I'll just do absolutely nothing for the next couple days.

I've been working a lot recently. I worked two weeks ago (the 3rd) at DSST, Friday the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th all at the rec center, then I also worked the 9th and 10th at DSST. I worked both of them on the 12th, and then at the rec center again on the 13th, 14th, and 15th. And then I worked yesterday, the 16th, at DSST. It's been a lot of fun, but for the past two weeks, I've only had the 4th and 11th off.

My schedule is 100% set at DSST. I always work Tues, Wed, and Fri. And it's generally set at the rec center for Sat, Sun, Mon, and every other Fri. But for the rest of Oct, I have a couple extra days here and there that really fill in the gaps. And this is totally fine with me. I really like my job. But though I'd rather be working than sitting around doing nothing, it's a little draining on the days when I have to work both at DSST and at PDRC.

But for some reason which I do not know, I didn't have to teach at DSST today. They didn't have electives at all, and so I have today completely off, as well as tomorrow. It's been nice to just sit here without having to do anything. And I look forward to the day when I don't have to teach at DSST anymore. It's certainly not terrible there, but I don't love it. And it's kinda far away. And I don't really get paid a lot. The amount I get paid barely covers gas for everywhere I have to drive.

Anyway, that was just a little explanation of how much I've been working lately. So I was sitting here, thinking about where I'm working for the next couple weeks, and I remember that this is the week that I signed up for a ton of shifts... After my nice little two-day vacation here, I'll work Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed. And, of those twelve days, four of them are at both jobs. Haha. It was a slightly horrifying realization, but I'm also kinda excited about it.

Thankfully, in one month from today, I will be completely done teaching at DSST. :) And then I can totally handle the more full work load at PDRC!

Heh... until I get another job. But that will be exciting, because hopefully it will be more permanent and closer.

Jim's Burger Haven: 3.5 stars

Jim's Burger Haven

I like the vibe. Very 60's. Fun music. The bacon is so crispy :) But people looked at us like we're strange... probably because I was singing and dancing...  There were some nice (though slightly creepy) people there, too. And for some reason that I cannot remember, Sara's notes say, "Twilight zone da na da na." Haha.

Though, to be fair about the creepy people, this place is in Thornton, down off of 88th and Washington.

This was quite a lovely place to eat. I used to pass by it twice a day when I went to school, and I always wanted to try it. We finally did! They have big burgers, and they have small ones, but Sara and I both got small single cheeseburgers, with bacon. We weren't terribly hungry. Then we got a side of fries and a drink. Well, I got the drink. As you can see, Sara has an Amp. I drank a Powerade/Sprite suicide, and when it was about half gone, we added some Amp to that suicide, and it was surprisingly good. And interesting colored. Anyway, back to the food.

 

Freshness: 8, 8

Juiciness: 8, 8

Deliciousness: 9, 8

[Bun-soakage: 1, 1]

Flavor-awesomeness: 8, 9

Uniqueness: 1, 1

Condiment-ratio: 10, 9

[Greasiness: 2, 1]

Appearance: 3, 3

Side-dish deliciousness: 8, 9

Side-dish uniqueness: 3, 3

Price: 9, 10

Fullness-level: 10, 10

[Messiness: 1, 2]

We have found that I do the same thing for the majority of my eating pictures... I'm just trying to concentrate on how well this burger is living up to my dreams!

Sara's first bites are usually more entertaining, though.

So we got in and ordered our food, and it wasn't a terribly long wait. There's fun music and cool things on the wall to keep you entertained. It kinda reminded me of Gunther Toody's, actually. Which is a compliment. I like Gunther Toody's. When we got our food, I was very pleased. I said earlier that I used to always drive past this place, and now that I've finally been, it didn't disappoint. I'll have to remember that when I start up classes again and drive by all the time... That could be a dangerous realization... It was not super greasy, and the condiment ratio was perfect! I didn't have anything dripping out of the end, but you could still taste the condiments. So fantastic. It wasn't messy or anything. And it was a really good price. Sara and I each spent less than $5. If we had gotten the bigger burgers, we would have spent a little more, but I think we're still looking at less than $7. And it was really good.

Honestly, I'm a little sad that it only has 3.5 stars. The things that dragged it down were appearance (haha. Look at my hamburger! It's all crinkly.) and uniqueness. Also side dish uniqueness. They just didn't really have anything special. You could choose if you wanted 1, 2 or 3 patties. You could choose if you wanted them small (4") or large (6"). And you could choose if you wanted bacon added (40 cents for small burgers, 60 for large). That's about the end of the menu. And it was really good, but I don't think I could create a less unique menu. Unless I took off the bacon-option, but that doesn't really make it less unique, just more boring. Bacon is a pretty standard thing to add to your burgers.

The fries were really good, though. Nothing fancy about them, sadly, but side-dish uniqueness got a higher rating because they had something called dino-bites. I have no idea what those are, but they sound pretty unique to me. I'll probably get them someday. We might have gotten them this time if we had seen them on the menu before we ordered. It was pretty good, and I will definitely be back someday. I recommend trying it out.

So Jim's Burger Haven gets an average rating of 7.4 from both me and Sara, giving it a total of about:

Dark day at work.

Today was not the best day at work. Nothing bad happened to me personally, so I'm not going to go into it here. It's not my business to spread to the public world. But it was a rough day. You can email me if you're curious (but it'll only be like a two-line reply. You'll have to catch me in person for a more detailed account). I thought I'd blog about food tonight to lift spirits, but alas. I am so tired haha.

We spent four and a half hours waiting in line for The 13th Floor last night (which was really cool, actually. We made friends with a zombie guy in the line who talked to us the entire time we were in line. At some points, he would have to leave, but he always came back to talk to us. It actually started to annoy the people behind us in line a little haha. They're just jealous that they weren't as cool as we were), and then we went to grab some food, so I didn't actually get back home until 2:45 or so this morning. Then I had to wake up for work at 8:45.

So no more promises about when I'll blog about our latest burger-rating adventure. Haha. I'm not going to spread more lies. I have vague intentions of writing about it tomorrow morning, but I also had vague intentions about writing tonight. And we all see how that turned out. :)

Stay tuned. It'll come eventually.


... probably.

Just to not leave everyone completely hanging...

Haha. "I'll post about our latest burger-rating adventure tomorrow, probably, though." Don't you love the lies?

To make a short story long... Since my job at DSST is only temporary and will end in a month, I've been looking for another job I could have after that. Then a couple weeks ago, I had a phone interview at the same place that Chaelomen works to be a pee pourer. It started off by her asking me to tell her about myself, in which I included that I'm studying chemistry at Metro.
"Oh, so you're a student? Do you go full time?"
"Yes. Well, not right now. I'm taking a semester off because I've been going every semester, including summers, for 2 years, and I need a break."
"Ok, but when you go back, you'll be a full time student?"
"Yeah, I will."

And our conversation continued, until she asks me for an example of a time when I had to do [something]. So I told her that at the place I'm currently working, I had to [blah blah blah].
"Great. So why are you leaving your current job?"
"I actually want to keep my current job. It's only part time, I work two shifts a week, so I would hope to be able to have both jobs."
"So you want to work a part time job, a full time job, and someday go to school full time?"
"Yep, that's the plan."
"Hm. I don't think I like that. You wouldn't be able to give your full attention to this job when you're on the clock. So tell me about a time..."

After that, the conversation got kinda awkward. She moved on so quickly from that point, so there was no opportunity for me to justify why this was the case and tell her about how I am capable of working both jobs. The interview was pretty much over, so why bother with the formalities of finishing out the interview, even though she knows right there that she's not going to hire me? Meh. I'm actually ok with it. I wish that I could have worked there, because it should someday be able to go right into my line of work, which would have been nice, but these things happen, and I'm sure I'll find another way in.

But I told that story to my boss, Melissa, maybe two weeks ago. I kinda wanted her to know that I like this job a lot and am looking to stay here long-term. After I was done working that day, she asked me if I was looking for a full time job-- not that it affected my job here at all, she was just curious. I explained that I'm currently living at home with my parents, and I'm hoping to make that not the case anymore. I mean, it's not like living here is bad at all, I just feel like it's time to move on, especially since I lived on my own in China, and now that I'm back, I want to get on with life. I actually found an apartment complex to move into, even. It's a little bit closer to the rec center, and it's only 600/ month, and relatively big for that price. It's in a good neighborhood and everything. I like the pictures of the place, and I drove around the outside and it looks awesome. I really like it, and I'm excited to move in there someday.

At that price, though, I need to make 1800 a month, so I'm not necessarily looking for another full time job, but I am looking for a second job (preferably a day job, but I could make a night job work), and so Melissa, being one of the coolest bosses to ever exist, asked me if I would be interested in her asking around the other full time employees at the rec center and seeing if they need any help in their departments-- so that's like maybe daycare, maybe working at the preschool, lifeguarding  whatever. I said that would be awesome, and she agreed to ask around once she got back from her vacation.

Well 5 days ago, Melissa asked if I would maybe be willing to pick up a couple extra shifts on Saturdays. They don't usually have staff work both Saturday and Sunday, but since I'm looking for more hours and they're a little short on staff members at the moment, they'd love to have me work more. I am actually really free. All the time. Aside from work, I usually don't have any solid plans ever. The only thing I have in the works right now isn't even happening for a month haha. So I agreed, and Melissa wrote me into the shifts for Sat, Sun, Mon, and then I have a couple Tuesdays this month, a Wed, and at least one Fri. She might ask me to pick up the 2nd Fri that we need shifts covered for.

I worked Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then today. I'll work again on Fri and Sat. So, in my defense, I've actually been working every day since our last burger-rating adventure. And I know I just took a ton of time and words to tell a really long story about why this post isn't about burgers, when I could have just blogged about burgers, but I'm just too lazy. Haha. My camera is way upstairs, and I would have to download the pictures from that. And, to really seal the deal, mine and Sara's burger-rating notebooks are out in my car.

But I promise that since I won't be working tomorrow at the rec center, just at DSST in the morning, I will at least bring in our notebooks tomorrow. And then I'll try really really hard to actually blog about our delicious food tomorrow, as well. But, at the absolute latest, I'll blog about it on Thurs, since I'm completely off that day and have little else to do. I swear!

Never forget.

For the first time in over 5 months (because that's when I changed it), I just started typing in crawlslikeaworm instead of likespiderwebs. Haha. My bad. Old habits die hard?

Anyway, I just have some awesome pictures I wanted to post. Pictures are usually fun, right?

This is Jack, my dog. I'm sure most of everyone has seen him by now, but look at how cute he is! And I just got these pictures put onto my computer from my camera a couple weeks ago.

A couple months ago, my friend Mark from markreads.net and markwatches.net came to Denver! It was so exciting. I went to go see him, as did about 15 other people from Colorado. We asked him questions and hung out for a while. He read some terrible stories. It was cool, he's pretty awesome.

And he signed this shirt that I'm wearing in this picture! It says, "Hayley said HI to me once!" or something very much like that. I don't recall exactly what. He was cool though, and it was exciting to get to see him in real life. I love reading his reviews, so. And it's actually because of him that I finally read Good Omens, too. Which was a pretty awesome book.

Hahaha. Poor dinosaurs.

And we owe them so much! Poor things.

These are some of my kids! Tony sent me a picture (they're all wearing make up here, btw) from their last performance for the year. I miss them so much. Today at work, Melissa was talking about giving the stickers to the kids in our climbing classes as positive reinforcement, and it reminded me of these star charts we made for our kids in China. If they had enough stars, they'd get a sticker at the end of the class, which they all loved so much. But then, randomly, they would take the stickers we gave them, and give them back to us. Haha. Like, they wanted us to wear their stickers instead. It was funny.

Anyway, the kids in this picture, from left to right, are Peter, William, I think Davey (who wasn't actually in our classes when I was there, but was really interested in the program and I loved him anyway), Max, John, Dave, Jack, and Tony. They're all awesome, and I miss them a lot. It doesn't help that one of the girls who taught in Xiaolan went back to China to visit and got to see a bunch of her kids again. :( Someday I will have saved up enough to be able to visit Nanlang again.

This is the full quote of my blog title. I think I've talked about it before, when I was talking about my physics class.

Ha. So I saw this, and it made me sad because someday, I bet my kids will ask me about that phrase. And when I'll explain it, they'll look at me like I'm crazy and possibly lying to them (I know this because I've given this look to my parents before), and then I'll feel old. Haha.

Ha. I'm considering eating something right now, actually. I'm kinda hungry. But it's almost 1 in the morning, so maybe I should just go to sleep or something. We'll see.

So there's some awesome pictures. I feel like it's been too long since I've blogged about anything, but my life recently has been nothing but rock climbing and working. I'll post about our latest burger-rating adventure tomorrow, probably, though.