Orientation

I am 24 years old. I have a Bachelors Degree. And I am going back to school for a 1 year Associates Degree program. And yes, they did make me attend freshman orientation.

It was simply awful. The first day consisted entirely of touring the campus that I don't have any classes on, learning how to live with roommates, being away from home for the first time, alcohol awareness, life on campus, and icebreakers.

In order to get to the school I had to wake up at 5am, and leave at 6am. So keep in mind that I was entirely way too cranky the whole first day.

First, let's start with the tours. At my school there are two campuses. One for academics and one for the culinary classes. I do not have to take academics due to transfer credits, and therefore that campus has no true relevance to me. So that was boring. Also, it was hot as hell out, and there was no shade to be found. They had us walking around, very slowly and moving as a pack, for what felt like hours. We even had to eat outside on the pavement with the scorching sun. They made us go inside to get sandwiches, and then leave the VACANT and air conditioned building to sit and suffer. I, of course, did the responsible thing, and ate my sandwich in the air conditioned bathroom. I'm just so very classy.

Next, let's move on to the icebreakers. Any one who has ever had to experience an icebreaker knows just how miserable they are. I'm going to go ahead an assume that the Orientation Leaders are pure evil. The first one involved standing around in a circle. One person would be in the middle, spin with their eyes closed, stop and point to someone and say "bang." The person who was just shot would have to crouch down, and the two people next to them would have to face each other, make guns with their hands, and pretend shoot while repeatedly saying "bang bang bang bang," until someone stopped to breathe. The loser would then go into the middle, be the spinner, and then leave the circle and sit down for the rest of the game. The name of this icebreaker was creatively "Bang Bang." It was awful. When it was my turn to shoot someone, I quickly lost so I could sit out. It was worth it.

Another one was to help us learn each others names. We would say our name, then a type of food. The next person would have to repeat it, and add their own, and it would continue on. Luckily, I was second so I didn't have to pretend to care too much. For my food, I selected falafel. Unfortunately no one knew what the hell a falafel is. Mind you, this is a culinary school. Even the Orientation leaders didn't know! I was visibly annoyed throughout the rest of the icebreaker as everyone else selected safe foods like "apple" and "hamburger."

There were more, but I'm too annoyed now to type them. Maybe I'll add them later. But you pretty much get the idea of how my first day of orientation went. My head was pounding by the end, and I had to take out my contacts in order to drive to my cousins. Thank god they didn't make me stay on campus and attend the activity night. I may have snapped.

Day 2 was actually very useful. Too bad all of the info was horrendously condensed and there was no time to ask questions because by the time one session had ended, another had already been going on for 2 minutes. But they had a session just for commuters while another session of dorm life was going on, and I got the important info on parking passes and such. It really made no sense to me that the useful info day was so short (we were done by 12) while the useless day was so long that it was necessary to fill in all the blanks with endless icebreakers (I was there til 5:30, and it continued after I left).

Well I guess it would make sense if I were a freshman, even though I remember hating my orientation when I went to Northeastern. But they really should have allowed me to skip the first day and only attend the second, like I asked when I called them, instead of wasting my time and making me grumpy.

On the plus side, I got to see Jenna's apartment and it's wicked nice, even if her cat does seem to enjoy watching me go to the bathroom. Cats are just creepy.

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Black Belt Camp

For some very strange reason, I had decided a while back that it would be a good idea to go to the Black Belt Camp. Nothing wrong with the "Black Belt" part; it's the "camp" that gets me. I hate camping. I'm ridiculously allergic to nature. Bugs love me. But still, I want to test eventually so I figured I should make a showing at this event. Also, I do genuinely enjoy karate.

So I saved some money. And I went this past weekend. It was fun, and I met some interesting people, but I still do not feel the slightest bit more in tune with nature. When I showed up, I set up my bed, was chilling out, meeting the other people in my cabin, when someone said, "Don't freak out, but there is a mouse behind you." Great. Freakin' super. Sure enough there was a cute little mouse prancing along a ledge that was just a few inches above my bed. Of course I moved my stuff, but the only place I could go was up. Bunk beds are fun like that.

Then I went and ate dinner. I don't know whose idea it was to give us all nasty pizza before working out, and then have let's-do-a-hundred-jumping-jacks Mark do the warm-up. It was slightly unpleasant. He's a jerk. We did some forms, some kicking drills, some self-defense. It was good. Then it was time for bed.

Sleep did not come to me. Every time it tried I would hear the damn mouse go sprinting around inside the walls, especially the wall by my head. I would sit up, grab my flashlight, and look around to make sure it was actually INSIDE the wall and not on my bed. Nothing is more fun than trying to sleep while imagining being woken up to a mouse crawling around on your face.

Saturday was fun too. It was a little gross and exhausting, what with waking up at 5:45am and exercising all day in the heat wearing the same uniform I had exercised in the night before. Other than that I was enjoying the camp. It was nice to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a while, and to meet potential friends. And I got to do archery! I'm good at it! A natural! After all that there was a little bonfire at night, followed by a drinking party.

Then the mouse again. Stupid little prat.

Sunday was relaxing, but by that point I was so very done with wearing my uniform. It had a permanent dampness to it that was highly unpleasant. Luckily Sunday was mostly talking and an awesome group sword form in a field, and then we were done by noon.

So, I had a good weekend. Learned some new skills, brushed up on some old skills, shot things with arrows, and socialized. I also found that it is possible for me to fall asleep with the chance of waking up to a mouse in bed as long as I have spent the entire day exercising like a fiend.

Still, nature and I are not the best of friends.

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I'm comfortable with being an Elitist

I had a very strange weekend. Nothing annoyed me even the slightest. I do have a reason for my good mood, as on Friday I learned that I was selected as a finalist for a contest that I am very excited about. But I won't go into details until that's all done. I'm just happy that, win or not, I was still selected as one of the few good enough to be considered. Being elite is awesome.

And I find that being in such good spirits makes me want to write in my blog. But about what? People don't want to read about happiness, right? It's so mundane and subjective. But you know what? Screw you. I'm happy and you're just going to have to deal with it.

So Friday was fantastic news for me day. And then the Mets won. With Davis and Takahashi being impressive.

On Saturday I made scrumptious delights. It was fun, but a little stressful. I tried out a new recipe for the first time. I made Butterfinger styled cupcakes. They were chocolate with peanut butter frosting and peanut brittle sprinkled on top. Normally I have no problem trying a recipe for the first time, but I fear baking and the horrible ways in which everything can go wrong if I make one simple little mistake. Luckily for me I rarely make mistakes and the cupcakes turned out fantastic!

And then the Mets won. And finally reached .500

I went to the Daffodil Festival on Sunday. It was awesome. It was ever so slightly raining, which meant there were practically no people around. There were still some, but it was way less heinous than previous years. Especially since it was a little chilly too. Nothing is more gross than going to a packed festival in sweltering heat and being surrounded by gross people eating unappealing food with children running around with sno-cone coloring stained to their faces. No thanks. Rainy and chilly and sparse is the way to go. It was quite enjoyable. And I got a really pretty necklace and matching earrings for a grand total of $9.

And then the Mets won again. And are now over .500 and tied for 2nd. My love for the day's rain must have helped since they won due to a rain-shortened game.

Sometimes life can be good. As long as no one annoying and terrible is trying to engage you in conversation.

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Group Training Is So Very Very Fun

Everyone has done some sort of training for a job, right? Well, hopefully. I just got home from a 6ish hour long training for a call center. I won't say which call-center, and I won't give out details about training because I don't want to get in trouble, but I don't see any problem with telling you about the people there.

It was a fairly large training group, probably close to 30 people. And of course with a group that large there is a good chance that at least 5 people will be obnoxious. First, there was the repulsive large ass-crack of a lady sitting in front of me. Throughout the 6 hours it somehow got larger and larger and more disgusting. Now, I don't make a habit of looking at large ass-cracks, however it was one of those things that once you notice you cant go back and make yourself un-notice it. You know, like people with horrible face moles or people who muffin-top.

That wasn't even that bad. Behind me I had the loud-breathing, gum-popping, hard-candy clacking, constantly shifting kind of guy. Those are all actions that I highly despise. And to make matters worse, the fact that he was sitting behind me made it so that I couldn't even glare at the back of his head, or shift obviously away from him while making a disgusted face. You know, because passive-aggressive is how I roll. The best I could do was completely turn around while he asked an irrelevant question and stare unblinking at him with a creepy smile. I'm classy like that.

And that guy brings me to the questions. Oh the questions. The stupid, pointless, waste of time questions. Here was how half the time went: "What if a customer wants (insert something that can't even happen) to put on a (insert item that doesn't exist) and there isn't a store that can do that?" The answer is obvious to me: "Tell them we can't do that." And on and on and on these questions went. I could tell even the trainer was getting annoyed. This was just the intro training, can't they save the detailed and pointless questions for training with the actual programs?

It always baffles me just how very unprofessional people are. And by "baffles me" what I really mean is "annoys the crap out of me." There were people texting in their pocketbooks, as if that isn't obvious. It's bad enough when high school kids do it, but employees? Really? You're going to do that during training and then ask them to repeat something because you were too busy texting to listen? Also, remember this is a call-center, what about the people with the "I gotta ax yous a question." How did they get this job? It's a call-center! All you have to be able to do is speak clearly and coherently! I just don't get it.

Well, overall I am excited for this job. It will be nice to have steady, easy work for a few weeks. Now that group training is done I'm hoping everything will be less annoying. Oh, I know I'll have many customers to deal with, but I expect them to not know what's going on. After all, they wouldn't be calling me if they knew how to fix their own problems, so I'll let them be confused at me for a few minutes. It's all good.

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A first post had to happen at some point

A lot of things in the world annoy me. Greatly, intensely, severely annoy me. Children, cliches, pickled food, loud chewing, open-mouth breathers, stupid people, small talk, politicians, overly happy people, overly depressed people, bugs, and soggy bread are just a few of those things. Also, I am frequently bored. Why am I telling you all this information about myself? 1) Because I'm interesting, 2) to clarify the purpose of this blog, and 3) to have a first post. So here is my first post. I find it to be sufficient for starting this blogging adventure. It will be fun and entertaining, I promise. If you disagree then you can go away, seeing as how you probably don't matter to me anyway.

But seriously though, what's with the people who walk around with their mouths wide open for no reason? Open-mouth breathing is only acceptable if you are sick or don't have a complete jaw. Close your mouths people, you look like idiots. There will be more on this topic at a later date.

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