Wednesday

Today at work I realized I was doing a lot more food preparation and serving than I had originally expected to. This kind of depressed me because I am making good money, especially compared to last summer, and I am working a normal schedule and have my nights and weekends free. But it would be really preferable if I was doing more of the stuff I had planned on doing originally – the office-type stuff I was doing last week. Before the other intern showed up. I thought I would be doing promotional material for them and going out into the community to talk about our event spaces. I would be happy to cook and serve food during events, but as a daily activity I find it too stressful and too much interaction with people. Not that I’m a hermit, but all of that small-talk with strangers is really draining.

The other intern is ok. She is like a less-evil version of one of my roommates from last semester. She is very farm-girl but also a big know-it-all. Whenever I do something I’m relatively sure she’ll say something to correct my “faulty” method. She does know more than me when it comes to food preparation – but I’m pretty sure not knowing wouldn’t stop her from issuing corrections. She does it in a nice way, but forceful, and when you’re always being told you’re wrong it makes you not want to do anything. And she calls me “hon” (and once, “stud”, which I actually thought was funny), which I find a bit condescending. It’s ok for grandmas to call me hon, but not someone who is a year my senior. She is pretty nice otherwise, but it’s hard to tell yet how fake it is. I am just vary wary after everything that happened last semester, and I’m already noticing patterns in my response to how I responded to my old roommate. Very “yes, ma’am, please don’t bite my head off” – and I hate that I give people like this such power over me. I need to learn how to stand up for myself in so many different situations. Why can’t everyone just be nice and get along? I’m such a hippie, haha.

Anyway, so at lunch I was supposed to go out with my friend M. When I called her, she didn’t answer – and the whole lunch was contingent upon her answering her phone so we could figure out the details. So then I was pretty pissed off and just went home for lunch. Then I tried to rant to my parents, but they barely even noticed and just continued reading the mail or doing whatever they were doing. So then I was feeling bad because of my job, my friend, and my family, which put me in a yucky mood.

Speaking of my family – I have grown apart from them so much in the last couple of years. Now my mom is really involved in her church (since when did my mom even go to church?) and the whole family plays tennis. They all have different lives that don’t involve me at all, and when I come home it’s hard to know where I fit. So then I just end up spending as much time as possible with D, which pushes my family and I even farther apart. It’s no one’s fault, but it has happened, particularly with my mother. She has become weirdly philosophical in a way much different than me. She has a friendship with a younger man that verges on inappropriate. She is really involved in a church, which isn’t necessarily bad but something I can’t begin to understand. She drinks like a fish. Even with all of these faults, I have becoming much more accepting of her decision over the years to not have a career. With my family, having a career is merely an option. And where I used to judge her harshly for not working outside the home, now I realize that there are many activities other than jobs where people can find fulfillment. It is very difficult to find fulfillment from a job – why work doing something you hate instead of spending your (limited) time doing whatever you love to do? Especially if you aren’t forced to do the daily grind? So I understand where she is coming from. But I do selfishly wish that she would be more like her old self. Though I guess all that matters is that she is happy, so if that’s true, then I’m happy for her.

This day has been somewhat a drag, so I think I’m going to go for a run. Then M and I are supposedly getting coffee, and later D and I are watching Rushmore.

Packing/preparing for France? When???

Em