The Grammar Nazi's Lair

I've been engaged for 11 days now. Aren't the wedding headaches supposed to happen much closer to the wedding?

My mom and I went bridal dress shopping at David's Bridal today. We had a fantastic assistant and found the perfect wedding dress, veil, tiara, shoes and undergarments.

But we didn't buy the dress, to my sadness. Why?

Remember last year, with the crashed car and the dog back surgery? I put all of that, plus my taxes and a few others things on a credit card that I fully intended to pay off myself. Well, my parents ended up paying it off, and apparently my dad is still upset about it. So much so that he's only willing to pay 5,000 dollars for my entire wedding. Add to that the fact that my sister got a divorce last year, and her wedding cost was over 20,000 (I think, somewhere in the neighborhood), and it's a small wedding (that I keep getting reminded is going to be a small wedding).

So the 1,000 dollar dress (I think it was more like 1,500 or 1,700 with everything) is out. Now, I don't mind having a small wedding. I'm not fancy and expensive like my sister is (I love her to death, but dang, y'all). Since logistics is also a nightmare, a small wedding is probably what is going to happen anyway. Like I said, I don't mind that.

I just don't like that my mom couldn't shut up about how it was going to be small, and even during our talk brought up my financial problems last year ("Well, if you hadn't spent money on a credit card!"). Yes, because I purposely totalled my car and threw my dog's back out so she would need a surgery. I wanted so badly to have another credit card charged up, let me tell you.

And now there has to be consequences that overshadow my WEDDING?!?!?!?! Let me tell you, I'm a one wedding girl. I don't intend to ever get a divorce or get remarried. Once is enough. I'm in this relationship for the long haul. I love Brad, I love his family, and I love my life here. The wedding day, MY wedding day, is supposed to be the happiest day of my life, and already my parents are stressing me out because of monetary concerns. It's making me want to pull my hair out. I joked today that maybe I should elope, because that would be the cheapest thing to do for everyone!

Ugh. I understand them being mad at me for the financial woes they had to get me out of in the past. Believe me, I'm suffering the consequences of having to pay about 1,300 bucks a month in bills because of last year. I just hate that it's affecting my eventual wedding in October. That just sucks. And I don't think it's right that my one wedding day has to be overshadowed because of the financial mistakes I've made in the past.

Fortunately, my mom and I are talking and are okay with each other or this trip would really suck. Man I wanted that dress, though. *Sigh*

There goes my Happy New Year. I knew the other shoe had to fall sometime.

First, I get engaged on New Year's Eve. What a way to start the year already!!!! I can't tell how happy I am.

Then, a few days later and after a great second interview, I get a full time data entry job with Love's Travel Stops. No more customer service. No more dealing with people on a regular basis. No more OCCC (couldn't get the tutoring hours I wanted and no classes were available), no more ROSE lab (still teaching there), NO MORE SEARS!!!! I get my own cubicle and computer!!!! I don't start until next Monday, but I am already psyched!!!!

And then last night. The smile is still on my face. LSU IS THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!! TAKE THAT AND STICK IT UP YOUR ASS USC!!!! NO SHARING THIS TIME!!!!

Yes, USC and not Ohio State. I have no ill will against Ohio State, who basically had the crap beat out them by the LSU TIGERS last night! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! GEAUX TIGERS! NATIONAL CHAMPS!!!!! YEAH BABY!!!!

( But still, I need to rantCollapse )

Okay, no more ranting! It's a glorious day! LSU IS NUMBER ONE!!!!! GEAUX TIGERS GEAUX!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!

And I have big news!!!!

My boyfriend Brad proposed to me last night with a beautiful ring and I accepted!!!

Yep, I AM GETTING MARRIED!!!! I'M ENGAGED!!!!

Now to figure out where I'm going to get married, and all the stuff that comes along with it!!! I'm going to see my mom next week, so hopefully she will give me lots of good advice because I have no idea about how to plan a wedding and stuff like that. I have my work cut out for me, lol!

So anyway, this year is off to a GREAT start for me!!! I hope everyone has an awesome New Year!!!! Happy 2008!!!

The week before Christmas is a NIGHTMARE.

I barely managed to get a lot of my Christmas shopping and mailing of cards done.

Sears is working me to death this week, and they don't close until 11pm.

I have a bump on the back of my right hand that I think is a ganglion cyst, and it's causing pain in my right hand. AND I GET THIS DURING FINALS WEEK!!!! And of course, I have no money to go see a doctor about it.

*Sigh* I'm going to be so happy for next week to come...can Christmas just get here already?

My boss at the Communications Lab...is leaving! In January!

I'm torn about this. She'll be closer to her family (only an hour away) with a fulltime teaching job. On the other hand, she'll be in Washington State and I will miss her like crazy!!!! This place won't be the same without her!

I'm also wondering if this will impact me coming back and working as a tutor. I don't need stress like that in my life right now!

Man, first Mark left, and now Mindie is leaving. Why are all the best people leaving?!?!?!


In other news, I hacked all of the ice off of my car yesterday (can I tell you how much I love ice?). I felt like He-Man, lol. I broke the chipper tip of my long handled scraper, but the other end works just as well! There was a ring of ice around the spot where my car sat, lol.

And my poor dog...nothing is worse than watching your dog carefully tread over ice to find a place to do her business. I'm so glad it's melting, though I heard we're getting snow this weekend...

The craziness continues.

I bought a new cell phone, a motorola RAZR. I had said phone and loved it dearly for ten days. I washed said phone as it was in my pants pocket and I was so tired that I forgot to take it out. I had to go to two T-Mobile stores to find and buy another RAZR. Meanwhile, I had my sidekick back, but didn't want it anymore. Marissa put her phone on Ebay. It sold, but the person didn't pay. She relisted it, and it sold, and the person paid. She gave me the 150 bucks from the sale, and I gave her my sidekick.

Then I realized that every single one of my phone numbers and such is ON the sidekick still. I call her frantically and ask her to NOT erase the phone book just yet and get those numbers to me somehow. She said she would, and I'm still waiting for those phone numbers and such. Talk about exhausting!

Exhausting. That describes my entire year. I've been out of touch with old friends, out of touch with new friends, and out of touch with myself. It's been one rollercoaster ride after another. I'm not going to make excuses, or beg people to talk to me again. In fact, i joined Facebook last night, and when I saw that some old friends also had Facebook accounts, I thought, what the hell. Let me ask them to be my friends and see what happens.

I am sorry that I got so far away from you all. To be honest, I'm not online that much anymore. I only get on when I'm at work, or when I'm not spending time with my boyfriend Brad or our friends in the little amount of free time that I actually have. My wacky job hours, from three jobs no less, have me so exhausted that I'm sleeping almost as much as spending time with my boyfriend (maybe a few hours a night) and with our friends (usually one night a week, Fridays, for a few hours).

I love my boyfriend, and I love the life we have. But lately, I'm been feeling like something is missing. I realized recently it's my old friends. I love my new friends, don't get me wrong, but I miss having my scaperfriends, and other online friends around. Heck, some of my new friends I haven't talked to in awhile, and I miss them too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'd like to talk to my friends again. You may get a hi from me if I have some way of getting in touch with you. You can answer and we can talk, or not answer and we won't talk. I won't blame you if you don't want to talk to me again. It's not like I've been the greatest friend at all this year. I'll understand if we're not friends anymore. That's only fair.

I do hope to start conversations anew again, though. This year is a waste, friendwise and somewhat lifewise, but I am hoping and praying that next year will be a lot quieter and far less chaotic. I need a year of peace, dammit! Is that too much to ask for?

By the way, I now have a facebook account, as I mentioned above. I'm going to be posting there and here, probably more there, but I don't know yet. If you have one, I'd love to add you as a friend. Please either find me on facebook and add me to your friendslist, or let me know what your username is so I can add yours. Thanks! I love you all!

This past Friday, the freakiest thing happened.

I got my lost purse back!

My friend Marissa called me to tell me that my hairdresser had called her mom, who had called her, looking for a phone number for me because someone at Walmart had found the card for my hairdresser in my wallet and called her looking for me! I raced over to Walmart, and lo and behold, they had my purse! Nothing was missing either.

I just can't believe it. I must be the luckiest idiot on the earth. And last night, I had two of everything, lol. I shredded my duplicate credit cards, and I'm now going to sell my sidekick and charger to Marissa because I like my razor flip phone too much (and the bill for it is ten bucks cheaper than the sidekick bill).

At least I don't have to go to the Social Security office and wait all damn day to get a new social security card, hallelujah! I also have double the amount of stamps now, and several other business cards I would have lost forever. OH! And I have my bottle of ibuprofen back, which is great because of Aunt Flo's visit right now.

I swear, I am NEVER going to use the clear purse in a store again. From now, it's the real purse with straps that I can hang on to!

D'oh number one: I TOTALLY forgot to watch RAZOR this past Saturday night and we didn't set the DVR to tape it! GAH! Oh well, at least it comes out on DVD on the 4th.

D'oh number two: I will NEVER let my purse get stolen again. Dammit, my ATM card needs to get in TODAY! I've gotten my other cards, but I keep forgetting I don't have an ATM card yet, and I ran out checks for the first time in like forever! That made getting gas a lot of fun a couple of days ago.

Rant:

There are sometimes that I hate working in a Writing Center, or at least get seriously annoyed at stupid people.

Today, this girl comes up to me, with only forty five minutes until I have to leave, and wants me to read over her six page paper for grammar problems. We're talking a six page research paper with an MLA Works Cited Page and in text citation.

Now, I know forty five minutes sounds like an eternity, but that is not enough time to read through a six page paper, even with minimal grammar errors (and there's no guarantee that this girl's writing would have been minimal with errors). You have to factor in talking about each error, answering questions that come up along the way, and not to mention showing the person how to fix errors in their paper, and explain things like MLA format if she doesn't know how to do it. I'm sorry, I'm not going to rush through a six page paper, seven with the Works Cited page and probably due in a few hours, with only 45 minutes until I close the lab, and do a shitty job of maybe catching all of the errors without much time to talk to her about how to do things correctly. That's not my job. I do not get paid to speed read and edit. I get paid to slowly go over a paper, and actually help the student understand their errors and work with their writing skills.

Actually, in Rose's Lab, I don't even get paid to do that. We're not supposed to read over an entire paper, only the first few pages. I guess I could have done that for her, but her attitude was so poor, I think that's not what she wanted anyway. She probably wouldn't have been happy with only a few pages read. The bitchy brat probably only wanted someone to edit the damn thing for her, and that is NOT what I do.

I actually bristle when people walk into either lab, and ask if someone can "edit" their paper. One had the actual GALL to ask if they could just drop off their paper and come back for it later! I'm not going to do the work for you as they don't pay me enough to do that, and I don't do other people's work anyway. I always follow "edit" comments with, with, "No, but if you sit down and fill out a yellow sheet, someone will go over your paper with you."

It's Turkey week! I should be happy about that, right?

Wrong. This past Monday almost ruined it for me. And it's my own damn fault.

I went to Walmart Neighborhood Market Sunday night to get some stuff me and my boyfriend needed, and then came home, and everything was hunky dory. Then the next morning, I get up, and ready to go, and find out that my work purse is missing. (Thankfully, NOT my normal purse, which still have my jump drives that have things like grades and quizzes on them).

Usually, I only take the clear purse into Sears because of the wacky policy that we have to have a purse that is see through. Instead, I got lazy and took into Walmart. I know I had it at checkout, and don't remember leaving it in the cart, but it was gone. It wasn't at Walmart, no one had turned it in, and it wasn't in my house or car. There goes my wallet, including my social security card, bank card, school ID's, walmart creditcard, carecredit card, both of my auto insurance cards, my Sears discount card that didn't work anyway, my stamps, and oh yes, a card with several user names and passwords on it, including the one to my bank account (but not my pin, thank GOD for that). Also missing is other cards that I didn't really use as well as my damn cellphone AND charger! Which means all of my contacts are gone (so NOT keeping all of my contacts ONLY in my cellphone next time. SO DUMB!)

So I spent the morning and part of the afternoon making phone calls to my bank, progressive auto insurnace, care credit, T-Mobile, and the Village Police Department. I didn't go into work at all, which means one day down on my final paycheck, dammit. I had to wait for an officer to come out to my house so I could file a report. I then reported my walmart card missing online, and borrowed ten bucks from Brad so I could get a new driver's license (thank GOD for digital driver's licenses. I didn't have to have any documentation to get a new license because they took my fingerprints when I got my first Oklahoma license.)

I then spent the rest of the day with Brad and his daughter Adriann, which was good because it kept me from having a breakdown. I can't believe I lost my purse. Most likely, I left it in the cart, and some asshole saw it and stole it. I mean, it practically had a "please steal me" sign on it because it was see through. I still have to get a new social security card, and hopefully that asshole won't try to steal my identity or do something worse. There was no unusual activity on my bank account, credit cards, or my cell phone, so that's at least good.

I bought myself a funny Janet Evanovich novel to help me as well as played Minigolf on the XBOX 360 with Brad and Adriann (funny, I play the same as I do in real life, which is not very good). I'm a lot better today and at work, but still, I can't believe my wallet and cellphone are gone. I can't even afford to get a new cellphone or just cancel T-mobile, so I'll have to get a crap phone to keep the service. And I still need to get a new social security card, and wait on my new bankcard, credit cards, and insurance cards. I've never gotten such use out of my checkbook before, lol.

Because of what happened, though, I totally forgot to call my dad on his birthday, which was Monday. GAH! First time I've done that in years. I'm going to call him today. I feel so bad about it!

Oh well, I have Thanksgiving completely off, and even more amazing, I work the 2pm to closing shift on Black Friday (which means a mostly normal shift instead of a stampede of people). So I will be stuffing myself, having fun, and not working on Thanksgiving for the first time in three years or so, yay! So Turkey week won't be totally bad at all!

There are days when working in a computer lab and being an English tutor makes me want to pull my hair out.

1. If your flash drive isn't working, and you can almost pull it apart, or it looks like it's been throuh hell and back, it's time for you to get a new flash drive instead of asking me why it won't work on the computer. The same goes for when you have to jiggle it to get the computer to recognize that there's a flash drive in the usb port you plugged it into. Oh, and if it's a keychain flash drive, TAKE IF OFF OF YOUR HEAVY KEY CHAIN before plugging it into the usb port - of course it's not going to work if it's halfway out because of gravity pulling your heavy ass keychain to the floor!

2. When something doesn't print DON'T PUSH THE DAMN PRINT BUTTON 50 TIMES. When something doesn't work, you don't keep pushing buttons until it does, you get someone to fix it! So much paper is WASTED when some stupid idiot pushes the print button a gazillion times. And for the LOVE OF GOD, check BOTH printers before coming to me and saying that your document didn't print out. You wouldn't BELIEVE how many people do this. We have TWO printers in OBVIOUS places in the lab. CHECK THEM BOTH FOR YOUR PRINTOUT!

3. Oh how I hate, hate, HATE online courses. No, wait, it's the people who decide to take online courses. Why? Because people who don't know the first thing about writing a paper or what is going on in the damn course take these courses, and I have to babystep them through the instructions they printed out, or try to interpret what the teacher wants without an assignment sheet! If you are going to take an online course that involves paper writing, be sure you can write a paper first! And OMG DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO COME INTO THE LAB AND ASK ME WHAT YOUR ONLINE ASSIGNMENT MEANS! I am not a fucking miracle worker, and you should ask your teacher on the DAY the paper was assigned EXACTLY what the teacher wanted you to do, not show up with no assignment sheet and ask me how to do a paper for a class like philosophy that I have NO FUCKING IDEA about! For God's sake, take an ACTUAL class where you can ask your professor what the assignment means IN PERSON!

4. I don't know what else we can do besides tattooing it on your eyeballs, but the print maximum is 10 PAGES A DAY PER PERSON! And no, you can't print out ten pages for you and ten pages each for six of your buddies at once. And every freaking teacher that posts a powerpoint presentation should instruct their students on how to properly print it out six slides to a page instead of leaving it up to the lab staff to do this! I so HATE THAT!

5. Another thing I can't stand is teachers with weird requirements for their papers, like no page numbers or last names on the first two pages (including the title page). You'll have to figure out how to do what the freaky teacher wants on your own, and the teacher shouldn't have weird ass requirements like that in the first place!

6. I appreciate that you're working hard doing your reading program on the computer, but bugging the fuck out of me 50 times in one day to get signatures is annoying! I don't think your teacher wanted you to read 50 books a day for your class! Even worse is that stupid teacher requires a signature, which is just nuts when the lab is busy. I HATE THAT RULE.

7. This is more of a tutor thing than anything else. Do NOT walk into the lab and ask me to revise your paper, or even worse (my fucking FAVORITE), ask if you can leave your paper with me and then come back later. I AM NOT AN EDITING SERVICE! I don't get paid to rewrite your paper. Fill out the damn yellow sheet, AND PUT YOUR TEACHER'S FULL NAME ON IT (I swear, people who don't know their teacher's name should be shot), and then we will go over the paper TOGETHER. That's how tutoring WORKS!

8. And for the love of GOD, you teachers who keep passing people into Comp I who can't put two words together that make sense, you should be SHOT too. I get MIGRAINES from helping people with papers that are nearly impossible to read because they can't make a complete sentence to save their lives. DON'T LET THEM PASS INTO AN ESSAY CLASS IF THEY CAN'T WRITE A SENTENCE!

9. I am not a computer tech. If your video won't play or a microsoft program won't save double spacing there is not a damn thing in hell I can do about it. I am an English tutor who works in a computer lab for crying out loud!

10. I swear, even at the community college level, there should be IQ requirements including knowing how to use a computer and things that go with a computer, like flash drives, before being allowed to take a class! How do you think you are going to get through a class without knowing how to do these things? Sometimes the stupidity of people simply amazes me!

Okay, I feel better now. But I swear, the past two days the stupidity level has gone through the roof! I can't wait to leave the lab today, it cannot come soon enough...