Customer Service

Today has been an exciting today. First I woke up at 6 to go shadow a pediatric general surgeon for the first time. Yesterday I went and got myself a new lab coat and I'm not going to lie - I got a nice one. Perfect length, nice little waist-belt in the back, three buttoned. I went in today, and felt almost *too* professional wearing it. But no no no. I had it wrong. This coat wasn't for professionalism. IT WAS FOR PROTECTION.

So jumping straight into my time shadowing, I watched multiple >6 week circumcisions this morning. One baby started peeing (and never had I known before the abandon babies urinate with. It's not even abandon. Or disregard. Those words would give the idea the babies are conscious of how freely they pee) during the procedure. Now urine is sterile, as I've known forevaaaa, so I wasn't worried about the in office procedure. I was worried about the fact that I was in the line of action. The lab coat could've been 15 dollars cheaper and would've still served the same noble purpose it served this morning. It PROTECTED me. 

I went to Orgo, did my orgo thing, and then went home instead of eating lunch in order to full body cleanse. I had taken off the lab coat, the only victim of the incident, but still. I needed to shower.

Then this evening, my Arabic professor called me to phone interview me in front of an instructor who is teaching him how to determine language proficiency over the phone. This is my second phone interview with him, the last one was at the end of break. Apparently my knowledge of Egyptian Arabic is just enough to keep the interview going for 50 minutes, but not enough that I'm fluent and can avoid mistakes. 

Part of these phone interviews are what the exam form calls "role play situations." Basically skits. The last time the situations were weird and foreign and did not draw on any of my Egypt-in-the-summer vocab knowledge. This time. Oh this time he tapped into something with the skit situation. The situation was: you have just checked into a hotel in Alexandria after travelling in from America, and the room is dirty. You call the front desk. What do you say to them?

I wanted to be like OH BOI. You did not just put me in a customer service situation. You don't know what you're doing.

Customer service in English I've got. Oh I've got it. When I called Comcast to complain about something (can't even remember what), the guy on the phone checked my records, and then was silent for a couple of minutes. "How did you get these rates?" he asked. "I spent a few hours on the phone," I replied (understatement, I spent a couple of days and bid ATT and Comcast against each other). "Oh...well they are the lowest internet rates we have for your package on record." BOOYAH.

Now customer service!Doha in Egyptian Arabic? Somehow I get more aggressive. Here is the thing. I love Egypt. I love Egyptians. But to get your way with them, especially in hotel-ish situations, you have to be firm. 

So the skit goes something like this (in Egyptian Arabic)

Front desk guy (my professor): Well I was in the room an hour ago and it was clean
Me: Well I just came in and it's not.
FDG: How is not clean?
Me: The covers are off the bed, the bathroom is a mess.
FDG: I was just in there it's clean.
Me: Well I just came in, my bag is still in my hand, I'm tired from my trip, and it looks like the last guests just left.
FDG: How is it dirty again?
Me: LET ME TELL YOU WHAT. If (and at this point I still addressed him formally, as hadritak, which is the ultimate egyptian-getting-mad-at-you) comes up here right now, you'll see that it's dirty. I'm not staying in a room like this.
FDG: Oh then. Okay we'll switch you to another room.
Me: Well after this distress, having just arrived from overseas, I'm expecting a better room.
FDG: No the only room available is smaller. We can come clean your room.
Me: (Okay so at this point I may have forgotten this was an act. Customer Service Doha fully deployed) Come clean my room. But I'm not paying for the room tonight.
FDG: (I think he realized how my Arabic was suddenly way more proficient in this conversation, and how my confidence had just ramped up, and was amused by Egyptian attitude, so he seriously cracked up) We can't do that.
Me: Complimentary breakfast for my stay.
FDG: Yes, we will come clean your room it will take an hour, we will send you up a dessert tray with coffee and tea, and you'll have free breakfast for your tray. But you can't stay free.
Me: Well thank you for your help. I'll be back in an hour to a clean room.

Oh BAM. Now I need to finish my orgo problems.

I would also like to say I've drank 2 gallons of water today. LIKE A FISH. 

Got twenty dollars in my pocket

I am posting just to say, please go and listen to Thrift Shop. I've listened to that song non-stop since yesterday. It's. It's my soul.

I'm embarking upon the never ending orgo chapter. It's 54 pages long, and seems to have smaller font. WHY SMALL FONT. Why does any publisher ever use small font? I'll pay more - really I will! The 2 dollars extra in ink and paper works out way better for me than a couple of hundred dollars on eye exams and new lenses. 

Also, once again, I am mystically happy. Perhaps not so mystically. It's my new years resolution doing this, the mysterious resolution I will only outright discuss once I'm at least 4 or 5 weeks in :). It's been 3 weeks. Which seems like forever for me, but in reality is baby time.

That is all. 

Oh yeah yeah, oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

bum bum bum OOH. That song is stuck in my head. I'm not going to write the lyrics because they DIRTY. Dirty mouth, clean it up with ORBIT. I am watching too much t.v. and listening to too much radio. Working hard.

So. Today. Today I told my roommate while watching The Mindy Project ironically (watching it unironically might actually make me stupider, and yes I am enjoying the meta of watching a hipster show about irony IRONICALLY), that she was in trouble for not reading my blog. She told me, solemnly, "a blogger who blogs for his (pause as she chews her left over Chipotle) or her readers will never be succesful." 

Well, I think it's pretty clear I'm not blogging for y'all. Who are y'all anyways?? I'm blogging because there comes a certain time of each day when I am simultaneously anxious and happy, and must dispense of my extra energy somehow in order to (gasp of surprise) get things done. 

My schedule this semester is something like this: 9ish: wake up, stumble around, get dressed, debate putting on makeup (no), eat a full breakfast (part of my new years resolution I will later disclose), realize I am ten minutes early, make some coffee, oh crap now I'm late, leave for class. I get back around 5 most days, 10 some days, and it's the days I come back at 5 that are the problem. I get back, make dinner, and then I have an empty plate and I'm sitting in front of the TV (yes I eat dinner by myself in front of the t.v., jealous AREN'T YOU) and I never want to get up. I find something non-homework for me to do - oh look dishes, oh look laundry, oh look incense. I respond to emails because unfortunately as a college student that's something you have to do. Then I realize HEY. I really need to get things done. I get worked up. I start mentally reviewing my day.

Okay yeah so here is another confession. I spend a lot of time thinking about past times. Is this normal? It's not an all-consuming habit. It's just, near the half-way point in my day (yes 6 or 7 pm is my halfway point), suddenly I'm like hey why did that girl say that to me? Hey should I have put those crystals in an ice bath in chem lab? When my roommate is here I subject her to these thoughts and poor her. FRLZ poor her. She's very patient though. (Also live time update: She is surfing yahoo news and goes Lincoln is 332 years old! And I go - he's not still alive. I know she says. I'm just checking, okay? Check out later paragraphs for why I am checking). 

Then I realize I should work. Maybe the couple of hours between class and homework are a waste, but even when I'm on campus I waste those hours. It is in my programming. So that's where I'm at now. A prediction of the rest of my night: work until 1 or 2ish, eat some cheese (I'm being serious), see that roommate is still awake, text people, go to bed. Oh yeah and brush my teeth. Dental hygiene is of utmost importance because as I realized the other day - I am going to DIE with these same teeth. A pause for everyone to get up and floss their teeth.

Oh yeah so my roommate. I'm kind of obsessed but whatever. It's just because she's sitting next to me right now. Law of proximity or something blah blah. So, she's adorable. Like a previous suitemate of mine, she has some issues with names. In the past couple of days we have had gems like calling nyan cat "newman cat," asking if ear doctors "are a real thing," and calling chipotle "chipatal" but I think the last one is on purpose.

Yup. Energy drained. Time to actually go work. PEACE OUT INVISIBLE INTERNETS

Beginner's Luck

It's cute how I started out the semester and I was all YAY SO MUCH EASIER THAN LAST SEMESTER. LET ME EAT SUSHI AT 10PM. LET ME WATCH RERUNS OF SHOWS I'M GENERALLY DISINTERESTED IN. LET ME DO EVERYTHING BUT WORK WITH THE VIGOUR OF ALL CAPS. 

But now, in my second week, I'm realizing - hey, there - I have work to do. Which is why, of course, I'm posting here instead. I have all the factors I need to get my work done set up - a baller playlist of Wilco and Elliott Smith (make fun. make fun of me, invisible readers), two cups of coffee in my system, new lightbulbs in my lamps, new .7mm pencils and pens. Somehow, though, I can't get myself quite there.

Last semester I took this one English course, the second to last capstone, that was crazy awesome. By which I literally mean amazing, and insane. The professor got discussions out of my fairly silent class within a week. And these weren't "Is this character nice?" discussions. This was some Lacanian, Purloined Letter, Freudian, fancy-worded stuff. So when my English prof. of this semester starts out with "This class is mostly YOU (staring down the class in general) talking" and then proceeded to lecture for an hour and 20 minutes, well, I was...Okay I wasn't shocked or surprised or nearly anything that active, something more like jarred. Or perturbed. That's sort of the word I wanted but with a less disturbed-esque connotation. 

It's honestly a relief though, to not have to be thinking something challenging and intelligent at all times. What's not a relief is the fact that he has replaced the last syllable of my name, -ha, with -ho. Yes.

That is all. The o-chem problems beckon. And Elliott Smith is depressing me enough for me to want to work on them.

YUP.  

Hello!

I probably should be studying. Yes it's Saturday, but I've spent the last week doing  "oh-it's-the-first-week-of-the-semester," and doing this in various locations. I did this in the library, I did this in my friends' rooms, I did this outside my friend's room when she left her keys in there (and we watched youtube for a few hours. ahh. youtube.) I did this in the grocery store, I did this in Target, and oh did I do this in Target.

You go into Target, at least I go into Target, clutching a list of what exactly I'm supposed to buy with a couple of rude threats to myself written in. I walk out with my wallet the same weight it was before (stupid plastic cards. This is what is wrong with money-spending today.) but my will-power crushed, and my car trunk full. I mean, everything seems necessary. I don't want to burn my hands! Rubber oven mitt - completely sensible. (ALSO IT MATCHES THE KITCHEN TOWELS. Maybe this is something most people don't get excited about, but I'm obsessed with the kitchen.) I'm totally breaking out. So a couple of zit-killers, that's just good sense. And those stickers are too cute. One of them says "I <3 2 read" and as an English major, I just want to stick that on everything. Just the irony of writing "I love to read" with two of the words subbed out, that's just worth the money. 

Yes so it's Saturday, I've had my typical Friday of pajamas, reruns (Duck Commander, never leave me), and over twelve hours of sleep, and hey! Look here, Jack, I'm feeling great. I just need to buckle down and read a couple of chapters of the random crap that has accumulated over the week. So simple. So simple, in fact, I can probably do it later. 

So here are some things I'm confessing to right off the bat:
-the likelihood of regular updates - low.
-the likelihood of readers waiting for regular updates? Even lower.
-nothing exciting will be happening to me in the next semester. I'm not going abroad, I'm not making anything amazing and multi-syllabic and beautiful (scrambled eggs. HAH. just broke my own rule). Thus - the title.

Maybe now I should study?
:))