RECITAL and other things

ok so my kids' had the recital tonight. THEY WERE AWESOME. so good. so good. and i am super fucking proud. like walking around with a giant smile, etc.
i was also SO NERVOUS OMG. i think i was more nervous than i was for my senior recital. i really do. cuz then i had the party to think about. that was a fun party :)
i meant to take pictures. but i was so worked up. that i did not.
my students are the best
plus i think they like me. idk, i can kind of tell a lil more when im chatting w/the parents and whatnot. Plus I have three students saying they are going to take lessons over the summer. so yay. and i am trying to push three of them into the ius summer string camp. 1 is like "yeah!" and 1 is like "ugh viola" and 1 is like "ooh when?" so that's cool.
you guys shoulda gone to this recital. it was SO AWESOME i am not sure if i was clear but it was pretty freaking fantastic. and i baked cookies. and my chocolate chip ones (just like poison cookies btw - same recipe just me making steada mom) went so fast! i didn't get one :( but i have leftover cheeseball and butterscotch and pecan cookies. :)

so what else? oh so i was like high off my awesome night right? well came home with my parents (who came to cheer me on - sweet) and we listen to a new voicemail. from some fucking arm doctor who my work STILL HAS NOT PAID and then i got mad and i think i have to sue. which sucks. but this happened with my boss's boss this week
tony heineke "hi rachel how are you?"
"i'm bad. i'm getting collection calls from the bills YOU ALL still have not paid"
"what? it's not my fault"
"well whose fault is it? who picked gallager and basset (their insurance company)?"
"calm down"
"it has been four months tony"
"well don't attack me"
"i'm not attacking you, you asked how i am. and i am upset because i am getting calls from collection agencies. that's how i am"
then he walks away visibly upset. my coworkers are like STUNNED and silent. he comes back
"ok start over this is the first i've heard of this"
"no it's not. you asked how i was right when the renovation started and i said "bad my medical bills still haven't been paid" so you have heard about this before"
"ok. well what is going on?"
"well most of my bills have been paid, but the lab bills and the er doc bill still hasn't. i have mailed them and faxed them to my contact at gallager basset and she says she is paying it but now i'm getting calls because she hasn't"
"you have to understand it is a really big company"
"EXACTLY. it is a really big company so they should be able to deal with a few medical bills in a timely fashion"
"well it hasn't been that long"
"YES IT HAS if i am getting calls from collections agencies"
"well tell me about it ask me for help maybe we can make resolution" (sometimes i don't think he understands english)
"ok here is her name and number" he took it, called her, came back and asked for YET ANOTHER copy of the bills. i left them in his office door yesterday. i got a call tonight. WHAT THE FUCK JUST DO IT MOTHERFUCKERS WHY MUST YOU RUIN MY DAY AND MY CREDIT

so that sucks. seriously you guys DO NOT get hurt at work (although it isn't like i planned it) because i really don't think hms host is special in its suckiness.

oh and apparently the thing i'm doing with ofa is SUPER FANCIPANTS. I'm a summer organizer and i was on a conference call for it the other night and i put NO effort into getting this, steve completely hooked me up i think, i didn't even have an interview. and i learned on the call 1. that everyone else had an interview 2. that they only accepted 20 something applicants out of 100 plus. WHO KNEW.

ok now that i have written a novel i am going to eat leftover cheeseball

One of my students told me to fuck off today. To my face. Only he said it in Polish, so was obviously not expecting me to understand him. I'm not sure if I'm more disturbed by the fact that he said that or by the fact that everyone else in the class laughed when he said it...as if showing such disrespect to a teacher is a good thing. Uggggh how do public school teachers EVER survive?!? I have so much more respect for my past teachers now!!

5 weeks left!

Hi everyone! Hope all is well. The end of this semester is in sight; I have only 5 full weeks of teaching left before I am totally done for this semester. I'm not gonna pretend that I'm not excited. The kids are antsy to be done (and the seniors are no longer in school but instead are in the middle of month-long university entrance exams...yikes.) Meanwhile, with the weather getting nice (finally) and with a quarter of my friends on Facebook freaking out about finishing school, I'm feeling antsy to be done, too. The closer I get to the end, the more anxious I am to be done....it's like the last few weeks have just been draaaaagging on and on.

I have signed my contract for next year, so I will be in Poland for another year. However, I am going to Hamburg for the summer. No more long distance relationship as of June 22!!! Yay!!

For the most part I like it here, but I do get frustrated at times. I have like 3 friends cause this town is so freakin' small, and sometimes I feel like all I do is eat, sleep, and work. So, I get homesick on occasion, and I really wish I could meet more people, but what can you do?!

On a positive note, I'm super excited about traveling this summer. One reason I came here was so I could take advantage of the location. You can travel for cheap when you don't have to buy a super crazy expensive plane ticket across the Atlantic Ocean!! So, June 23-July 11 Jeff and I are going from Hamburg to Vienna to Budapest to Sarajevo to Mostar (both in Bosnia and Herzegovina) to Kotor (Montenegro) to Dubrovnik (Croatia). Should be a fun adventure :) We've also been invited to visit one of Jeff's coworkers in Lithuania (they have a house there) so all we'd have to pay for is a Ryanair flight...super cheap! We're also going to Morocco for a few days in August. The rest of the time this summer, we'll be teaching English in Hamburg before we head to Poland in late September for the start of the next school year (beginning of October.)

Otherwise, my life is pretty boring. No big news or anything on my end. The most exciting part of my day usually consists of me correctly ordering a coffee to go in Polish :) Hah.

my job = doing everyone else's job and mine. i hate it. i cried all the way home. because i am fucking miserable.

glad your all's lives are going well though.

i asked my boss's boss today why we don't fire people. It went like this.
"i was just hoping you could explain our policy of not firing people" (COMMON KNOWLEDGE)
"what are you talking about? what policy?"
"well we all think there is a policy against firing people. Because no one ever gets fired"
"that is because things aren't documentated. " yes, he said documentated. MULTIPLE TIMES. and then he went on and on about how if we dont documentate then his bosses will make him hire that person back. And he asked who I was complaining about. I told him pretty much everyone, and it is exhausting having to do multiple people's jobs. I singled out Tierra. And I told him what happened yesterday.
First day of may = worst day of may (i hope) despite the fact that i did say rabbit.
Me, Geraldine, and Daniel (new guy who is a big smart ass, and so new he knows nothing) were opening. Rosie (EVIL EVIL LAZY ASS BITCH WHO SLEEPS ON THE JOB CONSTANTLY) was the manager, got mad at geraldine because she "had an attitude" and sent her home. At 4 am. We had an incredibly AWFUL day. Because Daniel isn't quite a real employee, and HOlly showed up so it was JUST ME AND HOLLY WORKING OUR ASSES off. And fucking Rosie. I HATE ROSIE. I SHOULDN'T BE WRITING THIS DOWN BUT I WANT TO CUT THAT BITCH'S FACE OFF. I SERIOUSLY HATE HER. Rosie didn't help us at all. She was busy sleeping on the clock.
I conveyed some of this to Tony. "oh"
"hang in there kiddo"
HANG IN THERE KIDDO?!
IS THIS WHAT THE FUCK I WENT TO COLLEGE FOR?!
HUH?

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME? NO ONE EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVEN CALLS ME FOR A REAL LIFE MOTHERFUCKING JOB WHERE PEOPLE ASSUME I HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE

Also today a customer saw one of our mice. BOUND to happen because we have had mice FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS and have done NOTHING THAT I CAN SEE about it. fucking humiliating. So i was upset. Jonathon (manager) asked evie "what's wrong with rachel?" evie said "the same thing that's wrong with me and holly! We find the mice disgusting, wished someone besides us cared, and are freaking sick of working our butts off while everyone else is lazy. And it doesn't matter because no one ever gets fired"

But you guys have good lives. Kelly is engaged, Tiffy's loving her NYC producer life, Amanda's living it up in Europe, Patrice got into Jet (YAY!), so I will just sit here and miserably rot with my kitty cat alone.

I. HATE. MY. JOB.
and i can't get another one.
so glad i have years of great work history. so glad I did unpaid internships.

and I am so lonely.

I'm getting hitched!

Hi friends!

Sorry it has been a million years since I've posted. Been busy and all that jazz.
I only have 5 more weeks until I'm halfway done with my masters! Wow! It goes fast. Thank goodness, since I'm really over the whole school thing.

As all of you know, Patrick and I are getting married! (Surprise). It was a cute proposal, he just got down on one knee and popped the question in our hotel room on our 1 and 1/2 year anniversary weekend. It was sweet! Our wedding is probably gonna be in late May next year (almost a year away!wow!)

I went wedding dress shopping with Rachey (super fun) and we also saw the ballet (drunk) which was amazing. I didn't get a dress that weekend, but I got one last weekend! It's really pretty. I'm not gonna post any photos though because I want everyone to see it at the wedding!

Patrice, I am soooooo excited for you for Japan, as you already know. That is awesome. I will write you back soon.

I applied for a job at Carnegie Mellon University: Director of Music Enrollment and Recruiting. Basically like the head of the admissions office. It is pretty much my dream job, if I still got to play music on the side. If I get it and they want me to start this year, I'll prob leave CCM and try to finish up my MM there. If not, no biggie, I'll just stay at CCM. Blaaaaaaah school.

I'll be heading out to Blue Lake for the 5th time this summer at the beginning of June. Patrick is working there this summer too!

My puppy is getting bigger, but she is still adorable!! I wish you all could see her, she's real cute.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. Hope you are all having a great start to May :) Miss you all!

I'M GOING TO JAPAN ON A JET PLANE!!!! haha

So, as you all know I got shortlisted for the JET Program!
(Shortlist means those on the list to get contracted with organizations, alternates are those who aren't yet on the shortlist but could be upgraded if those on the short list reject the position or fail to turn in paper work on time)
This is a dream-come-true!!! OMG!!!!! I've wanted to do this from sooo sooo long. I even wrote it on like a statement of purpose or whatever that I wanted to get a college degree then work in Japan on the JET program. OMG!!! yeah. okay. I was really worried I wasn't going to get in since I'm so used to rejection. But yay!

So....paperwork.....I realized that I'm an idiot and I should have signed up for medical through Borders. I was supposed to sign up in the beginning of March but I didn't because I thought I could still be covered on my moms plan. Long story short, I don't have medical, it's too late to sign up and now I have to pay out of my ass to get my medical from filled out.

Lets see.....work, the mean gm quit. We only have 2 managers!!! But then this other guy from the closing Borders came over, so now we sort of have 3 managers. It was kinda crazy when for a while, but now I have a ton of hours since the mean gm isn't here to not give anyone hours. Been working almost 40hrs a week. I'm going to be so happy next week when I see a big ass paycheck. All these hours are good, but now it's harder to go to the gym.

My birthday was fun too. Went to a Japanese buffet and had a ton of crab and uni (sea urchin). SOOOO GOOD!!!!!

My goal was to get my license before it expires in August, but I haven't been driving and I'm about ready to give up.

Lastly, not to be a debby downer, but be careful. A coworker from camp died last week. She was riding her bike to work or class or whatever and a big truck hit her and she died on the scene. I don't really know what to say about that. So yeah.

Anyway! It's almost summer!!!!!

k fine i will then.

i am ordering new friends. off amazon. should get here next week.

in other news. my toe is fucking bloody and that just tells you how my stupid life is. nevermind you guys don't want to hear me whine

only good thing to say- had fun climbing on a mountain.