Life continues to amble along in the St.-to-the-Louis. I was pretty pumped to find out this week that I got into grad school for an MA in Creative Writing at Northwestern (Hey, Hey!)! I haven’t heard from any of the other schools I applied to yet, but I couldn’t be happier to have gotten into one. During the whole MFA/MA application process I have been pessimistic. Most people have responded with ebullient praise and prognostications (grad school word, bitches!) of my future acceptance to all the schools that I’ve applied to. [Special shoutout to K Stuhldreher who suggest the admissions faculty from multiple schools would hold a mud wrestling tournament to figure out who got me.] But it is wicked tough to get into one of these programs. Like 1-5% acceptance rates. LAME. I can’t believe how lucky I am to get into one. I’m pretty excited. I expect 9 more rejection letters in the next week.
My job is still a job…which pays me monetary compensation for services that I render; this includes scraping plates, filling water glasses, and awkwardly shuffling around the dining room removing plates. The news this week is that I figured out why the bartender treated me like I was a leper. He approached me my second weekend of work and was like, “Dude, Tedd, how old are you?” I told him that I was 24 and this seemed to make all the difference in the world. We are now boys…evidently. A lot of people at work thought I was pretty young – I think even high school aged. I really don’t feel like I look that young…I’ll give you 19-20, but I’m still getting carded for buy 17+ videogames…[for more information on this topic see rant a couple entries previous to this one]. Since that day I’ve become a kind of freak show, with members of the staff calling me aside and asking, “Tedd, how old are you??” To which I respond and everyone chuckles because I look like jailbait – to who, I don’t know… This weekend my boss and one of his kitchen staff just stared at me and bantered about how young I look.
“You look really young!”
“Yeah…I’ve heard that…”
“Like really!”
“I know…”
“No! Like you look really young? Are you still nursing?”
Other than being the Man-Child, things at work have been pretty good. I really like the people I work with, and I’m getting use to how everything works. For the most part people are pretty nice too. We had one douchebag come in this weekend. He made his girlfriend sit in the restaurant for like 20 minutes while he talked on his cell phone in the lobby, then when he did come in he complained about the food and requested a free meal. His girlfriend was really cute and I moved her because she complained that she was cold. Every time I passed by the table and her boyfriend was saying something obnoxious I couldn’t help but think, “A cute girl like you would date a complete douche.”
In addition to my high status job I’m also teaching English at a local church on Wednesday nights. I thought I would be pretty qualified for it, but the class is REALLY a beginning class. The people are really nice, but they have trouble with pronouns… In Korea most of the kids could put together sentences, but this is a totally new experience for me. My favorite student is from the Ukraine. She comes in with her husband – who is actually the best student in the class. She cracks me up because she is really enthusiastic but really doesn’t understand anything yet.
A sample convo:
Teacher: “So do you like fast food, Susie?”
Susie: “Fast food, yes!”
Teacher: “What do you eat?”
Susie: “Fast food, yes!”
Teacher: “What do you like to eat?”
Susie: “Yes!”
Teacher: “Yes, do you like hamburgers?”
Susie: “Hamburgers, yes!”
Teacher: “Mmm! Hamburgers!”
Susie: “Yes!”
Teacher: “Yes!”
Susie: “Yes!”
I always have to cover my mouth when something like that happens, I can’t help but laugh. It’s great to teach older students, though because they are so enthusiastic. In Korea all the kids were so emo, they never wanted to learn. In these classes everyone is so focus and attentive, it’s really fun. They are learning too. I had to teach the lesson on frequency adverbs and they got into describing things with always, sometimes, and never. Although they could have had no idea what I was saying and merely raised their hands when I said, “Who eats breakfast, sometimes??”
I also have the sad confession to make that I’m reading the Twilight books. I want to preface this statement with the fact that I’m only reading them because a) I have no life and a lot of free time and b) I promised my friend I’d read them so we could discuss them.
I have to say that the whole experience is not as much fun as I thought. When I heard they were popular I expected them to be fast paced and Harry Potteresque. Instead they’re…love stories? What? I would be cool with them but I just have no idea why the two main characters are in love. It seems to be a completely physical thing – like they never talk about anything other than the fact that Edward is a super sexy vampire and that Bella smells like she would taste deliciously… I guess that’s what you find on Rock of Love XXVIII, so whatever…
I guess that’s it…major props if you made it through this.
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