I felt a great disturbance in the force, as though one crazy blogger had been given other tasks to complete, causing him to cry out in terror, and his blog to be silenced.

Well, okay, it wasn’t that bad. But hello, folks! This is the first blog post that I’ve written since school began! (All those reviews were scheduled ahead of time, they don’t count.) It’s been a rather interesting week, although it did feel like it went by pretty quickly and so I figure I owe you sort of an update.

On Monday, I did spend the afternoon at the fair and the evening judging cookies there. Out of 33 people who signed up, 27 cookies showed up, which are both record-breaking numbers (and kinda made my stomach hurt to think about). Still, I survived the tasting, and for the first time I wasn’t the last to finish (albeit I started about 12 minutes earlier than the others).

I left a bit earlier than I needed to on Tuesday morning. I don’t know why, in retrospect, but it was sure a good thing that I did because not only was my bike seat acting strange, but when I got to school, I realized that I had forgotten my bike lock! Luckily, my parents are still on their summer vacation, so they were able to bring the lock over to me. I got all the classes that I wanted: AP Calculus BC, Advanced Orchestra, Spanish 7-8, Physics, AP US History, and CP English 5-6, however they gave them to me in periods 2-7, despite my repeated requests for periods 1-6. So, after registration room was over, I went to the counseling office during my now-vacant first period to see if I could get the problem fixed. However, a whole bunch of kids went to the office for a problem, so they closed the doors and handed out “pink slips” that you could fill out to report your problem, and they’d call you sometime during the day to discuss it. So, after filling out my “pink slip” and turning it in, I had nothing else to do for the next 40 minutes, so I found myself something to do in the Attendance Office sorting all of the registration forms that everyone in the school had turned in to their registration room. I proceeded to do the periods 2-7 in my schedule, and never actually got called.

Wednesday was late-start day, and actually this year they moved up the schedule from an 8:35 start time to 8:47. However, someone didn’t reset the bells, because the warning bell fired at the same 8:30 time as last year! Although I didn’t actually have to show up until 9:36 under my 2-7 schedule, I showed up a bit early to see if I couldn’t get my schedule changed. Although the counselors weren’t supposed to change 2-7 to 1-6, I came up with enough excuses to convince them, plus some info from my teachers regarding which periods could be rescheduled to allow for it. I got my new schedule 3 minutes before first period started, so I enjoyed a full day. Yesterday and today were relatively uneventful, but I’m definitely getting back into the swing of things when it comes to homework.

However, some of you may know that I work at the cafeteria at my school (and have worked at them at my respective schools for the last 4 and a half years). Well, this new year saw some major changes to the cafeteria that sent me brain rolling in all different directions this week. Apparently, because of the new Wellness Policies at the school district that have also been enforced by the state government, our school now has to offer more “meals” instead of offering a bunch of things a la carte, and also make them healthier. It’s not that I have a problem with that, but it’s the way they’ve implemented it that struck a nerve with me. First off: we’re still selling the same food as we did before, however the prices for some of the items (now identified as “entrees”) have been standardized at $2 for breakfast/brunch entrees and $3.25 for lunch entrees. That means it could have been a $2.25 slice of pizza, a $2 burger, a $2.50 sandwich, or even a $1.50 thing of six tiny chicken nuggets–now all of it’s $3.25. The only other difference is that they come with a fruit selection and a carton of milk for the $3.25. (It took awhile to get the new boss in the main cafeteria to explain it to my boss in the snack bar and the students.) Some of the items are still marked as “a la carte” and keep their normal price. At first, we were told that if students didn’t want the milk and/or fruit, then we didn’t give it to them, but the $3.25 was still in effect. However, today the district supervisor of the Food Services (actually, it’s now called the Student Nutrition Services) personally visited us telling us that we were required to give each student fruit and milk by law. (Of course, if the student walks off leaving the fruit and/or milk, then at that point we’ve done all we can do.)

Oh, and by the way, to add insult to injury, they gave us cash machines in the snack bar. I haven’t used one of those things since the day I started in food service back in February 2003. On the first day, we had no idea how to use them, and even then didn’t get fully trained until today.

So, obviously you can guess that the first week has been kind of chaotic in the cafeteria. The new boss for the Aragon food services has apparently not been too cooperative, as we had a hard time convincing her to give us enough quarters and dollar bills to use as change. After all, when everything costs $3.25, you can guess that we have to give out three quarters change to people quite a bit. Wouldn’t $3 have been smarter? Many kids have been upset over the new, more expensive system, and many don’t want the fruit (which isn’t that good) or the milk, opting instead for the sodas in the cabinet right behind us. (I had thought the sodas were supposed to be gone this year too, but it seems that doesn’t go into effect until the 2009-10 school year.) And then today, after we were told that we were required to give out fruit and milk, surprise surprise! We ran out of fruit and milk after 15 minutes! I mean, I know that we’re required to give it out by law, but please don’t arrest me just because you guys didn’t give us enough to hand out!

But now the first week of school is over, and I have a busy and short weekend ahead of me with a lot of stuff to do. No podcasts this weekend, I’m just trying to get my back-to-school life in shape this weekend and try to close out the leftover things I have from summer. So, until next time…

Tags: cafeteria, cash registers, Chocolate Chip Cookies, classes, desserts, law, nutrition, Personal, rants, San Mateo County Fair, schedule, School