That’s all I have time to write right now.  But I feel much better now.  =)

Jon Lovitz came into my restaurant today, and all I could think of was the episode of Friends he was in.

In the episode, he played a restauranteur who was considering hiring Monica as a chef for one of his restaurants, however, on his way to her apartment, he got stoned and ruined the night by acting an hungry and obnoxious house guest.

Over in the column on the right side of this page, I’ve added a new feature, “Email Subscription,” so that you can receive emails of my new posts!  I’m not quite sure how I feel about it, because I ALWAYS edit my posts at least 3 times after I’ve already published it…  but hey!  It actually works!  not like the old “Subscribe to this blog” nonsense…  (-_-);

My dad called today because he heard that I was sick (from my facebook status, I’m sure).  I got sick over the weekend, either from my coach’s student who came to LA with my coach for practice this weekend, or from one of the girls I taught in Washington on Thursday.  In addition to practicing Friday night and all day Saturday, I taught and performed at a clinic on Sunday, which was fun, but especially hard with the added difficulty of being miserably sick…  (Saturday was probably the worst, though).  Today, I taught one of my musical theater classes, where I just had to make fun of the fact that I had no singing voice when I tried to lead the singing exercises…  oh well, my kids got a kick out of it… (-_-);

My dad then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to bring anyone special to his 60th birthday dinner.  *sigh*

“No… I guess not anymore,” I had to reply after a long and awkward pause.

I’m reminded of an episode of Sailor Moon (okay, you can stop laughing now), where Serena’s (or “Usagi’s”) parents find out that she has a boyfriend, and her mom asks her to bring him over for dinner so that they can meet him.  Unfortunately, Darien (or “Mamoru”) is visited by his future self in a dream, who warns him that if he stays with Serena (or Usagi), something bad will happen to her, so Darien feigns loss of interest and breaks up with her.  Dejected and heartbroken, Serena says tearfully to herself, “Sorry mom, I won’t be bringing him home for dinner…”

I was standing outside of baggage claim at the Seattle Airport this morning, and I get a whiff of one of the worst cigarettes I have ever smelled. I look up, covering my nose, to see a guy 10 feet upwind of me who has just lit up and is puffing away RIGHT NEXT TO A NO SMOKING SIGN.

I had to read the sign a couple of times to make sure that I was reading it correctly and that it did actually say ‘No Smoking’ (and not designating that area as the smoking area) because he wasn’t the only one. Literally EVERYONE outside was smoking, and there were signs like these on ALL of the pillars. I was flabbergasted.

everyone smoking around the No Smoking sign

I came back to LA on Monday to gloomy weather–it felt appropriate for how I was feeling about coming back to LA and having to face and acknowledge my LA life. Spending the weekend in DC was strenuous in a lot of ways apart from the obvious (that I was twirling all weekend), but good because I could forget about things for a while.

It’s been raining everyday, and it’s actually been hailing and storming today as well. I’m cold and I’m lonely.

~~~~~

I almost always cut my hair after a break up. Once, I did it out of spite. The other times because I wanted a change. I just needed a change in my life. Something new to look forward to. Some way to feel different. A lot of girls do it–it’s cathartic, in a way–to get rid of something that’s weighing you down, and change your appearance/silhouette (it’s easier than going on a diet).

This time, the length is pretty drastic. A couple of inches wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t different enough. So again and again, I asked her to cut it shorter, and shorter. And no, it didn’t help any. I don’t feel any more new. I have nothing to look forward to.

I don’t regret cutting my hair, and it’s not like I don’t like it. I’m still glad I did it. But I haven’t let go of anything. I don’t really want to either.

“Oh, it looks like rain tonight / Thank god, ’cause a clear sky just wouldn’t feel right”

It’s been a little over a month since I started working at my restaurant, and it’s been fine.  The work isn’t terrible, the pay is pretty good, I like everyone there, and the food is great (I took my coach to the Santa Monica location on Saturday, and we ate EVERYTHING–which if you know my coach, is saying A LOT).  But recently, I’ve been itching to find something else.

I was visiting some old co-worker friends at the Apple Store, I really really REALLY want to get back to Apple.  After working in I.T. for six years, working at Apple, and years of obsessively reading gadget blogs, I loved working in a tech environment, and I hate that I’m not into it as much anymore…

Apple’s not really hiring right now, and apparently they’re actually cutting back hours, but my co-worker friends tipped me off that their store was looking for a couple of Creatives.  So, right there in the store, I applied (again) to be a Creative, Genius, and Specialist.

It’s not because there’s anything wrong with my current job, there’s just a lot of ways that working at Apple would make life easier.

One of the main things are the shifts.  Working at a restaurant only gives you the option of working very specific shifts in accordance with when people come in to eat.  At my restaurant, we’re open for lunch and dinner.  These hours wouldn’t be a problem if it were my only job, but it’s not.  I just got my schedule for my Performing Arts teaching jobs for January-June, and I’m teaching Tuesday-Friday afternoons, which makes me only available to work dinner shifts on those days.  Currently, I work two weekday dinner shifts and one weekend dinner shift.  Since I’m traveling almost every weekend for twirling, I’m going to be giving up most of my weekend shifts, which would put me at only two shifts a week, if my schedule stays the same, and that’s just not lucrative enough.  Furthermore, I’d have to go straight from my teaching job to the restaurant on those days–which will be crazy.

Because Apple is a retail store, there’s more flexibility of shifts–since they roll people in and roll them out.  The length of shifts are more flexible, too.  Also, Apple will work around your schedule–if you tell them your upcoming conflicts, they won’t schedule you in.  My restaurant basically gives you a set schedule that stays the same from week to week, and if you’re out of town or you can’t work a shift, it’s your responsibility to get your shifts covered.

One little thing is parking.  It’s silly, I know, but it stresses me out sometimes that I have to leave for work earlier and find street parking, since my restaurant only offers reduced parking at the mall ($6 a day), and I’d rather walk for 10 minutes rather than PAY to go to work.  Apple gives employees all day parking passes.

Though Apple may pay less, I would be able to work more hours at Apple, because of the availability and length of the shifts, and it’d be more interesting work for me in addition to being easier to work with my teaching schedule.  Besides, the pay rate at the restaurant is never that certain, since it’s based on how much business the restaurant gets.  When I applied, I was under the impression that I would be getting $17/hour, but it’s actually that my pay rate can get up to $17/hour, but it’s usually less than that.  Sometimes, it can even be around $12/hour, which if I’m working for that rate, I might as well go back to working at the Geffen Playhouse (which I would also love to do, but they’re in even worse shape than Apple, and are DEFINITELY not hiring).

I know it sounds like I’m complaining about my job, but I’m really not.  There really isn’t anything wrong with my job, but I was just feeling stagnant working at the restaurant.  It’s not exciting or inspiring to me, and I’m not learning anything.  I guess that’s my biggest motivating factor in this whole quandary.  I don’t like giving up on a job a couple of months after starting, but I’m a bit concerned about my schedule, hours, and $$.  I want to make sure that I’m going to be able to train for and pay for the World Championships in Norway.  I mean, that’s why I’m doing all of this in the first place.

For now, I’m actually okay on the $$ front, since I still qualify for unemployment.  What will probably happen is that I will stay at my restaurant for at least several more months (maybe even until June), until I bug the managers at Apple enough and they hire me as a Creative or a Genius.

It’s happened to me a lot that when I travel to a different country, I learn to love a new food that I didn’t like before.  It happened when I went to France, I started to love red bell peppers.  When I went to Italy, I fell in love with tomatoes.  After I went to Japan the second time, I loved yogurt and granola.

Now, it’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I LOVE boba (or pearl tea, as norcal-ers sometimes call it) and Royal Milk tea.  As for regular tea, I was pretty impartial to it, and drank it from time to time, but I’ve never really sought it out for any reason.

When I was in England, everyone drank tea every morning and every night, and they would always ask me if I’d “fancy a cup o’ tea?” to which I would always answer politely, “no, thank you.”

Since I’ve gotten back from England, I’ve developed a constant craving for tea.  Almost daily (and sometimes twice a day), I’d have a cup of tea with milk and sugar.  It’s not boba or royal milk tea, but it still hits the spot, especially when boba and royal milk tea are too expensive to be anything but a casual treat here and there.

But I still hate Earl Grey…  (>.<);;

My past two weeks have kind of gone over like this: worked Dec. 23rd and Christmas Eve, drove up on Christmas day to see my family.  We then twirled Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and then went to San Francisco (which was super beautiful and super fun! =)  Woke up at 3:30am on Wednesday to take Drew and Breanne to the Bart Station and then drove back to LA.  I got home at around 11am, took a nap for a couple of hours, and then woke up to eat and run several errands before I had work from 5:30pm – 10pm.  I was tired, but at around 9pm, I was hit with exhaustion.  I was dizzy, felt sick to my stomach, and lost feeling in my arms.  I sat in the break room for about 20 minutes trying to drink the seltzer water and orange juice and eat the bread that my co-workers had brought to me.  Eventually, I just went home early–I had to work double shifts the next two days, which were New Years Eve and New Years day…  (>.<i)

I really wanted to go out and do something this year for New Years, but I ended up staying in and just have a quiet night at home.  At work that night, my legs were only working through sheer force of will, so I really had no say in the matter.  By the way, half an hour is NOT enough time to get/eat a lunch.  Just saying.

The restaurant has been crazy because a lot of Ohio and Oregon fans were in town for the Rose Bowl, and so we had HUGE groups of fans coming in and wanting tables.  Let’s hope it all translates into good business and good tip shares.  =)

A couple of days ago, my roommate was washing the dishes, and she came over to me to tell me that she accidentally broke one of my bowls.  It turned out to be my FAVORITE BOWL!!!    It was the Pikachu ramen bowl that Jason and I had gotten at a Pokemon store in Yokohama in November of 2007.

She was really sorry, and kept offering to buy me another one, but I told her she can’t, since I had gotten it in Japan.

Still, I didn’t want to throw it away…  I wanted to see if I could glue it back together and keep it, even if I couldn’t use it anymore.

But alas, not even that is an option anymore, because my roommate ended up throwing it away when I wasn’t at home…  (-_-);;