Striking Out in the Book Department

This morning I went to get my books for school this fall. I'm a senior this year (which feels weird to say for some reason), but I still feel pretty enthusiastic when I go get my textbooks. Something about the academic potential of a new semester always gets me a little excited. But today, I only came out of there with one little book. This is because my roommate already has the book I need for one of the classes, and I either already have the books for the rest or I will have to wait till I get to class (small classes usually don't bother to stock the books in the bookstores). I suppose I should be overjoyed that I don't have to spend much money on textbooks this semester, but somehow I couldn't help but be a little bummed out that I didn't have a nice stack. Oh well. :)

Yesterday I went back to work, and it was kind of weird, but good. It felt good to be back being productive again, and I hadn't forgotten how to do my job or anything (lol). My coworkers were glad to see me back, and I found a huge pile of paperwork for me to do. It's a job that I usually handle, and I had left instructions so they would know how, but since they were shorthanded with me gone, it just piled up. I didn't really enjoy going through it all last night, but hey, it makes me feel important. Lol. And goodness knows I need to be working toward getting back in the black (this trip put me majorly in the red). So yeah...good times.

After work I went to get groceries, and I was struck by how HUGE the grocery store is. And the aisle with the Italian food cracked me up, because it's like a whole aisle of spaghetti sauce, which was next to impossible to find in Italy. You could find a whole aisle of tomato paste, but Italians do not believe in pre-made sauce. They spice up their own. I had to search high and low to find the one bottle of lazy-man spaghetti sauce in the whole place. Haha. Anyway, the grocery store in Texas was a whole new experience, and just rubbing shoulders with my fellow Texans felt good in a way. Since I've been people-watching for six weeks, I am now seeing these Lubbockites with new eyes. I've decided that they're a lot more interesting than I previously gave them credit for. Also, I feel that my faith is being restored in Americans in general. I don't know if it ever came out in my blog or anything, but I severely disliked almost every American I met over there, besides Rachel and a couple of my roommates. They were the whiniest, most annoying, loudest, snobbiest, most demanding, stupidest people ever, and I always thought to myself that if I were an Italian, I would hate Americans. But you know, the Americans who travel overseas aren't the best cross-section of society. They tend to be the rich snobby ones who are used to having everything their way. The study abroad kids tend to be the rich snobby ones whose daddies pay for everything, and therefore tend to take pretty much everything for granted. But now I'm back in the real world, where people actually have jobs and work hard and appreciate what they have, and are generally nice, good people. I knew there was a reason I liked Lubbock. :)

I have also noticed that studying abroad has made me a lot bolder. I find myself conversing with random people on planes, with the checkers and sackers at the grocery store, with our customers in the pharmacy, etc. I used to never strike up random conversations with people, but now I figure I might as well. Haha extroverts have more fun, there's no doubt about that. I don't know if I would quite classify myself as a complete extrovert or anything, since I'm still a pretty reserved person by nature. But something about running off by myself and being forced to meet a bunch of new people has made me a lot less intimidated by the whole process. I figure that's a good by-product, mostly. Hopefully it doesn't mean I'm obnoxious now or anything!

Well it's time to put the scrubs on. Off to work!