July 6

"We have a penguin club emergency here."
-Ger

Today began when my alarm failed to go off. Every morning Megan and I leave the room at 7:50am to catch the 8:05am bus. Today I woke up and looked at the clock. It was 7:46. Bad news bears. I rushed to get ready and graciously Megan waited for me. We missed the 8:05 bus and had to take the next one, which took like 20 extra minutes. We both still made it to work on time, but I didn't get to eat breakfast or pack my lunch.

At work today I worked on editing pictures from the launch for a while, as well as uploading all the pictures the kids took, and trying to sort through those. After that I mainly worked on the database. For lunch today, the Regional Youth Service a few doors down invited us to eat with them. I bought a sandwich from the Spar, considering I didn't pack one this morning. The sandwich was delicious, but each bite of it taunted me, reminding me about rushing around this morning. You know I like to be scheduled...

(2:07 lunchtime.)

After lunch Siobhan and I sat down for my first Common Ground supervision session. She marked off an hour of time for it, and we just sat and talked. The purpose was to reflect on what's gone on since I've been here and talk about how we both felt it was going, all the plans we are currently working on, and set deadlines for the tasks I have to do from here until the end of my stay (which is coming up very quickly!) I was really nervous about this little meeting, as you can imagine if you know me, but it wasn't bad. We just talked really. Siobhan didn't bite.

After work today, it was Emily and Hannah's turn to cook dinner. Elise, Emily's visiting friend, sweetly stepped in and offered to help them cook, and she made pesto pasta with shrimp in it. It was fabulous. Then we just kinda hung out for a while and planned our London trip a little more in detail. Every night we have planning sessions, it feels like, because all our weekend trips have a lot of booking that has to be done. Jenny has been very good at that lately.

(Mandy and Megan)

(Yummy)

(Hanging out after dinner.)

Perhaps the most exciting part of my day, was getting a package. So, I was walking in from work and saw the list of packages on the office door, as always. I glanced as I walked by, not expecting anything. And on the list of who has packages... is... Lauren Schurz. I did a double take. Ummm. Lauren? Are you here? It said the package was P/O, meaning it was able to fit in the mailbox... cautiously I peeked in my mailbox... and there it was. A package in my mailbox, with my address and apartment number... addressed to Lauren Schurz. Silly girl. It took some convincing, but eventually the office gave it to me, knowing I probably wasn't making it up hahaha. My favorite part of getting this book in the mail (Lauren REALLY wanted me to read it) was the fact that I emailed Lauren to say thanks and she wrote me a novel about how hard it was to send. I'm gonna copy it for you to read now, it's pretty funny....


LAUREN'S EMAIL:

"OMG IT ARRIVED TO YOU?! OMGOAJLAKJSDLFKAJSDFLKJ!!!!!!!

I AM LIKE LAKSJDLKASJFLKJASDLKFJASLDF!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS AWESOME!!!!!

The reason I did that was omg so much book drama rachel, i cant even BEGIN to tell you!!!!!!!!!!!! And yes I AM DUMB bc omg UGH

let me go back and tell you about it all from the beginning even though you know most of it.

BOOK DRAMA dRAAAAAAAMAAAAAA
1. Ordered the book from American Amazon...dumb mistake...so I went and cancelled that order
2. Ordered the book from UK Amazon...awesome...quick shipment and cheaper...wahooo
3. UK Amazon cancels the order bc they sold me a book that was out of stock...fail amazon. fail.
4. Lauren goes to UK Ebay bc Amazon failed me and I find it on there and I click purchase and perf everythings good
5. Lauren FORGOT she was on Ebay and not Amazon anymore (meaning that Rachel's address was no longer the default address like it had been on Amazon) and I freaking had it sent to AMERICA from UK...fail lauren. fail.
6. I IMMEDIATELY...and I mean my screen said purchase complete and I clicked send e-mail and i said....I made a mistake with my purchase can I please change my shipping address to this: and put in your address....
7. Never heard anything back....
8. Lauren gets on her Wachovia account and has 3 different charges for the book...the 13 dollar from American Amazon, 11 dollars from UK Amazon and 8 dollars from Ebay...even though both Amazon's had been cancelled...they were in the "holds" on my account though and they disappeared bc of the cancellation but at one point I was paying 30 bucks for the book hahahaha
9. Still don't hear from Ebay about shipping address change
10. wachovia is no longer charging me 3 times for the book...only the last one YAYA!
11. RACHEL NOW RECEIVED THE BOOK!!!!!

I am like stokeeeeeed!"

Hahahha, she's pretty cool. I like her a lot. Thanks again for the book Lauren, sorry about how much you had to go through to get it here.