Day 1- It started with a movie...

Hello out there in the internet world. I suppose I should begin this with telling a little bit about myself, although, you will learn much of what you need to know as the journey progresses.

I'm Andrea, I'm rarely called anything but Andrea and I'm okay with that. While I enjoy giving people nicknames I rarely accept ones they have before meeting me, nor do I particularly like being called a nickname. I'm 22 and next Monday I start my 5th and last year of college. At this point, I have every intention on getting my degree in English and then my masters (or is it master's??) in Library Sciences. (Thanks, Ally.) It's 100% possible that this could change at any moment.

Now...on to the reason for this. I have been told time and time again, by several friends and relatives, that I should write a book about my life, my past, my experiences. I figured it would be just as easy to write it as it was happening and throughout those, include past anecdotes that pertain to the subject. However, I didn't actually come up with this until after watching Julie & Julia starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. I must admit, I am an avid movie goer and many of these post will most likely include some version of an attempt at "reviewing" any movies that I have seen. Julie and Julia was interesting and enjoyable, but I wonder how much of that is because I grew up watching Julia Child reruns. I have never been interested in cooking, but I liked watching her because she was fairly amusing for an old lady.

Thoughts of today: self-checkout line etiquette

For those who don't know, self-checkouts are stations set-up at large groceries stores and department super stores where you scan, bag and pay for your own items all at one handy-dandy little station. Sounds easy, right?!? WRONG. The damn things hardly ever work the way they were intended and by the time they do work, you could have just gone through the freaking line.
(Just a note: if you're in a hurry, always go to the line with a middle aged woman as the cashier, not old, but like...30-39. She is, undoubtedly uninterested in talking to you and will scan your groceries and get you the hell out of there before you can even begin to figure out the hieroglyphics of touch screen buttons at the self-checkout.)

Today, I went with my little sister, Rachel, to a department superstore in Garland with said checkouts. First of all, I stupidly went shopping for school supplies on the night of the first day of public school. There were kids running around all willy-nilly like an indoor animal let out in the backyard to run free for a few minutes. So I quickly find my spirals and notebooks and get to the shortest line and of course, it's the dreaded self-checkout. What do I do? Do I get in a longer line so I don't have to deal with the annoying, condescending voice of the self-checkout yelling at me to sack my groceries or do I just put my big girl panties on and deal. I chose the latter, and I walk right up to register, that looked the closest to being unoccupied and started putting my spirals and folders (yes, I still color coordinate my school supplies with the different classes) on the belt and wait for the woman ahead to finish paying. Rachel then informs me that it is rude and that I'm encroaching on the woman's space.

Was I? Was I breaking some unwritten code for self-checkout etiquette? I immediately brushed the though off saying to myself, screw that, I do what I want. Nobody's taking my spot from me. I think that's the cutthroat way of the retail world. You walk a little faster when you see someone getting in a line you want, you hold on to something on sale right until you leave a store, just in case you do want it, and if the belt is empty you put your stuff up there. I didn't stare at the woman while she paid, although it took a lot of restraint from me. I just did what I had to in order to get the hell out of there.

Well this is my first one of these, more to come. This is more for myself than anyone else, so I do not promise that it makes any sense, nor do I promise hilarity or enjoyment on the readers end, although the last two would be a nice side effect.