Ri-dic-u-lous

That is how yesterday was.

We finally made it into the building 45 minutes after we arrived when the campaign manager (who we love) arrived. Boss got there a full hour and 20 minutes after we had planned, and did not give any explanation.

We had planned to have volunteers arrive and canvass. Things were disorganized and we were somewhat unprepared because we had been locked out all morning and could not get everything ready. So we were frantically printing things and finding pens and water bottles in front of all the volunteers (and some financial donors). We certainly could have made a stronger impression.

We then all split into pairs and left the office. I was the lucky one who paired off with the boss.

Oh my.

Things were fine at first. And by fine, I mean the usual annoying things that I tolerate with a clenched jaw. When we got to our location, we separated and went out to canvass. And that was quite good really.

Then I got a phone call. From the boss. To get back to the car.

Because he had forgotten that a new employee was arriving and he was supposed to pick this person up at the airport.

So off we go rather frantically. And the traffic is bad. And the boss doesn't know the airline of this person or have his phone number. So how are we going to find him at the airport?

Boss gives me his blackberry to search through all his emails and find the one with the phone number and flight info.

There are 2414 emails.

He does not know the name of this person.

He does not know what day he was emailed.

How do I find the email?

Have I mentioned that I get carsick quickly if I am not looking out the window? I can't read or really do much at all in a vehicle if it involves looking at something.

So I'm starting to get queasy while flipping through thousands of emails and the boss is switching lanes periodically to get there faster.

We get to the airport after an hour. I have found the email. Boss takes off into the airport with his blackberry attempting to contact the new guy while I stagger alongside clutching my water bottle and attempting to remain mostly vertical.

We find him without too much difficulty, and apologize for being 3 hours late. Boss fibs a bit, blaming our tardiness on some bs communication problem that deflects the blame from him. I recover.

As we're driving out of the parking lot, things are looking good. We found the new guy without incident, remembered where we parked, and I am feeling fine. And then Boss realizes he has lost the parking ticket.

So we pull up to the attendant's booth and Boss gives some story about being lost and pulling in just for a second to turn around.

Doesn't work.

So he frantically searches. Now, I will be the first to say I am disorganized. Open my purse and a whole mess of crap will explode on you. But this man is just BEYOND. Random crap in every corner of the car, and his pockets. He pulls everything out of his pockets and, instead of putting it in a tray or cup holder, just dumps everything onto the floor of the car.

Decides to confess he lost the ticket. I guess everything about airport security has gotten severely anal recently. She takes the license plate number, driver's license, airline, flight number, and arrival time. Then confirms the flight information with someone over her radio. She decides to charge just for the time from an hour before the flight landed. Which is much better than the maximum rate.

But now Boss has to pay, and this proves to be a challenge. He hands over a broken debit card. This thing has been snapped in half. And then duct taped back together. I think that was the breaking point of ridiculous for me. I wasn't annoyed anymore, I was chuckling on the inside of how stupid all this was. The parking attendant was very confused and frustrated.

Once we finally get out of there, his blackberry rings. Of course, he can't find his headset because he dumped it on the floor with everything else. So in the midst of groping around on the floor for this thing, he doesn't listen to the GPS and gets onto the wrong freeway.

Poor new guy. This must have been the worst first impression. Boss tried to make some joke about the new guy being bad luck. He really has no idea what he's in for.

The Intermittent Stalker

He's baaaaack...and wants pictures...really not sure how to respond.

The stalker revisited

here is yet another email from "Saddam." funny how sporadic he is. i think AK would agree we wouldn't work out.

hey!!! how r u!!! i miss u so much, i miss PC's days....
how z everything going with u!!! and how z the SAT exam!!!when z ur school start!!! hope u r enjoying ur time
tc honey

Middle Eastern Stalker

Here's the whole (illustrated) story:
Over spring break I did a program in Washington, D.C.The program was run by Presidential Classroom and was called Future World Leaders Summit. (Yes, we had fun calling ourselves future world leaders of America). It was awesome because there were students from all over the world there. I was part of the Jordanian delegation.
(By the way, don't google image Jordan, apparantly a lot of strippers have that name, too)

We really bonded as a group and were known as the closest delegation there. One of the best moments was our street dancing for money.
Then, we tried to give all the money away to strangers and found that they are much ruder when you are trying to give them money than asking them for it.

Long story short, the week passed with visits to all the great places of DC. We were lucky enough to be there the week the cherry trees blossomed.At one point, we went to the senate building and accidentally stumbled into the hearing chamber (where people like Justice Alito - who we saw - are interviewed by the senators before approval). The room was supposed to be locked. It was really dark so we saw some buttons on the wall but our counsellor said maybe we shouldn't start randomly pushing buttons in a room of a government building that the security guards had told us not to go into in the first place. So we stumbled around in the dark and used the flash on cameras to see the room.

One of my roomates goes to a therapy school because she started sleeping around a lot when she was fourteen (lovely). She had to stay there for the first two years and could not even go home for Christmas (her parents were allowed to send her one present). Her therapist reads the letters she sends to her parents and friends, there is no rap music allowed, bed time is 8:30 and, if you open your door after then, an alarm goes off. She will be graduating in two months. There was soooo much drama around her it was like rooming with an episode of Laguna Beach.

The stalker part: There was one boy in the Jordanian delegation who began to get....close....to me. I noticed he started following me around and would sit next to me whenever he could. He followed me all around the Georgetown bookstore and put his arm around me several times. Kinda clingy and protective. Once I got back, he sent me this email:

hey!! how are you!!!! hope that you are fine!!! how did you do in the SAT exam!!!!

you know something, i didn't dry for 6 years, but when i knew that you left without saying goodbye to tou i cried......

nahida told me that you came and you were searching for me am sooooooooo sorry about what happened i hope that we will meet again....

i want to tell you something, i really liked you, you are the most beatiful grl i ever seen in my life, you have an amazing eyes, i really liked you and i hope that we can stilll together for the rest of my life....

thank you for everything, am so happy because i met person like you, hope to see you

(He means he had not Cried in 6 years - he was the least good at English out of all of the Jordanians)

The next day, he sent me this:

marhaba "hi", how are you!!!

so you have to visit jordan :) am fine the plane ride was good we had fun together

i hope that we will meet again and i hope that you will get a high mark in the SAT exam, we will be friends forever i will try to mail you everyday even if i only say "hi" to you just to keep in touch

by the way, i really meant what i said and i will never forget your picture

see you, yella

(yella is an Arabic word we all had a lot of fun saying and became an inside joke for our delegation).

Then yesterday I got this email:

hey lucy, am fine, how are you!! i remember that it was so funny i will ever never forget it and i will not forget ur eyes while we were looking at each other at the dinner...

ya i saw the pictures and i havfe pictures i will send them to u soon

hope to c u

bbye

best wishes

So, when do we think he will lose interest? (I'm kinda glad he is so far away so he can't "drop by." Bye the way, I do not remember looking into his eyes during the dinner. A and I have been calling him Saddam.

Totally unrelated: The girls from Japan were so cute and had really neat names.

Random Acts of Kindness

So today it was really cold. I mean really cold with wind coming fast and bitter. Of course I wore my cute backless tan shoes so my feet were freezing. I had to go to the library to do research for that awful history paper and A was supposed to come but didn't...grrr...so i was there alone...anyway, my mom dropped me off but spent the whole time bitching about how i can't take the bus and don't know how to do anything. so i was early and had to stand out in the cold for 20 minutes with these kinda seedy looking guys making me increasingly pissed off at R. Then I went in and didn't have too much trouble with reasearch but it really wasn't great. So I called my mom and had to sit outside again in the cold again. I guess you could tell how pissed I was at R and PGH by my face and there was this guy who had baggy pants, chains hanging all around (reminded me of Coop on pants days), lots of rings, dyed hair, tattoos on hands, etc. He was on his cell talking about liver damage and standing halfway up the steps pretty close to me which i thought was a little weird. Then he said, "I gotta go, love you, mom" which I thought was cute but then he turned to talk to me. Okay, I will admit that I am a spoiled little princess with somewhat irrational prejudices who gets really weirded out when strangers, especially "different" ones talk to me. So he said "Quit looking so happy! You look like your puppy just died." So I laughed a little and he said, "He didn't, did he? Good, cause then that would make me look like an asshole. Smile a little, it's a nice day...sort of." Then he went inside and it did kinda make me smile even though I was still a little weirded out. Then, only about a minute later he came back out of the library, went over to a little sign and bent down and pretended to pick something up off the ground (I am not sure if he pretended or actually did but I am pretty sure he pretended). He came over to me and I started thinking, "shit, he's coming over. He's nice but I just don't do strangers." I was pretty mortified that he would sit next to me but instead he just came over and handed me something and said, "Here, I found this on the ground, you looked like you could use an angel." Then he left. He had given me a little silver-colored oval shaped thing about the size of a thumbprint (creative comparison, eh?) and on one side was an embossed angel and on the other was engraved the word "healing." I really am still not sure what to think. Part of me is like, he was nice, a little weird, but sweet. The other part, the part that watches too many scary movies and thinks about them too much, thinks this is out of something like the ring where the angel is the angel of death or whatever. But I tend to have a crazy imagination so I will just go with the random nice stranger. I have to admit, even an hour or so later I was still in a kinda "good" mood after that. After typing this out, it doens't seem that real. It seems like one of those feel good stories people tell to reassure and inspire.