Back In The 'States

Now that I look back into my log, and notice that I haven't even bothered to write one single post since returning to the states, I'm understandably embarrassed, but...and believe me on this one...I have a good amount of excuses for my lack of posting. I don't intend, at least not yet, to turn this wonderful web address into another abandoned 'blogger ghost town.'

Let's go over the basics, shall we? I returned Michigan on February 9th, 2008, two weeks from the coming Saturday, getting into O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois at about noon. A few hours later, after stopping for lunch at Bob Evans (I REALLY wanted to go to Taco Bell, but there were some people with us that shall remain unnamed that really aren't big into spicy food, so I kept silent) and to visit my grandfather in Grand Haven.

I spent that night doing some of the key things I hadn't done in a long time: I went to Taco Bell, I got my hands on a new video game, The Orange Box, and I played Xbox 360 for the first time in close to six months. Granted, I felt like I should have paced out all of these wonderful benchmarks on my fast-track back into American society. Molly came back for the weekend, I'd like to think to see me come back, which was nice. Had it been a couple years back, I have a feeling she wouldn't have, but I'd like to think she's matured.

We tried to bring Molly to the bus station in Grand Rapids on Sunday to get her a bus back to MSU, but it was flat-out unbelievable outside: visibility was next to nothing, snow was blowing and drifting, etc. Basically imagine all of the awful things that come with snow, that could come with such. That's what we encountered. We knew we were truly in trouble when they wouldn't allow us on the highway at the outskirts of Spring Lake Township, there was a fireman blocking off the on-ramp with his pickup and he informed us that we were going to have to take the back roads through Coopersville. Having done such for another half hour, we stumbled upon quite the scene when it came time to segue back into the highway. There were a handful of cars thrown into the ditches on both the left and right sides of the highway, a lengthy amount of cars simply stopped where they stood, and two that were actually flipped over on their hoods.

It goes without saying that we turned back home, only to find out that there was a Winter Advisory in effect until 10 PM. Molly, of course, was freaking out because she had to get back to MSU by early Monday morning for a mathematics examination. We tried again that night, but it wasn't any better, and by the time my parents had driven her to Grand Rapids, Molly was so frightened by the weather conditions, that my parents put her up in a hotel for the night, and had her get a taxi to the bus station the next morning.

Let's see, in the week and a half since then, I've been fairly busy. I started work on the Monday immediately after returning, working as a mail room assistant in the production department of the Grand Haven Tribune. Basically, I'm in charge of making sure that the proper inserts/advertisements get into the right shifts on the right days, unpackage them, run the printing press, as well as a fair amount of other things. It's only about half time, and the pay is a little more than minimum wage, but, I have a job...in February...in Michigan. I figure that in its own right should qualify as a divine miracle. Somebody call up Pope Benedict.

With the work taking up a fair amount of my afternoons, my mornings are spent conveniently allowing me to sleep in, play video games, or other semi-fun activities of that sort. Then work. And then, usually dinner, followed by working on some freelance articles for the Tribune, reading, chatting with friends, something like that. That's just the general structure of my day. I know...'general'...'structure'...words one would not expect to hear coming out of my mouth. The freelance is a nice addition to my schedule though. It simply feels nice being published again, and getting a twenty-dollar bill that won't be taxed for each one doesn't hurt.

Other than that I've been clearing up some issues with the University of Aberdeen because they decided to refund my housing deposit...in Sterling Pounds. That's right, I have a check for 200 pounds on my nightstand. And, obviously, my bank doesn't want much to do with a check written by a non-American bank (Royal Bank of Scotland) for a non-American currency (Pounds). Thankfully, Aberdeen's accounts department sounds like they'll be refunding the amount to my credit card, instead of having my bank back home take a 10% cut to cash it. Hopefully they will. Otherwise, Aberdeen University, you now have my credit card number, and a 400 dollar check to get you started. Don't spend it all in one place.

As usual, the Tribune mail room has continued to provide me with more and more wonderful incidents to report. For starters, let me discuss Lisa. Lisa, I would venture to guess, is probably about 37 years old...with her maturity level sinking somewhere into the single digits. Lisa somehow thinks that, by some divine authority that is beyond everyone else, she can randomly abandon her post on the printing press to go do whatever menial task she determines is necessary to herself. For those of you not accustomed to how a printing press works, the papers are pneumatically fueled through, while the 'feeders' must continue to keep stacks of ads 'feeding' into the machine, because if they don't, the papers must be fixed by hand.

Yesterday, over the course of two hours, Lisa left her station eight times. That's about five times more than the remainder of the six-person staff combined. All in all, she went to the bathroom twice, took two smoke breaks outside of the official half-way smoke break, took the time to peel an entire orange, applied eye-liner, and went to the opposite side of the building to get coffee. What's amazing is that for Lisa's seemingly apathetic nature regarding work ethic, she always dresses up for work...and by that, I mean that she has a serious pathological condition that forces her to relive her 1985 high school prom every time she goes to work. Lisa shows up with over sized neon hair scrunchies, those awful bead necklaces, and over sized sweaters.

Keeping all of this in mind, you have to understand how I almost snorted Mountain Dew out of my nostrils yesterday when Lisa told me that apparently she can't wait to get a job that she isn't just 'really overqualified for.'

"Look no further," I muttered.

That's right, apparently Lisa is convinced that she's too good for the very job that she holds. Maybe at some point, later in her life, and, at the rate that her brain processes things, I'd give it at least a decade, she'll realize how lucky she is that the Tribune doesn't pay her by the paper. Or, more interestingly, they detracted, for every paper that we had to fix by hand. At said point, I can say that Lisa would be paying the Tribune.

There's more, but I've got another forty minutes before having to head off to the Trib for the night shift. It should be interesting.