rip them out of me!!!

I am not feeling too well today. Just the typical 'yucky' that comes with lady troubles. But i've been drinking a lot of tea, so I guess that helps. I will do some retail therapy, later, and see the queen of hugs, Beth and feel loads better, I'm sure of it.

So, I am at the new-ish job. I have pretty much gotten my bearings, and next week my boss will out of town so I will be on my own for the most time. It shouldn't be so bad; he had to go on a business trip Wednesday, so it was my first time 'home alone'. Anyhoo, I will get to play my music loud (I already kind of do) and talk to myself about stupid things (yeah...)

I am getting anxious for Spring...for when there is warmer weather, and more fun things to do. April is pretty busy: this weekend, I am going to VA with Judi to visit Stephanie, there is a family party the weekend after that, Radigals conference, a trip back to Providence, Jen's wedding shower, and my berfday! The dirty two dozen....

I am on live support right now, and someone is trying to bargain for free shipping. What a jerk. This is also the same person who thought you could put a plastic implement on a stovetop (uh, no).

I guess since I'm working at a tea company, I should post some of my favorites teas as of late:

Jasmine Pearls- ours bloom in the infuser, and omg I LOVE JASMINE. they remind me of the native Filipino flower, the Sampugita. So fragrant, it's like sipping flowers.

The Earl Grey Aristocrat- i used to not like Earl Grey, but this has some lavender in it, and you can smell and bergamot- another favorite scent of mine. It's my "Wake-the-eff-up!" morning tea.

that's all I've been drinking as of late. I really ought to catalog all the tea I drink with my observations so I can learn more about how to really taste tea. It's fun, but I pee a lot now. It's ridiculous. I will get up like ten times an hour.

I really hate live support. I wish we didn't have it. I can't really leave to do my other work, bc I have to hang out and wait for someone to go on it and ask me some dumb question. Oouf. I do enjoy it when I actually have a conversation with someone on it though, and I learn something about tea. I had a charming conversation with an old man who lived somewhere west of the Mississippi R. and grew fields of this certain lavender tea. Sounded very relaxing.

My first project/proposal for the company newsletter is to be a tea room critic- how fun! I want to take my mom to tea at this laura-ashley-esque place in Yardley, Tea with an Accent, and the lady has a British accent. My old co-worker recommended it to me. i'm planning to have that as my first review. There are loads in the city alone; all different kinds- I hope to cover a range of different types of places, with different types of people in relation to me- mom, relatives, all my different groups of friends, boyfriend. I hope to be able to have a certain 'experience' with each place- like Tea with Mom at Place with Frilly Frilly Things, and compare the food, type of tea, environment, and any other activities we do before or after the tea visit. I think it'll be fun, and compelling. I'll try to make it more interesting than the standard review you would see on the website. We'll see. It'll give me an excuse to take pictures and stuff. Or maybe, I can go incogneito, Ruth Reichl-like, and not tell anyone I'm a critic. But I don't think anyone would really care.

I am exhausted. And I hate the 4:45-5:00pm rush- people see that live support is going to shut down at 5pm, so they all try to get on it ten to 5, and ask me dumb questions they could just email me about. OOUF.

I was also up late last night looking up airfare for my vacay this summer- Las Vegas with Mike, Judi, and Carin for three days, where my cousin, Ferds might come meet up with me, and then it's to Sucker-Free aka San Francisco to meet up with Nisha for another four days. The only thing that sucks is that I have to find 3 separate flights, but it's only a little bit more expensive than getting one round trip, which I don't mind. I'm really excited! It's the first time I'm getting to go out to see other cities on the West Coast besides Seattle. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Another thing about this job, is that I think people threw disregard any sort of proper grammar, English, simple sentence phrasing when they are talking to me. And also email, which I think is more embaressing that hand- writing a badly written letter. Seriously, these people are like :

HEY Plese helpme with youre teapot itsbroke n and fix (Hi, how are you? I'm great. do you think you could help me with this teapot I purchase? It is broken, and I would like a replacement. I'd be happy to pay for shipping. No, thank YOU!)

Excuse me do you have orginnicly growned tea? (Excuse me, do you have organically grown tea?)

iwannaa not be fat, what tea does that (??? oh boy)

anyhoo, it's another form of retail, but with normal hours, no being on my feet all day, and if you mouth off of me via typed word, DELETE. Love IT.

Grown-up business.

Today was my first day of my new job. It went pretty well. The girl I am replacing is training me until Friday. Her name is Amanda and we hit it off really well. she too, was once a b&n slave, so we talked about that. I think I will miss her when she leaves. She took me out to lunch at the pizzaria, which was nice because we got to go outside and walk to it on this beautiful day. The downside about the job is, well other than staring at a computer screen all day, is that it's just me and my boss, Michael in the office, with about 6 or 7 people in the warehouse. Everyone seems nice though, so that's good. I just don't know how I'm going to handle not talking to people (in person, I am doing live support via chat) and not having someone to just bullshit with all the time. I will however have aim, so ummmm talk to me if you see me. I will probably appreciate it :)

I started my commute at 7:30. They asked m to get there at 10, and I didn't want to take any chances on the traffic. However, I left at a good time, arriving in Garfield at 8:40. Since I was obscenely early, I camped out at the dunkin donuts nearby. The 9-6 shift won't be bad, because I left early enough to beat most traffic, and leave late enough that the commute home isn't that bad. I got to Route 1 quarter to seven. I got home at 8 though, because I stopped at Target to pick up padded envelopes, post-its, a new tupperwear, and um cheese-its. I almost passed out from hunger though.

Another perk of the job is all the damn tea I get to drink. I had 4 cups of first flush darjeerling and it was delicious. I use the bathroom though. But, at least I can just drink tea all day, as opposed to snacking- no vending machine, but I plan to stash some granola bars and carrots and healthy junk like that. I have to figure out when I can workout. I don't want to exercise too late, but I don't know how I feel about waking up extra early.

Perk #2, I get another laptop. Sahhhhweet. It's an MacBook Pro. It's pretty sweet, and I only got around to customizing my widgets. I plan to add more when I'm bored. i need to clean it up a little, customize it more to me as the user. It sucks though, because I have to bring it home everynight (they don't want it left in the office). I plan to use it at home for alittle bit to get more familiar with all the stuff I have to do, but I don't want to turn into those people who do work when they are not. I do have to check emails on Sunday night, but only for alerts for the Monday morning shipments.

AHHH. What else? Vacay recap:

WEdnesday- my last day at work! Very nice, I didn't do much, because I realized, hey, I don't work here anymore (after six). My coworker Rana made me a chocolate cake, and Charlotte, another co-worker got me these pretty mugs from Villeroy and Boch. Very sweet. A bunch of us met up at Fridays, the favorite B&N store 2646 watering hole for drinks and fun. It was nice to hang out. Katie came, as well as Nick on his day off. I got emails and lots of hugs. I also bought a bunch of books:

The Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (Caroline Weber)
The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (Carolee Erickson)
The Slaves of Solitude (Patrick Hamilton)
The Good Solider (Ford Maddox Ford)
The Portable Dorothy Parker (Dorothy Parker)
Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
i Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)
Catherine the Great (Virginia Rounding)
+a Moleskinne Notebook (for my job notes)
+some magazines. For the Vacay.

Anyhoo, I would have bought some more, but I did a lot of price-comparison shopping btw Amazon.com vs my store discount. Plus, I have a lot of books now, and not so much time to read, unfortunately.

Thursday and Friday nights were both spent in Manhattan with Nick, celebrating his friends' birthdays, which are on the same date. On Thursday we went out with his friend Brian and his father for Thai, a show at Upright Citizens Brigade, and drinks at a piano bar. Then on Friday we met up with Andrew and Nicole, and hung out in the East Village, ate more Thai, dranka lot.
Saturday, Nick talked me into going north with him to go pick up greeder, who was in Midtown. We had a couple of drinks and left. Sunday was nice, because Nick and I went out for breakfast, which we hadn't done in a while. We always go to this place on Church Street in Montclair, which has good brunch. We also went to the Montclair Book Center, my favorite bookstore ever, got cookies at Gimme Jimmy's, and then he drove me home. We took a detour to the driving range right outside of New Brunz. We bought a small bucket of balls to hit. It was the first time I've been to a driving range, and I had a pretty decent swing, according to Nick, by the end of it all. We also ran into Colin, a co-worker of ours (well, ex to me, hehe) who was also at the range. .

i cleaned on monday. exciting.

So other than hanging out, I was watching the American version of the Office, which I am so hooked on. I rented it off of netflix, and couldn't resist but to download them off of itunes. It has been the only thing I've been watching, except for a break Monday night to watch last week's Lost, and right now, where I'm watching the newest episode. Anyhoo, I've become a big Office fan. I heart BJ Novak. He's my temp. boyfriend. I'm also reading Mindy Kaling's blog (mindyephron.blogspot.com) she is such a pretty, smart, funny girl. Her blog is mostly about stuff she buys and how much she loves them. I love it.I love her too. her character cracks me up! She's my newest Indian Princess (I have several). i am all caught up in the whole Jim loves Pam business, and I can quote the show all the time. Rainn Wilson is in the new movie The Last Mimzy; the trailer just went on. My obsession has gotten to a point that on Tuesday night, when Nick was hanging out with me, he said I was acting like Dwight. Who is the best. I guess I have to watch the British original to get the whole picture.

"I hate so much about the things you choose to be". Casino Night. Season 2 finale. Oh boy.

My first day at my new job is tomorrow!

Wish me luck.

a real post will be coming soon.

So, in the midst of answering one of those stupid surveys on myspace bulletins, i came across a question, "Who was your crush?". it was one of those surveys 'how much you've changed in 5 yrs, 10 yrs etc' and this was the five years ago series, when I was 18 and at johnson and wales. I was wracking my brain for the answer to at least one of my crushes (the other two were mark from what feeds the fire who i nicknamed evil jay or hardcore jay, cos he looked like my boyfriend at the time but hotter and he was in a hardcore band and um, dude bro pat), so in my curiousity, i decided to check if my old live journal was still up from that time. I wrote in it up to my sophomore year @ rutgers, then stopped. I typed in the web addy, and lo and behold....


IT STILL EXISTS. omg. naturally, I had to scroll through it. It's so funny ! I was (well, still am) weird. And so different! holy shit, midtown is definitely not my favorite band anymore. Anyway, i'd post the link but it's incredibly embaressing- I have lots of entries where I LOVE JAY and how horny I am. woof. good lord. There's also this dude who was my lj buddy and for the love of god, I don't know who he is.

anyway, if you ask nicely, maybe i'll letyou see it, because I think it's funny. But perhaps that's because I'm a little too full of myself.