Danny's Wedding Weekend part 4 -- Afterward
Ok, this series of posts is starting to go... long... so I'll try my best to finish up last weekend with this post and get to this weekend in the next post and then I'll be caught up! =)
SO! Part 4. Well, let's start with the day after the wedding from last week (this would be... Sunday). My dad wanted to stay for lunch before we went back to San Jose from South Pas. I think this was probably because Chantel was there. So, since we weren't going to leave South Pas until... like 2 in the afternoon, we wouldn't get back to San Jose until 8 or 9 at night. I wanted to go to Kinko's and print up my resume for Monday so in the morning when they took Chantel to Grandma's grave on Rose Hill, I stayed behind to get some work done.
I looked up Kinko's and Staples and took my aunt's car to print up some resume stuffs and to buy a portfolio, both of which were successful ventures. So, when all was said and done, we ended up meeting for lunch. We ate and then drove 6 hours and ended up in San Jose at 8-ish, whereby we ate McDonald's for dinner and that was Sunday. Uneventful but very productive.
Monday, I donned my suit again that I wore on Saturday (albeit without a tie) and drove out to Santa Cruz. Winding highway 17 was fun but I drove slowly. I think I was still paranoid because it's been so long before I drove 17 (and I had an accident 2 years ago during my last year of school) but it's been three months before I drove I was happy to spend my weekend driving all over the place.
Ok, quick UCSC note: UCSC is a big university that's divided into 10 residential colleges. It's been touted (mostly by UCSC itself) as having a big university's resources but a small college experience. What that amounts to mostly is the idea that you get a small college feel so you're mostly interacting with 400 on-campus students in your college (much easier getting to know 400 students instead of, say, 10,000 students) but you have all the resources that a UC would have (large library, lotsa funding, etc.). Each college has their own offices, their own staff, their own way of dealing with housing and programming and such. Intra-college programming exists but those are big deals and take a lot of effort. For the most part, colleges treat themselves as individuals. The 10 residential colleges are a large part of your UCSC identity, to the point where each college has their own graduation ceremony instead of UCSC having it's own gigantic ceremony. My interview was with Kresge.
I got to Kresge a good half hour ahead of time (better early than late). One parking pass later and I was out and about in Kresge. I had my interview with Pam and the whole Kresge crew. To be honest, I think the interview could've gone better. I had to do a lot of thinking because they did the "Name two instances where..." and I couldn't actually think of examples of these situations. I've since forgotten what the questions actually were. I do remember that I completely made one of the answers up. Just pure fiction. Well, not PURE fiction but I took two different things that happened in real life and threw them together as if they happened concurrently and squished it into the context of the question. Yep. I lied. Oh well.
Other than the lying and the not knowing how to answer questions, the interview went well. In the end, I think I was able to talk without stumbling over my own words and I think I was able to project at least a modicum of quiet confidence. Sigh. I need more practice in interviewing.
Anyway, afterward, Pam took me on a quick tour of Kresge. It hasn't changed too much. Offices got moved around and Humanities moved out of the college (which actually is a big deal because if it wasn't for the fact that Kresge housed the Lit department, I probably would never have gone there) but other than those things, the college is pretty much the same.
On my way out, I stopped by the Barn at the East entrance and found Alex Delgadillo. We had a good conversation. He's doing well and it's fun to see Alex. He was doing his thing in the Barn with parents and pre-frosh, despite not being in the Orientation department anymore. Afterward, I went home. I was probably in Santa Cruz for an hour and a half. It was a fun experience, especially since I hadn't been there for... a year? a year and a half? Something like that.
Back home, I packed, had dinner with my parents, and was dropped off at San Jose airport. (We live like a 10 min. drive away from SJ Mineta airport without using the highway so it was very convenient.) I took the red-eye back out to Boston. I had a quick scare moment when, sitting on the airplane, the Captain came on the PA system and said that there was a short circuit in the air circulation system and they needed to restart the whole electrical system and had a technician look at the plane before we could leave. In my head, I was thinking "NO! NO WAY! I cannot be on another plane from hell again. I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS!!" Of course, the thing only took 10 min. to fix and we were in the air 10 min. later so I was freaking out for nothing.
On the plane back, I had the "fortune" of sitting behind the rudest person I've ever seen on a plane. First off, this fucker was the last one on the plane. I think he was flying standby. They did a couple of announcements asking is so-and-so was on the plane, which is usually what they do when they make sure that somebody no-showed their flight. Then, they invited this fucker onto the plane to take the empty seat in front of me. He was on his cell phone, probably telling somebody in Boston that he as on the plane (he was speaking in one of the numerous languages from India so I have no idea what he was actually saying). The flight attendants were trying to get his ass into the seat so that we could take off while this fucker was content on taking his time. He slowly put his bag away while 2 flight attendants surrounded him and were saying repeatedly "Sir, please turn off your phone. TURN OFF YOUR PHONE." He still refused to turn off his show. This is when I would've hit him and taking him into custody but I was not the air marshal. Instead, they just kept telling him to turn off the phone and he just kept ignoring them.
This fucker was sitting next to an empty seat (he sat in the aisle seat, the middle seat to his right was unoccupied and there was somebody with their puppy dog on the window seat) and he decided that when he was going to sleep, he'd try to lie down. Since his head was in the middle seat and his ass was in the aisle seat, there was nowhere to put his legs. He draped them over the armrest and his feet were in the middle of the aisle. THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE! And when he actually lost consciousness, he put his legs UP! He was resting his bear feet on the arm rest of the woman across the aisle from him!! She looked helpless and disgusted. I wanted to hit this guy with my fist but that probably wouldn't have gone over very well. I wasn't even sure what the real story was because I had my headphones on the whole flight. This might have been some weird medical thing because the flight attendants looked helpless. So, either it was medical or they were just incompetent. The one attendant physically moved the guy's legs several times to no avail and she finally just woke him the fuck up and sat in the empty seat next to him to keep him from falling asleep again. I dunno what the fuck's up with this guy but he was a fucker. It's a good thing they won't let us bring weapons on the plane!
Anyway, I got in at 5 am in Boston and took a cab back to the apartment. I slept a bit and woke up for work in the afternoon. I went to work and the first person I had to ring up was a WACKO! She was probably the craziest person I've had to deal with by myself!! CRAZY WOMAN!!
So, this wacko came into the store, which was empty except for me. She went to the Poland Springs (bottled water) and stared at them. I was like "Hi! How's it going?" which is my equivalent to "Welcome to Walmart." She looked at me and said "Is your water poisoned?"
Now, she spoke with a heavy Eastern Europe accent and was fairly old-ish so she had to repeat everything she said like 3 times before I understood it. Frankly, even if she was speaking in English without an accent, I still would've asked her to repeat this particular question. I was like "WHAT?!?!?" Poisoned water?? ...the fuck? So, of course, I was like "... no." and she was very unconvinced.
She went on this rant about how she had gone to Shaw's and bought a bottle of Poland Springs and it had poisoned her and how she just got back from the Red Cross (the Red Cross is like 2 blocks away from our store) and she held up her arm. There were like hives and bumps on her arms which she proceeded to tell me came from the poisoned Poland Springs water. (Bear in mind, Poland Springs is a really big company. Its head is Nestle [you know, the chocolate] and they serve water all over the country. Poland Springs is their New England brand. Their California brands are Arrowhead and Calistoga.) So, I was like "uh... ok." So she said "So, now I am very thirsty because I've had to walk and so it's either die of dehydration or drink poison. So tell me, is your water poisoned?"
In my head, I was thinking "...... WHAT?!?!?!?" but what I actually said was "WE don't poison the water ourselves, if that's what you're asking." She waved her hand at me and was like "not what I ask." and I was like ".... ok....?" She was like "Is there poison in your water?" and I tried my best to be reasonable after not getting sleep the night before.
"It's a sealed bottle of water. We don't inject poison into the water. We just sell the water." She was very unsatisfied by my response. Her solution for me was to drink the water. "If you drink the water, I will buy water." My head nearly exploded. "... WHAT?!?!"
"It's a sealed bottle of water!! I won't OPEN the water!!" She was unrelenting. "How much water cost? 1.15? If you drink half of the water, I pay 1.15 for the rest of the bottle." I couldn't get over how crazy she was and how crazy this moment was.
Since I was tired and I was losing my mind, I finally agreed to this crazy wacko. I grabbed a coffee cup and showed her it was empty. I opened a bottle, poured some out into the cup, showed her, and drank the water. I showed her the empty cup again and handed her the bottle. She seemed momentarily satisfied and I rung her up. Of course, my mind was going nuts, like firecrackers going off at the Esplanade on July 4th. So, like a fool, I kept talking.
"You realize that we don't bottle our own water. No store does. So, if you buy a Poland Springs in Shaw's and then a Poland Springs here, it'll be the same water in the two bottles because it doesn't make a difference WHERE you buy it. It only matters WHO'S water you buy." She waved her hand at me like I was a fly and was annoying her. "I know I know. Company's fault, not YOUR fault. But YOU should know if you sell poisoned water." I was like "... there hasn't been a recall or anything." She just kept talking about how the country was crazy and that she wanted to move back to her country where people didn't get poisoned by the water.
So, I made change and was in the process of giving her back 4 cents (after tax, the price is 1.21 and she gave me a dollar and a quarter so the change was 4 cents) and since I usually say something when I give back change ("Have a great day") and the last thing out of her mouth was "I'm going to go back to my country." so I said the only thing that came to my head: "Good luck." This is when she gave the punchline: "Luck?!? I don't need 'good luck!!' I need country that isn't trying to poison me!! You keep 4 cents and you give it to person who needs luck!!" And she turned around and walked out of the store, leaving me holding 4 pennies and looked utterly dumb-founded.
So, that was my weekend last weekend. Next up: this weekend!
SO! Part 4. Well, let's start with the day after the wedding from last week (this would be... Sunday). My dad wanted to stay for lunch before we went back to San Jose from South Pas. I think this was probably because Chantel was there. So, since we weren't going to leave South Pas until... like 2 in the afternoon, we wouldn't get back to San Jose until 8 or 9 at night. I wanted to go to Kinko's and print up my resume for Monday so in the morning when they took Chantel to Grandma's grave on Rose Hill, I stayed behind to get some work done.
I looked up Kinko's and Staples and took my aunt's car to print up some resume stuffs and to buy a portfolio, both of which were successful ventures. So, when all was said and done, we ended up meeting for lunch. We ate and then drove 6 hours and ended up in San Jose at 8-ish, whereby we ate McDonald's for dinner and that was Sunday. Uneventful but very productive.
Monday, I donned my suit again that I wore on Saturday (albeit without a tie) and drove out to Santa Cruz. Winding highway 17 was fun but I drove slowly. I think I was still paranoid because it's been so long before I drove 17 (and I had an accident 2 years ago during my last year of school) but it's been three months before I drove I was happy to spend my weekend driving all over the place.
Ok, quick UCSC note: UCSC is a big university that's divided into 10 residential colleges. It's been touted (mostly by UCSC itself) as having a big university's resources but a small college experience. What that amounts to mostly is the idea that you get a small college feel so you're mostly interacting with 400 on-campus students in your college (much easier getting to know 400 students instead of, say, 10,000 students) but you have all the resources that a UC would have (large library, lotsa funding, etc.). Each college has their own offices, their own staff, their own way of dealing with housing and programming and such. Intra-college programming exists but those are big deals and take a lot of effort. For the most part, colleges treat themselves as individuals. The 10 residential colleges are a large part of your UCSC identity, to the point where each college has their own graduation ceremony instead of UCSC having it's own gigantic ceremony. My interview was with Kresge.
I got to Kresge a good half hour ahead of time (better early than late). One parking pass later and I was out and about in Kresge. I had my interview with Pam and the whole Kresge crew. To be honest, I think the interview could've gone better. I had to do a lot of thinking because they did the "Name two instances where..." and I couldn't actually think of examples of these situations. I've since forgotten what the questions actually were. I do remember that I completely made one of the answers up. Just pure fiction. Well, not PURE fiction but I took two different things that happened in real life and threw them together as if they happened concurrently and squished it into the context of the question. Yep. I lied. Oh well.
Other than the lying and the not knowing how to answer questions, the interview went well. In the end, I think I was able to talk without stumbling over my own words and I think I was able to project at least a modicum of quiet confidence. Sigh. I need more practice in interviewing.
Anyway, afterward, Pam took me on a quick tour of Kresge. It hasn't changed too much. Offices got moved around and Humanities moved out of the college (which actually is a big deal because if it wasn't for the fact that Kresge housed the Lit department, I probably would never have gone there) but other than those things, the college is pretty much the same.
On my way out, I stopped by the Barn at the East entrance and found Alex Delgadillo. We had a good conversation. He's doing well and it's fun to see Alex. He was doing his thing in the Barn with parents and pre-frosh, despite not being in the Orientation department anymore. Afterward, I went home. I was probably in Santa Cruz for an hour and a half. It was a fun experience, especially since I hadn't been there for... a year? a year and a half? Something like that.
Back home, I packed, had dinner with my parents, and was dropped off at San Jose airport. (We live like a 10 min. drive away from SJ Mineta airport without using the highway so it was very convenient.) I took the red-eye back out to Boston. I had a quick scare moment when, sitting on the airplane, the Captain came on the PA system and said that there was a short circuit in the air circulation system and they needed to restart the whole electrical system and had a technician look at the plane before we could leave. In my head, I was thinking "NO! NO WAY! I cannot be on another plane from hell again. I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS!!" Of course, the thing only took 10 min. to fix and we were in the air 10 min. later so I was freaking out for nothing.
On the plane back, I had the "fortune" of sitting behind the rudest person I've ever seen on a plane. First off, this fucker was the last one on the plane. I think he was flying standby. They did a couple of announcements asking is so-and-so was on the plane, which is usually what they do when they make sure that somebody no-showed their flight. Then, they invited this fucker onto the plane to take the empty seat in front of me. He was on his cell phone, probably telling somebody in Boston that he as on the plane (he was speaking in one of the numerous languages from India so I have no idea what he was actually saying). The flight attendants were trying to get his ass into the seat so that we could take off while this fucker was content on taking his time. He slowly put his bag away while 2 flight attendants surrounded him and were saying repeatedly "Sir, please turn off your phone. TURN OFF YOUR PHONE." He still refused to turn off his show. This is when I would've hit him and taking him into custody but I was not the air marshal. Instead, they just kept telling him to turn off the phone and he just kept ignoring them.
This fucker was sitting next to an empty seat (he sat in the aisle seat, the middle seat to his right was unoccupied and there was somebody with their puppy dog on the window seat) and he decided that when he was going to sleep, he'd try to lie down. Since his head was in the middle seat and his ass was in the aisle seat, there was nowhere to put his legs. He draped them over the armrest and his feet were in the middle of the aisle. THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE! And when he actually lost consciousness, he put his legs UP! He was resting his bear feet on the arm rest of the woman across the aisle from him!! She looked helpless and disgusted. I wanted to hit this guy with my fist but that probably wouldn't have gone over very well. I wasn't even sure what the real story was because I had my headphones on the whole flight. This might have been some weird medical thing because the flight attendants looked helpless. So, either it was medical or they were just incompetent. The one attendant physically moved the guy's legs several times to no avail and she finally just woke him the fuck up and sat in the empty seat next to him to keep him from falling asleep again. I dunno what the fuck's up with this guy but he was a fucker. It's a good thing they won't let us bring weapons on the plane!
Anyway, I got in at 5 am in Boston and took a cab back to the apartment. I slept a bit and woke up for work in the afternoon. I went to work and the first person I had to ring up was a WACKO! She was probably the craziest person I've had to deal with by myself!! CRAZY WOMAN!!
So, this wacko came into the store, which was empty except for me. She went to the Poland Springs (bottled water) and stared at them. I was like "Hi! How's it going?" which is my equivalent to "Welcome to Walmart." She looked at me and said "Is your water poisoned?"
Now, she spoke with a heavy Eastern Europe accent and was fairly old-ish so she had to repeat everything she said like 3 times before I understood it. Frankly, even if she was speaking in English without an accent, I still would've asked her to repeat this particular question. I was like "WHAT?!?!?" Poisoned water?? ...the fuck? So, of course, I was like "... no." and she was very unconvinced.
She went on this rant about how she had gone to Shaw's and bought a bottle of Poland Springs and it had poisoned her and how she just got back from the Red Cross (the Red Cross is like 2 blocks away from our store) and she held up her arm. There were like hives and bumps on her arms which she proceeded to tell me came from the poisoned Poland Springs water. (Bear in mind, Poland Springs is a really big company. Its head is Nestle [you know, the chocolate] and they serve water all over the country. Poland Springs is their New England brand. Their California brands are Arrowhead and Calistoga.) So, I was like "uh... ok." So she said "So, now I am very thirsty because I've had to walk and so it's either die of dehydration or drink poison. So tell me, is your water poisoned?"
In my head, I was thinking "...... WHAT?!?!?!?" but what I actually said was "WE don't poison the water ourselves, if that's what you're asking." She waved her hand at me and was like "not what I ask." and I was like ".... ok....?" She was like "Is there poison in your water?" and I tried my best to be reasonable after not getting sleep the night before.
"It's a sealed bottle of water. We don't inject poison into the water. We just sell the water." She was very unsatisfied by my response. Her solution for me was to drink the water. "If you drink the water, I will buy water." My head nearly exploded. "... WHAT?!?!"
"It's a sealed bottle of water!! I won't OPEN the water!!" She was unrelenting. "How much water cost? 1.15? If you drink half of the water, I pay 1.15 for the rest of the bottle." I couldn't get over how crazy she was and how crazy this moment was.
Since I was tired and I was losing my mind, I finally agreed to this crazy wacko. I grabbed a coffee cup and showed her it was empty. I opened a bottle, poured some out into the cup, showed her, and drank the water. I showed her the empty cup again and handed her the bottle. She seemed momentarily satisfied and I rung her up. Of course, my mind was going nuts, like firecrackers going off at the Esplanade on July 4th. So, like a fool, I kept talking.
"You realize that we don't bottle our own water. No store does. So, if you buy a Poland Springs in Shaw's and then a Poland Springs here, it'll be the same water in the two bottles because it doesn't make a difference WHERE you buy it. It only matters WHO'S water you buy." She waved her hand at me like I was a fly and was annoying her. "I know I know. Company's fault, not YOUR fault. But YOU should know if you sell poisoned water." I was like "... there hasn't been a recall or anything." She just kept talking about how the country was crazy and that she wanted to move back to her country where people didn't get poisoned by the water.
So, I made change and was in the process of giving her back 4 cents (after tax, the price is 1.21 and she gave me a dollar and a quarter so the change was 4 cents) and since I usually say something when I give back change ("Have a great day") and the last thing out of her mouth was "I'm going to go back to my country." so I said the only thing that came to my head: "Good luck." This is when she gave the punchline: "Luck?!? I don't need 'good luck!!' I need country that isn't trying to poison me!! You keep 4 cents and you give it to person who needs luck!!" And she turned around and walked out of the store, leaving me holding 4 pennies and looked utterly dumb-founded.
So, that was my weekend last weekend. Next up: this weekend!
posted by Chris "Krang" Yang | 10:26 AM
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