This I Believe

You’re driving down a country road and it’s about mid-night. There isn’t another car in site. You have the radio playing your favorite song and your feeling pretty good. You glance over a little to your left. You see the other lane for the opposite traffic. It’s all alone, no one to ride it. You ask yourself, what would happen if I drove over there? “I better not, what if a cop is watching, or what if another car comes out of now where and hits me head on” you think to yourself. Your hands drift to the left a little bit and the car is half way into the left lane. You immediately correct yourself and put the car back into the right lane. You do it again, this time the car is almost all the way in the other lane. Again, you correct yourself. You just want to know what it’s like driving in the other lane. I believe you should drive in the opposite lane.
Ever since I was a little kid, I would get pressured into doing stuff I didn’t want to do. Parents, friends, and teachers would tell me how fun it was, how everyone else was doing it, how it would help my future. “It” is the word for the list of stuff I dreaded doing while growing up to try and please other people. Baseball, piano lessons, Jazz band, Track, Cross Country, Basketball, classes I didn’t want to take, etc. I would have to do all this stuff and rarely ever do anything I actually wanted. I say do what you want. Don’t let other people tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. Now I’m not saying to go out and start driving in the other lane of traffic, but do what you want and not what other people want, even if it does get the same reaction out of people as driving in the opposite lane.
Driving in the other lane also brings up another topic, risk. People always make the word “risk” sound so bad, but how are we supposed to live our lives without it. Risk is how our ancestors made it over here hundreds of years ago. They risked everything they had to come here for a better life. Risk is how we made it to the moon in 1969. How are we supposed to live a fulfilled life if we don’t take a few risks every now and again? If you don’t take risks, you might as well be some 10 year olds pet hamster sitting in a cage all day with nothing to do, but at least you’ll be safe.
I like to skateboard for fun and people are constantly pulling over to tell my friends and me how unsafe and irresponsible we’re being. Cops pull us over on our skateboards and tell us not to ride at night and threaten to give us tickets and take away our boards. We just tell them we won’t do it again and go out the next night, because we know how big of a risk we’re taking. I think that some people need to take at least some small risks or there lives might get dull after a while, I know I do. Skateboarding is the thing I do to get my daily dose of risk and adrenalin everyday. Without it, I feel like that pet hamster stuck in a cage all day.
Driving in the opposite lane is a metaphor for two things. Doing what you want even if that raises eyebrows from other people. It also stands for risk taking and how it’s not always a bad thing. I believe that everyone needs to take risks to get what they want out of life, or you’ll regret it when you don’t have the chance anymore. You may never regret not driving in the opposite lane of traffic, but maybe there’s something else you’ll regret if only you had taken the risk.

School and Christmas

School is almost done. Only one more week left and then we're done for a month. I'm super excited. This is going to be the best Christmas break ever. I'm only a freshman so I haven't had a Christmas break a month long for about 13 years. So far we've had a good amount of snow for winter so I'm going to be doing a good amount of sledding and skiing and hopefully snowboarding. I went cross country skiing once since the snow fell and it was pretty fun. Hopefully I'll do it more this year than last years. I always say to myself that I'm going to go a lot, but I only go once or twice a year. I haven't even gone snowboarding for 2-3 years, Probably because its so expensive if you don't have your own board. Even if you do have your own board its really expensive. The down side of Christmas, though, is Christmas shopping. Although I love to buy people presents, it gets to be to stressful and expensive. I try to keep my budget in between $150-$200. That's about 20 dollars per person. My two sister, parents, brother-in-laws, and girlfriend. I don't work that much in the winter, so I try to spend as little money as possible. I'm not trying to be cheap, it's just the way it is when you don't work. My birthday and Christmas are less than a month away, so I kind of get a bad deal. My parents usually get me something small for my birthday, and focus more on Christmas. It used to bother me when I was little, but when you get older you don't care about presents as much as when you're a little kid. I really shouldn't be complaining at all because I just got a flat screen T.V. for my birthday/ graduation present yesterday.

Well I only have to worry about two more classes now. I have my Adobe Illustrator final project done, and my Design Fundamentals project done as well. All I need to worry about is Written Communications and Intro. to College Math. I am kind of worried about next semester though. Mostly because of speech though. I can't stand speaking in front of people. I always start stuttering and stop making sense. But I have to take, so I'm going to stop thinking about it. Well this has been my final blog post. I hope you have enjoyed reading about my life and life problems, the few of you that have read them. Fair Well.

Running

I liked running when I was in elementary school. About third grade we used to get prizes for running laps during recess. Me and my friend, Jacob Rieple, would run at least a mile every day, but it got old after a while so we stopped doing it. I didn't run long distances again until 7th grade track. It was a nightmare. Running two miles in the hot sun every day, and just to get trained to run 400 meters in a race. I didn't join track the next year because I hated running. But in the beginning of 9th grade, something horrible happened. For some reason I joined the hardest, and most disciplining sport known to man. I joined cross country. Why did I join, I don't know. I did feel pressure to join from some of my friends, but I usually don't get sucked into the shenanigans that they get into. I didn't think it would be that bad. A few miles to run everyday after school, how bad could it be. Well it ended up being the worst time of my life. It wasn't just the distance that hurt, it was the speed of the distance. "Ok, today you'll be running for 10 minutes at a fast pace, then 10 at an easy pace, then 10 at a fast pace again. Then finish up with a two mile cool down." That's my coach Mr. Wenthe. That was one of our workouts we would have. The worst one was a workout called a fartleck. This odd French named workout goes; run 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy, 3 hard, 3 easy, 4 hard, 4 easy, 5 hard, 5 easy, then the same pattern gone back down to 2 minutes. Adding a mile warm up before we do anything. It was a horrible time. But after cross country got done, spring time rolled around, and guess what comes during spring time, track season. And for some reason I felt enormous pressure to join that too. I thought to myself, "Well track races are way shorter than cross country so it won't be nearly as hard as cross country." Well that wasn't the case at all. Track was equally as hard, if not harder than cross country. A cross country race is 3.1 miles. The longest track race is 2 miles, so I thought the races would at least be easier. They were probably harder than cross country races. I ran the 800 meter run, and sometimes it was way harder than a 3.1 mile run. As much as I hated track and cross country, I still had a lot of fun too. You would think the kids that do long distance for fun are incredibly big nerds, but that's not the truth at all. Although some are big nerds, most are awesome kids who have the most fun out of anyone. When the coach wouldn't run with us, we had a lot of adventures that if the coach found out about them, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It was a hard 4 years of track and cross country, but with all the things we did, and people I met, it was well worth it, and I might have done it again if I had the chance.

Thanks Giving Weekend

This Thanksgiving was pretty fun. I didn't travel anywhere. My family just stayed around in Trempealeau. It was my parents, my sisters and their husbands, my grandma and I. We usually go to Milwaukee for Thanksgiving to visit my dads side of the family, but it's usually really hectic so we didn't want to go there this year. Most of my day was spent sitting on a recliner playing super Nintendo with my brother-in-law. We played NHL '93, which is a very hard game to get used to. It was kind of uncomfortable in my house though because our loft doesn't have any flooring right now, so we were walking on some weird floor made of particle board. The meal was awesome. We had turkey, obviously, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole(GBC), stuffing, squash, coleslaw, that cranberry stuff that know one ever eats, and rolls. Then we had cherry pie, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, and cheese cake. I was stuffed after it was all done. We had tons left-overs, which is the best part of having Thanksgiving at your own house. The next morning everyone had left-overs for breakfast. My older sister and her husband had to leave Friday morning to go to work, so it was kind of disappointing that they could only stay one night.

It's going to be my birthday on Sunday and I'm going to be 19. I'm kind of disappointed leaving 18. I don't know why, usually people want to get into their twenties as fast as they can but I like being a teenager and I only have one more year of being one. It seems like going from 19 to 20 is a big jump in age. To me it feels like your going from a youthful teenager to a maturing adult. So now I'm figuring out my plans for tonight to celebrate my b-day. I'm pretty excited for Tuesday though because I'm participating in No Shave November and I will finally get to shave on Tuesday.

Swine Flu

I recently had the swine flu and it was no day at the beach. I started getting a small cough when I was riding my bike home from work one day. I thought it was only a cold, but last Sunday I started feeling really crappy. I started feeling achy and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Later that night I woke up at 4 in the morning freezing in my bed. I got up and took my temperature. I had a fever of 101%, so I knew that I had the swine flu. I was hoping that I would wake up the next morning with nothing wrong with me, but it never happens. I woke up the next day and felt even worse. My fever was still only 101%, so I thought that's as bad as it was going to get. I, of course, didn't go to school that day and stayed home watching TV all day. Later that after noon, I could barley stand up to go to the bathroom I felt so crappy. I took my temperature again and it was 102.4%. It was getting really high. I kept getting cold and hot again. I took my temp again a little later and it was up to 103.1. I felt the worst I had felt all week that hour. It finally went down after a while and I had an appetite for the first time that day. That night I had the craziest dreams. I always have really weird dreams when I have a fever. I had a fever again at about 4 in the morning and it was up 103.3, the highest it got. I was so uncomfortable that I could barely sleep that night. The next day, all I did was watch TV again all day. I got up at noon and watched I watched Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, then I watched the worst Chuck Norris movies. After that I watched The Best of Dana Carve from Saturday Night Live with my brother in law. Then my girl friend came to visit me and my sister, brother in law, girl friend, and I watched Boondocks Saints. Then everyone left but my girlfriend and we watched Spinal Tap. All I did that day was watch TV. The next day, Wednesday, I didn't have a fever anymore. I finally started feeling normal again. I probably could have gone to school that Thursday, but I decided to stay home to get totally better. I had missed an entire week of school so now I have a lot of make up work to do, but at least I don't have to worry about getting the Swine Flu anymore.

The Van

I bought got a van about a year ago from my boss I've probably driven it about 30 time since I got it. It's a 1984 Chevy Beauville passenger van. I got it because I like old vans, and because I play the drums so I need a vehicle to move them around whenever I play somewhere, which hasn't been for a while. The reason I haven't driven it so much is because things keep going wrong with it. Well only two things, but they were pretty big problems. Last Spring, the alternator went out and I didn't get it fixed until a week ago. Now that it was fixed, I got the insurance put back onto it. I wasn't planning on driving the van a whole lot, just when I needed it for moving something or just to drive around town. I put $20 of gas into it a couple days ago and yesterday I took it to La Crosse to find out a new thing that's gone wrong with it.

I was driving it to school and everything was going fine. It was running good and everything works in it including the heat, stereo, blinkers but not the wind shield wipers. I parked on the street and looked around for any no parking or 2 hour parking signs. There wasn't any so I went about my business. I got done with class at about 12:15 and went back to the van. I had no tickets and everything was going smoothly, so I began my trip back home. I looked down at the gas gauge and noticed that I had a quarter of a tank left of gas. It gets pretty bad millage so I check the gas frequently. As I was driving, I noticed a familiar smell. I smelled a little like fumes or gas. I didn't think much of it because it's a pretty old car and that can happen from time to time with old cars. I kept driving and looked at the gas gauge again. I was only about half way home and I was already down to an 8th of a tank. I didn't think much of that either. The gauge must be wrong thought. As I kept driving, the gauge was rapidly moving down when all of a sudden, the needle was all the way down. "There's no way I could have used $20 worth of gas in one trip to La Crosse", I thought to myself, so I kept driving. When I got into Trempealeau, the inside of the van reeked of gasoline and when I opened my window, it was as if the smell got stronger.

I arrived to my house and instantly called my boss to see if he knew anything about the smell. He didn't answer his phone. So I took my dog out for a walk. While I was walking down the drive way, I noticed a big trail of some sort of liquid. All the pieces in my head matched up. The van was leaking gas on my way home. But it was hardly a leak, the trail looked as of a whole river of gas had just flowed through my drive way. I figured out that there must be a leak in the fuel line of the van because no gas drips out when its just sitting there. Now I have to get that fixed. Who knows if I'll ever get to drive the van without any problems going wrong with it.

Facebook

I think that Facebook is the most distracting thing for people my age. I am guilty of being an FB user, but I don't even know why I go on it. I just log onto my page and stare and for some reason you can spend hours on it. I used to go on it every day, but now I'm realizing I could be doing more with my day than reading about how horrible John Dow's day was, or what Mary Jane has to do tomorrow. People write the stupidest things in their status. I don't care if someone is eating ice cream while watching the Amazing Race, or if someone is going to take a nap before there next class. These are real ones that I've read before.
Facebook is so distracting because I'll be doing something on the computer for school and I'll go to Facebook just to see if anything new has happened, then I start looking at other peoples profiles, then someone starts chatting me and next thing you know it's midnight and I still have to type a 3 page essay. For example, I have to write this blog for Written Communications and I'm Facebook chatting two other people right now and every time I can't think of anything to write, I go onto my Facebook page. So I could have had this blog done by now but I only have half of it done all because of Facebook.
It seems like all of my friends have the same feelings towards FB. They have one and go on it all the time, but they don't even like it and say they're going to get rid of it soon. I also have these same feelings for it. I hate admitting that I go on Facebook a lot but it's true. The only real reason that I have it now is so I can keep in touch with all my friends that went away for school, so I think that's a pretty good reason for having it.

South Dakota

My family and I went to South Dakota a few times in my life. Although it doesn't seem to be the most exciting place to be in the world, it can be pretty fun. We went when I was about 4 or 5 years old. Again when i was 13, and once more when I was 14 years old. The most exciting place seems to be Mt. Rushmore, but there's a lot better places than that. We went to a place called the Bad Lands. Its a very dry and hilly area in South Dakota named after the Indians. It's pretty amazing because you can look out over them, and see miles and miles of hills with no civilization. Another cool monument besides Mt. Rushmore that's in South Dakota is Crazy Horse. It's still in the process of being finished. Crazy Horse is named after a famous Indian Chief who was murdered under a peace flag. The monument is of Crazy Horse riding a horse. It's supposed to be Man-Kinds biggest art project and it's been worked on for over 60 years and not even close to being finished.

When you think of South Dakota, a lot of people just think of flat, boring ground with nothing to do, but when you get out to the western part of South Dakota, it's very hilly and has lots of mountains. Rapid City is the city where Mt. Rushmore was built and also is the most Mountainous region of South Dakota. The car ride out there was not very fun. My family of five had to squish into a tiny Mercury Sable. And I was stuck in between my 2 older sisters for over 10 hours. It was hell. The animal life is different from here. You'll be driving down a road and all of a sudden there will be a giant buffalo in the middle of the road. There's also fields of prairie dogs popping their heads in and out of their burrows. Mountain goats climb all over the hills in the western part of the state. It's a totally different atmosphere. We also went to the hotel that was featured in the old movie North by Northwest. One day, our whole family went on a hike and my mom almost passed out because of the high altitude. Another interesting place to go to in South Dakota is Wall Drug. It's the biggest drug store in the U.S., at least when we went there. There's signs promoting Wall Drug at least 400 miles before you get there. They say things like "Free ice water at Wall Drug", or "5 cent coffee at Wall Drug." My mom and dad even saw one when they went to Europe.

Although South Dakota doesn't seem like a very exciting place, you'll be very surprised.

Bad Weather

The weather has been so crazy lately. We had no fall season at all, at least so far. It is only mid-October but it feels like mid- December already. Our summer was pretty mild in the Mid-West, so I hope that means the winter will be as well. Although, I don't think that's going to be the case. I think that mother nature is going to totally skip over fall and go right to winter. We haven't even had any 60% weather. That's the whole good thing about fall is that we go from scorching hot summer to nice breezy fall. But instead we go to bone chilling winter. I don't know if we have Global Warming to blame for this or what, but I don't like it.
It snowed for the first time the other day and it's only October 15th today. I usually get excited for the winter, but this year I'm just dreading it. It's going to be long, cold, and pain full. Winter used to be so fun when you were little. You could run around in the snow and make snow men, have snow ball fights, go sledding. And when you would come home you drink a big mug of hot chocolate and snuggle up in a blanket. But now its just a pain to drive in and I'm cold for three months.
The weather hasn't been bad just because of the cold. It's also been raining for almost a month straight now. I think we've had maybe 5 nice days in the past month. Every where I go now I need to bring a poncho. I just can't wait until spring comes. The only thing I'm looking forward to this winter is skiing and snowboarding, but I might not even be able to do that since it costs a fortune. Hopefully I'll find something to do this long boring winter.

Driving

I live in Trempealeau and I have to drive to school in La Crosse every day. For those who don't know, the distance between the two cities is about 25 miles. To some people, that number may not be very large compared to how far they have to drive, but for most people it's far, and it's not very fun. In the morning I feel like falling asleep on the way to school because I'm so tired and the drive feels never ending, but don't worry. Depending on what traffic is like, those 25 miles can take anywhere from a half an hour to over an hour.

Some days I have class at 9 O'clock in the morning, and other days I have class at 10 O'clock in the morning. The difference between the two times is night and day when dealing with traffic. At 10, there's hardly anyone out on the road. You don't have to worry about crazy drivers ridding your tail, or long lines at stop lights. But at 9, it's a whole other story. There's cars flying by you on the free way. People are not paying attention, talking on their cell phones and doing their make up. And forget about going the speed limit. People piratically run right into you trying to get around you even if you're going 70 mph.

When I finally get to school there's a whole other obstacle. There's no where to park. I can usually find a spot in the parking lot when I have class at 9, but the rest of the days I have to park 6-7 blocks away. I think if people are blowing their money on a $70 parking pass, they should at least get a parking place so they don't have to drive around trying to find a spot on the street. Westerns whole parking theory is horrible. They have an unlimited amount of parking passes but only a certain amount of spots. I think that's a little ridicules.

It's the same story on the way home as in the morning. I get done at noon on some days, and 3:30 on other days. At noon it's a nice relaxing drive home, but at 3:30 the roads are so congested that I'm thinking of just riding a bike home because I'd get there faster. Hopefully this whole experience will pay off in the end. I don't even want to know what it's going to be like in the winter.

Six Cats

Many people may think that living with six cats might get on your nerves after a while, and it does. I still live at home with my parents, but I’m seriously considering moving out soon because of our cats, and because I don’t want to live with my parents forever. I live with six cats at my home and they are a real handful. Their names are Violet, Gordon, Annie, Maggie, White Cat, and Black Cat. We have never gone out looking to buy a cat. We’ve never wanted pet cats. They all have just showed up at our house with my older sister.

My sister, Jennifer, has brought all of the cats we own to our house unannounced and now my parents and I are stuck with them now that Jennifer has moved out. I do admit that I don’t mind the cats that much. They’re usually outside most of the time, but when they are all in the house at the same time, I feel like punting them across town. Our oldest cat, Violet, came home with my oldest sister about ten years ago when she decided to adopt an unwanted cat from her boy friend’s. The second oldest, Gordon, was a stray that showed up to our house one day. We felt sorry for it so we made the mistake of feeding him, and he has lived with us ever since. Annie and Maggie were a double package. We got them when my dad, sister, and I were driving down a country road and were forced to swerve into the ditch to dodge two little dots sitting in the middle of the road. These little dots were Annie and Maggie. They were in the middle of the country with no home in site. They had weird cuts and wounds all over and weren’t even old enough to eat on their own. My sister nursed them back to health, and they too have been living at our home ever since. The most recent case was two cats, one a white male and the other a black female. They go together pretty nicely. They have names, but my mom keeps changing them, so I just call them White Cat and Black Cat. They came from one of my sisters friends. Her friend was moving away so she couldn’t have them anymore. Her dad was going to shoot them so my sister swooped in to save them and dump them on us. At this time, my sister was moved out of the house.

When I tell people that I live with six cats, they think I’m crazy. They can’t imagine living with six little fury, scratchy, noisy, sneaky, jumpy, stinky cats, but now that I think about it, I’ve lived with them for so long I can’t really imagine not living with them.

My Car

While I was driving to school the other day, I was thinking about what I should talk about in my next blog. I couldn't think of anything, so I started looking around at things on the side of the road. Maybe something would spark my eyes. As I attempted to drive through a traffic, it all of a sudden turned yellow. I slammed on my breaks and slid for about 15 yards. While cussing at the poor condition of my breaks, a spark lit. So I decided to write a simple post about my car.

I drive a 1991 Chevy Caprice. Although its not the coolest wheels on the road by any means, I still love it and I love driving it. My parents originally bought the car from an old couple down the street for my older sister, who was currently moving to the Twin Cities to go to college. After getting into various accidents, we quickly found out that the caprice was not a versatile city vehicle. So after a couple of months, the car was back at our house.

The caprice has been around with me through many interesting experiences. I got pulled over for the first time driving it because it was to loud. I crashed in the ditch the first time in it, quickly realizing that trying to do donuts in a snow storm is not cool. I got in my first accident in it, realizing that following someone closely with bad breaks is also not smart. But I can truly say that I am a wiser person after going through with these bad experiences.

As much as I love the Caprice, it definitely has its flaws. The radio hasn't worked for about two years. The air conditioning hasn't ever worked since we've owned it. The breaks are bad, the brights don't work, it doesn't have shocks, it doesn't have a grill. It sounds as if it has no muffler, although it does have one.

The Caprice was my first car that I drove on a day to day bases, but my first actual car was a Volkswagen Van in which I had for about 2 1/2 years. It was fun until it broke. Many people don't understand the relationship that guys have between their cars. As lame as that sounds, I still think it's true. But when someone else sees the Caprice as just an old rust bucket sitting in the driveway, I see a cool car filled with youthful memories that I'll remember for a long time.

Longboarding with Trempealeau Police

My friends and I have been longboarding in Trempealeau, WI for about three or four years now. It's fun to go in Trempealeau because I live there, so it's most convenient, and it has the best hills around without a lot of traffic. A lot of the hills in Trempealeau are being repaved, which is also a plus when it comes to longboarding. For those who don't know what a longboard is, it's a long skateboard used for speed and long distance. It's not used for doing tricks, like what a skateboard is used for. It can be dangerous at times when you're going 25 mph down a hill without a helmet or breaks, but if you're smart about it, it is a pretty safe sport. Longboards are convenient when living in a city because they're fast, easy to ride, and they're small enough to carry them around. It has become a very popular sport over the years, especially in Trempealeau. However, we've had a great obstacle to avoid when we've gone out to board for the past few months. The police have stopped us almost every time my friends and I have gone out the past summer. They pull us over and yell, give lectures, or threaten us with citations. It has become a big problem because every time I want to longboard in town, I can't enjoy myself for fear that a cop is going to give me a ticket for riding on the road, being a nuisance to drivers and pedestrians. It makes us angry because we don't cause any more problems than a person riding a bike would. The only difference I can think of is that the police see us riding a board with wheels and they have stamped skateboarders as punks, trouble makers, and bad kids. They think we're riding around on sidewalks, ruining private property and getting in the way of pedestrians, when we're just minding our own business riding on the roads, where we're supposed to ride. Personally, I think they're just bored because there isn't enough crime to solve in Trempealeau. One of my friends even went to another town to board and a cop pulled him over for no reason, took his information, then warned him that the Trempealeau cops were looking for him. I thought that was pretty ridiculous. It is true that longboarders can get in the way of other people, and it can be dangerous, but isn't this true when it comes to anything dealing with wheels on the road? We've been riding long enough to know what we're doing. We know we shouldn't blow a stop sign in a busy intersection, we know to look both ways before crossing a street, or to get on the right side of the road when a car is coming our way. The war between skate/longboarders may never end, but as long as I'm not being arrested, I'm going to keep on boarding.

Cooking in a Restaurant

Working in a restaurant can be both fun, and stressful. I cook at the Trempealeau Hotel and it’s anything but boring. On a busy Friday night, from the second you walk in until the second you leave, you’re on your feet running around, dodging waitresses, cutting up vegetables, or running back to the walk-in cooler. To be a descent cook, you definitely need to know how to multi-task. Orders are constantly coming back, and you and the other cook/cooks are throwing food on the grills or sending food out to the tables. You also have to remember how long food has been on. When you're cooking for ten tables orders, it's pretty easy to get confused to whose food is whose. A disadvantage of cooking would be our schedules. Restaurants busiest times are on nights and weekends, and that’s when I want to enjoy being away from school. Another disadvantage to cooking would be the customers. Everyone’s policy when working with people maybe that the customer is always right, but when you start working in a restaurant, you quickly find out that the customer is usually wrong, no matter how stubborn they may be. Some nights you get food sent back because the customers food is to dry, over done, not done enough, to hot, to cold, to salty, to bland, etc. Although, sometimes they are right and we made a mistake, but a lot of the times people are just looking to make their bill a little lighter. There are a lot of stressors when it comes to the restaurant business, but there are a lot of good things that come with it too. You meet a lot of new people when working in the food industry. There are always new waiters and waitresses who come and go throughout the year. A lot of the people who come to eat are from around the country and some are from different parts of the world too. Work friends are also an important part for working in a restaurant or any other job. I have met a lot of friends of all ages while working. Some busy and stressful night feel like they're never going to end, but by the end of the night, we can all look back and laugh on how we got our butts kicked. Another benefit to cooking in a restaurant is there is always something to eat when you get hungry. By the end of every shift, I am always starving and I definitely don't want to go home and cook something for myself, so can just make something really fast at work before I go home. And of course the best part of working in a restaurant is getting a paycheck at the end of the week.