I made it! It was a very long day, but my afternoon training in booth went... smoother than it could have... but then again, not quite as smoothly as it could have. By the time six o'clock rolled around, I was getting the hang of threading the movies, but it was just taking me a long time. One of the assistant managers, Dylan trained me and I joked that he didn't even need to mess with any of the film or projectors on purpose and have me fix it, because I'd managed to mess some of them up all on my own! So hopefully with a little practice over the next couple days, I'll be ready to run booth all by myself come 4th of July, when I'm working 4- midnight. And after my booth shift today , I moved downstairs to work the podium until close.
Some things that happened, I noticed or mused over throughout my day--
1. When talking with Nicole at work, we reminisced about a past employee and his deep, rumbly voice. I asked what she thought his voice looked like. She thought this was an odd question, but she was a good sport and told me she thought his voice was likely brown. This became the basis for a poem I later started writing on the back of a couple of test tickets, while hiding on the floor of the box office.
2. I HATE HATE HATE when people wear rosaries as jewelry. I'm sorry, any sort of prayer beads are never meant to be worn as an adornment for the neck or wrist. It is a sacred item and wearing it as jewelry is just disrespectful. I don't consider myself to be super-religious, but this has always peeved me. Today, I actually saw two different guys wearing rosaries around their neck and I really wanted to either say something to them or take it off for them.
3. I get equally annoyed when guys wear their pants down below their rear ends. Pants were meant to COVER your rear end, so what are they doing dangling below your tush? Guys: You just look silly and you're only tempting others around you to pants you. So do yourselves a favor and wear your pants where they belong-- your bottom! Also, the fad originated in prison. Think on that.
4. When movies were letting out today, I saw a girl pull a huge can of hair spray out of her purse and start spraying her hair in the hallway in a middle of a crowd of people. I was pretty surprised and even her boyfriend was a little put off... "What? I have to spray my hair," she whined. "It's getting limp." Interesting.
Not much else to say today, as my day was fairly boring and consisted of work...
I'll leave you with a pretty awesome ad my friend Kelsey sent me and had me watch. I miss living with her and analyzing ads and commercials as we watch tv each night.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mTLO2F_ERY
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Apprehensive and Indecisive
Today has been kind of uneventful. I worked this afternoon, and even though it was a very short four hour shift, I actually up a sweat running around helping clean theaters and running for people in the concession stand. This summer has been kind of dead as far as summers at the movies go, and today actually felt busy! I think this was at least partially due to the fact that today was a Tuesday and Tuesdays are often busier than Friday or Saturday nights. That's because we have 75 cent Tuesdays! It used to be 50 cent Tuesdays, and I still miss that-- it just has a much nicer ring to it. So everyone and their brother shows up to see a movie on Tuesday. But this summer, even Tuesdays have seemed less busy than they could be. I remember what summers and Tuesdays during the summers were like three and four years ago and nothing has ever quite come close since.
So I got home from a short, but busy afternoon at work and took a shower to rinse off the sweat and popcorn. I went and had dinner with my friend Marissa at The Fillmore Pub in downtown Plano. It was very dark, but very quaint. It had the feel of an American bar trying to feel like a European pub. I think it was maybe the music throwing me off... But their beer list was quite impressive, and Marissa and I each had a Snakebite-- Harp and Ace pear cider. Tasty!
So now I'm home and I'm suffering from music ADD as I type tonight's post.. I've hopped from Hanson to Rosie Thomas to The SplendourBog... And yes, I'm a Hanson fan. Yes, they're still out there making GOOD music. All right, I've said my piece.
But what's probably foremost in my mind right now is work tomorrow. Tomorrow, I am training in booth at the theater. For all you movie theater lay people out there, "booth" or UB, as the position is sometimes called, refers to running all the movies in the booth above the theaters. I'm going to learn how to thread the film in each of the projectors and how to start the movies. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry and that booth is actually quite easy. But after working at the theater for as long as I have, I have seen so many things go wrong with the movies, and that just makes me nervous. Also, I'm worried about how long it will take me to learn the process. I'm eager to know how to thread and start the movies, I just wish I could skip the learning. Can't I just have the knowledge instilled in me somehow?
So that's what I'm doing tomorrow til about 5:30. Then I'll work an evening shift at podium. It'll probably be a long day.
So for now, I'm debating whether to read some more of A Tale of Two Cities, which I have been slowly wading through or to go catch up on an episode of True Blood.
Decisions to make before I sleep...
So I got home from a short, but busy afternoon at work and took a shower to rinse off the sweat and popcorn. I went and had dinner with my friend Marissa at The Fillmore Pub in downtown Plano. It was very dark, but very quaint. It had the feel of an American bar trying to feel like a European pub. I think it was maybe the music throwing me off... But their beer list was quite impressive, and Marissa and I each had a Snakebite-- Harp and Ace pear cider. Tasty!
So now I'm home and I'm suffering from music ADD as I type tonight's post.. I've hopped from Hanson to Rosie Thomas to The SplendourBog... And yes, I'm a Hanson fan. Yes, they're still out there making GOOD music. All right, I've said my piece.
But what's probably foremost in my mind right now is work tomorrow. Tomorrow, I am training in booth at the theater. For all you movie theater lay people out there, "booth" or UB, as the position is sometimes called, refers to running all the movies in the booth above the theaters. I'm going to learn how to thread the film in each of the projectors and how to start the movies. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry and that booth is actually quite easy. But after working at the theater for as long as I have, I have seen so many things go wrong with the movies, and that just makes me nervous. Also, I'm worried about how long it will take me to learn the process. I'm eager to know how to thread and start the movies, I just wish I could skip the learning. Can't I just have the knowledge instilled in me somehow?
So that's what I'm doing tomorrow til about 5:30. Then I'll work an evening shift at podium. It'll probably be a long day.
So for now, I'm debating whether to read some more of A Tale of Two Cities, which I have been slowly wading through or to go catch up on an episode of True Blood.
Decisions to make before I sleep...
Monday, June 28, 2010
Recovery
So about five minutes ago, I was distraught. I was almost completely finished with my second blog post. It wasn't as long as yesterday's, but it was a labor of love. I was writing slowly at different points throughout the evening. I wrote about working a tedious afternoon at the theater, and coming home to have dinner with my family for the first time in several weeks-- grilled hamburgers with melted sharp cheddar cheese on top. I wrote about all of us sitting in our dimly lit family room, watching Quantum Leap on dvd.
I wrote about an afternoon of people watching at podium, where I tear customers' tickets and direct them to their theaters. I wrote about the bajillion cute little kids who were seeing movies with their families today. I wrote about two little blond brothers clad in How To Train Your Dragon tshirts, grinning excitedly as each of them held one of their mom's hands on their way to see guess which movie... I wrote about a little girl who came up to maybe the middle of my thigh. She had dark curly hair pulled into a bouncy ponytail. I couldn't see her eyes because she wore a pair of tiny, pink Dora the Explorer sunglasses, which she refused to remove even inside the theater. But each time she passed me at the podium, she smiled, her round cheeks dimpling, and she waved. I wrote about a dad and his little boy, also on their way to see How To Train Your Dragon. The boy came to his father's waist, clasped his hand and walked quickly to keep pace with his dad. They were dressed to match, from their green and blue plaid button up shirts and khaki cargo shorts to their sandy, chin length hair.
"You match!" I exclaimed to the boy.
The dad looked a little embarrassed, and insisted that they only matched a little. I fought the urge to protest that they definitely matched more than "a little." And as they passed me at the podium and made their way to theater eight, the little boy looked at me over his shoulder, and grinning, informed me, "We like to match."
All in all, it was one of those days at work where the customers actually made it better.
So that's the general gist of my original blog post tonight that completely disappeared because my finger twitched and the next thing I knew, everything I had written was gone.
Good night for now.
I wrote about an afternoon of people watching at podium, where I tear customers' tickets and direct them to their theaters. I wrote about the bajillion cute little kids who were seeing movies with their families today. I wrote about two little blond brothers clad in How To Train Your Dragon tshirts, grinning excitedly as each of them held one of their mom's hands on their way to see guess which movie... I wrote about a little girl who came up to maybe the middle of my thigh. She had dark curly hair pulled into a bouncy ponytail. I couldn't see her eyes because she wore a pair of tiny, pink Dora the Explorer sunglasses, which she refused to remove even inside the theater. But each time she passed me at the podium, she smiled, her round cheeks dimpling, and she waved. I wrote about a dad and his little boy, also on their way to see How To Train Your Dragon. The boy came to his father's waist, clasped his hand and walked quickly to keep pace with his dad. They were dressed to match, from their green and blue plaid button up shirts and khaki cargo shorts to their sandy, chin length hair.
"You match!" I exclaimed to the boy.
The dad looked a little embarrassed, and insisted that they only matched a little. I fought the urge to protest that they definitely matched more than "a little." And as they passed me at the podium and made their way to theater eight, the little boy looked at me over his shoulder, and grinning, informed me, "We like to match."
All in all, it was one of those days at work where the customers actually made it better.
So that's the general gist of my original blog post tonight that completely disappeared because my finger twitched and the next thing I knew, everything I had written was gone.
Good night for now.
My foray into the blogging world
Hello World!
My name is Katie and this is my blog. Even though I don't feel like one, I am now an adult. No, I didn't just turn 18. A little over a month ago, I graduated from Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. (It still feels very surreal saying that I've graduated from college. I wonder when that feeling will go away...) So at least for now, I am no longer a student, but a "real person." However, I am still living at home and I still lack my own car. Then there's the added pressure of having several friends who already have real lives and jobs--jobs that are actually in their chosen field. Oh well. Baby steps, I suppose.
I've moved from the South Bend/Notre Dame area back to sunny, hot'n'humid Dallas, Texas and I'm living at home with my parents and three younger siblings. I've gone from a lovely, spacious on-campus apartment that I shared with three of my close friends and where I had my own room and shared a bathroom with one other person to my good ole 10x10 bedroom that I share with my sister, Debby and bathroom that I share with my sister and two brothers. I also have a pretty sizeable cluster of stacked boxes and two footlockers sitting in our garage.
So here I am, in transition, or limbo, as my mom called my ambiguous situation the other day. I'm a college graduate with a bachelor's degree in English: Lit and Creative Writing and a frightening accumulation of student loan debt the size of Texas. What am I doing with my life? I am presently working the same job I've had since my senior year of high school and that I've gone back to every summer and holiday I've been home during my college years. I work at Cinemark discount movie theater. If you're from the area--the one at Coit and Park. There will likely be some stories coming your way in the not so distant future.
So that's sort of an introduction. Many blogs I have seen, read or visited often seem to have some sort of overarching theme. Well, I don't feel like limiting myself to a topic or subject that might become too narrow, so this blog is really just for me and whoever else out there might be interested. I'm an aspiring writer, (but then again, who isn't nowadays?) and I sometimes have trouble finding inspiration or motivation to sit down and just WRITE. Friends have been encourating me to start a blog for a while now, so we'll see how this goes.
I feel the need to explain the title/name of my blog. It's not just meant to look the way my name sounds with a stutter, but it is from a World War I song that has held a special place in my heart ever since I was little. The song is "K-K-K-Katy," and the story goes that when I was born, the doctor started singing the refrain to the song, and it's sort of been my song among my family ever since. My dad would sometimes sing the refrain to me before bed. Well, that or "Edelweiss."
Anyway-- on a whim, I googled the song just to see what might pop up and to find the lyrics, and I was ecstatic when I found a recording of the song from 1918! This singer's voice is a little weird, but hearing someone actually sing the song made me happy.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/katy.htm
So with that, thank you for reading. And good night.
My name is Katie and this is my blog. Even though I don't feel like one, I am now an adult. No, I didn't just turn 18. A little over a month ago, I graduated from Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. (It still feels very surreal saying that I've graduated from college. I wonder when that feeling will go away...) So at least for now, I am no longer a student, but a "real person." However, I am still living at home and I still lack my own car. Then there's the added pressure of having several friends who already have real lives and jobs--jobs that are actually in their chosen field. Oh well. Baby steps, I suppose.
I've moved from the South Bend/Notre Dame area back to sunny, hot'n'humid Dallas, Texas and I'm living at home with my parents and three younger siblings. I've gone from a lovely, spacious on-campus apartment that I shared with three of my close friends and where I had my own room and shared a bathroom with one other person to my good ole 10x10 bedroom that I share with my sister, Debby and bathroom that I share with my sister and two brothers. I also have a pretty sizeable cluster of stacked boxes and two footlockers sitting in our garage.
So here I am, in transition, or limbo, as my mom called my ambiguous situation the other day. I'm a college graduate with a bachelor's degree in English: Lit and Creative Writing and a frightening accumulation of student loan debt the size of Texas. What am I doing with my life? I am presently working the same job I've had since my senior year of high school and that I've gone back to every summer and holiday I've been home during my college years. I work at Cinemark discount movie theater. If you're from the area--the one at Coit and Park. There will likely be some stories coming your way in the not so distant future.
So that's sort of an introduction. Many blogs I have seen, read or visited often seem to have some sort of overarching theme. Well, I don't feel like limiting myself to a topic or subject that might become too narrow, so this blog is really just for me and whoever else out there might be interested. I'm an aspiring writer, (but then again, who isn't nowadays?) and I sometimes have trouble finding inspiration or motivation to sit down and just WRITE. Friends have been encourating me to start a blog for a while now, so we'll see how this goes.
I feel the need to explain the title/name of my blog. It's not just meant to look the way my name sounds with a stutter, but it is from a World War I song that has held a special place in my heart ever since I was little. The song is "K-K-K-Katy," and the story goes that when I was born, the doctor started singing the refrain to the song, and it's sort of been my song among my family ever since. My dad would sometimes sing the refrain to me before bed. Well, that or "Edelweiss."
Anyway-- on a whim, I googled the song just to see what might pop up and to find the lyrics, and I was ecstatic when I found a recording of the song from 1918! This singer's voice is a little weird, but hearing someone actually sing the song made me happy.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/katy.htm
So with that, thank you for reading. And good night.
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