Wednesday, November 30, 2005  

My digital camera is a piece of hooey, but i took some pix of my little Coke village today. I love the little lights and looking in the windows. Still have not put up my tree -- i need to find another strand of lights and then i will put it up maybe Friday. Part of me thinks maybe to skip it this year - but with all the snow we have i do want to put one up. I'm spending the day i have off STUDYING omg i am so far behind in my Greek. Have you put up your tree yet? I have the Kool 108 (fm) on all day - playing great Christmas tunes.

   [ posted  @ 11:39 AM | ]

Black friday was a complete bust. Almost embarrassing. After a suprise snowfall, our sales were horribly lower than expected. We were sending people home early, and working on other tasks that we were behind on. Just nuts. We kept looking at each other amazed there were no customers. Oh well it was a crappy ad on top of bad weather.

BUT IT SNOWED! yay! I put up my Coke village tonight and hope to get the tree out this week. Happy happy!

   [ posted  @ 5:52 PM | ]

Just got home from work... setting the store up for the war-zone on Friday. I thought i'd have to do a full overnight but the truck came on time (and thankfully i didn't have to unload it) so i stacked out the machines and we were finished at a decent time. I predict huge loss over last year's revenue... we have a crappy uneventful ad, and i just don't think it's going to be a huge draw. I feel sorry for all the little high schoolers we got working for us tho. They have no idea what is going to happen and no matter how you try to explain the greed and fury, they won't understand until they see it for themselves.

So most of my Thanksgiving will be spent sleeping, eating frozen pizza (after i cook it) and pumpkin pie. OMG.

Happy THANKSGIVING! I'm thankful for my parents being healthy, heat in my apt., a working car, my laptop, a job that is different everyday, an awesome church and amazing students who challenge me, Gilmore Girls, salvation, my guitar that has kept me rocking since '92, the bill of rights, Christmas on the way, hope, and snow on the way too! Yay!

   [ posted  @ 12:31 AM | ]

We did get a nice first snow fall. Better than last years's first "snowfall." However when i was leaving work Tuesday night (after 10 p.m.) there were tons of cars /trucks in ditches on the way home. I almost got smashed into 3x by the lousy guy in his pickup truck behind me. It rained most of the day and then temps dropped quickly, froze the roads with black ice, and then the snow made it a total skating rink for a ride. Thankfully i still have great tires so traction was not a problem, and hey there is even snow sticking around. So i'm getting into the Christmas spirit already yay.

I am skipping Greek tonight -- my brain is completely fried after a hard week of work and i didn't study enough and we have a substitute. I still feel like i should just get up there and go but i need a week off and i can't think or process anymore. [This, after my class tried to vote me into the position of being the substitute teacher for this week, last week... Did i tell you about this? Only 3 people did not seem to care or vote for me and i was so embarrassed and was like noooooooooooooo! I don't know anything! Leave me alone! You are all mean! I just talk a lot and make good guesses! They all think i'm the best or something and that was a shocker to me -- kind of let the air out of my tires. I guess if i were more brave i would have done it but no way could i have done it justice. I pointed to the Scientist to do it instead, and he said he was fine with that but then our teacher found a real substitute yesterday, so the class is covered.]

I did a ten hour shift yesterday and left around 1:30 a.m. after helping unload a truck in the freezing weather and my body just aches. We have received about 4/6 of our Black Friday merch., and it is going to be another long week in prep for that next week. Tomorrow i have to go help another store (in Hutchinson, so i get paid a lot for milage!) because they are behind on price changes and need someone to be manager on duty. My store needs just as much help but it will be cool to go help another store out.

If i didn't share it, I've taken a mini-promotion to being a sales supervisor again, instead of logistics. I'm more in charge of training our associates now than before, and much less concerned about stocking, inventory, and pricing. It is trading one headache for another but i needed a change.

And word is out about our Black Friday ad. Truthfully, these are not great deals. Most of this stuff is junk, and the rest of it is NOT worth getting up early for, no matter how much you need it, because it is not marked down much off of regular prices. Last year was a better ad because it involved more rebates. This year we will blow out of this stuff within the first two hours and the rest of the day will be spent telling customers we are sold out. The buy 1 get 1 free stuff is super stupid - not enough to last us (i know bc i just went thru all the boxes last night) very long at all, and buy 2 get 1 free is even worse. If i were to shop the day after thanksgiving for fun like that, i've learned some great strategies from customers, involving walkie talkies, someone holding the family's place in line, and going EARLY. And i would not go to a store like OfficeMax. I'd be at Khols or Target or something where have cool stuff.

Well i'm crabby so i should stop whining. I feel like a real putz for not going to class tonight, but my brain feels like it's mushed with pudding, bubble wrap, glue, and cement.

   [ posted  @ 1:04 PM | ]

\0/ THERE IS SNOW IN THE FORECAST!!! YAY!

   [ posted  @ 8:35 PM | ]

*A friend sent me this, and since i had a terrible day at work, this hit home.*


Things could be worse

When you have an "I Hate My Job" day, try this:


On your way home from work, stop at your local pharmacy and go to the thermometer section and purchase a Rectal Thermometer made by Johnson and Johnson. Be very sure you get this brand.

When you get home, lock your doors, draw the curtains and disconnect the phone and the TV so you will not be disturbed. Change into very comfortable clothing and sit in your favorite chair Then, open the package and remove the thermometer. Now, carefully place it on a table or a surface so that it will not become chipped or broken. Now the fun part begins:

Take out the literature and read it carefully. You will notice that in very small print there is the following statement, "Every rectal thermometer made by Johnson and Johnson is personally tested."

Now, close your eyes and repeat out loud five times, "I am so glad I do not work for quality control at Johnson and Johnson".

HAVE A NICE DAY AND REMEMBER, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE WITH A
JOB THAT IS WORSE THAN YOURS!!

   [ posted  @ 9:01 PM | ]

I'm back in MN after the Extreme Makeover Parental Home Edition (seen only on KT-TV) and almost feel like washing my own windows after all that. But don't worry i won't wash them just yet. Because tonight is AWARRRRRDS NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right! Roll out the red-carpet because tonight is Intro to Biblical Greek AWARDS NIGHT! You've waited, you've voted, and here are the results!

First of all, i would like to proudly declare there is life after the Third Declension, and i'm living proof. I'd also like to say that i searched the text-book's Table of Contents for a chapter on EXPLETIVES and did not find one. This must mean (great logic to follow) that chapter ten (Third Declension Nouns) was supposed to be titled EXPLETIVES but since it's not godly, they called them 3rd Decl. instead. 'Nuff said.


Now for the awards:

Most Absent: That's right, we had a tie in this category, but there was one prominent class member missing. That was MR. SMARTYPANTS! He was gone due to his wife's illness. I knew that he was not going to be there since i arrived early and he was not there reading his little (big) theology book with big words in little print outside of the classroom in the dark hallway at that one round table. The other "most absent" would be Miss Flirtybutt, whose lack of participation in class except during the breaks when she can hound the cute teacher so they can look like models for Abercrombie and Fitch was not missed by me at all.

Most Annoying: Leading right out of absenteeism would be the replacement for Mr. Smartypants. Because of the void of endless questions that didn't need to be asked, the vacuum was quickly and swifty filled by the winner of this award: come on up to the podium, for you, it's GrammarTeacherNumberOne! That's right... Mr. Smarty was not there so you took it upon yourself to ask a question regarding EVERY point the teacher made, every exercise we went over, and you always have to try to compare everything to your teaching of the English grammar to grade schoolers. If you would have said the word "apposition" one more time i think i would have a thrown my dull #2 pencil at your mindless sorry excuse for a head. I think if you would have asked "would it have been acceptable" or "would it have been appropriate to translate this......_______________" one more time, i would have had to nominate you for the one award not handed out this evening, Most Likely to be Taken Out To the Bike Racks and get the Snot Kicked out of You By The Entire Class Or At Least Me and The Blockhead and The Scientist who were all Annoyed By You.

Most Clueless: This award goes to the girl who confesses that she's had this entire class before but never did the homework. We are many weeks into this and she still has not purchased the updated workbook and is still clearly not devoting much time to the exercises. This award goes to GrammarTeacherNumberTwo. She's a big sweetheart who is cooler than the rest of us because she grew up in Washington (state) and went to college in California. Clearly that means you don't have to do your homework.

Most Improved: Gotta give my props to my homie, The14YearOld! This kid is sticking with it and catching on! Genius prodigy. Love this kid. Super geek to the max.

Most Daydreaming: I will be receiving this as one of two awards tonight. I doodled quite a bit. Made a few really cool spaceship drawings and some word-art. I would not have guessed that i would be the authority on this chapter with as much beating of my head against the wall i've done over these paradigms, but i spent the time on it and learned it well. So as all the stupid questions were being asked by people who obviously don't know how to learn and think for themselves, i spaced off. (Maybe that's why i was drawing rocketships and the words "Fly Away" in cool whispy chemtrail lettering?)

Most Uninformed: Another tie. Seated at the same table are TheFratBoyWhoWantsToBeAMissionary and The GuyWhoDoesn'tCome ToClassMuch. Both have taken this class before, both have been told that all the answers to our homework are on teknia.com and still refuse to learn or study. Didn't even have the right questions to ask to learn the right answers. Come on guys... Get with it!

Most Composed: This one goes to The KindJelloNurse because she was not all wound up over this impossible chapter, tho she didn't sit by me like she normally does, i could tell she did her homework and was not nervous! Way to Go!

Most Annoyed Besides Me: I was beyond annoyed so there was only this category to award the ace of our class, who remains mostly quiet but who deserves accolades because i don't think he's ever been wrong yet when asked a question: The Scientist! Way to go! He shot some looks of death over to GrammarTeacherNumberOne that are unforgettable. It was nearly unforgiveable that GT#1 would ask so many questions, but the way The Scientsit coped with it was tremendously encouraging to me. From one white-washed tomb to another, we rock! (Lord have mercy.)

Most Hated: I (That LoudGirl with BigHair) take this award for two reasons. First, I made everyone's jaw drop when i was able to explain what a vocative was - this is something that is advanced Greek and only the teacher knew what it was. When he asked the question and i supplied the correct answer, everyone whipped their head towards me like i was someone from another galaxy or something and i never saw Teacher's face light up like this. He was so excited. I can't get too much credit for knowing what a vocative was, because this was taught in the elementary stages of learning Greek on my own, whereas Mounce puts this at a much later chapter. More likely i am voted Most Hated because after The Most Suprising Thing happened (explained in a minute) i inquired if the syllabus was correct, we are not just supposed to get thru ch. 11 for next week, but also ch. 12. No one else caught this, NOT EVEN THE TEACHER so everyone groaned. When in reality, my bringing this up saved us from memorizing a paradigm and also from having ch. 12 lumped with ch. 13 which will be difficult. This way we learn all the pronouns in one lump, like it was wisely laid out in the first place! [So yes i had to endure the comments "There's always the one student in class who reminds the teacher to give more homework" but i don't care.] Read on tho!

The Most Suprising Thing: It should be well noted here, that the entire class, just two minutes before i brought up the syllabus voted almost unanimously for making our quizzes HARDER (thanks to GrammarTeacherNumberTwo, who brought it up in the first place) and the only nay-votes on this were The Scientist and The Blockhead that i could tell. The rest of us were all asking for harder quizzes (because there are not regular tests and we don't hand in our homework). So what's the big deal that i reminded the teacher of his own syllabus to get us thru the next two chapters in one week? ugg! They want hard, then let's do it! Raise the bar losers!

So there you have it! Tune in for the after-party on E-Entertainment TV. Look for me: I'll be wearing a red frilly dress and holding my textbook and flash cards standing by myself in the corner by the plant.

   [ posted  @ 8:37 PM | ]

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