it possible for me to come whenever I want! I think I'll go buy more super randomly shaped objects and bring them back for you to pack! Because it's not busy in here at all and you look like you want something annoying and tedious to do!" Was I working hard? Yes, there were swarms of ed weekers that needed help. Did they leave and buy even more ginormous paintings and insanely long wreaths for me to package and ship to FARMINGTON?? or OREM?! Yes. Was it tedious and occasionally annoying? Yes. Yet the annoyance turned into humor after day two. I found that anything annoying that week could easily turned into something humorous. Like when someone bought a 73x53 painting [that wasn't actually a painting, it was electronically created] and hauled it into us to "secure" within 5 minutes of us commenting on how we hope no one buys it. Or when they would come to the counter to be helped and they would yell through the wall, "Hello in there!" "Is anybody home?!" or my favorite "I'm ready!" like they just got potty trained for the second time and were indeed successful. The bell is there for a reason folks, you ring once and we come willingly. You ring twice and we laugh/mock said ringer and still come... for the double ringers are always the snooty ones in a hurry. You ring thrice and we assume that you are deaf and can't hear the bell so you keep trying. We come. Annoyed [w/ humor of course]. You ring four+ times and we don't come at all because we know it's just one of us on the way back from the bathroom trying to be annoying. On occasion we'll even get the immature fathers that think that "no one is home" so they play with the bell, as their 3 year old son would, while they fill out the shipping forms and pick out envelopes. Always a lovely way to embarrass yourself, especially when I walk around the corner with an "Oh I thought that was a stray child" look on my face.
However as much as I complain I still can't help but to love all the senior couples that roam around campus during those stressful weeks before fall semester. Early every morning on my way to work I was approached by such cheerful ladies and gents that were so humble and happy to be alive. You see, they had already been awake for three hours so their cheerfulness had kicked in for sure. If they weren't asking me for instructions or for... cough... my autograph... they were smiling and wishing me a good morning as I walked past as if they could see themselves back in college just by looking at me. You don't get that kind of love at 7:50 in the morning during any given semester when the masses are rushing to class.

some light entertainment for you all to imagine... after all, it is tuesday.

It’s been about two weeks… and according to my fellow blogging buddies two weeks is too obese of a period between blogs. First lesson, learned. A reason for my absence could be blamed on the fact that nothing interesting has happened to me, that is nothing that others care to hear about. However I did indeed have an apostrophe this morning… let us begin at the beloved Clyde Hill as I trudged to work through the sleet and snow. I am scheduled to be at work at 8:00 a.m. every morning... but since it is the summer I am granted a 30 minute grace period which I use fully to my advantage. However there is a downside to showing up at work around 8:30 every morning... those half-an-hours add up and less time means less monies on my paycheck. So how do I solve this problem do you ask? It's quite simple... I WD40 up my hips and speed walk to work! This results in 2.7 minutes [on average] extra on my time card- meaning I arive at about 8:27 everyday. Will these extra minutes add up and eventually buy me a cruise to Alaska like I would hope? No, no they wont. And yet, everyday I wake up and feel the need to embarrass myself anyways... so I just go right on ahead and get my feet gliding and arms pumping up that wretched hill to campus. This results in shin splints [especially on the days when I get up even earlier to run], sore feet [if I'm wearing crapjobwalnast shoes], and odd looks from people I unfortunately actually do run into again. Turns out it all ends up to be in vain... for I get the 40 hours in every week whether I haul rear to 490 of the TNRB or not.

beef on blogging.

Remind me again why I chose to join the cyber world of blogging? Is it because everyone else has a blog and I should “probably just have one”? Is it cause I feel the need to write in my journal regularly along with post my thoughts online so others can crack the code and get into my mind anyways? (no it doesn’t take a voice-activated password to electronically open my journal… it takes two hands. not even two, you could simply shove it off a table with nubs and let it fall open.) Or could I possibly be going through an identity crisis and blogging is a way to “express” myself and gain the confidence that I lost all those years of being a fat kid? (see AJ DeCato to join the official fatkid website) Either way this endeavor of mine is out of the bag and with this first real entry my blogging experience will begin. What is blogging anyways? I guess I sorta already addressed that so I suppose the question is more, “How do I blog?” So far I have found it stressful… does anyone else find keeping a blog updated just another thing to put on the to-do list? ‘Cause it got on my list weeks ago and I hadn’t even started one yet… how’d that happen? So besides the fact that blogging is now proved stressful I still have gone ahead and here I am. What not to write about? First off I can’t really vent about people that bother me on occasion… because those people are usually my close friends [haha], nor can I spill secrets because I’m not an 18A sk*nk that blocks everyone and their dog. (This is where I awkwardly try to redeem myself for rippin' on 18A's DLS.) Other things I am denied rights to blogging about because of its public matter- men of interest... what? am I supposed to shave five years off my age and start using code names again? actually shaving might be the wrong word since five years ago I was in 8th grade w/ snarly teeth and at the steady peak of my babyfat days. Other topics not to blog about... things I wouldn’t want my mom to read… those won’t go on my blog. Anything else I shouldn't mention? Any unspoken rules that I'll encounter in the future quite embarrassingly anyways? Rather, what to write about- ridiculous foods I occasionally find myself eating for breakfast, mishaps with strangers that I would prefer not repeat, or simply the distrust I have for kitchen appliances. Take your pick... all three will be coming soon.