Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Help is on the way!

I really have nothing new to write in this post, so I’m just going to keep complaining about how stressed out I am with work and school. Today, it hit a whole other level. Well, actually last night. Our school director has been working very hard the last couple months with all the craziness going on, and I definitely can’t complain. Yesterday however, her son broke his leg and since she doesn’t have insurance she had to take him to the emergency room at Valley Medical. Like I had previously said, she is a bit on the frantic, dramatic, very exaggerative type so I could only imagine all the stories I would hear about it the next day, but she didn’t come to work today. There always has to be someone whether it be her or I there as a director at ALL times, in case anything goes wrong or licensing comes to check in, etc. There was no way I could leave school because I had to turn in a paper in one class, and then I had a review for a midterm in another class. She couldn’t come to work because her son had broken his leg, and she spent the night until around 3am in the emergency room with him. I completely understand and I feel horrible, but I guess there’s a business side of me that says, “I don’t care, get your butt to work!”, and then I feel like such a horrible person. It’s just very stressful but I guess that’s what comes along with running a business. Thank Goodness my mother is flying back tomorrow, and although she will be sleeping for the next week due to her jet lag, at least I’ll have someone to complain to.

Another great reason I’m so excited my mom is coming back, is because my brother is currently planning his last minute, but really not so last minute wedding that’s on Thanksgiving weekend. They’ve had it “planned” for about 8 months but are just now deciding to start doing everything, the booked the venue a couple weeks ago, and my sister in law ordered her dress, that’s really about all they’ve done. My mom and I are a little annoyed at how they seem to not want to do anything for their own wedding, they just sit around and wait for my mother and I to step in. We actually planned their engagement party, which was HUGE, and we did ALL the work. Literally it was my mother and I and 2 coworkers who planned the entire party for around 500 people, and we had less than a month to plan everything because it was a really quick engagement. Although both myself and my mother love planning parties, it’s exhausting and just adds a lot more stress, which at this point I’m not sure either of us can handle. I don’t think I have ever in my life been as stressed out as the last two months, and I’m really hoping things get better because I can feel my veins bursting! I would like to be able to eat and sleep again, and not have a constant headache. Yay for tomorrow, momma to the rescue!!! I hope…

Since i previously forgot, here is my vocab word that i have been completely been forgetting about! Hahah, the vocab word i choose is; Caligulan (adjective) which means "extreme in cruelty”. To use the word in a sentence, my mother has been Caligulan by leaving me to run her business for 3 months.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

So tired:[

So it’s like 9:30pm, on Thursday and I need to write my blog. Mind you, I have been living off about 3 maybe 4 hours of sleep a night for the past week and a half, this might not all come out right. I am completely exhausted! I haven’t been sleeping as I mentioned earlier because I have an insane amount of homework, I’m extremely stressed out at work, and I have to deal with my crazy family. This is what my days usually look like, at least for the past two weeks. I wake up at 5:30 am, which is SO early, it’s ridiculous. I am definitely NOT a morning person, at all. I go to work around 6:10-6:15, and have to deal with screaming, whining kids under the ages of 5, who just have way to much energy for that time of day. I leave work around 8:15 to get to school. I have class M-TH from 9-11:45, I usually then head off too the gym until 1:30, and then if I have time I run home to take a shower. If not I have to be at work by 2pm, sometimes super sweaty and nasty. I work until 6pm and then have to come home and cook dinner for my father and cousin, two men who are probably the pickiest eaters in the universe. By the time I cook, we eat, I clean everything up its already around 9 pm. Then I get to start doing my homework, so usually I’m not done until around 1or 2 am because it takes me forever to read. At this point I’m so exhausted that half the things I read, I do not comprehend anyways so really it’s a little useless.
My days are definitely long, and there are so many times I wish I could just leave it all and go home and curl up in my bed and sleep for a good 24 hours. That would really just be my dream come true, but when I think about it logically, I know that that would never happen, so I need to stop getting my hopes up. Truthfully, I can’t imagine myself not doing anything all day long, like my 18 year old cousin who wakes up at 1pm everyday, eats, watches TV, plays video games, takes a nap, and then eats again and then does some more of nothing, and then goes to bed. As amazing as it kind of sounds, I just wouldn’t be able to go from all of this, to that. I know I may complain a lot about how tired I am, and how stressed I am, but in the end, that’s life, right?
I think this was the perfect way for me to vent all my feeling that I’ve been keeping inside. Usually I talk to my mom on a daily basis and we both sit there for hours complaining to each other, and I never knew how much it really helped me until my mom left to Egypt to visit her mom in July, and I’ve been lost ever since. Any time I call her of course she’s busy, so really our conversations either revolve around the daycare, which is her business that I’m currently running, or asking about my brother’s upcoming wedding and what kind of flowers we decided on. She’s finally coming back on Thursday, which I can’t even wait for. So excited to have someone to complain to again! Woohoo!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Beyond Chaos

Blog Week 3
Absolute Chaos
These last couple weeks at work have been absolute chaos, maybe worse. My mother owns a childcare center, but is currently on vacation in Egypt (as she has been for the last 2 months), so I’ve been running it while she’s gone. I’m a teacher there usually, but dealing with bills and annoying people who don’t want to work takes it to a while other level. My mom for some reason thinks its perfectly fine to just up and leave for a few months, leaving me in charge while I also go to school full time and take care of the house, which includes cooking every night and cleaning because my father is Arab and is old school. I really love working with kids, and luckily we are licensed for 44 children, but thank god I have 7-9 other staff usually working. These past few weeks however, we were already looking for two new teachers for two of our classrooms because we just enrolled about 6 new kids. Then our Pre- K teacher, who has only been working for two months, just didn’t show up one day. We panicked, made it through that day to find out she has preeclampsia(high blood pressure) and is pregnant so she probably will not be returning for a few months. Ms. Martha, our infant room teacher, that had just marked the probation period a week ago, has now discovered that she has arthritis and has been sending us doctor’s notes saying she can no longer work. On top of all this, we are under probation from licensing for another mistake, so if licensing comes and we aren’t fully staffed with the correct ration of students to teachers, they could very easily shut us down. Therefore this may have easily been the most stressful week of my “career”.
On top of this, I’m trying to deal with the stress of figuring out my graduation requirements, figuring out when I am supposed to find time to study for the GRE, and actually apply to take it, stressing over all the work I have to do for my classes, figuring out time do even do that work, stressing over planning two bridal showers and helping plan my brother’s wedding, AND dealing with my father and his demands for the house. I am definitely the kind of person who becomes stressed over the slightest things, so at this point my stress level is at a 100, I can’t sleep, I have a constant migraine, and anytime I complain to my mom, she replies, “it’s okay honey, just don’t stress yourself out”…really? Thanks mom!
There really are just not enough hours in a day. For the past couple weeks, I’ve been working at 6:15 am, the going to school, gym if there’s time because I have 3 months to get in shape for my brothers wedding, then I go back to work until 6 pm, come home and cook and clean and by that time all I really want to do is sleep, but I usually am awake until about 1-2am doing homework. Sleep has not been much of an option lately, and it’s beginning to really take a toll on me. I can tell that I’m crankier, have less patience, have crazy mood swings, and get so emotional over everything. I sound like a 13 year old going through the beginning stages of puberty, it’s just fabulous.
All I pray is that all of “this” be settled soon. I hope we hire 3 new fabulous teachers, who aren’t pregnant, disabled, or lazy. I hope that everyone gets their “stuff” and really starts to work hard. I would like to have time to just sleep, study for my GRE’s, and just “relax” a little. I really can’t wait until December, when I should be going to Egypt for a month for my best friends wedding and to visit friends and family I haven’t seen in almost 3 years. This will be the first actual vacation I’ve taken off work and school in 3 years, so I would say it’s much needed and deserved. So, dear next 3 months, PLEASE move along as quickly as possible. Thanks!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

THE DAY HAS FINALLY COME.....

.....that my 28 year old brother is FINALLY moving out with his fiance. This last weekend, my brother and his fiancee finally moved out. My brother has been living with us for 28 years, and my soon to be sister-in-law has been living with us for about a month after her mother moved in with her boyfriend who my brother doesn't get along with, so she "had" to move into our house. I guess it's a good thing my mom and sister are not in the country right now( they're vacationing in Egypt), or else living in a 5 bedroom house with 7 people may have gotten a little crowded. I really do love my brother and my soon to be sister in law, but for the past year my brother has had such a short temper, that saying good-morning to him might set him off and have him yelling for an hour. I understand he's stressed out because he just started working at Apple after not being employed for about a year, and the requests for the wedding have been pouring in from my sister in law. They already had two prior parties, a huge engagement with close to 600 people and a smaller party at my sister in laws house for about 70 people. My sister in law insists on also having a large bridal shower, with around 150 of her girl friends and then the wedding which will be 300 people. That's a whole lot of parties! My brother and our family are also "supposed" to pay for it all because her parents both can't afford any of it.

So we've basically all been living in fear of having to avoid my brother and his princess of a wife because they are both overly dramatic, and again you really have to watch what you say. My brother insists that i do absolutely nothing around the house.  While mind you I go to school full-time, I run my mom's daycare business( which consists of the 44 kids we are licensed to have in our facility), take care of the house because my arab father expects me to cook everyday as well as clean, do all the chores, etc, and then take care of our 2 german Shepard puppies and our two cats. What upsets him is that I've asked my brother to walk our dogs every once in a while because i don't have a lot of time, which of course he can't because he doesn't want to be bothered by doing anything. His fiancee will also complain that i don't help her out with wedding planning, i don't buy any food that she likes, i don't cook anything she likes, i complain that i have to clean everything too much, and so on. It's really aggravating having to do stuff for people who are so unappreciative, and that's why i rally admire my mom. At least when my mom's here we are able to share in chores and stuff around the house, so it lessens the burden quite a bit.

Thankfully, they're out of the house for now! I forgot to add that, while i helped my brother and cousin move boxes and furniture up the 3 flights of stairs to my brother's new apartment, my sister in law sat on her bottom looking through her purse and talking on the phone. Again, of course no one could say a word. As long as they are finally out, right? Wrong...my brother came over for dinner today because his fiancee had to work late. Guess things don't change much, do they?