People Blog Still?

I mean, of course they do.

How else would we learn about women's opinions on leggings or the right way to handle vaccinations or the ten best ways to keep the spark in your relationship?

But in my world, for the most part, blogging has disintegrated slightly. I've been mildly distracted. Let me give you a rundown.

I student taught in Tonga.
I student taught in the states.
I started dating the greatest human ever.
I turned in my senior portfolio (twice).
I graduated/earned my teaching license.
I got a job teaching photography at the very same high school I attended a few years back.
I got engaged to the greatest human ever. 

Now I'm swamped with lesson plans, grading, stress headaches, wedding plans, and a really messy desk.

Tomorrow we're taking engagement pictures. Stay tuned, because we're really in love and we'll probably look pretty cute.

Things I Like About My Job

• I work in the dance department, so it's appropriate that I'm barefoot right now (and much of the time)
• I'm on my chair, partially in the fetal position
• Today I'm being paid to do homework
• There's an earbud in my ear right now
• Fridays I get the whole office to myself, so I can eat whatever/as many times as I want, shamelessly

Relevance

GPAs

and schools and

jobs and setting alarms

all seem irrelevant

when looking at 

how much of earth

there is still yet to meet.

Blueprint

Naturally, working out in the yard is only going to lead to one thing:
Planning my wedding reception in all its entirety.
Too bad for my plans, one major piece is missing from the blueprints.

Stay tuned for that one.

Also, today I officially parted my hair. The growing out process has begun. I'm not making any promises or commitments to growing my hair out, but I just want to see how excruciatingly painful it is to get it from a pixie to a fixable length. If it turns out to be fine, I will likely cut it short-short again sometime.


In other news,
My work schedule finally is allotting me two days off. As of this week.

So long, 48+ hour weeks. So long.

109

Of all my experiences working in a hotel,

This one is probably the least strange.

Sometimes we move guests to a different room after they check in. Because they have a complaint. Smoke smell, vending machines outside of their rooms making sound, etcetera. Then the front desk clerk usually leaves a note to the other clerks mentioning the room changes made during their shift.

Last night 109 complained about their room smelling strange.

But let me tell you. It probably wasn't the smell of the room that was strange.

The head housekeeper (one of my favorite people) came to the desk asking me to come take a look at the now vacant room.

The alarm clock was on the floor, singing a rusty, echoey tune. The phone was sitting on top of the lamp. The comforters were strewn across the floor. The luggage rack was upside-down. There were garbage bags full of McDonald's trash (And they questioned the smell of the room.) The toilet paper was taken off the holder and set on top of it, instead. The towels were all unused, but the shampoo sat decapitated by the sink. The list of available television channels collected who knows what while lying on the bathroom floor. A tray from the refrigerator was removed from its rightful home.

There wasn't any damage to the room.

But sometimes I really wonder. What on earth goes through some people's brains.

Morrow

Let me show you how thirteen hours of sleep is done.

This job makes me appreciate more and more the nice people who come in every day.

Next week is hazy, but I may be working another forty-eight hours. Which would be week three out of my last four weeks of doing so. Just let me work two days straight and give me the rest of the week off, please.

At the rate I'm going, The Shins' songs I have had on repeat the last couple days will be on my top twenty-five playlist on iTunes by the end of this evening. And I'm not even listening while I am at work.

Today I ballet-ed in my jeans and old ballet shoes. I can do the splits pretty well for not having tried in multiple years.

I am looking forward to tomorrow morning's self-taught ballet class.

Like

I don't want to sound arrogant.

But I am sometimes led to believe that some people like me.

I mean, sometimes people don't. And I guess that's fine.

But when they do like me, sometimes I wonder why. But I think I may have found a few reasons.

1. I am accommodating to criminals.
2. I don't shoo males away when I'm working (or trying to look like I am working) and tell them I'm really not interested.
3. I'm a human punching bag (figuratively. Unless, of course, we're talking emotionally, mentally, and spiritually) for males who have had too much to drink and are locked out of their hotel rooms.
4. I eat the sushi guests offer me. Half the time.
5. I can fix the internet, the hot tub, and whatever other problems arise at the hotel.

Actually, ignore number five. That's a false statement.

Maybe that's why some people don't like me.

Inquiration

How do you get a firm grip on now

And a fixed let-go of then?

How does one [two, or three, or four, or more] pull through the most roller coaster week of ever?

What does it mean when instead of using appropriate grammar to tell the postman at work that there aren't any postcards to send today, you say, "We got none"?

There's a new little tyke in the neighborhood.

And I'm serious about the inquiries.
I await and anticipate your answers.

Riddle

In relation to last night's post,

What's one way to make a night's stay at a hotel change from sixty dollars to a whopping three hundred forty dollars?


Hint: It has nothing to do with the songs I linked to, my droopy eyes, Wednesdays and Thursdays, or being paid time and a half.

48

This song comes on [almost] every day at work. It has a weird calming effect.

This song is my latest piece of approval.

My eyes are droopy. Not in a head-bobbing way. But in a my-bed-sounds-really-comfy-right-now sort of way. 

I'm at work. And will be for a while longer. Then back early in the morning. Wednesday/Thursdays are fabulous.

Someone is smoking in their room. I smell it in the lobby. I smelled it a while ago. We're a non-smoking hotel. But it's normal for people to walk in, ignore the "We are a non-smoking hotel" signs on the lobby doors, front desk, & in the rooms, along with the "no smoking" symbol on the room doors. It's a constant battle. But some people can't help it if their eyes go temporarily and sporadically blind every time they are within twenty-five feet of any type of lodging. I'm sure there is a medical name for it.

I will need a medical name to describe my condition by the end of next week. After covering for a coworker and working a lovely forty-eight hours. At least I'll be paid time and a half.

I will be paid time and a half.

Right?

Contour

Sometimes life feels like a contour drawing.

Lines everywhere. You can't erase them. You can only tune them out by drawing a new line.

But those overwhelmed lines spill an identity onto the page.

The lines don't always make sense unless you're looking at the whole piece.

Even then, there's still that sense of obscurity present.

I am not blogging while I'm at work.
My mind does not continue to revert back to the idea of eating, change, foggy futures, butterfly tomorrows, and the same song reeling over and over my brain [tuning out the brief language nearing the end of the piece, all the while].

Sarcasm

Ask me anything.

Just don't ask me if I've ever used a vacuum before.

Because I have.

Tip

I got a twenty-dollar tip today. From one rockin' Argentine. Sometimes people are so nice. Like the people who read my name tag once, then they address me by Bethany every time they see me. And they don't have to read my name tag again.

Also it's weird when I'm at work and the guy I just checked in walks up to me and asks if I'm interested in earning some extra money. And he gives me his card for his phone business.

I threw it away.

In other news,

I'm so tired I could eat a horse. That doesn't make much sense. Either way, my eyes are drooping. And I have laundry to do. And one whole hour of the night is going to disintegrate into nothing and become forgotten and irrelevant. I am going to miss that little hour.

Also I'd never eat a horse.

Hotel Perks

Benefits of working full time at the hotel:

I don't have the time to eat my normal eleven meals every day.

I just eat four; breakfast, lunch, dinner, and binge session before (and) or after work.

I bring healthy things for my lunches. PB&J, chimichangas, chicken noodle casserole, yogurt, almonds.

And then I buy doughnuts from the vending machine.

I talk on the phone like a professional. I give long-winded greetings. I say, "One moment, please," rather than "Hang on a sec."

Even on my home phone.

I can fold towels like a pro. 

Three gigantic hotel dryers full.

I get to associate with people from all over the place. Denmark, Argentina, England, Sweden.

I get to pretend like I understood everything they just said.

I stay busy.

Even if that means putting nine people on hold, telling the seventeen people in line that I'll be able to help them in one moment, letting the six people who need blankets know that I'll get those to them in twenty just a couple minutes. Just so I can answer this one guest's simple question.

There's money in my bank account.

Even though I don't have much to spend it on, besides random trips to McDonald's for hot chocolate and smoothies, Village Inn for French toast, and soda for a friend who pays me back later that night, anyway.

Get a job at a hotel. It'll make you more suave. Because it's making me suave. And rich enough for McDonald's. 

Those Dimes

Apparently I never graduated from the first grade. Because I can't count money worth anything. I think there has been one time out of the eight days of working this new job that I have correctly counted the till on my first try.

Today, for instance, I counted the dimes two at a time. It went something like this:

"Twenty, forty, sixty, sixty-five."

And then, at the end of my counting, it wouldn't add up correctly. Finally the coworker who worked the graveyard shift watched as I counted, because I couldn't figure out how I was counting wrong.

"How did you get sixty-five out of the dimes...?"

Obviously five hours of sleep between shifts works wonders for me.

After the till didn't balance out after the sixty-first try, my coworker offered to count it for me. Then she gave me a pat on the head, a lollipop, and some money flash cards so I could review what I learned.

The rest of the day went downhill from there.

On My Own

Today was eventful. The blisters on my feet can prove that.

I worked by myself for the first time.
I ran all over the hotel running errands for different guests.
I retrieved towels for the hot-tubbers like eight million times.
I folded towels.
I ate a sandwich.
I jumped over the front desk when the door that only opens from the inside locked me out. I was wearing a skirt, mind you.
I made about six thousand reservations.
I tried my hardest to contain my tears. [Not from exasperation. But from that sweet guest who was in town for a funeral. That was a whole story in and of itself. She was so sincere and apologetic after getting frustrated with a misunderstanding regarding her reservation. The whole thing was a good reminder of why I love people.]
Within the whole time frame, I made five hundred phone calls to a coworker for help.
But I made it. The whole day. On my own.
And then on the way home, I listened to this song three times.
Now I'm finally home. And my eyes are a little droopy.

Good to finally see you, Sunday.

Honestly

I'm terrified of my new job.

The time goes by at a normal rate when I'm there. It's fine.

But when I am not there,

How am I going to remember everything? Checking people in & out correctly. Setting up folios. Which I still don't fully understand. Using the computer program correctly. Not stumbling over my words when I answer the phone. Not answering the phone with my old work's name. Hasn't happened yet. But I'm waiting for that to happen. Closing my shift correctly. Remembering all of the fine details that were relayed to my brain, which subsequently rolled out of my ears and onto the ground and far, far away from my head. Negotiating prices correctly. Giving correct pricing, at all. Pretending like I know what I'm doing.

And everything else I'm forgetting.

Define "Early Bird"

Yesterday after I posted, I thought, "I don't believe I ever updated my blog regarding my employment-termination."

I wasn't fired. 

The job turned out being a seasonal gig.

So I've been jobless for like a month and a half.

Now I have a full-time job.

At a hotel.

At the front desk.

For eight hours a day.

With hours requiring me to be present at seven. In the morning.

It's fine. I'm over it. [This is why I don't take lie detector tests.]

And I'm being paid.

Which is always a plus.

In Short

I told myself I could cut my hair as soon as I get a job.

And guess what.

As of about twenty minutes ago,

I think I may make an appointment to cut my hair, now.

Change

Intuhview tomorrow.

I feel like my blog mostly consists of interviews, my messy room, the pink that [previously] diseased itself onto my bedroom walls, and my eating habits.

However, my walls have been cured. As have my eyes. And sanity.
Well, partially.

Via birthday present last month.

Disregard the green and yellow painting tape.

I told you it was pink. [Here, here & here, for example.]

Now it's not.

And neither is my decor.

Disregard the pink in my blanket.

I think that I'm fine with the change.