crashing into the dave

Lately, I've been hearing a lot of Dave Matthews Band. This is not out of my personal choice, necessarily, it is just the way things seem to be happening. The woman I babysit for all the time must own every Dave Matthews CD in existence. I thought he only had like 4 CDs: alas, they must number more like 27. I did not realize this until she moved and now all of her CDs are in one place. She doesn't have a ton of other music, so I've burned her several of my CDs, mainly so I can listen to my own stuff while I'm over there. The Shins, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab, and Brett Dennen have all made many a round on her CD player. Thus I am kind of tired of all of them. So last week I caved and just listened to the Dave Matthews.

Have you ever noticed that people who like the Dave absolutely LOVE him? Like, obsessed. I have a hard time understanding this. He's good... kind of. Kind of just douchebag music though. Which doesn't mean it's bad. It just means that it's the kind of thing you should limit your exposure to (If I have never explained douchebag music to you before, here it is on urbandictionary.com - Maya and I defined it on there quite a while ago - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=douchebag+music. Our definition is mostly a joke, but now we actually refer to this as a genre quite regularily).

Anyways, important news: Mangiamo hired me! I am a barista and a cashier, etc. at a coffeeshop! It is less than perfect, because it's a campus place... and all campus-run food places aren't that hot for... you know... that Seattle-circa-1993 feel that the good kind of coffee shops have. The kind of place I dream about working at. But it is a far cry from working at the Card Office, and so I'm happy.

I had my first shift yesterday at 6 AM. Fun times, especially because my neighbors woke me up at 4 AM, still partying (the Sunday night of finals week, no less). I enjoy my neighborhood because it is colorful. Except yesterday, when I wished the colorfulness would shut up and go to bed. Other than that little incident, (which really had nothing to do with work!) work went quite well. I felt very accomplished, intelligent and such when I left. I know how to make all the coffees now! I have not drank any of the ones I've made so far, so they could be terribly shitty and I just don't know. To be on the safe side, I should give all of my friends their coffees for free... hmm. I'm not sure that's something I'll be able to get away with. I'm not going to try that kind of thing until I really know the ropes.

Anyways: there's a CD player for the staff at Mangiamo. Nothing was playing on it and I asked one of the girls about it. She was like, "Yeah, that's for us. Do you want to listen to something?"

DUH! I want to listen to something. There are few situations, I think, that are not enhanced by the presence of music. Why would you NOT listen to music if you could?

Anyways, there was a CD already in the thing and it was, obviously, Dave Matthews. Is there no escape, I ask you. Anyways... still better than silence, so I turned it on. One thing's for sure though: time for me to burn some more work CDs. There's only so many times I can hear that man sing about crashing into him. That's not sexy, it's weird. The day I think that sex resembles crashing is the day I become celibate.

worky work work

So... uhh. So much for posting daily. I suppose I could get away with saying, at this point, that I will post every weekday. I guess it doesn't really matter. I'm posting a blog right now, and that's what's important.

I've interviewed for a couple jobs so far in Eugene, and I am really starting to hate the interview process. I've never had a "real" job before and that is probably part of the problem. I get really nervous at interviews, and I already don't come across that well when I first meet people, usually. Kinda stand-offish. The two job interviews I've had were for things that I was initially pretty excited about, and then after being interviewed I realized that I didn't even want the job that I was applying for. And then both places told me they weren't going to hire me anyways, which doesn't even bother me because I don't want the jobs anymore.

The first job I interviewed for, a couple months ago now, was to work at IntroDUCKtion (ow, ow, the horrid pun is injuring me bodily...) as a Student Orientation Staff member. It sounded fun originally because it seemed like the kind of job that I could make friends with the other kids and maybe feel a little more involved in U of O. Then they had me do a group interview, at which I realized I probably didn't want to work there anymore because all the other kids seemed like such fakes. The boss made a bunch of comments about dress code, what we could or couldn't display on our MySpaces or Facebooks, etc. They were looking for some perfect model student, you could tell. Not real people. I like Oregon well enough, but mostly it's just another university to me, and I'm not willing to become Susie School Spirit for a job. They called me back for a personal interview, and I went, but reluctantly... and I have to admit I didn't put much effort in for that one.

Then last week I had an interview to work at the Card Office, where they print student ID cards. Boring, yes, but it also sounded easy, which is, sadly, kind of appealing. When I went in for this one, the people interviewing me were a lot nicer and friendlier. So much so, in fact, that I was creeped out. They were all SO HAPPY. Which is great, I guess, but why? YOU WORK IN A BASEMENT SURROUNDED BY FLOURESCENT LIGHTING. Are they brainwashed, or is there something in the EMU water? I don't mean that they were nice, I mean, these ladies were laughing very hard and beaming brilliantly, almost in unison. I'm one of the happiest people I know, but I still don't think I could handle working with these people. Too much optimism is almost depressing sometimes. That's a horrible thing to say but it's what I really think. Anyways, I guess they could only give me 10 hours a week, and I basically told them that that wasn't enough, so when they sent me an email saying that the position was filled but I should reapply in fall I wasn't surprised.

I have another interview on Thursday at Mangiamo's, the bakery/coffee shop at the EMU. I'm really hoping I get this one, and that it doesn't disappoint. At this point I just want a job. But really, this is what I wanted all along. A nice summer job where I could be social and not have to think too hard, and where I could work for 30, 40 hours a week. I need that much time if I'm going to be getting minimum wage (bleh). Also, I would learn the skills of a barista. Kick ass. I've always wanted to know how to make a jillion specialty coffees. And baked goods surrounding me all day... I probably would have to start going to the rec center more (or, er, start going to the rec center, period) but how delicious. Mmmm. The best part about Mangiamo's, though, is its location. It's this nice, sunny, open room on the main floor of the EMU (the student union building here) called the Fishbowl. Plus, I could tell people I work in the cafeteria from Animal House, and that's just awesome. The scene where John Belushi stuffs his face and then sprays the food all over the prepsters ("That boy is a P-I-G, pig!") was filmed in the Fishbowl. It's classic. Not to mention I snooped past there the other day and they obviously don't have a rigid dress code or creepily happy workers. Thank God. Anyways, wish me luck, guys... I'm crossing my fingers.