Jenny found out she'll probably be going to South Korea a little later than expected, delayed by paperwork and a bit of laziness (not hers). Bittersweet news. She was frustrated at first but was reassured that her new boss would be able to pay for the new plane ticket. This is still a pending development. I would love to spend another two weeks with Jenny in Sacramento. I look forward to it. But I know it feels disorienting when plans veer from the expected. Luckily she's handling it with patience and faith. Selfishly, I'm thinking: It's an extra two weeks. I'll take it.
I opened with Jake today. Good kid. Another English-Major type with ambition to travel, disinterest with career and hopes of published fame. I'm admittedly territorial when I come into contact with similarly-aligned souls, when I recognize them both as a companion and a threat, someone I share the same problems and epiphanies with, but also someone who wants to do the same thing with their life that I do. Yes, I believe that dreams do come true, but I know damn well they don't come true for everyone. Meeting Jake has inspired me (provoked me is a better phrase) to strive harder for my goal and to be proud of the ones that I'm already in the process of accomplishing. Anyway, I've got two years on the guy. I didn't know shit about anything two years ago.
So ends my first week of school. Helt teaches "Teaching English to ESL Students." She's a librarian-type with a soft voice and a gentle approach to teaching. Motherly. In this class we've learned about the three major theories regarding Child Language Acquisition (CLA). Behaviorism, Nativism and Interactionism, all of them answering the question: How do children learn to speak? And after that, I've got "Writing For The Social Sciences" with Clark, a messy-haired linguist with an Aderral flow, at once on topic and the next thumbing through his own textbook (nothing we had to buy) and the next staring out the window and the next discrediting his own Powerpoint slide. I think he's great, even if he's got the attention span of a squirrel, because somehow he makes the whole lecture make sense. Then there's "Linguistics," with Heather, an English guy who thinks it's adorable to make fun of the English and the fact that there's an English girl in our class also named Heather. Here we're learning about the phonetic alphabet. It's this class, with Clark's "Grammar" class, that are really proving to me that I might've majored in English, but I hardly actually learned English. I can diagram sentences and hear the difference between nasal and glottal speech sounds. Sort of. It's only been four days, after all.
Iven wants to go house hunting on bikes next week.
Dan, the boyfriend of Alexis, Jessica's friend, got the job as the new delivery driver. Today he caught me off guard with, "The old lady broke up with me last night." People still say "old lady" like that, I guess. I've only met Alexis a few times. She was a lot younger than him, and from what I saw it didn't exactly seem like a match made in heaven, but heartbreak is heartbreak and I felt bad for the guy.
I was thinking today about the four major eras of Old Soul's existence (regarding happenings at The Warehouse). I broke them down as follows:
1. The Pre-Corporate Era (Cute girls serving coffee in the mornings, a mellow guy closing the shop at nights, Tammie as the manager, fewer couches, a reggae vibe, reg-op responsible for making food, fewer bakers, fewer rules, no sales tax, a shitty radio and no outside seating)
2. The Renovation Era (Most of the ladies leave for school, Tammie quits, a handful of people are hired who do nothing but complain and then quit, the hours are changed, the floors are refinished, the kitchen is rebuilt, the alley is repaired, outside seating begins, "the cook" becomes a regular shift after an incident with a knife, sales tax is required, a pastry shelf appears, prices go up, Old Soul nabs the airport deal and then hooks elbows with Reading Partners)
3. Lucky's Final Roast Era (Only a few good employees stick around through Spring, brunch becomes available, Ross starts playing jazz guitar on Sundays, we start serving "cold brew," then Cody gets hired and times turn dark, Lucky quits, Shaun leaves, Jessica gets transferred, Meredith leaves for Peru)
4. The Airport Era (Cody is fired for crashing the van, Megan and Jake are hired, Jason starts roasting...)
And I can't even imagine where this business will go next.
- Left to Fry
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