Good News for All!

The other day I found out that my contract with U- Admissions is being extended until April!! I'm pretty excited, not only to have a job and something to do, but to be on campus regularly and get to see more of the admissions process. Right now, I think I'll be working 4 days a week, reading applications and decided who gets in and who doesn't. Sounds like a big job to me! That's the good news for me.

The good news for you, as promised in the "Good News for All" headline, is that I will be traveling some more in the Spring. Not many trips - probably four much short ones, but since I'll be out exploring the world, I'll keep writing the blog. I might even write a little through out application season, if things are interesting that is. Be sure to check back semi-regularly. Nothing daily, for sure. But maybe once a week or so.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I think I am going to start up a new non-admissions related blog. I really like blogging and writing. It's a little therapeutic and gives me some purpose in life. I still need a good topic to blog about, but we'll see about that. For access to the new blog link, ask me. It won't be posted here.

Until later,
-J

Ten Seconds Left on the Clock

Tonight feels like New Year's Eve. Each passing hour feels like another second gone down in the count down in slow motion. Tonight is my last night in a hotel. My travel job officially ends in less than 24 hours. No more schools, no more fabulous rental cars, no more giant king sized beds. Tomorrow at 4pm I should find out if my contract has been extended to be an application reader. Of course, I really want the job, but I am not getting my hopes up. Right now is like the final seconds of the big game. The clock has 3 seconds left, the ball is in the air, and the crowd is silent, waiting to see if it makes it in the basket. (Look at me and my sports references!) The decisions have really already been made; nothing that happens from here on out can really change the outcome. We just have to wait and see what happens.

At the moment, I am rather tired and not feeling particularly reflective or in touch with my emotions, so I will not be using this blog entry to discuss my final wrap up notes. I'll save that for a day this weekend, so be sure to check back later on. I will, however, say that since this travel job is pretty much over, it means that my blog is as well. When I first started this, I had no idea I'd have a solid reader base. I'm pretty impressed with myself that I have written well enough for people to even want to read it. I've been told the entries have gotten significantly better and more enjoyable as time has gone on. So Thank You!

Quite a few people have requested that I continue my blog even after my travel is done. The truth is, I truly enjoy writing it and I enjoy people commenting on it. I'm worried there won't be enough content for a separate blog or a continuation. After A LOT of consideration, I think I have decided on starting a brand new blog - one that will be updated less frequently. I will do a one month trial run. If there is enough to discuss, I will stick with it. If not, like a bad tv show, it will be taken down after a few episodes. I really like blogs with topics, not just ones that ramble on about a person's uneventful day, so I need to settle on a topic to write about. Please forward your suggestions! I have some life goals for after this job, but they aren't really things I want to blog about.

As for the fate of this blog, I plan on getting it bound into a hardcover book. I'd like to keep it as a souvenir of my journeys. Someday the grandkids might want to know how grandma crawled across a bathroom floor!


Here's some stats on my viewers - 1,608 views in total from the following countries. I'm impressed! Though, I know know what anyone in Singapore would want with my life. It's not that exciting! Maybe it's a good thing I always refer to my school as U-.....

USA: 1364
UK: 43
Canada: 22
Russia: 21
Japan: 20
Poland: 19
Singapore: 19
Germany: 16
S. Africa: 13
Kuwait: 10

My Stint as a Bad A$$

I am a good girl. I always have been. I don’t really have any desire to break the rules and I am probably every parent’s dream. I can only hope my children are as good – they have high expectations to live up to. I never snuck out of the house, never drank underage or tried any drugs. I never lied about where I was. Never got a secret tattoo or hid a piercing from my family. People used to make fun of me because when everyone was answering “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I’d always say I got yelled at by a mall cop for going up the down escalator when I was 14. It’s the truth. Never stole a pack of gum, never really ran away, never watched an R rated movie until I was 18, never was a part of a secret fight club. Never even done a donut in a parking lot. I remember when I was about 4 I used to enjoy poking my fingers through the plastic wrap on the meat at the supermarket and I recall unintentionally unthreading a few shirts at stores while pulling at the pretty sequins .Sue me. So I ruined less than $100 of things in my life. Anyway, you get the point. Good girl. Sometimes I am so good that I worry people will doubt my goodness. No kid is this good – surely my family must be suspicious that I am hiding something. I can assure you Mom, I am not, nor have I ever. I’m just a good kid!

Now, I also grew up in the era of Laguna Beach and the OC. Everyone on those shows always had a bonfire on the beach. Living in a small town no where near a beach, I never got the opportunity to have a fire anywhere buy my backyard or a camp ground. It’s been on my to-do list for years, but every time I go to a beach, there are always signs that say “No Fires”. Being the rule follower I am, I never lit one, mostly in fear of going to jail! A couple weeks ago I was reading a travel book on San Francisco and they mentioned having a bonfire on the beach. Instantly, it went on my SF bucket list.

I had forgotten all about it until A and I went out to a restaurant which over looked the Pacific. It was late, and therefore dark, and way way out in the distance I saw little flames. Are those fires? I asked him. Yup. I’m sure A thought my enthusiasm was ridiculous, but he agreed to appease me. Living on the shoreline his whole life, A has seen his share of beach bonfires and was not really excited. But being the good person and dedicated friend he is, we drove over to a gas station, bought the Sunday paper (that one has the most paper!) and a cheap lighter. We got to the beach, walked about 300 feet away from the other fires and decided to set up camp. I had brought a blanket and some towels from the hotel with us, so I set up a place to sit while he worked on lighting the fire. In the car was a box of Coke Zero cans and a cardboard box of U- viewbooks. These books aren’t cheap. Like $3 each. But at the end of the trip, if there’s less than ½ a box left, I am supposed to recycle them. If there’s more than a box, I am supposed to send them back to school by mail. But the box was half way and I only had 3 schools left, so I decided the books would make for great kindling. Of course I saved some books for the other schools (too many, actually), but they did, in fact, work well for the fire. We found some left over wood from someone else’s fire and A got to work on lighting it. It took a long time. And flicking the cheap lighter so many times hurt our thumbs pretty bad. I don’t know how people smoke. Nothing would catch on fire, but then all of sudden it went. I took about 50 photos. Way too many of the fire and A wrapped in a hot pink blanket, trying to light it and “be the man.”

Now here is where the story gets interesting. I was told by A that I had to write a blog on this, even though he has his own blog. I told him he could have the story, but apparently I’d make it sound more fun. I’m not going to exaggerate it, though we joked about how the story might unfold in my sitcom life. Here’s the real version:

So we’re huddled up on this tiny towel, looking at the stars, listening to the waves crashing on the beach, and having some good conversation, when I see this spot light shine on some of our other fire people. The light was coming from a cop car in the parking lot. “That’s a cop! Crap!” I know the book said fires were okay at one beach, but I couldn’t remember if that was the beach we were on. We didn’t see any signs earlier, but why else would the cop be there!? Not knowing what to do, A suggested we run. I couldn’t find my shoes, but I found them. He fumbled with the cardboard box, which I told him to leave behind, but he didn’t want anything to get traced back to us and my name was on the box. We jogged back to the parking, leaving the fire burning. But what else were we to do? We didn’t even have a water bottle to pour on it and the water was a ways away. Besides, how would we even get the water from the ocean to the flames? Our cupped hands? Right. We didn’t think this whole thing through all the way. I felt bad, but we got into the car and sped off, hoping the car wouldn’t chase us. I had no shoes on and had no idea where we were going, but there was no time to fight with Garmin for directions. We just drove about 20 minutes and figured it all out later, laughing the whole way about my stint as a B-A. It was pretty exciting, not going to deny it. And we got to cross off another thing from my bucket list. The list is big, but this California trip crossed off quite a few things! (Special shout out of thanks to A)

Here’s the more adventurous story, exaggerated as A was hoping for:

One night A and I decided to have a bonfire on the beach. The fire was huge and blazing hot so we were laying next to the fire, scantily clad. The cops drove up, shined their big white spot light on us, and we panicked when they saw the whites of our eyes. We had no choice but to run. The smoke was so thick it could keep out of sight, for a while. I couldn’t find my shoes, or clothes, in the sand, so A suggested we just run as fast as we could. We got to the car, but my keys were still back at the beach. It was quicker to smash the window and turn it on using the hotwiring we had installed, just in case something like this happened. We sped out of the parking lot, ran a red light, swerved to avoid hitting a car, and burned rubber as we took the corner. Fortunately, I am a great driver and this style of driving was nothing new to me. The cops searched for a while, but there were others on the beach with fires, so they left us and we sped off into the night. We drove all the way to Los Angeles, 7 hours south, before we decided it was safe to turn around again. We decided the next night we would try again, that is if the whole beach hadn't gone up in flames from the huge fire we left in the dust.

Song of the Week...On Repeat. (4)

Last week’s song comes from my California playlist. Believe it or not, there are A LOT of songs about California, San Francisco, LA, and Hollywood. Being the cool kid that I am, I wanted to make a play list to listen to in CA that was only songs about the state. So I searched on Wikipedia for California Songs and downloaded about 50 of them. There were hundreds, but I don’t have that kind of time. Most of the songs I got were ones I knew –Hotel California, More Bounce in California, Holiday from Real, The OC theme, the Full House theme, Californication. But a couple were just random songs. In retrospect, I didn't listen to a lot of the songs, but we certainly played the playlist a lot!

One I picked was called “Cali, Cali, Cali” by Alyssa Bernal. I have no idea who she is, but it sounds like the genre I typically listen to. After it’s first play, it instantly became the Song of the Week...on Repeat. I must have played it 6 times in a row the first time I heard it as I was packing. I listened on the plane. I listened as I drove over the Golden Gate. I listened while I showered. I just love it. And I love Cali. And I loved my vacation.

Song of the Week...On Repeat:

Cali, Cali, Cali

Episode 60

My life as a sitcom has continued this week. First I got stuck at the airport with no method of showering, so I stink beyond belief. My family even told me and A that we smelled a bit. If we were cartoon characters, we’d have had those little green squiggly lines coming off our bodies. To make it better, neither of us had brushed our teeth because we had no toothpaste and our toothbrushes were in our luggage, in CT. Not attractive. Not one bit.

Hours later, I get to my hotel, with the intent of showering and to my luck, my toilet overflows. No toilet for 24 hours. Yes, I could have called maintenance, but I had already emptied my suitcase (read: took things out and threw them on tables, chairs, and the bed). I really just wanted to shower. I didn’t want to wait around for a maintenance worker to come in an hour. I hadn’t really slept in2 days and dealing with people wasn’t on my to-do list. So my toilet overflowed, but I had to go to the bathroom, so I kept using it. And it kept filling and flooding. I’m sure they loved me when they came to fix it! Sorry, Courtyard. I should have bought toothpaste on my way to the hotel since I didn’t actually go home between CA and RI, but I forgot all about it. Showering was on my mind. That is all, nothing else. So I went to bed, and woke up the next morning still feeling gross. I brought g my toothbrush with me to my school visits, purchased toothpaste on the road, and ended up brushing them in a McDonalds bathroom. Again, the arches save the day!

Today, the episode continues. I’m thinking I should be on primetime television. This could compete with Two and Half Men. I walked into my first school of the day and I was sitting in the Guidance office for 15 minutes or so. As I was sitting there, I noticed near every door was an Emergency Protocol sign which instructed people in Guidance to exit out to the left and go down to the football field. Counselors were to take all the students in the office with them. I thought it was odd to have 3 of these signs in one small room, but figured maybe it’s for snow or floods or something pretty common. At least they are prepared.

So I’m at a school giving a presentation in a conference room which was very obviously a former closet. There was a maintenance ladder going up through the missing ceiling tiles, random chairs on top of the tiny table, and a whole shelf of basketballs. It was a big group, about 15. I’m almost done with the presentation when an announcer comes over the intercom. “This is a lock down. We are in lock down.” The kids scream at me to shut and lock the door, which I am standing in front of. One kid tries to calm me down by telling me this happens all the time. “Last week they caught the idiot who brought the gun to school.” SERIOUSLY?! Where the heck was I?! Another girl tells me that protocol says we were supposed to crouch in the corner, but there were no windows, and frankly no room, so we didn’t move. No wonder this place had emergency signs all over. It was a mad house! Another kid says it happens all the time, but no one knew if this was a drill or the real deal. So we sat. And sat. And sat. One girl kept trying to open the door to peek outside. I shouted at her and slammed the door shut. “DO YOU WANT TO DIE?! I DON’T!” After 20 minutes or so I started getting nervous. It’s hard to maintain your professionalism when you think you are going to die. That kinda goes out the window. I tried to keep calm and used the opportunity to talk about U-’s safety systems. One girl went on her Blackberry and was reading people’s status messages. Apparently it was drug search. I could hear the dogs and people shouting in the hallway. At least I had no drugs! Suddenly I got concerned that I would be locked in this closet for a long time. Someone told me it could take up to three hours. THREE HOURS?! I had two more schools to get to! Do I call and cancel them? The students told me I should make a break for it. There was an exit door only a few steps from our closet. If I ran, no one would see me. Though they said there were security cameras everywhere, but apparently no one watches them. I couldn’t run. I didn’t want to die or be chased by a K-9 unit. We’ve already discovered that running is not my forte.

Two weeks ago I met an admissions rep in NY who accidently went to the wrong school for a visit. He was at the middle school, not the high school. As he was headed out of the building to leave, the school went into a lockdown. This time for three hours. He had left his book, which he always carried, in the car. Nothing to read. Nothing to do. He had to call all his schools the rest of the day and cancel them. Was this my fate?! I always bring my phone into schools now. If nothing else, I can g-chat people till I talk their ears (eyes?) off. Sometimes I contemplate leaving it in the car, but now I think back to my NY friend and always bring it, just in case.

I riffled through my bag. I knew my cell was in there, but in my adrenalin filled rush, I couldn’t find anything. What good is a cell phone if you can’t have it with you when you die?! Suddenly someone pounded on the door and slammed on the door handle. I jumped, as I was six inches from the door. A student reassured me they were just checking to see if the door was locked for the procedure. I guess last week they slammed the door handle so hard it broke off the handle. Great.

The students decided they really liked my job and asked how they could be me. We had a fun chat for 30 minutes or so and overall I think I left a good impression. I told them stories of other schools I’d been to. Crazy things that had happened on the road. I told them being in a lock down was NOT a part of my job description and that this had never happened before. They told me I should buy a shirt at the school store on the way out. I Survived Lock Down at --- High School. Finally after a half an hour, the lock down ended and we were released. I booked it out the door to Guidance to drop off papers and say goodbye. I joked, light heartedly, that I needed to get out before I got locked in again. I said it had been my first real lock down ever but hey, we got to talk a lot about U-! Then the counselors sternly told me I wasn’t supposed to talk during a lockdown. OOPS. Why aren’t the rules posted?!

Snoozin'

Sometimes your greatness weakness can also be your greatest strength. Another one of my terribly endearing quirks is that I can sleep anywhere I want to and at just about any time. This makes falling asleep at night pretty easy – usually no more than 3 minutes to be unconscious, regardless of if I had a particularly busy or lazy day. This definitely makes people jealous. Some people toss and turn for hours, or have to stay rather sedentary just before bedtime and away from caffeine. I could drink a Diet Coke and fall asleep 5 minutes after the last sip, easy. This wonderful talent has its slight downfalls though. I can also fall asleep just about anywhere: sitting up, laying down, mid movie, sitting on the toilet. Two weeks ago I dozed off at the nail salon while I was sitting under the dryer. It’s like I get a sudden rush of warmth all over my body and then my muscles relax and I pass out. Actually, writing this at 3am from inside my hoodie and underneath a blanket is making me a tad sleepy...

Unfortunately, once the warmth comes, I pretty much can’t fight it. Sometimes it comes as rather inconvenient times. As a college student, I used to sit in the front row of the class room, but as soon as the lights dimmed and the power point presentation and lulling lecture voice came on, I was out. Don’t even get me started on in class movies. I was a goner for sure. I knew it was incredibly rude to sleep in class, especially in the front row, but it was like my other reflexes kicked in and took over. Like I was a remote control robot or a puppet on someone else’s stings. Just about all of my friends know not to watch tv or a movie with me. It’s not a method of socializing for me – it’s a sure fire way to put me to sleep. Even when I paid $18 to see Avatar in Imax 3-D I fell asleep for 20+ minutes. I’m not so sure where all this began or why it happens, but my best guess is that I have had a TV in my room since I was 5. And just about every night for the last 18 years, I have fallen asleep to the flickering of the screen. Like Pavlov conditioned his dogs to salivate whenever they heard a bell, I have unintentionally conditioned my brain to power down when the TVs on. In a nutshell, this means that I very very rarely stay awake through movies and sometimes not even through my favorite sitcoms. It doesn’t matter if I am watching infomercials or a very interesting tv drama, I fall asleep. People ask me quite frequently if it bothers me that I rarely see the middle/end of movies. The truth is, no, not really. Sure, I’d like to know exactly what I missed, but I’m not losing sleep over it. (HAHAHAHA!)

Sometimes this way more embarrassing than inconvenient. Sure, I can fall asleep in airplanes and on essentially any car ride, but sometimes I really don’t want to and it just sort of happens. Last year my friends and residents often came over to my residence hall room to visit at night. Typically, the TV or a movie would be on and I’d be sitting in/on my bed, so they could sit on the couch or at the desk. It became common place that they would let themselves out of the room at the end of the night because I’d have fallen asleep. It’s pretty sad that a resident, four years my junior, who I was supposed to be taking care of, would regularly cover me in blankets, take the glasses on my head and put them on my night stand, turn off the tv and light, and lock the door on his way out. Sometimes residents/friends would stick around and chat amongst themselves while I slept and then just lock up when they were through. If they weren’t sure if it was too early for me to sleep, they’d ask what the protocol was before I even got onto my bed. It’s comically ridiculous, but the honest and sad reality.

Despite its inconvenient timing, this odd little skill has come in handy during this job. Often times, I have 30-90 minutes to kill between schools, fairs, or driving. Fortunately, I can very easily pull over into a parking lot and catch a little siesta. Sometimes all I need is about 5 minutes and I feel completely refreshed. It’s awesome, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. The best way, in my mind, to pass 30 minutes of free time is to nap. I often nap in McDonald’s parking lots, way off in the corner, where I am not taking up prime spots and no one will really see me.

The other day I was at a fair and a rep from another university said had set her alarm wrong and gotten to the fair at 8am instead of 10am. She had hours to kill so she slept in a McDonald’s parking lot. To make her feel better, I told her that I slept in one the day before. The rep on the other side of us chimed in, “Today I slept at Dunkin Donuts!” Apparently, this is just the ways of the job. You gotta do what you gotta do! Though, I am certainly glad that I am not the only one who does!

On a separate sidenote, a couple weeks ago another rep, who I had just met an hour earlier, told me she had to pee so bad during her travels that she actually pulled into someone’s driveway and peed right there with her car door blocking her. I guess she couldn’t find a restroom because the town was so small, but I’m not sure why she didn’t just go on the side of the road or into the woods. Not something I’d ever admit to a new acquaintance, but I am glad that other reps make use of the “do what you gotta do” motto.

So I am sitting here at the San Francisco Airport. It’s a long story, but I have been sitting here for about six hours. I arrived here (with A) 3 ½ hours prior to the flight, because we had nothing better to do with our time. So we sat in a terminal for hours, chatted, talked to strangers, watched a episode of Friends and looked at photos from our vacation. We did a crossword puzzle from People Magazine, but we were so terrible that random strangers sitting 10 feet away started chipping in with answers. I think 3 different people helped us on separate occasions. We appreciated their assistance, but more shockingly, two of our helpers, a male and female, ended up moving to sit closer together and hit it off. They talked for an hour! Maybe it’s love!

I’m not blogging about the following events in any great detail, but let’s just say a little oversightht occurred and we ended up missing the plane. Turns out we were sitting at the wrong gate the whole time!! A United flight would not be leaving from the American Airlines terminal. DUH. I find this whole scenario absolutely hilarious. I’m not a bit upset, frustrated, or sad at all. Only in my life would such things happen. You can’t make this stuff up! This is certainly going to be one of those moments A and I look back on in 6 months or 6 years and laugh hysterically. Fortunately, United is giving us a free flight (7 hours later) back home. We didn’t want to get a hotel for just 5 hours, so here we sit, camping on our makeshift bed consisting of two couches pushed together. No clothes, no toothbrush, no make-up. I’m fairly certain I smell, but there aren’t any shops open. Only one bathroom way way down the hall is open. Luckily, I have a blanket and we each have a pillow, coat, and laptop. Our luggage is traveling the country without us, but we are really quite okay. Less than ideal for sure, but at least I have some company. We decided early on that it wouldn’t be smart for both of us to sleep simultaneously. Who would watch the laptops? Sleep shifts only sounded logical. Now it’s my shift to stay away. And sitting under a blanket, shaking because I am so cold isn’t a good way to stay awake, but writing as lengthy blog isn’t too bad. I’m sitting here, staring at A as he sleeps, praying he wakes up soon. I can’t wait for my shift to end so I can put that oh-so-useful sleeping skill to good use!

Sweet Dreams in San Fran,
-J

Parallel Parking Dilemma

When people say that San Francisco is hilly, they aren’t messing around. I thought that New England was hilly, that I could handle San Francisco streets. Oh no! I have never seen streets so steep in my life. My first thought is always, “that would suck in the snow” but I guess that’s not an issue here. Today I had to parallel park on a hill. As if regular flat parallel parking isn’t bad enough. I found a spot near a drive way that I could just pull straight into, but the car was too big for the spot. As I was going to pull out, I realized I had to reverse up the hill and not hit the car behind me. Every time I lifted my foot off the break to shift into reverse, the car quickly fell forward, getting closer closer to the car in front of me. Finally, I was so close to the car, I was too terrified to even back up. A gentlemen in his 30s came out of his house (to get to his own car) and I asked him for some assistance. He told me you have to put the car in reverse with the emergency brake on. Then floor it backwards, steer, and release the e-brake simultaneously. All while avoiding the oncoming traffic, because your still on a city road. Uhhhhhh….. RIGHT?! I tried. I slipped forward more. I told him I was absolutely horrified and couldn’t do it. My leg was shaking and if I pushed the brake pedal any harder, I would have pushed it right though the floor. I put the car in park, pulled the e-brake as hard as I could, an then pulled it up even more, and asked him to just back the car up into the street for me. Fortunately, he was a very nice guy, backed up the car in one shot, and sent me on my way with a handshake. Thank God to the kindness of strangers (and for being in a safe, wealthy neighborhood). I drove for blocks and blocks, hoping to find a flat parking spot. Finally, I found some street parking that you could pull into, not parallel. It was on such a steep angle, I had to pull the emergency break just to pull into the spot.

Currently, I’m sitting in my car writing this. I can sit regularly in the driver’s seat because the car is angled so much on the right side, that it’s physically painful to just sit straight up and work against gravity from keeping you from sliding in my seat. I’ve ended up sitting sideways, with my butt in the drivers seat and my feet bracing me on the passenger’s side door. Insane! I don’t even want to get out and hike these hills. Who knows where my school is from here.

For a quick history lesson, you probably know that San Fran is famous the cable cars, which are like trolleys but grip a cable in the ground. Think like a kid pulling themselves up the rope in gym class, just a little more horizontal. The cars don’t have drivers, they have grippers, whose job is just makes sure the car grips the cable as it travels. The cars were invented by a guy over a hundred years ago because too many horses were dying from carrying wagons up the steep hills. The horses couldn’t keep traction going up the hill, and the whole wagon would slip backwards down the hill. I imagine killing people. How frightening! If horses can’t even walk up it, think how steep these hills really are!

Always pull the e-brake
- J