I am home now

3:15 – We pull away. There are TVs on this train. They are up above in the place where u put luggage. There are 6 on the side of the car opposite me. I had to walk down three cars to find one with power. I helped some lady in a wheelchair move to not be sitting in the wheelchair. Some gay guy was talking to me asking me if I knew if there were any single seats available. I’m in the very front position by the bathrooms. So the seats are facing the opposite was as last time. The car is different though. This one has darker blue seats and has curtains. My light for my seat is like behind my seat. It would only help if I reclined. There are people standing in the back because they don’t want to sit with other people (well that might not be the reason). The conductor just went over to yell at them. I’m trying to consume both seats so nobody tells me to move to share a seat with them. That’s mean of me but I sat with someone else the whole way last time when only about 3% of the people had to sit w/ someone else.
3:22 – Nobody came to collect my ticket yet but those people finally got seats. I should knit while it’s daylight.
3:28 – I’m about to write a cover letter to apply for an internship for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
3:33 – I need to get on-line to look at my transcript before I can update my resume. Also I need to make sure that I have senior standing before I put that in the cover letter. I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t but I need to make sure. Also it makes me sad that my GPA didn’t change this semester even though my current GPA was higher than my average.
3:37 – I got a message from Dave so I called him back. He was at exit 7. This wheel chair lady keeps talking to me. I’m busy over here. She asked me if she could use my cell phone later to call her son because her cell phone died and he won’t know what train she is on. But she is going to LA so she has plenty of time to get a hold of him.
3:46 – Paole stop. Crazy lady is talking to me again. She goes to school. She starts Jan 24, but she won’t be back until January 26.
3:50 – I just let crazy lady use my phone. Ok its dialing. I’m timing it if I remember. Now she told the lady on the phone to hang on a minute because she has to look up her son’s phone number. She should have done this already. She just tells her to “hang on a minute” then she muffles under her breath “she better not hang up that bitch” 909-425-9614 is her son’s number. She can only use one of her hands or something. Craziness. Luckily this is a new month. Ok well her phone didn’t die they cut off her service until she pays 50 bucks she says.
3:55 – She’s off the phone. I just checked. Last call was 4:49. “Thank you. You are a life saver. God will bless you.” Her train is to arrive in LA at 8:20 tomorrow night. She was already on the train before Philadelphia too. Man no wonder nobody else sat here before.
3:58 – I wish I had the train schedule with me. I wished that last time. So then I knew how far off schedule the train is. I just want this lady to go to sleep or me to go to sleep so she won’t talk to me. Now she is singing crazy-like.
"4:00 – I forgot to mention I dropped my scarf but the gay guy from earlier picked it up for me. I didn’t even notice it fell. It fell right near my seat.
4:01 – Oh my… that lady is here that disciplined her child last time. Oh man what a coincidence. He seems to be very well behaved now. I thought that little kid looked familiar. I just saw the mom now though. I wonder if he will start getting smacked around before I get off.
4:05 – Can I fake sleeping? I wonder how rude it was that as I talked to her I typed about (which meant I was typing while she was talking). So she said she would give me 2 bucks to use my phone and she didn’t. I haven’t opened photoshop yet.
4:09 – I just got out my knitting. I just counted to make sure I didn’t lose a stitch in the travel. I have 19 stitches. I can’t remember if that is how many I need or not. It might be but at first I thought it was 18 that I needed.
4:13 – One row complete. I would put my laptop away but I don’t want to miss saying anything. I’m getting kind of tired.
4:17 – Another row complete. I’m so tired right now. I just realized again that I haven’t put reclined my chair yet. The one beside me that nobody is sitting is is reclined a lot more. Mine is straight up. Time to recline. Haha I only reclined like 2 inches. Now I reclined 3 more. I still have about 5 inches more to go before I’m as reclined as the one beside me.
4:29 – Lancaster call. Also the reason it’s so hot in here is something is broken and they are going to fix it in Harrisburg for us.
4:31 – Stopped in Lancaster. Harrisburg is in less than 40 minutes. I learned this because people wanted to smoke.
4:33 – Someone is listening to headphones so loud it’s loud enough for me over here. Actually it’s crazy wheel chair lady listening to it so loud.
4:36 – Ok we aren’t leaving right away because we have to wait for some train to pass. So now the conductor just went back and told the people they could smoke. Someone got out just to walk around. I wouldn’t be doing that because of all those smokers being right near me.
4:40 – Leaving Lancaster... ok maybe not we’re stopped again.
4:42 – Actually moving. The train feels very tilted right now, like I’m leaning to the right. It’s actually quite weird.
4:48 – Now we actually picked up speed. I haven’t done much of my scarf at all but I think I’m gonna take a short nap.
4:50 – I put my feet over the feet rest and rest them on this box of metal that is part of the train. At first I thought it was a heater, but it’s not. I don’t know what it is.
4:51 – I can’t sleep reclined this much. The person behind me probably thinks I’m crazy.
4:52 – Sitting up is better. I’m hungry. Good thing I get to eat in about 4.5 hours. I ate 4 bites of rice krispies this morning and that is all. I do have water here and one tasty kake krimpet. I didn’t’ even go to the bathroom at all today.
4:55 – The metal seatbelt on the wheelchair keeps rattling.
4:57 – Someone closed the door that was making it colder in here. Now its tons quieter and I can hear the lady’s music again. HAHA someone left and left it open. The kid got up and closed it again.
5:00 – Someone just left the door open again.
5:03 – We’re randomly stopping. Now we are going again. That lady woke me up to get a bag for her. Well I guess I was typing so she didn’t really wake me up. The reason we slowed down/stopped must have had something to do with us and this other Amtrak train that just passed us. Now I’m not as comfy as I was before.
5:05 – Someone just asked me if someone is in the restroom. I hate that. I don’t pay attention. I was just kinda sleeping. Even when I’m not sleeping I don’t pay attention to what people do. The wheel chair lady is trying to talk to me again. I definitely need to fall asleep so I quit getting bothered.
5:08 – I sleep like I do at night. That’s probably why people don’t think I’m sleeping. My hands are on my keyboard.
5:14 – Sweater time. I just got offered a sandwich.
5:21 – Harrisburg stopped
5:28 – Moving
6:02 – My feet are asleep. How I was laying was not good.
6:48 – Now it’s warm. My hand is asleep. I musta drooled before. O man I can’t type w/ my sleeping hand. It’s starting to wake up.
6:59 – Lewistown
7:03 – I got back to knitting. I had to take off my outer sweater. It just got too hot.
7:12 – These needles sure are slippery or my hands sure are dry or maybe a little of both.
7:39 – Time to start the next skein. Too bad I have to put the skein in a ball first.
7:43 – Stopped somewhere. It’s the place with the pretty painted building right by it and the train station right near some road so traffic had to stop. Apparently the train is to arrive in Pittsburgh at 10:30 or 11 tonight. It was supposed to be at about 9:50. It is Huntingdon. I wish I had scissors.
7:53 – New yarn is on. I keep thinking that I didn’t do the last 4 stitches the special way so I take them out and redo. But 99% of the time I was actually doing them the right way. Word is that we are 1 hr behind schedule. Dave should be arriving up at school soon. I should paint my nails. I haven’t painted them since Freshman year.
7:57 – I can’t believe I haven’t marked any of my purchases down over break. I was keeping that file for over a year and a half. I still have my receipts. I could catch it up.
8:03 – I should probably call Pizza Hut to let them know when I’ll be back and stuff. I never gave them my next semester availability. I just don’t know that let either. I don’t really want my manufacturing class at all. Boy someone is trying to fill up their water bottle and it is going so slow. He only filled it less than halfway. I bet that water is colder than the water in my backpack, especially since it’s so hot in here. I am so amazed by the amount of people that walks around in here without their shoes on.
8:07 – I just changed the format of this log so all the times are pretty on the left and there aren’t any words below the time.
8:08 – Boy I’m hungry. That crazy lady keeps looking at me so I avoid looking over anywhere near her direction. I am going to get up to get water just for the sake of trying out that contraption.
8:11 – I’m back. It was scary. I couldn’t get the cup out at first. There is water on the floor so apparently other people had a hard time with the water. I got 2 of those cone cups worth. Now I gotta go to the bathroom. Four miles until we are somewhere. They told the guy to stand right there. The guy didn’t listen.
8:26 – I just finished helping that lady to and from the bathroom. I stood there at the door because she couldn’t lock it so people didn’t know she was in there. But then, here’s the worst part, she couldn’t get her pants all the way up on the moving train. Now the train is arriving at a stop but I forget what they said it was. They told me while I was guarding the door. My hair feels really dry and yucky.
8:29 – I’m calling home. I had two missed calls from them.
8:39 – Altoona stop sometime while I was on the phone. I’m still on the phone.
8:41 – 12:46 on the phone.
8:44 – I’d say my scarf is about fifteen inches long so far.
8:45 – My bookmark is not in my book anymore. This is horrible. I haven’t read since August. I know I read some of the chapter “Selling a war” but I don’t know how far I got. My ears keep bothering me. I think we are on some hills or something. Somehow I think I read more than 1/3 this book.
8:51 – I’m going to look at my scrapbook magazines instead of reading. I read about a page. Also the people behind me keep talking so I can’t pay attention.
9:16 – I finished reading one magazine. We seem to be going slow. I wonder if we are about to stop soon. I don’t know where we are but it’s a town.
9:27 – I got about halfway through the 2nd magazine I brought. I don’t know if I will even remember half of this stuff.
9:29 – We are arriving at some stop. I don’t know where it is. Maybe I will be able to find out shortly.
9:31 – This girl got a degree last December and she works at a bookstore and is a waitress. Her degree is in theater and sociology. She says she’s not using her degree yet. She went to NYC to hunt for an apartment. Both of her jobs will transfer her. She said $1200 for one bedroom and $2000 for a 2 bedroom. She said she wasn’t looking in the city. She was looking more in Long Island or New Jersey.
9:33 – We’re about to arrive in Johnstown. I’m starving. So I keep getting confused and think aim windows are blinking.
9:45 – The crazy lady goes to school for music.
9:52 – A few minutes ago her book fell and knocked over her Pepsi can and then the book landed in her cup. As she was picking up her can the book totally fell and same w/ her full glass of Pepsi. She wanted more ice but the café car closed.
9:54 – I brought 4 scrapbooking magazines and made it through 1.5 of them in an hour. Yet I can go quickly through them in like 5 min or less. I sort of like to read the stories so I’m not skimming the rest or I won’t go back. I really hope angel hair is ready for me when I get home. Last time I was on the train they turned off the main lights before this time.
9:57 – I would have to say I should be arriving soon since if we arrived now it would already be 50 minutes late. On the internet when it updated before Johnstown it said it was running 1:19 behind and that it expected to arrive in Greensburg 1:13 late.
10:00 – I started to play spider solitaire.
10:02 – I actually got annoyed with it so I closed the game before I finished.
10:05 – I didn’t even open Photoshop. I think I should because I could knit on the way up to school. Well maybe I can’t if I don’t have knitting needles. And we are stopped right now.
10:08 – Photoshop is opening. I don’t know why we are stopped.
10:15 – I’m getting scared that they aren’t gonna come back here to tell me to get off.

10:27 – We arrived. And I was right I wasn’t warned."