Why Working Two Volunteer Jobs Is Bad For Your Health

Today I woke up. It was such an adventure. Especially when I realized that my dinner of peanuts, cinnamon rolls, and M&Ms hadn't gone down too well the night before and thusly my stomach felt kind of like this:



Yeah. It felt like Death was poking my stomach with his scythe and then he put me in his washing machine with his laundry on 'SUPER DOOM SPIN'. Have you ever noticed how stomach pain trumps all other sicknesses? Ear infection? Can still work. Cold? Lame. Stomach? OH GOD. Nothing gets done and it seems like no one ever believes you.

There's a place called McCormick Day Camp where I've volunteered for the past four years. I could have been paid this year, but that didn't work out. So every so often I pop in and put on my peppy face so that I might get a chance to be hired next year. Today was one of those days. I thought it was going to be relaxing--We were going to a nature preserve, how hard could it be??

I was wrong.

First off, it took us 45 minutes to get there. That made me realize we were officially in the boondocks. Nothing around for miles. I kept expecting to see my hillbilly family pop out from under the sparsely-seen bushes or something. When we got there, it was acres and acres of this-could-end-badly. 22 kids under my watch, and all of them were bored and wanted to buy stuff at the consession stand which clearly nature preserves do not have.

Luckily, there was a magical museum in the parking lot!!! Praise the Lord!!! Of course, we could have just gone to a museum in the first place, but no one sees this logic. McCormick's a wilderness camp, so the kids were just going to have to suck it up and eat leaves instead of buying consessions. (The kids usually have between 10-20dollars on them. It's sad to see a little girl buy a Spongebob ice cream cone with a 20.) But the museum plan diverted them from their hunger, so we took them in.

This museum was obviously booming. It had had 90 visitors (proclaimed proudly) in the past month, and it had three exhibits. A Civil War room, The History of Postcards, and Illustrated Children's Books of the 20th Century. WTF? I wonder if the nice old lady ('nice' at this point) had been a child once, sitting and thinking, 'hmm, when I grow up, I want to take a small, whitewashed building in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of a nature preserve in the middle of nowhere and make it into a museum on the Civil War, postcards, and watercolour pictures of kitties.' But the kids liked it all and all, especially the 'play room' for the children's books, which looked like one of those recurring nightmares you have with carosel music and the creepy brightly-coloured clowns.




There was literally an old, worn down anamatronic moving puppy that looked like it could use a bath, and its head would slowly move toward you as it talked in a high, feminine voice. It was on top of a plastic green hill with happy caterpillers and centipedes that wriggled. Also, if you tired of that, there were forest creature puppets that smelled like old people and failure.

Apparently the museum thought it wasn't teaching enough, because there was also a room with a sad-looking wilted teepee in it and that's it. Maybe it was where the forest puppets slept at night.

As we left this high-quality museum, the once-thought kindly old woman reminded me there was an entrance fee of 30 dollars for the eight 5 year olds I brought with me, so I waited to pay with a credit card that wasn't mine while I listened to the creepy children's music, and I wondered what I was doing there if I didn't even work there.

On the way home, I fell asleep. I drove home in a children's-museum daze, only to have an old guy run out in front of me in the street, waving his arms at me wildly. He had a newspaper in them. I couldn't tell if he was trying to flag me down, kill himself, or sell me something. I left him flailing sadly at me as I drove home, not ready to tackle more weirdness from this day that I still had yet another non-paid job full of phenomenons I had yet to see.

If My Life Were Scott Pilgrim

-I wouldn’t have to get a job; my friends would magically offer one to me
-I’d have a hands-on (literally) magical super witty gay roommate who would pay for my food and just be generally awesome
-I’d WIN EVERYTHING (+1 XP for winning!) (+1 for noticing that ‘XP’ looks like a smiley face!!)
-All my clothing would be cool and if you’re chubby in SP, it’s counted as a character trait.






-I wouldn’t have to think out of the box because everything would be in black and white. HA WHAT A KNEE SLAPPER
-If I needed to escape my troubles, I could literally TAKE A MAGICAL LEAP THROUGH MY BRAIN
-I would never have an awkward situation because some magical deux ex machina would come and save me.




-If I’m aloof and elusive, that makes me automatically awesome/the main character and not a bitch.
-If I’m forgetful/a jerk, that makes me cutesy/the main character and wanted by all the ladies.
-I’d never need to form my own opinions on someone again because there’d be a helpful black box next to them with the three sentences that make up their lives
-I could pull random crap out of my ass and everyone would accept it wholeheartedly

FAILSAUCE McAWKWARDPANTS

Miking people is an unusually awkward job. There are so many choices of situations for the techie to make things awkward. There's a whole lot of bras and skin and face-poking and really tight man-pants involved. Then, there are situations that happen every day (and some that don't.) Usually there’s the whole ‘under-shirt’ conversation, which usually goes like this:

ME: Mmmkay now, this has to go under your shirt. (It has been this way now for seven days.)

ACTOR: **Blank stare**

ME: Um. Do you want to do this, or shall I?

ACTOR: Oh, let me. **Struggles, leaving poor techie to awkwardly stand there and occasionally brush shoulder of actor or randomly feel up mike box under shirt**

Of course, from here, there are two kinds of actors: The suave, usually younger, ones who can handle it all by themselves during costume changes, and then the older, helpless ones, whose skin I see entirely too much of. The women I’m okay with, because it’s women, and they’re easy to talk to and stuff, even when they randomly decide to take their shirt mostly off in front of an entire theatre. My brain basically goes, okay, bra. Okay, clip. Awesome. and then it’s done for the day and has a tea party, unless said actress is a little girl, which is another thing entirely. Then I feel like I’m assaulting them. This is not good for your self esteem.

But men. Jeez. This gender really does not work well with mikes. First of all, they’ve got icky skin. I’m sorry, but they just do. I really do not enjoy being the face-sweat bitch and carrying around alcohol swabs with which to attack faces with, which is awkward for both parties. Excuse me, but your glands are interfering with my mike…and then I feel bad because they look at me all condescendingly like, woman, when is it your place to be all up and wiping my face like I am a baby butt? Go back to your corner, foo’. Then I’ve got to tackle the tape-placement: Too close to eye, or on part of hair? Because surgical tape is fricking surgical tape, and it doesn’t want to stick to anything BUT hair, so basically I cringe internally while taping guys, because I’m gonna have to be the one to rip their whole sideburn off later.
Then there are the people that it’s just awkward to mike, even if they can handle their own mike box placement and everything. Like one certain person at a play I’m working: let’s just call him Gorgeous Man. Generally I don’t have to mike him, but the two times I have in the past two days, there have been some super witty conversations.

ME: **tape tape**

GM: **stares off into distance**

ME: Eww. Your hair is gross.

GM: Sorry, it’s just water.

**Silence**

ME: *thinking* There is no friggin’ way this is just water. What the hell is this??? It’s all sticky and gross….okay….not gonna say that out loud…but seriously. Is this bacon grease? Or lard or something? Do men still gel their hair with that? Or is that just in Kentucky? Why do you ruin your hair with bacon-lard, oh Gorgeous Man?

In the end I settled for, “Okay, you’re done.”

Returning to the helpless older ones, let me just tell you. I have a story that can only be played out in pictures, it was so…well. It played out like a bad movie.















…So yeah. Add that to Charlie dying on Lost (But being miraculously revived!!---but he still died, which was traumatizing) and I’m in hysterics. Add THAT to a conversation on man-nipples, some drawings of naked stick-figure ho’s, a lot of unnecessary tech love drama, and I start to wonder why I take this every day.

OHGOD: A Dream Told in Pictures

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for the WTF-ness that are my dreams. Any similarities to actual people, places, dresses, or historical figures are purely coincidental.

Click on the pictures for the full "---THE HELL???!" effect.

Recipe Of The Day--- On Helpful Profit-Making Adulthood Stuff

So. Adulthood. That's that thing that people talk about a lot, right? I hear it in an increasing amount these days. And jobs...those too. If I could have a job sitting on a magic cloud telling people how to build sets whose ideas came from a magic floaty scroll that came down from the sky and landed in my hand with a little tap-dance, then, by God, I would. Unfortunately that's not how life works, so I should really zero down on one thing I can do and perfect it. Until then, I think I'll just scribble drawings and write words until they spontaneously morph into something that I could make a job out of.





It seems like a lot of other blog writers make their living on the four main types of blogs: The Kid Blog (The Smith Family's Adventures: Zoe and Jack, the Wonder Twins!) the Food Blog (A bunch of recipes), the Typical Blog (Random Ramblings from A Crazy Life---Just Some Random Ideas and Thoughts) and the Quaint Creative Artist Blog (Awww...scrapbook/picture frame/photography/pet photography/paintings/poetry/COMEBUYTHIS). Most of them are genuinely helpful and promotive (word?) for people's projects.

Therefore, I'm gonna do just that. I'm gonna make this the BEST MOST HELPFUL MOST INTERESTING DAMN BLOG POST IN HISTORY. Print this, stick it to your forehead, and use it to win life.

1. COOKING

Cooking is something that's useful AND fun, if you know how to do it. Unfortunately, the only things I can make are guacamole, toffee, and potato salad. However, all three are delicious, so if you combine them, they MUST be fabulous.

GUACATOFFAMOLE SALAD


You'll need:

3 avocados
2 sticks of butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 onion
12 golden potatoes
2 tomatoes
garlic powder
Tabasco sauce
2 teaspoons paprika
1 cup mayo
2 cups ranch
2 bags chocolate chips (1 for snacking out of while making dish)
onion powder
garlic
3 hardboiled eggs
3 normal eggs
more butter
bowl, for mashing
pot, for boiling
cookie sheet
cilantro/almonds/paprika for garnish


1. Boil potatoes, eggs and butter in pan. If we were making these recipes separately, they would be separate, but wasting pans is a no-no.

2. While ingredients are boiling, mash avocado, chop onions and tomatoes, and put ranch and mayo in a bowl. Pour the chopped/mashed vegetables into said bowl with ranch/mayo.

3. WHOOSH! TIME WARP---your potato/egg/butter mixture is ready!!! Mash all together and, after this develops into a sludgy mixture, pour onto a cookie sheet. BE CAREFUL NOT TO BURN YOURSELF---remember that mixture is hot, and although it looks tasty, it's actually boiling.







4. Melt chocolate (nothing different here. Melting chocolate is a serious business.)

5. Put garlic, paprika, cilantro, chocolate, Tabasco, and sugar into a separate bowl. Mix. Set aside.

6. Take vegetable mixture and layer ontop of egg/potato/butter mixture. Let cool.

7. Shake sugar/Tabasco/paprika mixture on top of vegetables.

8. Sprinkle almonds on top. Cilantro garnish may be used in place of this.

9. Surprise your family.




2. HOW TO DRAW

A lot of people think drawing is hard. Not so with this easy tutorial! Drawing is something that's fun, easy to do, and surprisingly does not really make a lot of money. I'm going to teach you how to draw…something. It'll have to be on Paint since that's what I use for my super high tech drawings. You may want to have pencil and paper in case you can’t figure out the high-techiness that is MS Paint.


1.Make a line. Feel free to use creative license.






2.Add something to that line. I added a circle, but don’t feel pressured.



3.Add two more lines. Mine looks like a legless stick figure. I shall call him Steve.




4.Add two more lines. These are Steve’s legs. Generally my people have a little more definition, like a blob for a hand or a square for a body, but these may have to wait until lesson two.






5.Decorate. Tape to fridge.




Now that you’ve learned to cook and draw, you’ll definitely be successful! Those industries are chock full of spots for you, just yearning for your newfound talents. Just remember where you learned them from, young padawan.

The Run

So I decided today that it was time to get in shape, and after thinking about running for the entire first half of summer, I figured, well, I better just get up and do it. It was overcast outside, which was a huge change from the weeks of blistering sunlight we’d been having, and when I stepped outside, it wasn’t hot. My hillbilly reasoning skills told me it was therefore okay to run, so I stepped outside, overconfident and sure of myself.




I started out jogging, and felt okay, for like a quarter of a mile. This was a huge achievement. There were no other joggers out, which was unusual---my neighborhood is chock full of them. So I didn’t feel self-conscious. In fact, I felt pretty damn good. No cars stopped to throw rocks at me, so that was a point in my favour. I felt like I blended in. I imagined people in their cars saying, ‘My, what a dedicated runner!’ and ‘She’s so brave to be outside now, when it looks like it’s going to rain, plowing through some miles!’ and whole families deciding that they were stricken by my zealous run-osity and deciding to take family runs on their own. This probably wasn’t what was happening, but I felt good whenever a car passed me anyway. I felt like, if I were to pass another jogger, they’d give me, like, the Jogger Nod or something. This is when a Jogger (a capitalized one, the ones that really know what they’re doing and think that pain is good and stuff) gives the head-nod at you to acknowledge you. It means you don’t look pathetic, basically. There’s a certain camaderie joggers share, a sort of I’m-crazy-for-inflicting-this-much-pain-on-myself-but-you’re-doing-it-too-so-it-must-be-okay-ness about it that you can really only achieve once you’ve reached Runner status. My glowy self-confidence lasted about a mile and a half into it, before it started to rain; a really unpleasant hot rain like being peed on by God, and my heart basically gave up on me.

So I turned around, gasping. By this time I realized WHY no one else was out: it was humid, so humid that it leeched all the breatheable air out of the atmosphere and left a dry husk of a world behind. My hair foofed up immediately and got in my eyes as I tried to stumble back home. I ran another half-mile before I tasted blood. Every time I landed, the sidewalk glowed bright purple. My hip felt wobbly and out-of-place. I was weaving from side to side as I grandma-jogged. But grimly, I carried on. I was listening to ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ from Mulan and secretly I felt like I would let General Shang down if I stopped. But finally I had to stop, since my eyesight would randomly turn black and I really needed to get home before it started storming.




I made it home only by hightailing it through a few of my neighbour’s yards. I went for sneaky at first, but figured that would look suspicious, so I settled for full-on sprinting wildly to my house. I could always use the ‘jogging’ excuse, but by now, I’m pretty sure I looked as bad as I felt. And as I felt pretty bad, it must not have been pretty. While I banged on the window, wailing for Sister to let me in, I realized I had an Elvis pompadour for hair. Add that to my list of other afflictions (I’m pretty sure I sprained my lung) and running was downright dangerous.

I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

Avatar: The Last Straw

So I just got back from seeing Avatar (Sister: You mean the one with the blue people? Me: NO. Leave my nerdiness alone!) and it was pretty much either the best or the worst thing ever. You know when movies are so bad, they’re kind of cute? Well, this one was so bad, it surpassed ‘cute’ and went into the ‘I’ve-seen-the-series-so-I-can-barely-follow-along-and-even-though-they-butchered-these-characters-I’ll-laugh-along-at-all-two-of-the-parts-that-were-supposed-to-be-funny-because-I’m-a-friggin’-WATERBENDING WARRIOR-dammit’ stage. It was almost embarrassing. I was in the (mostly empty) theatre with one couple (or maybe they were brother and sister. Who knows. It was almost like Katara and Sokka in the movie---they could have been dating, they could have been bro and sis, but who knows since any relationship they had had about the passion of a dead fish.), some silent Asians (who were probably shamed) and this guy who might have been my grandmother, Paul McCartney, or Spock dressed in a too-small The Who shirt. This was a sign that things were getting out of hand, but no, I ate my dinner of M&Ms (paid for by my Avatar-groupie friend who went with me) bravely and settled in for the ride.

The first scene was promising. It was like the opening of the real show, only faker. After that, we learn that Sokka doesn’t actually have a sense of humour and that Katara is a lot stupider than her series counterpart. THUSLY.

SOKKA: There’s a mysterious glowy thing under the ice we’re standing on.
KATARA: (silly grin) LOL HAHA LET’S HAMMER THRU IT SINCE WE’RE STANDING ON IT
SOKKA: Okay, but only if I get to be all manly and catch you, since you’re my sister slash girlfriend lover!
KATARA: HAHA KAY
(Slice through ice. Grumbling. Glowy things.)
SOKKA: OH GOD IT’S A BALD KID
KATARA: There may be a beacon going up in the air that’s gonna destroy our tribe, but we should save him! He looks important and I know this because I’m a main character!
AANG: (Stoic face) I am a new actor. I say five word phrases. Let me be your Jesus.
(Random flash to Zuko. Zuko is sitting on ship, and he is definitely NOT the Zuko from the series. He is, in fact, and apparently the whole Fire Nation is, Indian. And the Earth Kingdom is Asian. And the Water tribes are white, since they apparently ran out of races. In fact, everyone is cut-and-dried except Uncle, who is I think may be Jewish.)
ZUKO: (Suddenly in white suit, singing and tap-dancing) Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!!!

The movie only had two parts--- Part 1: Fill In Story Line, and Part 2: Ice City Thing. Ice City Thing is summed up nicely as this:
SOKKA: She’s out of my league, but she’ll never know since apparently this movie doesn’t have any other teenage boys in it.
AANG: *stoically flies around* My vague dragon told me. I must be Moses now.
ZUKO: I’MUNNA POP OUTTA THE GROUND LIKE A HUN!!! :D

Yeah. I could do the whole movie like this. Because it WAS like that. There was NO flow to it---it was just PEACEFUL SCENE STORY DUMP SCENE OH WAIT ACTION SCENE SINCE WE HAVEN’T USED THAT YET repeated over and over again until they almost had you fooled into thinking it was a pieced-together movie. And there WERE only two sorta funny parts. And I think they were obligatorily (is that a word? now it is) funny---since it was Sokka getting bitch-slapped by Appa’s tail and Sokka getting pwned by Katara’s water. Knee-slappers. Now, I’m a pretty diehard fan of Avatar, but even if I used the Twilight method of pretending it was good for the sake of my utter devotion, it didn’t work. There was a little voice in my brain named LOGIC going ‘No. This is wrong. This never happened. Wait, what DID happen? NO DON’T KILL THE FISH’ over and over again. Then that little voice died a little mournful death in a puff of anguish and pain as I watched the rest of the movie. When it ended, I was like…wait…that’s the end? We haven’t SEEN anything yet! But apparently we didn’t need to, since the entire Spirit world (one shady-looking dragon) and the whole other world (A couple of Earth camps, some sloshy-looking water, and metal Fire Nation boats) had been totally and entirely revealed to us so that we all could understand.