What your restaurant order says about you

So I went out for dinner with Pal and my father tonight, which was our way of blatantly ignoring mother’s day, slash saying goodbye to Pal before he returns to his pretty-much-home on the west coast. We went to one of those family restaurants that has half decent food of all kinds-everything from steak (which is supposed to be good because we live in cattle country but actually isn’t) to stir fry (because they’re “super ethnic”) to salads (the ones that taste good are probably not healthy at all) to pasta. I was having the biggest burger craving ever, so I ordered the one with onion rings on it, and Pal is a recent pescetarian, which means he doesn’t eat meat except for fish (yes, three years on the west coast has gotten to him) so he ordered the fish filet sandwich and dad is trying to watch his cholesterol, so he ordered one of the actual healthy salads that tastes like dry leaves.

A guy who wasn’t our waiter brought our meals, and he didn’t stop to ask us who ordered what. He put my burger in front of Pal, the fish in front of dad, and the salad in front of me. I bit back a laugh, because I used to work at a restaurant just like this one, and in that waiter’s position I probably would have done the exact same thing.

I know people like to think that they’re all unique and make their own decisions, but truthfully I would say that in my time working at a family restaurant, I could predict what people were going to order about eighty percent of the time.

Yeah, I mean it. People are that predictable.

Guys between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five almost always order burgers. It’s not just a stereotype, it’s true. I don’t think I ever had a female customer my age who ordered one.

Seniors order the things they understand. They don’t go out to eat adventurously, they go out to eat the same things they would normally eat at home. They’ll go for the roast beef dinner or the steak sandwich generally. The place I worked at also had liver and onions, and seriously that was the most popular item on the menu for seniors. There were a ton of them that became regulars just for the liver. I tried it once because so many old guys had recommended it to me. It was just as awful as I thought it would be.

Parents always order sandwiches because it’s easy to eat while feeding their children, and it won’t get cold when they feed them first. Plus, if they have to leave early because their kid is having a tantrum, the sandwich is quick and easy to pack up for later. You can always tell the amateur parents because they order things they used to eat before kids, like steak or pasta. Good luck eating that steak while it’s still hot if your kids are throwing macaroni noodles at your head.

Skinny women order salads. Sad, but true. These women always look a little depressed and never fully satisfied. They kind of make me think that when I grow up I want to be fat. The women who are the happiest are the ones who order the salads that are actually really bad for you because they’re loaded with cheese and bacon and fatty dressing. These women are happy because it tastes good and they think they’re eating healthy.

Tweens are the best because they order whatever the hell they want. They’re excited about ordering off the adult menu, so they comb it for just the right thing. They tend to order the specials or the weird items like the ginger beef or the potato skins. Sometimes I just want to high five them for being to young to conform to societal norms.

Anyway, long story short, the waiter rearranged our food when we explained to him that he had it wrong. He didn’t do a very good job at hiding his shock when I claimed the burger and I couldn’t really blame him because the trends pretty much rule out burgers for my demographic. I don’t exactly know what it says about me that I don’t eat what I’m expected to. All I know is that I was craving burgers like crazy and I fricking devoured that thing in like six bites.

Grad checklist

T-minus one week until grad! Yeah, I know it’s weird. We “graduate” over May long weekend, and then we have to go back to school for three more weeks. It’s weird being in school mode and graduating mode at the same time. On top of that I’m planning my summer and planning university stuff for the fall. It’s an odd time in my life, really. It’s like I have one foot out the door, but I’m not leaving for three and half more months.

My to-do list for the next week looks like this:

-Recover from the AP English Lit exam today, which turned me into a puddle of angst. Nothing like three hours of  writing essays and dissecting poetry full of words you don’t understand to make you feel like you don’t know anything.

-Grandma’s 80th birthday this weekend. And once grandma goes to bed my cousin and I are sneaking out for a pre-grad party with her friends.

-Plan for hangover on Sunday from said party

-Go to pre-grad hair appointment on Monday and have an angst session with my stylist while we figure out what to do with my hair for the grad banquet.

But seriously how awesome are my shoes?

-Get those little nipple stickers because I can’t wear a bra with my grad dress. I don’t want to have to cross my arms every time it gets drafty at the banquet.

-Break in the mint green four inch platforms (they seemed like a good idea in the store while the saleslady gushed about how they make my legs look a mile long. I mean, they do, but I’m not sure I can walk in them.)

-Get accessories that will somehow match said shoes

-GET A SUMMER JOB because otherwise I don’t know how I’ll be able to pay for university

-Figure out when I have to register for university classes

-Figure out what to tell people when they ask me how the hell I plan on making a living with a journalism degree

-Finish reading Jane Eyre and then write a really profound essay about it to make up for the crappy excuse for a research paper that I submitted about Charlotte Bronte

-Try to not fail Chemistry

-At the very least try to not fall asleep in chem every day next week

-Pray for no rain on banquet day so that we don’t have to take grad pics in someone’s living room

-Take photos of field hockey, the world’s most boring and pointless sport, for the school paper (seriously what is the point of making the ball so heavy and the sticks so short that you have to hunch over? It’s like they’re purposely trying to make the game suck)

-Get caught up on Grey’s Anatomy before the season finale

-At least make an appearance at soccer at some point so they know that I’m still alive

-Ditto with track practice. I just need to attend enough practices so I don’t actually face plant in hurdles at the upcoming meet

-Send the school paper to the printers after editing all 48 pages. 48 pages of crap I might add. My articles are included in that crap because I haven’t had the time or energy to care all that much.

-Listen to all the hipster music Pal keeps sending me

-Try to remember to enjoy my senior year or something

-Try to remember why I thought I’d enjoy my senior year

-Try to not scare off all of my friends with the angsty noises I keep making

 

How to be a chemistry teacher

Hey you! Yeah, YOU! Have you always wanted to teach high school chemistry? GOOD NEWS! It’s very easy and requires almost no effort Here’s some quick and easy tips to get you started:

-The longer you talk, the more your students will listen. Make sure to go off on tangents about topics that aren’t in the curriculum. Hell, you might as well talk for the whole class, because it really helps students learn, especially in first period. That glazed over look their eyes have? That means they’re listening really closely.

-Read straight out of the textbook. Students don’t know how to do this on their own, so they’ll appreciate it.

-Pare down your wardrobe to three gaudy, ill-fitting shirts from the 70s. This will show your students that you care more about your teaching than you do about your appearance.

-Comb over your hair to cover up your receding hairline. It totally works; you can’t even tell that you’re bald.

-Add personal anecdotes to your teaching. For example, when talking about conduction of sound waves, mention how you once went to a Metallica concert and didn’t like it because it was “too noisy.” Stories like this will help you connect with the young people you are teaching.

Remember, if your entire class fails the provincial exam, it’s not because you didn’t prepare them properly. They’re clearly just lazy, or else they don’t understand your genius.

 

On growing up

I like to joke about how at 18 I don’t feel qualified to be an adult. However, the truth is that it’s been a long time since I’ve really felt like a kid. Probably at least since before I started high school.

I mean, I know that I’m lucky. I’ve never been poor or starving, and I spent most of my childhood with two parents who loved me. And at least I got to have a childhood. Most of the kids I met in Kenya learned to cook and do laundry and take care of their younger siblings at maybe four or five years old.

That’s why I’ve never let myself complain about my mom’s death, or use it as an excuse. It could be so much worse. I’m constantly reminding myself of that.

My mom always ran a tight ship. She was the one who enforced rules and made my brother and I clean up after ourselves and be on time for dinner and take responsibility for household chores. That feels so distant now. It’s been years since then.

Now that it’s just me and my dad, it’s different. Some days it’s easy. I like being independent and I like that at my house I don’t have a curfew and I can come and go as I please. I like that I eat when I want and go to bed when I want and when I need something I buy it myself and my dad just pays me back. I’m good at doing things on my own.

But every now and then, maybe every month or two, it hits me that there’s no going back. Gone are the days when I had someone to remind me to wipe off the counter or get ready for soccer practice. My dad loves me to pieces, but he’s never been good at that stuff. Now there are crumbs left on the counter and I remember to go to practice on my own.

In the past few years I’ve learned what it means to be an adult: it means freedom and independence, but it’s also tiring and lonely. Some days I wake up and think, I don’t want to do this anymore. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days before I drove my mom to chemo appointments and pushed her wheelchair and made her soup and cleaned the floor when she puked it back up. Back when she baked muffins for my school lunch and nagged me to practice piano. If only I could go back there.

These are dangerous thoughts to have; they’re the kind that could break me if I’m not careful.

Church: all the cool kids are doing it

I feel like I can talk to my school friends about anything and it’s awesome. However, there are two exceptions. The first is my mom’s death, because people who have never known someone who died get freaked out about the whole idea of like, dying and stuff. Plus, I think that the fact that I’m so cavalier about the whole thing even though it was only two years ago freaks people out even more.

The other thing that my friends get weird about is when I talk about church. I always forget that as a regular church-goer I’m a minority in my generation. For me, it’s always been a part of my life, so it rarely occurs to me that there are people who have never even walked into a church. I think a lot of people are scared of the whole idea.

I blame the religious crazies for all the church stigma. I don’t just mean terrorists and rapey priests either. I mean those regular people who feel the need to go up to random strangers and be all like, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” Everyone knows those people. That form of relies craziness bugs me so much because it doesn’t attract people to the church, it scares them away from it. I’m all in favour of evangelism, but you don’t get people to accept God into their lives by being all confrontational.

I want people to know that church isn’t like that. Or at the very least, my church isn’t. It’s not about being judged or knowing all the answers or memorizing the bible. A church congregation is supposed to be like a family; you’re supposed to make friends and build relationships and share your faith and ask questions and struggle together and triumph together.

Anytime it comes up, I love to tell people about my church. It’s a small place with maybe 300 members, which is cool because everyone knows each other. The service is an hour long, but we are usually there for two or three every Sunday because before and after we talk with everyone about their lives and our lives and whatever else comes up. Everyone genuinely cares about each other, no matter their age or background or income or culture or even language. There’s this one Japanese woman who speaks barely any English, but she’s been in the choir for years now and apparently she’s really enjoying it and everyone in the choir loves her.

I have all kinds of different friends at church. There’s a lovely lady in her fifties who is a bit of a shopoholic and is always giving me her hand-me-downs because we have the same shoe size. There’s a 13-year-old girl who I go out for lunch with sometimes and assure her that life gets better after junior high. Then there’s a hilarious couple in their twenties who sit in the pew in front of me, and a whole parade of old ladies who loved my mother and want to hear all about my life, and the assistant pastor who is always down for deep philosophical chats. On of my favourite people in the world is my friend’s grandmother, who always mutters sarcastic comments and plays with my hair in the pew behind me.

I know I don’t mention it a lot, but my relationship with God is really important to me and I know that He has a plan for me. He’s always been there for me, especially through the tough stuff like my mom’s death. I see Him working through the people in my church all the time. When my mom was sick, they were constantly bringing casseroles and checking in on us and offering to drive me places or cut our grass or serve us dinner. For most of grade ten my dad was too busy taking my mom to treatments to drive me into the city for school, so a different member of my church would drive me every day. Even now, so many people remember the anniversary of her death and check in on my dad and I to see how we’re doing all the time.

So maybe you feel like God is there, and maybe you just can’t see him in your life. No matter where you’re at, I hope you’ll give church a chance. It’s not just about showing up and reading a bible. Church is a safe place to land, it’s a support system when times are tough, and it can become family if you find the right place. For me, God is love, and I see that love every week in the faces that smile at me on Sunday morning.

TGIF

This was me today in chem class.

The bear that falls asleep on his face is my fave. OOOH and the kitten at 3:56. And the dog at the end omgomgomg…

Happy Friday!

The true meaning of friendship

I am the one on the ground in this situation
(Source)

The true meaning of friendship is lying to each other’s faces. No, seriously.

But only about certain stuff. Like today we had a track meet and I, having worked out maybe half a dozen times since I got back from Kenya in February, got dead last in my race. Dead. Last. And okay, I wasn’t really surprised. I had mostly signed up for track because I get to spend the whole day of a track meet hanging out with my friends just to run a one minute race. Plus, I think running is kind of fun.

I expected to do badly, but not exactly this badly. My time was seventeen seconds slower than the winner, which is pretty brutal in 400m. I wasn’t super upset because track is not really a high priority for me, but I was a little disappointed that I was that slow, especially since this time last year my times were at least ten seconds faster.

My friends could sense right away that I was disappointed, and they knew just how to make me feel better. They didn’t take pity on me or tell me how sorry they were or tell me I’d do better next time. Instead, they decided to blame the whole thing on the race marshals.

Dee: What a rip-off! They messed up your time!

Jon: Idiots! They must have typed it in wrong.

Mat: There’s no way that’s your time. You weren’t more than five seconds behind the leaders.

Lies, all of it, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. Instead of being upset for the rest of the day, I moved on and ate Timbits and cheered on the other races and laughed and talked with the three of them.

Friendship isn’t about honesty. It’s about knowing your friend well enough to know how to be there for them.

Motivation

I remember when I cared about school. I used to dress up nice. I used to show up a little early to see my friends. I used to do my homework. I used to shower more than once a week.

It’s really hard to stay motivated when I have just over a month of high school left and only two actual classes. In fact, it’s really tempting to just give up going to school and just watch Netflix and sleep for the the next two months.

Here are my reasons for continuing to attend classes:

-I’ve been “sick” too many days this year already

 

 

 

 

 

 

-If I don’t pass English I actually won’t graduate

-I get to see my friends…who are just as depressed about being at school as I am

-I might meet a cute boy LOL JK

-When I stay home for two many days on end I start baking obsessively, and my dad’s cholesterol really can’t handle the fifteen cakes I might make

-I’ve already watched the first five seasons of Lost on Netflix but season six kind of sucks

(In case you were wondering, the last reason is the only one that’s motivating me go to school)

Why I love the point form blog post

And yes, I’m going to write this post in point form to prove my point.

-It’s faster to read. Because let’s face it, as much as you want to read 3000 words about your good blog friend’s cat, you also have about twenty or so other blogs you want to read and only so much time to do so.

-You have a lot of cat blogs to read (I dare you to prove me wrong on this one)

-It keeps writers from trying to hard to be poetic and add a lot of descriptive garbage to their posts. Let’s be real, we’ve all done it. I’ve written a few posts that now make me embarrassed to know me. I mean, “I don’t want to settle for a spark this time, I want fireworks?” What was I on when I wrote that? It definitely would not have been included in a point form post.

-You can include odd and humorous things on your list that would make no sense in paragraph form (See cat comment above)

So don’t diss the point form post. It still counts as writing, and frankly I’m about twenty times more likely to read a list post than I am a block of text. Can you really say differently?

Post party greeting cards

It’s pre-grad house party season at school it seems, and to be honest in the last few weeks all of my friends and I have done some stupid things. I mean, it’s high school and stuff happens, and it’s not a huge deal, but there’s still that awkward moment when you have to   see the people from the party on Monday morning.

To make this experience easier, I have devised some simple greeting cards that you can present to anyone you offended at a party the previous weekend. The fluffy animals and pastel colours will distract them from your idiocy. If they don’t actually smooth things over, they might at least assuage a little bit of the awkwardness.

This one is for that friend who was there for you at your lowest moment:

This one is for after that awkward hook up with a person you only kind of know:

This one is for when you were a particularly crappy party guest:

Who knows? This could be the way of the future for post party encounters. After all, there really isn’t any problem a card can’t fix, right?