frauleigneli

I'm in a glorious mood, largely because I'm free all day today and tomorrow, but also because life has just been good to me lately. Financially things could be better I guess, but pay day is right around the corner and I've been feeling pretty happy and fulfilled in every other way so I'm not going to complain. Furthermore, my dad just stopped by to drop off some paint stuff and announced that we'll be having Thanksgiving at our house or in Gibson City! This means that the food will be completely and totally outstanding. Turkey and mashed potatoes, my dad's sweet potatoe pralines, casseroles and King Hawaiian rolls smothered in butter. I can't even WAIT!

Also, I think that I will make this:

It's Paula Deen's Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie, which she recently made on her show "Paula Deen's Southern Thanksgiving." I'm pretty sure that my family and I need to have some. And as it turns out, there is still a whole jar of apple butter in my parent's fridge from the time I begged my pop to get me some! Talk about serendipity, huh? I love baking, and I also love watching other people bake, as evidenced by my recent Food Network obsession. I think that I could be really happy baking for a living actually, like for the rest of my life. I'd make things like German Chocolate Brownies, brownies with cherry mousse, chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecakes, delicious, sweet breads that go perfectly with hot butter. Mmmmm.

At this time I would like to remark once again on how lucky I feel to have wound up with the roommates I have. Three nicer girls couldn't be found, I don't think. And we're all pretty different from one another but it works out well in the end. Our apartment is never very messy. It always smells beautiful like lotions and soap and candles and cookies. Everybody has nice friends/boyfriends, so there are always other cool people around as an extension of my wonderful roommates. It's just a perfect situation. I'm really happy with the decision I made to live here and NOT with that girl whose apartment smelled like incense and burnt food, or the girls who told me they didn't turn on their heat until December last year.

In more momentous news, I quit my job at Aldi on the eleventh of this month. I hated leaving that money behind. They paid me $10.50 an hour which is fantastic money for a student. But it really doesn't matter how much a company pays you if they don't give you enough hours and uh, for me, six hours was not enough. Especially considering that I got hired to work fifteen to twenty every week. It was a super frustrating situation. In the course of about a month and a half, my hours went from twenty-six a week to fifteen to ten and finally, six. And I complained to my manager. I told him that I was having a hard time paying rent and also buying groceries because he was cutting my hours. And he just told me that his hands were tied, that we weren't doing very well as a store, and that if I wanted, I could try to take this other woman's shifts because she really only wanted to work one shift a week. So I talked to her and she gave me her shift---but before I could even head in they called me to tell me they didn't really need me and were just going to get rid of the shift all together. So I took a second job. But eventually, he cut my hours so low that even that was not enough. I did everything I could to make enough money while staying at Aldi until finally I got tired of the bullshit and told my manager how it was. It was a good moment for me, I think. It was me, the manager, and the district manager in our office and I laid it out for them as clearly as I could and then said, "If you can't work with me, I'm leaving tonight. I don't have anything left to lose here."

It's pretty obvious how that went down. And it sucks, but it was a good lesson for me, and the experience also taught me that I do have the sand to stand up for myself in that kind of situation. I'll be nice for as long as I can, but in the end I'm not going to allow myself to be run-over in the name of seeming polite.

Met a fantastic boy. :) Can't even wait to see him again.

I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night and so my mood this morning was atrocious. Actually, my mood for the last week or so has been atrocious. Not sure why. The weather maybe. The bereftness I tend to feel once I'm not with that boy anymore. Stress over money and my swiftly degenerating complexion. At any rate, today started out being the height of ugly, nasty days and I just felt mean about everything. Anytime anybody spoke I found myself conjuring reasons to hate them in my mind. Not healthy.

And then, when I was finally free of class where I almost cried, I went to Aldi to check the schedule and found out that I was only given six hours for next week which is utter CRAP. When my job was advertised in the paper, it was a 20-25 hour a week job. I wouldn't have taken it if it had been anything less because of course, I knew how much money I was going to need per month, per week, and it was definitely more than sixty-three dollars. At this point, it seems like I am being encouraged to quit and if that's the case, well, I wish my manager would just grow some balls and fire me. If it's not a matter of encouraging me to quit---if he in fact just didn't see the point in giving me more hours---well, I find that pretty offensive as well. I may be a student, and I may be a single, childless girl, but even we need to eat food. UGH. I'm really mad about this whole state of affairs. It's really unfair and puts me in a terrible position in the middle of a semester. This is definitely not how I wanted things to go in the first few months after I moved out of my parent's house. Not at all.

Anyway, it was such a relief to get home and be with my mama. I love that lady and she always makes me feel better about stuff, but not in a bullshit "Oh, honey, it'll be okay," kind of way. Instead, she gets mad too and then I feel justified in my anger and like I have a right to be pissed. And it was nice to see her in general, and also Jack, and to talk with her for a few hours. I really really miss that SO MUCH now that I don't live with her. Especially in the evenings. I expect my roommates get sick of me telling stories but I'm so used to coming home and having an attentive listener at my disposal, I can't even help it sometimes.

Stuff started to pick up after that. I got a text from a girl who knows of a place that's hiring. :) I couldn't have been much more vague there, but I feel like it's necessary until stuff pans out for sure. After that, I came back to the apartment and found out I might have a guest next weekend (!!!!) which also delights me to no end. And then, tonight, my roommate Stephanie and I went out and hung in downtown Champaign. We went to Dandelion and looked at all the big, crazy dresses. And then went to Exile on Main, which I'd never been to before but LOVED. Not only did they have the cool magazines April told me about, but I found Passion Pit's album Manners, and I ADORE Passion Pit. And it was half off so I only paid like, five dollars for it. Hell yeah! And it's great. Listening to it right now.

Ah, and then Merry Anne's, where my favorite waiter was working. He's such a nice guy and  he knows me and he's great about keeping my water filled up. Best of all, he's an amazing conversationalist, just a guy who knows a lot about a lot. So that was a pleasant experience. What I'm trying to say is that by the end of the day I was feeling pretty blessed. My job sucks and my financial situation is simply not ideal. But maybe breaking with Aldi will lead me to other, neater stuff.  And in the meantime, the important things haven't changed. My family is and always will be there for me. We will always be a solid, great unit. And I'm lucky in so many other ways. I have great roommates, and a beautiful apartment on campus. I'm going to one of the best schools in the state, where I'm presented with amazing concepts everyday. And I found some new, great music. Life is a GOOD place.

However, I'm still gonna scurry off to bed now. I don't want to ruin tomorrow before it even starts by failing to sleep. Night guys. Good luck.

This weather makes me want to travel SO much. I want to go someplace and stay in a hotel. I love hotels. They smell like chlorine and cigarettes and coffee, and if you have a hotel room to yourself you can be alone in the quiet for a few hours.

I want a small hotel room, just one big bed, with a wide windowsill somewhere super high in the city. I love big wide windows cause I can sit in them and look down. If I could get away I'd find a place just like that and stay a night and take my bubble bath and some great, easy-read book. And once there I'd get a a giant pizza with cheese and onions. And then, when I was ready to sleep I'd leave the curtains open so I could look out at the city all night long. I would play music by the Outfield. :)

I just really want to gooooo.

Nothing major has happened in the week(s) it's been since I last wrote in here (and I mean legitimately wrote, not just plugged for Obama's speech). That being said, I also have no excuse as to why I haven't been posting. It's been a month since I moved, but I'm still pretty distracted by all the change, I think. Also, it's a lot easier to go out now that I live on campus so I do that more, often to my detriment.

I'm a little frustrated with my classes. Surprisingly (or maybe not) I feel like the maturity level between here and Parkland has dropped. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there are very few non-traditional students here. Or maybe it's because classes are so large? Maybe because I feel older? Whatever the reason, it's annoying to go to a Lit class and listen to some eighteen year old spend seven minutes of class time talking about why she didn't "like" a story. Um, it's the Marquise De Sade. No one pages through his stuff thinking, "Boy, what a page turner!" And further, it's not a freaking book club. The purpose of a lit class is not to sit around talking about our favorites but to analyze and critique. At least, that's what I THOUGHT the point was. Also, with larger classes, I rarely feel like we get to the heart of analyzing anything. We discuss stuff so briefly that I never feel very close to a story. It's very different. And there are people in every class who don't seem to recognize that there is little time and a LOT of people and dominate the conversation with their bullshit, explaining the details of their personal life, relaying how in high school they were the kind of girl who was friends with all the guys---oh except for their one girl friend, but she was like 6'5 so it was like being friends with a guy . . . Shut the hell up! The content of the classes is great. I just think there is something to be said for smaller classes and more serious students and I am learning that if you want to get anything out of these classes, it requires a lot of independent reflection.

My favorite classes right now are undoubtedly English 301, Critical Studies in Literature, and Creative Writing 204. It's mostly older students, for one thing, and the students in those classes have already taken the prereq courses so you know they're serious about what we're learning. Starting out, I really thought I would hate ENGL 301 but it's interesting. And I like my prof., because you can tell that teaching is what she's there for and that she's really trying to do a good job.

In other news, I have reached the point where I have more baking ingredients than I have actual food. It's a little strange and sad, I think, but the money that I will be recieving in today's paycheck has already been allocated for a security deposit (super fun, like an extra month's worth of rent in the middle of the month!) so I'm gonna make do for a few days. I have plenty to eat, don't get me wrong. But bread would be nice. My loaf started to smell like acetone so I threw it out last night after one last grilled cheese.

There have been some alarming crime reports in the area recently, which is no bueno. I feel better and better about my apartment all the time, what with it being located within feet of the Public Safety building. There are cops in my parking lot at all hours of the day and night. It's great.

Also really terrific are the following:

A) Coffee,  coffee, coffee, coffee.
B) Chocolate Truffle Cookies, esp. right out of the oven.
C) X-Men Origins: Wolverine being RELEASED!!
D) Lucas Raab, for fixing my laptop with his bare hands.
E) The job that I'm going to get (I think, hope, want.)
F) Piano Man playing Bob Marley (Is this Love?)
G) Falling asleep and staying asleep for more than an hour at a time. It's hard to achieve, but last night I finally did it.
H) The painting of the Hawaiian couple that is sitting on my desk. Not to toot my own horn, but I love that painting more and more every time I look at it.
I) Taking care of ourselves, every day. And not just ourselves in the present, but our future selves as well. Banking the money, taking the vitamins, saying no to another drink.

 

Boy, up until seven o' clock today was a real downer. I woke up to a voicemail from my boss asking me to come in two hours early, a request I mistakenly fulfilled. I hate to say it but work is going very badly for me right now, and it sucks cause every other aspect of my life is peaches n' cream. But I keep screwing stuff up there, and am apparently not moving fast enough, and (gasp) being short in my drawer more frequently than is acceptable. It's a terrible feeling. I've been employed for four years now and I've always been an exemplary employee. And now? Now I feel like I need to dust off the resume and go job hunting, because there's a good chance I'm not going to make it through my ninety day probational period at Aldi. As in, they might get rid of me. And I can't even tell you how humiliated and horrible that would feel, not to mention what a precarious financial situation it would put me in. I'm trying not to think about it too much and to keep a positive attitude but it's hard, and it's bringing me down in other areas of my life, because you know how these things are; one bad thing causes you to notice others and they start to stack up. It's the laws of attraction!

But after I got off work (the most miserable shift I've ever worked anywhere) I went to Wally-World and made it up to myself by buying a candy bar, a new tube of lipstick, and a cold Dr. Pepper in addtion to all the ingredients for Paula Dean's baked mac n' cheese. And then Brittany met me at my apartment and we fixed a lovely supper of mac, green beans n' onions, and pita bread stuffed with veggies and goat cheese. It was pretty delicious. And we talked and I felt so much better! Because even if the worst possible outcome comes to light, I can always get another job. I'm a marketable girl! And nothing else will have changed. I'll still have my family and all of my friends. I'll still be living in a beautiful apartment and attending the U of I. It doesn't reflect on me as a person, or as a student, and it's not going to mar my future. I'll just experience the sting of rejection and a little embarassment and then it will be over. And that may not even have to happen, right?

Sometimes I think I view life in a skewed way, and hold myself to standards of perfection that can't be attained. I think of it in terms of points won and lost. But there is no score, and I'll be fine.

In other news, I read an amazing article in my Gender and Women's studies text book today that was all about the native people of the Americas, but most specifically Mexican folk.  It was all about how Anglo-Saxon newcomers (invaders) slowly pushed them out of the lands they once occupied with Native Americans and into Mexico, even though they used to occupy much, much more of the American southwest. Anyway, it was pretty despicable overall and I find myself wondering why no one brings these facts of history up in the debate over immigration. Cause uh, us white folks don't really have much ground to stand on. That holds true in many facets of life I've noticed. Hypocracy and a sense of entitlement seems to run strong in our race. Of course, after reading another interesting article I now know that race is merely a social construct and that it's politcally incorrect to attribute characteristics to any one group of people, even if they are selfish whites. But I'm sure you all understand what I mean.

Very much related to the subject, yesterday at Aldi I was checking groceries for a group of young Asian women, and we were having a difficult time understanding one another regarding the fact that we don't take credit there. It was taking a while to explain, but I don't mind repeating myself and I did everything I could t o be easy to understand until finally (Eureka!) we clicked. I finished their tab, and moved on to the next customer in line, apologizing for the wait because I could tell she was losing her cool about having to stand there. 

"Oh it's not you, honey," She said shaking her head as the Asian girls walked away. "Those people drive me crazy sometimes. If you're gonna come here, speak the language." 

I just kind of stared at her like um, really? But the guy behind her in line started nodding his agreement and so she continued. "They're lucky my husband isn't here. He would have said something for sure."

This kind of attitude is really discouraging to me. I don't think I need to explain why. Just pretty disgusting. But I had no idea what to say to this woman about it that wouldn't tempt her to get my manager so I just kept my mouth shut and checked her out. I should have taken the opportunity to shame her a little bit though, just by making it clear I don't agree, and I really wish I had. It pissed me off a bunch. People at Aldi talk all kinds of shit about other customers, racist or no. All it takes is someone getting their debit card declined, or not having enough balance left on their EBT food stamps card and I will hear from the next three customers about how they bet I "get a lot of those kinds of people" and "don't understand how some people can be so bad with money/lazy/fat/whatever." What the hell is wrong with people that they wanna be so judgemental? And why do they think I'm going to agree with them? Freaking keep your opinions to yourself and mind your own business!

This is really long now but I want to end it on a good note by mentioning several things I'm really looking forward to this week. First, Jeff coming from California is super super super cool, and I think I will see him Thursday! Also, Thursday will be the first of three days when I don't work at all, not even a little bit. But I'll still be getting paid that day so hell to the yes please! My classes will all start to be intersting and non-syllabus-y. And maybe my mama will come to campus and have lunch with me at my apartment. I miss her.




 

Other stuff has happened to me lately, too. Kinda sad stuff. I don't really like writing about the details of my relationships with other people in here, and in general I make it a practice NOT to mention the gentlemen I date too specifically. I feel like they have a right to privacy, and I don't ever want people who are going out with me to feel like they are on stage for everyone on my facebook and livejournal friends' lists, just because I blog about everything on earth. I will say, however, that I lost a good one this week to his school which is hours and hours away. We have decided not to pursue a long-distance relationship or anything because it's more work, I think, than either of us is willing to do. Plus, I already know that I let my relationships take a back seat to everything else in life, like school, work, and extra curriculars. But I'm still a little bummed. Maybe we will still visit? Maybe the book is not written . . . ?

I'm sure we will both meet other people and be supremely happy in the long run. I guess.

I've been reading the seventh Harry Potter book because I saw the sixth movie last week, and wanted to refresh myself on the ending of it all. When I read it the first time I was on a plane back from Germany so I was more than a little preoccupied with my own big adventures. I realized I ended missing a lot of the details of Harry's. The more I read of Harry Potter the more I wish our world was as definite as their world. I wish there were people we could just unfailingly believe in, like everyone trusts and believes in Dumbledore. I mean, I know Harry struggles a lot with what to think about Dumbledore after he's died. But still, in the end virtually everything Dumbledore has done is the right thing, and he knows everything, and wouldn't it be great if we could all be led by someone like that? Some figure that was trustworthy enough to lead? We just have to work harder than that in determining who we believe, and sometimes it's frustrating because people won't do the work.

It's like all the people lapping up the garbage being put out by the Republican echo chamber right. Lots and lots of stuff is being said that is simply not true about health care reform. And there ARE some legitimate concerns. I totally concede that there are. But there is all this bullshit too, and people are way too quick to listen to fools and liars like Rush Limbaugh, and I'm like, are you kidding? You're going to trust what Rush Limbaugh has to say about health care? I guarantee he has more money than the average American, and is NOT nervous about becoming uninsured any time soon. He's not relatable and he doesn't care about the experience of normal, middle and working class Americans. Look at it this way; Rush Limbaugh is so well off that for years and years he could afford to buy pills that he didn't even NEED. He doesn't know what it's like to choose between making a house payment and paying for medical treatment. What the eff are you listening to him for?

It also really bothers me when they're like, "We're not gonna have our rights and our liberties taken away." I just want to tell them, you already have you dumbshit. The Bush administration and their Patriot Act took a big dump on the bill of rights and none of you complained. You were EAGER, even, to give up your right to privacy and encouraged others to also accept the distortion of the constitution. Why are so many people willing to let an unintelligent white guy with a hick accent do these things with his evil counterparts, but when a super-intelligent black man and his super-intelligent, experienced cabinet try to make some changes (none of which include stomping over people's freedom) people fall all over themselves to compare him to Hitler and scream and shout that they're not gonna take it? I'm sorry but George Bush and his administration were a far cry closer to Hitler. Secret camps hidden in other countries, used to torture prisoners? Arresting people for showing anti-Bush sentiment at a pro-Bush rally? Arresting a man pre-emptively so that he can't disturb the Republican National Convention, without any evidence that those were his intentions? All of that REEKS of secrecy and illegality. Setting up a health care system that benefits the poor, that all people have to pay for through taxes? No. Not Hitler.

I'm done now. I  get carried away. It's just really upsetting to me that the same people who once said, "Suport the President or you ain't American." "If you don't support the President you don't support the troops," and "Respect the President or you ain't a patriot" are now the same people attending town hall meetings and screaming atrocities about the president over the speeches of the elected officials who are trying to help them understand. I mean, I don't believe any of that shit about "you have to like the president in order to be a patriot." I didn't believe it before and I still think every American has a right to dissent, to dislike the President and his ideas. But the hypocracy is pretty sickening, and I wish they'd go about all of their protesting and fit throwing with some measure of intelligence.

I'm gonna go eat some breakfast and get back to packing. I hope all of you have a pleasant Sunday. Much love and grace to you.