Employee Discount: Friend or Foe? I'm going to go with foe. Yeah, definitely foe.

One of the perils of working retail is the employee discount. When you have one, you convince yourself that it is an awesome idea to spend money at your workplace. You're spending money, but because you're getting your stuff at a reduced price, you're saving money. One of the children's novels I read at work one day had a character who thought this way about shopping. She called her method "spaving" -- spend saving. Maybe it was my fondness for wombinations (word combinations, duh) that made me do a little "spaving" myself. Yesterday I spent about $45 at work, which is five hours-worth of wages (untaxed wages, mind you). I feel stupid because (a) even though I spent less than the average toy shopper would thanks to my trusty but evil employee discount, I spent way more than my store spent to get that stuff in the first place and because (b) that is $45 I could have spent on things that would make me grow smarter/more cultured or at least appear to grow smarter/more cultured. On the bright side, I have my advent calendar a month early and I am now the proud owner of some children's art supplies.

The gym wasn't so bad yesterday, although I was not prepared at all for the locker room. I'm not stupid--I knew there would be some changing, I just didn't expect there to be so much walking around and interacting while changing. Also, since when do people have to pay $2 for towels that are half the size of normal-human towels? I'm bringing my own towel from now on, you hear? That's really all for now.

Salsa Sundays & Seville

I wonder what makes someone obsessively write on (in?) his/her blog for the first week that he/she has it and then fail to write for the entire second week that he/she has it. Maybe it's because the second week of that person's life as a blogger (by the way, I'm talking about myself here) has been simple and quiet. Simple and quiet are fine and unobjectionable qualities in moderation, but nothing to write home (or on the internet) about.

However, there are four noteworthy life-plot-points that I will now make. Disclaimer: one of them is about television.

First, I joined a gym. 18+ years of self-examination have shown me that guilt-tripping is the most effective way to get me to do something, and I am now guilt-tripping myself into exercising. If I don't really make the most of my membership, it will be a tremendous waste of money. So tomorrow, I'm slipping on a pair shorts--ugh, how awful--and tackling the treadmill before work. Wish me luck, my 4 darling readers. You will all probably hear me complain about this experience tomorrow night.

My second update is that I went salsa dancing last night with a friend from work, which was a new experience for me! Before you write this off as pathetic, know this: I am an awful dancer. I really only have danced with people that I know really well--never in a room full of strangers who are mostly a decade or two older. We went to a restaurant downtown and heard a live band called Cinco Son play for a few hours, and over the course of the night my knees grew kind of sore (since when am I an octogenarian?) but I picked up some of the steps and had a ton of fun. I think that my first time going out dancing was, in many ways, a rite of passage. I would never describe myself as shy in general--I am usually quickly friendly when I meet new people--but I am crowd-shy, and noise-shy, and body-conscious, so going to Salsa Sundays was a little intimidating. Hopefully this gap year will be filled with many more intimidating, but ultimately fun and doable, experiences like this one.

Third, I am growing steadily more in love with NBC's Community. My boyfriend and I have been watching it together every weekend, and I like to play the clips with Abed and Troy over and over again, and he likes to make comments on what it says about my brain that this repetitiveness never bores me, and I like to ignore him and continue to appreciate Abed. I am so impressed by this character because in every episode so far, he has managed to break my heart a little bit and make me almost suffocate with laughter. He is so eager and sincere, and so, so, weird at the same time. He and the rest of the ensemble cast are worth watching, so if you're not already hooked, go catch up on Hulu!

Fourth, turns out I am the ONLY person enrolled in the gap year program in the Dominican Republic. So I might be going to Seville instead. Big development. Yes. But, I don't know that much about this big development yet, and it's past by bedtime (didn't I mention earlier that I am an octogenarian? Because I am, at heart.) Good night!

Banana Bread

Tonight, I made a loaf of banana bread, which is one of my favorite goodies to bake. In fact, it is in the oven right now, waiting to be taken out in the next fifteen minutes. It will be consumed tomorrow at the toy store's staff meeting (unless it's not any good, which would be embarrassing for me).

I might now emulate Julie Powell, famous author of the blog "The Julie/Julia Project" that was turned into a book--and then a movie, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, which I am 99.9% sure will NOT happen with THIS blog--called Julie and Julia. I will emulate her by talking about cooking, and relating that to my life, which, like Julie's, feels wrong in some way.

There is a certain je ne sais quoi (that was an intentional allusion to Julie's story, by the way, since Julie and Julia are experiencing and writing, respectively, a French cookbook) that is making me feel very dissatisfied and uncomfortable lately. You know that scene in which Julie is eating lunch with her "friends" and they are all plugged into various electronic devices, moving swiftly through the afternoon and life, and she, unlike them, does not have some big important project about which she can gush? Fortunately, my friends are not bitches, like Julie's friends are, but I do feel like they are all growing up, moving through life, while my own situation is--and this is a situation for which I take full responsibility, by the way--regrettably stagnant.

So far, I am getting at least part of what I think I wanted out of this gap year: I am experiencing the "real world," I am not wasting a year's worth of tuition by freaking out about being away from home, and I am so bored that I am sure I will be eager to head off to college when next August rolls around. But I wasn't expecting when I chose to take a gap year that I would require an unsatisfying situation to make a wonderful opportunity--a college education--seem appealing. I was expecting that the tremendous maturity I would have to develop as a member of the American workforce would make college easier to face. Of course, I should have known that taking a job at a toy store would hardly make me grow more mature. I was also expecting that earning my own money for the first time in my life would make me feel independent (an important quality for college women!) but, I didn't realize how dependent I would feel living in my parents' house (you don't realize how infantilizing that is when you're in high school)...I also hoped that going off to DR would allow me to sack up and divorce myself from my home and my family a little bit. Hopefully, that still will happen, but that's not until January and this is October. But for now, the only thing that is preparing me for college is my increasing intolerance of where I am right now. And that is really, really too bad, both because that means I couldn't fully appreciate my college acceptance without lining it up next to something less desirable and because it means I have put myself in what is--at least for now--a highly unsatisfying situation.

But that brings me back to the banana bread. It made everything better tonight. It reminds me of my great friend Poppy, who taught me how to make it and wrote out the recipe for me on an uneven piece of cardboard from a case of Snapple. Thinking of her makes me happy; I have lots of happy memories with her, especially ones in the kitchen (we like to raid the fridge and we have made devil's food cake on more than one occasion). I also really admire her. I am sure college is burning her out, because it's burning out all my friends. But she is still strong, funny, and loving. She is a wonderful role model.

Now, I realize this is abrupt, but the banana bread is due to come out of the oven in two minutes. First let me just share another reason I like making banana bread. It smells good when it's baking, and it tastes really, really good once it's cooled. Bon appétit!

An unkind kindle

...as I expected, I did not win the Amazon Kindle. However, the fundraiser was incredibly successful. My boss wants to raise a full scholarship--a $25,000 scholarship, to be exact--so that one more student can attend our school. We expected this to be a low-grossing night; it was intended more to reach out to people who would like to support us/volunteer with us but can't afford to attend the much more expensive fundraiser we hold in the spring. However, we raised almost $1,000!

I've held off for two whole posts without discussing television in-depth, although I certainly have been trying to prepare my readers for the TV overload that is sure to pop up from time to time, i.e. every other day, with little hints such as "I am an NBC junkie" (see "Two months in" from 10/20). So, get ready for the first TV rant.

NOTE: I tend to talk more about my feelings when it comes to television than about the artistic qualities of the medium itself. If you want to see some witty and humorous commentary/intellectual analysis, check out my friend Liz's blog, Remote Nomad (cool name, right?) which is devoted entirely to television. We watch almost all the same shows, except that she watches Mad Men and More to Love and I do not, while I watch what I call the Holy Trinity--or Triumphant Triumvirate--of NBC (30 Rock, The Office, & Community) and she does not. She's a smart cookie and this is a good blog. Trust me.

WARNING: The following contains Brothers and Sisters as well as Gossip Girl spoilers.

So here is what I am feeling right about now. Let's start off with Brothers and Sisters. Why does Kitty have cancer? Totally unnecessary heart-wrencher. I hate it when television creates needless pain just to keep you watching (although, I have to hand it to TV writers; it works). That's what makes dramas "jump the shark," and when it is obvious to viewers that they are being subjected to drama for drama's sake, they (we) get annoyed. Which reminds me of Gossip Girl. Having Chuck and Blair (or, as I have dubbed them, "Bluck") break up is like a slap in the face to the loyal fans who patiently waited through Nate/Blair attempt number 3 (or "Blait III") for Bluck to blossom. Blergh!

I'm officially embarrassed about my long rant, but to be honest with you, dear readers, this was very cathartic for me. Thank you.

Trying Not to Be a Cliché

One of my favorite weblogs in the history of this fine genre is Christian Lander's Stuff White People Like (although, I think the population this blog describes is much wider than young white people. I think it is about young hipsters, who are not always white, and which white people are not always). It is very, very funny and sarcastic. I fell in love with it in February of 2008 when my older brother pointed me to #70, Difficult Breakups, because at that point, I was whining all the time about getting dumped. Reading this entry, and realizing that it was basically about me (minus the poetry/music writing. I was more of an angry diary-filler), almost immediately shamed me into getting over my ex.

Recently, I was trawling Stuff and I found this upsetting entry. Am I this person? I really hope not. This person, a year-off-person, is spoiled and lazy, and Lander mocks him/her as he mocks all white people/young hipsters, sarcastically naming "working for eleven months straight with only two weeks of vacation" as a stressful burden that necessitates time off. This year-off person whom Lander describes grows more and more annoying, deciding to write a book that nobody will ever read and harassing his/her friends at home with email updates about his/her travels. Becoming this person was the reason I almost chose to go directly to college. Convincing myself that I would not become this person was the most difficult part of deferring.

Maybe I am more afraid that I will seem like one of these people than I am that I will actually become one. I know exactly why I took a year off, and it wasn't because I wanted to become more interesting to others or because I was burnt out. It was because, quite frankly, I was not ready to go to college and I didn't want to waste my freshman year with flare-ups of immaturity and separation anxiety. Maybe this motivation is equally as shameful as the desire to appear more interesting.

Whatever. On a completely separate note, I am attending a fundraiser tonight for the school at which I volunteer. We are raffling off an Amazon Kindle, which I really hope to win, but probably will not win, because raffles hate me. Anyway, my three darling readers, keep your fingers crossed because, since you are all my family members/BFFs, we will all probably share the prize if I do win.

Two months in

I graduated from high school on June 6, 2009. Since then, I have not written any papers or taken any tests. I guess I have taken a few real-life tests, including interviewing for and getting a job, but not any tests inside a classroom. I have titled this post "two months in" because I consider my gap year to have begun two months ago.

The way I see it, the summer didn't count as part of the gap year because my friends were here and it was normal to not be in school. But in mid-August, my friends started leaving one by one, and before I knew it, the reality of the decision I made on May 1--the decision to postpone enrolling at Yale University until the fall of 2010--hit, hard. I was all alone!

Fortunately, I got a part-time job at a toy store in early August (while this is not turning into a career, it is a really fun/nurturing place to work), and an internship at a small school in Boston in early September. SO, I have been staying moderately busy and making a little bit of money. Other things I do include: watch television (I am now emotionally dependent on HBO and Hulu), annoy my boyfriend (who, because I am a cougar, is a senior in high school), read books (right now I am on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw) and pretend to exercise (I would use the elliptical in our basement way more often but a couple of mushrooms have sprouted up around it and I am a. afraid to breathe in their potentially toxic fumes and b. too lazy to pluck them out).

In January, I plan on going to the Dominican Republic to do the following:

-take TEFL classes and then put them to use by teaching English to little children

-regain the ease with which I spoke Spanish when I got home from an educational tour in Spain two years ago, and hopefully achieve fluency

-do community service (apparently, the program I will be going with selects a specific project based on interest/skills once I get there)

-learn Bachata y Merengue

-live with a host family and hopefully like them

-study Dominican history and culture, and experience both through day trips/ventures into stores and restaurants, and finally

-write in this blog!

Until then, expect updates on my job (things that happen there can actually be pretty funny), my internship (I find it quite meaningful) and the TV I watch (I am an NBC junkie--expect in-depth analysis of 30 Rock, The Office, and Community)...