And so it begins . . .

Currently Reading: Ju-On by Kei Ohishi

It is now official, I am in training. Ok, unofficially I've been in training for a while now. In fact, quite a few of us have been in a sort of limbo over our position while we waited for the books and final instructions from the district office. Yesterday was the official kick-off.

The course isn't too difficult. In fact, given that I spent the past year as a bather, it's actually pretty easy. Mostly what I do is learn the proper terms for things and the company rules on how certain situations are handled. I won't start learning HOW to groom a dog until we've gone through all this stuff first. Plus, I've got what's called a "passport" in which I'm to track various jobs that I do around the salon. For example, I have to bathe 30 dogs. I have to pull customer information files on 15 people. I have to fill out a certain number of customer receipts. I have to clip nails on 20 dogs. What it's designed to do is give us experience in the very basics. Makes sense really. In order to qualify for the training, you only have to work for the company for 30 days. If I'd only worked there a month, yeah, I'd need that extra experience. I don't mind the work though. It gives me more time to study up on things and we can take it at a more leisurely pace.
It's getting colder out there. Yeah, you folks to the north and east of me already know that. In fact, quite a few of you to the south and west of me know it too. We've managed to somehow avoid the really cold stuff. It slides right by with us in a little protective alley in the middle. Well that's about to end. I'm looking at the forecast in the little bar at the bottom of my screen and it tells me it's a balmy 37 out there right now. Tonight it's going to be a whopping 20! And it's going to stay below 40 the rest of the week. Fortunately we've only got one day in the mix where there's any rain. Might ice up Wednesday night/Thursday morning. All things considered, that's not so bad.
I've mostly adjusted to the mornings. Mostly. I wake up on time, that much is true but about mid-day I get . . . well, it's like jet lag. I get tired and run-down and all that but I can't really sleep it off. I tried that today (I worked half a day) and it just didn't happen. CC was the one who suggest it was like jet lag and she's right. Happened at about the same time too. You usually start feeling it really bad at about 2 weeks. You THINK you've gotten over the time change then BAM it hits ya. At least, it's like that when we travel to the Philippines.

Heard from my aunt the other day; my mother's sister. She sent us a card with a few pictures and a brief letter. She mentioned all the building-up they're doing in the little cities around San Antonio. It's just a HUGE explosion of building. Lots of new sub-divisions going in and all the stores to go with it. The city is growing like a weed and she's feeling a bit crowded. The little town they live in used to be just that, a little town. It was a bit outside of the metro area, sometimes referred to as "the sticks." Now, well now it's just another in a long line of sub-divisions filled with people who didn't want to live in the actual city because . . . well just because they didn't. Anyway, my aunt has decided to move back to Pennsylvania. She didn't say WHERE in Penn but I'm thinking it'll be in or near the little town they were living in before they moved down. I wonder if they remember just how cold it is up there?

Is it just me or are my blogs getting more boring? True, a few weeks ago I had a really good entry with all that culture stuff but otherwise not much. We're doing some more culture stuff in February so maybe that'll leave me with more to talk about. I certainly don't want to get into all the finer points of dog grooming school at the moment. There are only so many interesting stories that come out of a grooming salon. Maybe next week I'll have something :-)