A Nigerian Birthday Party

One thing I have gleaned from my three month stint in banquets is that one never knows how an event will go, and there's just no use in trying to guess.
This particular party was begun with a group of rather intimidating women, who arrived an hour early for festivities, and sat gloomily in a room devoid of people for another two. Their clothes were a stunning mishmash of tacky 70's prom (complete with over sized shoulder poufs), Cabana girl skirt ruffles, and very arresting eye makeup. Overall quite a vision to behold. The men wore tunics with funky head covers, sometimes also draped with tablecloth proportioned robes that almost brushed the floor as they drifted about greeting each other politely.
After an hour and a half of patiently waiting for the whole group to arrive, and the muscles starting to twitch around a fading "for guest only grin", I decided that night was going to be at the very least, interesting.My knowledge of Nigerian culture was increased tenfold as the minutes ticked by, and by the end I felt as if I had spent a year abroad amongst them. (Ok, not really, but it was a very, very long night...)
Much ado was made upon the entrance of each person, and each person's outfit crescendo'd in intensity, only broken by the occasional man in a business suit, or woman in a dowdy dress. (There were no sequins, or gems, or even much lace to be found at least, which I believe would qualify her as severely under-dressed).
Most the guests had arrived, two hours past the time when dinner was to commence, save two persons of rather gigantic proportions (in stature and  in personality). Their arrival was the capstone to the evening, in their opinion, and made this belief evident when they requested (requested is a polite term, actually they downright demanded) an escort to their seats. The two figures were very tall, big boned, and wore matching black and yellow gold dresses (with black lack collars, and sheer sleeves of course). My first glance informed me that our birthday party was now host to two fabulous drag queens. My second glance confirmed this, then confusedly stuttered to a halt when they spoke. Thick Nigerian accents flowed forth, but held the lilting quality that only females voices can posses. I think I might have startled and stared. However a few minutes later another server whispered in passing that our drag queens needed more water, and my suspicions were again confounded. I also must have thrown them off myself, because at one point I served them their dessert, and the woman who looked like a man, trying desperately to be a woman, looked directly at me and I put down her/his tiramisu, and said, "Gracias".

Nigerian jokes were told by the MC (who began the evening slouched in a chair, indifferently texting and looking extremely bored... I had a hard time picturing her telling jokes, or heck even staying awake). Her comedy routine sounded me more like someone gently playing the bongos, with random laugh tracks added, occasionally punctuated by enthusiastic exclamations like "mhhm!" from half of the audience who was actually paying attention. The white people in the room gave each other looks, eyebrows were waggled and shoulders were shrugged. This girl was hilarious, but we sure as heck didn't know why. Then an elderly gentleman shuffled up to the front of the dance floor, a very soft and husky voice scratched out over the speakers. His lower teeth protruded out, giving him a permanent stink eyed look that didn't cultivated any warm fuzzies. That, combined with the accent, the only thing I could think was a real life Nigerain Godfather was about to give a speech. I half expected, nay I prayed, he would look about the room and say with a diffident air, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse..." and flutes would cue in ominously.
In reality, he wheezed on for another forty minutes about Nigerian things or something causing much appreciative laughter from the festively dressed bunch, and the servers to shrug and smile blandly. I just pretended they thought he was a marvelous Marlon Brando impersonator too, and we all shared a good laugh.

Lester Ain't No Jester.

I suppose there was always a time in the back of my mind that I would indeed, eventually, graduate from college. A mere five and a half years worth of college, that felt much like my early childhood before I could drive, FOREVER.
It would also be mostly white noise to begin discussing all the responsibilities that are slowly drifting down and settling on my shoulders. Like stressful, ever present expensive snowflakes, I am afraid eventually I'll be completely buried by them. Goodbye carefree life of time to myself, at my discretion, of working when I wanted to and of watching tv for 16 hours three days in a row. Here, four days before graduation I have come into a new world known as Friggin Stressfulland. Full citizenship still pending (til I start my new job)

I did a class project at a veteran's home, just volunteering for a couple hours with an event they were hosting. Well, after driving up the winding and slightly ominous driveway, only to have no clue where to park, I decided solo volunteering was not my new favorite thing. After deciding that parking was better than driving around all night, I found a nearby entrance, from whence my journey began. I was shuffled from building to building, floor to floor, and spent quite a while standing awkwardly near nurses stations, sweating heavily in the 1000 degree atriums that frankly smelled quite farty. At one point and old guy rolled up to me in a wheelchair, head adorned with a jolly seasonal hat, and asked where I got my shoes. I cheerily replied, "China! I did an internship there". He harumphed loudly, and then called me a traitor. I laughed, thinking he'd join in on the fun...and then I realized his facial expression was that of one who wishes they could stand again, and perhaps karate chop the person nearest, who buys goods from a "commie country". Idk, either that or he needed a nap. I skeedadled as fast as my traitor shoes would allow me, away from anti-China, pro-Santa, Lester. I went downstairs again, tracked down a volunteer, and forced her to talk to me (ok I just followed her around and acted super meek until she felt sorry for me). Turns out, they didn't need my help, and I was free to go.
So volunteering is a great experience! You'll really get a sense of self worth while you're there, and learn things about yourself you never knew...like how patient you are with being sent on a wild goose chase, standing around in hot, smelly rooms, and being called unpatriotic for directly purchasing shoes that are supplied to the US anyway.

Next step, I hope I get to help an animal shelter, and get peed on or something. It'll really round out that "giving to give" feeling I've got going for me now.

No, I'm not writing this to avoid studying for the one final I have...I was really struck, uh with the need to write this evening...and I feel as if it is time to begin chronicling my new adventures in Grown-up land. I kinda want to treat the next couple years as an extended internship to this new country, so my posts should be fairly similar to my previous ones about China, minus coagulated pork blood and pantomiming a lot (well maybe I'll still pantomime)

In the next few weeks I will pack up, and move about ten hours away, to a place I won't mention by name, for professionality's sake. My new job starts in approximately 25 days. Plenty of time to get my life together, and be ready to enter the professional world. Also, lets keep the past experience of hiding in pantries and eating leftover cake as my main duties aside, and focus on the times I did professional stuff like...serve wine and tea. We can start off on the right foot, deal?

Interestingly enough, the night after I excitedly made a former coworker google "zombie cat syndrome" a coworker of my job now, began talking about how humans could possibly face a zombie apocalypse due to- and I jumped in with "toxoplasmosis".  His amazed reaction was well worth the fact that I spent hours on the internet to glean bits o' knowledge, just to regurgitate them at critical points in time.

Starbucks Makes Me Feel Grownup.

As I walked back to my apartment, tall drip Starbucks coffee in hand, sun on my face and breeze in my hair, I felt a small surge of pride. How grown up I have become!  Having just completed a sit down, to find a web designer for a start up business, all on my own, I patted myself on the back for being so professional.(incidentally, holding a to go cup of coffee with the brand logo kinda cultivates that feeling anyway, asI could've been returning from a finger painting session, and felt that way...) Also, I was wearing bright green flip flops, and I hadn't showered, but that did not negate the sense of accomplishment.
At this moment, making the small steps towards opening a business, I feel very mature. More mature than deciding to take an internship abroad in China, and more so even than how I felt when I returned, mind wide-open from the experience.

But now, as I sit in my  apartment, looking at the assortment of stuff I have, and being unable to procure any other great accomplishments and/or reasons why I am so grown up, my ego deflated a bit. Just a bit.
How exciting this opportunity is though! Of course, the foot work has been largely done by my colleague, the founder and owner of this shop, but I'm now included in the process and by the simple act, I feel...honored. Today, I love the idea of opening a bubble tea store, right across the street from where I live. Today, I'm thrilled to think about all the work, the tiny details that need finagling before a door opens to the public. And today, I'm so thankful I have this experience at my fingertips, right there sitting so readily, to be made into something wonderful and bigger than myself.

Here I will continue the euphoric gushings.

This store embodies more than a cup of tea with some flavoring, it means more than somewhere to sit before a movie starts, or while studying for an exam. Selling bubble tea is merely a front for a dream to come true, for the person behind it, to show his family and himself that our American Dream can be his dream too. Success comes from working hard, and believing in what you are doing, and I believe in him, enough to work as hard as I can for his dream.

Today I feel committed and ecstatic to be a part of this process.

Soon the small details will be knit together, then the larger pieces united to make one round and hopefully thorough concept. I cannot wait!

On a side note, I'll admit to having my fair share of caffeine today, and lack of a very stimulating work environment. The effervescent feeling I have now might just burst, and leave me feeling overwhelmed and frightened. As I should probably be feeling...but I've never had very logical emotion timing, so why start now!!

Bachelorette. A New Life.

This is not the first time I've lived alone, and it's not like I've never been alone before...but I'm not only roommate-less, but also single. The game has changed completely.
I've found a certain delight about an empty apartment, coming home to silent rooms, a clean kitchen (when I so desire), bathroom door that never closes and personal control of the tv and thermostat. Rushing home to my now furniture-less (besides the lawn chair and small tv) living room, to immediately discard unwanted pieces of clothing, e.g. pants and parking myself wherever and however I want, is the best part of my day. That moment of slight panic when that bout of last night's burrito ordeal wants to make an appearance vanishes when you live alone.
When you live alone, you can make really weird food combinations, and eat it sans judgment. Tuna straight out of the can? No problem. Room temperature? Even better. Scoop of pb followed by a hot pepper, it's your call! Any kind of alcoholic beverages can be consumed, and in whatever amount you so wish (despite this, I can't overcome the feeling of pathetic-ness if I get drunk by myself and I would probably end up crying on the bathroom floor). Another perk is the letting go of all dignity, letting it all hang out, not needing to suck it in all night, holding back toots, or wear appropriate clothing. Really, living alone brings out the beast in me....best of me?

Alongside those perks, as I've discovered, are the downsides, (a specific discovery prompted me to write this). Can you guess which one?
Living alone means you won't notice if you have a blueberry smoothie mustache for four hours. It means you start watching a rash of 70's films, and finding yourself relating to the characters more than people you interact with daily. Sometimes it means living off oatmeal and yogurt because cooking whole meals makes too many leftovers and you don't like the pressure of having all that food in your fridge. Its just a reminder of how few people live there, when the fridge is packed and things slowly go to waste. (I'm not a big leftovers fan, so maybe that's really a side issue).

But overall, living alone makes you talk to yourself more, internally or verbally. I find myself watching movies and enjoying them, and then I reflect upon the movie and decide its best I am alone, as my taste in movies might be questionable to the average movie buff. I find myself pondering life more, laying in bed staring at my ceiling, just listening to the quiet of my place. Only occasional chirps of birds interrupt, and I realize that I've spent a good hour not doing anything productive...and that makes me feel good too cuz there's no one around to say, "Uh, Ann...you should stop staring at your ceiling. Also...put on some pants".

Next phase of living alone is a mystery to me. All I know now is that there's no one else to take out the garbage, I maybe might just have to eventually clean my own mess up, and my neighbors next door might be slightly traumatized with the noises issuing from this apartment.


PS. I forgot the previous post was a sob fest of my feelings for my roommates leaving...guess I adjust faster than I so recently believed!

Letting Go.

What I hate about growing up is how suddenly it happens...no warning, just BAM and a new perspective is there. I'm not exactly reeling from the past month, with classes ending that merely  transitioned smoothly into a steady job...reeling is too strong a word. Not for the last time, I realize how slowly I actually deal with change. Here I am, near tears, because my roommates up and moved on...left to live their lives elsewhere. I've known about their leaving for a while, but never really thought about all the implications until today. Why this so deeply affects me, when they were practically strangers at the beginning, maybe I'll never know....but this I do know, I am very, incredibly saddened. The empty space of my living room that once contained bodies moving, talking, joking, eating, kitties batting milk cap rings around, and a tv buzzing with Family Guy or whatever show they were watching, is now an expanse of carpet, with a couple lamps, and a sense of lingering energy slowing fading. I want to dramatically sob and throw myself down on my bed, but the emptiness of this small apartment seems to steal the drama right out of me.
I came back from China needing a place to stay, and I found this wonderful cozy place, that seemed to be poised in the prime location for me, near food, near campus and within comfortable distance of social scenes. My roommates were pleasant but already neatly established in their routines, and I felt like a bit of an intruder into their world. Months passed and gradually that feeling left, and we simply became roommates. Comfortable in conversation and silences alike but no pressure in developing any relationship beyond that.

When you live with anyone, even if you don't sit down and discuss their everyone hope or dream, you really just know them. You sense moods, understand small changes of habits or flashes of facial expressions without ever really needing to divulge into personal accounts of how one reacts to different scenarios. You know them.
Now they aren't here. Five bodies occupied this small space, almost forced to coexist in one common area but separate in activities. The room hangs devoid of giggling, or cats chattering. Even the tv is gone, leaving behind giant blank walls that are too big and empty to look at. Not quite abandoned but definitely left behind.

I'm struggling to express my pain overall...not just that they left, but how easily we lived together, minor frustrations and irritations as to be expected, but general caring and concern too. It is difficult to imagine finding others that are so easily assimilated into my life, in such close conditions. I grieve for the loss. And I think the sobbing can commence now.

I'm Strolling/Moseying/Traipsing On Sunshine.

Its been a good long while since I have been inexperienced in a job, and/or am new to its workings. I don't count China as necessarily a new job, as the whole experience itself was new and a lot more involved than just being trained on how to make cappuccinos without killing myself. (I was trained eventually, however tragically my self esteem took some stinging blows in the process)
I started two new jobs in the past three to five months and I'm realizing how slow I really am at learning new tasks. A simple job of assembling sandwiches or pizzas suddenly becomes excruciatingly difficult and I'm forced to consult a chart every ingredient...Making a smoothie almost always results in humiliation and sloppy drinks. However, I have realized the importance of my last job, at Ford Dining Court, and its significant impact upon my next career, whatever it may be. Whatever skills I learned there, I can easily apply it elsewhere; managing time, finding something to keep myself occupied with, successfully conversing with people, understanding the importance of having a good relationship with my coworkers both administrative and peers...the list goes on and on. I've found myself reflecting upon the four years I spent there, merely as a student cook, or a low level student supervisor and I am so grateful that I had the chance to slowly build up those skills. I would not be were I am now without that solid background...so here's a shout out to the place that formed me, a freshmen with much to learn, to a super senior with still a lot to learn...but in a good non soul crushing way.

In about a week, it will have been a year since I boarded that fated flight to China...that flight that whisked me away and set my mind awhirl of new ideas, new perspectives and a plethora of stories to share. Cliche as it might be, I found myself through that journey even if sometimes I can't believe I survived at all. Nothing compares to that experience now, but I wouldn't be able to recreated it even if I tried. Honestly, I wouldn't want to either...that would be like wishing to relive your high school freshman year...ugh.
If there was something I could've told myself as I was there from future me, I would've said this, "Ann...you will freak out and say how much you miss home...spend too much time in your apartment and watch way too much Netflix. The time you have there is precious so go eat more Chinese food." Inspirational no?
I won't obsess about what I should've done; I should've bought more souveneirs for my family and friends, or tried to learn more Chinese, or spent more time wandering around the city/ traveling to other places...I could do that for a while. Instead I believe everything was good in itself, and happened just as it should've.

This was my last spring semester at Purdue*. Realization struck the last week of class, as my senior friends started becoming wistful about leaving, taking pictures at favorite haunts and trying frantically to make last minute memories before they walked across that stage. Maybe because I've been here for five years, I don't feel that urge to connect one more time to campus, and I don't believe I'll miss it that much. Check back in a year though...I have a feeling that sentiment will change.
*Fingers crossed. I should only have the fall semester left and I'm not looking to spend another semester more than I have to.

I've dipped my toes into the catering side of food service and I'm starting to get addicted. Mostly because we get heller leftovers and I get to bring home some awesome food. I've found the pace of it a definite adjustment to what I've done in the past year, but I like being in the back of house, with the hustle and bustle, the teasing and laughter and of course food always needing tasting. I've volunteered to be the top taster but apparently thats not a real thing and no one thinks its necessary.

New opportunities on the horizon are appearing and I'm coiled in anticipation. Some days the future is so bright and gleaming I'm too dazed to look at it. Other times, I look calmly upon what I consider to be an array of delicious possibilities. Its endless where I might go, who I might be, what I might do. Today I wear sunglasses and toast to the year to come.

Also, one of my coworkers in Marriott Hall, who is from Sri Lanka, has decided I was her long lost daughter, and she adopted me. She's 5' nothing, gossips like a hair dresser, and has more than enough sass for the both of us. Her name is Sriyani, but I call her Yanimama. We're celebrating the adoption with a pizza party where I will meet my new, unsuspecting father and brothers. Maybe I should adopt an accent quickly just to add another element of surprise...I'm thinking Spanish....

Peace Like A Beanie Baby.

 Last month, the orientation for this year's students to China snuck quietly upon me. I know the program continues on after each year..but it seemed impossible for it to start up again so soon! We were the last group to go to Dalian, at least for this year and maybe ever. The idea of that saddens me greatly. Here I have all this knowledge of that world, and no one to impart it on! I could barely contain my excitement for the orientation though, and had to physically shush myself in order to stop answering all the questions about previous years or experiences.
If you've ever met me, you know the very act of holding back answering a question I feel passionately about is near impossible. After the meeting ended, I felt as if I had finally come full circle, the experience had come to a final, contented end.

Inner peace has found me, and seems to be here for the long haul. (I really just imagine a soft cloud-like character with kind of beanie baby shaped proportions, which occasionally rests on my shoulder, or lovingly on my chest while I'm sleeping.) After nine months of struggling with adjusting, "finding myself"...I've found an inner quiet calm. All the angst-y posts I wrote now seem a bit over-the-top, but I also know I needed to write about it to process what happened. Sometimes I felt possessed by the need to write, and I did until it was worded out of me. Now I have few urges to emotionally explode in the form of a blog, so expect less...emotioning from now on I guess.

The semester, my second to last semester I might add, is half over. Time is hurtling past in a concerted effort to make me hurriedly soak up the last drops of an easy college lifestyle, and then shove me out into the world. I'm now really realizing what people meant by, "It'll be over before you know it".
Honestly, that phrase irks me. I am exceptionally organized in what's due, or what's coming up in my schedule, so its pretty much guaranteed that I'll be aware before anything ends. It's written in my planner, and I probably have some kinda calendar event or something set in my phone...it's not that hard.

Am I ready to graduate next fall?
I think I'll have soup for lunch tomorrow, thank you for asking. Next question please.