8 workdays is just too much, Full Moon, etc.

I worked eight days straight - 6 days last week and 2 days this week - before getting a day off. This is because of the holiday last week (Independence Day/4th of July), I think. But it is just too much - and full shifts all those days...lots of hours, yeah, but just too much.

I got my check today for that week; it was over $400 gross which was great except that I only got just over $300 of that after taxes, my union dues, and the $7 they take out of every check for my health insurance.

Today, I got up at 5:30 -- after 5 1/2 hours of sleep -- cause I figured I was going to have to take the bus to work since I had to be there at 10 and I had forgotten to ask my dad for a ride before he fell asleep. Lately, when I was working 10-7 shifts, my dad offered to take me so I could sleep in a bit. So I have been taking advantage of this. I found him this morning when I went downstairs to get breakfast and asked him if he could take me to work, and he said yes. Unfortunately, I couldn't just go back to sleep; I was too awake then. So when I got to work, I was really tired, and that on top of being on my period (or "surfing the crimson wave" as Cher from Clueless would say) and finding out the week I want for vacation might be during a "blackout" week ("blackout" weeks are off-limits for vacation requests) made me stressed and cranky. Even minor things like one of the dials getting stuck on the pricing gun I was using made me flip out. Thank goodness it was a 5-hour day for me; I would never have made it through a full shift. (Although apparently I was supposed to sample, and nobody informed me of this till my shift was more than half over, which really annoys me).

About the "blackout" week: most of those weeks are around holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. But the week I'm concerned about is listed as "8/18 - Inventory" and then a list of departments. I'm never involved in inventory (which is done by an outside company anyway) -- only the manager and the cake decorator have anything to do with it. I'm just, simply put, a peon (well, a paid peon). It's not like Loaves and Fishes where we all were involved in inventory and had to go out with inventory lists and inventory various departments at random when we had nothing else to do. This was pretty easy for me, unless I got stuck with the company that makes those little toys in the spinner and had to spend a good amount of time counting a huge pile of plastic rings or something. We only had one big inventory week, and that was the week between Christmas and New Year's.

I did have a nice discussion with Joseph today while packaging. I found out he lives with his mother, that he has two sisters, and that he has a brother who lives near Tampa, Florida. The fact that he lives with his mother at his age (he's probably in his '40's, I'd guess) can only mean a couple things: she's in bad health, so he and his family - wife, etc - are taking care of her; or he isn't married and never moved away from home. I always got the impression he wasn't married; the only girl in his life he ever talks about is his sister who lives nearby. I tried to ask about whether he was married, but he never answered directly.

Yesterday I went to the mall to get volume 8 of xxxHolic, which I had not been able to get and figured I should read since I skipped it and bought volumes 9-11. I found it, as well as volume 3 of Full Moon, which I had been looking for for some time (I kept seeing volumes 1, 2, and 6 at the bookstore by my work). I just started reading that volume today. Full Moon, known as Full Moon wo Sagashite in Japan, is a story about a young girl named Mitsuki who loves to sing but has a throat cancer that makes it difficult for her to speak or sing loudly. She refuses to have an operation that could cure the cancer because it could cause her to lose her voice completely. One day, when moping cause she can't go to a singing audition, Mitsuki is visited by two shinigami (gods of death), and one of them lets slip that Mitsuki only has a year to live. Mitsuki is shocked and runs off to the audition, fearing she'll never get another chance. One of the Shinigami, Takuto, takes pity on her and casts a spell on her to turn her into a 16-year-old girl with a healthy throat. In this new form, Mitsuki sings for the audition and is chosen to be the sponsoring label's next new idol. She plunges into the world of music and idoldom, taking the stage name "Fullmoon."

The series, while serious in tone, is funny in parts and features little sidebars by the author describing the manga, the process of making it, or things in her life, much like those of Mia Ikumi (artist for Tokyo Mew Mew) and Pink Hanamori (writer/artist for Pichi Pichi Pitch: Mermaid Melody). Actually those two writers, whose works both appeared in the same manga magazine (Nakayoshi, which Sailor Moon and Codename wa Sailor V also appeared in), might have influenced each other too. Full Moon, by the way, was originally serialized in a manga magazine called Ribon, which has also featured the mangas of old shoujo series like Fancy Lala and Hime-chan no Ribbon, which are considered mahou shoujo classics but which practically nobody here has heard of. When it was licensed for US release, it was originally published in Shoujo Beat, a magazine published by ViZ that is part manga anthology/part Japanese culture-related magazine, before being released in individual graphic novels.

I'm almost done with volume 3. Apparently, Takuto when alive was part of Mitsuki's dad's band. Cool. Oh, and Eichi -- the boy Mitsuki has a crush on -- is DEAD. Takuto remembers seeing him die. Man, poor Mitsuki. She keeps saying she's going to see him, but she never will. (It's kind of like Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, where Usagi keeps writing letters to Mamoru at Harvard University, where he is studying abroad, despite the fact that he never answers them because he never reached America -- he was killed en route by Galaxia, who took his Star Seed. Usagi initially brushes her concerns aside by saying that Mamoru is probably just busy with his studies and doesn't have time to write her back, but later on she becomes really concerned, until she finally learns the truth while facing Galaxia in the final battle).

I'm trying to save this one video, that "Sailor Moon/Golden Compass trailer" that I mentioned before. But it's not saving! I made it once, it only saved to 65% and then stopped. So I deleted it and re-made it and now it almost looks like it's going to save, then doesn't, even though I have plenty of disk space...-sigh- WHY???!!! It was a request so I want to get it out ASAP. Not to mention that the agony of it not saving is driving me crazy. I am going to try to do my Act 23 fandub -- the parts of which will be long too, like the video in question -- and then try saving the trailer and see what happens. We'll see.

It's now about 7:30 and I am debating whether I should take a nap for like an hour. But it's kinda pointless as it's almost nighttime anyway. I suppose it's worth a shot though. I am really tired. Oh what the heck. I'll nap. It'll help me clear my head for doing the fandub.

Ok good night.