http://adam-de-angeli.org/jobs.html

To those living in AA, bacelah article pasal tempat makan kat Ann Arbor nie. Ewwww... seb baik tak penah beli pizza kat "tempat itu". And Good Time Charley's rocks! Sape nak ikut, besok I'm going with a couple of people nak makan kat situ, kol 8 malam (screw NCRB, I wanna my cheese sticks!)

Excerpts from the website:

Main St. Party Shoppe
201 N. Main St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Joey, Store Manager Pay rate: $7 /hr
From: August 2002 (734) 769-1515 Duties: Make pizza, stock store
To: October 2002 Title: Chef/Stocker Reason for leaving: health code violation (see below)

This was another menial job I took for side cash between classes. The place wanted me to show them how to make good pizza, because they couldn't do it. I soon discovered they were cooking their pizza at half the necessary heat for twice the usual time, and corrected the problem. Everything was fine until one day the owner, a cigar-puffing alcoholic, pulled old slices of pizza that I'd discarded out of the trash, took a taste, and informed me that the slices were perfectly good. He proceeded to return the pizza to the warmer, to serve to customers. Furthermore, he informed me that he would "cut my balls off" if I threw out good food again (these slices were three hours old). I told him I wouldn't put up with this abuse for 7 dollars an hour, and he was lucky I didn't call the health department immediately. And that was that.

Mr. Pizza
1200 Packard, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Mike Howard, General Manager Pay rate: $5.15 /hr + tips + mileage
From: June 2001 (734) 995-4040 Duties: Deliver pizza and place phone orders
To: September 2001 Title: Driver Reason for leaving: (see below)

Mr. Pizza was an average gig; the money wasn't great but I kept the job. Then shortly after the September 11 attacks, I caught my boss and an in-shop guy talking about somehow tampering with someone's pizza--someone whose only crime was being named Mohammed. I never found out if anything actually happened, but I decided I would have nothing more to do with the company and promptly quit.

Good Time Charley's
1140 S. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Jason Yonkin, Kitchen Manager Pay rate: $9.25 /hr
From: January 2000 (734) 668-8411 Duties: Line cook (cook and clean)
To: January 2001 Title: Cook Reason for leaving: university conflicts

This was the most difficult restaurant gig I've had. Charley's ran the most efficient kitchen I've ever seen; only five cooks were ever needed for a restaurant that seats almost 200 people. We had three 15-tops on an average night. This was fine; in fact I liked the responsibility. But eventually, my course requirements became so difficult that I had to put academic priorities first. Resolving my school and work schedules was almost impossible; I wasn't able to get any shifts besides those I already had, so I could only drop shifts. Additionally, the restaurant shifted its policy of cook nationality over the course of my employment, and by the time I left, I was the only American cook in the restaurant. Today there are none. I can work with foreigners, but to be the only person (in a basement kitchen) capable of speaking with front-of-the-house employees made me feel that I was being neglected some credit. Although there was a kitchen manager, he was seldom present; hence I was managing a kitchen for the old line cook pay. This didn't seem reasonable, as kitchen supervision at a large and busy restaurant is a demanding job. I left in pursuit of a company where my talents would be better rewarded.

End of excerpt :) . Today I'm eating like a piggy 'cause I wanna (feeling slightly emotional. Just a wee bit. Heheh.) My willpower ain't that strong baybee. Girls can't live on salad and soup alone (especially sumber buat salad ngan sup dah habes. Aiseh)

Elly, ko kawen bile?

Wassalam...

Assalamu'alaikum...

Wow, has it really been a month since I've updated this blog? I guess it has.... things have been reaaalllyyy crazy around here lately. Like serious crazy. I've been so busy with stuff since the term started that I barely have time to rest, let alone blog. Lemme give you an inkling about how I've been lately.

1. Megan, the grad student who worked in my office, recently quit. Ergo, now all of us have a bunch of new stuff to do, which requires me to come in 10 to 14 hours in a week. While that doesn't sound too bad, considering all the other stuff that's in progress in right now, it's not a good time for me to take on extra shifts. The money's good though.

2. GRE. 'Nuff said (drives me nuts how I can't seem to concentrate on studying).

3. EECS 485 , my databases class. One of my groupmates happen to be one of those overachievers who take on multiple 400 level courses in a semester, which means she barely has time for the project or group meetings. While that by itself isn't quite so bad, apparently she's also the type who puts everything (and I do mean everything) above group meetings. Case point: the day before our project is due, she's out running around the career fair looking for a job. That's okay, though, 'cause we all need jobs, be it internships or full time (I was at the same career fair, too. ). However, I found out later that she hasn't started on her part of the project yet. Uh-oh. I still wasn't worried, 'cause some of the people in my class are whizzes when it comes to PHP and MySQL. Then I found out that she wasn't one of 'em (like me, LoL. I'm a novice with the whole PHP coding stuff). Uh-oh again. We ended up submitting the project with a few unresolved bugs 'cause... we didn't have time to debug 'em. It's hard to debug website when the codes for all the pages are only finished like 6 a.m. I've learned my lesson, though, and so has my other groupmate, so we're giving her "lighter" stuff to do... which means the tough stuff are divided between Emily and I. Thank goodness Emily has done a lotta PHP before, so we're messaging each other back and forth and she helps me a lot with trying to figure out which parts are working and which are not.

3. If you're still reading till this line right here, I applaud you for enduring the paragraph above (it's boring stuff, I know). Next item on the list : EECS 499, independant study. I'm writing an application called Locker for the Pocket PC. If you ever wanna do that, lemme tell you from the get go: Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework "textbook" is a pile of stinking shit if you're not familiar with the full frameowork. Aiiihhh.... I mean, usually the coding book that I like are the ones that gives you straight answers for specific questions (i.e what functions do I use if I want the button to permit secure login). The Microsoft book is NOT the book that does that. So right now I'm stuck on my project and I'm cuurently waiting for my O'Reilly "Programming in C#" to arrive. Talking about Microsoft reminds me of my....

4. Microsoft job interview (it's over now so I know I won't jinx anything by mentioning it here). I was so nervous I messed up the most simple coding question ever. Of course, me messing up might also have to do with the fact that I haven't done any heavy duty coding in C++ for about 2 years. Chalk that interview as over and done with... they're never gonna hire me now. Boo-hoo.

5. Mahabharata performance on March 27th. Deera and I have practice EVERY DAY excluding Friday. And I do mean everyday, 'cause we even have to come in for extra practice on weekends. The performance is gonna be such a big deal. To make matters worse, when we have practice with the gamelan, and I had to sing my solo stuff, my hands and feet get reaaaaaallll cold (a sign of extreme nervousness, coupled with the fact that usually I don't eat before practices on Thursdays) and my voice comes out all small and... croaky. Eyewwwww. I seriously have to get over that.

Anyway, I'll be playing the part of Kendari (or as some texts on the internet spells it, Ghandari), dear ol' mummy of the Kurawa's. ... all 100 of 'em. That's right, people, I have 100 freakin' kids. According to an online text that I looked up about Kendari, apparently I gave birth to "a ball of flesh", which someone had the brilliant idea of telling me (as Kendari of course, not in real life... ) to cut the ball of flesh up into 100 pieces, put each piece into containers filled with Indian ghee (I don't know why), and presto chango! Instant 100 kids. Kendari is married to a lord (that I can't remember what his name is) who is blind, and as if having 100 kids isn't bad enough, to show her devotion to her husband, Kendari went through life with a blindfold over her eyes to "share her husband's life in darkness". So I might have to wear a mask onstage for the performance. Ermm.. not looking forward to that, I'm having enough trouble dancing with nothing covering my eyes.

Deera is playing Kunti, the "opposing" family's matriarch with five supernatural kids. Now, Kunti's husband can't, ehem, make love to her because of a curse that was put on him by one realllllyyyy angry person. But Kunti has the power to summon any God she wants and has kids by them. Ooohh... scandalous. So Kunti gets to summon Gods and give birth to half-deities, while Kendari is married to a weak SOB and gave birth to a ball of flesh. Guess which family is on the good side. Aiseh.

However, one my sons is cute though, hehehe. I think I'm just nuts for the hair.

Moving on...

6. Rush. Thank goodness now it's over, but it was getting really hectic for a while there, with bookings of rooms and answering emails and holding office hours.... And now it's over. I applied for senior status (which means you don't have to go to every chapter, just once a month) since I've been a full fledge active sister for a semester abd that makes me eligible for it. Hopefully they'll say yes :) . Whoopee!!


7. Gym. My extremely hot friend Sophia and I are working out at the gym every Tuesdays, and I've been clocking in workout hours in whatever time I get (which isn't much, mind you, with work and exams and all... grrr... ). Working out with Sophia is motivating and at the same time, a wee bit depressing 'cause she's so damn hot. Like seriously, her hair is always perfect, her body is unbelievable, her skin is FLAWLESS (ask Ijat and Ayun, she really is pretty), and what's amazing is the fact she doesn't even have to TRY to be perfect, she just naturally IS. I mean, I've seen her get ready when we wanna go out, she barely has to do anything at all. No straightening iron or curling iron or a pound of make up. She just puts something on it'll be perfect.

That said, working out with her has been great :) . Now if I can only stop eating crap all the time... or just stop eating.

Okay, now I need to go back to studying... will try to pen in ASAP.

Wassalam...

-Farah-