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Aug. 26th, 2005 @ 04:54 am
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Welcome. I'm drawing a blank. Going to bed. Fix this later.Current Music: The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies) |
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Within six days, my two month long lazy unmotivated streak will have come to an end. It is simply pure luck that I landed this job, honestly I didn't try to hard. Maybe it's the lack of natural light, or the lack of fresh air in this dark basement apartment, but I can't recall a time when I felt so unmotivated to change anything.
I'll be working at Swedish Medical Center, I believe my job title is... let me look it up... ah yes, NUTRTN ASST, which cleary indicates what I'll be doing. I was a little confused because I also applied for NUTRTN CLRK, NUTRTN WRKR, NUTRTN HLTH SVRS, and some other things I think. Whenever I talked to the HR lady on the phone, (funny side note, the lady who was working on my application actually quit last week or the week before, probably right after she got off the phone with me, thus HR's bueraucratic process met some snags in the road, which required some forms to be filled out, in order for my application to finish it's journey to employment, I think they had to fill out a light blue form Side A, and a dark green form, both sides, not to be confused with forest green or dark olive green forms. See, it's simple. So this morning I did not recieve the call from a Jennifer, but rather from a Mary.) I would get confused about exactly which positon did what. I wanted the espresso one, because, hey its like my own little stand, and making coffee for people is relaxing. But alas, I did not qualify, because I was one month short of necessary cashier experience, it was a shame. No worries though, they have even a better job for me.
NUTRTN ASST, "that's where it is all at," I was told, "that's where the magic is made." Because, you see, NUTRTN ASST is the person that puts food on a cart, and wheels it to all corners of the hospital. It's the most important of all hospital jobs. Without food delivery, every patient would die of starvation! Yeah, it's like room service they said, and that I would be perfect. I already made up my own job title, frankly because I fear all caps, truncated words. In six days, I will be working at Swedish Medical Center, as a Food Donkey.
I'm quite excited to be honest, I always imagined it would be fun working in a hospital, I even considered taking the 5 year computer science biomedical degree, specifically so I could work at a hospital in the computer science field. I'm not sure, if it is just because I like Scrubs a lot, or simply because I would assume it wouldn't ever be dull there. This specific hospital has very low ceilings, we'll see how that affects my donkeying in the coming weeks, I haven't been in too many hospitals since 1992 so maybe that's a common characteristic of hospitals. Maybe I was just suprised because the building is so massive, and ceilings seemed low in comparison... I'm not really sure.
I was questioning how this job would affect the things I think about, and consequently write in this blog. I doubt, it'll be as ironic as the last job, but you never know. Maybe I'll discover a deep detestation for the practice of medicine. I somewhat doubt it. The best thing is, once employed by the hospital, jobs are available internally first. So hopefully I won't be stuck donkeying forever.Current Music: Califone - Apple |
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And it has come to this, the eve of my final day of work at The Grotto. It seems like I only use this blog to talk about work experience, and I didn't intend for that, possibly the lack of other subject material. Although, it is probably just my laziness to write often. It's been a lapse of over 6 months, maybe I'll start using this more often. Maybe, I honestly don't know, nor will I put much thought, concentration, or energy into utilization of my free blog thing. I'm just hoping the whims will come more often. A hope, that is all.
So anyways I started writing this on Thursday, (Friday being my final Grotto day), and failed to finish because of the inability to express myself had suddenly fallen upon me. It's back for the moment, we'll see how long it lasts. I've been listening to "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" by Bright Eyes as of recent, and it truly is an excellent album. I recommend it to people in general.
My last day as a vendor of Catholicism, went as expected... pretty much like any other day, except the inevitable continuity of the shift. Time seemed to span forever around the 1-4 o'clock time slot. As if whoever had the remote, kept rewinding because they thought they saw somebody they knew in the background. Eventually the end did come, I was walking around doing the closing ritual for the last time, Zero 7 blaring in my ears thanks the restoration of my Creative Zen. As usual, I imagined myself in a movie, then I asked myself who would pay 9 dollars to see me empty donation boxes for 13 minutes. Sure the soundtrack would be good, but a movie can't just consist of a catchy soundtrack. After work, I had to deliver food and a message from my aunt to my grandparents. My grandpa let me know that he was going to be heading off to school again, he was actually planning on leaving that day, but decided against it; strapping all his possessions to his car didn't seem like the best idea in that weather. So he would be leaving Saturday, and he wished me good luck at whatever I did. Even in his senile state, my grandpa clings onto the sentimentality of his words.
Transition is upon me again, I'm leaving the old shit for new. I'm considering it the end of my fiscal year. New years start at the wrong time, we never shift our lives in January. We just recover from Christmas, and return to the same old grind. January is about monotiny. My New Year will now start in May. I'm anticipating a turn for the better in the 2005-2006 fiscal year. And more updates to come about how it's all going.Current Music: Bright Eyes - Road to Joy |
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Sadly, I haven't had the the time or energy to update this blog as often as I would like. It's been almost 2 months since my last update. I've started school since then, and I hate it. But it's better than going to work everyday, and having a variety of things to complain about seems more interesting than just one. It's better though, although I hate my job and my school individually, when taken as a whole they don't seem to bad, I'm not to bitter about either of them. And although I'm actively searching for a more fiscally rewarding job, I don't mind working now, It's only on weekends, so I'm not as dependant on my job for obtaining the various observations of other people that keep my life interesting, at least for me. I'm going to a commuter community college, and a commute it is, about 30 minutes there and back equates to me driving to in a car for long periods of time. Thankfully my classes are scheduled when rush hour is going the the other way.
I have two night classes from about 6 til 9, and with my latest sleeping schedule these have become more and more difficult to stay alert in. I almost passed out this evening, I kept nodding. So I've been waking up at 630 daily to run the track. I was fortunate to see Super Size Me a couple weeks back, and that movie scared me in a good way. I've never really considered myself a health nut of any sort until now. I have the whole beef thing going on already, but the causes of that aren't health related. Just my own strange way of rebelling against my parents that I have adapted to just part of my "Justin" lifestyle. But yeah, within days I was able to pretty much change my diet and start being more active. I don't even want the crap food anymore at all, I don't drink pop anymore. It's a terrific movie, I highly recommend it, because it is both informative and entertaining.
So I'm taking three classes at this school that I hate, the reason I hate it, is becuase I endrolled in crappy classes. Unfortunately I don't see anything changing soon either. One class is a Philosophy of religion class, and I know my other entries focus on religion a lot, but the class is interesting, the students in it aren't so great, but the class and teacher are indeed good. My other two are computer science classes. One is an accellerated C++ class teaching from basics up to intermediate stuff. If I didn't know anyting about C++ it would be great, unfortunately I am already proficient in everything in the syllabus, and the teacher doesn't stray from it at all. I use that 3-hour block of time to read America (the book) A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction That is keeping me entertained for now. For the first time I'm glad I'm not a fast reader. My other class is supposed to teach how C translates to the Assembly language. I don't know anything about assembly really, but unfortunatly the class is taught by an incompetant retard. The first few classes I paid attention and he couldn't figure out the most basic tasks in C. I'm gonna end up teaching myself from the book, and reading some more America in that class too. Might need some recomendations for other funny books at the rate I'm going, preferably political at this point in time.
As for politcalness, somebody stuck a Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics on my windshield while I was at work yesterday. It mentioned the 5 rules that couldn't be stood for when choosing a candidate, 4 of which I am in favor of personally: Abortion, Assisted Suicide, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and Gay Marriage. And its so freakishly scary of how evil they think all these practices are. I also got a pamphlet taped to our door saying how evil halloween is. I can't take this anymore. I am going to print pamphlets of my own. If you have ideas of content I could include on them, feel free to leave me a comment.
One of my best friends came home for the weekend, we saw Team American, which is a laugh out loud crazy puppet movie. Quite enjoyable. We also had some delicious chinese food, and free soup. I think they wanted us to hurry up though, we were eating for about 2 or 3 minutes and our waitress came back and asked us if we wanted a box.
I hope to write in this more, when time permits.Current Music: Modest Mouse - Life Like Weeds |
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Until today, I thought that "tattle-tailing" was something insecure children did because they didn't have the intelligence to figure out a reasonable way to react with their "conflict." Apparently, there are people out there who never get passed that stage even late into their forties. A man came in at work today with a worried look on his face, and approached my co-worker because it was the first person he had seen with a sense of possible authority. He wanted to speak to our manager who wasn't in. After that he saw the green light to unload his "conflict" on us. The man was apparently in the plaza kneeling and praying before a statue. Another man supposedly approached him and simply suggested, "You’re wasting your time buddy, those statues aren't going to answer your prayers." The innocent victim of the dilemma further suggested that antagonist may be considering taking drastic action to back up his comment, such as defacement and vandalism of the statues. Victim continued that it would be in our best interest to call security to act upon his issue. Customer service teaches us that we should pretend to be as concerned as possible with any problem, or story a customer may have. This mentality can make a customer feel loved, and may drive them to desire purchasing consumer goods and/or delicious perishable items from our fine retail establishment. In this case however, Mr. Victim fled the scene and rushed to the safety of his car, where nobody could share there hurtful opinions, except for that damned liberal media constantly filling the radio waves. However, his absence did not prevent us from fulfilling his wishes of security being contacted about his predicament. Security was contacted, and at its arrival we all had a good laugh over victim's seemingly ridiculous gesture of concern. We all agreed with the comment. Later we were accompanied by maintenance who also agreed with it. One of the biggest surprises at The Grotto is how non-Catholic most of its paid employees are. Here, I thought I was going to be the pioneer of secularity, at the prestigious establishment of my employment. Conversely, seemingly everybody on payroll I work with seems to have either doubts or complete disbelief of that what is Catholic. Volunteers are completely opposite; they are there for the sake of the sanctuary, for the serenity, for God! Us payroll people are there for the sake of having a job, for making a living, for minimum wage!
Often times I intentionally drive into the parking lot of the serene sanctuary, blaring angry parental advisory rap music, complete with explicit content, simply because the irony makes me feel so good. Some lady on the phone today tried to convince me how important the crucifix is, if customer service wasn't binding, I may have spearheaded a debate to convince the possible sale otherwise. In fact, according to my service oriented mindset I should have tried to order her a copy of Mel Gibson's infamous The Passion of the Christ on DVD. It just sickens me how Catholics celebrate the worst part of their savior's existence. It appears as if the society we are based on still possess the barbaric aspects of torture and pain. Jesus is more celebrated in pain and suffering than his teachings of peace and love. That peace and love stuff is frankly not engrossing enough to keep this reality show based society interested.
This post is more religion focused, which I don't really spend much of my time or energy on much. But because of my job I guess it's the topic of interest to me at the time being. I'll try to get off that on the next post. On a side note the song by Zero 7 that I am listening to, is from an excellent scene in my favorite movie of the time being entitled, Garden State. One of the reasons I started this blog was because of the one Zach Braff started in promoting the movie. Zach Braff also plays on the sitcom Scrubs, which also happens to be my favorite show as well.Current Music: Zero 7 - In The Waiting |
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So this is my first entry. If you don't know me, my name is Justin Peavey, thus the creative user name especially with the underscore. I graduated from high school in Vancouver in 2003. I went to Washington State University for a year, and got sick of the country. There is honestly nothing to do in Pullman; I honestly don't know what made me think that a college in the middle of nowhere would be an oasis of ideas and culture. It's simply an oversized liquor cabinet 75 miles away from Spokane. It's not that I'm against alcohol or anything, but in my mind there's got to be more to college experience than getting liquored up and then "4-wheeling" the snow covered countryside fields in my roommates '92 Plymouth Acclaim. Actually that only happened because we were bored; we hadn't consumed any beverages that night. I just wanted something more, and now I've arrived at the near end of my summer before sophomore year of college. My plans are to move to Portland, attend Portland Community College for financial reasons, and then transfer to Portland State University or Oregon Graduate Institute to complete my Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science. My prospective degree always sounds so redundant.
My upbringing is for the most part liberal with a few conservative views that my mom has slung at me over the years, but we are all liberal for the most part. Surprisingly I was also brought up with a Catholic background attending various Catholic Schools mixed in with Pubic Schools throughout the Pacific Northwest. But I've always been taught to question Catholicism and the strange symbolic things that are incorporated into the religion. Eventually I just dropped it all and took up the I'm not religious thing, because frankly I think if there is a god, gods, etc., why does it, them, want me to waste my life figuring out who they are and how to worship them, especially if its impossible for us ever to be sure. Seems like a waste of a life to me.
I've always been taught never to follow mainstream society. Pop culture was just representative of the 80% of people that are to busy using their brains to figure out how to make themselves more attractive physically rather than mentally. People always ask me if I remember various songs and TV shows from the late 80s and the first 6 years of the 90s that were supposed to affect my age group as a generation. I rarely have any idea what they are talking about. I feel that I've come out of that mentality that I still hold and have ended up better because of it. I'm bad at starting conversations with strangers, but if people come to me or, there is a group or something I can usually find something to make social progress.
Strangely I'm working in the Gift Shop of a Catholic Sanctuary in Portland called The Grotto. Even stranger, I really like my job. The people I work with for the most part are fun to be with, and I am able to see how financially corrupt a lot of people have become, who were supposedly in it for the sake of God. Then there is the people who I work with, who are in it for the sake of a job. My aunt was a volunteer there, and was able to get me the open position. Plus I know how to make mochas and lattes now. So I could get employed with a Starbucks at any one of the corners in the Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area. The job is also super flexible and my manager is giving me a lot of inventory database jobs mixed in with the customer service, so it doesn't seem as monotonous.
This summer I haven't done much besides work. I thought that I would hang out with friends from high school again. But a lot of them stayed at their respective universities to take summer classes. And the other two have had work schedules that don’t really work with mine. I know that this happens to everyone after high school, and it's not like I can't move on, I've done it many times before, after changing schools every year. But I just thought it would be different.
Living at home has been fun, I share a room with my brother, whom I don't mind, but the lack of any privacy is really getting to me. My plans are to get my own place by New Years.
My roommate from last year came to visit me today, not for fun, but because I had his computer and he needed it. So he and some friends of his from up north came to pay me a visit. We all went to Lloyd Center, and did this thing called shopping, which I never do to just kill time like we did today. I usually only do it if I have a purpose. He gave me a hard time about not coming back, but I don't really care. I miss Pullman, but not really.
After rereading all of the above, I noted that my writing got progressively worse as I went on. I am trying to take this LiveJournal more seriously than my old one. One of it's main purposes is simply to get the things inside my head written down clearly. I also think I'll try to update earlier so I don't get as tired towards the end. Feel free to tell me things you like or things I could improve on. I'd appreciate the feedback.
Aug. 18th, 2004 @ 01:23 am
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