Day 3.4 Hunger management

[kyrasantae]

[CSG],

Grr, coworkers. They make me want to run away to Finland, or at least to live closer to you so I can have Nordic energy and values around me.

~tuuli

SHE still can't stop talking about being excited for Vegas. SHE counts down the day and hours. SHE also can't stop talking about getting drunk. i.e. SHE was drunk last night too because she gets free drinks at one bar where SHE knows the owner. SHE is one of those people whose only idea of a good time is one of total intoxication and only pride is that SHE doesn't get hangovers. In fact, SHE is upset that her mother won't let HER sleep in while they're in Vegas because her mother has planned every day out already. As for herself, SHE already has plans on how to get drunk in Vegas because she's only 20.

If you're looking for your typical Canadian redneck, complete with Canadian redneck values - beer, hockey, conservative, masculine in deportment - perfect specimen right here. That SHE has worked quite a lot of jobs, all of which (as far as I know) are male-dominated, only serves to reinforce that.

This week I've only really spent morning break with them for $1 breakfast, and a couple of times I sat with them for lunch, but afternoon break I always spend alone sitting in the workshop. I don't recall even eating anything for lunch all week, opting just to buy a glass of juice if I consume anything at all. Partly because I spend too much eating out in the evening, and partly because I'm just not in the mood to eat. In fact, today I made it through the entire workday on one cup of coffee alone.

And then at the little "gathering" with a couple of the IKEA girls at the bar after work, we all sit down and BAM! guess what they're talking about: DRINKING and the different kinds of delicious drinks and stuff. SHE gets a Kokanee (eeew! I told you about her redneck-ness!). SHE plans to get drunk with her friend here and then go to a movie after. By this time I just wanted to strangle HER. GEEZ, EVEN THOUGH YOU GET FREE DRINKS AT A BAR, MAYBE THIS IS WHY you had to go pick up college money from your estranged father??!??

I knew that something like this was coming (SHE had already been talking about this movie date a couple of days ago), so I actually wore my sword necklace to work and kept it in my pocket as I was working, because this drugs/alcohol talk and failure to communicate was really getting to remind me of those days back in first-year and the VERY REASON I used to carry a hunting knife with me under my shirt (which my necklace later replaced). It's a symbolic ornament for me and I feel vulnerable in this kind of situation without it.

I don't enjoy drinking alcohol either for the taste or for the, uh, "fun"/"entertainment" or for the uninhibiting effects (I admit that it helps a little with keeping my knees from shaking with nerves when I sing solo, though). It's just something that happens and is done and is not a centerpiece. After I said something to that effect and the response was "you just haven't been drunk enough," I just gave up and wanted to go home, but I had to wait for Artsy Guy to drive me.

I gave the server a freaking $1 tip for a less than $3 coffee because a) I didn't have any change; and b) I felt I had to make someone happy since I felt like such an outcast at my table.

Since SHE is going to be away until next Friday, I'll be the only female on the crew next week, aside from the IKEA people. I'm not sure yet whether it'll be more or less awkward, though while it's more expected that guys talk about drinking and guns and that sort of thing, that content itself may still trouble me just as much.

Who wants to bet that SHE will come in Friday morning saying how drunk she was before she got on the plane back from Vegas?

It's one thing to not let workplace stuff affect me, but this is like for 9 hours a day I'm stuck in a room where I don't want to listen to people talk, people don't want to listen to me talk, and I can't even entertain myself with Finnish songs in my head because of the v*tun pop music, which in return gets stuck in my head so I can't even sing Finnish songs in the shower when I come home (not that I actually sing in the shower). It's 9 hours a day that I'm forcibly reminded that I'm stuck in redneck Alberta with nowhere to run, even in my imagination. And the forcible deprivation of my imagination was the root of my depression after The Sundering in junior high school.

Right now I'm just going to sit here angry and frustrated, like my German teacher (with whom I had my kind of socialization later in the evening), listening to Trio Niskalaukaus (not that it's angry music - it's mostly just pessimistic but it sounds angry).* Geez, this REALLY IS LIKE FIRST-YEAR UNI ALL OVER AGAIN.

My German teacher says that someone she knows managed to get a job teaching math for two years in Sweden at an international school. Sweden wouldn't be half-bad, I guess. It's pretty close to Finland, but I'd make neither head nor tail of the language. Plus I'd probably end up on a booze cruise-ship crossing the Gulf. Gah! :p

Items assembled

• UDDEN wall cabinet x2
  
• some other small UDDEN shelf that I can't find anywhere online
  
• BRAVAD glass-door wall cabinet
  
• ARHOLMA table with 4 chairs
  
• GASELL highchair

__________
* Fun fact: I'm taking a liking to the song "Surupuku" again. It's one of the first songs I ever heard in Finnish (this would have been in Summer '02, I think, close to when its album was released). But now I can actually figure out what it says, and it's still good in that way.**

jos oikeutta enemmän vain nähdä saan / voin verhoutua vaikka lumenvalkeaan
mutta jos maailma jatkaa pimeän matkan taivallustaan / ylläni on surupuku ja surupuku on musta
[If I could only see more justice / I would dress in snow-white
but if the world keeps going in this dark direction / I wear mourning-dress and mourning-dress is black]

** It always happens like this: often when I suddenly have an urge to post random Finnish lyrics and then I go translate them for the benefit of my readers, it ends up being something actually kind of relevant.

Comments

[nt-confidential.livejournal.com]

Welcome to twenty-first-century class warfare. That's why I don't take jobs like this. Enjoy your stay!

[kyrasantae.livejournal.com]

Rednecks vs. ??? ...