Well allow me to explain the rest of the week.
Wednesday was a busier day in class and the start of IM street hockey.
If you've been reading previous blog entries you'll notice that I tend to slightly hyperventilate over seemingly not important things. Well, today was a big hyperventilating day. I was so nervous about street hockey as the refs I hired were just freshman and never reffed any game of any sport in their life, let alone a game of hockey that's not really hockey, it's got the sticks and the goal but that's about it, and another case study was due in class which meant for more shark feeding frenzies…god he really freaked me out with that phrase. I didn't' think I was scared of sharks, but I am forever scarred now.
Terrifying.
Anyways, so Wednesday's class comes and goes, no feeding frenzy again, although it did get to be a heated debate a bit but as long as it wasn't me up at the podium, all is good.
I head back to the office and set up all the gear, game sheets, first aid, etc. for St. hockey.
We play st. hockey out at this park that's technically on campus but it's behind the freshman dorms and at the back of this random parking lot. There are 2 lights that you just have to hope will turn on once the sun goes down and it's all rather sketchy. It's a cement rectangle, painted blue with lines like a hockey rink but it's cracking and the chain fence around it has seen better days. There are bleachers on one end that you can obviously tell are the main late night hang out for the freshman. On wednesday I guess I ruined a few people's plans that probably involved an apple and mary jane but i assume they got over it. Before heading out there though, I had to grab all of the hockey sticks which were down in the basement of the rec. It was in a storage closet under lock and key that I, myself, did not have a high enough pay grade to obtain said keys.
So I ask the custodian about 30min before I needed to leave to let me in. He can't open it.
He jiggles, pushes, pulls, just about everything but break down that door to try to get it open.
No luck.
I'm about ready to yell, "AM I ON PUNK'D???? THIS ISNT FUNNY ASHTON!!" I just, can't even, no, just so mad.
It's kind of imperative to have hockey sticks to play hockey. Just watch 3 seconds of hockey and you'll see that's the case.
It's hot down there and kinda not very well lit and creepy and we're trying to break into a storage closet for some flipping hockey sticks.
This is my life.
Finally after going up to the first floor about 6 times calling different people to help, we manage to force our way in. (it's better if you just assume we got the key to work)
I'm now going to be late for the first game if I don't somehow magically appear at the field immediately. solid. But I have to carry this awkward under-sized garbage container filled with about 15 sticks just flailing about and somehow get them in my car. In negative 5 minutes.
And y'all wonder WHY i stress out. sheesh.
I manage to do it and race over only to find my other sups and the refs just chilling. They're playing hockey even. Somehow they found some hockey sticks and brought them out. They're ready to go.
I went from stressed and apologetic, and flustered about being late to
in about 1 nanosecond. Flat.
I have a mini temper tantrum and question all the effort I put in for absolutely nothing right there in the parking lot. The sups laugh and go "geez, chill, we got this" and never did tell me where they got the hockey sticks but whatever, I think they saw the steam coming from my ears so they laid off.
The night went well and the refs didn't do half bad for being rookies and it was a pretty fun night. We even played a bit when there was some time before the next game and I found that I pretty much suck at hockey. Surprise, the girl from California can't play hockey. Shocking.
On to Thursday.
I don't have class until 6ish so I spent the day working on the sport club side of things. When teams travel, we have to prepare them with 100 trees worth of paperwork. We also are in charge of the club's funds so that means pretty much all money has to go through us too. Credit cards are used to pay for things but we don't give them to the clubs, we handle it all.
One club comes in and has to sign up for insurance online. I pay for it, and get a receipt so that we can get paid back. Well, low and behold you can't just do that. I pretty much broke every rule when it comes to club sport finance, to put it gently, and spent the rest of the day scrambling to fix it. It all worked out and I made a seemingly big deal, a slight boo-boo and quickly put a band-aid on it. My boss was super testy that day and I'm pretty sure he was ready to throw his chair at me but like I said, I fixed it and it turned out to be just fine.
But I didn't really like the fact that THAT particular club made me kind of look bad, really bad. whatever. over it. (see sometimes I stress and sometimes I'm like, whoa. nbd. slow your roll)
I talk to the pres and explain what went wrong and how we have to move forward in a different way. He goes "ya sounds good, sorry about that, but oh yeah did you get our hotel for this weekend?"
I almost fainted.
Excuse me? You're traveling this weekend?? This is a joke. TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE
(About 2 weeks ago he had come into the office with every travel request for the semester. The entire semester in one shot. That's efficient but….case in point, I lost one)
Cue the panic attack.
Now I'm REALLY stressed. This whole convo was via text and I still had about 2 hours left in class.
So now I can't focus but it's my super monotone professor so who is really, but all I can think is holy cow, my team is leaving and they don't have a hotel, what the heck, how did this happen???
Bust out of class, and go straight to the office. I spend the next TWO HOURS calling hotel after hotel because no hotels had any openings let alone 4. No it couldn't just be a little tournament or a single game now that'd make my life way too easy, it had to be one of the bigger fall tournaments in the area.
That's just dandy.
I find a decently priced place that's about a 20min drive from where they really need to be but that's better than sleeping in their cars.
Whew.
Friday morning comes and goes but I want to have a little chat with this club team guy…cuz within a very short span of time he went from nice and seemingly not trouble causing (he also works for us on staff, the one that wants to be a GA too) to Houston, we have a problem, lickety-split.
It's not the guy's fault, obviously. All is on me. But the fact that all hell broke loose 2x in one day over the same team isn't very good. And I don't like looking or feeling like I can't handle this job. I can. I just need a little help. Like more advanced notice about traveling. Yeah he turned in the paper but a little reminder would have been helpful. That's one club of 15 I directly oversee and there's about 4 more that are overlooked by the GAs and my boss jointly. On top of IMs. and class. I'm not super woman, nor am I going to favor any one team. And 3 other teams were traveling this weekend as well. Give me a break ya? I'm trying, I am. But I never claimed I could do this on my own.
Friday was better though. After getting some IM things done and dealing with the fiasco I had managed to find myself in with clubs, I went to a brewery outside of Carbondale.
It was with the college of business club and my friend, Tessa, who we met the first day I was here, invited me.
It was so much fun and although it wasn't a big group of us, it was so incredibly nice to meet other people not affiliated with my job. A lot of them are international students, or are from other countries and moved here. There was a guy from France, Columbia, and Saudi Arabia. I wanted to be like why the HECK would you come to Carbondale?? (finally i get to ask the question and not vice-versa)
They answers were pretty rational actually. It's a fairly good school, as it's smaller and the networking opportunities are better. You have a better chance creating real relationships with your professors here than at a large school. Ok, makes sense. The college of business is pretty well known apparently and offers a very good program. (really, I knew it was decent but ok, score!) and it's fairly close to Chicago and the east coast. Ok then. You made your point. well done.
So I ended up drinking some really really good beer (the brewery was beautiful and small but the beer was very flavorful and I may enjoyed too much but it wasn't a repeat of the winery incident. promise.) and chatting with adults who had been like me, not from Illinois (or the US really) not knowing the area or anyone and are happy. They like it, ya it's not always super great and they have some complaints but who doesn't in just about every place that you live? If they can manage, I can.
We ended up going out that night as well and I got to meet up with some of my work friends there too.
It was a pretty good night until I broke my phone, but hey silver lining.
Saturday was another tailgate day and football game but it wasn't as crowded as the previous weekend. It may have had to do with the fact that it was an earlier game, a day game and so tailgating started way too early for me, like 10am. After getting a new phone but not being able to retrieve anything (sucks to suck) we ended up walking around the tailgate and playing bags for a bit before going for ice cream. We are really just kids in grown up bodies.
That night though, some friends wanted to go out but I was tired but never the one to say no, I said I'd join and then leave once they left for the bars.
Well funny story…they like to tow a lot around here. Apartment complexes, bars, stores, middle school parking lots…ya they'll tow you. I knew this and couldn't find visitor parking so I thought "it's not going to take very long, I'll be back within the hour, I'll just park across the street where there's a middle school." I go in, hang for a bit and go back out.
No car.
My car is gone. At first I thought it had gotten stolen and I wanted to cry. But everyone was like 'oh..dude, yeah they tow over there. you got towed for sure.'
what?? It's a middle school. No one lives there, I wasn't taking anyone's spot and there were NO SIGNS saying no parking.
So stupid. Stupidstupidstupidstupid gahhhh sostupiditmakesmehurt
One of the girls goes 'well that sucks. want a drink? you could probably use one.'
Can't argue with that logic. So I go with them and it wasn't terrible but it wasn't exactly my best night out ever since I was in a pissed off mood. But I got over it since it seems you aren't a true Carbondale-ian if you haven't gotten towed once or twice.
I could totally go to court and pull a Californian move there since we like our signage and rules in California and they did not have anything saying I couldn't park there. But, once I learned it's not outrageously expensive like back home I was mad but more like...
B took me to get it this morning and she had a good laugh but only because it happened to her too. now I'm nursing a hang over, trying to get my new phone to work and get contacts again, and watching football and thinking I should probably go do laundry. Nah...
Thank the lord for Sundays and that this weekend will be over tomorrow. One good thing, I'm all caught up on my blog!
To be continued.
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