Bus augh and Lurker Day/Communications
Aug. 28th, 2008 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetVery long start to today -_-a I got up a little late, resulting in me grabbing food for the road rather than actually sitting down and eating breakfast at the apartment. It started thunderstorming at four in the morning, which woke me briefly, and then I went back to sleep because I am sane and do not want to be passing out on the road while driving a (small) busload of kids. I woke up again at a quarter past five, give or take (I keep my clocks fast), resulting in aforementioned rushing out the door.
Thankfully, there was already someone at the building when I arrived at work, so I didn't have to wait out in the rain for five, ten minutes with only my hat for shelter. Less thankfully, my walk to 'my' bus, which took all of one and a half minutes (if that), took place during a rather heavy period of rain, resulting in one (1)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
socchan being soaked through :/ In addition to this, there was the traditional late start for my associate (she helps keep track of kids on the bus), the heavy rainfall, and one crazy backed-up traffic accident on the road, resulting in me being waaaay late. I got even later as, upon reporting the traffic clog, I was instructed to go ahead to my second stop and pick up the first kid there.
Here's where it starts to get stressful. My second stop was one that had just been added. Like, Tuesday. And I didn't think it was set to start until tomorrow. So, being the lazy procrastinator that I am, I put off driving around the area to learn where streets were until tonight, again, thinking that the new stop wouldn't be until tomorrow. Not having any idea where the correct road was and being confused as fuck all by too many things, another half hour or so ran off to me being lost.
Eventually, I got all the kids to school, at roughly 9:03. Upon returning to base, I was told to park in a middle slot (drive through, so no backing, whee!) and asked to see the route manager when I got in. The route manager explained the basic legal issues with where I pick the new kid up (half the street is in another district, so he has to cross it in order for me to legally pick him up ¬_¬), told me I'd be getting yet another new student on the bus starting tomorrow, and then informed me that my first pickup's mother had phoned in with the complaint that I'd been about five to eight minutes late quite frequently thus far in the year. I explained my associate's habit of showing up after the last possible minute, and was told that, if this happens again, I was to radio into base when I was scheduled to start on my route and not wait any longer for my associate to show up. Believe me, even knowing what to do lifted a huge weight off my mind.
Long story short, this morning was horrible, this afternoon was better, and I get to start driving on my route seven (effectively ten) minutes earlier tomorrow because of two new kids. Yay, me!
In more fannish news:
* I have more pictures than I could possibly use for a single Lurker Day, as far as banner-making goes. I'm thinking of picking my favorite five or six, bannerizing those, and then stretching out the rest as far as I want.
* I actually had the next chapter of Communications finished and was starting on the one following when some characterization issues struck me, so I ended up scrapping the whole one-and-a-half chapters and starting from scratch. Managed to re-finish the next chapter today between my morning and afternoon routes, and am much more pleased with the results. I think I also have a firmer handle on where I want/expect the story to go, though there may be more revision involved there as well.
* That said, I could still probably use an extra beta-reader for this chapter at least; I'm more worried about characterization, especially in regards to a certain issue, than grammar at the moment, with a side order of speed so I can maybe get it out next Tuesday.summercloud does a great job (and hopefully will continue to do a great job, provided I haven't been waaaay to flaky resulting in her losing interest, which would be completely understandable, really), but timing can be a bit of an issue, so someone who has the free time to devote to the project would be a plus. If you'd like to volunteer, plz to feel free to leaving a comment here with your intentions and an e-mail address, and I may elect to make use of one or more of you. ♥!
And I think that's it. Now I'm going to feed the rats, medicate myself, shower and sleep. I've got another long day ahead of me tomorrow, and I'm not sure how I feel about the three-day weekend.
Thankfully, there was already someone at the building when I arrived at work, so I didn't have to wait out in the rain for five, ten minutes with only my hat for shelter. Less thankfully, my walk to 'my' bus, which took all of one and a half minutes (if that), took place during a rather heavy period of rain, resulting in one (1)
socchan being soaked through :/ In addition to this, there was the traditional late start for my associate (she helps keep track of kids on the bus), the heavy rainfall, and one crazy backed-up traffic accident on the road, resulting in me being waaaay late. I got even later as, upon reporting the traffic clog, I was instructed to go ahead to my second stop and pick up the first kid there.Here's where it starts to get stressful. My second stop was one that had just been added. Like, Tuesday. And I didn't think it was set to start until tomorrow. So, being the lazy procrastinator that I am, I put off driving around the area to learn where streets were until tonight, again, thinking that the new stop wouldn't be until tomorrow. Not having any idea where the correct road was and being confused as fuck all by too many things, another half hour or so ran off to me being lost.
Eventually, I got all the kids to school, at roughly 9:03. Upon returning to base, I was told to park in a middle slot (drive through, so no backing, whee!) and asked to see the route manager when I got in. The route manager explained the basic legal issues with where I pick the new kid up (half the street is in another district, so he has to cross it in order for me to legally pick him up ¬_¬), told me I'd be getting yet another new student on the bus starting tomorrow, and then informed me that my first pickup's mother had phoned in with the complaint that I'd been about five to eight minutes late quite frequently thus far in the year. I explained my associate's habit of showing up after the last possible minute, and was told that, if this happens again, I was to radio into base when I was scheduled to start on my route and not wait any longer for my associate to show up. Believe me, even knowing what to do lifted a huge weight off my mind.
Long story short, this morning was horrible, this afternoon was better, and I get to start driving on my route seven (effectively ten) minutes earlier tomorrow because of two new kids. Yay, me!
In more fannish news:
* I have more pictures than I could possibly use for a single Lurker Day, as far as banner-making goes. I'm thinking of picking my favorite five or six, bannerizing those, and then stretching out the rest as far as I want.
* I actually had the next chapter of Communications finished and was starting on the one following when some characterization issues struck me, so I ended up scrapping the whole one-and-a-half chapters and starting from scratch. Managed to re-finish the next chapter today between my morning and afternoon routes, and am much more pleased with the results. I think I also have a firmer handle on where I want/expect the story to go, though there may be more revision involved there as well.
* That said, I could still probably use an extra beta-reader for this chapter at least; I'm more worried about characterization, especially in regards to a certain issue, than grammar at the moment, with a side order of speed so I can maybe get it out next Tuesday.
summercloud does a great job (and hopefully will continue to do a great job, provided I haven't been waaaay to flaky resulting in her losing interest, which would be completely understandable, really), but timing can be a bit of an issue, so someone who has the free time to devote to the project would be a plus. If you'd like to volunteer, plz to feel free to leaving a comment here with your intentions and an e-mail address, and I may elect to make use of one or more of you. ♥!And I think that's it. Now I'm going to feed the rats, medicate myself, shower and sleep. I've got another long day ahead of me tomorrow, and I'm not sure how I feel about the three-day weekend.
