Friday, June 30, 2006
I have a new plan.I'm going to be an English major with an art minor.
Posted by Rachel at 4:12 PM |
Hooray for being screwed. I should just quit school and work full time. I don't know what I'm going to school for anyway, and at least that way I'd have some money.
Why are they so hellbent on forcing kids into college right after high school anyway? How many of them actually know what they want to do when they graduate? There should be a two-year waiting period or something between high school and college to give kids a chance to figure out what the hell's going on in this world. Stepping stone my ass, college seems to be more of a thorn in my side than anything else right now.
I'm dreading going back, dreading spending 3 days a week in art classes (which is what I'm signed up for right now, and I don't even know if I want to take them), because it cuts into the time I have to work and make money to pay rent. There's no way for me to finish my degree in the next two years, which is all I have left in my scholarship. And there's no way I'll have the money to pay for college classes on top of rent and whatever other expenses I have. Student loans, sure, but apparently the government is trying to fuck us over on those too by raising all the interest rates.
I'm starting to think more and more that SVSU was a mistake. I should have just gone to Delta for a couple years and took all the basic stuff. Maybe that would have given me some time to figure out where to go next. They offered me a scholarship; I should have taken it when I found out that my dad wasn't going to let me go away for college. After two years at Delta I could've transferred to somewhere I actually wanted to go. Or have a year off to figure things out.
So my situation is this. I'm working 30 hours a week now to make ends meet (not that many, I guess, even though it's considered full time, but getting a second job is a pain in the ass because retail places [the ones that are actually hiring right now] won't hire me because I work in retail already). My brother is off to Arizona which leaves me without a roommate. I can't afford an apartment by myself. School starts up again in August which will cut my work hours in half (plus I'm honestly starting to believe that there's someone in a supervisor/managerial position at Old Navy who doesn't like me, based on the lack of hours that I was getting at the beginning of the summer). Last winter I worked at the middle school too for extra money, but with all the school funding cuts, they don't know if they're going to have my position available again this year. Which means after Christmas it will literally be impossible for me to pay all my bills. Plus I now have a $100 car payment on top of my previous expenses.
Dan doesn't want my reason for moving in with him to be that I feel I have no other choice. Which is sort of the situation (but not entirely, as I spend most of my time there when he's there anyway). I don't want to rush things with us. He says he can set aside money each month to help me pay rent at my own place but I really don't want to do that to him. I don't like asking favors of people, especially something of this magnitude. I hate having to depend on other people. Not to mention he's paying over $500 in rent for his own place because Matt still doesn't have a job and hasn't for the last four months.
I might have to go have a talk with someone at SVSU. Because right now I'm just wasting my time and their money.
Posted by Rachel at 12:05 PM |
Thursday, June 29, 2006
New template. Not done yet. Not sure if I'm even gonna keep it. If I could get it the way I want it to work, I'd like it, but my cheating at HTML etc. (instead of actually learning it) is catching up to me.EDIT: Screw it, I suck, have this template instead. At least it all works. I haven't messed it up yet.
Posted by Rachel at 6:01 PM |
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
If you want to come over and go through my stuff with me, maybe I'll give some of it to you.I hate packing, and I don't want to leave my apartment. I like it here.
I don't have a choice in the matter though.
Posted by Rachel at 11:14 PM |
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
We've run out of garbage bags here at my apartment. Apparently neither my brother nor myself has any desire to go buy more, so we've been using plastic grocery bags for the past couple days.Obviously little grocery bags fill up pretty quick, so I went through the cupboard today looking for a bigger grocery bag - you know, the ones they give you when you buy like a backpack or a big pack of toilet paper. Upon finding none, I thought, well, I could just go to Wal-Mart and buy something big, that way they give me a big grocery bag.
Then I realized how stupid that was. Target is like two blocks closer than Wal-Mart.
Posted by Rachel at 1:15 PM |
Monday, June 26, 2006
My brother got his job in Arizona. He's leaving July 6th and starts the job July 10th.Which means goodbye Waterside. At least for now.
Posted by Rachel at 3:16 PM |
Saturday, June 24, 2006
I came across something yesterday that had me so lost in thought while showering that I couldn't recall whether I'd washed my hair or not (for the record, it smelled like fresh shampoo, so I must've). I was left feeling intrigued, a bit self-satisfied, and a bit peeved (but not quite pissed off).Which leads me to another dilemma. I've somewhat rediscovered my enjoyment of writing lately (admittedly, in part due to reading blogs like this) and want to get in the habit of doing so again. But should I do it here or should I start a "private blog" where I can remain anonymous? Do you guys even care if I write about you? I had a 'secret' blog like this in the past (it's been nearly a year since my last post) but Kurtis discovered it and read it, and I suspect that if there's one person from your life who knows about your secret blog, it probably shouldn't be your ex-boyfriend. It would certainly be quite the change for me if I started spilling my innermost feelings in here because only a very few certain people are privileged to (some of) that information in real life.
Though how secret could it be if it was posted on the internet?
Posted by Rachel at 6:24 PM |
Friday, June 23, 2006
It's been at the back of my mind on and off; now is as good a time as any to address it. I suppose everyone questions at least once in their life (or maybe every day) who they are or where they're going. But I've lost a lot of the things that made me "unique." I'm not the straight-A student anymore. I'm not the virgin, the girl who refuses to drink, the role model, any of that. I don't have an abnormal love for Michael Jackson anymore, and I don't paint or draw or or read write in my journal anymore. I'm not even sure if I want to major in art anymore. I hear there's not much of a living to be made as an artist anyway.So what's left? I have a love for shopping that results in a wardrobe containing more clothes than three people could need (and the credit card debt to go with it). I have an odd interest in the mechanical workings of a car motor that nowhere near warrants the purchase of $1,000 in tools and registration to shop classes at Delta (and no, I don't have plans of doing so). I have a love of big cities that leaves me constantly yearning to get away. And the sense that I have no idea who I am.
Strangely this doesn't depress me too much, aside from the endless amount of time I spend in this computer screen because I don't feel motivated to do anything else.
Posted by Rachel at 2:53 PM |
Thursday, June 22, 2006
A detailed narrative of a would-be model's first photoshootA few people asked about my photoshoot and I realized that I haven't written about it...did I even mention here that I had one? Skimming through my archives, it appears that I did not. It was on June 4th, I believe, though that's of little importance now. To answer the most common question asked of me, no, they didn't pay me, I had to pay them (a lot), because I needed professional photos to put on my comp card and in my portfolio.
Dan accompanied me and my mother drove (which was a great relief considering the condition of my car at that time); we made a trip all the way to Shenandoah Country Club in Bloomfield Hills and, even with giving ourselves an extra half hour above what Mapquest said the ETA would be (an hour and 40 minutes from Saginaw), we still arrived late. We didn't get lost, for the record, just missed our road and had to turn around (ironically enough we missed the same road on our way home).
Arriving late wasn't a problem though; once we finally figured out which part of the club we should be in (due to lack of directional signage) we quickly learned that everyone else was running late too, most importantly the stylists, who obviously were a critical part of the whole operation. So even after arriving about 20 minutes late, we waited at least another 15 before they started calling people down for hair and makeup.
While we waited I took the opportunity to look at the other girls who were there. We'd been instructed not to put on makeup or put "product" in our hair, but nonetheless you could still tell the ones who thought they were something special, and the ones who were simply there waiting to do their thing, even just by their clothing choices and the way they were sitting (or standing). I'd like to hope I was in the latter category... Some of them were incredibly young looking (well, 13ish)...I felt like I looked old next to them, especially seated between two of them in the bathroom of the downstairs girls locker room while a strange girl did my hair up in a less-than flattering style (she braided back my bangs...I look terrible without bangs). Maybe it was the lighting, but I couldn't help noting that my face looked sort of...aged. And I'm only 20! Thankfully it was nothing that the makeup artists couldn't take care of in the next room.
Unfortunately there were only two makeup artists, as opposed to about 5 hairstylists. And apparently one of the makeup artists had been assigned to dress the girls as well, which created quite a backup in the boys' locker room/makeshift dressing room down the hall. There was the slight feeling of chaos in the air, as no one really seemed to know what to do or where to go next (with the exception of the hair people, who just did the hair of the person placed in front of them). The VP and apparent leader of the whole operation, Katie, was MIA and her intern was trying to make sense of everything, but I got the feeling that even she wasn't 100% sure what was going on.
So I'm standing in the "dressing room" with my less-than flattering hairstyle, and now in a bathing suit because "Katie wants everyone's first look to be in their bathing suit," waiting for my makeup, watching the other girls get ready. There's one, relatively tall with short layered blonde hair, whom I assumed had done this before, given her large duffel bag of supplies and the array of moisturizers she keeps pulling out of random pockets and applying to various parts of her body (mostly her face). There's another girl with lovely long curly dark hair in a bikini who seems a bit self-conscious of her relatively large chest, though others express their envy of it (particularly the blonde girl I mentioned previously). There were two or three quite young blonde girls who were in and out getting their first shoots done who just kind of gave off this air of innocence and youth that only young teenagers have, I suppose. And there were a couple other girls with beautiful long straight hair which made me miss the days when I had long hair, even though the look wasn't nearly as appealing on me as it was on them.
Finally I was seated in front of a quiet but sweet-tempered Chinese girl (at least I think she was Chinese, I guess I'm still no good at telling the Asian nationalities apart) who powdered my face and painted up my eyes (literally - she wet a small brush and dipped it on what looked like a palette of watercolor paints). She had sort of a punk-rock look going on, complete with chunky pink sections in her deep black hair that made me miss the red I used to have in my own mousey brown. Granted, I am a little pleased with the way the brown dye I put in to cover up said red has faded to make it look like I have a subtle highlight thing going on...but I digress.
When she gave me the okay, I stood up from the makeup chair and wandered out into the hallway, eventually finding my way to one of the photographers, who was ready for me. The actual shooting took place the quickest in all this; I'd swear I was with him a total of 5 minutes while he told me how to pose and "chin down just a little" and "look more to the left" and "eyes past the camera, over in this direction...good." I did like both of the photographers almost immediately; they were both very polite and had the type of personalities that make you feel quite at ease with them (which, in retrospect, is probably a good thing, because I'm sure it'd show in the photos if you were uncomfortable with the photographer...unless you're a pro, which I'm not).
From there, it was back to the make-up room to find out what to do next; they sent me to the hairdressers since they were backed up still, and the hair dressers sent me back to find out what I was wearing first. By this time Katie had arrived (the Vice President of One Source Talent [which is the company that got me into all this]) and was dressing people to get things moving a little better. She put me in an odd turquois green dress. When I came back she said she didn't know if she liked it and asked the opinion of Georgia (the makeup artist/girl in charge of dressing the models. She looked like she should have been doing some modelling herself, though her clothes and makeup [if she was even wearing any makeup] were both very lowkey). Georgia stuck a black corset thing over the top of the dress then sent me to the hairstylists, where they made my hair rather big and sent me off to shoot my second look.
This was one of the results of that second shoot:
Repeat process for the third shoot; Katie put me in this awful cream, green, yellow, and purple sweater dress (apparently thriftstore vintage is still the way to go in the modelling world) and sent me to hair. I was pleased with the french-twisty updo they gave me though, as I can never make my hair do that on my own (perhaps it's the lack of hairspray/styling goo in my possession). But once I was back in the boys' locker room waiting for my makeup to be retouched, Katie called me out of line and said that she didn't like the dress on me after all. "I didn't really like it either," I told her, "but I figured you know more about what they want than I do." She said, "That's good, you're one of the good ones," then said something that lead me to believe that not all of the would-be models were so easy to work with (I don't remember her exact words now). She put me in a pair of extremely skin-tight jeans and one of the tank tops I'd brought from home and sent me back to hair. I came back for shoes and accessories; one of the other girls there (an awkward-yet-exotic looking tall, skinny dark-skinned/haired girl who was preparing for a shoot in the green dress I'd had on previously - it was more flattering on her, especially with the white jumper-type thing they'd found to put over it) lent me some heels to borrow (apparently whoever provided the clothes for the shoot didn't take into account that tall girls have relatively large feet - the biggest pair of shoes they had were like an 8). They stuck a necklace and a pair of suspenders on me and off I went again.
Here's a shot from that one:
I'm in front of an elevator; right when I first got poised and ready for my first picture, the elevator beeped and off stepped my mom and Dan, of all people...this was my "I hope they're not watching me" face.
By this time even more girls had arrived (they'd had them staggered to arrive on 15 minute intervals, which seemed like a good idea in theory, but due to the late stylists, it was kind of chaotic in practice) which slowed everything down even more. There were about 4 guys in attendance too, for the record; I've come to the conclusion that I could never date a male model because the 3 that I saw any sort of interaction with (one I only really saw in passing) were vain, arrogant, or potentially homosexual (or some combination of these traits). This isn't to say that they were mean or rude in any way; it was just their mannerisms that didn't appeal to me.
Interestingly enough though, among the girls there, I didn't see any of the jealousy or cattiness or subtle bitchy competitiveness that has made me largely prefer male company over females. On the contrary, most of the girls there were very friendly, even if, like myself, they were relatively quiet. It was kind of a "we're all in this together" type thing; each seemed to understand that she wasn't the only one waiting forever to be dressed in something she'd never wear by choice, even if she did look "good" in it. Actually, during my last shoot the photographer took 3 of us together; he shot the guy first (photographer's choice) then the girl I was with (one of the girls with lovely long straight hair whom I mentioned at the beginning of the post) said, "you go ahead and go first." I'd talked to her a bit while we waited; I forget where she said she was from now but she'd had to drive about as far as I had.
I wish I would have gotten her name, or her talent number so I could look her up on OST, but...I didn't think of it at the time. I was ready to get finished and head for home (by this time 5 or 6 hours had passed since our arrival). (If any of you clicked on the OST link up further and want to see my page, my OST ID is 12034.)
This is a shot from the last look; the sun was in my eyes (which have a tendency to water at exposure to bright light) so you may notice a slight frown going on there...anyway, here it is:
These are also the three shots of me that they have up on their website; they're supposed to be sending me a disc that contains all the photos (I think there were close to 70-80 taken altogether) and we'll see if I find any of them to be more flattering than these.
As I was changing to leave after my last shoot, I overheard one of the girls who arrived later complaining to the makeup artist about what she was wearing; she pointed out how all the other girls got to wear tight things and she was wearing a shirt (it was a flowy yellow looser fitting shirt) that made her look "fucking pregnant." Apparently Katie heard it too, as she yelled at the girl and told her to change and go home then. I don't know whether she actually did; when I talked to Katie just before leaving she said that the girl wouldn't go. I'm just glad this wasn't a regular occurance throughout the day. Because despite the waiting and disorganization, it was a relatively enjoyable day.
Posted by Rachel at 12:23 PM |
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
My old car is stickered to be towed tomorrow. I watched one of the office secretaries sticker it as I pulled in the parking lot earlier today.I find myself more annoyed than anything else.
Posted by Rachel at 3:26 PM |
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
I think this chair is the thing causing my back pain. Maybe it's because I'm only sitting on the edge of it. Like the internet is that exciting.I really need to find something to do today. In an odd twist, I have gas but no money, so I can drive somewhere, just not anywhere that requires payment of any kind. Regardless, it's a beautiful sunny day and I'm not going to sit inside all day like I did yesterday.
Dan got his overtime hours back even though he works days, so now he's on a 6am-430 schedule. Which means he's in bed by like 1030, which I'm finding to be a little too early for my taste. Oddly enough I almost liked it better when he was on nights - I'd hang out with him during the day and my other friends in the evening. Because for some reason my friends never want to do anything before like 4pm.
I think I need to get back into my art. That occupied my time pretty well in the past.
Posted by Rachel at 11:03 AM |
Thursday, June 15, 2006
So I got my new car yesterday; the title is in my name now so I can stop referring to it as "my brother's old car." It's got a few minor flaws, but I love it anyway, just got to get used to a few things (like the fact that it has 4 doors, instead of the two [heavier] doors I'm used to, so it doesn't require as much force to close said doors...I've slammed the door a couple times on accident). Uh...picture, anyone?
There she is, next to my old baby, which I have no idea what to do with now....someone told me Rifkin would give me $175 for it...
It's so exciting, I can finally drive out of Saginaw again!
Posted by Rachel at 11:13 AM |
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
I've been working, hanging out at my house, or staying at dan's, in case anyone wondered. His sister's wedding reception was Friday night, that was a good time. Saturday most of you were at his small party (which kind of disbanded early - I was feeling pretty tired and out of it myself, for whatever reason). Sunday was Moscars in STC, that provided some entertainment. After next year it's not going to be worth going to, cuz all the kids I'll have known from high school will be gone, and Pudge will be too. Dan thinks next year we should do something special/crazy for Pudge since it'll be his last year...it'd be cool if we could get as many people from past years as possible to show up or something...but we have a year to plan it so we'll worry about that later.In other news, I'm probably going to buy my brother's old car since he got a new(er) one...so if anyone's interested in a white '91 Pontiac Sunbird convertible with 131,400 miles, a broken passenger side mirror and a coolant leak that makes it nearly impossible to drive for more than 10 minutes at a time (unless you don't mind a bit of redline-quality overheating), I'm the girl with the hookup. I'll probably start driving my brother's car Friday and then call one of those ads in the paper that claims "we pay top dollar for junk cars!" to see what they'll give me for it.
Or I could sell it on eBay. Do I hear a starting bid of $50, anyone?
Posted by Rachel at 8:05 AM |
Monday, June 05, 2006
Party at Dan's this Saturday night, people can start coming over any time after 6pm. The occasion is the fact that Dan is on day shift now, woo. So yeah...be there, bring alcohol if you so desire, and party with the cool kids (because yeah, I'll be there).BE THERE!
