Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Putting People to Sleep 101

I have to give a talk in church on Sunday. Most people end up saying that they ended up being happy about giving a talk, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will only be glad when it’s over. I put some thoughts together and when I practiced saying it aloud, I realized that I am an extremely boring speaker! I don't know how to make anything funny when I’m talking about a house of prayer and a house of fasting. Plus, almost everyone in the ward is a returned missionary and I’m just some dope trying to say something they haven't heard before. Yeah, right. People usually like hearing stories, so I thought, "hey, I'll tell a great personal story." Only one thing wrong with that, I don't think I have a personal story about prayer or fasting. Maybe I could just make one up or I should actually do some real research and find a true story. Either way, I’m going to have to write another talk. I think I should start out by saying, "So, when brother Carter asked me to give a talk I was like, hey man I don't think so, " then I would sit down. hahaha, too bad that doesn't take up my whole 9 minutes that I’m supposed stand up in front of the entire ward for, feeling like, what’s the phrase, oh, yeah, a puss head. Hmm, I’ve never used that phrase before, but I don't think I would like feeling like a puss head.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Its been a while

I know that I was never very consistent with writing blogs, but it has really been a long time since i have written one. I would want to write about something, but then I felt like I never had anything good to write about. I don't really have anything good now, but I felt impressed to blog.

I am working as a waitress, (well i guess to be politically correct, server) at Thai Chili Gardens in Orem. Its my first time being a server and I have to say that its not that bad. When I went in to turn in my application, the owner asked me, "Have you ever been a server before?" Now all i understood was blah blah blah server blah. (sidenote: I have a really hard time understanding accents) So I said, "what?" and he asked again and this time all i heard was blah blah blah server before?" So, taking a guess I said "I haven't, but I have had plenty of experience working with food at Domino's." I guess this was the right answer because I started work 3 days later.

I was really excited to start working because that meant money which meant i would be able to eat and live under a roof during the next two semesters of school, but i was still a little nervous about the whole not understanding my boss when he attempted to speak english thing. Lo and behold, on Monday I found out that the cook is his wife, Mon, who speaks very little english with an even thicker accent, and his mother-in-law, who we call grandmon, (we don't actually know her real name) doesn't speak any english at all.

That morning I was trained for about an hour by another server and then they tried to help me memorize the menu. After that the lunch rush started and I was pretty much on my own. I was pretty good at taking peoples orders, but when people would ask me a question I was just like a deer in the head lights because I felt like I didn't know anything about anything. Then it was time to take out their food and I didn't know what any of the food was. Then started some of the craziness with the cooks. I would ask what something was and they would say something and I didn't know what they said, so I would guess what food they said and they would say somthing supposedly in english back to me, but I wouldn't understand anything. This would go on for a bit until another server would come into the kitchen and would tell me what the food was in nonaccented english.

A lot of the foods we have to garnish with some shredded carrots or parsley and when I would forget to do this Grandmon, who doesn't speak any english, would grab my arm and say, "eh, eh" and wave her hand at the carrots. I would garnish the food and as I would leave I could hear Grandmon saying something in Thai, which was probably, "That girl is pretty stupid."

This sort of thing happened for about two weeks everyday until I knew about everything on the menu. Also, my ears have been slightly trained to I can understand almost everything the Thai people say in broken english. I guess things are going pretty good for me and I'm having some fun adventures while working as a server, but you'll find out about those later.