Of late nights and old people

Here's my schedule for today (well, yesterday), tomorrow (well, today), and Saturday (I suppose that would be tomorrow): 3:45pm to 11:30pm. Then, on Sunday, I don't even go in until 8:15pm. That means I have hours upon hours in the morning to do whatever I want. Before this last shift, I managed to, get this, DO A LOAD OF LAUNDRY! Oh holy Jesus, it's the third load of laundry I've done since I got here, and I still have a ton to do! I figure I'll do a load every morning for the next few days and get it all done finally. After coming up with this amazing plan, though, I ran into a roadblock...I have no cash to reload my laundry card. I needed to go to Walmart. Insert Midnight run to Walmart here. I got a short shelf unit to put beside my bed for my laptop and books and lamp and things and took $20 cash back. So now I'm out $40. Whatever. It was necessary money. The next frivolous thing I buy is going to be a video game. Seriously. I just wish they weren't so expensive. Maybe the Ghostbusters game will come out for DS and I can buy it that way. Good news: it is. I will now have something to do on the bus! I also watched Spice World and had lots of food before I went to work. And I cleaned my room and put in the new drawers for under the sink so my stuff could be organized.

Work today was pretty basic. I tasked for the first part of the day, which sucks because it always goes by so slowly, then I was on rotation for the rest of the day. I wish I could be put in the info booth more often, but I've only been there once this whole time. Today I managed to work in every store but Tink's, which is good, considering that's the worst place for me to work with my name. The carts were so ridiculously hot today, too. I'm definitely not looking forward to those over the next few summer months. I'm pretty sure my shoes filled with sweat at the Sun'n'Fun Cart.

Here's my story for the day: I was at the Stromboli Cart, and a family was there looking at hats. There was an elderly lady with them who was wearing a "Happy Birthday" button and her name was written on it (I think it was Josephine). So I greeted her with a cheery "Happy Birthday, Josephine!" which totally confused her. I explained to her that she was wearing a button that said it was her birthday. She inquired as to how in the world I knew her name. I explained to her that her name, too, was on the button. She then hugged me, thanked me, and started telling me about how great God was too me and how he had blessed me with a great smile and a wonderful personality. And then she rambled on for a few minutes about God. It was really awkward and depressing because you could tell she was at the last stages of her life and that she wasn't completely *there*, you know? She forgot she was holding my hands at one point, and then asked where her family was and got scared. I showed her where her family was, and she calmed down, but then got scared again when she forgot where they were. I worry about how she'll do during the rest of their vacation, but it makes me incredibly happy to know that she had to opportunity to experience Disney World at least this one time (I have no idea if she had been before or not) before she dies. It's a really wonderful thing, but at the same time, it's an incredibly depressing thing--her coming to Disney World at such a late time in her life.

So, on that depressing note, I leave you for the night.

I'm still here, I promise

It's been a while since I posted, and here's why: I MOVED APARTMENTS LAST WEEK! I know, that's not an excuse for not posting, but the new apartment didn't have internet access until I called them on Monday and had someone come out and fix it. So now we have internet, and now I can get back to updating this thing.

So, like I said, I got out of my old apartment in Chatham, thank the deity of your choice. That place was horrible. I moved out last Wednesday into a 3-bedroom in Patterson Court. The girls here are much more agreeable than the last ones. There's Katie and Rachael, Victoria and Victoria (yeah, roommates with the same name...), and me and Ana. Here's how you know you'll get along with your roommates: you come home from work late one night and find them sitting together in the living room watching your copy of Se7en. And then we followed it up the next night with my copy of HSM3. Yes, I think I'll get along just fine with these girls.

Work has its ups and downs. I'm in Fantasyland Merchandise, which means I work in all the stores and carts in Fantasyland. Whomever the person was who decided to put me here must be the office jokester. I can imagine their internal dialogue when my application came across their desk: "Her name is Aurora?! Oh man, she should totally work in Fantasyland! She'll love it! It's, like, tailor-made for her! We'll put her back in Merchandise because that's what she's already trained in, and we don't want to train her in anything else!" Yes, there's nothing I love more than spending all day hearing parents go "Oh look, Suzy! Her name is Aurora! Can you read her nametag? Yeah! It says Aurora! She's a princess!" or "Gosh, I guess your parents must really love Disney, and you were just destined to work here, weren't you?!" Do people named Walter or Roy or Philip or Eric get this? I doubt it. I need to start a support group for CMs named Aurora, Ariel, Cindy, and Mickey. We could all sit around and complain. It would be great.

Speaking of complaining, my new nickname (awarded to me by Logan) is Debbie Downer because I'm no fun. I don't know that I'm no fun, but I do know that I'm the voice of reason. You want to go to Cirque at 2:30 am? Two things: one, have you checked show times? two, where am I supposed to get the money to go? You want to get the Kitchen Sink Sundae? Do you have any idea how much ice cream that *really* is? It'll all just melt into a soup--a gross, milky soup. (Side note: they actually went for the sundae, and, wouldn't you know it, I was totally right!) I'm like the person they keep around to make them laugh. There was a Far Side panel once that was a group of mobsters in a car and there was a clown in the backseat with them. The caption was something like "Kevin got the feeling that his friends only kept him around for comic relief". That's how I feel. Which is a terrible thing to think.

The biggest problem I have right now, though, is money. I came down with only $200, which was no where near enough to get me settled. I feel like I'm asking my parents for money every day. I have had to purchase two pairs of shoes for work, the first of which I can't wear because they don't match the guidelines I was never given because I started training before my welcome session. The second pair is going to die quickly since I apparently carry my weight weird and the toe is folding in half like a hoof. It's really weird looking. The shoes suck, anyways, because I have to wear dress flats. I can not wear flats because I must have high arches or something. Every day when I take off my work shoes, a sharp pain shoots through the bottom of my foot like someone is pulling a string taut in the arch of my foot. It stays there for a while, too, and makes it hard to walk. I have to wear my hiking shoes to and from work so I have maximum arch support during at least some part of the day.
So back to the money: I called in to work today because I'm so exhausted and overwhelmed and depressed and underfed. I woke up with a migraine and couldn't get out of bed. My dad had transferred $75 from my savings account into my checking so I could go get some gas and some food. I ended up getting $25 in gas and then buying more groceries than I had money for, so I had to completely max out the old credit card :-( The money situation sucks so bad right now. I can't wait to start getting "real" paychecks and having a bit of excess money. It will make me feel like I've accomplished something down here. Although my 45.5 hour week is bust now since I called in to work. There's always next week, though.

This week and next week were scheduled to be six-day weeks. Not anymore since I called in today. This week is back to five days, but next week is still six days and still over 40 hours. Blegh. I will never understand people who pick up shifts. First off, there's no free time in my work schedule to fit in more shifts, and, secondly, if I picked up shifts all the time, I really wouldn't have any time at all to go grocery shopping/do chores/etc.

I'm trying really hard to have fun; really, I am. It's just difficult the first month or so while you're still settling in and getting finances figured out and getting used to working a ridiculous schedule (I get to work until 3:45am next Sunday!).