i am writing a blog post

so here is the news. i am writing a blog post. ALERT THE PRESSES

right now my dad is very angrily putting away the dishes. I do not know why, but I think he is angry with my mom... now he is talking about his job. his job SUCKS. he and i have job suckoff competitions pretty regularly. i think he *technically* wins just because some people do not expect this job to last me forever... some people.

speaking of this job - i am officially (finally) a LEAD. Judy told me today (while she was peeing) that she got my performance review and I get a 50 cent an hour (there is no cent sign on a keyboard. WHO KNEW) raise!!!! Next week hopefully Rich is going to give me an 8 key. The 8 key opens the stock room door and also the downstairs and the thing that covers the coffee and like a zillion other things. As Marcel says "it is the key to the world". I also need to get my security badge fixed so that it works the elevators again so that I can go downstairs again. Man working in an airport is complicated. still 50 cent raise! So guys, guess what this raise means to me. It means I am going to spring for - unlimited texts. It is on the to do list for this week for me to call verizon.

also on the to do list- figure out my stupid insurance. i pay circa 10 dollars a paycheck for dental and circa 40 for health. stunningly, i am already out of "wellness benefits" at aetna, the health insurance. i have a $90 bill and a $70 bill for a freaking check up at the gyno. glad i pay for insurance regularly. and i went to the dentist for a cleaning (all that my insurance provides is two cleanings) and couldn't find my dental card blah blah supposedly we don't get a card and we have to request a form from the dentist. my dentist was like "WTF MAN?" so now i have to call judy (hr lady) and try to deal with it so i don't have a monster dental bill as well. being a grown up is lame.

um what else is up in my life....considering getting back into ofa. trying to find jobs to apply to. I helped my friend get a PAID marketing internship with the ymca. See, tiffy? Random airport connections can be awesome. I just started interrogating her while selling her coffee, and found out that she did communications for the ymca. I was like "is there marketing in that? it sounds all marketingy" or something and she was like "oh yeah! tonso marketing!" to which I said "oh well I have a friend who is a marketing whiz, she is studying it at ius. Her name is Holly. Come here, Holly" and Holly chatted with her and got an email address! Which led to the internship she started yesterday! Mucho excitingo.

Kelly is gonna go see the ballet with me soon :)

I got a letter from Cait today! And one from Patricey earlier this week! I love getting letters from you guys. It makes me feel less abandoned by all my friends. tj and trew didn't help that this week... anyway yay letters!

I think ima buy a used ab lounge so when i sit here and watch intervention i can make my abs flat and sexy. This intervention is really sad. Aren't they all?
k nothing else is goin on. i miss you guys!

I HAVE THE INTERNETZZZ!!!

So I think someone next door just got wifi or something...i'm using their signal!

This is very exciting! Now I can live like it's 2011!!! PARTAY ON DA INTANET!

k, so i gots to take a shower n stuff then go to bed. I'll have another update soon.

Ciao friends!

WEBCAM!!!

So..I am like 5 years behind and just got a webcam. I need to skype with you guys!!!! This so soooo coool!

Why doesn't anyone write in here anymore?

Hmmm.....lets see....I'm still pretty much just working out at the gym and going to work.
Waiting and waiting again to hear from JET, but I bet it will probably longer since Japan is in such a mess right now. Yikes. Its really sad to keep watching the news about Japan.

On Thursday Hawaii did get a tsunami warning to hit at around 3:15am-ish. It wasn't that bad though. The sea level was supposed to have changed 2 meters (6ft ish?). Some of the harbors, marinas and boat owners got messed up, but not casualties. Someones house on the Big Island floated away. They got hit with bigger waves.

What else can I write about here....I read the Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins. If I've ever told you guys about Battle Royale, it's kinda like that. These kids or youth rather are selected to participate in these games and they have to kill each other. They get special training then like off and kill. Kinda like Lord of the Flies (I didn't read that).
I'm gonna read that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Series next.

Ok. Hope you all are well.

PARTY @ MY HOUSE!

haha, My title is what normal people would do right if there parents were gone for 2 weeks......but i don't really have friends anymore to have a party....
My parents are going to Las Vegas and somewhere for my dad's 60th birthday. Man hes old. We had a early birthday party with some of my dads cousins this past weekend too.



We had a big dinner at this Chinese dinner at this fancy restaurant. Even had Shark Fin soup (so in Hawaii we passed a new law that you can't eat Shark Fin....but if the restaurant has stock they can use it....).

Anyway....I started this entry and then my mouse broke......so I'm continuing this entry. It is now Thursday, March 3rd. Drinking some wine alone in my room.....off the next 2 days anyway. Drinking wine kind of reminds me of Franzia, which reminds me of Violins vs Violas....miss those days. But I have to say wine taste much better when I'm not chugging it.

Brother is going to Hilo(Big Island) for the next few days to play with the orchestra there. Isn't it sad that they have to fly people in from the other islands to play in the UH Hilo campus orchestra for their concert. Pretty much have the house to myself (my Aunt lives downstairs, we live upstairs; shes gonna be around though). I should so have a party....oh man.

So....my interview went okay....There were 2 people from UH (University of Hawaii's East West Center, that's where Anna Kung was working when she was in HI last year during WT) 1 Japanese guy, and 1 former JET participant, she was a younger looking girl, well when I say young I mean in her 20s. I thought I had some good answers, and some generic not memorable answers....so we'll see. There was the one guy that kind of asked hard q's and tries to intimidate the interviewee...but he wasn't that scary. The LA interview was way more scary and intimidating. At one point I was talking about how I wanted to share the concept of the American Prom.....I have no idea where that came from, but when I was telling them about that their eyes kind of popped out and had an ahhh like that was something new and never heard before.I find out early April. If i get short listed that means I'm selected for the program, but if I get an alternate then I could be updated to the short list if people drop out.


Anyway, what else....my brother has this girlfriend. Her name is Monica. Shes a year older than me, but shes still in college. Nursing....? Maybe another year and a half..... It is almost impossible to graduate in 4 years at UH. Good thing I didn't go there. Anyway...thats crazy that anyone would date my brother. Hes so weird.


So Borders.....filed for Bankruptcy 11 like 2 weeks ago....maybe....and a ton of stores are closing due to that. I looked at the list and some in Indy, Broadripple....a ton in Indiana are closing. I remember going to one in Indy, it was a huge Borders. 2 stores in Hawaii are closing, ones on Kauai and the Big Island. Now the outer islands (islands other than Oahu; I live on Oahu; most populated island; population is about 1 million) have no Borders and pretty much no book stores at all..that's pretty sad. It makes sense not to close the ones in Hawaii since shipping costs a ton and people do buy stuff from the stores vs online. You know how there is free shipping and such....but it excludes Hawaii and Alaska.

Anyway....my GM is fucking dumb bitch dumb fuck. She like didn't fill out the paperwork to keep some of the seasonal temporary people we have and so we had to let them go last week. So we lost a ton of people and 3 others quit. One had a full time position and was in charge of paperchase (the notebooks, cards, stationary stuff). Her reasoning was that the GM made her feel so anxious and she was getting anxiety and such. I totally understand since I felt the same way when I first started and almost quite like a month after I got hired. She was working there for almost a year too. We let her handle all of paperchase since that was a section of its own, and now nobody knows what to do with her stuff. HOTT mess. And 2 other guys quit, 1 lived kind of far away and working closer to his house is more convenient since he can't drive. And the other guy was a military dependent, so I guess his family and stuff is shipping out.

So I think we have about 17people on staff....kinda sad. And there is a hiring freeze because of all this bankruptcy stuff. But we had 2 interviewees today for somereason. And the GM didn't tell anyway. OHHHH and one of the other managers is quitting. Shes one of the managers that did my interview and hired me. I'm kinda sad that shes leaving. This is the 2nd manager that is quitting since I started working. Its because of the GM. She is a real BITCHZILLA! Anyway......I don't think I'll be quitting anytime soon until I can find another job. Kinda feels like I'm going down with this sinking ship....

Oh yeah, so I think I'm playing in this gig with my brother next Friday. Oh man. I haven't played a gig in like 4 years. And I really hate playing with my brother.....and I haven't change my strings in like a year.....this should be interesting.



Tiffypoo, that haircut looks good. OMG I'm proud that you are still running. We just had the Great Aloha Run (an 8 mile run) this past weekend. We also have the Honolulu Marathon, but that's crazy.

Kellypoo, your puppy loookssss sooooo cute! You know what..I was actually going through old DPU stuff that I kept, and I found a birthday card you wrote be when we were freshman. It said you hoped we would get to play chamber music together someday. To bad we never made that happen. You weren't there I think, but I told the DG's to play chamber music with each other. It is a good bond to share.

Rachypoo, I'm glad your arm is doing better! Take all the baby steps that you need so that you can get it fully healed. Your trio pics look sooooooooo COOOOOOLLLLL!!!! And it is quality photos. Congrats on your promotion! :)

Amanda, I bet that being locked in your apartment was a really bad experience, but I sounded like a really good and funny story. Sorry if thats a little insensitive of me. its like fml statements that you know it sucks but its funny when you look back on it.
Sounds like you are getting a ton of teaching experience. I might ask you some tips/pointers and suggestions on ESL stuff if I get selected for JET.


Anyway....hope you all are doing well. I MISS YOU GUYS!!!!!!

fudgey does not like this

she is really mad at me right now for not petting her.
you guys should apologize to her

So I'm glad to see most people are doing well. Although that getting locked in your apartment story SUCKED amanda. sucked. i think i would have cried. Don't you just hate it when that shit happens? you're locked in and your phone doesn't work and then someone doesn't pick up their phone.... le sigh. That was like my Saturday at work, which began with me being the ONLY one there. No manager, no other opener (the stupid new kid was late. predictable), no one at quiznos. It was super sucky.

Speaking of super sucky - I have gotten medical bills for my WORKER'S COMP injury. I am not paying them. I called my rep at Gallagher and Basset freaking all week last week. I just called her again. no answer. I called and got the operator (after pressing about 7 thousand buttons) and he did not help at all and transferred me to the supervisor who also WASN'T there and I left her a message. I am going to get this worked out, I know, but right now I am pissed about my $426 emergency room bill. Medical bills can fuck with your credit score. I am working really hard on repaying my loans so that I will have a good credit score. It is just pissing me off. I'm gonna email Jerry, the lawyer I have already emailed about this. I will get it worked out.

Like my trio on fb! Trying to get some publicity. Classical Nuovo. We have some crazy looking (professional) photos on there too. And btw, those recordings you can play are SO not us.

I went to the gym yesterday! Who is proud?! I AM. I kinda used my arm as an excuse not to gym it for a while. Luckily I have to walk constantly at work so I am not gaining weight. But I am hella sore today. It's hard to stand on your feet/walk at work and then work out after. It was easier when I worked at meijer, I could work out before. Anyway whatever. Back to the gym for me!

My manager said today he's gonna go ahead and push through my promotion!!!! FINALLY. I'm not gonna celebrate it until I get the raise though. The thing is that our starbucks manager for the region, Pam (we are a franchise so we have a starbucks manager and an hms host manager) has quit (in like november) and we STILL don't know who the newbie is. So just waiting on jonathon (baby manager i work with every day) to push it through to tony (jonathon's hms host boss). My pushiness will help.

Glad to hear everyone's relationships are going well! Patricey and I need to catch up! Gonna be hard for me because i have absolutely no social life, lol.

OH you guys might understand this. Newbie at work, who is super cute and kinda niave and in LOVE with jesus, is kinda dating (but not really. she can't date him until she knows god approves. LITERALLY) chandler. She took chandler to work sunday. He was nervous and I asked her about it today. her "I asked him about his beliefs. He said he definitely believes in God, but he also believes we came from apes!!!!! I mean really?! That is so much harder to believe I think!" Evie (a massive fan of jesus herself) "Well that is more complicated than just that we came from apes, and it is possible to believe both... The important thing is that he believes in salvation and is on a path to get to heaven"
that right there? pretty normal day at work for me. And those are the people i like!
for the record, everyone, i do believe in evolution. Just in case that might affect your friendship with me (what newbie was worried about)

my dad's play is getting produced in la this week! And last week actually. But he and my mom are going to see it this week! YAY!

k that's all I got. Miss you guys!

Key fail

So it's 8:05 am as I'm starting this post. My first class of the day is supposed to start at 8:15. It's one of the classes in which I teach judges and prosecutors--pretty cool, actually. I wake up at 6:45, get ready, etc. etc.....I go to the door to leave at 7:45 so I have enough time to walk to my class and get there on time, only to find that there are no keys in the lock. You see, the doors here are such that the only way you can LOCK the door to prevent thieves and kidnappers from coming in is to lock it with a key. At night, my flatmate and I put one of our sets of keys in the door in case there's an emergency and we have to escape....otherwise we'd have to sit around while we found our keys, found the right one for the lock, etc.

You can imagine my surprise when my keys, which I put in the lock yesterday, are not there. I check the chair near the door. No keys. I had just cleaned the hallway on Saturday...could they be lying around somewhere unusual? Nope. No fucking keys anywhere.

Now, my flatmate is notorious for being, shall we say, absent-minded. He's already lost the keys a classroom once or twice. I can see the situation now: he gets up this morning and goes to work about 30 minutes before I get up. My keys are in the door....he grabs them, puts them IN HIS POCKET, and leaves....with his keys as well...then afterwards locking me IN my apartment and preventing me from leaving for class.

Nothing malicious on his part at all; total pre-7-am absentmindedness. All the same, FML.

To add insult to injury, Polish phones have this whole pay-as-you-go or pay monthly thing going on. My brilliant network decides to block your phone after a certain amount of time if you add minimal amounts at a time. For instance, I add only 10 zloty at a time because I rarely use my phone. As a result, after a week or two, my phone is blocked from making and sending calls and text messages (can only receive) until I add more money. I've been putting off adding more money because I figured, hey if I really need to make a call, I can always just add money when I'm out. Never thought that I'd be trapped IN my apartment and unable to call for help. Again, FML.

To make matters even worse, I came up with the brilliant idea of calling on Skype. I have a couple dollars Skype credit left, so I'll just look at the teacher's register for the numbers of the teacher who co-teaches this court class with me....she'll be there and can tell my class. I call the first number listed...."invalid". I call the second number...it's her fucking MOM. Her MOM. Who doesn't speak English. Somehow I manage to get the teacher's number, in Polish (and numbers are like THE hardest thing in Polish....arrrrgh!!) and call, but there IS NO ANSWER.

Luckily, one other teacher has a class there this morning, so I called her and go through.

But I feel like a total idiot. I'm locked IN my apartment. Seriously, how does that even happen?! I just hope my students don't hate me, or don't think I flaked out on them or something. Ugh. So embarrassing.

***

In other news, things are going relatively well haha. I'm working a lot, but I'm starting to get into the swing of things. Last week was my busiest week yet because last Saturday I had to proctor a mock Cambridge English exam, which took over 4 hours to proctor (not including grading time....multiple choice for 3 sections and in total 10 essays.) Wednesday I had to do the speaking part of the same exam, which took over 4 hours. That was in addition to my normal classes. Plus in two of my classes I had to give other standardized English mock exams and grade them. Plus normal book tests for my ordinary classes. Busy busy busy :)

But in spite of that, I managed to have more free time than usual. I think this proves my long-standing theory that I work much better under pressure and when I have less time. I'm hoping to do more with my Polish. I have only one 45-minute lesson a week, but I'm going to try to see if I can find a conversation partner I can buy coffee and a drożdżówka (pastry) for in exchange for an hour of haltingly painful Polish with me :) I'm also starting to study for the GRE. No definite plans yet, but I figure it'd be good to take the GRE in case I want to go to grad school down the road.

I had a two-week holiday (look at me, I'm starting to talk like a Brit. Yikes) at the beginning of February. I took a bus (14 hours) from Krakow to Hamburg to see my boyfriend. Over one weekend, I hitched a ride with someone--paid 25 euros instead of 80 euros for the train--to Cologne so I could see Amy Jantz. Spent the weekend with her, which was amazing, and hitched another ride back, again paying 24 euros instead of 80. My trip back to Tarnow was painful--about 16-17 hours on the bus--but I made it :) Jeff is coming to Tarnow on March 16, so I'm really excited about that. Also, Amy Jantz is hoping to come either in March or in April, so I'll get to have some visitors to my humble abode!!

Admittedly, I'm reallllly missing playing in chamber groups, especially. I've been practicing more, but I miss my string quartet and things like that. Kelly, sorry you have to deal with such crappy violinists....not too uncommon, unfortunately :( Oh, on the subject of music (and radio...) Tiffy, I couldn't get that file to work you posted :(

Well, nothing else exciting is going on in my life right now. I like my classes, and I'm learning how to be much more effective with my planning, which is making me generally less stressed out. At times I feel really discouraged about my language ability (especially since I'm losing Russian at the moment) but I know that I am getting better, cause I managed to get that phone number this morning. Siedem dziewięć pięć dziewięć dziewięć sześć sześć.....yeah have that thrown at you at the speed people normally say phone numbers. SCARY!

Anyways, sorry for the incredibly long post. I had to start off with venting about my ridiculous situation first haha. Hope everyone's well!

Puppy! (Warning: huge blog)

Well, I figure I haven't blogged in forever so I probably should. At any rate, THAT'S MY PUPPY! Her name is Clara (after Clara Schumann, one of the best and far most unappreciated female composers ever). She is so cute and I love her. I have had her for 3 weeks now and she is making lots of progress, though as I write this, she is staring at me while chewing on crap she isn't supposed to chew on (ie her crate). But she's not going to hurt anything by chewing on that.

I got her from this place called SAAP, Stray Animal Adoption Program in Newport, KY right across the river. Her mom was a shelter beagle and she was fostered with her bros and sisters. She got really lucky because every pup in her litter got parvovirus (kills puppies, basically) except for her and she's perfectly healthy! Though I am taking her to the vet tomorrow because I think she has an infection around where she got spayed. Oh well. Potty training her has been the hardest part, but she now knows to go to the door when she has to go, which is a huge improvement from having like 4 or 5 accidents in the house every day. Now she has 0-1 or 2 accidents every day, which is much less stress for her mommy. She is half beagle half dachsund (wiener dog). Beagles are super smart but dachsunds are dumbasses so I think she is just average. But I'd like to think she's pretty smart for being practically housebroken in 3 weeks :)

I love her...it's made my time in Cincy a lot less lonely since I don't have much of a social life. This quarter has been NUTS. I played for the opera (Marriage of Figaro) which was stressful because even at CCM, the violins suck. I mean, the singers were better than the violinists. How messed up is that? But actually the singers at CCM are freaking amazing because it's a great opera school. Well the violinists are actually really good but they don't practice their damn music. It made me miss you, Amanda! We actually have a concert this Friday night (playing Firebird and Sensemaya, remember that orchestra kids???!!) and our director threatened to have (GASP) graded excerpt tests for JUST the violins! Which is cray cray because we NEVER do graded excerpt tests here. Weird.

Patrick isn't going to DePauw anymore. Without getting into too many details, he's basically just taking a break and is hoping to transfer into IUPUI to get a music technology degree in the next couple of years. He is actually far happier to be away from DPU and I'm happy for him as well. Just a warning...he and I will hopefully be engaged within the next 2-4 months.!!!!!!!!!! Crazy.

School is going pretty well, though like I said, this quarter is nuts. I finally nailed down a recital program for the fall: Brahms Eb Sonata, Hindemith Op. 11 No. 4 Sonata, and Stravinsky Elegie. We have to give 2 recitals as MM students and most of us violists do 2 in our second year, one in the fall and one in the spring. That's basically because our teachers spend the whole first year changing our entire technique and way of playing (which is totally happening, though it's for the best). Now my dog is biting my feet. OUCH. And now back to biting the crate.

Rachel and I were talking the other day about how much we miss people from DePauw and the SOM. I told her that all I asked was to be able to play drinking games vs. the violins, but considering there are 39 violists in my studio here and like 3 times that in the violin studio, we'd be a little outnumbered. We'd probably win anyway, though. I'm pretty good friends with like 5 violists in my studio, but that's about it. I don't even know everyone's name still, how messed up is that?

Anyway, I think that's all I can think of. But I miss you all and hopefully it won't take me this long to update again!!!!! Peace.