Stupid People who Come into work

Stupid people who come into work

Working at Blockbuster has been keeping me very busy. I get about 30 hours a week which sucks but it's a good thing because when every other Friday rolls around and I get a paycheck, it's all worth while. The actual job is alright, but the standard shift is seven hours (almost eight if I'm closing). Plus, depending on who the manager on duty is, I might not get a break. That's kinda illegal...

I do like to see people who come in, though. I've seen a lot of kids who recently graduated from my high school and I love that because it reminds me that there are people around this summer and I haven't been deserted.

Sometimes the other customers are a pain, though. One guy came in to buy a whole bunch of movies and I innocently asked him if he was renting any today... well, the conversation went a little like this....

"Hell, no! I don't rent from you people!!! I haven't rented here in years!"
"And why is that, sir?"
"You people ruined my f**cking credit!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I had turned in ONE movie late and it went to collections. It was like three days late and my credit went to the toilet thanks to you. It's been ten years and my credit is still ruined."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"You should be."

At this point he snatched his movies and left. If this took place in the last week of July, I would have said something that goes a little like this.

"Woah, there! First of all I don't appreciate being personally blamed for your poor credit. Ten years ago, I was still coloring outside the lines, not sending your overdue movies to collections. Additionally, I'm not sure one charge of 21.99 ruined your credit, there must have been some other unpaid charges. Hate the game, not the player... and in the meantime I refuse to apologize for the fact that someone was stupid enough to give you a credit card you're clearly to irresponsible to pay..."

Unfortunately this took place in June and I was still planning on holding on to my job...

There was also this group of girls who came in a little while ago wanting to know when the Harry Potter movie was coming out and I said...

"July 11th."
"July 11th? I thought it came out this week," they said.
"The new Harry Potter? That doesn't hit theaters until July 11th..."
"Not the actual Harry Potter movie... the one about the chick who wrote them"
"I'm not sure I know what you're referring to."
"You know, it's called Miss Potter or something like that," they said with a tone I didn't much appreciate.

At this point, I wanted to cry... just break down and weep for the future.

"The movie you're referring to is about Beatrix Potter, not the author of Harry Potter... and it comes out tomorrow."
"Who is Beatrix Potter?"

At this point I explained that Beatrix Potter was a very famous children's books author and wrote Peter Rabbit books. I couldn't believe it, but I still got blank stares from the girls.

One of them said something like:
"Oh, that's the rabbit that steals candy or something from people's houses?"

Here's what I would have said if, again, I was almost done with this summer job...

"You idiots! Miss Potter doesn't have any thing to do with Harry Potter. And not only is it pathetic that you have no real idea who Beatrix Potter is, what's even worse is that you don't even know the author of the ridiculously poplular Harry Potter books is! J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, for the record. And if you're interested in renting Miss Potter, might I reccommend you actually pick up one of her books first!!"

I could write a book of all the stuff I should say to people.... really...

Some Photos

I'm taking a photography class over the summer. Check out some of these pics that I had to take for homework. Isn't it great? My homework is to take pictures.

Half.com

When you go on your campus visit to Drake, make sure to stop by the bookstore. As if you'd forget to do so....

But don't get too carried away with all of the fun Drake things they have when you walk in. Make sure you and your armload of sweatshirts make it downstairs. This is where the actual books are kept. After all, they can't call it a bookstore if they don't have any real books.

Granted this area is considerably less exciting than the other floor. You're excited about starting college, but aren't ready to think about the academic responsibilities that come along with that. Regardless, you should take a gander.

Walk up and down the shelves and pick up a book or two and allow your eye to fall on the bright yellow sticker with the price on it. And allow your heart to sink. OH MY GOODNESS ALMOST SEVENTY DOLLARS FOR A USED BOOK!?!?! Are they out of their MINDS!?!?! Like I'm not paying enough for tuition, they want me to spend almost three hundred dollars on books, too!?!?!

Puh-lease.

I don't know about you, but I'm not about to shell out seventy clams for a book that is required for a class I'm being forced to take as a part of Drake's basic curriculum. That's not gonna fly.

Lucky for you, I'm going to tell you how to get the books you need -- for cheap. The bookstore would discourage me from disclosing this information to you, but you're going to be a poor college student and I think you deserve to know.

Half.com

It's run by e bay and, among other things, college students go there to sell their old textbooks for a mere fraction of the price you'll find them for at the bookstore.

Here's what you have to do...

1. Register for your classes at orientation
2. Access your schedule through mydusis
3. Take note of the professors you're going to have
4. E mail them a note something like this

Hello! My name is (name) and I'll be in your (whatever class) this semester. I was wondering if you could tell me what books we'll need so I can go ahead and find them online. Thank you!
(Name)

5. Wait for the reply
6. Go find your books online

All of my professors were more than happy to oblige. Heck, they think the bookstore prices are outrageous, too! Besides, it's not like they get commission or anything like that.

Oh, here's one last tip: make sure that when you are searching for your books, that you take note of the edition you need. Because nothing's worse than showing up to class with the wrong edition.

Most books can be found online. I think I only had to buy one of mine at the bookstore. Seventy dollars is still a lot of money, but it didn't hurt so bad considering I found all my others so cheap.

Here's another place you can go to find cheap books: www.bulldogbookexchange.com This site is specifically to sell and buy books among the Drake community. You can go online, find the class you're taking and everybody who is selling a book from that class will show up. Then you just arrange somewhere to meet (like in Olmstead) and either exchange books or buy theirs. It works out pretty well.

Happy hunting!

She works hard for the money, and you could do the same, honey

Originally, I thought that holding down a job my first year at college was impossible. My parents told me not to worry about it since getting adjusted and doing well in school was the most important thing. I just so happens that I stumbled upon my job as a photographer for the paper. I went to the meeting, signed up, and just happened to get a paycheck. And this job found me somehow.

But never did I feel overwhelmed because of work. Ok, maybe I didn't have traditional campus jobs, but they were still commitments that I was obligated to fulfill.

I had more than enough time to get school work done, work work done, and have plenty of extra left over to have fun with friends.

It makes sense, I guess. In high school I was in school 7 consecutive hours a day. At college I'm in class for 3-5 hours total throughout the day, so I have a considerable amount of extra time to hold down a job.

And it's so easy to find a job on campus. You could go the work/study route where Drake sets you up with a job to help you pay tuition or you can just go out and get one for a little extra spending money on the side. You could work pretty much anywhere on campus.

You could work the front desk in the residence halls, check people out at the library, make coffee and smoothies at the coffee shop, work at the bookstore... you name it, you can find it out there. And not only can you find a job, you can find the time to work it.

It's easy to do, and with only about half the class time you had in high school, it's a good way to fill in the free time. I never felt too busy between working and classes. Heck, it's summer vacation and I think I'm busier working the job I have now than I ever was at college.

On Garage Sales

They say that one man's trash is another one's treasure. Personally, I don't see myself being drawn to someone else's rotten banana peel, nor them being attracted to mine. But I guess whoever said that really wasn't referring to discarded fruit bits. They were probably talking about garage sales.

My family and I had a garage sale this weekend and it was generally successful. We got a lot of junk out of the basement and pawned it off on someone else for whatever change they had in their pockets at the time.

My mom also likes to GO garage sale-ing. Nothing makes her day like her quarter find. That is to say that she comes home beaming with pride every time she comes home with a new trinket that cost her a mere 25 cents. Sometimes these finds are books or picture frames or potted plants or something. Over the years the term "quarter find" I think has come to incorporate other things that didn't necessarily cost a quarter, but were simply a great bargain. She's come home with furniture, movies, crafts, candles, you name it -- she finds it and can get a great bargain.

I'll admit, garage sale-ing is fun. I like to look at other people's crap.

I have noticed a few common denominators among garage sales.

The first is Beanie Babies. I find Beanie Babies to be a rather tragic figure. Ten years ago the general public couldn't get enough of them, stores couldn't keep them in stock, and people flocked to McDonalds for Happy Meals when they were giving away those Teeny Beanies. Now, they're tossed in dusty bins and boxes, the "TY" tags that made them so valuable crinkled and chewed on or completely missing, with a sign reading "Beanie Babies $1" beside them. Personally, I don't know who is going to pay $1 for a Beanie Baby. I sold mine for about fifty cents and that seems a bit more reasonable for a piece of the fad that died years ago.

People also put out VHS tapes. VHS??? Who is going to buy that? Maybe someone will buy an unopened one for a quarter and then keep it around for a while and maybe it will become collectable and worth a lot of money or something -- assuming that it doesn't completely deteriorate before that! As soon as you unwrap the tape, it will turn into dust and blow away in the breeze. I have a DVD/VHS player, but that's just to play the movies and tapes I don't have DVDs of just yet. And even those have started to go. They get all staticky and stuff and the sound warps and then you have to REWIND IT WHEN YOU'RE DONE!?!?! No thank you!

Along those same lines I also see a lot of VCRs. I'm reminded of Back to the Future II when Marty is buying the almanac from an antique store and the sales lady says someting to the effect of "if you're interested in the 80s, here's a little number they called 'the dust buster.'" That's exactly what it's like. I feel like going up to customers and being like "If you're interested in obsolete technology, this little number is called a VCR. It plays tapes that are made out of this strange material called film..."

Another thing I find a lot of are aquariums. Some of them are fish aquariums and others are the kind that you keep reptiles in. I don't know why, but nobody who lives around me seems capable of keeping a pet. And if the pet didn't die, it probably escaped in which case getting rid of the tank said reptile lived in is not their biggest problem. Maybe they should make sure good ol' Fluffy the Python isn't making a home in their plumbing system.

Garage sales are fun, though... and if you're in the market for Beanie Babies, VHS tapes, a VCR to play the VHS, or an aquarium or tank, might I suggest you stop at a garage sale first. Those quarter finds are waiting.

Home, Home on the Front Range -- and in the Midwest??

Fall break was the first time I came back home since leaving for Drake and it struck me how, even though I was home, I also referred to Drake as home.

"I'll have to take this back home with me," I'd say. And "I have this one back home."

Drake became "home" so quickly. Fall break fell only two months into school and already I felt as though I was at home.

I was comfortable on campus and in the residence halls. I got along with my roommate and our neighbors. I knew where the food was and how to get it. I never felt lost when getting to classes. In fact, after only a few short weeks it felt like I'd been there for much longer.

But just because I consider Drake home, doesn't mean my real home is demoted in any way. I certainly do still feel like this is home. This is where my family is and where I've grown up these past ten years and going to college will not and did not change my emotional attachment to the building or, of course, the people within it. I found a quote that seemed to sum it up nicely "Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts" -- Oliver Wendell Holmes.

For now, it certainly feels like both places are home. Imagine! At the age of 18 having a summer home!

When my parents move, I don't know if I'll consider the new house home. Certainly I'll be home in the sense that I'll be with my family which is really the important part, but I won't be attached to the actual building which definitely contributes to that homey feeling.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy the next couple of months at home before I have to pack up and head back home.

Going through some crap

A few weeks before I left for Drake, my mom and I went through EVERYTHING in my room and got rid of a considerable amount of stuff that I don't use anymore. Allow me to make that same recommendation to you.

You need to realize that your room at home will only be inhabited three or four months out of the year and therefore, a lot of the things you have probably won't see much use anyway. Between getting rid of so much and then packing most of what was left to go to school with me, my room was pretty empty. I mean, obviously all the furniture and stuff was there, but all the drawers were only half-full at best.

At first I didn't really like it. I came home from fall break and missed all my stuff at school.

But NOW... all that has changed. What I wouldn't give to have my room back to the way it was during fall break.

I STILL haven’t found homes for all the stuff I brought home from school. There's a laundry basket full of stuff outside my bedroom door, a box of stuff under my table, and heaps of stuff downstairs in my dining room. Where did it all go before I left?

And then what am I supposed to do with all of the new stuff I acquired???

Seriously! It boggles my mind how I could have fit all of that crap into half of a room and then come home to a room just as big, all to myself and still not have room for all of it.

And then I have a lot of stuff that is simply college stuff that I have no need for at home. I have stuff like pillows and a giant trunk that locks closed and stuff. I have pillows already and I'm less than concerned with having my iPod stolen within my own house -- although... my brother is around... just kidding!

The logical thing to do with all of the items that I don't need for the summer is to put them in a specific area in the basement so when the time comes to head back to Drake, we can find everything quickly and not worry about leaving something behind.

I was in my basement a couple of days ago for a reason completely different than to find a place to store my stuff, and I happened to notice a large quantity of ... discarded disarray, lying about the basement floor. I walked around, stepping over boxes of old toys, broken vacuums, a handful of phones, a telescope nobody uses any more and countless other items.

It was time to clean out a little bit.

Somehow, I was able to convince my parents into having a garage sale with pretty much whatever we could find in the basement that was suitable to sell.

As I was looking for things to get rid of, I came across something called "Meagan's Millennium Box." I had absolutely no recollection of ever making said box at all... Before I opened it I thought it might be a time capsule of sorts. I always wanted to make a time capsule. I imagined a picture of N’Sync; something with a Lisa Frank creation, a stamp, and maybe a CD would be in it. But, as it were, this "Millennium Box" was not a time capsule.

It was, just as it suggested, a box of memorabilia from New Years' Eve 1999-2000. It seems so simple.

The contents of the box made me question why I keep the things I keep. For example, in the box was the cork from the champagne I was too young to drink, a flimsy party hat I have no memory of wearing, a party horn that (miraculously) still works, a paper menu from a restaurant (whose food I didn't particularly enjoy), and a noisemaker I found on the sidewalk.

I chose these particular items to commemorate that evening.

I'm sure they meant a lot to me at the time, but now it looks like a bunch of junk I was too lazy to throw away -- and perhaps I'm still too lazy because I put my "Millennium Box" right back on the shelf.

But it wasn't just the "Millennium Box" that had lost it's value. I found plenty of things that just didn't mean that much to me anymore. In a way I feel like deciding that something will just "go down to the basement for a while" is more or less condemming the object to a new life of neglect, which is kind of sad. But, as I grow up, I don't need some things anymore, and others take their places.

So, you see? I had to go through my crap in my room BEFORE college with the hopes of having room for the NEW stuff that would come home with me. But THEN, I couldn't even fit it all in, so I HAD to go to the basement and go through crap THERE and encounter the "Millennium Box" and other similar keepsakes in order to fit the REST of my college stuff down there... it's a never-ending cycle.