Lah de dah de dah de dah de dah...

I used to write in this blog alot. Well, maybe not alot. But with some frequency. Ish. Lately, I haven't. At least, not very frequently.

So I'm writing just to write, but I don't really have anything to say. Lah de dah.

Life is kind of in a weird place right now, because I'm still in Provo, but not taking classes, and not quite graduated yet. So school is over, but not. I'm also in a weird place where I want to stay in Provo but also really want to leave and go somewhere ELSE.

Also, I'm working full time. With like, a real job. Part of what makes this so weird is that I wasn't even job searching--I feel like, if I had been searching and applying and thinking about getting a job, I would feel more normal about now having one. But I was only planning on doing my internship this semester, so having a job kind of fall in my lap has been extremely strange. And the fact that I have a job doing art that is NOT in a movie or game studio--jobs like that actually exist? Why did nobody tell me this? I make shapes on a computer, and then a machine cuts them out. Its kinda cool. Take a look at cricut.com for more cool stuff to do with that.

Also, I have a car now. Just a little old 2002 Toyota Corolla. Her name is Martha. I'm still figuring out this whole car-owning thing.

And I'm tired. I'm going to just post this now, just to have posted, not because I said anything interesting or substantial.

The end.

Farmers Market

This week was my first time actually going out and selling my artwork in person--I've sold art online, but not really face-to-face with potential buyers. It was a great experience! My main goal first off was just to get the experience, to get an idea of what to expect with this sort of thing in order to do it better in the future. Goal achieved---huzzah!

I learned some things that are maybe obvious to some people, but are new to me, and hopefully helpful in future. Some of them are:

• -People aren't just going to line up to give you their money (duh). You have to catch their interest first. This can be a problem when your art is the you-only-get-it-when-you-look-again (upside-down) kind.
• -Clouds are one of those good-or-bad, awesome-or-terrible things when you're selling outside. They either mean rain (no!) or shade (yes!). Fortunately, we had the shade kind of clouds for most of the day.
• -People like to buy things when they have a 'thing'. Like, some people have a cat thing, or a book thing, or a dancing thing, or a mustache thing, or something. This is why fanart sells... and also why people get in trouble for selling fanart. I want to figure out some "things" that people like that are NOT trademarked and design things they might like.
• -I sell like a missionary, and so does Normandie. We tended to focus alot more on the person than the product. Which lead to some fun conversations, but I have no idea whether things would sell better if we had focused otherwise. So far, I've enjoyed using my missionary conversation skills so I'll stick with that for now :-)
• -Sitting/standing around and doing nothing except greet people is tiring. 
• -You don't know if something will sell well just because you like it. You just have to see how people respond when they see your work, and notice what catches their eye. It might not be what you think.

The storm before the calm

So my last few weeks have been pretty insane, one thing after another on top of another.

So first I had finals. The Sunday before finals week (I had two finals left) my roommate Michele told us she was NOT getting married in Brazil in a few weeks as planned, but THAT THURSDAY. Being the awesome roommates we are, we helped her put that together--THAT was quite a week. I had to bother and annoy all the people necessary in order to get my temple recommend so that I could actually BE at the wedding, as well as clean up our house for the reception.

This was during the time that I was GOING to be packing up and moving out and finishing up my last project at work.

So.

I worked until mid-afternoon on Friday and got my last project finished, then I went back to the apartment and started packing up.

Then I got a call from mom.

Breanna had a special Lagoon day the next day, and she'd only be able to stay until 1 o'clock, unless I could come supervise her and her friends... so could I possibly get all my packing and moving done that night?

I drove home at two in the morning.

We left Lagoon at four, and I slept.

Sunday was Sunday, and Monday morning it was off to CA with Kim, Becky, and Michelle to meet MWT. Who is made of awesome, just by the way. And my mom is awesome, for making it possible for me to go.

I got home in time to unpack and re-pack to head off to Florida. This was good practice for the mission, I believe--it was hot, and humid, and we walked and walked and walked and walked (though we didn't really sing much as we did). I can't say I really liked the climate, but I do think I could get used to it. I'll have to. (I'm very glad to be back in my dry mountainous desert, where my hair actually gets dry and I know North from South again.)


So this is all one of those hurry-up-and-WAIT scenarios. Because now I'm home, and I do have a few things on my to-do list, and three months to do it all in. The original plan was to have a month to do it all in, because my avalability date for the mission was June 1st. So I have nothing planned for June and July. I'll just... read, and paint, and shop for missionary clothes (etc.) and cook dinner. And go on a couple family vacations I didn't think I'd go on.

*yawn*

Well, off I go. To do... stuff. Yeah, stuff.

Finals.

Three down. (Dance, Narrative, New Testament)


Four to go. (Digital Painting, Illustration, Life Drawing, Judaism)

FINALS

One down. (World Dance)

Six to Go. (Narrative, Life Drawing, Digital Painting, Illustration, New Testament, Judaism)


Oh, and Happy Birthday to me. I'm legal now--yay.

Back to studying. Or rather, preparing for finals--art majors have less studying and more painting like crazy people.

So

I haven't posted anything in awhile. This is mostly because I haven't really got much to say.

The job is awesome (as I've said) and I'm still getting used to, but rather enjoying, my free time (see book blog/list). Except for the fact that the hours of the MAC lab in the summer are cut short. Which means its only open for an hour after I leave work. Which is barely enough time to do anything. And I was going to develop my Drawing On The Computer Skillz this summer (*sigh*). I've been doing ALOT in Illustrator for Work (speaking of, I want to check with my supervisor to make sure its fine to post it in my art blog--it probably is, but just precaution, you know) but nothing in Photoshop. So me and the Pen Tool are good friends, but me and the Brush Tool & tablet.... eh, not so much. I guess I could draw here, but that would require borrowing Annie's computer and Jocelyn's tablet at the same time. Which is just... kind of alot of Simultaneous Borrowing From Roomies for Quite Awhile? Which I might do if I start to get desprate.

One day (*waving prophetic finger*) one day I will own my own MAC (complete with adobe suite) and tablet! And nice camera (that shoots raw but isn't too coplicated)! ONE DAY THEY WILL ALL BE MINE.

Anyway.

Shanelle is coming over tomorrow and I'm excited!

Shannon Hale is going to be at the Provo Library this Saturday and I'm excited!

Life is good and mostly stress free and I love it!

Apologies

It has become rather clear to me in the last couple days that over the last week or so I have been becoming increasingly short tempered. I have responded less than kindly to roommates, family, and acquaintences when they have done nothing wrong. I am sorry. I wish that I had the time to call and tell everyone individually how sorry I am, but the very reason I am short tempered makes that completely out of the question. (In fact, I really should be doing something other than writing up this blog entry right now...)

Letter of Intent.

I don't want to write it. I don't know how to write it. I wish I had known about this earlier. I guess it is my fault, but they also conveniently and completely failed to mention it when they went over the requirements for the BFA Application. They mentioned basically everything except the letter of intent, I think.

So thats why I'm writing it now, when it is due tomorrow. Or rather not writing it now, because I don't know what to say. Or, most specifically, how to start.

I'm missing dance for this?

I have to get into the Illustration BFA program. That is what will make it all worth it. I need to keep telling myself this.

Besides, there is still August.

*headache*

Thumb drive Nightmare

I haven't really put up any entries lately, but thats because so much has been going on. And I haven't had a whole lot to say. But I guess I could tell you all about my thumb drive nightmare, because it was pretty exciting.

Our most recent project in my Intermediate Computer Applications (for Artists) class was to illustrate a fairy tale together--my teacher found a fairy tale and divided it into 20 sections and each of us chose/was assigned a section to illustrate. We needed to do a good job on these, because the whole story with our illustrations would be put up in the Juvelile section of the library.

I worked very hard on my illustration. My normal tendency would have been to procrastinate a bit more (though not until the last minute! I'm not that bad!) but since I'd never really used photoshop (the program we were required to do it in) and the picture would be on display I wanted it to be my best work. So from the day I knew which part of the fairy tale I would be working on I started work on my picture.

The day before the picture was due I had some problems saving it onto my thumbdrive, which had never really given me any significant problems before. I kept getting an error message telling me that there was not enough space on the drive. I ended up deleting all old/obsolete files, e-mailing the important ones to myself, and deleting an uneeded layer of my picture before it would finally save. Doing all this took time that I would have been in my D&C class.

Fortunately, mom was visiting that day. After hearing a long tearful account of my thumbdrive woes, she took me to the computer section of the bookstore and got me a new, bigger thumb drive. Halelujah, I thought.

So the next day I moved all my files from my old thumb drive to my new one. Most of them I still had in the form of e-mail attachments, except, of course, my fairy tale illustration file, which is like ten times to big to be attached to any normal e-mail.

The next day I planned to watch the George Pratt demonstration. I went to the HFAC early and worked in the computer lab to put the finishing touches on my illustration before printing it to be hung that night. When the demonstration was going to start, I saved the file and went up to watch the demonstration, but it turned out not to be in the place I thought it was going to be. Rather than wander around, I went back to the computer lab to finish my illustration.

It wouldn't open.

It kept giving me an error message:"This file was created in a different version of photoshop and cannot be opened on this computer." A different version of photoshop? No way! I was sitting at the exact same computer I had just saved it from less than twenty minutes before!

Well, long story short, the file had become corrupted. And I had backups of all of my other, less important files, but not that one, not the one that was due in a few hours. I tried whatever I could think of to recover the file--opening it on a differend computer, in a different program, anything... nothing.

So I started over.

But I only had a couple hours, and the illustration didn't look presentable in the least. Since I had done the whole picture before and figured out the program in the process I got much further than I would have done, but even so, the illustration looked... bad.

So in class that night I told my teacher what had happened and, fortunately she was very understanding about the whole situation. She told me that I had until the next Friday to have something up.

A week. I could finish again in a week.

I won't go into all the details of how it happened, but in trying to recover my original illustration file, the one that I had started new with ended up getting ruined. So I had to start over again over again.

And I swear the new thumb drive mom got me hates Mac programs, because it ruined my Indesign File, as well as both Photoshop ones. So I have another thumbdrive, and I'm saving all my files on BOTH, as well as e-mailing them when possible, to prevent another nightmare like this from happening.

So yesterday I finally got the illustration up with the others. And it looks.... not very good. Especially when I compare it to the piece that I was actually able to put the time into. But I did learn my lesson with this.... NEVER TRUST YOUR THUMB DRIVE.

On a Star Lit Night

On a star lit night
Was a girl in white
Sitting right in the middle of the moon

And that girl in white
From that splendid height
Took flight down the path between the stars

Over cobweb cloud
Over forest proud
She bowed, looking ‘neath the star-strewn sky

For a flower white
Blooming in the night
She had dropped from her perch up on the moon

Over barn and spring
Over folded wing
Searched the girl, for her flower made of stars

Toward its shim’ring light
Gladdened by the sight
Did she soar, dropping down from purple sky

Taking up the bloom
Rising through the gloom
Of the dawn, toward the slowly sinking moon

From her lofty perch
Tired from her search
Watched the girl as the fading of the stars

Took away the night
And the dawns first light
Sang its song of brightness in the sky
And the girl laid down to wait for night.





Most of this poem was written in the last hour and fifteen minutes or so. Beacause the rhythm planted itself in my head out of nowhere while I was work. (Nowhere! I was shelving books and dusting and helping customers like a good little bookstore personage! I wasn't reading poetry or anything!)

Edits entirely possible, I'm not entirely happy with it... suggestions?

Complimentary, my dear.

Today was a day full of wonder and excellence.

Until I look back on it and realize that, while it was somewhat above average, the only real difference was feeling so happy. Maybe it was getting so many worries off my chest this weekend (Symposium speech, job interview, first swing team performance--all of which went quite well, yes, thanks for asking).

I slept in over an our later than I usually do this morning. This has a very simple explanation. I use my phone for an alarm clock--on vibrate under my pillow, so hopefully Caitlin isn't any more disturbed by my waking up than she needs to be. Well, I lost my phone yesterday. And Inkheart is a more gripping book than I was planning on, which I read before bed last night.

So I was about 40 minutes late to Intermediate Life Drawing this morning.

How is this good? My teacher lectures the first 30-40 minutes of class. It is all valuable information, etc., but he could really work on the animation in his voice, so I usually end up zoning out anyway. I arrived just as they were breaking up after the lecture and were starting the actual drawing... awesome.

My figure drawing looked decent, I thought. This is a good thing.

It was a beatuiful, blue-sky fluffy-cloud smile-at-the-sun day.

I had two hours before work. I had the leftover half of my ceasar wrap from the day before (delicious), checked e-mail and such, and did a couple quick run-throughs of the speech I'd be giving in my 4:00 class, public speaking. Today was the informative speech, so I would just be delivering a very summarized version of my Friday morning speech.

Work was good. I didn't have that many books to shelve, so I started dusting. I got a good excuse to stop dusting because there were alot of pulls from the shelf I had done and would be more in the next. (Yes, I know alot is supposed to be two words. This is me, not caring :-p so there.) I didn't want Janice to hate me for burying her desk in pulls she hadn't actually asked for, so I just wandered around asking customers if they needed help finding anything (they didn't, usually) and checking to see if the books were out of order (they weren't, usually).

Then I got to leave work early to go to public speaking. I ran down to the Lost and Found on my way (ish) to check if they had my phone... which they didn't. I'll keep checking, though.

Public speaking went very well. I definitely had much more preparation and practice than the others giving their informative speeches that day because I'd written a hugely long paper on the topic and given a presentation four times longer a few days before. I'd forgotten the visual aids I had wanted, which turned out to be a good thing because I probably would have gone overtime if I'd had them. As I went to sit down after the speech, a girl leaned over and whispered, "Wow, that was really good!" and the boy next to her nodded. During the break a couple people talked to me about my speech and complimented me on my choice of topic.

What can I say? Hero's Journey=awesomeness.

XD. (<= :D with squinty eyes.)


After public speaking I went to the Wilk Ballroom for Swing Club lessons. I had half an hour before they started to actually sit and read... oh joy! I wish I could have relaxed more during this time, but I didn't have my phone to check the time so I was wondering whether it was cancelled this week or....? But then people showed up.

Inkheart is exceeding my expectations, random side note. I am sometimes distracted from the story by reconstructing the prose (why didn't she just take that simile all the way to a metaphor? That sentence would flow better if she reversed those elements.... that is such a cliche.) but overall, very good. Mind you, I'm not even halfway though and my opinion could change.

Anyway, swing lessons. Before lessons actually started we were all standing around and the girl next to me said out of the blue, "I love your nose. Its, like, perfectly shaped and proportioned. And, just, yeah." An odd compliment, but I'll totally take it :-)

Today the intermediate group lesson was on girls working within the lead/letting the girls work within the lead. Like, not highjacking exactly, but just the girl taking control for just a couple counts and then letting the guy take up the lead again. All I've really learned to do with dancing is FOLLOW FOLLOW FOLLOW DON'T ANTICIPATE TONE TONE TONE FOLLOW FOLLOW FOLLOW so this was a great lesson. The lesson ended early ish so we had more time for social dancing afterward than we usually do. This was one of those good times where I was asked to dance alot and only sat out a couple songs. One time the swing coach (of the team I'm not on) asked me to dance and commented, "Wow, you're getting so good! You're really improving!" I, uh, did mess up a few times after this, but there is a no-reurns policy on compliments ;-).

Later another swing regular, Ben (there are like at least three swing regulars named Ben, which is fine because it makes the name thing that much easier, except for confusing them with the Dans...) asked me to dance and it was alot of fun. We didn't do any fancy moves or anything, but it was a really interactive eye-contact dance, with lots of silly grins and O RLY? faces and just playing around with simple steps.

Then we headed up for swing team practice. Before practice started a bunch of swing people were standing around in the hall talking and I joined them. Again out of the blue, Ben told me that I had really pretty rosy cheeks. "Whenever I see you, they're so round and pink and rosy, like that picture in the MOA." I knew what picture he was talking about, a very pretty one. The conversation turned to why my cheeks are rosy ("well, you always see me after I've been dancing,") complimenting my beautiful pronounced cheekbones and the classical beauty of my face. We went to team practice before I could start feeling really awkward.

At swing team practice we took a break from doing our routine. We learned that we're going to start learning another routine for an informal competition in a few weeks. We worked on doing a couple moves to use in later routines--one jump-and-spin one that I need to work on my landing for, and one jive one that I caught onto pretty quickly--and left early.

I had leftover Thai Ruby for dinner, thanks to the beautiful Caitlin. I love my roommates, especially the ones that feed me. :-)

Now I will do my reading for D&C, read Inkheart, and sleep.

Religion Symposium--its coming up!

So here is the official schedule for the BYU Student Religion Symposium:
http://religion.byu.edu/event_single.php?eid=33

It's coming right up! Only two more days. I feel that I'm at least moderately well prepared. It doesn't help that this coincides with the finishing up of midterms--though thankfully I don't have so many of those, with all my art classes and such.

A couple friends and acquaintances have come up and told me they saw my name on the program even though I hadn't told them I would be speaking and told me that they'll come. I've also asked/invited several other friends/acquaintances. (Co-workers, visiting teachers, my Writing for Children teacher...) I hope that I can give them something worthwhile to listen to that morning, and not have them wondering what they woke up early on a Friday morning for.

And, well... thats about all I was going to say.

Have I mentioned that I'm nervous? Because I am.

Ode

Kneaded eraser, how I love thee.
Thy sticky, lumpy grey shape has been much missed these past days.
My figure drawings have been smudged by thy inferior, the Pink Pearl.
Thy ability to distract and amuse is greatly appreciated, even more since you have been missing.
Soft and hard, lumpy and smooth, thy soft grey shade is a comfort to me.

I rejoiced when I discovered thy hiding place beneath my desk. Pray, do not leave me again, I could not bear our separation a second time.


***********

*bows to deafening applause*

*reads over the above*...

You know, maybe I should go to bed. But its only 10 and there is a cleaning check tomorrow.

Life is good.

It's insanely busy and difficult and tiring, but even so, life is good.

I've set myself up for a pretty insanely busy semester. Or maybe I should say awesomely busy, because although my schedule is very tight its chock full of a whole lot of awesome, not to mention that I set myself up for it all, so I can't really complain.

Monday through Thursday the day starts at eight in the morning. Monday/Wednesday its Illustration 1 from 8-11, Tuesday/Thursday its Intermediate Life drawing. After Illustration on M/W I have D&C from 11-12.

After those classes I go home for 1 (MW) or 2 (TTh) hours and head to work from 1-4:30.

My Monday Evening Class, from 5:10-6:50, is Beginning Social Dance. Lots of fun.

Tuesdays I leave work early for Public Speaking from 4-6:30. Swing Club lessons are from 7 to 8:30 ish, and Swing Team practices are right after that. On busy homework days I can skip the club lessons, but not the team practices.

Wednesdays I'll go to Writing for Children from 5:10 until 7ish, unless homework really needs to be done. From 7-11 is Typography, but usually it doesn't go the whole sheduled time.

Thursday nights I have Intermediate Computer Applications (for artists) from 2-10, but I leave early for Swing Team Practice.

Friday I have NO CLASSES. *wipes forehead* WHEW!I do still have work, though. This is my do-homework day.

Saturday there are no classes, of course--another homework day. Swing Kids Club Saturday nights, lessons at 7, dance starts at 8.

Sunday is 9:00 Sacrament meeting and ROommate Dinner sometime late in the afternoon.




And that is life.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I made it onto the swing dance team.

Bring on the awesome.

Sorry for calling you so late, Em. But I had to tell somebody.

Swing, Monkey Koala, Swing!

My calves hurt from dancing. Ow.

Annilyn! I found someone to wear your totally awesome Stained Glass Russian Monkey Vest! Thanks for sending him all the way from Australia. I miss you, but in his new outfit, this little guy brings me joy. But don't stay away too long, ok?



I just got back from trying out for the Swing Dance team here. I felt pretty good about my tryout. If I do make it I'll be thrilled but it'll take alot of time, so its kind of a toss up--I'd love to make it and be on the team, but if I don't I'll have more time for other activities. Less athletic/social ones, certainly (painting or reading, probably) but other worthwhile activities nonetheless.

Wish me luck!

Bad Day at Work

So yesterday was pretty awesome. Today... was not. Well, today was actually pretty OK until I got to work.

Ok, so maybe I'm a wimp, but work today was NOT HAPPY.

First, I did not have breakfast this morning and had only a quick small bowl of granola before dashing to work. I had a steadily growing headache throughout work, maybe from lack of food or stress or both. And I had a bruised knee--I don't know where the bruise came from. This wouldn't be so bad except for shelving books on the lower shelves is usually made easier by kneeling down, and even if I didn't put pressure on the knee its one of those bruises that hurts when you just bend your knee.

And it turns out that my supervisor wasn't there. She hadn't mentioned to me that she would be gone, but maybe she's sick or something. (Along with failing to mention she might be gone, she also failed to mention why :-).

Supervisor Gone. This means that for all but the first hour of my shift I'm the only employee in the childrens book section to help customers find stuff. And shelve things. And oh, my were there things to shelve. There were 4 v-carts(http://www.handtruckdistributor.com/800_V-CART+BOOKS_S.jpg) filled with books (double stacked) waiting for me when I got to work. I shelved all the books on one of them and took the empty v-cart to the back room, to find that another big cart had just come up from recieving, nearly all of it childrens books. So I filled up my v-cart, and another as well, and decided the rest of the books would just have wait in the back room, so there.

So I'm shelving like a madwoman and helping ALL the customers in the childrens section (usually more than half would be handled by my supervisor, who usually stays at the desk and therefore they go find and ask her) when the Full Time lady who works in the Religious Book section comes with a customer.

"Where is the Eclipse book?"
I told her where they should be. Then the customer asked her, and then she asked me, which book was the second in the Twilight series. I had never realized until that moment that I didn't know. (I know Twilight is first and Breaking Dawn is last, but I don't know if Eclipse or New Moon comes first. Well, I didn't then. Now I know its Eclipse, then New Moon... I think. Actually, I've forgotten already. *facpalm*)

When I admitted that I did not know which book was the second in the series the Religious Book Full-Time lady gave me a YOU ARE A VERY BAD PERSON (Who Hired This Idiot?) Look. "You work in this section," she said, looking disgusted, complete with wrinkled nose and tightly-pressed lips. "You should know these things."

So then I felt like an idiot and a Bad Employee. And also very frustrated and defensive--I've never before been asked what order the books go in (all the squeeing fangirls seem to know it already), I've never been told its something I have to know, and anyway, I Hate Those Books. (My hatred of those books has only increased after working in a bookstore. Gah.)

A bit later a guy comes looking for a boxed set of the Twilight books. The computer says we should have six in the store, which is usually a safe number. (One is a Very Unsafe number. If the computer says we only have one copy of a book, that just means probablyhopefullymaybe we have it.)

So the computer says there are six in the store. I look on all the shelves where we keep the Twilight books... we have all the books individually, and special editions, and books on CD, but no boxed sets. I went to the General Book desk to ask the Full Time Worker there if she knew where they were. Her answer was very clipped and impatient, with a definite edge of "You should know these things yourself... who hired this idiot?" To it. Heading back to look again at the Twilight Shelves I ran into one of the general book student employees and asked her if she knew where they were. She, at least, was very helpful, and even kind of took over the customer for me so I could get back to shelving.

So I'm trying to shelve the Massive Piles of Unshelved Books crowding around the Childrens Book Information Desk, dealing with a headache and a painful knee, helping all customers doing their Christmas Shopping both in person and on the phone, feeling rather stressed when Religious Book Lady comes back with another customer. I was on the phone helping a customer, but she waited loomingly while I finished up the call.

"You have all the v-carts in the whole book department at your desk. You just can't do that, others need the carts too. You can bring one of the big shelving carts back here or something, but you have to make some v-carts avaliable for everyone else to use," she said, leaving almost before I answered her with a very timid "Okay."

I'd forgotten that most of the v-carts were upstairs on the textbook floor, being used for textbook sellback this week. But the other general book employees in the backroom had seemed totally fine with me using the v-carts.

Bring a big shelving cart back to the childrens desk? Was she blind? I wouldn't want to have to maneuver it all the way through the shelves to get it back there, and there would be absolutely no room to get through to the cook books with another shelving cart at the desk.
I chose the v-cart that seemed to have the least number of books and squished and balanced them as well as I could onto the (very small) shelving cart we keep by the childrens desk. I dashed around shelving and helping customers and got another cart empty and brought it to the backroom. The cart I had emptied before was still sitting there, and another one I hadn't been using was next to it. I had all the v-carts in the department and everyone else needed to use them? Liar. I am stressed enough with finals, thank you, it would be much nicer if I could not stress about work too.

Well, anyway... the rest of my shift continued in much the same vein. Then the girl who works in childrens book after I do was ten minutes late, as opposed to her usual five minutes early, which I was kind of counting on. Well...she was not a full ten minutes late, but since she immidiately got busy doing helpful things I didn't actually see her until ten minutes after my shift was supposed to end.

So, yeah. Bad Day At Work.

Customer Service--complaints

There was a training meeting for work this morning. So not only did I have to get up way early (well, compared to when I usually get up) to be there on time, it has now left me feeling guilty and frustrated. But mostly frustrated.

We talked about customer service at the meeting. The store has started this new program thingy they call "secret shoppers". Basically, they hire (I'm actually not sure whether they're paid...) people to shop here and report back on what they thought of the customer service.

Basically, the General Book department has gotten some very bad reviews. No names were named, but they read off some of the comments. Some of them were things of which I was guilty--like focusing on shelving books when there was a customer in the area, telling them I couldn't tell them whether we carried the book they wanted unless they could tell me a title or author... things like that. I felt very bad, because I really should and can do better. And I will.

But the secret shoppers comments are not an extremely accurate representation of the customer service in our department in general, in my opinion. Firstly, usually they're in there just to do the secret shopper thing and so they're not actually looking for any specific book. So instead of saying "I'm looking for A Certain Book by So-And-So" they'll just say, "Do you have any books about Random Subject?" And the problem is, the computer program we use to look up books in our computer doesn't have a subject search. Apparently there were alot of complaints when secret shoppers asked if we had a book on a certain subject and we told them, completely honestly, that they would have to give us a title or author, or even just a word of the title, for us to find anything specific.

But thats when the secret shopper actually gets to the desk with a question, which they don't always. Again, because they're not really looking for anything specific, they'll just hang around in the area, browsing, waiting to see if anyone will ask them if they're looking for something specific--which they're not. The vast majority of the times I've asked a customer if they need help finding something when they're just hanging around in the area, they'll just say, "No, I'm just browsing." I've even had some who seem annoyed with me for asking. I admit I've kind of slacked off on asking them because of this and because I've found that when people are actually looking for something specific they don't just hang around, glancing over the shelves. They will actually go find a desk or someone with a lanyard on and ask them for what they want. (Wow, what a novel idea.)

And lastly, just so I can have three things, these secret shoppers seem to be coming in to look for anything that is bad/wrong. So of course they find it.

End of rant.

Exhausted

Yeah, its another entry for today. What of it? Whats more, this entry has a very small likelyhood of coherency, because, as you may have guessed from the subject line, I am absolutely positively asleep-on-my-feet exhausted.

Then what am I doing writing up a blog entry instead of sleeping? That is a very good question. I'll tell you--I don't know.

I love dancing. And yet, even while I'm dancing I feel bad too, because I feel like such a poor dancer in comparison to all the other regulars at the Swing Club. On the other hand, I've collected enough complements on my following over the last couple weeks that I'm actually starting to believe its true and not merely a nice thing to say as I'm being escorted off the floor. On the other hand, since Saturday Swing Dances are basically the only "hard core" excercise I get each week (well, not even that, because it obviously doesn't happen when I'm at home) and so about halfway through I'm absolutely exhausted and yet I can't say no when asked to dance. This results in sloppiness, and... sporatic following? Because in some ways I follow better, because I'm not trying/thinking too hard about it and just going with the flow, but on the other hand, I'm sometimes make stupid mistakes because I'm not thinking/trying hard enough. (There are alot of hands and other hands and other other hands in this entry. Heh.)

One thing I do wish I could do--well, I guess I really could, but I dont--is go to the malt shop after the dance. This is the thing that many regulars do every week and they usually announce it and invite everybody who wants to come. But I don't for several reasons. First, since I'm exhausted by halfway though the night, I am completely and totally asleep-on-my-feet exhausted by the time the dance is over (which is 10:30-11 ish. It starts at 8 ish.) Second, I have 9 am church, so I need to be up and, well, awake. And I don't bring my purse/wallet to the dances because I don't have to so I wouldn't be able to get a malt anyway. On the other hand (there I go with those hands again) If I DID go I could become better friends with some of the swing people. Since I've been going for a couple months now I, like, know the names (or at least the faces) of several of them, but I don't really know then beyond "Hi, whats your name, whats your major, oh illustration thats cool". (Everyone acts surprised, like they're thinking "Illustration? Thats a Major?")

Anyway. I haven't read over this post to edit for grammar/typos/coherency but I'm not going to. I'm going to fall into bed and sleep like a log. I might even put my pajamas on first.