Workin

So it feels like all I've been doing lately is working, in one capacity or another. While the money certainly is welcome, it sometimes seems a little overmuch... but oh well. Soon I'll be going back to school (which I honestly have mixed feelings about) and there will be no more work except for the recital crew at school, which will be just enough to kill social plans about 2 nights a week. *shrug* Big deal.

Anyway- I don't feel like writing a terribly great deal of an update (my apologies), but I feel as though I owe it to you few readers to let you know exactly what's been up in Rachel-land. Like I said before, alot of work lately. I don't think I've had a day off where I'm not working in one capacity or another for an entire day for over a week now. Last week I was either working up at the kennel, tutoring, and then ended the week babysitting. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment. Although, talking about punishment and babysitting, traffic going up Stacy Rd. is terrible- for any local readers, avoid that little stretch at all costs if it's not like 7:00 AM. Even then it's still not the best, but my house's proximity to that road makes it the most viable option. Still, it probably took me 15 minutes alone on Friday to get down that little stretch of road between Greenville and 75- no joke. It. Was. A. Mess. Actually, that whole evening was somewhat of a mess, since I ended up being 20 minutes late to babysitting and was unable to go in and talk to my boss at the kennel since I was so late. Sad day.

Saturday, though, takes the cake for worst days. I got up to the alarm, got ready, headed out to the car and was cruisin down the street when two pit lookin' puppies ran out into the road. There's not a happy ending here: I braked but it wasn't enough, and even had I swerved, at least one of the puppies would have been injured. As it was, I ran over a puppy, had the most terrible feeling in the world as I looked behind me to see that poor thing lying in the road, and probably came the closest I've ever been to having heart-related issues. It was terrible: I was calling on God and my mother to come help me that whole time. The puppy didn't survive- there was too much blood lost, and likely a few bones broken. The terrible thing, though, was that the puppy's owners didn't seem all that upset- I think I was more broken up about it than they were. All I could do was keep apologizing to them, meanwhile becoming late to work (again). I had to cut apologies short so I could go, and on the verge of tears I drove to work as usual.

The morning went alright- took us something like 3 hours to get the morning cleaning/dog let out done, which is a bit absurd, but there were a lot of dogs. I was rather excited to finally be going to lunch, because I was going to meet Alex at OTB for lunch. We met, had some good guacamole, were nearly forgotten by the waiter, and finally parted so I could get back to work by 3. Then, terrible thing #2: as I'm slowly backing out of the parking spot, this lady in a Caddilac comes in out of my range of vision, and so I manage to back into her. Freakin. Fantastic. So I just feel my heart sink to my toes as I pull the four inches back into my spot, and am seriously about ready to throw my car keys into the nearest trash receptacle and buy a horse, since I was doubting if I should be allowed to drive a car anymore. The lady, unfortunately, was kind of a brusque and not-understanding sort of person, and was adamant that she got every relevant detail off of me so that her precious Caddy could get back to its ugly gold glory. Meanwhile, I'm feeling worse and worse, and can practically see my self-esteem meter plummeting into the ground. Alex, thank heavens, stayed with me, and I'm pleased to say I was able to keep my composure up until my parents finally arrived. By the by, for any of you who haven't had to make that phone call to your parents informing them you've had an accident, I can tell you that it is one of the worst phone calls to make, because you just know that they'll be either angry or at minimum disappointed. *sigh* It wasn't good times. After dinking around with this accident thing for like 20 minutes, my parents showed up and I made my mom drive me back up to work (since I couldn't, of course, get through on the phones since the office was closed), where I promptly went in, told my boss I needed the rest of the day off to "deal with all this accident/insurance crap", and left work. I was such a mess- I'm still not quite over it, to tell the truth, but I'm trying not to think about that much anymore.

Anyway, I also had to work Sunday and yesterday at the kennel, and then today I went over to help with the Allen flute camp, which was actually a lot of fun. :) I played a page of my solo from last semester (which, by the by, isn't such a hot idea when you haven't picked up your instrument all summer...), and got to help out some middle schoolers with their duets, which was really fun. I could totally see myself teaching flute lessons one day, but that will probably be a ways off- I've got a lot to learn between now and then. It was a really fun experience to be able to do that and help these girls (and boy), although I was rather shocked when one girl I was working with told me she had never learned/played an E flat scale. It's the freakin' band scale, the one you play so much you can do it in your sleep: but she had never played it in her life. Oh. Me. Aside from that, though, I'm fairly confident that the flute studio of Allen is fairly well established and definitely has potential.

After that I motored off to work at the tutoring center, which wasn't bad. I gave a test to a first grader, helped a girl with her crazy high school math on NovaNet (which, by the by, is the stupidest thing in the history of ever), and ran to the convenience store at the other end of the shopping center in order to pick up a non-nutritious pseudo-lunch of a diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper and a bag of Ritz bits peanut butter sandwiches. Filled me up right, I daresay, especially since I didn't exactly eat lunch.

In other news, I was struck by inspiration and finally have an idea for a potential full-length book. It's about (what else) Tudor England, told from the perspective of Catherine Carey. Since I doubt anyone's ever heard of her, she's the eldest daughter of Mary Boleyn (yes, she was related to Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, and consequently was beheaded). Funnily (yes, it is a word) enough, a lot of people claimed Catherine and her brother Henry were both bastards (yes, I said it- its got historical context!) of King Henry VIII, seeing as their mother was the King's mistress for a number of years. Special, really, when you think that Henry married Mary's sister about 10 years later. Anyway, this little idea has spawned 3 pages on Word of drivel, and then another 5 which is simply a catalogue of all the dates I could possibly need for any of the characters in this story; it's still not done. Lots of research will have to be done, I think, and unfortunately, when it comes to non-fiction, Allen's library sucks, so I'll have to wait until I get to SFA again for some of these books (which their library *has*).

Anyway, it's high time I get off and get to sleep. The alarm goes off at 6:15, which is always a couple hours too early for my liking. Until later,

~r