The Real World (Pt. II)

Sooo picking up where I left off last. And I'm writing this pretty late, so it'll probably be full of typos and such.

I headed out East again last week (Feb. 15-17) to take a few tests for the potential job I mentioned in my last post. Other than coming back completely mentally exhausted, everything went pretty well...I think....I hope. We'll see. But since I'm not allowed to actually discuss what all happened as far as my testing went, I'll just vent about everything else.

I left early Tuesday morning, and I parked in the covered parking garage at the SLC airport. That's right. I got covered parking on Big Brother's dime. That means you tax-paying suckers (including myself, I suppose) paid for my $84 parking for three days. Not each day, just all together. Anyway...the plane took off at 10am and was a loooong 4 hrs, but ended up being actually 6 hr time difference since I had to cross two time zones and I actually didn't land until 4. So the traveling took up half my day. But on the bright side, I finished the book I was reading and was able to start a new one.

Luckily I saw a shuttle to airport immediately and so I didn't even have to call the hotel to send one over for me. The hotel is literally like 48 seconds from the airport and I checked in and headed up to my room and immediately turned on my TV, because all I wanted to do was relaaaax. I went down at 5:30 and ordered my TWO dinners of course. Ate them both up in my room before even one episode of Scrubs was over. I felt really jittery like I needed to be studying for my test the next day, but it's not the kind of test you can study for...which only made me more jittery. So I just kept watching TV. In Utah, I have to wait until midnight before the new episode of The Daily Show comes on, and then 12:30 till The Colbert Report. And those are my two favorite shows. As in, I watch them religiously. Buuut I was very happy to discover that they come on at 11 and 11:30 in that particular time zone!  It's the little things that make me happy. Really though.

I couldn't sleep that night, partly because I at midnight it felt like 10, but mostly because I was so nervous. The last time I looked at the clock I saw 2:30am. And I was up for some time after that. I had to wake up at 5:30 to be downstairs by 6:30 to order breakfast, then be ready to go at 7. In case that math is two hard, that means I got about 2.5 hours of sleep that night. Not the most ideal condition for me to be in that day. But I lived. And you better believe I took a 3.5-4 hour nap when I got home that afternoon. 

I was given a voucher to eat at the cafeteria there, so when I went to go grab lunch I walked in and realized how much the place reminded me of high school. You had to go through lines to get the food, ring it up, then enter the land of people who have friends and all sit together. Guess who didn't have friends? Me. I walked all the way to a back corner in a feeble attempt to disappear, but some young nerdy guy fresh out of the Navy came up and asked to sit with me. I'm all about the nerds, don't get me wrong. Nothing hotter than an intelligent, well-informed man. But this guy lacked some basic social skills, which I personally do not happen to find all that attractive. Lack of social skills, that is. He was very kind, but definitely a weirdo. When he found out that my minor was Arabic, he said "Ah, tatakelim?" (I never know how to spell Arabic words in English letters, so please forgive me if you are capable of understanding how terribly I butchered that). Two things wrong with that sentence: (1) He didn't conjugate the verb for a girl. I'm a girl. (2) What he said was "Ah, do you speak?" I wanted to reply by asking him what the end of that sentence was. Clearly he was asking if I speak Arabic. But I just thought it was a funny way of wording it, and wanted to let him know. I realized that might seem rude, which it was. So I abandoned the thought, and just answered and then had a short conversation in Arabic. He then started talking about how pretty Utah is, but how Provo girls didn't respond positively to him when he'd hit on them. I felt really awkward seeing as how I've assimilated to this area and am, to him, a "Provo girl." Kind of makes me gag saying that just because of all the negative stereotypes associated with that phrase. But to an outsider, I suppose I've lived here for almost 5 years and I guess that's what it's come to. I swear I don't fit those negative stereotypes though. Anyway, the conversation just kept getting worse when he went on with how he wishes there were more bars, that there were more of a night life on Saturdays......and then somehow from there I recall him telling me how it's not uncommon for him to wake up in prison in a foreign country. I have no idea how he went from A to B in that conversation, but I obviously had nothing to contribute and was having a hard time just being polite at that point. He also talked about how he wishes that he could eat pudding all day every day, and how I wasn't allowed to judge him because there I was eating a greasy pizza. Well mister, I in fact had TWO greasy pizzas and enjoyed them. Thank you very much. It was all so strange. He finally left, and I waited a few minutes before I got up, then made my way back to call the hotel shuttle to come take me back. And then took my veryyyyy long nap.

That night I watched more TV. It was glorious, mainly because I never let myself watch much TV because it's all trash and such a waste of time. Unless your name is Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Or Dr. House even. The next day I completed my tests, and this time I had a few friends that were there testing as well that I could eat with on my break. But I felt old because almost all of them were there competing for an internship. Yep, they were mostly all freshmen or sophmores in college. One of the girls was wearing pants so tight I thought they might have been painted on. The next day she wore a skirt that wasn't a mini-skirt, but was definitely wayyyy too short to wear in the work place. Along with a pair of 3 inch stiletto heels. I'm not gonna lie, I was completely modest but my outfit was still pretty hot. Not me. The outfit. Another girl was also wearing a pretty short skirt, and with hooker boots! Another guy was wearing jeans with holes in them. All I could think was people don't you know what business casual means????? I was embarrassed on their behalf. Maybe one day they'll learn. In the meantime, I certainly wouldn't hire them looking the way they did. Maybe I'm just snotty. Probably so.

That same day when I called the hotel shuttle to get me, I saw it drive down the road about 10 minutes later. But it never pulled in. I just though ok maybe it has to make a few rounds, then it'll come back. The guy with the jeans showed up and so he called as well. 15 min later, another shuttle drove down the road....and didn't pull in. This happened 4 times in all, when finally someone went and called and said that one of us (me) had seen the shuttle drive by 4 times and never once after an hour did it come get us. 3 min later, a shuttle came and got us. 

My things were already packed and I had checked out so I made my way over to the airport at about 2...even though my flight wasn't until 5:30. I also had a layover in Atlanta, which I really really didn't want to do, so I checked to see if there were any other available flights to SLC on Delta, and of course there were none. I get to my gate only to see that the neighboring gate had a direct flight to SLC. I double checked to make sure there weren't any open seats, and there weren't. I was more than furious. Not at the airline, just the universe.

When I got to Atlanta I had almost an hour to get from gate B to gate E, which I figured would be no biggie. Well did anyone else know that the Atlanta airport is rather large? Haha of course I knew that, but I kind of forgot and I've never actually been in that one before. Meanwhile, I was still unaware of how long it would take me to get from here to there, and I basically ended up RUNNING a half marathon. Or so it felt like. I was on the phone with a friend, and 20 minutes after chattin it up, I realized I was only in the Cs. Which worried me. So I started running...as I was talking. Which is kind of hard. But I had already done most of the talking I was going to do, and was just eager to hear about the update in the person's life, so I didn't have to do much talking. Finally after I realized I had missed a turn, I had to cut the conversation short, and book it like no one's business to gate E4. I made it with about 5 min to spare, according to my ticket. I was sweating profusely by that point and likely didn't smell so fresh either. I lathered myself in lotion, hoping to mask some of the stench that I was paranoid might be fuming from my sweaty body. I'm talking like sweat beads were rolling. It was disgusting.

Also, I completed the impressive marathon in my TOMS shoes. Those, my friends, are not meant for running. I also already had a blister on the back of my heel from my super cute business casual black pointy-toed stiletto shoes. The heels weren't that tall, maybe just an inch or so but it was the first time I wore them so the back of my right heel took a pretty rough beating. Beauty is pain. Durable pain.

Oh and as I was mopping the sweat off my forehead and neck, I realized that there is a train thing that transports people around the airport. I'm really upset I didn't know that. I'm such a loser.

I ended up on the second to last row on the plane. There were 34 rows on that freakin plane I was so pissed I got stuck back there. Not to mention I was right next to the bathroom so oh don't worry no one could smell my sweatiness due to the stench of 300 plus passengers who decided to take a dump on that flight. Not to mention the dude next to me kept ripping the nastiest silent farts. So gross. That same guy had ordered a Bloody Mary with Sky Vodka and I don't drink nor do I desire to but all I could think by that point was my goodness I need myself one of THOSE.

We finally landed at 11pm, but in Eastern time it was 1am. Please recall that I initially arrived at the airport at 2ish pm earlier that day. I could have effing flown to Europe in that amount of time. AND BACK! In the parking garage I freaked out because I couldn't find my car, but realized finally that I had to go up a level. 

When I came home finally and took my contacts out, I realized that I left my glasses at the hotel. Along with my contacts case, nail clippers, eyebrow pluckers, my razor, and a few cotton balls. (all those items were in a little pouch thing together). Now I need new glasses desperately as it is because the others are ugly and have a deep scratch in the left lens. But it's still inconvenient because I don't have any glasses right now and have to stumble around blindly at night when I have to take the contacts out. And in the morning. And do you have any idea how expensive razors are??? That one probably cost like 10 bucks. I was not happy. But it could have been worse. I just don't know how on earth I left them there. I even did a final check before I left the room! Oh well. 

The reason why I went out for the trip I do think went pretty well. It's just all the other things in between that I felt like complaining about. Maybe the next post will be more positive. Maybe.