flaws illuminated

So, I got the internship, today was my first day, and I think overall it went well, but yeah, being in a new somewhat nerve-wracking situation doesn't always make me rise to the occasion. I get shy and unsure of myself, my natural inclination towards putsiness increases, and I tend to screw up (b/c I'm unsure of myself). However, I came through without making any major mistakes, everything got baked and made to satisfaction, just not quite to the high standards of the owner, but I'm also there to learn and he certainly has no qualms about telling me where I need to improve. He's a little intimidating, but nice enough, could be far worse for sure, at least I was never sent into a puddle of tears or anything, I just got a little miffed when he clearly thought I was being slow (hey, it was my first day). I was pleased to find that I didn't hate it at all however, and rewarding when you know you are making good product and that people buy it and enjoy it. Everyone that works there is great and very friendly and helpful, so I hope once I get to know people and become more comfortable I'll show myself to be a competent individual, I just wish I was one of those people that could at least feign confidence, but alas, I am not.

Anyways, the next 3 weeks are well, hellishly busy until I finish my class and then can just focus on work and this internship. I feel squandered of my social life, but I just have to remain focused on the fact that graduation is near.

1 down, 4 to go

So, I applied for this internship that my instructor recommended. I assumed when going to my interview for it, that I would have a similar experience to my classmates in that I would show up, we'd chat, he may ask me some questions, but that I'd essentially just be setting up the logistics. This, however, was not the case. I was questioned on my knowledge of the seven steps in the baking process, which I hadn't studied for months, and I ended up looking like a complete moron. I also have to go in early wed. morning and do a "baking test" in which I make a batch of cupcakes (the place specializes in cupcakes), and I'm expected it seems, to know my stuff. I'm nervous, as I don't exactly usually make a stellar first impression, I get shy, forgetful, timid, etc. when I'm around new people in a new environment.

4 more weeks of class, 9 weeks until I'm a graduate, until I will have free time and a social life, I'll be able to enjoy the summer, I cannot wait.

yet another boring post

So, I have to admit that I'm feeling a little down, I start school again on thursday for my last quarter, and I'm honestly just dreading it at this point, although hopefully once I get going it will be okay. I just want to be done, I'm tired of trying to balance my life and don't feel I've been doing a very good job of it lately. There's also a lot of changes coming up that, while mostly exciting, like finishing school and -hopefully- finding a new job that I enjoy, but there's also the stress of all that, plus finding a new place to live for July, moving, all that stress, and a good friend of mine is leaving very soon which saddens me. I'm sure time will fly and all that, and though it's cloudy, rainy and cold here, summer is bound to come. I'm looking forward to days where I can lay in the sun, read, maybe get some thoughts flowing in that ol' messed up head of mine, maybe do a little painting.

all is well

My co-worker did indeed "get over it", and even bought me ice cream (which I felt a little guilty about). I had to meet with my boss, which was pertaining to my tardiness, and I'm proud to say I've been to work ON TIME ever since, pretty much effortlessly in fact, I mean, I'm honestly shocked at how easy it's been, so easy in fact, that I had time enough before work this morning to iron my skirt and read for 15 min. and still made it on time. I'm enjoying my time off from school, not quite looking forward to returning at this point, but seeing as how the end is near I feel I can get through it, then hopefully find a job that pays well enough, which is a concern, but not something I have to quite worry about yet.

pissing people off

So I really pissed off my co-worker, who I also consider a friend, basically I felt like a selfish ass. As a result I got reprimanded from my boss about my tardiness, and have to be on time to work from here on out since my tardiness/irresponsibility was the cause off the anger, and she was justified in her anger. I hope she gets over it as she says she will. I hate letting people down, especially due to my own bad choices.

Other than that life is still good, I survived my heinous final project last week, barely, but I did indeed survive, and after wed. I'll have a nice little break. I did get me another beater, the power steering kinda lacks at times but overall it seems to be a nice little runner. I've got good friends and money in the bank.

life is good

Other than the daunting final project I have due next week, life is moving along quite nicely, quite nicely indeed. I'm getting a hefty tax refund that will allow me to buy a slightly nicer beater than I had anticipated. Yeah, I've made the difficult decision to let go of the golf, she's had a good stint, stuck by me longer than any other car, and has maintained her quirky character. However, she's old, and I think it is time. Excuse me, I'm getting a little choked up at the thought....

Ahem, well, as I was saying, yeah, life is lovely, looks like I'll be able to pay off some bills I've been avoiding with this refund, school, though difficult, has been a lot of fun, my social life has been fulfilling, and the small amount of recent drama has been positively resolved. Yesterday at school I inadvertantly designed a dessert plate that had a, shall I say, phallic look to it, I was a tad embarrassed when my instructor looked at it and kinda chuckled and was like "umm, it looks like a missile, or uh, something". Then there was the part of class when we were playing with making sugar decorations, and chef Gary said that my classmate's decoration looked like a stomach, to which I suggested that our theme for our sugar showpiece project next quarter should be internal organs, which also got a good chuckle out of the class.

do the right thing

Been a lack of blogging lately, I'd blame busy-ness, but really, it's mostly because I'm uninspired, like honestly, my brain is all mushy right now, for a variety of reasons.

Anways..had an awkward moment at the local shop last night. One of the regulars, a kinda gangly middle-aged fellow, was there last night, and he's very friendly, but makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, like always comes outside whenever I'm having a smoke, or makes sure to pass my table so that he can say hello, or tries to sit next to me when possible, I mean, I guess I'm wary of the older gents at the coffee shop since well, gee, I show a bit of friendliness and they seem to think I'll date them. So anyways, I'm cordial to this guy, but try not to engage in much conversation, but I'm not rude or anything. Well, I step outside for a smoke and well, there he is 2 seconds later and I'm thinking about stuff and therefore keeping to myself, and he asks me if he's offended me. I said no, but maybe I should have said, "no, but you make me feel slightly uncomfortable", in any case, it was really awkward.

I'm so proud

We had a touch of snow this weekend, something between 8-15 inches or something like that, supposedly the "storm of the century", but I'm fairly certain in the 27 years that I've been alive anyways I've experienced a few storms as bad or much worse. In any case, my beast of a car made me so very proud yesterday. She maneuvered through the wet and snowy streets yesterday with relative ease while other cars were struggling. For a car whose tire is supposed barely hanging on (it was recommended to me that I get a new rim well over a year ago...have I done that, uh no), I was extremely impressed. I've been tossing around the idea of getting a new beater soon rather than put more money into my car, but she may have proved her worth yesterday.

I need to buckle down the next 4 weeks, school is suffering because I'm being too social. 4 weeks until I have a break, then 11 more weeks and I'm done...done!! Crazy to think by that time it will be June.

a bit o drama never did anyone harm

I guess anyways, just having a slight bit o drama in my life right now, which seems to be on the way to settled though (I hope), and hopefully everyone will come out unscathed, probably disappointed, but not seriously scathed. In any case, it has caused a bit o stress which I don't really have the energy for at this point.

Other than that, the usual, pondering such lofty ideas as grace, friendship, morals and the like. Not having much time to come to much real thinking regarding any of them however, mostly just confusion.

pondering perceptions

How is it that people's perceptions on the same situation can be so utterly different? It makes me wonder if I'm delusional sometimes, when I hear someone's account of an evening, for example, a night of heavy drinking where I no doubt have made an ass of myself, and the next morning wake up thinking, "gee, I kinda made an ass of myself last night", and then I hear from someone else, oh yeah, you made a HUGE ass of yourself, whereas I was just thinking that it was my run of the mill ass behavior, more mild in my remembrance. However, one specific source also tends to embellish things, so then I have to wonder..is this source reliable, or is this person actually giving an accurate account of the evening and it's my brain that is skewed, maybe I'm just trying to play down the embellishment to attempt to save face in at least my own head. OR, with the cleaning..I think I clean pretty regularly while not seeing other's make a ton of effort to clean. However, I may be feeding my fragile ego and deluding myself into thinking that I clean more, whereas they are thinking that I don't, so who is in the right? Then there is the relationship, where personal issues and past experience can skew perceptions of words and actions. It is all very confusing. So, if I am in fact, delusional, please let me know.

embarrassing behaviors ensue

Ah yes, I've engaged in many a foolishly drunken evening it seems as of late, I think it's because I live with all these young'uns, or I'm trying to fit in as much social life as I can before school gets really hard as it's projected to be starting like, next week. I should assume a lack of social life for the next 4 months, but I know I'm weak-willed.

G love delivered a good show last night, which would also be considered one of the aforementioned evening complete with embarrassing and obnoxious behaviors.

Guess who I get to see today, that's right, my old buddy Matt, who cuts my hair, who has fabulous pecs and is overall undeniably sexy. I'm quite excited.

I used to be funny

It's done, the cake that is. I only stayed an extra 6 hours after class to finish it, only 3 hours after the other stragglers left. There was lots of swearing, whining like a small child, and near gushes of tears, those damn flowers kept breaking and at one point I barked to my instructor, who kindly asked how it was going "my flowers are ugly and I hate them". Well, my emotions have been running high lately, extremely busy and stressful schedule, not enough sleep or time to relax, money is tight, I had a bittersweet exchange with my love interest after which I got ultimately rejected (got the 'ol, it's not you it's me), and we're thrown into these projects for school with minimal time and minimal practice. I guess that's how it is "in the business", so I should deal if I want to be "in the business". So next week I start advanced pastry, which is sure to also be stressful, but at least we make ice cream. My cake turned out alright though, I'm not wholly satisfied with how my flowers turned out, and it looks sloppy if you look at it up close, but from far away it looks kinda cool, I'll post a picture. Art girl painted sappy pictures on her cake, it was actually really good. I don't dislike her as much as I did a couple weeks ago I guess.

On board for next week..start my new class Mon., seeing G. Love on love day, hosting book club (which means I have to clean) on thurs., as well as the option of seeing the love interest who rejected me play at a local bar. Jake and Betsy have a friend staying next weekend and therefore we're throwing a possible impromptu party thrown in his honor. This leaves me with minimal time to ponder deep things.

my hands hurt

My poor little hands are sore from all this cake decorating, and I'm nowhere near finishing my cake, which needs to be done tomorrow.

trying my hand at a more positive attitude

I'm feeling a bit of stress as of late, big huge project due for school on wed. that will take up all my time until then, the project is designing a wedding cake for which we have to make "realistic" looking flowers out of gum paste. Gum paste is a nasty concoction of powdered sugar, glycerin, glucose, and a bunch of other stuff that is supposedly edible but would be gross to eat. Anyways, the stuff is fragile and finicky and I have yet to be successful at making one flower, not to mention my instructor doesn't seem too keen on my design in the first place, calling my ideas "bizarre". Well, not everyone wants a fluffy, flowery wedding cake, am I right? What's wrong with a nifty pattern in untraditional colors? Whatever, I will not allow him to stifle my creativity, and if it turns out to be shit I really don't care.

Yeah, I will rejoice when school is done, then comes the stress of figuring out what comes next. I was getting a little sad and sappy yesterday thinking of dispersing from Betsy, Jake and Kat (despite our differences), I have a ton of fun with these people and have made many cool new acquaintances in the past year or so since I met Betsy, makes me feel young again. Oh well, that is still a ways away, I shouldn't dwell on the sadness but live each moment to the fullest. Oh yeah.

party pic potpourri

Betsy and Ben, and Jake in the background

Cassie, me and Mary Kay trying to look like bad ass rockers, MK and Cassie look bad ass.

Emily, who was our summer roommate, and me looking hideous

There's my lovely roommates, Jake and Kathleen

Kevin and Taylor and Betsy

Mod cookies I made, aren't I swell

An Elvis cookie, again, I'm so swell

cold

So we're having a bit of a cold snap here in MN, and the furnace broke yesterday, and apparently the part to fix it cannot be obtained until tomorrow. It seems odd that a furnace can't be fixed on a Saturday, especially when it is as cold as it is. The landlord gave us a couple space heater, which, in our quite large apartment really doesn't warm up the place, I selfishly snatched one for my room last night though and my room was pretty toasty, and tonight I'm going to steal, I mean borrow a couple from work.

Our party was a smashing success, tons of people made an appearance (but not too many), we had lots of yummy food, nifty decorations, everyone was cool except for our neighbor who turned out to be creepy, people dressed up appropriately for the theme, Betsy and Kathleen arranged a sweet mix. Frankly I'm not confident that it can be topped, but I'm sure we'll try.

My affection for Lance continues to grow as I get to know him, he is super nice and very willing to help out which I very much appreciate, he's a good man.

sharing my random thoughts/irritations on nothing per usual

Perhaps I'd be better off living alone...our house looks nice though, we decorated for the party so almost everything of Lance's is put away. I will try to stop complaining/judging his aesthtic taste, I'm sure he thinks it neat and off-the-wall funky or whatever, and why wouldn't others like it? Olivia never liked my style when we lived together, so well, I guess it works all ways.
I have decided that post me hosting book club in a couple weeks, I'm going to stop cleaning common areas. Apparently it is thought by some in our home that Betsy and I are messier then some other's in our home so we deserve to clean more, hmmm, I rarely cook at home, if I do it is mac and cheese which doesn't require much mess-making, I always wash my own dishes, and often those of others, wipe down kitchen surfaces even if I didn't dirty them, even if I wiped them the night before, came home the next day without laying a finger on nary an item in the kitchen, and found the stove/counter to be dirty again I will -again- wipe it clean. I will stop sweeping, mopping and cleaning the bathrooms, etc. Sorry, I'm a bit pissed and venting, and I need to live by myself I think, ahhh, but it is so much cheaper to live with a roommate, with generally more space and amenities. I truly love my roommates, well, I don't quite know Lance well enough to feel very affectionate towards him at this point, but I do feel somewhat unappreciated at this very moment.

But I'm also MN nice so hell if I'll ever confront anybody...I mean it did take me a couple weeks to get up the nerve to be straight with Lance about not liking his masks. I do often prefer to go the passive aggressive route, hence instead of saying "I feel hurt/unnappreciated/exhausted when you say I should clean more than you even if my dead skin cells don't contribute to the dust/grime in the house any more than yours do, and I spend much of my limited spare time cleaning common areas while you sit on your duff" I will passively agressively stop cleaning any mess that I did not contribute to.

My instructor at school looked at my wedding cake ideas (we have to do a three tier wedding cake for our final project) and asked me if I'm a "dark" person. I'm not sure why, perhaps because in our lottery of cake shapes I chose heart shape and was sad until he offered up a hexagon shape which I eagerly grabbed, or because I want to use dark colors and patterns instead of something flowery. Who knows, I will say though that I feel most comfortable with this instructor more so than with any other teacher/professor, which is weird because the guy seems like he'd be super critical and is really hard to read because he doesn't have much for facial expression. Anyways, just thought I'd share I guess.

slowly but surely

We've been successfully eliminating Lance's decor from our walls, and with each piece that comes off the wall I feel a bit lighter. First, the shower curtain over the bathroom window, then the beach towel in the dining room, last night I asked if we could take down the craft fair masks, and he's like "oh sure, I just bought them at the dollar store, no big deal" (like just about everything else he buys) well, then why, for all that is good and right do you keep hanging this ahem, crap on the wall as if hanging random crap is in good taste. Although I feel much better then I did yesterday about the state of our home there is still issues to be addressed, like the weird cartooney/computer drawn animal calendar that he hung in the living room the other night, then asked Betsy and I "did you see that I hung a calendar" to which he received a probably look of distaste from me and a non-enthused "yeah" from Betsy. I wanted to scream, "Please, just stop, I can't take anymore of this, please" until I'm reduced to lying on the floor crying and whimpering my soft, tired pleas. The kicker is that he told Betsy that he wants to be an interior designer. I mean, not to say we don't want to incorporate some of his things, but he went to town filling our walls, so we are merely trying to reclaim a sense of our home, one that includes Lance but is not overtaken by him.

Other than that, and his taking over the spare room to watch movies nonstop (seriously he's in there every night for hours, forget about the rest of us watching a movie, tv or reading for that matter), he's been, all things considered, a good roomate, he seems at ease with us, easy to talk to, but also keeps to himself plenty, clean, willing to share, not extremely annoying, etc.

Despite my best efforts to give the annoying girl in class the cold shoulder, I ended up giving in to a bit of a chat, not altoghether unfriendly, in the locker room after class yesterday. Since she talks constantly during class and therefore shared an anecdote about her friend's ugly wedding cake (with fiberoptics, which I though sounded pretty cool actually), well, she had some photos of it to show us gals, and after seeing the photos I still thought the fiberoptics were kinda neat (it was a poor quality photo so I didn't really see the actual cake. Anyways, I'm probably mostly acting childish, I mean, I still don't particularly like her and I think she was extremely rude to me, but it's also this element of my instructor going on and on about her being an artist, and I kinda want to stamp my foot and be like, but I can draw and paint good too. Then I realize I don't actually want to do that, since I would put more pressure on myself then I already do, and feel like people are judging me more harshly as well, and since I'm not feeling super confident in this class so far, I'll keep my tantrum/envy to myself.

Aren't I just a ray of sunshine and judgement lately, I need sleep/rest/relaxation.

not sure that hate is too strong a word

Yesterday I had a pretty bad day at school, I screwed up, was near tears, then was given constructive criticism on my piping skills, which almost made the tears start flowing (even though my instructor wasn't being harsh at all, I was just frustrated and stressed), then I screwed up again after already being very far behind, then the tears came and I had to just wash dishes. I'm not usually one for breakdowns or public tears, so I was somewhat embarrassed, plus this is the first time I've had this teacher and only the 2nd week of class, I hope he doesn't think I'm a crybaby, I must say he was very understanding and encouraging.

Remember when I mentioned the know-it-all artist girl in my class? Well, she again was babbling on during lecture about her friend's wedding cake and how it was ugly because it had fiberoptics (I was thinking cool, if I get married I would seriously consider having fiberoptics on my cake, totally retro). Anywho, so that was irritating, but she really earned a spot in my bitch book when I was sweeping the floor, granted, I'm not exactly speedy at just about anything I do, I prefer a more relaxed pace, but I was using what little muscle I had to really try to bring up the caked up stuff stuck to the floor, and trying to be thorough. Well, she comes over, snatches the broom from me (at this point I'm just about done sweeping), and says, "Sorry sweetie, this just isn't cutting it for me" I should have grabbed the broom back and broomed her in the ass, but instead I stood there appalled that anyone would behave in such a manner towards me. Then she proceeds to "power broom" which apparently consists of her flailing the broom about, most likely sending dirt everywhere, it was just completely ridiculous. Myself and a few classmates stayed after to finish up various things, she being one of them and she's chatting with the Chef about how she thinks she's not good at cake decorating and how that's why she dropped out of Art school. Ha! she couldn't hack art school, it made me chuckle to myself, thinking about how much praise I got from my profs. Okay, I'm being petty now, but I don't care, I'm tired.

at it again

I come home yesterday to find that Lance has hung a towel in our dining room. I had a piece of decorative fabric, mostly to just take up wall space I wasn't to attached to it being there or anything, but apparently Lance thought it "ugly" and in it's stead, put up a beach towel with a moon and sun, an, in my opinion, ugly beach towel at that. Plus, it's an f-ing towel! I don't understand this man and his love for unnattractive things, and also his lack of understanding that some, probably most people don't like his "style", I mean, it's pretty eclectic to say the least. He's a very nice person, and I feel like I've gotten to know him better the past couple days, but I do have beef with him throwing all this random shit on our walls without consulting us first. He also used a shower curtain as a regular curtain in the bathroom. Need I say more.