Warning: This is a pretty long entry. Head to another page if you don't want to bore yourself to death. You have been warned.

Forgive me if you spot any grammatical errors. Or whatever. I'm just too lazy to read it all over again and edit. It's fcuking too long.

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Yeah, I know, I know, I should just get over this nostalgia thing. Move on. Do what I gotta do. Live life the way how it should now be lived. But you can't really blame me.

It never dawned on me that I would actually miss the work. C'mon, who would? The grumpy customers? The clogged drains? The unstable POS? It was all a mess. But, you know what, when I think about it...those are what I miss the most. Well, next to all the great people I worked with. :)

Johnny Rockets is one big black hole. When you get too near it, it engulfs you, despite all your objections and efforts to paddle away. And I'm so glad I subjected to the force. xD

It truly was more than I expected. Five months ago, when Mrs. Dapul said that we were going to be trained in a way which is far from how we would be if it were here in the country, I just thought it was going be a little different and a little harder. I guess I was more than a little wrong.

We don't have Johnny Rockets in the country, so maybe it'll be hard to comprehend. But I'll try my best to share my experiences as honest to the real thing as possible.

If you work in a self-service restaurant here in the Philippines, (e.g. KFC, Jollibee, McDonald's) it's a very simple set-up. Say you work as a cashier. You stand behind the computer, the customers line up in front of you. But you have a counter that defines the boundary between customer and associate. And you move in a confined space. No matter how busy it gets, you just move there, where the customer can see your every move. And you do nothing else but flash a smile and give a greeting, punch the orders in the system, upsell, grab the food from the rack thing where all the orders come out, prepare the beverages, grab some fries, and walk back to the counter (which is just a few steps away), back to the waiting customer and, most of the time, the contact ends there. Unless you get a complaint. ~_~ Then comes your next customer.

Full-service restaurants are probably a bit more different. But thing is, if you're a cashier, you're just the cashier. And if you're a server, you just do the serving.

( On the other hand, this is how it's like in Johnny Rockets: )

I committed so many mistakes when I started: I served raw chicken strips, messed up checks, served half-filled malts, etc. Well, I also made a couple more after my first month. Like spilling ranch dressing on my guest's dress (also on a kid's shoe), spilling ice tea on a co-server, messing up checks again, etc. But just like what Tammy said, "it happens." ;D

We didn't just work as servers, cashiers and cooks, we had to be utility people too. We cleaned tables, washed dishes, cleaned the restaurant, etc. Especially, when there was no utility person to do these, which happened a lot. And part of a server's job is a couple of cleaning duties on closing time. Oh my.

Oh my.

Ohmy. Ohmy. xD This is getting pretty long. Haha.

I have so much more to share. But I think I have to stop. xD

See how much I love Johnny Rockets? I learned so much there. I even grew muscles. And people ask me why I've become so skinny?

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I wrote this because I wanted to document a few things before I forget them altogether. For practicum report purposes. :)

I don't have anything against Americans. And I didn't mean to offend anyone. I also had a lot of guests from different cultures that were as hard to deal with. Just, most of the time, I had Americans for customers. I was in America after all. :D

I felt neither excitement nor fear when we finally settled in the airport at Narita. I was expecting a better reaction. I was expecting that wave of mixed and incomprehensible emotions but, alas, I never realized my feelings would be as sedentary as how the general part of my life in Texas had been.

The waiting area was packed. It was the first time after four months that I saw so many Filipinos together: parents cradling babies, children playing with their siblings, and wives and mothers having the usual gossip about their indolent husbands and sons.

I was asleep for the whole duration of the flight. I woke up and saw the yellow and orange lights twinkling as we landed. But my thoughts were still of Texas. Yes, I miss them. I miss them so much that I feel like booking a flight right now; that my sight turns glassy and my eyes start to throb with tears.

I’ve never been one good with goodbyes. I usually just pretend I don’t care. But my recent goodbye was almost unbearable, I just couldn’t feign apathy.

Ugh. I don’t know why I can’t finish this. I just need sleep.

It's one in the morning. I'm sitting on the bed with the computer on my lap. Eating a bar of chocolate. I didn't eat rice for dinner. I had 9 pieces of chicken fries from Burger King, and a cup of root beer. I wonder how much calories it pumped in my system.

My hands are ugly. My palms are lined. They have these short, thin lines like scratches clawed by a cat. They're rough. And the veins from my arms travel all the way to my wrists and to the back of my hands. I touch them and they startle me with such protrusion

Why am I here? Why did I come here? Why did I travel for 24 hours over vast oceans amongst the clouds four months ago just to get here? Why did I risk graduation? Why did I leave the environment I had been so accustomed to?

Four years ago, I had so much fervor and so much idealism, I could've powered the lamplights in Roxas Blvd. My future was planned though not in details. But I planned. Like who I was going to be and where. Did I lose focus by uninvited distractions? Or did I allow interruptions to enter the scene?

Oh. Fuck sugar. I'm almost done with my chocolate. I think I better sleep. I'm getting hyper again.

Good night.

I'm happy, you know. Very. :) No regrets.

I've been none other than the epitome of idleness for the last 12 hours. My last day off is going to end in 30 minutes. I say last day off because it's my last week at work. And, apparently, the company is planning to kill us even before we can go home. They scheduled us to open and close on our last three days, that's starting tomorrow until Sunday. During the three busiest days of the week. Maybe they're trying to punish us for leaving -- since they'll be losing three of the few good servers that they have. Ha-ha. xD

I've been giving hugs to everybody since Saturday. And I've been giving away tables too. I've been very lazy, and haven't been caring about the money I'm losing. Obviously, I just can't wait for Sunday. I've been so fed up with the restaurant -- four, FOUR, months of serving and putting up with stupid customers, which, unsurprisingly, happens a lot -- you can't blame me.

Anyway, I'm both happy and sad that we'll be leaving soon. Happy because I can stop dealing with dense people, both customers and co-workers, for the time being. Sad because I'll be missing people. There are people here whom I've become attached to. And when we leave on the 20th, chances are I won't be seeing them anytime soon, probably forever.

Ida asked me if we are going to come back next year, I told her I'm not sure, maybe if we had the money. I couldn't tell her "no." Because I can't be that frank. I'll miss Ida very much. She has been playing as my shrink without even being aware of it. Her hugs give the same warmth as my mother's. Oh, I'm being way too cheesy.

Oh, if you're wondering why I've been online more frequently, it's because I finally bought myself a laptop and have been leeching. Yayness! I'm not sure where I'm getting the WiFi though. Anyway, this is the computer that I bought from Circuit City. No, no, no, I'm not rich. And I will not be giving away any pasalubong when I get back home. xP

I have to go to sleep. We have to leave an hour earlier tomorrow because the Russian girls will be opening. "Russian girls?" Tomorrow, I'll tell. For now, I'll rest. Good night.

P.S. Bumili si Iris ng wonder bra. Hahaha. xD

Because I refuse to sleep and have nothing better to do...I shall write a set of incomprehensible sentences regarding my stay in this foreign land.

I have been a very hard working OFW. Yes, quote and quote - OFW. Ten more days, then I'll be flying back to the Philippines.

Sure, I've been very bored -- that if I keep on doing what I've been doing for another month I'll burst and disperse a contagious sickness called surliness -- but other than that, life here has been easy and pleasant.

I've met a lot of people that I never realized I would meet in my life. I've met people of different cultures: Colombians, Mexicans, Vietnamese, Thai, Russians, etc. I've been referred to as oriental, which is really funny for some reason. I learned that Americans can be very stupid sometimes -- no offense intended, that some of them would do anything just to get a free meal. That a dollar is worthless, it can't buy you a good meal. That a lot of Americans don't smell very good -- well, maybe Texans -- they don't take a bath every day. I also realized that each grain of rice is precious.

Haha. I give up. My eyes are giving up on me. I shall sleep now.

For some reason I've tried not to update this journal when I feel I should be doing otherwise. I'm rarely online, surfing the net is expensive here - that could be a reason. Or maybe I just don't like people meddling with what I'm going through in another country. Not really. Maybe I just don't feel like it.

Anyway, one thing made me want touch a keyboard and write what's in my mind again...

It's my day off today and am supposed to be at home, sleeping. Making the most of the the very little spare time we're given -- but I'm here in the mall. I've been working at Johnny Rockets for almost four months. And this has been the shortest four months of my life. Everyday has been monotonous. Almost every thing I do here happens inside a box. An itty-bitty box at that. So if you think I'm so lucky because I got the chance to get out of a rotting country then you're wrong, you are very wrong. Though I understand I'm very fortunate to have been able to collect all the means needed to get here, I'm not really happy. Yes, I'm earning good money. In fact, I'm almost done paying what I owe my mother for this program. In fact, I might actually buy a notebook computer next week. But. It has been boring, thus the shortest four months of my life.

I've been working as a server, my first serving job. So far, we've made a very good impression to the company. We're good workers, they say. And they like us better than the previous exchange visitors. They're able to utilize us.

We've made friends. People are nice here. But not all. One of the nicest people I've worked with is Ida. She's a cook at the restaurant and she's the best. She's been with the company for five years. We all love her. Another is Tammy, the head manager.

A few weeks after we started working, the General Manager, Lawerence, resigned. A new one came in and changes were made. Making me feel like HMSHost Katy is the most unstable company in existence. A new management system was implemented. People were fired. Confidences were shook. And the system is just not going so well.

Tammy is leaving. And Johnny Rockets will dwindle down, most likely. And now that another person is taking over the restaurant, people are not feeling so competent anymore. More people are wanting to leave.

Ida cried. She is probably still crying right now. She has been the only worker to have worked so long at Johnny Rockets. (They say nobody wants to work there. Because it's hard and crazy.) I wanted to cry when I saw her cry. She told a server, Kristel, who has been working for 3 years with her, to not leave. Kristel just gave her two-week notice 7 days ago. She feels stagnant. She has been left behind by people. Five years and she's still in the same place. And we're leaving in 2 weeks. I feel bad.

Fuck.