Homeless-ish

Currently:

Listening to the gay vocal-major RA who lives below me singing (belting loudly) to Alicia Keys.

I don’t hate it.

A more detailed currently: 

So as you may assume from the title of this post, I’m kind of “homeless-ish” right now. Not on the streets homeless, more like sleeping on my ex-apartment’s living room floor homeless. If you’ve read the “Purpose” page of this blog, you’d know my anticipated journey to the fantastical New Zealand is only a few short weeks away. Yes, this is how I feel:

 YAYAYAYYEEEE jIFHI:EHKJFHE:IUH:ILFjeji&^&#(()#*#($! 

As excited as I am, I’m equally broke due to the cost of reserving two feet of space on an airborne, claustrophobic plane for 48 hours. Since the economy kind of sucks at home, I came back to Ithaca to work my jobs until I leave.  And because I'm no longer an actual resident of the apartment/don't have a room/a bed, I'm referring to my situation as homeless-ish.

Homeless-ish  (hohm-lis-esh)
adjective
1. Not being homeless but at the same time still being kind of homeless.

Brownie points if you've read the About Emily Page and already know that I have the ability to make up my own words.

My temporary bedroom

Just a few tips on how to be homeless-ish:

1. Don’t watch scary movies
2. Don’t watch scary movies
3. Don’t watch scary movies
4. FaceTime friends if you were stupid and did watch a scary movie
5. Bring things to do to not go crazy

Yes, the first four tips were inspired by me watching a scary movie and living very alone and then attempting to sleep in an empty, quiet apartment.
                                                                     

 Ideas of Things to Do

Here we have a sketchbook, a guitar, the beautiful Cheshire Cat I can
make jokes to, friendship thread, coloring utensils, Peanut Butter, and
an amazing book called The Universe in a Nutshell  by Stephen Hawking

But on a real note, the first homeless-ish week here has made me feel sort of grown up, even more so than when I was actually a resident of this apartment with my roommates in the Fall. While feeling grown-up is a strange mix of excitement and nostalgia, it’s mostly scary as *&%$. For me, this is probably because I have absolutely no idea how to do the world/life/adulthood.

Tonight I made my first meal consisting of real food that’s not a bag of pretzels or box of mac n cheese. Keep in mind I’ve also been living in an apartment with a kitchen for the past four and a half months, so this is a step for me. Since I’m not a huge fan of red meat, I tried making smoked salmon for dinner.

It was disgusting.

A for effort.

To avoid feeling lonely/grown-up, I’ve been working as much as possible. My two main jobs here both are serving jobs; one at my college’s Catering company, and one at an Irish Pub downtown. The pub I work at, called Kilpatrick’s, is actually a fun job for me. For those of you in the restaurant biz, you probably know the work atmosphere is typically hell in a nutshell BUT the money is awesome, which is why we put ourselves through this hell. Lucky me found a restaurant less Hell-ish, or at least so far it is.

This is very rare for one to say, but I love as much as I hate having these “blue-collar” type jobs. Mostly because they’ve taught me (and continue to teach me) some of the greatest life lessons one can learn.

Things you can’t learn from school, things you can only learn from the actual experience.

You may start noticing how I like making lists. So here we go, 3 important life lessons I've learned from the food industry:

1. No one is under you. Just think how nicely our world would smell if all the sewage workers went on strike. Exactly.

2. Making your own money, building your own success, accomplishing your own goals, are all products of hard work. And you can only judge this by how cool and great you think are post accomplishment. And this feeling only comes from working hard, not getting things handed to you.

3. Working in the customer service field, I’ve encountered some of the most interesting, respectable, and also despicable people ever. It’s helped me build my own character, showed me who I want to be, and who I don’t want to be.  It's also taught me how to suck up to people.  All different types of people.

So there you have it, the rare philosophical thoughts of Emily that actually make sense (or so I hope). Maybe being homeless-ish for a few weeks has made me wiser.

Then again, maybe not.

Then again, the smell of burnt salmon is still in my kitchen.

Yea, I still have much to learn…

Keep happy,
Em