We'll Be Counting Stars

I got to meet the little girl I might help take care of through out the week! I made sure to include Disney into my outfit and she seemed to like it but stayed very shy. I hope it went as well as I think it did!

Tonight I have to go to work and then final practicum time tomorrow! We get to finish filling out paperwork, get our final evaluations, and then clean. Fun!

Big Girls Don't Cry (I Wonder Why)

Remember how I said I would be scrambling? It has already begun. After work today, I went to the clinic to A) apply for babysitting/nannying positions because those jobs can end up paying some serious money, B) finish client paperwork so that next Thursday is an easy transition out of the clinic, and C) to have a meeting with the department about my class' experience this semester. I was lucky to have the experience that I and I will stick to that story. None the less, there were things that could have been better so attending the meeting with my classmates needed to happen.

After all of this was finished, I went home to start watching Wall Street for a paper that is due on Tuesday. Things didn't go as planned. My arm started to hurt, I had to have some serious conversations with some people. I got through half of the movie and then fell asleep.

Whats a Greecian Earn

I didn't get as much done as I thought I would and now I have to go to work until midnight. I did however go with Ilysa to get our group hours finalized. We were able to meet with our site supervisor and solidify a spot next semester for running groups. Go us.  Last day of prac tomorrow!

It's All About the Money, Money

Work went well today if not a little slow. I got to work with some of my favorite cast members which made me happy. Making money is a priority right now so I need to be way more mindful about where I'm spending the money I have and about what hours I can get. 

This means I should not have spent 15 dollars in dessert items today. But, it happened. 

I ate pretty wel today though! So that's good. 

I'm a mess. 

You Gotta Fight

I totally forgot to do a blog yesterday. I am a failure. 

Actually, that's not entirely true. We woke up around 11am, bummed around until 2, went to have lunner with Peter's parents, and then I had to go to work until midnight so yeah. 

 

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

And sleep and not be stress out and not have to worry about studying things like all of the needless assignments for Multicultural class. AND GIRLS JUST WANT TO FEEL PREPARED FOR TESTS. Well everyone probably does but still. 

I Like the Way You Work It

I overslept and wasn't able to do more laundry before work. I went to work, bought some Tsums, and helped out a coworker. I'm suddenly so tired and hot. I don't want to go to prac tomorrow 

Food: blueberry muffin, two slices of left over pizza, and then I went to Sonic and ordered a burger, tots, and a peanut butter milkshake because I hate myself.

Lose Track of My Lifelines, Lose Track of Myself

This week has been a week of early wake up calls which results in not a ton of sleep for someone who has night classes. That being said, I could learn to appreciate that routine if I could figure out how to fall asleep earlier. Anyway, today's work day was very long (9am-6pm) and resulted in three hours of playing the Sims in order to decompress (I MADE A KILLER WEDDING PROPERTY I AM SO PROUD). 

I then got to talk with Peter, Kayla, and Harley who shared their support and checked on me. My co-workers Lindsey(I don't actually know how she spells it) and Lori also checked on me today just to make sure I was doing okay. The answer is I'm doing better with things/ at handling my life, but I'm not okay yet. Words cannot express what it means to me to have so many supportive humans. I am so incredibly grateful. 

hmmm, Whatcha Say

It has been a pretty average day minus it being the real Valentine's Day. And the fact that I feel worse. I've been sick for like two weeks now and I'm just not sure what to do. Doctors are expensive!

Anyway, I should have gone to bed three hours ago seeing as tomorrow is the day from hel- I mean Monday. 5 AM. UGHHH. But, instead I played Sims (there is a really good quest right now guys) and made a spread sheet of apartments. We are going to pick from this list dangnabit. We have some exclusion criteria but in theory we would like a one bedroom apartment that allows pets, has a washer and dryer, and is in a neighborhood that isn't going to get us shot. So what do I do? I fall in love with a two bedroom house/apartment thing that is in an area known as Crime Hills. Go me guys, go me.


I'm just going to go cough myself to sleep now. Peace.

Wait. Forgot. Thanks again to my wonderful boyfriend who gave me such a nice early Valentine's Day night last night! It was so sweet and I loved it so much!

Tonight We are Victorious

I survived my 9 hour shift! Practicum tomorrow and all of my paper work is done! That is all.

High Ho

I have an an early work day tomorrow so in a nut shell:

Shift at work, bought some chocolate, Matt and I went to help Ilysa calm her nerves about her clients tomorrow, and now my tummy hurts. Cool 

Lose My Mind

An 8 hour shift at work dragged on to feel like ten but the day wasn't as awful as it could have been. I was surprised to see financial aid show up in my bank account today so that made the day better. Budgeting and grocery shopping made it a little less better (as did all of the doors being locked to the clinic) BUT burgers were on sale at Publix!! And so were my rice sides! 

*update! Peter has ruined the day by getting crumbs in my bed 

You Better Work B****h

And I did! Well, kinda. I did some assignments, looked into the budget, and sent out emails. Ilysa and I pretty much have our group finalized which is awesome sauce. Super props to her for being the liaison of that whole thing. I did some laundry and picked up the supplies for prac tomorrow. First day of clients!!! 

And then Danielle and I went to the gym and it was painful but good. And now I'm actually at work! Look at that.

Ain't Nothing Ring

If I am being honest, I have no inspiration. I went to work. I took a four hour nap. I have practicum tomorrow. Till tomorrow?

I Swear I Meant to Write

Okay so I admit that I haven't been on in awhile and that my weekly blogging dreams for February just didn't happen. I chalk that up to the conference at the end of January and then assignments and work taking over. February in a nutshell was a roller coaster of happy and sad, excited and bored. I had a date and I don't know how I felt about it. Work intimidated me and then made me laugh at how ridiculous it could be. I went to Disney like 6 times and took SO MANY BUSES TO AND FROM WORK IT IS RIDICULOUS!! I also started driving lessons and spent 300 dollars on prescription sunglasses so that I don't close my right eye whilst driving. 

The predominate emotional throughout February though has been sadness.  Adjusting to this new life is apparently not something I can do right away which is odd for me. I have always been able to figure things out and adapt and that skill just isn't kicking in here. I love my major and what I'm learning but I seem to hate everything else. I'm trying so hard to be positive and to figure everything out but all I want to do is break down and cry (like today on the bus) or curse the universe (also like today on the bus) or see how I can go home (again, one of the things I did on the bus). Of course then logical Kaitlin takes over and says "start studying for Wednesday's test" and being sad isn't an option (on the bus).

Pixie dust for March?  

Gotta Keep Your Head Up

"I'm seeing all the angles, starts to get tangled

I start to compromise

My life and the purpose.

Is it all worth it?

Am I gonna turn out fine?

Oh, you'll turn out fine.

Fine, oh, you'll turn out fine.

But you gotta keep your head up, oh,

And you can let your hair down, eh.

You gotta keep your head up, oh,

And you can let your hair down, eh.." 

- Keep Your Head Up- Andy Grammar

I had hoped that being able to go home and have a reset would help the situation here in Orlando but it really didn't. Saying goodbye again and knowing that I was coming back to a place that I am not so fond of at the moment just didn't feel good. I blame all of this negativity and lousiness on that first day here and being so sick right before it. If you don't have a good foundation, how can you build a home?

This week, which has consisted of wrenches in the system and even more tears, started on Tuesday when I came home and decided that it was time to explore the bus system. My roommate Danielle was nice enought to explore along with me which I am grateful for. The trip using the UCF bus isn't bad at all. But the city bus and all of its transfers and stops was enough to make me come home and cry. This is not a condusive state of mind when you have to write a paper about how you are going to change your psychological wellness. That assignment did however help me figure out a bunch of little things which I will probably post about tomorrow.

Anyway, I had to be back to work at 9 am so I figured I would take the UCF bus and then a cab from that point. In order to make sure that said cab would be there on time I decided to reserve it the night before. They promised it would be there right at 8:45 am and that the driver would call me at 8:40. They lied and I was 20 minutes late to my first day at a new store. 

The physical store wasn't too hard to adjust to but the people will be. I am coming from a tightknit, familial enviornment where I have spent 2 and half years getting to know people. I already feel like some of them don't like me here and I am not quite sure why. I was doing everything that I would normally do at my store but they all seemed grumpy or unimpressed. Hopefully today's shift is better. 

The final wrench to my week so far was yesterdays quest for answers about my financial aid. Disbursement started yesterday when it was supposed to start Monday and literally everything that I manage monetarily was due today. They said that it disbursed but that I won't see my refund check until Monday. Luckily I have enough to settle a few of said monetary managements. Never the less, that whole debacal paired with the new found problem of "Grad students taking an online class cannot have the school health insurance" resulted in a mental breakdown and streaming Law and Order SVU for 6 hours. 

I completely left out the drug dealer/hitman/whatever-it-was experience (I did not buy drugs or order a hit on anyone, I was just a bystander) because then this post would be even longer but in that experience, the dealer of what ever it was told me to keep my head up and " you'll get there girl" which he had no idea how much I needed it. I am trying to make friends and I trying to hard to motivate myself to want to be here. Just keep swimming. 

Chaos Does Exist

When I woke up this morning at my friends house I had no idea that today would be... exciting.

I figured that I would go to work and that it would be mildly obnoxious and then I would go home and continue packing. I had planned for this to be the case. I NEEDED this to be how it all panned out. It was not.


I wanted to write this elegant, P.C. post about how today's events occurred but I can't. I have no way of describing the fear on every person's face as they ran into my store seeking shelter. I can't tell anyone what hundreds of people screaming sounds like. I don't know where to start talking about what it felt like to see so many people hiding, COWERING in fear of losing their lives and the lives of their children. All I can tell you is what I saw happen.

Around four P.M. today I was standing at the front of my store when I witnessed around 15 people jump back and in to my store. Then I heard shouting and I saw hoards of people running for cover in stores and towards exits. A mother left her child in what she must have felt was the safety of my door way while she fought the sea of scared parents trying to get to her other child in the play area. Those three sentences took place in about 6 seconds. Then a stampede of around 70 people ran in to my store ignoring all calls for order and shouting about a shooting, a bombing, and fires all at the same time. When large crowds of people start to panic is it really easy for things to get out of control. That being said, we got them out of the store and evacuated to the outside of the mall without any casualties or injuries. While the rest of my team was doing said evacuation, I was trying to close the gates for everyone's protection. People were still running towards the store as I closed the gates and others were running out to find family members. Chaos at it's finest.

Eventually, the gates did close and I was able to direct those that I found hiding around the store as I made my way back to walk towards the other cast members. The only problem was many of those guests didn't speak English so instead of following verbal instructions we had to take the extra time to physically show them. But, like I said, everyone got out.

The duration of these events were maybe 6 minutes. Then myself and three of my other cast members sat in the back room and waited for someone to tell us what was happening. I called my sister and gave her a brief run down and told her to stay away from the mall. She said that she would go home and turn on the news so that she could give us updates about the villains running around the mall.
The news and social media informed us that said villains decided to break in to glass cases at a jewelry store and it sounded like gun shots so literally everyone started panicking and running and screaming and hiding. Finding out this information took the swat team, TPD, Highway Patrol, the FBI and I don't even know who else. At least they take shootings seriously I guess. 

Nearly an hour later the almighty "they" said everything was fine and the mall was no longer on lock down. We were free to open our stores and continue business as usual even though no one was caught. We followed these instructions and not even 20 minutes later I look up from the inside of the castle to see another mob of humans running and screaming. I stand up and there are 15 or so officers surrounding an individual on the stairs and that's I when I yelled to the others in the building and ran to shut the gates. We got them closed faster this time because of some assistance by another team member and then we went to the backroom for another 30-40 minutes and made more phone calls. The cops told us that it was safe to exit but they had also told us it was safe the first time. We were a little weary to listen again. 

When we finally decided to open we decided to do it right. We set up the stanchions and gathered a group of kids outside to call for Tink. If we were going to continue business we were going to use magic as a conduit for happiness. We walked the key down and had this huge group of kids count with us. Most of them RAN into the store to color and find new treasures. We handled that whole situation better than I EVER could have imagined, and I have. I have literally sat there and thought about what it could possibly be like to have to deal with a shooting or a threat. I don't think that even my wildest thoughts about the subject come close to what happened today. That being said, I'd say we were our own version of heroes today and that makes the craziness a little bit better.

Third Day Packing

And I still have not finished under my bed, I did however have to hang up like 200 t-shirts at work.

AND I was able to do finish the laundry I had yet to finish from college! Now if only I could catch up on standard laundry. And the rest of the packing. I was supposed to go finish under my bed from yesterday but laundry took too much time before work and starting that project at 10 when I finally came home was not an option so I guess it will have to be done sometime this week. UGH.

Six Hours Standing

Waking up at 7 in the morning after two days of being able to sleep till whenever you want was not easy. What else was not easy was standing and walking for 6 hours back at work. There is the part of my foot that is having to keep my balance now because my toe can't so it had tripled in size by the time I came home today. Speaking of coming home, the first thing I did was nap for three hours. Mostly because I was tired but also to get away from my foot and toe hurting so badly. The rest of the night was spent elevating said foot and icing said foot. There was a minor break for my favorite Mexican food but then it went right back to trying to fix my foot.

I Have Discovered

That I cannot avoid sweets in December. After that pie set back I thought everything would be fine. But then work received a box of sweets from the company to keep everyone motivated (I.e. awake) for this last week. And I wasn't allowed to leave to get food because the other manager called out and I didn't pack food and there was only candyyyyy. I am a disgrace.

ON THE UPSIDE I FOUND A SWEET SNACK THAT ISN'T COMPLETELY TERRIBLE FOR YOU!!

It is called Brownie Brittle as pictured below and it comes in a bunch of different flavors. The ingredients list isn't intimidating but it also isn't completely missing complex words you can't quite pronounce and the nutritional portion isn't terrifying either! AND THEY TASTE YUMMY! 

And it is going into my lunch that I am packing for tomorrow because I can't walk fast enough to get to the food court, purchase food, and back to work in thirty minutes with my foot like it is. Chicken sandwich for the win!