And what do YOU want for Christmas, little girl?

Dear Santa,

My name is Rachel, and as you can probably guess, I’m writing to you because I have a request for this coming Christmas season. Before I begin, however, I would just like to say that I think I’ve been pretty good this year.

Well, kinda sorta.

Okay, I’ll admit lately I haven’t been the best person, but I haven’t been too terrible either! And from April to June, I was being really good! For real. And hey, at least now I’m being sincere, unlike little Susie over there who’s asking for a pony and saying she’s been good even though she’s probably dealing on the side.

Anyway, if my sincerity and my attempts to be good amount to anything, I would like to make a specific request for the holidays. Okay. Santa, I am kindly requesting the Yamaha SLG100s. Now, I know it’s a little expensive and the economy isn’t too hot right now, but please consider what I am asking of you. I promise that if you get it for me, I’ll be really, really, really good. Pinky-friggin-promise, yo. And you know what? To make the deal even sweeter, I can pay for half of it. I would pay for all of it myself and spare you the trouble of reading my letter, but a good chunk of my money was stolen by the University of Minnesota, and unfortunately, I am not in the position to be making major purchases right now. So please, Santa, consider my request for the Yamaha SLG100s. Please.

However, if this is a just an impossible request to fulfill, then Santa, I would please like a hat–preferably one that covers my ears, like this one or this one. Winter is a cold, cold season. I would like to be as warm as I possibly can.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, Santa. Best of luck with the holiday season!

Your biggest fan,
Rachel

Where’s the mute button?

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I come in and work at my research lab here in good ol’ Elliott Hall. And just about every time I come in, I get the honor of listening to the girl working in the lab next door yak about all things her. No, seriously. She’s all about her and what a great person she is. And you know, that’s fine if you want to talk about that discretely to one or two other people, but to be frank, the girl has no concept of dynamics. She sits in the hallway with the other RA, drops a couple f-bombs and swear to Bobs, and talks on and on with no regard to her volume or the fact that people around her are trying to work or read/study or whatever.

It’s very annoying.

Now, it’s one thing if she was talking about something interesting. That I can handle and might actually enjoy. It’s another thing when all she talks about is herself and she gets super defensive if the conversation might put her in a bad light. And forgive me if I’m projecting my feelings of annoyance onto others, but I don’t think the other RAs like that she talks so much either. Today, for instance, the other RA was clearly trying to study for a class, yet Loud Girl kept on talking to her as if she was fully engrossed in the conversation, which by the look of Other RA’s facial expression, posture, and the fact that she was reading and not even looking at Loud Girl, she was not.

To give you a sense of what I have to listen to every Tuesday and Thursday, I have provided a few excerpts from Loud Girl’s conversations with the other RAs and… people who walk by and… the wall… Please enjoy.

My first day working the lab:
Guy: I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s like I stopped caring about people and having compassion for others.
Loud Girl: Really?! I am the complete opposite. I (pause) am probably the MOST compassionate person I know.

A couple weeks ago:
Girl: Was it hard to get an A in Intro Psych?
Loud Girl: Yeah. It’s so hard to get an A in that class. Like I had to–
Girl: Really? ‘Cause I got an A in that class and I thought it was pretty easy. But I dunno…
Loud Girl: Oh. Yeah. Well, it was easy for me. But for other people it was really hard…

Today, she was talking about how for Intro Psych she read every chapter twice:
Loud Girl: It’s probably good that I read every chapter twice because now, I have such greater knowledge of all areas of psychology.
*Note the super emphasis on the word “all.” Bold, italicized, and underlined. That was to capture the emphasis with which she put on that word and to capture the ensuing biggest and unrestrained eye roll that I ever did roll. Fo realz, yo. I’m pretty sure that eye roll took my head along with it.

And in no way am I trying to seriously hate on this girl nor do I have some private, internal vendetta against her. I just thought I’d blog about it and share some of the things I wish other people were around to hear. Plus, I think blogging about it has helped me make more light of the situation and turn something annoying into something somewhat humorous.

So, I’m sorry if I came off as complainin’ or hatin’. Sometimes I just like to write about these things and inject some humor into it, which helps me see things in a different [and less frustrating] perspective. It keeps my head from exploding too much.

And that’s always nice.

What to do, what to do

Seriously. What the smurf do I do?

Non-commenting readers (ahem), I’m in a bit of a predicament. Kinda, sorta, not really. Actually, I don’t know if I can call it a real predicament since it’s mostly internal… Kinda, sorta, not really.

I won’t go into what [un]said predicament is, but here’s my dilemma: Do I keep expending effort into this predicament? Or do I leave it to the other involved parties to do something? Granted, I’m not really doing too much right now, but maybe that’s a sign that I should be doing more. Though to be honest, I don’t really know what else I can do and if doing more would be appropriate for the situation. Most likely not.

I’m being very vague right now.

Yesterday, as I stood in line to vote, I asked my magic coin who was going to win the election. Magic Coin said Obama. With that, I think I might ask Magic Coin to help me decide what to do with my current situation.

Do I keep putting in the conscious effort or just go with the flow?
He says go with the flow.

Do I need to rethink the stance I’m currently taking?
Yes.

Am I going to get hurt?
Yes.

Should I give up?

Life Lesson Learned in Record Time

Have you ever noticed how some television shows try to communicate some type of life lesson during each episode? Usually, at the end of their 30-minute or 1-hour time slot, there’s some sort of take-home message for the viewers.

Hm. Think about that.

30 minutes to an hour.

Short as that may sound, I’ve got that beat. I learned a life lesson in the span of about 3-4 minutes. And I didn’t just learn it– I internalized it and applied it to a somewhat broader aspect of my life.

So what exactly happened and what exactly did I learn? Well, read on, read on. This is the part where I tell you.

So there I was sitting on the can in Elliott Hall when I happened to look down at the space underneath the stall door. I saw a tiny little beatle-ish bug on its back kicking his miniscule legs trying to get back on his feet. As I stared at him struggling, I thought that there were two things I could do: help him or kill him.

Now, I really despise bugs and insects, so the temptation to just step on the sucker was needless to say, kind of strong. But he looked so sad and helpless, so… I decided to be the better person and help him.

I did my thing and as I was leaving the stall, I gently nudged Mr. Beatle-ish Bug with my shoe in the hopes that it would turn him over in the process. It didn’t work. He was still on his back kicking. I nudged him again. He stopped moving.

Oh crap. I killed him!

I stared at him while I washed my hands, hoping that he would start moving, but he didn’t. I felt horrible. Here I was trying to do something good for something I didn’t particularly like and I ended up killing him. As I dried my hands, I was reminded of all these situations I’ve encountered where my good intentions backfired. Why does that happen? Why do some good actions produce bad results?

Downcast, I turned to leave the bathroom. Just before I left, however, I looked back at Mr. Beatle-ish Bug one last time and what did I see? He was moving! And not only that, he was back on his feet and crawling! Yay for him…

With lifted spirits, I made my way to class and realized that I learned something valuable in this little tryst with Mr. Beatle-ish Bug.

Life Lesson: Your good intentions might cause something bad to happen immediately afterward, but sometimes, you have to wait a little bit to see the good of your actions.

[end scene]

[roll credits]

Today’s Feel-Good Story

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Read it and go, “aww…”

I am a genius.

Whilst perusing the Yahoo! homepage, I saw a headline that read, “Dolphins earn big fines for choreographed dance”. Upon reading that, I immediately thought, “Dolphins were fined for dancing?! How does that happen? Were they, like, doing some kind of show at a zoo and they got in trouble for it? But they don’t even have any money to pay off the fine…”

Out of personal curiosity and overwhelming concern for the dolphins, I decided to read the rest of the article, and you know what I found out?

Well.

I found out that…

Yeah, they're different

But hey, you can’t blame me for being confused and thinking that the cute dancing dolphins were the ones being fined. In this day and age, the media have reported much stranger things.

So there.

I must not have gotten the memo…

… that today is “Leave the OD Intern All By Herself” Day at OMS.

My office is divided into two parts: the front office and the back office. Overall, we have 18 employees– 10 in the front office and eight in the back. However, at this very moment, there are two people in the front office and two people in the back.

Four people.

Out of 18.

So where is everyone?

Well, more people were here this morning, but they left. All the bigwigs of the office are at training and they took a couple other people with them.  IT Guy Matt is at a doctor’s appointment. Intern Bri (the one I share an office with) didn’t show up today, so I’m guessing she’s sick. The IT interns and Office Assistant Gabe are still in class. And other people aren’t coming in until later…

[cue Eric Carmen's "All By Myself"]

[in surround sound]

To make matters worse, I woke up this morning with a ginormous headache, and so to alleviate my headache, I made a full pot of coffee at work today not realizing at the time that people were leaving/not here. So even though I made a vow to cut down on my coffee consumption, I’ve been left to drink all the coffee I made. I’m only on my second cup. And I’ve already peed three times since I got to work. I don’t even like coffee. Even though it keeps me warm and it can taste good sometimes and it makes my headaches better and it makes me happy and it feels good…

Anyway! This kind of made my day: Click!

You know, I wouldn’t be so lonely if Supervisor Andy would just approve my proposal to get an office kitten.

Halfway through writing that last sentence, I took another bathroom break.

Lalala. Coffee. I think it’s about time for cup #3.

In other news, IT Intern Mike kidnapped my keyboard and gave me a crappy one that’s crooked, so I’m using a coupon book and my stack of Post-It Notes to make it even. Yay for being resourceful and improvising!

Oh man, I need to work. I’m too distracted right now.

The other day, I walked all the way from work back to campus. I work on 29th and Como, so that was like a hundred billion miles! Yay for being healthy and exercising!

Guess what! The only supervisor left at the office just told me we’re going to shut down the office for lunch and go somewhere to eat. YUSSS!

Also, I’m in love with the trees outside my window. They’re turning pretty fall colors. Mmm…

Ahh distractions! Caffeine!

The phone just rang! Once. Wrong number?

Okay. I’m getting back to work now. Fo real.