Wednesday, July 28, 2010

the nursing home

so uhhhh... it's 10:30. it's been forever since i've logged in. i feel kind dumb makin that whole to do list. ever since i started working, i havent had the time to write anything. i'm gonna pretend like i didnt post that. it'd be pointless to delete it i think. i mean anyone whos following me or has seen this has already seen it. and i'm too lazy to delete it anyways...

i'm just gonna go on about work right now, since thats the reason i havent written anything. i'm a dietary aide in cedar hill healthcare center. not a bad place i guess. there are different duties i take on depending on where they assign me that day. one day i'll be puttin soup on trays and then cleaning all the pots. another day i'll be puttin the resident's ticket, napkin, silverware, bottom and hot pellet, and 2 sugars on trays and then cleaning the food out of all the trucks (or food karts). on another day i'll pour coffee and send out the food trucks and then put plates and hot pellets back in their dispensers. sounds easy, pretty much kinda is, but remember, i'm doing it for over a hundred old people. and it gets pretty tedious. but whatever, i'm gettin used to it. the only thing that really does most of the tiring out and all the good stuff is the people there.

evening crew works from 3:30 to 7:30 (but we usually get out at 8). theyre all chill. the morning shift works from 6:30 (yes, thats right, i wake up 5:20 just to get ready for this) to 3:30. this shift is filled with grumpy assholes. "come on, hurry up!" "youre not doing it right" i always hear from them. "sorry man, i'm new!" whatever man. some of them are cool. i got a nickname. i was talkin to this one chick and didnt hear what she said. so i said, "i didnt hear what you said bro". and she responded, "bro?!?! want me to smack you?! callin me bro..." so now her and this other chick call me "bro".

oh yeah, i'm one of four people (not including bosses - which are only two) who are not black in dietary. me and my god-sister who got me the job are filipino, and then we got one dude whos indian and a chick whos... latin... i dont know what she is... but yeah, everyone else is black, which i think is cool. they all got thick accents. some or most are from jamaica. i know one dude is from giana. one dude from jamaica, whenever i'd see him gives me friendliest hello. "ay siiir! hows eet go-een?" he calls me boss sometimes. but yeah race and ethnicity aside, morning crew is filled with jerks. all they do is bitch and moan. i know this is what i'm kinda doin now, but they do also... a lot...

and then theres the residents. i kinda feel bad for the residents. some of them look miserable. they dont get a lot of visits from loved ones. theyre pretty much confined in there like a prison. with bingo.

some of the residents there are cool. kenny is an old black dude, glasses, cool hat, and mustache. he's always sayin hi to me, really chill man. another dude, george cabrales (i hope i spelled his name right) is cool. every day he asks me to get him a cola from the fountain. oh yeah, we have free fountain drinks. that thing is like my best friend there. whenever i'm thirsty, i'll sneak over there, grab a cup and take a gulp. we're not allowed to, but the people who trained me said i just gotta be careful of who i do it in front of.

bill is awesome. i dont understand a word that comes from his mouth. i understood three phrases from him out of all the times i've "spoken" with him. the one that stands out and is one of my favorite things thats happened to me at the nursing home, is when he said, "hm ah eez bra nerf you da man ryan. ha ha." whenever we "talk" i play along, he mumbles something and adds a small laugh at the end. i find it friggin hilarious.

this is gonna sound really mean, but i see a lot of those really old people you see in cartoons. the ones with the one tooth, hunched over in their wheelchair, baby faced expression, and childish speaking. it's kind of like they grew younger... but theyre good people. i've had no problems with any of the residents. theyre all nice people. working with them actually made me appreciate my youth. some of them cant eat solids. it's literally like being a baby again. they cant walk, i've seen one drool, as i mentioned they cant eat solids, i mentioned their baby faced expressions... seeing it all kinda just makes me think, "man i'm happy i'm still young".

work isnt that bad at all. i think i'm already used to it. but i dont wanna call it fact. i remember the third day, i came home an hour over clocking out time. i was dead tired. i remember feeling useless because of the people yellin at me that day. it was the morning shift and it was the douche bags that made me feel like that. but thats just an excuse. i was just being a wussy. it's all good now i guess. it's not as stressful as that day.

the only thing i dont like is that summer is half over and all i've done is work. i havent been able to hang out with most of the people i was looking forward to chill with over the summer. but whatever man. i knew that after high school, i would be kicked into the real world. this is it man. i gotta work to pay for school. oh yeah, look at that school's comin up in a little over a month. more work! yay! whatevers man. i'll manage.

by the way...
this isnt here to here me complain. i think i wrote this in another post. screw it man, i'm already typing this. but yeah man, i dont wanna sound like i'm complaining. i have a job which many people who are trying to snag are not able to obtain. it's puttin paper in my wallet (well rutger's wallet). and it's not a bad job. i'm pretty friggin lucky to have this job.

peace.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

to do list

i got a couple things i've been wanting/ already writing about. i just finished bigger sibling influence. i was gonna use that as a segway into punk influence, but reading what i already wrote, it doesn't work. and i was gonna use the punk influence to go into the question no one was able to accurately answer, "What am I?" (hipster, punker, preppie - i'm neither!) but yeah, and the last thing to write is how people try to be "free". that's gonna be fun haha.

- bigger sibling influence
- punk influence
- what am i?
- being "free"

and if anyone wants me to write about something else just give me something and i will

Bigger Sibling Influence

Bigger sibling influence. Bigger siblings, whether you like us or not, you play a gigantic friggin role in our lives. Older cousins, you too. This is something I've been saying for a while now. I'm not talkin about older siblings and cousins who live far. I'm talkin about the older people you grow up with, that you see almost every day or week. Parents, you play a gigantic role too obviously. I'm not takin that away. You raise us. You take care of us.

But it's the older siblings and cousins or even friends who we grow up together with those parents taking care of us that molds us. YOU are the reason why we walk and talk the way we do right now. YOU are the reason why we like this and hate that. YOU are the reason why we wear the certain types of clothing we got on our backs. Like I said, whether you like us or not, you influence us.

My friend admitted it to me. She looks up to her older sister. She told me to keep it secret, which is why her name isn't gonna be mentioned, but that's what she said. Even though they're not the closest sisters, she looks up to her older sibling. And I see the influence. The way she dresses, their sense of humor, their music, all influenced.

My cousin's children, whatever the older brother says, the younger does. Whatever the older brother says, the younger says. The older bro took off the lid from his drink from 7-11. The younger brother took it off and dropped it on the grass. I said, "AY! Don't throw your garbage on the floor! Why'd you take off your lid? He replied, "Kuya did it!" -_- ("kuya" [KU-YAH] is a Filipino label to older siblings or cousins. For example, I don't call him this, but my brother to me would be "Kuya John")

I have younger cousins in Virginia. I do not influence them at all because I only visit them once in a while. The duo is an older sister and a younger brother. The older one fines him annoying and vice versa. To be honest, the younger brother is a handful. But watching them grow up, I've watched them fight, constantly. But no matter how much they don't get along, if you look at the younger brother, you see the bigger sibling influence. You're not gonna see it in the way he walks, talks, or dress, but the interests are there. I took a look at his music in his PSP. He has the music she has on her iPod. And I know he doesn't just have them there because the sister put them there because she doesn't want to have to search and get his music. He sings along to those songs! Even TV shows they watch. He loves the shows that she watches. He just loves those Disney shows.

My older cousin from California, friggin HUGE influence on my brother and I. Most of the music that we listen to, we got from him. NOFX, Lagwagon, No Use For a Name, Rancid, Less than Jake, and a crap load more, we got from him. Well, actually, my brother got from him, and then I got from my brother. I'll explain that later. Anyways, even skating style was influenced. My cousin talked about surfing "DK". He took my brother's Silver Surfer toy and put him in DK position, or Drop Knee. My bro hopped on his longboard, riding the conrete wave DK.

Me, bein the youngest brother of two and the youngest of the Saavedra cousins, I know where all my inluences came from. But I know for a fact, the biggest influence was, no, IS, my brother. All the music I listen (even though I said it came from our cousin), I got from my bro. The movies I like - brother. The way I dress - brother. On many occasions when me and my brother go out, we walk out of our bedrooms and look at each other. "FRIGGIN AY JAY!" he yells, because we're both wearin plaid shorts and a band t-shirt. Then he goes and changes his shirt. One time he saw I was wearing my Rancid shirt. So he went back into his room and changed out of his Operation Ivy tee. Oh yeah, today! We went to see Predators with Millie. He saw I was wearin my NOFX so he changed out of his Lagwagon (both Cali punk bands).

Anyways you get the point. Bigger brothers and sisters and older cousins, watch out for us. We don't know anything. So we follow you (or at least from my own experience).

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Battery

I've always thought about it. We talked about it in Mr. Francisco's sociology class my senior year. Bad Religion even sung it. "I am a 21st century digital boy" My life runs on a battery. I'm even plugged into the wall sometimes. Today after work I wanted to just relax and watch some tunes on youtube (a common thing I do a lot in life). The thing was, that there was no internet. I'm not gonna lie, I was kinda bummed out. Captain Buzzkill of the day was Mr. Wireless Router for crappin out on me today, everyone give a round of applause. It's sad, that for me to relax, I needed a stupid screen that sings to me my favorite tunes.

When I'm not jamming, uhhhh... Hey! Check that out, I'm plugged into the wall via amplifier. When I'm not with friends... Oh wait, our cell phones keep us battery powered... Well, without cell phones... We're... crap... we've got our eyes glued to the screen watchin tv or a the movie screen, hands on a controller, coolin ourselves off with the air conditioning or else we melt away from the 80 degree weather, taking pictures of our non-narcissistic selves, listening to music even though we're talking to other people, or playing with our hand-held gadgets (PSPs, iTouches, Game Boys, etc.)

I'm not sayin it's bad. Well I actually kind of am. But this is the way we live. "Well I go out and play sports." Yeah man, I do too (although not as much as you do Mr. Ass-lete), but afterwards, you cool off in a pool, or grab a Gatorade out of your fridge, or cool off in your air conditioned home. Man I sound angry in this rant. Whatevers man. This is our society now-a-days. This is how we live. As much as I don't want to be technologically dependent (did I say that right?), we've gone too far to just go take all that good stuff away.

Hey look, I'm typing this thing on my laptop and posting it on the internet. And you're using the internet to read this... and your computer to access this content.

experienced with being not experienced at all

i used to say to people that i'm experienced with not being experienced at all. i've never had any real responsibilities. when ever i tried gettin a job, no one was hiring or was too young. high school work to me was nothing. i pretty much half-assed my high school career. i didn't work hard to be honest. i didn't do much. "well you did all those clubs and helped run the Hey Jude concert." yeah but that was all easy stuff. the people running the clubs and the show were really laid back people. i didn't work hard at all. for the eighteen years i've been chillin on this planet, i've pretty much done not much at all.

but today i walked into cedar hill nursing home, and made coffee for the WHOLE nursing home. i cleaned tables and trays and trays and trays of food. all the carts of food throughout the nursing home were cleaned out by three people, one them being me. then i took all the forks, spoons, and knives and put them into this little bag with a straw for people to grab the next day.

it wasn't hard, but it was really friggin tedious. i don't wanna complain though. i hear my friends complain about their jobs and i understand that it sucks. i don't blame them for saying how much they hate it. but they're payin me eight bucks an hour, so i'm just gonna smile and say it's alright.

:)

peace bra-dahs