My Schedule, Stress, Stupidity, and Surprise

I picked up my work schedule today after school, and next week looks horrible for me. Thursday, tomorrow, the last day of this work week, marks the start of a long week. I work 3:15-9 tomorrow, 3:15-10 Friday, 7-4 (truck shift) Sunday, 1-10 Monday, and 9-4 Wednesday. I requested off New Years Eve and New Years Day, so I better not get stuck trying to find someone who can work so I can make it to the NYE party.

Thank you, Northwestern College, for causing the most stressful twenty minutes of my recent life. Trust me, this wasn't an easy feat, but you succeeded quite well. How? Well, the notice that you hadn't yet received one of my recommendations for the Peale Scholarship was a good start (no worries, Janet, it was the other one). Of course, the nice guy filling in in the admissions office who just so happened to steal my name was very generous in letting me sort it out with my teacher so that the recommendation would be faxed to them this morning. Still, all you'll be getting is the written portion with a little notice that says the form was sent to you and it's the post office's fault you never received it. So take that, NWC!

On that note, more stress. I have two big research papers due Friday, and I'm just about halfway done with one of them (the less important one). This stress ties in with my stupidity, meaning I fell into some hardcore procrastination yet again recently. Thankfully, I have a nifty little stress poker chip from the lovely Kelly Castle that always helps relieve some stress (it's also lucky in poker tournaments).

Then, the surprise. I don't think I've ever mentioned in my blog how amazing Mariah is, and I probably should more often. She had asked me a while back if I wanted to go with her family to a Wild game this Saturday. We would've been in a gameday suite, which would've been tighter than a noose in The Crucible. Something came about where that wasn't going to happen, so she told me she had a surprise for me. Now, she and I will be going to the game on January 3, hanging out behind the penalty box. Have I mentioned lately how amazing my girlfriend is? I never have the resources to come up with any good gifts or surprises for her, so I'll have to think of something very clever to return the favor.

My Fruit

Last night was full of a lot of driving, and very little sleep. I went down to NWC with my mom and Mariah to see a play. It's a play I wasn't too sure of, seeing as I disliked both the book and the movie. My brother had done the sound design for The Grapes of Wrath, which was adapted by Frank Galati (I have to admit the writing was very good for the play).

I was utterly impressed with the show. I loved it, and I wish I could see it again. I'm a little sad I couldn't make it to other things I had as choices for the night, but it was good seeing my brother and hearing his great work for the show. Plus, I remembered reading Tracey's blog about her labor scene, and while she was giving birth during the storm I had to hold back some laughter.

We didn't get back to Frost until just after 1:00 in the morning, and I had to work at 9. It took me a while to get out of bed because this cold of mine is getting horrible, but I was only 15 minutes late to work. I made up for by staying until 5:15, so I got the whole 8 hours in.

After work there was a run-through of the play before our dress rehearsal tomorrow. I'm still a little skeptical about the show, but tonight made me a little more confident. It'll all come down to remembering lines.

As for the title of this post, I kind of got to thinking tonight about The Grapes of Wrath. I instantly thought of Galatians 5:22 (Fruit of the Spirit). There wasn't anything too specific or deep that I was thinking about; just that I feel like all of the things listed in that verse are things people hold near and dear in relationships. Coincidence? Not likely. Godincidence? Definitely.

I want to include the Director's Statement from the play last night because it's really good. It's kind of long, but well worth it.


"Three provocative statements to consider as we enter together into tonight's production:

1. Christ-figures appear in various forms of literature. Writers as diverse as C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man in the Sea), Bernard Malumud (The Natural), and John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath) imbue their protagonists with Christ-like qualities, often leading us to see familiar aspects of the Gospel story with fresh eyes. In his apologetic writing, Lewis argues that the appearance and reappearance of Christ-figures in myth and literature testifies to the inherent truth of the Gospel in our daily lives; Christ keeps showing up, often where we least expect. This said, we must acknowledge a key difference between Christ-figures and Christ. Jesus was not literally a Lion, an old fisherman, a baseball player, or a fallen-away Pentecostal preacher from Oklahoma. The fact that these characters exhibit some of Christ's defining characteristics only serves to remind us of the essence of the Gospel story and how we are all, at our core, image-bearers.

2. As a culture, we do a poor job of ministering to our social and economic outcasts. This production forces us to remember this sad fact, and begs the question "Who are the 'Okies' of today and how are we serving them?"

3. Our American expressions of Christianity reveal annoying tendencies that emphasize the indiviual over the corporate. Sometimes we allow our individualistic culture to define the Gospel exclusively as a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." This stops short of an equallyl pressing biblical call to live in community, ceaselessly serving the "least of these" our brothers and sisters. This seperation is false. Christ's directive to the apostle Peter's individualistic affirmation that he loved Jesus was to direct him to feed and care for community (John 21:15). As stewards of the creation, God calls us to live and sustain our individual faith through community. At its best, The Grapes of Wrath reveals to us our corporate body and our social responsibility."

-- Robert Hubbard

My Mind

Feel like each section of your brain is being pulled in a different direction all at the same time? I know what you mean. That's exactly what's going on right now. Mostly it's because I have so much junk to get done before the end of the quarter on Thursday (since I don't take finals on Friday). An art project and two late assignments, challenge gov't terms (32 of them) and studying up on a current events quiz, studying for an AP bio test on membrane structure (still need to read the chapter) and do two late assignments, and fix the devos that I wrote so there's one available for the reunion on Sunday.

It's crazy. Life is crazy.

I also need to remember to ask for a whole week of work off so I can make it to all the rehearsals leading up to the opening night of our play. I'm really hoping my boss allows it seeing as we have three new people working there who could fill those days. My concern is that she won't let me do it, even though she never has the schedule ready that soon so it shouldn't be too much trouble.

I'm just confused. I don't know where to start, but I know I have to start now. Goodnight!

The few, the proud....

I am officially one of an elite few Kwik Trip employees. When I walked into work tonight, Velma told me I had a secret shopper recently. My first thought was, "Oh, crap..." but she ended up congratulating me. Turns out I had the first secret shopper score in about a year, which I think says a lot for my ability to learn quickly (seeing as I've only been there 2 months).

Bowling on Thursday was amazingly fun (as usual). There were more great nicknames, but I don't have the ambition or memory to get them all. I'll highlight some of the best:
Mariah -- Dick and Jane
Hannah -- Oblivious, Grandma
Melissa -- Jose Offerman
Okon -- Mad Hops, [the other one was Nate's idea and won't be repeated]
Emily -- Galaxie [named after her ball]

I'm pretty pumped for this upcoming week. As of now, I'll be seeing Anna and Matt on Monday, going to Kato with Tommy someday, and going to MOA with Mariah (I'll keep her away from the shoes) on Friday (because I think I don't work, but the schedule doesn't go as far as I thought).

Since I don't anything interesting left to say (and what I've said already wasn't too interesting), I'll leave now.

What a world, what a life....

If I earned a dollar for each complaint I had daily, today wouldn't be very profitable for me. I can't believe how glorious it turned out to be.

First off, I went to bed way too late (oops), and I had to be up by 9:00. When I did wake up (right on time), I took a little longer than expected getting ready to go to Albert Lea. Still, no complaints. The weather was absolutely gorgeous as I got in my car, so I decided to drive with the windows down (my favorite) and crank up the volume of Anberlin (amazingness). I finally got to Perkins a few minutes after 10:00, and the one and only Levi Budd was standing at the door. We only had to wait a couple minutes for a table (Perkins was extremely busy), and breakfast was great. We were there for a good hour after we finished eating, and eventually the waitress kept asking if we needed anything else (a hint that we should leave because people were waiting for tables). I've never had the chance to just sit and talk with Levi, and even though we just jumped from topic to topic, it was great. Out of all of the people going off to college this year, he is definitely one of the ones I want to keep in touch with the most. He said he's going to try to make it down for the next TEC, and he'll be the first one I call if I'm ever near Northwestern.

I showed up to work at about 2:03, which is technically "late," but the time clock hadn't rolled over to the next 15 minutes yet. Nate stopped in once, and before that I surprised Leah Mortensen when she came in to pay for her gas and realized I worked there (fun fact: she lives on Mortensen Lane....ironic....). It was a good shift at Kwik Trip, minus the guy who got angry over six whole cents [complaint count: 1] and the Comdata card situation [complaint count: 2]. Although, we gave the trucker with the Comdata card some free food for waiting around so long, and he seemed to feel a lot better. He even came back around 10:00 to buy some things [complaint count: 1].

Tonight was the big night of the Perseid meteor shower, and I was pretty excited to see it all go down (there's still some time as I'm writing this until the "peak" time). Sadly, a few clouds have rolled into town and made it pretty tough to see the sky very well. As I hit this point in the paragraph, I checked back with the stars, and they were shining splendidly. I saw about 12 really nice meteors and a bunch of smaller, dimmer ones [complaint count: 0]. Two fairly good ones almost crossed, but both died out and left really nice tails before they got that close.

Today was fantastic, and I wish every day was just as great. Even if I would've ended up with 10,000 complaints I know that there's nothing to dwell on or worry about because there are days like these where everything just seems to fall into place. God is good....all the time....

"Yeah? Well, I'm Catholic. I don't want to piss Mel Gibson off."

Today was a pretty good day. I woke up this morning and went to Mankato with my mom to pick my brother's bike and get a few things for school. Then I came home and showered so I could go pick up my good friend Amanda. We had plans to go eat Chinese and maybe catch a movie. We ended up bumming around Wal-Mart after we ate, and I ended up getting some more great music (Michael Bublé anyone?). I made Amanda decide what movie to see, and we ended up going to "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" after some narrowing down. It's not hilarious through the whole movie, but there's moments where I had some great laughs. One of the best (that will be appreciated by you folks who read my blog) is the name of the captain of the fire department. I told Nate not to look it up because it would be much funnier for him to hear it in the movie. There's also a lot of quotable moments, but I have trouble with my short-term memory.

I ended up picking up a 2-10 shift tomorrow because a lady couldn't work tonight; I took tomorrow's shift for the guy who took her shift tonight. At least I didn't get stuck with the morning shift tomorrow like I was going to at first.

Council on Thursday....Relay for Life on Friday....good times....

I know you're sad....

You'll all be very disappointed to hear that I don't have any great stories about unloading truck on Sunday. I have an even better one. I called in sick that morning and the shift leader sounded really mad (I figured it was because she didn't know who would work for me). She sounded less mad when I called back a little later to confirm I wouldn't be going in.

My 6-2 shift on Monday morning wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. I worked with some fun people, so that eased a lot of the pains of not wanting to be there that early. On Monday night, I went to Tommy's for a while and a few of the lifeguards from Bricelyn were there. We played some Guitar Hero, DDR, and started a short-lived fire.

Today's shift wasn't too bad either. We've been busier than usual this week due to the fair (which I don't plan on going to unless Nate miraculously shows up), and things stayed pretty steady today. After doing two sets of paperwork and mopping, I was out of there 15 minutes late, which isn't too horrible. I went to Tommy's for a little while again tonight, and we ended up watching "Young Guns II," which is a pretty dang good movie. I'm not a fan of westerns, but "Tombstone" and the "Young Guns" movies aren't too shabby.

On that note, I probably won't have anything to blog about tomorrow (it's my day off), and I might blog about Thursday night's fun when I get home from said fun. So I'll leave you with this thought:

Why is the streetlight that's shining into my window so freaking bright?!

Decision....

I decided it was about time to recap my last few days, seeing as they've been pretty sweet.

Thursday
It was a day off for me, and I decided to spend it not doing a whole lot. I already had plans to hang out with Brice that night, but other than that I didn't want to do much. It was around 3:00 when I finally drove out to Tommy's to see if he worked that night. Turns out he didn't so Brice stopped by there and we threw the frisbee around until we lost it in the thick weeds. That's when we decided to go play some disk golf in Blue Earth. On the fifth hole, I lost my driver in some bushes, but I found it halfway through the second round when we decided to quit and go to Mankato. We thought we could catch the 10:05 showing of Transformers, but then I thought we should see if the bowling alley was open. Lo and behold, it was cosmic night, and it cost $10 for all you could bowl until midnight. We ended up bowling finishing our 6th game at about 12:10 and headed home. Good times....

Friday
I worked from 2-1o, and I have to say it was probably the best shift I've ever worked. If I'm ever scheduled with Angela and Carmen again, I'll be very excited. Nothing too exciting happened, but they're fun folks to work with. I get to do truck with Angela on her birthday (technically today), so that should be pretty good too. Good times....

Saturday
I woke up for the last time around noon, and my mom and her boyfriend were just about to leave for the Three Dog Night concert somewhere near Red Wing. They'll be gone until sometime this afternoon. Brice stopped by at about 3:15, and we left for Albert Lea. After a couple quick stops, we met up with Kimmy and dropped her car off at the BP by Ellendale. From there, it was off to Trinity for Agape. Pretty good turn out for community, and I knew three candidates. I saw a few folks I haven't seen in ages (Anna, Ann, Travis, etc.), and Mariah proved she had somewhat of a memory by continuing on an inside joke we have. There was also a TEC 67 Wheat Team picture taken, but we were missing about half of the team (Anna, Eric, Sam, Emily, Witte, and Janet weren't there; Gary was in the conference room). Afterwards, a bunch of us headed to Reiter's for some good times. We played a little bit of Wii and a lot of Guitar Hero. Kyree wiped out on a rug and hit her collarbone (her head too?), which I didn't get to see happen. Ann, Ruth, and Levi all left somewhat early; Abby was next, and Kyree eventually headed home (but not before she wiped out again; this time with Matt). Kimmy fell asleep on a chair, and she was still there when Brice and I left (Melissa and Bethany went home also). It was a fun night. Good times....

[blank stare]

I got my first paycheck today, and it wasn't too shabby. My intentions for tonight were to get on EMSS and set up direct deposit, seeing as I opened my checking account when I got home today. Lo and behold, the site isn't working. In fact, none of the three options for getting on EMSS are working.

Just to throw this out there....Joel is one of my many heroes for his love of Eddie Izzard's comedy....

I slept through the Giant Days derby tonight, but I heard it was a complete waste. Maybe I'll stop by the parade tomorrow after work, but who knows.

On that note, I have to find something to do to pass the time before work at 8. I probably won't sleep because I've already done plenty of that.

Tonight's Cyanide and Happiness is dedicated to the one and only Greg Schimek because I have yet to dedicate to him, and I found this one somewhat fitting due to his computer geekness....

Edit: I got the EMSS site to work by using a different company's EMSS and changing the URL. If the paperwork Kwik Trip gave me would've had the entire URL on it, everything would've been fine. Now I just have to wait for the payroll processing to finish so I can actually set stuff up.

I think it's time to sleep....

I know I must be tired when the word "FALSE" doesn't look like it's spelled correctly and I spend 10 minutes staring at it and retyping it.

I worked from 2-10 today, and I got my schedule up through the 27th. The only thing wrong with it is that I asked a few days ago to have the 21st off (for obvious TEC reasons), and it looks as if I'm scheduled 2-10 that day. I'll have to find someone to switch days with. I work with the lady who used to own the Frost store, and I got to know her really well. I'm guessing she's my best bet for switching days with me.

There will be a lack of blogging tomorrow night since I'll be in Owatonna, but be prepared for a blog about the services and my game of disk golf on Sunday.


Tonight's episode of Cyanide and Happiness is dedicated to the one and only Joel Cooper....not for any specific reason....just because he was one of only a couple to blog today....

Woot!

Today was another pretty good day at work. I was there from about 2:30 until 10:00, and I realized there is one huge benefit to working there. We're always so busy that I don't even realize what time it is until it's time to leave. I felt like I was only there about 3 hours, not 7.

Since the USB ports finally worked, I uploaded all of my pictures onto Facebook. If you use these links, you'll be able to see them even if you don't have an account (or so it told me...if not, let me know).

Bowling for Soup // Melee // Army of Freshman -- June 25, 2007
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000404&l=32472&id=1272000013

Whitewater State Park camping -- June 18-21, 2007
http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2000401&l=d7a2a&id=1272000013

Tonight's amazing Cyanide and Happiness is yet again dedicated to the one and only Ben Hoogland....

Too much Kwik with that Trip....

Today was a much better day at work. Instead of all that time doing CBT stuff on the computer, which I finish next Thursday, I spent a good 5 out of 7 hours at the register. There was a lot of rushed periods because of the bikers going to Algona (plus the typical noon rush). Of course, I managed to screw up a few times (sshhh...don't tell KT), but it was all good. It's much better than staring at a computer screen for hours on end. It was nice to actually see people's faces and talk to people I knew instead of being cooped up in a 3x3 room. I also neither nearly froze my hands of in the cooler nor bled at all today. I did do garbage again, but that's easy enough.

Now I'm just sitting at home doing nothing. My mom and her boyfriend went up to Taste of MN to see George Thorogood, and I'm pretty sure everyone I hang out with around here is working tonight. So woot for that....

Still can't upload pictures....no woot for that....

To Uncle Tim: I dont' work until 3 tomorrow, so I'll be partying with poker....you should let me know if you're up for it!

And now, a special Cyanide and Happiness dedicated to the one and only Ben Hoogland....

Edit: For some reason the USB ports work on my computer again, so be expecting pictures from Monday's concert randomly throughout the weekend.

I give up....

I've officially given up on trying to get all of those pictures onto the computer. One of these days I'll upload them at Tommy's and send them to myself, but that's for later on.

Today was my first day at Kwik Trip. I stocked the cooler, did the garbage run, and spent a good 4 1/2 hrs. looking at training stuff on the computer. Very bogus. I have to work at 9 am, and I can be on the register as soon as I finish some more CBT crap. Still very bogus.

I'm tired, and I hate getting up early.