This week has been a long and introspective week. Mom, Bill, Abby and Linzie were in Hawaii and Carley, Emily and I were left with the house to ourselves. This trip had been in the works for nearly a year. The whole time, Carley and I had planned on having a party and enjoying the chance to have people over when we wanted without having to worry about other people's schedules. I don't think that we expected to be nearly as busy as we both currently are in our own lives.

All of that basically means that I spent a lot of time alone this week. I had a lot of time to think. That thinking led to some thoughts that put in a not so great mood. I was left feeling incredibly lonely and purposeless. It was not really a great week for me.

But as with everything else in my life, I talked to my mom about it and she gave me some really great thoughts to add to my pile. I may feel purposeless, but I'm not. Everything I'm doing right now is preparing me for my future. I'm gaining experiences that will help me in my career. One day, when I have a client who is struggling to find some purpose or meaning in their lives, I will know how they feel because I will be able to draw on my own experiences.

And whose to say I don't have a purpose? Sometimes I forget that Zupas is not Boondocks. At Zupas I am respected and my ideas are actually considered when making decisions. I have the ability to make a difference there. I can help the people that I am in charge of because they actually listen to me. It's actually surprising how many of them come to me for advice. I'm nobody. I have had three jobs in my life. All of which have been in the food industry. I'm only 20. There are people I work with who have far more experience than me. Yet, they come to me. And that must mean that I'm doing something right. That right there is a purpose. Plus, it's even more experience that will help me in the future.

So I managed to upset myself this week with unproductive thoughts... And then I pulled myself out of it with a little help from awesome people who put up with me when I'm being ridiculous. :)

Someone to Listen

If I were to say that I have a lot going on in my life in this moment and that a lot of things are changing for me... Well that might just be an understatement. Changing might not be the right word for it, though. It's more that my life is progressing. Every day I learn more and more about the person I ideally want to be, the person I am now, and the person I will eventually become.

My day today went something like this: I woke up early, I stayed in bed convincing myself that I could put off getting ready for another hour, I went to school where I discussed the very real possibilities for my future career, I came home to an empty house and made myself lunch, got ready for work, and then spent the next seven hours at Zupas, serving customers and training for my new position.

All in all, this day does not sound that much different from the days I had a year ago. If you look simply at the routine, it might be considered exactly the same as last year, the same as Boondocks. A day full of classes and work and coworkers. The reality of it all, though, is so different. I don't really know if I have really made my situation better for myself, or if I have really just changed myself and my perspective on life. Either way, I am really glad to be where I am right now.

Still, I came home from work tonight, my first official night training to be a shift lead at work, to find that every car was in the driveway. That alone was awesome because it meant that every person in my family was home. The idea is really exciting because my family does not get to spend much time together these days. We are all moving into our own lives and we have crazy schedules. So coming home to see that every car was in the driveway was good. Tuesday nights usually mean coming home and spending some time with my parents, talking to my sisters as they trickle home from work and other activities. Usually Tuesday nights are one of the best parts of my week. Tonight I came in to the house to find the everybody was home, but everyone was already in bed.

I am left feeling like so much has happened today and I just want to talk to someone about it. I mean, there is so much happening in my life. I have discovered what I want to do and I am talking to people about how to make that happen. Three years from now I could be mere weeks away from completing my masters degree. I could be nearly into a career doing counseling and I am so excited for that. Closer than that, though, is my promotion that I began training for tonight.

My boss showed me so many different things that I have to be able to remember tonight. I already feel like everything is just pouring out of my brain by the moment. I went into this really confidently. I thought my experience from the last seven months was enough to make this training really easy for me. There is just so much to remember, though. There are so many different buttons to push and things to count. I can handle the actual leading of the shift. I know how to work with employees. Working with money and orders and drawers is different, though. That has nothing to do with people. Nothing to do with the things that I am good at. I will understand it all eventually... But tonight... There was just so much to learn.

Tonight I just wanted to tell all of that to someone. I just wanted to share my excitement for my future and my anxieties about my job. I just wanted to tell someone about it.

So instead I am writing it on my blog. Because over the past five years, when there has not been anyone to listen to me when I wanted to talk this blog has been where I go.

Today was awesome. I am so excited for my future. I actually enjoy my job. I have some of the best friends on the planet and my relationships with my family have never been stronger. That's a lot, isn't it? Can you blame me for wanting someone to talk to about all of that?

I so love my life.

November = NaNoWriMo

November is Nation Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo.) I've been participating for years now, ever since my older sister, Wendy, told me about it. The goal is to write a 50k word novel in 30 days. I have never managed to write more than 20k. However, I always have so much fun. Last year, NaNo was the only time where I actually sat down to write. I had a lot more time for these things in high school. I was working a lot less. I didn't really hang out with friends as much. I was taking classes that required me to write. These days I don't really do any creative writing.

There are a couple problems with this year's NaNo, though. First of all, I have a paper due five days into November. A fairly large paper. Second of all, the semester wraps up not that long after the end of the month. That means that I will have a lot of assignments due toward the end. I also have no idea what I'm going to be writing about. I've had a few more ideas, but nothing definite yet.

So I've adjusted my goal. Do I think I'll be able to write 50k words this month? Probably not. Do I think that I can start a project that will be 50k words by the end of December? Well, it's much more likely.

Update

I don't even know if anyone keeps up with this blog anymore, but if you do you've probably noticed that my posts have been few and far between lately. I'm not going to say that I don't have time because I could make time if I really had something I needed to say. However, I've been much to busy living my life lately to spend hours online writing about it. I think I spent last year waiting for something to happen that would bring me out of the funk that I had been in since about half way through senior year. I didn't really realize that I would have to be the one to make something happen and move my life onto a more positive path. I didn't realize that, and yet I made the move eventually anyway.

I have never been an extremely social person. All my life, if I needed someone to hang out with or someone to talk to, I always had my gaggle of sisters to turn to. I wanted friends, but I wasn't really sure how to make them. Until recently, the last time I made a friend on my own and not through mutual friends was in 7th grade.  Like I said, I'm not a social person. If you put me in a room with a ton of strangers, I'm not likely to strike up conversation. It takes a lot of effort for me to be that outgoing, but it's something that I've always thought I needed to work. So when I started at Zupas, I was absolutely determined to make some friends there. I just started talking. I tried to get to know everyone. At first, I thought that we would all make one very awesome, large group of friends. As we've all gotten to know each other more, though, we've formed our own groups and pairs.

It's been really interesting to see these groups evolve. My own group started out being fairly large and has narrowed itself down to three people (one of which doesn't work at Zupas.) The first time we got a group of us together after work was super awkward and the most fun I have had in months. We laughed our heads off at absolutely nothing and people who saw us probably thought we had been friends for a very long time instead of being coworkers who had only known each other for two weeks. After that, certain people seemed to get weeded out of the group. The process continued until it ended up just being me, Megan, and Ian. I love when you meet new people and they just absolutely click with you.

Anyway, Megan and Ian are the type of friends that I always wanted in high school (which is slightly ironic, considering Ian and I were friends in high school.) We make plans all the time. We can sit talking to each other until three in the morning. We talk about the tv shows and music we like as well as the bigger, more important things in our lives. I can truly be myself with them in a way that I couldn't be with any of my friends in the past.

And I'm writing all of this because I've been confined to my couch for the past few days. See, I've had a couple of lumps on my left foot for years. I haven't really paid attention to them, but ever since I've been working more the lumps have been getting larger and have been hurting more. My mom has been telling me to get them looked at for such a long time and finally convinced me two weeks ago. I went to the doctor and was referred to a podiatrist. I had my mom come with me because I have been to the doctor exactly two times in the past fifteen years before this month. I was nervous, but Carley came as well and kept me distracted. The podiatrist said that it was most likely two different cysts that they could remove with two small incisions.

I had the surgery on Tuesday. I was ridiculously nervous. I've never even had an iv before, let alone a surgery. It was all a lot simpler than I thought it would be, though. The nurse got the iv in easily, the anesthesiologist brought me back to the OR and then they hooked me up to monitors and got the medicine started. I vaguely remember them putting the anesthetic into my foot. I remember that hurt, but I don't remember the pain. One minute I was listening to the beeping of the monitors and the next moment they were waking me up, telling me I was done. I remember saying "Seriously?" because I couldn't believe it was already over. The doctor told my mom that I was smiling and had everyone laughing when I woke up, though, so something more must have happened.

The doctor also told my mom that it was worse than they thought. Instead of being two cysts, there was only one large cyst that was attached to my tendons. They tried to get to the source, but it is likely that it will come back. Anyway, instead of two small incisions, I have one 3 1/2 inch incision on my foot. I'm not supposed to be walking on it and I am therefore stuck on the couch. A while ago, I would have loved the idea of not having to do anything or go to work or get off of the couch at all. Now, though, it is driving me nuts to just sit here. I want to hang out with my friends and see my work peeps and play cards with my sisters at the kitchen table. So it's driving me nuts to sit here, but that's ok. Soon enough I will be out and about once again. :D

So This is What Happiness Feels Like

In the late summer of 2010, I was desperate to get a job. So desperate that in my flurry of applications and complaints about nothing happening, I ended up with two jobs. The first was just a summer gig; watching my cousin, Jack, who was three at time. My afternoons were spent watching Backyardigans and corralling my favorite little boy on the planet. Not long after I started that job, I was contacted about Boondocks. Before I knew what had happened, I had been hired. That was the beginning of journey.

For the rest of the summer, I was so busy training and working that I didn't babysit Jack as often. At first I was awkward and quiet around the kitchen. Now, just short of two years later, so much has changed. I am the one that is working in that having fun and goofing off when we're slow and I am the one that the newer people look to when we're busy. My confidence is not always strong, but I do feel a lot better about running that place than I ever would have that first summer. However, as things always seem to go in my life, just as I am getting really comfortable with my situation, things are moving again.

Looking back at this blog that I wrote in my first month at Boondocks, the words seem familiar. It's like a very good friend wrote them. I understand what they're saying and I remember being there. Still, I find myself laughing at everything I thought I knew back then versus everything that I know that I don't know now. The girl who wrote those words and the girl who is writing these right now are two very different people of similar backgrounds. Their values, their beliefs, their priorities... Everything is different. There is one difference that definitely stands out, though.

This girl. Right here, right now. She's happy.

It took today, my last leadership meeting at Boondocks, for me to realize just how... not me I've been for a long time. I was sitting at that table, looking around at the people who I've been working with for quite a while and saw what my mom has been telling me for months. Those people aren't good for me. No matter how much I have loved working at Boondocks at moments in the past, what I have ahead of me is so much better.

Last Tuesday, I received a call on my way to school. When I listened to the voice mail asking me to schedule an interview with Cafe Zupas I literally screamed. It's a good thing I was still in my car. I immediately called the guy back, but it wasn't until two days and five calls later that we actually managed to get in touch.

My interview was with the district manager. So far, he seems like an absolutely great guy whom I will love working with. We talked about everything from my goals in college and work to the differences between how Zupas and Boondocks run their kitchens. I expressed my love for cooking and my desire to work somewhere that will give me more guest interaction. It was the longest interview I have ever had.

At the end he set his pen down and said "I'm torn with you. Let me just tell you, I am going to hire you." I freaked at this point and I don't really remember what the specifics of the rest of our conversation were. He said that he didn't know whether he should hire me as a prep cook or a line server. He wanted my personality out front but I had expressed interest in cooking and the hours and pay were more what I was looking for.

After some discussion and negotiation we came to a compromise. I am officially a line server at Zupas and I cannot wait to begin working. The atmosphere there is going to be so much more positive and I am just so determined to make this the start of a happier and more productive me.

I will never forget the lessons that I learned while working for Boondocks. I have grown so much as a person since I started there and I have met quite a variety of people. Still, moving forward I am able to take all of those things that I learned and put them into action in a brand new environment.

Everything is looking up right now and I'm happier than I can remember being in a very long time. There are definitely good things coming up in my future.

<3

Lost

I guess that's all there is to describe me right now. 

I don't really know where I fit. My school isn't where I belong. My work doesn't fit me. I flit in and out of my home life and I feel so disconnected from my family. I don't know where I'm going and I'm just....

Lost.

Anyway... Ignore this. Believe it or not, I did have a pretty great day... I just heard about something that got me thinking and I felt like I needed to write my thoughts down somewhere...

BFftM: Best Friends for the Moment

Have you ever had that friend who you have known for quite some time, but it is months or even years before you become close? Then once you do become close, you do so pretty quickly, so quickly sometimes, that it seems to be overnight? Well, this seems to happen to me a lot. I swear, I go through best friends like pairs of socks. You know the really cool ones that are so great that you never want to get rid of them, but once you get a knew pair, the old ones are only worn once every few months.

If you look through my blogs of the past five years, you will notice that I have a different best friend almost every year. 9th grade was the year that Mary Lauren and I spent all of our time together, sophmore year was Ian, junior year was Kara, senior year was Maddy... I only even still talk to one of those four. Lately, my best friend has been a girl from Boondocks who is also a cook. Tori is a year younger than me and we actually met two years ago when she was new at our high school and Carley and I were ambassadors.

It wasn't until the last month or so that Tori and I started hanging out. One night at work we were having a really good conversation but couldn't finish it because we had cleaning to get done. When we were done we went out to one of our cars and just continued the conversation.

Now it has become kind of a thing for us. Whenever we finish working but we're not really ready to go home for the night, we get in our cars and meet somewhere to talk. Sometimes we just sit there and listen to music and tonight she told me a story as we looked at the stars through my sun rough. As we were watching, a shooting star shot across the sky. Tori had never seen one before and it was so cool because it worked really well with the story she was telling.

It's great to have a friend who I can tell the things that I never felt that I could tell to anyone else, but I wish there was something in my life that was more consistent. My work and school schedules are always changing, the friends that I have are always changing, and I don't see my family that often anymore. I feel like I'm all over the place all of the time and it reminds me of Desmond from LOST.

I guess I just need a Constant.

:D

Promotion!

This is my new Boondocks shirt. My old shirt was blue because I was simply a crew member. I have been waiting months for a promotion. So when my general manager pulled me into his office today after I clocked out I was sure that he was just going to tell me some more things that I needed to work on before he could promote me. The meeting started out that way, too. He was telling me all of the things that he had noticed during our crazy day that I needed to work on. I agreed with him and let him know that I was working on these things. Then he mentioned, very casually, that they were going to be moving me up to Crew Lead. The way he said it (along with the amount of exhaustion I was facing) made me think that this still wasn't something that was happening right now. 

At the end of our talk, though, he grabbed two new red shirts from a cabinet in the office and sent me on my way. My first stop was back at the kitchen so that I could share my promotion with my friends (who have been waiting for it just as long as I have.) We partied for a moment before I had to let them get back to work and head home.

Now, I just have to say that I love working at Boondocks most of the time. I know I have my moments where I wish I could work in an environment that involved a little more sanity, but doesn't everyone? I even had my moment toward the end of my shift today. I was exhausted and I was sick of working a position that I wasn't being paid for (little did I know that I was being paid for it.) 

Still, I love the people that I work with and I even love the work that I'm doing most of the time. Every day that I work is a day that I am  improving my skills in cooking, cleaning and leadership. It may be really difficult for me to remain sane some days, but I still love it.

Just Keep Swimming...

So, as you can probably tell, my life is still insanely busy. Right now I'm sitting with Carley at Weber and I should be working on my English paper that I have to write for tomorrow. I have to work tonight, so the paper has to get done before I go in at four.

I'm not so sure that I've got this whole college thing figured out yet. I'm still just trying to get through every moment without drowning in it. But I'm doing better. I'm definitely enjoying myself more. I think I've found a way to get through my Astronomy class without losing my scholarship.

I'm also finally getting some time off.

Next week I'm going to New Orleans with my dad and some other family for a conference that he is recording. I'm not really sure what I'm going to be doing, but he's paying me to leave school and work behind for five days. I'm all for it. I get on a plane with my cousin next Wednesday evening. We'll meet my dad and the others at the airport. Then I'm coming home Sunday morning. Once I'm home, I'll have no school and no work until the next day. Isn't it great? One whole day with no school and no work. I had forgotten that such days exist.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in briefly because I haven't written in a while. I'll probably post my paper when I'm done with it, but that might not be until I turn in the final draft next week.

College

College.

This single word is something that I have seen as quite unattainable since I was little. Ten year old Madie could never have conceived that she would ever grow up. Fifteen year old Madi had no idea that, while most of high school would pass by in a blur, she would soon be hoping for the painfully slow weeks prior to graduation to go even the slightest bit faster. Eighteen year old Catherine, or Cat as some of my newer friends call me, is completely overwhelmed by whatever it is that she's gotten herself into.

After having wished away so much time and having spent years and years dreaming of what college would be like, it is strange to be able to finally say that I am a student at Weber State University. It is even more strange to walk into a class and be surrounded by people not only my age but any number of years older than me (a guy in my English 2010 class who I get into discussions with every class, announced yesterday that he has been out of school for 20 years.) It is weird not to be surrounded by people I know and it is a relief to not have to play the social game that was life at Layton High.

Yet, for all of its oddities, I have never felt more in my element than I do when I'm walking through the Union Building or discussing the politics of Modern Family in class.

This is by far, the biggest thing that has ever happened to me, and if I could have some time to just figure out how I'm going to handle all of the homework and get a good study schedule put together, then I would be loving it that much more. However, on top of starting college, I've also been dealing with an ever-increasing number of hours at work. This is because, just over a month ago, my boss fired two of our cooks at the same time that our manager and another cook quit.

For the last few weeks, everyone in the kitchen at Boondocks has been commenting on how different it is. After what happened, there were only half of our original group left. Five new people have been hired since then and the five of us who were left behind have been scrambling to get these newbies trained and to a point where we can step back and let them have a shift or two to themselves.

In the middle of this, it seems that everyone is passing around some "sickness" that always infects them mere hours before their shifts. Do you care to take a stab at who is being asked to cover all of these shifts?

It wouldn't be so bad if I could just figure out how to do all of my homework and work all of these shifts at the same time. What I need is one full day with no classes and no work to take a deep breath and get organized (and do my laundry.)

One tip for anyone still in high school: take the time and make a habit out of reading your textbooks. If you can make it any easier/less like a death sentence now, then you will just do that much better once you get to college. While a lot of what teachers say about college being a completely different, more difficult experience is not as huge as it is made out to be, there is a lot more reading required and there is no way to get around it in most cases.

I know this and I am only halfway through my second week.

I'm going to try to start writing on a regular basis as soon as I've got my study schedule figured out. College classes are giving me a LOT to think about and it seems like I have a great topic for this blog on a daily basis. There is just so much going on in my life right now.

Where has the summer gone?

Here's the thing, it's been a month since I've written in this blog. Remember how I said that this summer was going to be my summer of writing? Well, instead it has turned into my summer of reading and working and trying to find something in my life that I could write about. I keep trying to turn back to the novel that I have been trying to write since eighth grade, but that whole idea is so old to me. I've explored the story in my head and I know what should happen. Do you know how hard it is to write a story that you already know? I want to discover a new story somewhere. I want to daydream about the world's next biggest sensation while riding a train and then spend years developing it before fighting to send it out into the world. I don't even care if it ever becomes a well-read book. I just want characters to write. It has been a while since I've been truly invested in a character. I miss the feeling.

And...

When I think about it, my life isn't really lacking inspiration for characters. All around me are people who inspire me. I just... Don't have a story. Where do I start? That is something I would like to ask every author. What scene did they first write? I very much doubt that J.K. Rowling began writing her epic tale in the cupboard under the stairs. In fact, I'd like to imagine that it was the scene on the train where Ron, Hermione and Harry first meet, or even the scene in the Forbidden Forrest when Harry encounters Voldemort drinking the unicorn blood.

Or...

Did she start from the end? It is common knowledge that the last chapter of the seventh book was actually written before she completed writing the first one. How could she have possibly known how big her fictional world would become when she first wrote that final chapter, though? I think I'd love to see the original draft of it. I think it would be a really good testament to the writing process to see how much it all changed between the publication of the Deathly Hallows and the conception of the Sorcerer's Stone.

Wow...

I'm just going to pretend that the Harry Potter nerdiness that pretty much is my life has not seeped into this blog, alright? We're just going to ignore all those words that completely fit my point were not really what I wanted to talk about.

A Crew Lead and a Supervisor from my work were fired today. Both are guys that I have worked with for a while and have come to know at least semi-decently. I saw them both in the kitchen before I knew they were fired and even had an interaction with one that confused me at the time. I doubt I will see either of them ever again. I had no idea at the time, though. These things happen to me all of the time. People come in and out of everyones' lives. It is just how the world works. Still, when things like this happen... I just feel the urge to write them somehow. It's not that I have any kind of story to tell about the two people that were fired today, but rather that I feel like their personalities are such that I want to write them into something... How can I, though, when I have nothing to write in the first place?

Anyway, pointless contemplation aside, I have the day off tomorrow. It is the last day off that I am going to have for two weeks. Partay. So I really do think that I should find some way to write a story with all of these characters floating around in my head. After all, there are four completely empty composition notebooks next to my bed that I bought months ago in preparation for this summer. There are only four weeks left. Does anyone have a muse that I could borrow?

Pay no attention to my rambling...

I knew this summer was going to be different.

Everything about the past year has been different. Parts of it have been fun and others have been difficult. Still others have been downright irritating. Still, I knew it was all coming. I've been prepared for nearly every change that has occurred in my life in the last year.

Yet, it seems that no amount of preparation is enough. I knew that with graduation everything was going to change once again. I'm no stranger to adjusting. It seems that for the last couple of years, every time I've become used to the way my life seems to work everything begins to change again. I've learned the best ways to roll with the punches and adjust to my flexible environment.

Still, I'm a little overwhelmed this time.

A little less than a year ago, I was hired at Boondocks Fun Center. I've been working as a cook in the Back Porch Grill for eleven months now and I feel like I am finally getting to the point where I can handle a rush without freaking out and screwing up. It's something that I've worked very hard toward. I've created friendships with the people I work with and I think my manager finally sees that I am serious about my job.

It just figures that now that I find myself liking my workplace and the people I work with, I am finding myself faced with a difficult and yet obvious decision. I'm not getting the hours I need. I should be working at least thirty hours a week and I'm lucky at this point to be getting thirty hours a paycheck. It has been enough to get me by for the past year, but... Like I said, everything's changing now. I can no longer get by on $250 a month.

I need another job to get me through the summer. Then, come August, I will probably be forced with a decision. Which job will best for me during the school year? Which job can I afford to keep?

The problem is, I hate the process of finding a job. It took me a year to get my interview with Boondocks. It was a year of applications, resumes and plenty of frustration. I hated that part of my life. I don't want to be back there again. I don't know how some people do it. I tried for a year. I filled out hundreds of job applications and was only even asked in for one interview. Now I have to do it all again and I have to do it while working my job at Boondocks.

When did summer stop being about days spent out in the sun? When did it become just another period of time for me to get through so that I can move on to the next? The thing that I've hated most about graduating is that I feel like I'm nowhere right now. I'm not really working toward anything except being about to afford life. I have goals, but nothing big. I feel like I'm doing nothing. There's nothing worse then that feeling. I spent the better part of my time on this blog in 2010 talking about how much I hate it, that feeling of not going anywhere but having so much that I really need to do.

I guess I just need to take a deep breath. There's really nothing that will come from ranting about it all.