Okay. Been a while since I last posted. This should be expected for who knows how long. At least i'm updating.
So, I got through the spring semester successfully, and I suprised myself -- got all A's. Now CR keeps sending me spam, trying to get me to take engineering courses and whatnot. It's probably because they're short on people for those classes, and want to make sure that the classes don't get cancelled. I have other plans (which I'll get to later), so I won't be taking the classes, but it feels good to get these letters, and, if anything, at least the letters are handsigned :) .
Anyway, as the semester pulled to a finish, I burned out. However, I did make one huge rally of work on finals that paid off, particularly in calculus (where I memorized everything and then took the test without the book (which we were allowed to use. I only forgot it. Bah!)). It was a nice bang to the semester, especially considering that I started turning nerdy once more.
In fact, the computer, teamed up with people leaving me, really decimated my drive. By far, the computer was the worst because I had discovered Rome: Total War. I'll talk more in a minute about the computer, suffice to say that the worst of the computer was in store for me after school ended. As for my friends, most simply moved away, out of contact, and that knocked the wind out of me when I started noticing their absence. And, furthermore, I had one who, in a weird meeting said that we shouldn't see eachother anymore! It was the most bizarre meeting friends for 3 years, and then I become a slightly inconvenient person because I ditch my car and decide to get serious about schooling. Chalk one up for my theory about the direct relationship between beauty and bitch-ness (in particular, lack of respect for others)
As for the computer, I was playing after school quite a bit, and thinking about it during school. Typical addiction, but fortunately I had a very stable plan for studying, so at least I got stuff done. In particular, me getting rid of my car made me take the bus, which is cool cuz there's nothing to do but study (if I can get away from the friends I've made on it)
But, the computer, being a machine, was ready for me when I got done. Being burned out, and also having no set schedule (no order), I got sucked into it. For several weeks, I would just play play play, and still not feel content. four days a week, I would play, and then I'd squeeze time in for it on the other three days.
-sigh-
I hate it when games do that. I love it, though, in an addictive sort of way. I don't know what happens, but the next thing I notice after playing a game that hooks me like that is that it's 4 in the morning (why is it that the fun things make me lose time? Attention span problem, I suppose) I've theorized how I could go through my entire life and not notice anything else, and i've wondered if it would be so bad for that to happen. Not that it's going to happen to me; I am planning on being slightly ludditic in the future. I'll talk more about that in a minute though.
Anyway, many good weeks of fair weather were wasted at the computer. Finally, the hex was broken when I got irritated by the small bugs of Rome:Total War, and me not being able to patch the game (slightly less than legal). Problems such as horrible memory management when the game renders the flaming arrows (turns a sw33t video card into mush and makes the game choppy), the arrows striking your men when they get too close, the AI being retarded in some ways, etc finally made the game less addictive enough to get away from. It's still a really good game (brilliant in many ways), and I think about playing it again just to see an alternate route, but I know better.
but that was not the end of the computer.
To make sure that I really got away from Rome, as well as thinking that my computer was sweet enough to not need MS windows, I turned to going cold turkey with linux. And I did. I used SuSE first (64 bit SuSE), and then debian (which is the first distro I ever came across). I recompiled the kernel to be optimized for my computer. I wrecked the kernel doing that. I tried it again (this time not forgetting to make the modules). All was good. I relearned most everything that I forgot.
I forgot how much of a pain in the ass linux is. Compared to everything else, Linux was cool back in the late 1990's, all the way to 2002, but now i'm starting to be convinced that we're in a new era of computing. I'm tired of reinventing the wheel, just to tailor to my computer. I don't ever want that to happen anymore. Processor's are so fast today, and hard drive space is so huge, that I don't think I mind having to deal with slightly unoptimized code. as long as it works. My computer boots so fast in windows, I turn it on and the desktop is in front of me in 3 seconds, and I didn't have to do anything to it! I don't really care about making the computer better anymore; I just want it to work. That's where we're at today. To sum it up with Eric's words, "Windows is really good for personal workstations. Linux is better for networks such as in government or corporations" and he's right.
However, I do like using those CD based distros (Dyne:bolic is such an awesome one. I think I could swear by it). But, that's about it.
So, I had linux going, no video games (I did use Wine, though), and then I got bored and annoyed with it. So, I went back. But, my inner nerd has stayed with me. I can't think of anything else to do, so I always gravitate back to the computer. Like the protagonist in Apocalypse Now, who is waiting for his mission in his room. He tries to find something better to do, but can't. I've tried reading books, but that only works so long. My eyes get tired, and my back starts having fits (I guess I'm getting old), and that monitor does beckon. So, I've got back to it. And I know why.
Right now, just like at other points in my life, I'm an audiowhore. See, the truth of the matter is, I don't get on the computer for anything but to hear music. This has been the hardest addiction to root out, and it will probably end one of two ways, 1) I conscientiously stop and get away from the computer, or 2) I lose my hearing. What's even worse is that I get all that music in my head, playing ALL THE TIME, wherever I go. I'm half listening to the music in my head, half paying attention to what's going on around me. Its been a good distraction, especially when I am doing nothing important, like mindlessly working at my job, but I don't think it's right. (I guess this is why I'm volunteering at a radio station. Heh.)
I want to fully participate in the world by using my mind to affect what's around me. I don't want what's in my mind to stay there and be forgotten. That's a waste. Instead, I would like to put my mind to good use.
But therein lies some problems. I could start actively engaging my mind right now if I wanted to, but for things like my job, I would get stressed and burned out quickly (keeping track of things *STRAIGHT* for a 10 hour shift (no breaks. Not even lunch!) can get tiresome and stressful). So, I need to put my mind in situations where it will not be taxed like that (have a healthy relationship with the environment, so to speak).
I should mention to you all that the nerd side has been with me for the past few months (but won't be soon). I have had nothing better to do than the computer, so I get on it. I've tried books, but I can only read for so long.
Recently, a great opportunity to focus my mind has opened up. You see, I'm getting kicked out by my father. Heh, every year, he gets closer and closer to kicking me out, only to have it deflected closer and closer to the kickout date. Well, this year, it has come to pass. I didn't do anything wrong; he just thinks i'm too old, and he has 2 girls, one of them expecting a child (I'm gonna be an uncle), so he wants to focus on them (and I'm so close to being done with CR!)
I have had a lot of friends vouch for me, just like all the past times, and I've been offered some sweet deals, but I've decided to move to WestHaven to live with my friend and his family, and finish out my school. It's cool, because i'm going to be 15 minutes away from the beach, and 5 minutes from some awesome bike trails.
I will be living in a tent, though. Hey, it's August, it's fine. To complement this tent, I'll have a bathroom, a washer and dryer, and kitchen. Just no bedroom.
I will have one soon, though. I'm going to work at his place one day a week (they said I could stay for free, but I insist on helping those who help me out. Nobody wants to be jacked), and, when I get his bathroom fixed up, I can stay in their little inlaw house, which is this small victorian looking house, that, inside has this small stove, small sink, table area, and a ladder to the bunk that I could sleep in.
The reason why I can't have it right now is because there's a BIG window to the current bathroom (not the one that needs fixing), and it would be difficult for me to coexist with it, particularly because the current bathroom is outdoors (granted, it's pretty secluded because of how many bushes and trees are around, but still) It's cool though. Once I have this bathroom, I can take baths in a victorian bathtub... outside!
So, I'm actually getting a sweet deal. The bus runs up there, and I'll have plenty of time to study, the only problem is that I'm going to have to bicycle from westhaven to the hospital 2 days a week. But, that's not so bad. It's pretty scenery, and I love exercise. It's only an hour each way...
This isn't the end of the saga, though. About 2 months ago, the landlord (who was only a landlord in name - he had alzheimers) died, and the houses went to the current landlord, who set us up with the house that we're in right now. Well, the new landlord, for some reason, has outright lied to us and has been selling the properties left and right. Furthermore, he's having the realtors sell this place, and he still hasn't told us that he's selling the houses!
So, me and my dad are quite pissed (although not so much I, because I was moving out anyway). It might be hard for taking care of him if he comes to the hospital (he's a sickly guy, so it's highly likely that he'll come). I'm not saying we're going to hurt him; it's standard protocol not to treat people you don't like at the hospital (it's called refusing to treat the patient, and it's not uncommon. Someone else, who doesn't refuse, takes care of the patient instead) but, it's going to be *mighty* awkward to have him in the hospital. Know what I mean?
Anyway, because my dad is getting the boot the way I am, he's been QUITE sympathetic to me. He has given me a car, and is letting me sell an amplifier and 4 x 12' cab to boot (curse that audio equipment for the problems it has caused my family! May the $ help me, though) I think I might sell the car and buy a motorcycle instead; gas is so expensive, and is only going to get worse. Westhaven is far away. But, in any case, he's still giving me the boot to make way for my pregnant sister (whom I don't want to live with anyway. She may not be on drugs anymore, but she can be out of control).
This severance is good in a few ways, though. It means I'll be getting quite a bit of financial aid (I have a lot of friends in the financial aid dept.) as an independent student. Furthermore, I found out that, if I relocated to Utah (I am keeping all options open) I could use the california virtual campus for 2 years to get a bachelors!
However, I'm thinking of biting the bullet and going to a UC -> take out loans if i have to. I'm thinking about becoming a radiology tech (they make GOOD money, and don't even require an associates degree! You can get all the way to a bachelors with it, though) and then using that to get me the degrees I want. Radiology would be a good stepping stone into physics and the other sciences, which is something that i'd like to do (that, and business, ecology, and language). Radiology can be used for x-raying aircraft, various equipment for defects, and some of that technology is just so cool! (ask for a tour at your local hospital. Most radiology techs love to show others what they do!)
So, that's in the cards for me. Once I get the tech degree, I'm going to stay out of debt (make money) but then, I don't know where I'll go. Will I finish up my schooling? (that would be the safe, conservative choice) or will I throw it all to the wind and go traveling and meet people? (Even though it's not the more brilliant choice, my heart is set on this)
I dunno. All I know is that I'm moving to Westhaven soon, and this is a good thing. I will now focus even MORE seriously on schooling, and I will not rest until I get what I'm after.
Now is the time to get out there and do it. No more dicking around. Just do it.
There are no second chances; only wasted opportunities
Tuesday, August 2
Wednesday, May 11
Quote of the Day
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Blah blah blubba blah blah.
- admin, Photobucket.c&nt
- admin, Photobucket.c&nt
Monday, April 25
The face of Reality is brutal, ugly ... and real.
Okay. I just got back from my calculus test, in which I believe i didn't do too well.
And I feel like explaining myself.
First off, this test didn't deal with very difficult concepts (not compared to other calculus topics, at least) but, that trixy teacher tested me on things I didn't spend much time studying on, and I think I'm gonna pay for it.
First off, I spent waaayyy too much time dealing with what were probably not the best numbers to estimate Newton's method of finding the root of a function. I had to estimate to 9 decimal places, and the calculator just kept getting closer and closer to that magic number, but it $&#$* wouldn't get to the exact number! So, I didn't have that much time to deal with it.
Second, spring break has bitten me in the butt (just like every year) and I just haven't been feeling like doing calculus (especially because I don't need the class. That kills the motivation)
But, after this test, I have realized a process that I go through. I have gone through this process many times before, but I forget it each time.
Not this time!
When I have a workable schedule, and I keep going with it, somehow I feel like if i start slacking or diverting my attention somewhere else, the neglect is going to be negligible. I somehow mistakenly believe that whatever my responsibility is can take care of itself in some way. I'm wrong.
What I forget is that when I am negligent of what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm not only not helping it, i'm hurting it. I'm screwing the process up. I'm ruining the machine. I might as well start hitting it with a hammer!
It's frustrating, because I forget this every time. If I only maintained it and didn't get bored with it being such a routine, I wouldn't suffer. This is a lesson to be learned.
At least I feel like my butt is whooped now, so I'm going to try harder (I think reality just napalmed the tropical paradise that I labeled, "spring fever". What a bastard. Must it be in cahoots with the military?)
But, in a sense, this is all a good thing. It makes me feel like what I'm doing is important again. It has meaning. That creates motivation, and when I complete whatever it is I'm doing when i'm motivated, I am happy. This in turn creates positivity, and feeds into an upward spiral.
Okay. I need to go edit my last really big story (which is going to be printed in a book)
bai bai!
And I feel like explaining myself.
First off, this test didn't deal with very difficult concepts (not compared to other calculus topics, at least) but, that trixy teacher tested me on things I didn't spend much time studying on, and I think I'm gonna pay for it.
First off, I spent waaayyy too much time dealing with what were probably not the best numbers to estimate Newton's method of finding the root of a function. I had to estimate to 9 decimal places, and the calculator just kept getting closer and closer to that magic number, but it $&#$* wouldn't get to the exact number! So, I didn't have that much time to deal with it.
Second, spring break has bitten me in the butt (just like every year) and I just haven't been feeling like doing calculus (especially because I don't need the class. That kills the motivation)
But, after this test, I have realized a process that I go through. I have gone through this process many times before, but I forget it each time.
Not this time!
When I have a workable schedule, and I keep going with it, somehow I feel like if i start slacking or diverting my attention somewhere else, the neglect is going to be negligible. I somehow mistakenly believe that whatever my responsibility is can take care of itself in some way. I'm wrong.
What I forget is that when I am negligent of what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm not only not helping it, i'm hurting it. I'm screwing the process up. I'm ruining the machine. I might as well start hitting it with a hammer!
It's frustrating, because I forget this every time. If I only maintained it and didn't get bored with it being such a routine, I wouldn't suffer. This is a lesson to be learned.
At least I feel like my butt is whooped now, so I'm going to try harder (I think reality just napalmed the tropical paradise that I labeled, "spring fever". What a bastard. Must it be in cahoots with the military?)
But, in a sense, this is all a good thing. It makes me feel like what I'm doing is important again. It has meaning. That creates motivation, and when I complete whatever it is I'm doing when i'm motivated, I am happy. This in turn creates positivity, and feeds into an upward spiral.
Okay. I need to go edit my last really big story (which is going to be printed in a book)
bai bai!
Tuesday, April 5
bouwn chicka bouwn bouwn!
Ok. After not logging on here for almost a month (and thinking about it occasionally) I have decided to devote a little bit of time to blogging (at the expense of my schooling. It'll live). I'm doing this at school once more.
I swear, I live at this school.
It's not so bad, though. It keeps me from blowing my money, which is good, because I won't be able to keep the stuff that I got for very long when I go take my big traveling adventure.
I've found that my most favorite stuff was free. (not that it is free -- but because of me recording streams off the internet (legally), getting gov't subsidized education, etc. makes it free)
I bought all the computer parts to assemble a computer about a month and a half ago -- just to play music. I don't have time for games.
At the time of purchase, I wanted it for all the power. But, what i've discovered is that I basically spent all my money so that I could waste precious amounts of my time to fix the machine up. The machine is not working for me. I am working for it. Sure, the reward that I get out of it -- music and the ability to check my news (which I also think is a waste of time, since I check it so much... I'm making a goal to not check the news anymore... but that's another story) keep me motivated, more willing to work throughout the day, but this ain't worth it.
I need to remind myself before I purchase new technology that the pains of getting new technology to work, even if it's just an update of the technology, need to make me think twice. I want to work towards waiting until a product is standardized and fully supported before i purchase.
But I suppose the pains of getting it all to work is what creates a bond. I get to intimitaly know my machine's quirks -- what works, what doesn't, and so forth. I spend quality time with the machine, and by god, I'm compassionate to it.
And, the more time I spend with that machine, the less I'm willing to give up working with it. I don't want to waste all that time I invested in it!
I dunno. I mean, I love technology and everything, but I am a constant worry wart about my precious time on this Earth. It's kind of like the "You have one week to live" scenario that you'd find in some movie, only extrapolated over a longer time period. I want to extract quality out of my time. It's important to me to have that.
I suppose it's kind of okay to be spending time with the computer, because that's something I enjoy doing. I am "sort of" learning when I'm on it, though I'm not learning any radically new topics, such as knowing exactly how the computer is executing code. I'm just learning the specific details of a subject I already knew proficiently.
I feel like that's somewhat of a waste in time, yes?
Anyway, I try not to worry about time too much. I don't want to be an obsessed time management person.
It reminds me of something someone once told me, about a professor in a business class who, on the first day of class, put a jar on a table, full of rocks. He asked the class, "Is this jar full?" The class pretty much responded with a yes. So, the professor took out a cup full of pebbles and put those in the jar. Again, he asked the class if it was full. This time, the class was divided. So, the professor took out a cup full of sand and dumped it in the jar.
How does this tie in to time management? You can manage time, down to the finest detail. But, what does it cost to manage the little bits of sand? Obviously, there's lots of sand bits to deal with that occupy very little amounts of space. It would take a lot of time to manage those pieces of sand.
On the other hand, the rocks get consume roughly all of the space, while being few in number. They're just the big points in a segment of time.
I would rather complete the main points in a segment of time, and call it a good days' work than any other way. So what do I do?
I take the 5 most important things that I need to do on a day, and do them first. Everything after that doesn't really matter. That's good time management to me.
My one caveat is wasting time. I have a hard time with that. Time is the one resource that I just can't renew no matter how hard I try. So, if I'm gonna spend it, I want to spend it right.
And therein lies my flaw.
The solution? I just need to learn to let go with grace. I mean, i let go of millions things, right? Time, money, pizza, furniture, people, even ourselves. It's a pretty important concept to learn, accept and utilize.
Some things are easy to let go. Others not so much. How difficult it is to let go is usually determined by how much I think it's worth to me.
Of course, there's exceptions, such as when someone you love is gone. You may be rationally able to let go, but something deep down inside won't let you. That's hard...
Anyway, I must go to class soon, and so, before I leave, I'd like to mention what I'm currently up to (I know that I was going to recount what has happened since the blog of Oct. 31, but I've decided to postpone that until I feel like writing about it until I truly feel like doing it, if ever. I only worry that the memories of that time period will fade off to the wayside. I want to make sure I record what I have done to remind myself in the future)
A lot of things happened recently. In a sense, it's the dawn of a new era (seems to happen in the spring. Probably because I get on the upswing of things in spring, which, by the way, I discovered happens every springtime (and as a sidenote, I found out that I have some sort of seasonal depression problem going on. I haven't really thought about how to deal with it, but I don't want to use drugs)). First off, I told Meghannraye how I felt about her and her drug usage. She got very upset, which is to be expected, and I'm sure she felt like I was way too harsh on her because I sent her into tears. I thought she was never going to call me again, but she has done so since.
That made me feel better, although I wonder as to what extent our relationship is damaged. Probably still thriving, I hope, although I'm starting to get bored with hanging out with her. We keep going for walks or eating somewhere, etc. and I want a change. I want to grow with people. Maybe I just need a break from her for a while. We'll see what becomes of it. I am going to talk to her about it. (expect more crying, but I'm also going to tell her some things that will really strengthen everything)
As I think I mentioned before, Evan's gone. He went into the military about a month ago, and I haven't heard from him since, other than his exgirlfriend talked to him, and was only able to get his mailing address (she said that she kept hearing someone in the background calling him to get back in line, and he kept stalling.) we don't know if the mailing address is correct, because there was electrical noise on the phone line, and the address was really, really long.
Evan was my best friend. He's practically my brother. I could never tire of that guy, even when we fought. He helped me to realize things, such as learning about boundaries that I have for myself and that others have.
I have a problem of being picky on selecting ideas for talking about. Moreover, to a certain extent, I have problems conforming to an unwritten code of what is okay to do and what is not okay. I'm not as bad as Evan was. We were both growing, though, and getting better at breaking those boundaries and being who we wanted to be, not what others wanted us to be.
I can say with complete honesty that I'm a completely different person from who i was a year ago. I spend more time working towards what I want. I do what's important to me. I'm happier than ever before.
Anyway, as Evan faded from view (I miss you, buddy!) the metrosexual has been focusing in.
The week after Evan left, I started attending meetings to set up a radio station in the area (the blue ox radio station (or, they prefer to call it, "the humboldt bay youth radio station", or KKDS)) Erin has been there, and we've been having a good time launching the thing. We're now part of a core group of 10 people, and plan on being on the air come this August at 97.7FM .
So, we've been hanging out more often then not (and slightly to the detriment of my homework. But, whatever. I seem to be getting A's still, though I'm not sure how, since I feel like I'm cheating.), and that's been good.
Speaking of school, I'm doing well in every class save creative writing, and it's not that the creative writing assignments got harder, it's that I've made the class harder for me. I mean, technically I just need to turn in 4 pages of stuff that I have written each week to get credit -- it doesn't truly matter what I turn in, but the story ideas, plot, and character workings are getting so technical that it's drawing a lot of time. The pages are being churned out, but the stories aren't getting completed on time. And that's not good. I just wish I had enough time to finish these stories.
Moreover, I get discouraged when I'm failing. Lately, i've been having a harder time perservering at the face of adversity. If I do poorly on a test, i'm not motivated to try harder, but the opposite. That's not good! So, when i don't turn in these assignments, I don't want to keep writing. I'm not getting credit for what I do.
So, I try to avoid writing, even when I set myself down and tell myself to do it.
I've got to break this mold. I don't know how, really, and I don't want to dumb down my stories, because I'm at a breakthrough point in understanding how to tell stories really well, and I don't want to kill that. In fact, I don't think I will be able to ever go back to my former way of thinking ever again. But, I've got to do something.
Perhaps it's that it takes a long time to write down what I want because i'm so selective on my ideas to put down. Like I said before, I spend a lot of time discriminating ideas in my head, thinking "Nope, that's not gonna work" or "That's not good enough", etc. It's like a drill sergeant trying to keep my thoughts in order with brute force, and it's rough on me.
Perhaps, if i consistently told the drill sergeant, "Good job. Here, you've worked hard enough, go to take five!" I might get something done, yes?
I swear, I live at this school.
It's not so bad, though. It keeps me from blowing my money, which is good, because I won't be able to keep the stuff that I got for very long when I go take my big traveling adventure.
I've found that my most favorite stuff was free. (not that it is free -- but because of me recording streams off the internet (legally), getting gov't subsidized education, etc. makes it free)
I bought all the computer parts to assemble a computer about a month and a half ago -- just to play music. I don't have time for games.
At the time of purchase, I wanted it for all the power. But, what i've discovered is that I basically spent all my money so that I could waste precious amounts of my time to fix the machine up. The machine is not working for me. I am working for it. Sure, the reward that I get out of it -- music and the ability to check my news (which I also think is a waste of time, since I check it so much... I'm making a goal to not check the news anymore... but that's another story) keep me motivated, more willing to work throughout the day, but this ain't worth it.
I need to remind myself before I purchase new technology that the pains of getting new technology to work, even if it's just an update of the technology, need to make me think twice. I want to work towards waiting until a product is standardized and fully supported before i purchase.
But I suppose the pains of getting it all to work is what creates a bond. I get to intimitaly know my machine's quirks -- what works, what doesn't, and so forth. I spend quality time with the machine, and by god, I'm compassionate to it.
And, the more time I spend with that machine, the less I'm willing to give up working with it. I don't want to waste all that time I invested in it!
I dunno. I mean, I love technology and everything, but I am a constant worry wart about my precious time on this Earth. It's kind of like the "You have one week to live" scenario that you'd find in some movie, only extrapolated over a longer time period. I want to extract quality out of my time. It's important to me to have that.
I suppose it's kind of okay to be spending time with the computer, because that's something I enjoy doing. I am "sort of" learning when I'm on it, though I'm not learning any radically new topics, such as knowing exactly how the computer is executing code. I'm just learning the specific details of a subject I already knew proficiently.
I feel like that's somewhat of a waste in time, yes?
Anyway, I try not to worry about time too much. I don't want to be an obsessed time management person.
It reminds me of something someone once told me, about a professor in a business class who, on the first day of class, put a jar on a table, full of rocks. He asked the class, "Is this jar full?" The class pretty much responded with a yes. So, the professor took out a cup full of pebbles and put those in the jar. Again, he asked the class if it was full. This time, the class was divided. So, the professor took out a cup full of sand and dumped it in the jar.
How does this tie in to time management? You can manage time, down to the finest detail. But, what does it cost to manage the little bits of sand? Obviously, there's lots of sand bits to deal with that occupy very little amounts of space. It would take a lot of time to manage those pieces of sand.
On the other hand, the rocks get consume roughly all of the space, while being few in number. They're just the big points in a segment of time.
I would rather complete the main points in a segment of time, and call it a good days' work than any other way. So what do I do?
I take the 5 most important things that I need to do on a day, and do them first. Everything after that doesn't really matter. That's good time management to me.
My one caveat is wasting time. I have a hard time with that. Time is the one resource that I just can't renew no matter how hard I try. So, if I'm gonna spend it, I want to spend it right.
And therein lies my flaw.
The solution? I just need to learn to let go with grace. I mean, i let go of millions things, right? Time, money, pizza, furniture, people, even ourselves. It's a pretty important concept to learn, accept and utilize.
Some things are easy to let go. Others not so much. How difficult it is to let go is usually determined by how much I think it's worth to me.
Of course, there's exceptions, such as when someone you love is gone. You may be rationally able to let go, but something deep down inside won't let you. That's hard...
Anyway, I must go to class soon, and so, before I leave, I'd like to mention what I'm currently up to (I know that I was going to recount what has happened since the blog of Oct. 31, but I've decided to postpone that until I feel like writing about it until I truly feel like doing it, if ever. I only worry that the memories of that time period will fade off to the wayside. I want to make sure I record what I have done to remind myself in the future)
A lot of things happened recently. In a sense, it's the dawn of a new era (seems to happen in the spring. Probably because I get on the upswing of things in spring, which, by the way, I discovered happens every springtime (and as a sidenote, I found out that I have some sort of seasonal depression problem going on. I haven't really thought about how to deal with it, but I don't want to use drugs)). First off, I told Meghannraye how I felt about her and her drug usage. She got very upset, which is to be expected, and I'm sure she felt like I was way too harsh on her because I sent her into tears. I thought she was never going to call me again, but she has done so since.
That made me feel better, although I wonder as to what extent our relationship is damaged. Probably still thriving, I hope, although I'm starting to get bored with hanging out with her. We keep going for walks or eating somewhere, etc. and I want a change. I want to grow with people. Maybe I just need a break from her for a while. We'll see what becomes of it. I am going to talk to her about it. (expect more crying, but I'm also going to tell her some things that will really strengthen everything)
As I think I mentioned before, Evan's gone. He went into the military about a month ago, and I haven't heard from him since, other than his exgirlfriend talked to him, and was only able to get his mailing address (she said that she kept hearing someone in the background calling him to get back in line, and he kept stalling.) we don't know if the mailing address is correct, because there was electrical noise on the phone line, and the address was really, really long.
Evan was my best friend. He's practically my brother. I could never tire of that guy, even when we fought. He helped me to realize things, such as learning about boundaries that I have for myself and that others have.
I have a problem of being picky on selecting ideas for talking about. Moreover, to a certain extent, I have problems conforming to an unwritten code of what is okay to do and what is not okay. I'm not as bad as Evan was. We were both growing, though, and getting better at breaking those boundaries and being who we wanted to be, not what others wanted us to be.
I can say with complete honesty that I'm a completely different person from who i was a year ago. I spend more time working towards what I want. I do what's important to me. I'm happier than ever before.
Anyway, as Evan faded from view (I miss you, buddy!) the metrosexual has been focusing in.
The week after Evan left, I started attending meetings to set up a radio station in the area (the blue ox radio station (or, they prefer to call it, "the humboldt bay youth radio station", or KKDS)) Erin has been there, and we've been having a good time launching the thing. We're now part of a core group of 10 people, and plan on being on the air come this August at 97.7FM .
So, we've been hanging out more often then not (and slightly to the detriment of my homework. But, whatever. I seem to be getting A's still, though I'm not sure how, since I feel like I'm cheating.), and that's been good.
Speaking of school, I'm doing well in every class save creative writing, and it's not that the creative writing assignments got harder, it's that I've made the class harder for me. I mean, technically I just need to turn in 4 pages of stuff that I have written each week to get credit -- it doesn't truly matter what I turn in, but the story ideas, plot, and character workings are getting so technical that it's drawing a lot of time. The pages are being churned out, but the stories aren't getting completed on time. And that's not good. I just wish I had enough time to finish these stories.
Moreover, I get discouraged when I'm failing. Lately, i've been having a harder time perservering at the face of adversity. If I do poorly on a test, i'm not motivated to try harder, but the opposite. That's not good! So, when i don't turn in these assignments, I don't want to keep writing. I'm not getting credit for what I do.
So, I try to avoid writing, even when I set myself down and tell myself to do it.
I've got to break this mold. I don't know how, really, and I don't want to dumb down my stories, because I'm at a breakthrough point in understanding how to tell stories really well, and I don't want to kill that. In fact, I don't think I will be able to ever go back to my former way of thinking ever again. But, I've got to do something.
Perhaps it's that it takes a long time to write down what I want because i'm so selective on my ideas to put down. Like I said before, I spend a lot of time discriminating ideas in my head, thinking "Nope, that's not gonna work" or "That's not good enough", etc. It's like a drill sergeant trying to keep my thoughts in order with brute force, and it's rough on me.
Perhaps, if i consistently told the drill sergeant, "Good job. Here, you've worked hard enough, go to take five!" I might get something done, yes?
Wednesday, March 16
"I want my friends back, you son of a" --"Hey! Where'd you learn such words?"
Eheh. It's been too long since I've written. A LOT has happened since I last wrote. For a long time, I have wanted to write in here regularly, but I've been so gosh darn busy with life. I have to be busy so that my father and my workplace don't bother me. Both make me do a lot of work, and my father gets frustrated when I'm not trying hard enough in school. He wants me out of the house...
Anyway, I'm going to try and recap everything that I have done since October, though it's impossible to do so. So many good things, awesome experiences, and endings and beginnings have happened... I just wish I had written about them around the time that they had happened so that I could communicate the feeling.
Sometimes, I get this crazy idea to draw simple pictures of featureless figures using the color burgundy, a light shade of grade, and black, to illustrate so-called "eras" in my life. Pictures can say so many words in such small amounts of space.
As a quick overview before I go into the nitty gritty details, last fall was a so-called "downstroke" for me. Everything seemed like it was going downhill. I regressed a bit in terms of my rate of accomplishments, and that made me depressed.
In general, though, I always get depressed in the fall and overly positive in the spring. I think that's weird since that sort of thing is supposed to peak in the winter, when it actually peaks in the middle of fall.
So I went down emotionally for a little while back in the late fall. However, Meghannraye, and to a certain extent, PM and Evan helped keep me together.
I just felt like I was going nowhere. That wasn't true, and I knew that, but i couldn't help but feel that way. I just felt like I wasn't trying hard enough.
Anyway, in the fall, I spent a lot of time pricing items, and got really good at finding more clothes on the cheap, as well as top of the line electronics (at that time) for nothing! To name a few, I bought a 16x dvd burner for $40, as well as a 160 gig hard drive for the same price.
But other than that, I just felt dead. I know why that is now (it's my job). Every day, I'd come home, and I'd just fall asleep. I'd be exhausted from being stressed out but not moving around. My dad tried to help me (which, by the way, my relationship between me and him improved dramatically over the fall) but nothing worked. I'd just be too tired.
I read what I wrote about my speech class, and I'd like to say that that wasn't really the truth. The truth was that I was so discouraged by the teacher that I left. The deadline to drop a class was approaching, as was my first full blown speech. The thing was, when I signed up for that class, I was planning on it being a lot of fun and a great way to communicate. Over the summer, I would literally spend entire days just talking to people because I had such a large volume of people to check up on and be checked up on by (which was great). I had literally turned into a social machine.
But, after the teacher started attacking everybody who went up there (making fun of speaker in front of the audience, as well as privately criticizing everybody), my self confidence was shattered. It hurt me right in the gut when the teacher gave me back my critique telling me that my topic was not in sync with what she wanted (she wanted a media article published on the day I was born that had something to do with my life today. I did my car accident (which linked with a car accident article)). I was spared the embarrassment of being mocked on stage, and a lot of people went so far as to say that I really connected with them, but that teacher...
Folks, please remember that everybody's self confidence is like an frail, overloaded boat, ready to sink. If you should criticize somebody on an aspect (can be anything)when they give their best effort to try to improve that aspect, you utterly destroy them -- you sink the boat.
To sum up: Stick and stones may break bones, but words shatter souls.
And that's what happened to me. Not so much that I was criticized, but just seeing my peers being beaten by this mean lady.
So, I quit and took astronomy instead, which is something I love and proved to be refreshing for me. It was more refreshing than home, where I was playing video games to medicate my depression (video games -> forget what's going on around me, though that does no good because I'm just falling behind in life)
I didn't really make new friends that semester. Strangely, the only new friends I made were females.
I value guy friends more than female friends, and I wish I could say that I have made some more guy friends since the summer. But I recognize why I'm not making guy friends. My attitude is starting to change where I'm inflexible, and in this world where all males want to be the alpha male, the tension of me and others is too great.
But, on the flip side, I've picked up lots of women as friends. I don't think I like this, though. Women are a pain in the ass to deal with. Seriously! They take work -- in a sense, you have to be biased towards what they want and it's way too easy to tromp all over them and their egos.
So, anyway, while I regressed, I spent a LOT of time with Meghannraye until the end of December. We really should've been boyfriend/girlfriend (everyone, including my mentor, told me I should) but now things have died down and it's not such a good idea anymore. Furthermore, do I want such tension, when I know that I'm going to move away to Japan in the near future?
What the hell. Throw it all to the wind. That's what living is all about. You only get to live once...
So, to sum up November, I spent a lot of time with Meg, as well as Evan. I'd spend breakfast club with them, or just be at Trinidad surfing, and so forth. Apart from them, I continued to regress by playing video games.
I hate video games. I feel so limited playing them, (there's only certain things that are possible to do, and other things are left out) and I don't feel like my life is improving when playing them. And it shows because... I really don't have much more to say about November, other than I spent quite a bit of time with my family.
Hmm... I feel like I'm rambling right now. I think i'm saying the same things over and over and over... It's 1:30 in the morning (I'm NEVER up at this hour) and I'm tired. (I think I'm going to go to bed)
But, this is a start. Now that I've begun writing, I will try to continue writing. It will improve, I can triple guarantee you that!
In this universe, there's no such thing as a second chance, Only opportunities. Once you forego an opportunity, it's gone forever. It's up to you to not let this happen!
Anyway, I'm going to try and recap everything that I have done since October, though it's impossible to do so. So many good things, awesome experiences, and endings and beginnings have happened... I just wish I had written about them around the time that they had happened so that I could communicate the feeling.
Sometimes, I get this crazy idea to draw simple pictures of featureless figures using the color burgundy, a light shade of grade, and black, to illustrate so-called "eras" in my life. Pictures can say so many words in such small amounts of space.
As a quick overview before I go into the nitty gritty details, last fall was a so-called "downstroke" for me. Everything seemed like it was going downhill. I regressed a bit in terms of my rate of accomplishments, and that made me depressed.
In general, though, I always get depressed in the fall and overly positive in the spring. I think that's weird since that sort of thing is supposed to peak in the winter, when it actually peaks in the middle of fall.
So I went down emotionally for a little while back in the late fall. However, Meghannraye, and to a certain extent, PM and Evan helped keep me together.
I just felt like I was going nowhere. That wasn't true, and I knew that, but i couldn't help but feel that way. I just felt like I wasn't trying hard enough.
Anyway, in the fall, I spent a lot of time pricing items, and got really good at finding more clothes on the cheap, as well as top of the line electronics (at that time) for nothing! To name a few, I bought a 16x dvd burner for $40, as well as a 160 gig hard drive for the same price.
But other than that, I just felt dead. I know why that is now (it's my job). Every day, I'd come home, and I'd just fall asleep. I'd be exhausted from being stressed out but not moving around. My dad tried to help me (which, by the way, my relationship between me and him improved dramatically over the fall) but nothing worked. I'd just be too tired.
I read what I wrote about my speech class, and I'd like to say that that wasn't really the truth. The truth was that I was so discouraged by the teacher that I left. The deadline to drop a class was approaching, as was my first full blown speech. The thing was, when I signed up for that class, I was planning on it being a lot of fun and a great way to communicate. Over the summer, I would literally spend entire days just talking to people because I had such a large volume of people to check up on and be checked up on by (which was great). I had literally turned into a social machine.
But, after the teacher started attacking everybody who went up there (making fun of speaker in front of the audience, as well as privately criticizing everybody), my self confidence was shattered. It hurt me right in the gut when the teacher gave me back my critique telling me that my topic was not in sync with what she wanted (she wanted a media article published on the day I was born that had something to do with my life today. I did my car accident (which linked with a car accident article)). I was spared the embarrassment of being mocked on stage, and a lot of people went so far as to say that I really connected with them, but that teacher...
Folks, please remember that everybody's self confidence is like an frail, overloaded boat, ready to sink. If you should criticize somebody on an aspect (can be anything)when they give their best effort to try to improve that aspect, you utterly destroy them -- you sink the boat.
To sum up: Stick and stones may break bones, but words shatter souls.
And that's what happened to me. Not so much that I was criticized, but just seeing my peers being beaten by this mean lady.
So, I quit and took astronomy instead, which is something I love and proved to be refreshing for me. It was more refreshing than home, where I was playing video games to medicate my depression (video games -> forget what's going on around me, though that does no good because I'm just falling behind in life)
I didn't really make new friends that semester. Strangely, the only new friends I made were females.
I value guy friends more than female friends, and I wish I could say that I have made some more guy friends since the summer. But I recognize why I'm not making guy friends. My attitude is starting to change where I'm inflexible, and in this world where all males want to be the alpha male, the tension of me and others is too great.
But, on the flip side, I've picked up lots of women as friends. I don't think I like this, though. Women are a pain in the ass to deal with. Seriously! They take work -- in a sense, you have to be biased towards what they want and it's way too easy to tromp all over them and their egos.
So, anyway, while I regressed, I spent a LOT of time with Meghannraye until the end of December. We really should've been boyfriend/girlfriend (everyone, including my mentor, told me I should) but now things have died down and it's not such a good idea anymore. Furthermore, do I want such tension, when I know that I'm going to move away to Japan in the near future?
What the hell. Throw it all to the wind. That's what living is all about. You only get to live once...
So, to sum up November, I spent a lot of time with Meg, as well as Evan. I'd spend breakfast club with them, or just be at Trinidad surfing, and so forth. Apart from them, I continued to regress by playing video games.
I hate video games. I feel so limited playing them, (there's only certain things that are possible to do, and other things are left out) and I don't feel like my life is improving when playing them. And it shows because... I really don't have much more to say about November, other than I spent quite a bit of time with my family.
Hmm... I feel like I'm rambling right now. I think i'm saying the same things over and over and over... It's 1:30 in the morning (I'm NEVER up at this hour) and I'm tired. (I think I'm going to go to bed)
But, this is a start. Now that I've begun writing, I will try to continue writing. It will improve, I can triple guarantee you that!
In this universe, there's no such thing as a second chance, Only opportunities. Once you forego an opportunity, it's gone forever. It's up to you to not let this happen!
Sunday, October 31
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
Can this be??? Another posting in a recent period??? It is!
Ok. So it's Halloween. Strangely, year after year, this is a day when MASSIVE changes happen for me. While no changes have actually occurred yet, I have opened quite a few doors of opportunity today, as well as I am jet-setting some future ones.
First off, my sister is going to be here TONIGHT. My dad is bringing her back from Utah because she decided to live with us. As long as she doesn't make too big of a mess, I'll be fine (historically that has been a problem). Supposedly, she's gotten better at taking care of that sort of thing, but we'll see. (update: she's here!)
Secondly, I beat dungeon siege (one of the few games that I've played out of the bajillion that I've acquired this year). Words of advice: Don't play Dungeon Siege! It's a diablo clone, yes, but it's so pretty... pretty pretty... ahhh.... and that's what hooks most people.
I'm glad that habit is over. On to learning!
I got my insurance cards today, so now I can go to the doctor and rack a huge bill or something. The fact that I get all medical stuff half off for working at the hospital doesn't hurt, either.
Thirdly, today I was accepted into the CR honors program. YAY!!! Time to go hammer out that thar degree, yessiree bob.
But seriously, I knew I was going to be accepted into the program from the moment I decided to join (maybe before?), and now that I got the ball rolling, I'm gonna use this opportunity to build something big and beautiful (transfer?). Although the next step is securing more financial aid (i'm worrying about keeping the financial aid that i have right now) I got mobilize myself for school, get this crazy train of a plan in motion!
I'm planning on ditching my car. After being able to slow my life down enough to get a good foothold, I did an audit on my financial situation (not just money, but time as well), and found that the car costs a little bit under $7 a day -- the cost of a restaurant meal. The bus, on the other hand, is significantly cheaper. even at $2.50 a day the bus is still a bargain.
On top of that, I'm spending roughly 1.5 hours a day driving -- time that I could use to sit and read on a bus.
The feedback that I've been getting from people is that I'll be ok with it for a while, but will want my car back after a few weeks. Well, there was a point where I took the bus to get everywhere that I needed to be, and i actually enjoyed it. Moreover, the disadvantage that made me have a car was that I was too far away from the bus stop (I was out in the boonies at the time). Now, I'm a mere few blocks away. To top it all off, if I really need to go somewhere, I can use my dad's car. What if I need the car? I won't. I found that I can't make it on my own without my father at this point (the price of housing compared to unskilled wages is INSANE), so I won't worry about it. Furthermore, the car may die very soon. If I implement plan "el BUS-o" now, I won't have to deal with this potential problem. In general, if it fails, I will make something work. It always works out in the end. I've been in worse situations than the painted scenario, and it always has worked out.
Continuing on, to cut costs I'm going to be setting aside some time to make my meals so I can eat at places like school and work. When I say that, I mean that I'm going to allocate some time each week to cook all my food, make sandwiches, whatever, and then have a steady supply ready to go. QUALITY meals (because I'm picky about what I put in me) that are cheaper is just a plain good idea (hey, somebody has to make the meal. Should you sit around, doing nothing, while someone else makes the meal (does he care about the food as much as you do?) or should you make it yourself)
Now, "why am I cutting costs when I don't need to?" is something you might ask. The answer is that I'm chopping my hours of work down to 16 from 32. Working on the weekends (hopefully, actually, it's pretty certain I probably will, considering this job), when working at the hospital is really just studying my books, is the goal.
What about entertainment? Won't I burn out? If I need some entertainment (although studying has proven rewarding for me), I have plenty of video games that I have bought/acquired (though I hope to god I don't try getting into one again since they really affect what I want to do -- god help me if it's a Massively Multiplayer RPG that I get sucked into!), and I also have a lot of entertaining learning that I could do (you wouldn't believe how much music I listen to. To make my own music now... especially after all my piano class has taught me, as well as I can just plain ol' draw (when I'm at work and I can't study but it's slow enough that I'm bored, I do this. Can't draw that great, though I have noticed significant improvements. This pleases me...)
In any case, I don't want to do pointless work. I want my job to work for me, not the other way around... (and, as time goes on, I find better and better strategies to make this closer to the ideal)
Repetition is the death of the soul
anyway, to sum up everything, I'm getting my shit together. I think I've bottomed out on my downstroke of productivity/life/etc. Time to go up!
To go off on my tangent: why is it that I go up and down in productivity/mood/etc? Several factors: 1) school starting and ending takes time for me to adjust. 2)changing jobs creates chaos 3) getting out of sync with my schedule screws me up (going to fast for my schedule is the first part of the process). It's up to me to fix everything, but it's hard.
As for my personality right now, for the last 1.5 months I've been worrying about my reclusive nature. Why am I acting this way? Why am I not the social butterfly, with my entire day filled with friends and acquaintances, that I used to be? I sort of know why: I've been getting more passionate about topics in general, and I like to argue. I'm polarizing. I don't go out of my way to get conversations going. I just think about studying, and how much I'd enjoy doing it (I've turned studying into some sort of sick game. I like to do it)
I have a habit in my personality of trying to imitate others. If I see something that I like, I try to implement that into myself. Other times, I like to see and experience what others are going through by doing what they do -- even if it's something I don't really care to do. Generally, I'm apathetic on opinionated matters.
Though, as I mentioned before, i've been a little bit passionate about things in general.
On top of all this, I'd like to mention that my mind is such a dynamic thing. I change my opinions so much in such short periods of time (weeks) that I'll be the first to admit hypocrisy. That's just who I am. It's something I have to do to imitate others, consider possibilities, etc. unfortunantly, I can be wildly unpredictable at times (such as giving up things you'd think I'd never give up. Ever.) But, I value my mind in this state. I don't want to give it up.
Overrall, when I'm trying to say is that, while I was a "social butterfly" in the past, and a recluse in the present, I will be something different altogether in the future.
I'm never worried about these things. I do enjoy figuring out how I work by looking back at my past self (hind sight is 20/20, after all). The only time that I really stop and consider things are when I have to make decisions that have irrevocable consequences -- killing something, for example. Not that they're very common decisions (no, I haven't had to decide to kill anything. Hope I never have to) . Mainly, the decisions made today and the consequences thereof are almost always revocable.
It bothers me how some people can be so clung to such revocable decisions. Moreover, the decisions made can be stupid, silly things! Take my workplace, for example. So many little things that need to be done correctly that it's impossible to perfect (at least, without stressing yourself out/frazzling your nerves). When mistakes are made, people get so upset. "You shouldn't page laboratory on the intercom by saying 'laboratory department. "You should say 'laboratory' instead." "You need to answer 'operator' instead of 'office' on the telephone." "You need to get a copy of the medical card -- not just the POS ( <-- electronic insurance verifier)." "You need to highlight such and such fields with a highlighter. That way the billers will know the insurance is changed. What? you have a copy of the insurance cards on the back of the pack? Doesn't matter. Highlight all 18 of them anyway"
I think you get the idea. It's so stupid! There's a constant war, and it's because everybody is making mistakes. It doesn't matter! I don't strive for perfection anymore. Actually, I gave that up long ago. I do strive for perserverance, however.
Moreover, with school and everything, I'm beginning to discover that I'm happier doing my schoolwork than making money to buy big items. I've bought some pretty big items -- 27 inch television is the one thing that sticks out in my mind right now -- and this thing does absolutely nothing for me, except for when I bought it (it made me feel powerful).
Worse, I feel anchored with this item. I have to worry about it being taken care of (not getting damaged), it's that much harder for me to go somewhere, and, ultimately, I don't use it!
Furthermore, the concept of ownership is purely abstract. You don't really "own" anything! I could go steal your baked beans and ketchup right now, and, supposedly, under our rules of "governance" that was not an ok thing to do, but, if you eliminate all the rules that we assign right and wrong to, it was a legal thing to do according to reality. I can take the baked beans and ketchup, and I did. Nothing stopped me, so how can it be wrong? Because humanity decided that this perfectly legal act (at least, according to reality) was somehow a "wrong" thing to do. That, because I don't "own" the baked beans and ketchup, I have no "right" to make decisions about what happens to them.
Might Makes Right, Baby.
Now, I'm not saying I want this to be the law of the land. I kind of expect and like "owning" things. But, I think this is an important concept to recognize.
Anyway, I was talking about materialistic woes with Richard, and he told me his tales of starting out in Japan with nothing. He felt so free. I can relate to this when I was moving around so much that I had to ditch everything but the shirt on my back (and somehow I even lost my hair during that time, but that's a different story), and how it was such a... liberating? feeling? I suppose it's easier to look up at everything in the world when you're at the bottom, but I will say that I was pretty happy at that moment (and I was hungry to get my life going). I could focus on what I wanted. I didn't have to maintain anything...
As another tangent, I've been thinking about an earlier post I made, one about how houses are such a waste of money (I'm paying money to mow my own lawn and clean my house), especially when you have more rooms than you need (upkeep is painful). I've been wondering, "How can you stop the problem from even starting in the first place?" Of course, not making the mess is the answer, but I was also thinking about garbage, how everything is in a container that gets dumped, how it all costs money. Couldn't there be a way to get goods to consumers without the medium of containers? Couldn't we as a society improve ourselves somehow in this aspect?
Although, I must say I'm a bit of an anarchist. Kind of against the abstract ideas of "society", "government", "corporations", "ownership", and so forth. To believe in these things seems to be a fallacy on what reality is. Yet, I will continue to live this way without being bothered about it. These concepts have allowed me to be "given" things, have set an abstract "code" that is structured and easy to follow, and so forth.
Some things about these ideas are good, others are not so good. For example. Having to pay $25/month just to keep a waterline to your house - wouldn't water be considered a necessity? - without even getting one drop of water seems kind of wrong to me. "The pipes need to be maintained" is the reason. But, why doesn't government change it so that you pay a slightly higher price for water and start at $0 being owed a month? make it so that those that consume a lot of water pay more.
I suppose that if you didn't use water for a long time in the house the pipes might break, yet there would be no money from you to give to the water authorities, and that would be a problem. But, I don't know. Government is a screwed up thing like that.
One more thing about the water. Isn't it against the law to not use the public water line, due to sanitary reasons and so forth? If this is so, it's almost like there's a mandatory $25/month tax to live in a place!
But, who's to tell me to use their water? What right do they have? Apparently, this group of people who have legally monopolized the water market! And don't give me that nonprofit crap - just because it says it's nonprofit doesn't deter those who would like to make an extra buck doing what they do (who wouldn't like to make an extra buck?)
In a way, I'd like to, some day, try to live my life in such a way that I don't give any of these ideas to exist. Maybe pump my own water, grow my own food, etc? I dunno. It might be harder to do it myself than enjoy the benefits of specialization. And,
these concepts of "government", "corporations", etc. could be useful or even fun to deal with. See, I've always had this idea of these abstract things as "machines" you can use them to elevate yourself into powerful positions, but in return, as you get closer to the top, you are "obligated" to help the machine become more powerful. This constant counterweight is, to me, much like a car engine and the flywheel, or even the transmission. Converting limited ranges into one large range. When all works harmoniously, some fantastic things can happen!
Furthermore, I think it's in humanity's nature to stabilize from anarchy, anyway. I mean, assume an anarchial society. Everyone for themself! Well, those that don't starve to death are farming, so now we got people yielding crops. Now, A few of those farmers do really well and have a surplus. They use that surplus to convince some starving, not-so-well-off farmers to do things, like guard or attack other farms. Thus, we now have something along the lines of a monarchy or despotism (without the issue of religion inserted into the equation)
Overrall, this is just how I feel about this sort of stuff. For most all people, this is heavily controversial, and I'm pretty sure i'm quite alone on this ideology, but... this is all just me, and remember that I'm a hypocrite. Feel better now?
But, speaking of government, I'd just like to quickly mention that I'm writing a paper for a religious organization on why the draft cannot be tolerated in that organization.
In addition, I don't know if i'm going to be able to vote because my ballot registration process was a little bit weird, and I still haven't gotten anything in the mail...
I gots to go, but I'd like to quickly wrap up with whats been going on lately
my math class is going good. I'm enjoying doing equations that I wonder if any students get to see (IIRC one of them was y=x^sin(x), and y=x for predicting maxima, for example, as well as checking it on polar graphs and other fun, useless stuff)
Observational astronomy is great. Lots of female nerds, and I'm the know-it-all student in the class (I was obsessed with astronomy in 3rd-6th grade).
Japanese class is really coming along awesomely. The dictionary that I bought, The New Anchor is such a pleasure to read (with examples like, "I went to the Sting concert yesterday", and "When Professor Kagasawa came out of his house in his underwear, we were embarrassed to have knocked on his door", or "I don't give a fart") that I spend quite a bit of time reading it. My vocabulary is skyrocketing like MAD with that book, as well as the new nelson (the kanji dictionary), which is needed to decipher the japanese example sentences, is getting memorized as well.
Piano is coming along awesome. After some point in the class, I have just been picking up concepts so easily. I'm really flying through the book. Consequently, the teacher is really impressed, and is even devoting time after class to listen to me play, so he can have some sort of grip on where I'm at!
Oh, next Tuesday, Halo 2 comes out. I think I'm going to be ruined when it comes to schoolwork for a while, but i'm sure a lot of my friends will be, too.
Lastly, I'd like to state that i've been DDR'ing like mad at home (hey, when you got that 27 inch television, dual 12 inch subs in the rear, a 5.1 sorround system all around, and another television's speakers, you gotta use them on something, right?), and I've been getting REALLY good (better than ever), though I cut my foot on the mac that I found for free... Needless to say, I can't DDR till the wound heals up enough
D@MN YOU MACS!!!!
I think macs are evil. So evil, in fact, that I was considering replacing my jack-o-lanterns with macs at the porch. I was gonna have a scrolling marquee (after dark... 4.0, anyone?) saying "Happy Halloween!" I'm sure nobody would visit my house for fear of the terrible curse of the MAC.
Then, gaining their evil spirit devil powers, the macs would jump to live and start smashing themselves a la kamikaze style into trick-or-treaters. And beware of the chords...
They like to cut people. Beware!
Ok time for bed.
(hollers) Bring out the quotes!
For four years George W. Bush has used the power of words to overcome insurmountable facts.
-The Daily Show Skit
George W. Bush: Words Speak Louder than Actions
The Daily Show
"In the words of TS Eliot: When Dealing with questions, Don't respond to what they have said; rather, answer what you would have wanted them to have said"
Robert S. Macnamara (well, roughly what he said. I don't recall the exact wording)
Ok. So it's Halloween. Strangely, year after year, this is a day when MASSIVE changes happen for me. While no changes have actually occurred yet, I have opened quite a few doors of opportunity today, as well as I am jet-setting some future ones.
First off, my sister is going to be here TONIGHT. My dad is bringing her back from Utah because she decided to live with us. As long as she doesn't make too big of a mess, I'll be fine (historically that has been a problem). Supposedly, she's gotten better at taking care of that sort of thing, but we'll see. (update: she's here!)
Secondly, I beat dungeon siege (one of the few games that I've played out of the bajillion that I've acquired this year). Words of advice: Don't play Dungeon Siege! It's a diablo clone, yes, but it's so pretty... pretty pretty... ahhh.... and that's what hooks most people.
I'm glad that habit is over. On to learning!
I got my insurance cards today, so now I can go to the doctor and rack a huge bill or something. The fact that I get all medical stuff half off for working at the hospital doesn't hurt, either.
Thirdly, today I was accepted into the CR honors program. YAY!!! Time to go hammer out that thar degree, yessiree bob.
But seriously, I knew I was going to be accepted into the program from the moment I decided to join (maybe before?), and now that I got the ball rolling, I'm gonna use this opportunity to build something big and beautiful (transfer?). Although the next step is securing more financial aid (i'm worrying about keeping the financial aid that i have right now) I got mobilize myself for school, get this crazy train of a plan in motion!
I'm planning on ditching my car. After being able to slow my life down enough to get a good foothold, I did an audit on my financial situation (not just money, but time as well), and found that the car costs a little bit under $7 a day -- the cost of a restaurant meal. The bus, on the other hand, is significantly cheaper. even at $2.50 a day the bus is still a bargain.
On top of that, I'm spending roughly 1.5 hours a day driving -- time that I could use to sit and read on a bus.
The feedback that I've been getting from people is that I'll be ok with it for a while, but will want my car back after a few weeks. Well, there was a point where I took the bus to get everywhere that I needed to be, and i actually enjoyed it. Moreover, the disadvantage that made me have a car was that I was too far away from the bus stop (I was out in the boonies at the time). Now, I'm a mere few blocks away. To top it all off, if I really need to go somewhere, I can use my dad's car. What if I need the car? I won't. I found that I can't make it on my own without my father at this point (the price of housing compared to unskilled wages is INSANE), so I won't worry about it. Furthermore, the car may die very soon. If I implement plan "el BUS-o" now, I won't have to deal with this potential problem. In general, if it fails, I will make something work. It always works out in the end. I've been in worse situations than the painted scenario, and it always has worked out.
Continuing on, to cut costs I'm going to be setting aside some time to make my meals so I can eat at places like school and work. When I say that, I mean that I'm going to allocate some time each week to cook all my food, make sandwiches, whatever, and then have a steady supply ready to go. QUALITY meals (because I'm picky about what I put in me) that are cheaper is just a plain good idea (hey, somebody has to make the meal. Should you sit around, doing nothing, while someone else makes the meal (does he care about the food as much as you do?) or should you make it yourself)
Now, "why am I cutting costs when I don't need to?" is something you might ask. The answer is that I'm chopping my hours of work down to 16 from 32. Working on the weekends (hopefully, actually, it's pretty certain I probably will, considering this job), when working at the hospital is really just studying my books, is the goal.
What about entertainment? Won't I burn out? If I need some entertainment (although studying has proven rewarding for me), I have plenty of video games that I have bought/acquired (though I hope to god I don't try getting into one again since they really affect what I want to do -- god help me if it's a Massively Multiplayer RPG that I get sucked into!), and I also have a lot of entertaining learning that I could do (you wouldn't believe how much music I listen to. To make my own music now... especially after all my piano class has taught me, as well as I can just plain ol' draw (when I'm at work and I can't study but it's slow enough that I'm bored, I do this. Can't draw that great, though I have noticed significant improvements. This pleases me...)
In any case, I don't want to do pointless work. I want my job to work for me, not the other way around... (and, as time goes on, I find better and better strategies to make this closer to the ideal)
Repetition is the death of the soul
anyway, to sum up everything, I'm getting my shit together. I think I've bottomed out on my downstroke of productivity/life/etc. Time to go up!
To go off on my tangent: why is it that I go up and down in productivity/mood/etc? Several factors: 1) school starting and ending takes time for me to adjust. 2)changing jobs creates chaos 3) getting out of sync with my schedule screws me up (going to fast for my schedule is the first part of the process). It's up to me to fix everything, but it's hard.
As for my personality right now, for the last 1.5 months I've been worrying about my reclusive nature. Why am I acting this way? Why am I not the social butterfly, with my entire day filled with friends and acquaintances, that I used to be? I sort of know why: I've been getting more passionate about topics in general, and I like to argue. I'm polarizing. I don't go out of my way to get conversations going. I just think about studying, and how much I'd enjoy doing it (I've turned studying into some sort of sick game. I like to do it)
I have a habit in my personality of trying to imitate others. If I see something that I like, I try to implement that into myself. Other times, I like to see and experience what others are going through by doing what they do -- even if it's something I don't really care to do. Generally, I'm apathetic on opinionated matters.
Though, as I mentioned before, i've been a little bit passionate about things in general.
On top of all this, I'd like to mention that my mind is such a dynamic thing. I change my opinions so much in such short periods of time (weeks) that I'll be the first to admit hypocrisy. That's just who I am. It's something I have to do to imitate others, consider possibilities, etc. unfortunantly, I can be wildly unpredictable at times (such as giving up things you'd think I'd never give up. Ever.) But, I value my mind in this state. I don't want to give it up.
Overrall, when I'm trying to say is that, while I was a "social butterfly" in the past, and a recluse in the present, I will be something different altogether in the future.
I'm never worried about these things. I do enjoy figuring out how I work by looking back at my past self (hind sight is 20/20, after all). The only time that I really stop and consider things are when I have to make decisions that have irrevocable consequences -- killing something, for example. Not that they're very common decisions (no, I haven't had to decide to kill anything. Hope I never have to) . Mainly, the decisions made today and the consequences thereof are almost always revocable.
It bothers me how some people can be so clung to such revocable decisions. Moreover, the decisions made can be stupid, silly things! Take my workplace, for example. So many little things that need to be done correctly that it's impossible to perfect (at least, without stressing yourself out/frazzling your nerves). When mistakes are made, people get so upset. "You shouldn't page laboratory on the intercom by saying 'laboratory department. "You should say 'laboratory' instead." "You need to answer 'operator' instead of 'office' on the telephone." "You need to get a copy of the medical card -- not just the POS ( <-- electronic insurance verifier)." "You need to highlight such and such fields with a highlighter. That way the billers will know the insurance is changed. What? you have a copy of the insurance cards on the back of the pack? Doesn't matter. Highlight all 18 of them anyway"
I think you get the idea. It's so stupid! There's a constant war, and it's because everybody is making mistakes. It doesn't matter! I don't strive for perfection anymore. Actually, I gave that up long ago. I do strive for perserverance, however.
Moreover, with school and everything, I'm beginning to discover that I'm happier doing my schoolwork than making money to buy big items. I've bought some pretty big items -- 27 inch television is the one thing that sticks out in my mind right now -- and this thing does absolutely nothing for me, except for when I bought it (it made me feel powerful).
Worse, I feel anchored with this item. I have to worry about it being taken care of (not getting damaged), it's that much harder for me to go somewhere, and, ultimately, I don't use it!
Furthermore, the concept of ownership is purely abstract. You don't really "own" anything! I could go steal your baked beans and ketchup right now, and, supposedly, under our rules of "governance" that was not an ok thing to do, but, if you eliminate all the rules that we assign right and wrong to, it was a legal thing to do according to reality. I can take the baked beans and ketchup, and I did. Nothing stopped me, so how can it be wrong? Because humanity decided that this perfectly legal act (at least, according to reality) was somehow a "wrong" thing to do. That, because I don't "own" the baked beans and ketchup, I have no "right" to make decisions about what happens to them.
Might Makes Right, Baby.
Now, I'm not saying I want this to be the law of the land. I kind of expect and like "owning" things. But, I think this is an important concept to recognize.
Anyway, I was talking about materialistic woes with Richard, and he told me his tales of starting out in Japan with nothing. He felt so free. I can relate to this when I was moving around so much that I had to ditch everything but the shirt on my back (and somehow I even lost my hair during that time, but that's a different story), and how it was such a... liberating? feeling? I suppose it's easier to look up at everything in the world when you're at the bottom, but I will say that I was pretty happy at that moment (and I was hungry to get my life going). I could focus on what I wanted. I didn't have to maintain anything...
As another tangent, I've been thinking about an earlier post I made, one about how houses are such a waste of money (I'm paying money to mow my own lawn and clean my house), especially when you have more rooms than you need (upkeep is painful). I've been wondering, "How can you stop the problem from even starting in the first place?" Of course, not making the mess is the answer, but I was also thinking about garbage, how everything is in a container that gets dumped, how it all costs money. Couldn't there be a way to get goods to consumers without the medium of containers? Couldn't we as a society improve ourselves somehow in this aspect?
Although, I must say I'm a bit of an anarchist. Kind of against the abstract ideas of "society", "government", "corporations", "ownership", and so forth. To believe in these things seems to be a fallacy on what reality is. Yet, I will continue to live this way without being bothered about it. These concepts have allowed me to be "given" things, have set an abstract "code" that is structured and easy to follow, and so forth.
Some things about these ideas are good, others are not so good. For example. Having to pay $25/month just to keep a waterline to your house - wouldn't water be considered a necessity? - without even getting one drop of water seems kind of wrong to me. "The pipes need to be maintained" is the reason. But, why doesn't government change it so that you pay a slightly higher price for water and start at $0 being owed a month? make it so that those that consume a lot of water pay more.
I suppose that if you didn't use water for a long time in the house the pipes might break, yet there would be no money from you to give to the water authorities, and that would be a problem. But, I don't know. Government is a screwed up thing like that.
One more thing about the water. Isn't it against the law to not use the public water line, due to sanitary reasons and so forth? If this is so, it's almost like there's a mandatory $25/month tax to live in a place!
But, who's to tell me to use their water? What right do they have? Apparently, this group of people who have legally monopolized the water market! And don't give me that nonprofit crap - just because it says it's nonprofit doesn't deter those who would like to make an extra buck doing what they do (who wouldn't like to make an extra buck?)
In a way, I'd like to, some day, try to live my life in such a way that I don't give any of these ideas to exist. Maybe pump my own water, grow my own food, etc? I dunno. It might be harder to do it myself than enjoy the benefits of specialization. And,
these concepts of "government", "corporations", etc. could be useful or even fun to deal with. See, I've always had this idea of these abstract things as "machines" you can use them to elevate yourself into powerful positions, but in return, as you get closer to the top, you are "obligated" to help the machine become more powerful. This constant counterweight is, to me, much like a car engine and the flywheel, or even the transmission. Converting limited ranges into one large range. When all works harmoniously, some fantastic things can happen!
Furthermore, I think it's in humanity's nature to stabilize from anarchy, anyway. I mean, assume an anarchial society. Everyone for themself! Well, those that don't starve to death are farming, so now we got people yielding crops. Now, A few of those farmers do really well and have a surplus. They use that surplus to convince some starving, not-so-well-off farmers to do things, like guard or attack other farms. Thus, we now have something along the lines of a monarchy or despotism (without the issue of religion inserted into the equation)
Overrall, this is just how I feel about this sort of stuff. For most all people, this is heavily controversial, and I'm pretty sure i'm quite alone on this ideology, but... this is all just me, and remember that I'm a hypocrite. Feel better now?
But, speaking of government, I'd just like to quickly mention that I'm writing a paper for a religious organization on why the draft cannot be tolerated in that organization.
In addition, I don't know if i'm going to be able to vote because my ballot registration process was a little bit weird, and I still haven't gotten anything in the mail...
I gots to go, but I'd like to quickly wrap up with whats been going on lately
my math class is going good. I'm enjoying doing equations that I wonder if any students get to see (IIRC one of them was y=x^sin(x), and y=x for predicting maxima, for example, as well as checking it on polar graphs and other fun, useless stuff)
Observational astronomy is great. Lots of female nerds, and I'm the know-it-all student in the class (I was obsessed with astronomy in 3rd-6th grade).
Japanese class is really coming along awesomely. The dictionary that I bought, The New Anchor is such a pleasure to read (with examples like, "I went to the Sting concert yesterday", and "When Professor Kagasawa came out of his house in his underwear, we were embarrassed to have knocked on his door", or "I don't give a fart") that I spend quite a bit of time reading it. My vocabulary is skyrocketing like MAD with that book, as well as the new nelson (the kanji dictionary), which is needed to decipher the japanese example sentences, is getting memorized as well.
Piano is coming along awesome. After some point in the class, I have just been picking up concepts so easily. I'm really flying through the book. Consequently, the teacher is really impressed, and is even devoting time after class to listen to me play, so he can have some sort of grip on where I'm at!
Oh, next Tuesday, Halo 2 comes out. I think I'm going to be ruined when it comes to schoolwork for a while, but i'm sure a lot of my friends will be, too.
Lastly, I'd like to state that i've been DDR'ing like mad at home (hey, when you got that 27 inch television, dual 12 inch subs in the rear, a 5.1 sorround system all around, and another television's speakers, you gotta use them on something, right?), and I've been getting REALLY good (better than ever), though I cut my foot on the mac that I found for free... Needless to say, I can't DDR till the wound heals up enough
D@MN YOU MACS!!!!
I think macs are evil. So evil, in fact, that I was considering replacing my jack-o-lanterns with macs at the porch. I was gonna have a scrolling marquee (after dark... 4.0, anyone?) saying "Happy Halloween!" I'm sure nobody would visit my house for fear of the terrible curse of the MAC.
Then, gaining their evil spirit devil powers, the macs would jump to live and start smashing themselves a la kamikaze style into trick-or-treaters. And beware of the chords...
They like to cut people. Beware!
Ok time for bed.
(hollers) Bring out the quotes!
For four years George W. Bush has used the power of words to overcome insurmountable facts.
-The Daily Show Skit
George W. Bush: Words Speak Louder than Actions
The Daily Show
"In the words of TS Eliot: When Dealing with questions, Don't respond to what they have said; rather, answer what you would have wanted them to have said"
Robert S. Macnamara (well, roughly what he said. I don't recall the exact wording)
Thursday, October 28
We Will Meet Again
Nergh!!!!
How shall I start this? It always gets so difficult to start one o these bloggies when I haven't blogged in a while. Kind of like how I don't talk to my mother. Not because I don't want to, but I don't really know where to start up because I forgot where we left off. And what's ok to say and what is not? To my mother (of all people)? Sometimes, I just wish she'd give me some motherly advice or something on the phone, but everything is so distant. The conversation always turns out the same: talking to a distant stranger whom I don't know anything about.
So I got out of observational astronomy pumped up, after watching a video that was basically a rehash of things I used to study in my free time back in 3rd grade -- astronomy, the space race, that sort of stuff. I still forget about everything in my life when I get entranced on that sort of material.
It was great, seeing this video on two nations flexing their muscles in an armwrestle of good vs evil (depending on which side you were on). After that, I left to go home. But, I popped in a CD that I hadn't heard in a long time...
Why is it that strong memories hit me when I'm tired and hearing something? A snapshot of my life flew through me. The ideas of the time reverberated through my mind and through my heart. The mournfully joyful song continued to play. A great turn to the unknown. A point where I had just finished working on the incredible days leading up to christmas in 2002. And, on christmas day, I had a break of 7 days. I flew back to Utah, and there, went insane from the lack of work to do. Furthermore, I had built quite an (odd) crew of friends that I revolved around, was quickly falling in love...
That brief snapshot of painful paradise was something I'd try to hold onto till the beginning of November in 2003. All in vain, of course. My god, what a low dip 2003 was! Truth be told, it was largely my fault.
But, before I forget the vivid memories of late 2K2 and 2K3, I want to write them down, here.
I remember experimenting with drugs. Not hard drugs (never!), just mainly alcohol. I remember I was on a buying rampage in November 2k2, and had bought some anime recommended by my friend Ian, how we went into my room and drank this large nasty @$$ awful whiskey (that he later claimed made him sicker than anything else); how we stopped watching the movie pretty quickly (couldn't follow the story line. I still couldn't follow it when I was sober); how I BADLY stubbed my toe on a weight, but didn't feel it though I exclaimed that it was going to hurt really bad in the morning (which it did).
I remember spending a lot of time reading an electronics book, staying up late at night all the time doing all sorts of things, making bread, researching on E2...
I remember falling over my first girlfriend. Though I was really shy, she was really aggressive, and once she overcame my barriers of screwed-up ideas about what women were, changed me.
I remember Will and the 17 or so other people that would all party on down in "the war zone" of Eureka, how they thought I was the coolest person, how I got this weird amount of respect from people I didn't respect at all (it was just... bizarre!).
I remember getting my new pair of speakers for my "new" car that I jokingly told my aunt I would own someday. I remember Will helping me install them. I remember the times I went surfing with Will, and all the times I sat in that f@#%ing golf cart on a rainy day to talk with him (and hydroplane/pop a wheelie occasionally)
I remember everybody spending their evenings at my house to play on my X-Box with sound system and sharp TV... It was sort of annoying but a badge of pride to come home after a hard day's work and go into my room to see... a group of boys sitting on my bed getting obnoxious over a game.
I wonder whatever became of James?
Fast forward to December of 2003/winter and spring of 2004. I was really social then, too. In many ways, that time period was superior to 2003. I had cast off the shackles of my naive utopian vision of 2002/3. There was no limit to where I could go... What could happen? A lot. I did so much during the 5 months of that "golden era". But, I felt so tortured. I mean, I broke up with 2 really close friends, Ian and Kyle, without even telling them to their face that I had decided to do it and why (even I didn't know at the time. In retrospect my only excuse would be that I had reached a breaking point of everybody trying to keep the group together and needed to get out. Though it wasn't really them that I needed to get away from. It was Jamie, who was breaking my heart over and over again.) I am not the best person. I know that. Sometimes, i'm just dramatically unpredictable. I would cut off my own hand if it tortured me enough.
But then again, I would try do it in the most indirect way possible. If surgery were available, i'd do it that way, though if I were stuck out in the woods (like that one guy in Moab) i'd do it myself if I had to.
Anyway, like a severed hand, I had a LOT (A LOT) of guilt, pain, and grief from my severance. To be honest, I got really upset whenever I saw either of them. And what would I do when I saw either of them? Avoid them.
Furthermore, you'd think that, without valid reasoning behind my decision that I would get back together with them at some point, right? Well, it gets a little complicated there. Jamie broke up with me, and because Jamie was linked with those two (in bonds that appeared stronger than with me) I was pretty much stuck not going back. Furthermore, because all the new activities that I was doing (my life was taking a giant leap forward), I didn't really care enough to come back at that point. Though the torment of what I had done still haunted me.
Furthermore, there was additional torment from not seeing my exgirlfriend. She broke off from me on Dec 21 and never spoke to me again. At least, until April. Here, I was still stuck on someone, someone that broke my heart almost daily, someone that I visited every day, and then suddenly never saw again.
That hurt.
For all the pain she dealt, I was still so stuck on her that I visited her blog everyday, until some time after we started talking to eachother again. What's more, I part of the reason that I put myself through so much work over late 2003/early 2004 was to buff up on knowledge and skills, sort of try and impress her if I were to interact with her again.
I changed over that time period in a big way. When we interacted together again, I found that she had not.
And that disappointed me. I had set these expectations of her that she was this person who she was not. Though, the memories of everything that happened over 2003, of her maturing, made me expect her to be different. She had changed A LOT over 2003 (though by the time she broke up with me she was barely the person I first knew her as).
Anyway, as we interacted together more and more, I found her to be jabbing my personality and who I was more and more. So I stopped initiating the conversations to her to see what she would do (which, as a side note, was interesting. She really won't do it on her own. I had a feeling it was an expectation of vying for her time).
She didn't talk to me for a long time. A few months down the road, she talked to me again, and this time I tried to see if I could just be friends, no, I was trying to see if we could establish basic trust (I trust you, you trust me). I was ready and willing to trust her, but what I found was (and this is from my point of view) that she was trying to catch me trying to set her up (in fact, she would out-and-out say "I can't trust you anymore". I knew it was all going to crash after words like that. It all begins with TRUST. If you don't have that, you have nothing). Almost like she was trying to find me guilty of doing something against her. Why? Again, this is my speculation, but it seemed like she had such guilty feelings for hurting me so much that she figured I was really angry with her underneath. She was always wary of that, and then she "pinned" me with something, I don't know what, that I wrote in my blog. To this day I don't know what "it" was that I wrote, but at this point I don't even care. She always presumed me guilty, just kept making the pain and agony reverberate.
And, at least I got to meet her a few more times. Enough, at least to feel a completeness in my process of mourning. I don't think about her everyday anymore. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. And, sadly (because I know she's a person who has a lot of potential), I know I'll be going much farther without her.
(and I learned an important lesson: don't get into relationships before you get through the gauntlet of college)
And thus ends that chapter. I feel pretty complete again, save for one thing.
Whenever I see her, (or anyone that's on a desist from interaction order), my heart leaps, and my body gets to racing. Sheer dorkitude, I know, but I also, at the science fair, saw her and not too much later got my blood pressure checked: 133 over 90. That's fairly high blood pressure. And I know it's not that high because I get it checked at other times.
My "enemies" are gonna kill me. Or, at least shorten my life span.
And it's so stupid. I mean, in the end, nothing really matters. Nobody really matters. We're all gonna die, all the same (yeah, I know, I should turn into a goth. Gloom. Gloom. Gloom). One human being to another, it's just so stupid.
When I say you're going to die, I'm trying to say that these people will not be your enemies forever. I'm not saying that when you die, that's the end of it (though that's certainly a possibility). I mean, most religions will show that people will have an altered personality when they go to wherever it may be. Your enemies may very well be your allies.
And, in the end, I really don't hate anybody. I mean that. In my life, there's only 3 people I still don't like and that was back in the 9th grade. (they made my life hell in 8th grade). I wrecked their social standing at the highschool that I went to when I would bounce whatever negative attack they made upon me by showing the rest of the school what kind of assholes they were. I made them REALLY unpopular. To this day, they move to a completely different aisle at the movies or avoid me at Wal-Mart whenever I see them during a visit to Utah.
But, overrall, I think they were just dumb kids at the time. Mainly, I believe there was a lack of understanding, and that if we talked in this day and age, we could solve the problems. Ninth grade wasn't an easy year for most people, after all.
But I've digressed. Back to my main question. Why is it that I avoid people that I have an imaginary "desist" order on? Why does my blood pressure spike? Why do I panic?
Could this all be linked to my abusive stepfather who I tried hard to avoid (though it was unavoidable. In his spare time, he'd manipulate us kids to do bad things to eachother to discipline us, as well as create all sorts of stupid rules that were brutally enforced)? Could this be that I was always the new kid? Could it be that I'm just a wimp?
Well, I know I wasn't always a wimp; At least physically. Because, definitely, I was a mean mother at school when I was younger. I fought a lot. I was stuck with the wrong crowd of kids (and, later on when I got thrown into a wayward boys home when I was older, found them there and at worse places). I used to cause fights just for fun. But, overrall, I was the cool kid that did what nobody else would. And, for that, I was respected.
And then came my stepfather, who broke me and everybody else down. People ask me and my brother why we're so well behaved, and I usually point to my stepfather. That man has taught me well what the wrong way is through his horrid actions.
To amplify it all, moving around didn't help me much, either. Always being the new kid made me the one to be picked on. I gained a high tolerance for that... but as time wore on, and I went through more schools, I found a way to just observe people without interacting. I'd rather be left alone (and lonely) than picked on.
But now the times have changed, though the imprints during my childhood still linger.
And all of these things combine to create this individual who hides his dark side, who flees when he sees something that he has convinced himself he doesn't like, and so forth.
And he doesn't have to feel that way. He makes himself feel that way.
Anyway, it's late but I'd like to make a note here. I sure do talk about these people a lot. Why?
I'll think about it for a while.
But now, it's time for the story of Paul.
Paul always hung out with me, my bro, and Erin. And, I've noticed that, over time, he has drifted away to his crew buddies.
And I would applaud him on this. I'd like to see him grow, be independent, whatever. Whether I'm in the equation or not doesn't matter to me. But, this group of people is starting to affect him in ways that bother me. He is becoming like one of them, yes, but that's what I'm not liking.
This group of people... they're "elite", cocky, drug using people that expect certain sorts of entertainment -- and above all they expect to win whatever they're doing.
Now, I think that it's cool that they're all 18 year-old physics majors, taking 6 (and more, for some!!!) upper divisional classes, all being half to 3/4 the way to getting that bachelors (I keep thinking that I should go sit in on some of their lectures just for fun). I applaud the fact that they work out HARD when they go out and do their crew meets.
But, It irks me when they always play to win, and when they're not winning, they're not happy (what happened to just having fun???). I don't like how they have to hit a whole slough of parties on weekends to have fun, and I don't approve of the obsessive amount of alcohol and caffeine tablets that gets taken. Above all, I hate how they can't be bothered with people who aren't as "smart" as they, (not that I get rounded in the group), and how they tease such people. Good god!
I am a champion of the loser I suppose. Paul and his group like me, and I'm welcome to attend whatever they're doing, but I really don't enjoy their presence; they're too stuck up and full of themselves. And that's not good.
I dunno. My mind is always dynamic. I'll always find a way to disagree with you.
I have had more (alleged) enemies than ever these days, and it's not that I did anything hateful, it's just that I stopped bothering to talk to them. Granted most of these people came back and are my friends again, after saying they hated me, but I wonder what's going on, or is it just my apathy towards everything?
My relationships with women are receding, and I just don't care. I don't bother to talk to them sometimes. The ones I used to talk to regularly and entertain (enter guacamole face!) get upset when I don't communicate, and the ones that care about me at school seem to have given up now. I cared about them, but i'm so apathetic now. I dunno...
I was once a crazy socialite, and now I'm a recluse. I'm such a swinging pendulum of torrential chaos...
I just want to do my schoolwork now. I'm working on finding a way to just be a student, hammer out the degrees, get to japan, and do what I want to do(I have figured out what I want to do with my life FOR SURE. It's been the same these past 3 months. I KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO! YAY!) No more bullshit work. That's the VOW i've taken. I will find a way.
All the crap I bought over the past 6 months has done nothing to help me, and I got plenty of stuff that doesn't cost anything to enjoy myself with. It's time to quit working hard for this worthless stuff.
As for the morning, me and Evan are learning to make turkey. Should prove interesting (I've heard of one person that puts the turkey in a plastic wrap, seals it, throws it in the dishwasher, and has moist turkey in the end).
Ok. I've been awake 20 hours and I'm dehydrated (which is why the writing has been bad as this article gets longer)
Off I go.
There's something to remember, and something to forget. As long as we remember, there's something to regret
How shall I start this? It always gets so difficult to start one o these bloggies when I haven't blogged in a while. Kind of like how I don't talk to my mother. Not because I don't want to, but I don't really know where to start up because I forgot where we left off. And what's ok to say and what is not? To my mother (of all people)? Sometimes, I just wish she'd give me some motherly advice or something on the phone, but everything is so distant. The conversation always turns out the same: talking to a distant stranger whom I don't know anything about.
So I got out of observational astronomy pumped up, after watching a video that was basically a rehash of things I used to study in my free time back in 3rd grade -- astronomy, the space race, that sort of stuff. I still forget about everything in my life when I get entranced on that sort of material.
It was great, seeing this video on two nations flexing their muscles in an armwrestle of good vs evil (depending on which side you were on). After that, I left to go home. But, I popped in a CD that I hadn't heard in a long time...
Why is it that strong memories hit me when I'm tired and hearing something? A snapshot of my life flew through me. The ideas of the time reverberated through my mind and through my heart. The mournfully joyful song continued to play. A great turn to the unknown. A point where I had just finished working on the incredible days leading up to christmas in 2002. And, on christmas day, I had a break of 7 days. I flew back to Utah, and there, went insane from the lack of work to do. Furthermore, I had built quite an (odd) crew of friends that I revolved around, was quickly falling in love...
That brief snapshot of painful paradise was something I'd try to hold onto till the beginning of November in 2003. All in vain, of course. My god, what a low dip 2003 was! Truth be told, it was largely my fault.
But, before I forget the vivid memories of late 2K2 and 2K3, I want to write them down, here.
I remember experimenting with drugs. Not hard drugs (never!), just mainly alcohol. I remember I was on a buying rampage in November 2k2, and had bought some anime recommended by my friend Ian, how we went into my room and drank this large nasty @$$ awful whiskey (that he later claimed made him sicker than anything else); how we stopped watching the movie pretty quickly (couldn't follow the story line. I still couldn't follow it when I was sober); how I BADLY stubbed my toe on a weight, but didn't feel it though I exclaimed that it was going to hurt really bad in the morning (which it did).
I remember spending a lot of time reading an electronics book, staying up late at night all the time doing all sorts of things, making bread, researching on E2...
I remember falling over my first girlfriend. Though I was really shy, she was really aggressive, and once she overcame my barriers of screwed-up ideas about what women were, changed me.
I remember Will and the 17 or so other people that would all party on down in "the war zone" of Eureka, how they thought I was the coolest person, how I got this weird amount of respect from people I didn't respect at all (it was just... bizarre!).
I remember getting my new pair of speakers for my "new" car that I jokingly told my aunt I would own someday. I remember Will helping me install them. I remember the times I went surfing with Will, and all the times I sat in that f@#%ing golf cart on a rainy day to talk with him (and hydroplane/pop a wheelie occasionally)
I remember everybody spending their evenings at my house to play on my X-Box with sound system and sharp TV... It was sort of annoying but a badge of pride to come home after a hard day's work and go into my room to see... a group of boys sitting on my bed getting obnoxious over a game.
I wonder whatever became of James?
Fast forward to December of 2003/winter and spring of 2004. I was really social then, too. In many ways, that time period was superior to 2003. I had cast off the shackles of my naive utopian vision of 2002/3. There was no limit to where I could go... What could happen? A lot. I did so much during the 5 months of that "golden era". But, I felt so tortured. I mean, I broke up with 2 really close friends, Ian and Kyle, without even telling them to their face that I had decided to do it and why (even I didn't know at the time. In retrospect my only excuse would be that I had reached a breaking point of everybody trying to keep the group together and needed to get out. Though it wasn't really them that I needed to get away from. It was Jamie, who was breaking my heart over and over again.) I am not the best person. I know that. Sometimes, i'm just dramatically unpredictable. I would cut off my own hand if it tortured me enough.
But then again, I would try do it in the most indirect way possible. If surgery were available, i'd do it that way, though if I were stuck out in the woods (like that one guy in Moab) i'd do it myself if I had to.
Anyway, like a severed hand, I had a LOT (A LOT) of guilt, pain, and grief from my severance. To be honest, I got really upset whenever I saw either of them. And what would I do when I saw either of them? Avoid them.
Furthermore, you'd think that, without valid reasoning behind my decision that I would get back together with them at some point, right? Well, it gets a little complicated there. Jamie broke up with me, and because Jamie was linked with those two (in bonds that appeared stronger than with me) I was pretty much stuck not going back. Furthermore, because all the new activities that I was doing (my life was taking a giant leap forward), I didn't really care enough to come back at that point. Though the torment of what I had done still haunted me.
Furthermore, there was additional torment from not seeing my exgirlfriend. She broke off from me on Dec 21 and never spoke to me again. At least, until April. Here, I was still stuck on someone, someone that broke my heart almost daily, someone that I visited every day, and then suddenly never saw again.
That hurt.
For all the pain she dealt, I was still so stuck on her that I visited her blog everyday, until some time after we started talking to eachother again. What's more, I part of the reason that I put myself through so much work over late 2003/early 2004 was to buff up on knowledge and skills, sort of try and impress her if I were to interact with her again.
I changed over that time period in a big way. When we interacted together again, I found that she had not.
And that disappointed me. I had set these expectations of her that she was this person who she was not. Though, the memories of everything that happened over 2003, of her maturing, made me expect her to be different. She had changed A LOT over 2003 (though by the time she broke up with me she was barely the person I first knew her as).
Anyway, as we interacted together more and more, I found her to be jabbing my personality and who I was more and more. So I stopped initiating the conversations to her to see what she would do (which, as a side note, was interesting. She really won't do it on her own. I had a feeling it was an expectation of vying for her time).
She didn't talk to me for a long time. A few months down the road, she talked to me again, and this time I tried to see if I could just be friends, no, I was trying to see if we could establish basic trust (I trust you, you trust me). I was ready and willing to trust her, but what I found was (and this is from my point of view) that she was trying to catch me trying to set her up (in fact, she would out-and-out say "I can't trust you anymore". I knew it was all going to crash after words like that. It all begins with TRUST. If you don't have that, you have nothing). Almost like she was trying to find me guilty of doing something against her. Why? Again, this is my speculation, but it seemed like she had such guilty feelings for hurting me so much that she figured I was really angry with her underneath. She was always wary of that, and then she "pinned" me with something, I don't know what, that I wrote in my blog. To this day I don't know what "it" was that I wrote, but at this point I don't even care. She always presumed me guilty, just kept making the pain and agony reverberate.
And, at least I got to meet her a few more times. Enough, at least to feel a completeness in my process of mourning. I don't think about her everyday anymore. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. And, sadly (because I know she's a person who has a lot of potential), I know I'll be going much farther without her.
(and I learned an important lesson: don't get into relationships before you get through the gauntlet of college)
And thus ends that chapter. I feel pretty complete again, save for one thing.
Whenever I see her, (or anyone that's on a desist from interaction order), my heart leaps, and my body gets to racing. Sheer dorkitude, I know, but I also, at the science fair, saw her and not too much later got my blood pressure checked: 133 over 90. That's fairly high blood pressure. And I know it's not that high because I get it checked at other times.
My "enemies" are gonna kill me. Or, at least shorten my life span.
And it's so stupid. I mean, in the end, nothing really matters. Nobody really matters. We're all gonna die, all the same (yeah, I know, I should turn into a goth. Gloom. Gloom. Gloom). One human being to another, it's just so stupid.
When I say you're going to die, I'm trying to say that these people will not be your enemies forever. I'm not saying that when you die, that's the end of it (though that's certainly a possibility). I mean, most religions will show that people will have an altered personality when they go to wherever it may be. Your enemies may very well be your allies.
And, in the end, I really don't hate anybody. I mean that. In my life, there's only 3 people I still don't like and that was back in the 9th grade. (they made my life hell in 8th grade). I wrecked their social standing at the highschool that I went to when I would bounce whatever negative attack they made upon me by showing the rest of the school what kind of assholes they were. I made them REALLY unpopular. To this day, they move to a completely different aisle at the movies or avoid me at Wal-Mart whenever I see them during a visit to Utah.
But, overrall, I think they were just dumb kids at the time. Mainly, I believe there was a lack of understanding, and that if we talked in this day and age, we could solve the problems. Ninth grade wasn't an easy year for most people, after all.
But I've digressed. Back to my main question. Why is it that I avoid people that I have an imaginary "desist" order on? Why does my blood pressure spike? Why do I panic?
Could this all be linked to my abusive stepfather who I tried hard to avoid (though it was unavoidable. In his spare time, he'd manipulate us kids to do bad things to eachother to discipline us, as well as create all sorts of stupid rules that were brutally enforced)? Could this be that I was always the new kid? Could it be that I'm just a wimp?
Well, I know I wasn't always a wimp; At least physically. Because, definitely, I was a mean mother at school when I was younger. I fought a lot. I was stuck with the wrong crowd of kids (and, later on when I got thrown into a wayward boys home when I was older, found them there and at worse places). I used to cause fights just for fun. But, overrall, I was the cool kid that did what nobody else would. And, for that, I was respected.
And then came my stepfather, who broke me and everybody else down. People ask me and my brother why we're so well behaved, and I usually point to my stepfather. That man has taught me well what the wrong way is through his horrid actions.
To amplify it all, moving around didn't help me much, either. Always being the new kid made me the one to be picked on. I gained a high tolerance for that... but as time wore on, and I went through more schools, I found a way to just observe people without interacting. I'd rather be left alone (and lonely) than picked on.
But now the times have changed, though the imprints during my childhood still linger.
And all of these things combine to create this individual who hides his dark side, who flees when he sees something that he has convinced himself he doesn't like, and so forth.
And he doesn't have to feel that way. He makes himself feel that way.
Anyway, it's late but I'd like to make a note here. I sure do talk about these people a lot. Why?
I'll think about it for a while.
But now, it's time for the story of Paul.
Paul always hung out with me, my bro, and Erin. And, I've noticed that, over time, he has drifted away to his crew buddies.
And I would applaud him on this. I'd like to see him grow, be independent, whatever. Whether I'm in the equation or not doesn't matter to me. But, this group of people is starting to affect him in ways that bother me. He is becoming like one of them, yes, but that's what I'm not liking.
This group of people... they're "elite", cocky, drug using people that expect certain sorts of entertainment -- and above all they expect to win whatever they're doing.
Now, I think that it's cool that they're all 18 year-old physics majors, taking 6 (and more, for some!!!) upper divisional classes, all being half to 3/4 the way to getting that bachelors (I keep thinking that I should go sit in on some of their lectures just for fun). I applaud the fact that they work out HARD when they go out and do their crew meets.
But, It irks me when they always play to win, and when they're not winning, they're not happy (what happened to just having fun???). I don't like how they have to hit a whole slough of parties on weekends to have fun, and I don't approve of the obsessive amount of alcohol and caffeine tablets that gets taken. Above all, I hate how they can't be bothered with people who aren't as "smart" as they, (not that I get rounded in the group), and how they tease such people. Good god!
I am a champion of the loser I suppose. Paul and his group like me, and I'm welcome to attend whatever they're doing, but I really don't enjoy their presence; they're too stuck up and full of themselves. And that's not good.
I dunno. My mind is always dynamic. I'll always find a way to disagree with you.
I have had more (alleged) enemies than ever these days, and it's not that I did anything hateful, it's just that I stopped bothering to talk to them. Granted most of these people came back and are my friends again, after saying they hated me, but I wonder what's going on, or is it just my apathy towards everything?
My relationships with women are receding, and I just don't care. I don't bother to talk to them sometimes. The ones I used to talk to regularly and entertain (enter guacamole face!) get upset when I don't communicate, and the ones that care about me at school seem to have given up now. I cared about them, but i'm so apathetic now. I dunno...
I was once a crazy socialite, and now I'm a recluse. I'm such a swinging pendulum of torrential chaos...
I just want to do my schoolwork now. I'm working on finding a way to just be a student, hammer out the degrees, get to japan, and do what I want to do(I have figured out what I want to do with my life FOR SURE. It's been the same these past 3 months. I KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO! YAY!) No more bullshit work. That's the VOW i've taken. I will find a way.
All the crap I bought over the past 6 months has done nothing to help me, and I got plenty of stuff that doesn't cost anything to enjoy myself with. It's time to quit working hard for this worthless stuff.
As for the morning, me and Evan are learning to make turkey. Should prove interesting (I've heard of one person that puts the turkey in a plastic wrap, seals it, throws it in the dishwasher, and has moist turkey in the end).
Ok. I've been awake 20 hours and I'm dehydrated (which is why the writing has been bad as this article gets longer)
Off I go.
There's something to remember, and something to forget. As long as we remember, there's something to regret
Sunday, October 17
Revise the Grade
Creaky noises make my skin creep. I need to get some sleep. I can't get no sleep.
Ugh. So tired. Lordy lo, how long has it been since I last posted? No matter. Blogging insanity shall be made, under qualifications of fun fun insomnia.
I've been getting up really early in the morning, every day at 5, for the past 2.5 months, and I've found that... (drumroll please?) I'm just not a morning person. I can't seem to wake up and be wide awake for the rest of the day. This makes sense. My parents are night owls, and, over my midteen years during summer, when I didn't set my alarm, didn't have a care in the world, just me and my computer games (such an addictive thing), I noticed that my body would naturally wake up at 6 in the evening, and break down at about 8 in the morning. This tiredness, combined with the stress I have put on myself has really taxed me.
This semester I've been trying my hardest to study study study, to not miss class, to do all the things that a successful student would need to do. Yet, I find I make frequent mistakes due to fatigue. I was going to reassure myself with this semester that putting forth the effort would yield a big return, but I am disappointed. Academically, this is the worst semester I have ever dealt with (though I can easily still be in honors).
Almost everybody I deal with that is going to school is taking a whole whopper of credits. This ranges from the crew team (most of them finishing up their physics degrees of all things, doing 6 upper divisional classes in one stroke of a semester) to your "lowly" CR student (I do not consider them lowly however. A degree is a degree is a degree. For example, Sacramento's community colleges' course offerings are no harder than CR's). I want to join these people. I want to get through school. I know what I'm doing. I know where I am, I just can't seem to put the pressure down hard enough. I need help.
Of course, as they say, recognizing the problem is the first step. I will find what I'm looking for in time.
In the meantime, what am I to do? Well, to get myself more alert, I decided to just get rid of my speech class, and take it over the summer. Between the Jesus Freaks (who only do 1 minute speeches and try to persuade me to convert to their religion when they're only supposed to inform me), the odd ducks (people who spoke on things like how to pluck a turkey, how doing their research paper taught them to value speech, even one person who talked about death (granted, she's a mortician), and the lady's gossip corner (serious overachievers that are actually not doing very well in the class because they're overehearsing, yet seem to throw the class into some sort of emotional discord with their crap...)...
I don't want to give a speech to people who don't care about what I want to talk about. Yet, I will. But, I want to spend as little time as possible. Here comes the summer!
Secondly, I'm looking for a different job. One that pays more as well as is later in the day. If I can just get my circadian rhythm in balance like it used to be... performance will be up. (I'm still getting up at 5 in the morning for work, but I'm not as tired)
Lately, I've been saving up for a car as well as buying ridiculously frivolous things. Example: the past week I bought a 27 inch television (I've never had something that big! Mainly because I would move so much) that was 160$+tax=$200, and a $40 briefcase that was supposed to be $200 for my japanese crap (I have too much japanese crap). Considering that my paycheck is small (7.00$/hr these days) I think buying this much stuff each week is pretty crazy. Add on top of that saving up for that car to replace the current one when/if it dies and... (well, the savings thing may very well go to a trip to japan to teach there. Hopefully my car lives long enough to do that. Though i've spelled doom on it for the past 1.5 years, I think it'll make it. Murphy's law will make it break now that I finally changed positions) I'm doing pretty well.
In short, with my behavior as of late, I have been diametrically opposing myself and my values. But, whatever. I don't care anymore. I'll get it together sooner than I think. And, when this wave of irresponsibility for everything subsides, I will initiate a plan that I've been working on to keep everything stable (hopefully) for a long time to come.
I've been thinking. A lot of people want to get up high in the social structure of our society, want to become important individuals, and want to do this through hard work. Our society rewards hard work, and it's possible to become a somewhat famous person through this hard work. But, I was thinking, what about those who work hard but have no talent? How hard is it for those that have plenty of talent to rise in society? Do they even want to participate in society? Is it useless to try to put in as much effort as possible if it's known that there are others who can easily do it?
Thinking the lazy man's way (cuz he knows how to do it best) it would be best to let those that are gifted do the work for you...
Anyway, as I said before, i'm really tired. Time to go crash... (I remember, when working SO hard at WinCo, how my bed was the most comfortable thing in the world. I went to heaven every night when I fell on that bed. In a way, I miss doing mindless physical labor. It was good for my body, I could think about whatever I wanted because I didn't have to be focused the whole time, etc.)
Ugh. So tired. Lordy lo, how long has it been since I last posted? No matter. Blogging insanity shall be made, under qualifications of fun fun insomnia.
I've been getting up really early in the morning, every day at 5, for the past 2.5 months, and I've found that... (drumroll please?) I'm just not a morning person. I can't seem to wake up and be wide awake for the rest of the day. This makes sense. My parents are night owls, and, over my midteen years during summer, when I didn't set my alarm, didn't have a care in the world, just me and my computer games (such an addictive thing), I noticed that my body would naturally wake up at 6 in the evening, and break down at about 8 in the morning. This tiredness, combined with the stress I have put on myself has really taxed me.
This semester I've been trying my hardest to study study study, to not miss class, to do all the things that a successful student would need to do. Yet, I find I make frequent mistakes due to fatigue. I was going to reassure myself with this semester that putting forth the effort would yield a big return, but I am disappointed. Academically, this is the worst semester I have ever dealt with (though I can easily still be in honors).
Almost everybody I deal with that is going to school is taking a whole whopper of credits. This ranges from the crew team (most of them finishing up their physics degrees of all things, doing 6 upper divisional classes in one stroke of a semester) to your "lowly" CR student (I do not consider them lowly however. A degree is a degree is a degree. For example, Sacramento's community colleges' course offerings are no harder than CR's). I want to join these people. I want to get through school. I know what I'm doing. I know where I am, I just can't seem to put the pressure down hard enough. I need help.
Of course, as they say, recognizing the problem is the first step. I will find what I'm looking for in time.
In the meantime, what am I to do? Well, to get myself more alert, I decided to just get rid of my speech class, and take it over the summer. Between the Jesus Freaks (who only do 1 minute speeches and try to persuade me to convert to their religion when they're only supposed to inform me), the odd ducks (people who spoke on things like how to pluck a turkey, how doing their research paper taught them to value speech, even one person who talked about death (granted, she's a mortician), and the lady's gossip corner (serious overachievers that are actually not doing very well in the class because they're overehearsing, yet seem to throw the class into some sort of emotional discord with their crap...)...
I don't want to give a speech to people who don't care about what I want to talk about. Yet, I will. But, I want to spend as little time as possible. Here comes the summer!
Secondly, I'm looking for a different job. One that pays more as well as is later in the day. If I can just get my circadian rhythm in balance like it used to be... performance will be up. (I'm still getting up at 5 in the morning for work, but I'm not as tired)
Lately, I've been saving up for a car as well as buying ridiculously frivolous things. Example: the past week I bought a 27 inch television (I've never had something that big! Mainly because I would move so much) that was 160$+tax=$200, and a $40 briefcase that was supposed to be $200 for my japanese crap (I have too much japanese crap). Considering that my paycheck is small (7.00$/hr these days) I think buying this much stuff each week is pretty crazy. Add on top of that saving up for that car to replace the current one when/if it dies and... (well, the savings thing may very well go to a trip to japan to teach there. Hopefully my car lives long enough to do that. Though i've spelled doom on it for the past 1.5 years, I think it'll make it. Murphy's law will make it break now that I finally changed positions) I'm doing pretty well.
In short, with my behavior as of late, I have been diametrically opposing myself and my values. But, whatever. I don't care anymore. I'll get it together sooner than I think. And, when this wave of irresponsibility for everything subsides, I will initiate a plan that I've been working on to keep everything stable (hopefully) for a long time to come.
I've been thinking. A lot of people want to get up high in the social structure of our society, want to become important individuals, and want to do this through hard work. Our society rewards hard work, and it's possible to become a somewhat famous person through this hard work. But, I was thinking, what about those who work hard but have no talent? How hard is it for those that have plenty of talent to rise in society? Do they even want to participate in society? Is it useless to try to put in as much effort as possible if it's known that there are others who can easily do it?
Thinking the lazy man's way (cuz he knows how to do it best) it would be best to let those that are gifted do the work for you...
Anyway, as I said before, i'm really tired. Time to go crash... (I remember, when working SO hard at WinCo, how my bed was the most comfortable thing in the world. I went to heaven every night when I fell on that bed. In a way, I miss doing mindless physical labor. It was good for my body, I could think about whatever I wanted because I didn't have to be focused the whole time, etc.)
Tuesday, August 10
New, Modern, Sleek... My blog?
Ok. So I got *some* things done. The colors are still the same, and so forth...
I'm thinking about getting pictures linked up to this thing
But I wonder if that'll cause problems for people with slow connections.
What's a mother to do? Hmm...
Well, I will continue working on this some other day (probably tomorrow)
Amongst the notes:
*Switching to blogger's comment system (for more control) was kind of painful. I did get to learn all about how blogger works, though. I 4m Bl0Ggi|\|G M4$tx0r!
*I think I may have put too many links on the side there. It may overwhelm people!
*The combo box for the archives is pretty handy, and cuts down on that ugly dark grey clutter.
*Hehehehe... I was thinking of using slash, of slashdot code fame, for the site...
Time to Sleep. I may have a whole bunch of people that will support me if I become homeless, but I must find a house tomorrow! That and get more scholarships (I just got a check repaying my tuition that I paid today. I was very happy about that. The money is pouring in! Now that I am conserving it so well. But, it will be spent)
Also, I'm thinking of trying not to live at Richard's. Even if he lets me live there, the price of 350$/month is really high. I could go rent my own nice 1 bed apartment with that much money... yet, he's charging this for a room in Eureka! *shakes head*
That man has always tried to rip me off in odd ways.
But, I must sleep. I still haven't mentioned the cool twists and turns of the past few days...
They're coming to take me away, ho ho hee hee ha ha to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their coats...
D.
I'm thinking about getting pictures linked up to this thing
But I wonder if that'll cause problems for people with slow connections.
What's a mother to do? Hmm...
Well, I will continue working on this some other day (probably tomorrow)
Amongst the notes:
*Switching to blogger's comment system (for more control) was kind of painful. I did get to learn all about how blogger works, though. I 4m Bl0Ggi|\|G M4$tx0r!
*I think I may have put too many links on the side there. It may overwhelm people!
*The combo box for the archives is pretty handy, and cuts down on that ugly dark grey clutter.
*Hehehehe... I was thinking of using slash, of slashdot code fame, for the site...
Time to Sleep. I may have a whole bunch of people that will support me if I become homeless, but I must find a house tomorrow! That and get more scholarships (I just got a check repaying my tuition that I paid today. I was very happy about that. The money is pouring in! Now that I am conserving it so well. But, it will be spent)
Also, I'm thinking of trying not to live at Richard's. Even if he lets me live there, the price of 350$/month is really high. I could go rent my own nice 1 bed apartment with that much money... yet, he's charging this for a room in Eureka! *shakes head*
That man has always tried to rip me off in odd ways.
But, I must sleep. I still haven't mentioned the cool twists and turns of the past few days...
They're coming to take me away, ho ho hee hee ha ha to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their coats...
D.
Monday, August 9
Turning Over the Inventory
Ok. So I'm going to start messing around with my blog. It'll look different soon, you'll see!
Unfortunantly, I may break a lot of things... and it may take me a long time to fix them!
Here's to hoping I get it all operational...
Unfortunantly, I may break a lot of things... and it may take me a long time to fix them!
Here's to hoping I get it all operational...
Sunday, August 8
A New Twist
So a lot of things have been happening lately. A few people have stepped up to help me if I need them when I move. I did some other really fun stuff today, though I must say that my friendship "problem" is getting out of control. Too many people!
Oh, and there's some other locals that found my site through searching. Welcome aboard!
Anyway, I do believe that I need to talk a bit about the weird twists my life just took the past few days, though I must go to bed, for that crappy 7 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon shift awaits...
Also, I think I'm suffering from iron deficiency again. I haven't been eating like I used to (starving at certain parts of the day), and the quality of the food has been going down. Way down. I come home tired and sleepy (which is the best thing after a hard day's labor (sitting in a chair and reading a book))
But, I just don't feel compelled to fix anything until I move out of here. My schedule will jumble up again when that happens! But I must, so I will try.
Team Chef... Hoo! Ha!-(just formed a cooking group that happens on Sunday. More on that later)
D.
Oh, and there's some other locals that found my site through searching. Welcome aboard!
Anyway, I do believe that I need to talk a bit about the weird twists my life just took the past few days, though I must go to bed, for that crappy 7 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon shift awaits...
Also, I think I'm suffering from iron deficiency again. I haven't been eating like I used to (starving at certain parts of the day), and the quality of the food has been going down. Way down. I come home tired and sleepy (which is the best thing after a hard day's labor (sitting in a chair and reading a book))
But, I just don't feel compelled to fix anything until I move out of here. My schedule will jumble up again when that happens! But I must, so I will try.
Team Chef... Hoo! Ha!-(just formed a cooking group that happens on Sunday. More on that later)
D.
Tuesday, August 3
AssHat: News that People Can Relate To!
So the day went by quick today.
I was so busy alternating to different tasks, the day flew on by like no tomorrow! What's more, I had some sugar for the first time in a good while... I just couldn't resist the special deal of Mudd Pie, complete with the lunch lady at the cafeteria (that I trust) recommending it. "It's really good!" She may have just been trying to sell it to me, but, boy did I enjoy it!
However, I have been having old thoughts and philosophies strike me today. When the lunch lady was so positive about the pie, it made me remember how giving a compliment to one person each day helped me build so much. The Universal Law of Reciprocation, they call it. Just give at least one person a compliment with something you think they do well. People get flattered at how you really feel about how they do things, and it builds a positive relationship with yourself and others.
Anyway, I enjoyed the rest of my shift, albeit hyper, due to the intense amount of sugar in the pie. I'm getting better at drawing, but maybe that was just the hyperness... (?)
When work was over, I went over to Meghannraye's house and FINALLY did the bike ride. Unfortunantly, my bike was rusty and the WD-40 evaporates pretty quickly -- I was pedaling my bike with at least twice as much exerted energy as she throughout the trip.
It was worth it, though. It was very beautiful outside, with the fields and country spread out with all its lush greenness. One of the things that always staggers me about this place is how green and pretty it is. Pasture after pasture, tree after tree. It was great. You capture things many people never notice, never get the chance to see, because they're too busy and too urbanized to go spend some time in the country.
About half way through the trip, we found some blackberry bushes that were practically untouched. There were so many blackberries... we ate a whole bunch and then continued on our trip.
We talked at length during the ride, and then talked some more when we got back to her house. Then, I left.
I was so hungry again after doing that bike ride that I *had* to eat. But, what was strange was that I wanted to eat at one place and one place only: Amy's Restaurant. So, I drove on over there, but found Kyle's car there (I could tell it was his. Who else would have an old camry with a homestar runner sticker on the back?). Due to protocols of silliness, I can't eat there while he's there. Too much drama and weird stabbing pains-in-the-heart type stuff, you know? So, I went off to APD and tried something new (and it was good.)
Something struck me as I went home: A philosophical memory that I applied to great success. As i've said before, I'm going to be poor soon. I will have little, if anything. I am fine with this. My personal, final test under the meat grinder of life. But, I've been feeling really lost the past few months, beginning when I quit WinCo. My life changed drastically, my schedule being flip-flopped, and the people that I once worked beside then despised me. To add to the confusion, I started a new job, a job I was unfamiliar with, with a different schedule that threw me off. To top it all off, my mentality had been changing due to the void of time that school used to occupy. With the excess time, and my inability to plan for what to do with all of it, I decided to squander it on luxuries that didn't help me, or I found not valuable: playing games, talking to people, and doing absolutely nothing on the internet.
But, things have been changing. My schedule has stabilized; the people at WinCo still care about me; I have familiarized myself with my new job; most of all my personal dissatisfaction has begotten me a desire for change. All I needed was a spark to get it going...
I don't know why I remembered what my dad had said to me a year ago, but something clicked when I was thinking of a place to eat that didn't cost much, after not going to Amy's. A year ago from today, I was unemployed, starving like an Ethiopian, but not putting forth the effort to get enough school credits done that semester (I was searching like mad for a job, though). Upon hearing about my planned school schedule, he told me: If you were born into a rich family you could play all you want; but you weren't. I don't have much to give you. You were born poor and don't have the luxury to play. You must work. You don't play until the work is done. No matter what, if the work isn't done, you can't play. My dad says the worst things sometimes, and, unfortunantly, he rarely changes his opinion until what he says, fails. To others, this may seem lecture to hear. But, this man is my dad, and no matter what, I can't help but feel obligated to listen to what he says. My worst depressions stemmed from things he did. He doesn't even know this...
I always recover, though. But what a tangent this is.
Anyway, the point is that this memory had meaning. They say that an emotional trigger can be very powerful: it can conjure up motives and keep a person driven to complete a goal. This is what happened to me. I couldn't change my dad's opinion; he's too irrational to do that. I had to suffer the consequences of a further strained financial situation with plans of even less support at set dates in the future. Thereafter, whenever I'd ask my dad for help or advice with, say, an insurance company or with school habits, he'd always shrug me off. "You're big enough to take care of it yourself." Thanks a lot, dad. You cost me money and aide from places that could've helped me if you had given me the right information.
But now is not the time for this! I was so pissed off at the world, so angry with so many things going south in my life, that I took that advice to heart. Nothing was going to get done by itself; I had to create and define every last detail of what I wanted. I felt rage, and a desire to do anything and everything that I could. I would keep going forever to help myself.
I spent months doing everything I could, and I did so much that I impressed myself.
And therein lies the problem. When I'm satisfied with progress, I don't push to keep going. I even fear that I'm going to burn up. Thus, I get stuck going nowhere, in a comfort zone. It's like someone looking forward for the longest time while driving, but eventually, for a moment, wonders what's in his lap. So, he stares at his lap for a long time. Meanwhile, the car is still going, but he doesn't know what's coming up on the road. What's more, he may be encouraged to look backwards to see who is seated with him. He may find that no one is sitting with him: They all bailed out when they saw him looking down. Now, all he can see is where he's gone, but he doesn't know how he got to that point, nor does he know where he's going. He's trapped in the past.
I've been looking down. I've been playing to "not lose", rather than to "win". Let me tell you, settling for second best (or even less) stinks, and it gets something inside me bubbling, telling me I can do better.
And now, the chain reaction of change inside, this deep burning flame in my chest that I've been yearning to feel once more, has come back. I know it when I feel it there, never waning, always burning. I am dissatisfied with everything, and now I know it's up to me to change it. I'm poor, uncared about, being thrown out into a violent and dangerous world that would soon slaughter me for the betterment of others. It's me vs. the world.
For the quite a while now, I have been trying to do things because I feel like they'll help me. Now, I've got a drive. A true reason to work, and work hard. It's for the success of myself, and my community of people that deal with me.
My community of people... I have too many people to deal with. I spend so much of my free time from work talking to people... It's turned into an obligation. It must be controlled and regulated, or I will fail. But, what do I do?
Anyway, I had other things to rant about. I'm getting so fed up with people that I know who act "elite". It's such a terrible disservice to themselves and to others! For example, one of my friends is too good to work for McDonald's or gas stations. He works very very hard, too hard in fact, but refuses to take out a job that pays less for super duper easy work. Furthermore, and more importantly, he won't go below a certain standard of living. "My house must have this in it. Nothing less!" is his mantra. The thrift shop will occasionally have what he needs, but he's too good for that, even with his low wage. This person is DROPPING out of SCHOOL because he has to pay his bills to maintain such a standard of living. That's the price he pays for not settling for something merely workable until he gets out of college.
And another thing, those elitest groups, such as the macintosh groups. "Best Operating System" in the world, my ass. Sure, it's great for desktop publishing, but has terrible support for other things. It's such a limited system, with such a high price tag... it's not justifiable! Windows and Linux have more support than Macs, at a fraction of the cost.
Macs are like Porsches (and laptops). Very expensive and hard to fix/tinker with.
They're getting better, though. But, until then... such a waste of money!
I believe the rest of the world agrees with me (particularly businesses) when we see how many PCs are sold compared to macs.
Same thing with people saying exercising is a bad thing. I hate hearing people spittle such nonsense down their lips and chins to their shirts. It's horrendous.
But what a waste of space. Macs are fine, as are porsches, laptops, thrift shops, McDonald's (well... almost!), and gas stations. It's just when people start saying, "I'm better than everyone else because I have this" that I have to stand up.
And I'm here to say, "No, you're not better than the rest of us. Now sit down, please."
There's so much you can gain from keeping an open mind. It's staggering. I must go to sleep now, but I'd like to conclude that an open mind isn't just keeping yourself open to activities you'd normally never consider, but also understanding the activity.
I hated rap for a long time... but it was because I didn't understand rap. It took Paul to show me rap, to understand why people do this usually abominable form. I don't like rap all the time, but that's just like other music. I don't like to hear the same genre all the time.
Most relationships end because of misunderstanding between the two parties. Furthermore, differing interests stem from past experiences.
Bleh. What have I just wrote towards the end here? I haven't given any justifications. I have plenty, but I'm tired. I must sleep!
Oh, quick notes
Paul wants to buy a gun on Saturday. I, being one who has shot many a different gun in my youth, am going to help him. Could get interesting...
Film Noir is my favorite Genre. I love how it shows the dark side of society... So creepy. hmm...
Eat right and Exercise. What could be more difficult than this?
Update: Fixed the problem. Blogger has such a screwy WYSIWYG editor....
I was so busy alternating to different tasks, the day flew on by like no tomorrow! What's more, I had some sugar for the first time in a good while... I just couldn't resist the special deal of Mudd Pie, complete with the lunch lady at the cafeteria (that I trust) recommending it. "It's really good!" She may have just been trying to sell it to me, but, boy did I enjoy it!
However, I have been having old thoughts and philosophies strike me today. When the lunch lady was so positive about the pie, it made me remember how giving a compliment to one person each day helped me build so much. The Universal Law of Reciprocation, they call it. Just give at least one person a compliment with something you think they do well. People get flattered at how you really feel about how they do things, and it builds a positive relationship with yourself and others.
Anyway, I enjoyed the rest of my shift, albeit hyper, due to the intense amount of sugar in the pie. I'm getting better at drawing, but maybe that was just the hyperness... (?)
When work was over, I went over to Meghannraye's house and FINALLY did the bike ride. Unfortunantly, my bike was rusty and the WD-40 evaporates pretty quickly -- I was pedaling my bike with at least twice as much exerted energy as she throughout the trip.
It was worth it, though. It was very beautiful outside, with the fields and country spread out with all its lush greenness. One of the things that always staggers me about this place is how green and pretty it is. Pasture after pasture, tree after tree. It was great. You capture things many people never notice, never get the chance to see, because they're too busy and too urbanized to go spend some time in the country.
About half way through the trip, we found some blackberry bushes that were practically untouched. There were so many blackberries... we ate a whole bunch and then continued on our trip.
We talked at length during the ride, and then talked some more when we got back to her house. Then, I left.
I was so hungry again after doing that bike ride that I *had* to eat. But, what was strange was that I wanted to eat at one place and one place only: Amy's Restaurant. So, I drove on over there, but found Kyle's car there (I could tell it was his. Who else would have an old camry with a homestar runner sticker on the back?). Due to protocols of silliness, I can't eat there while he's there. Too much drama and weird stabbing pains-in-the-heart type stuff, you know? So, I went off to APD and tried something new (and it was good.)
Something struck me as I went home: A philosophical memory that I applied to great success. As i've said before, I'm going to be poor soon. I will have little, if anything. I am fine with this. My personal, final test under the meat grinder of life. But, I've been feeling really lost the past few months, beginning when I quit WinCo. My life changed drastically, my schedule being flip-flopped, and the people that I once worked beside then despised me. To add to the confusion, I started a new job, a job I was unfamiliar with, with a different schedule that threw me off. To top it all off, my mentality had been changing due to the void of time that school used to occupy. With the excess time, and my inability to plan for what to do with all of it, I decided to squander it on luxuries that didn't help me, or I found not valuable: playing games, talking to people, and doing absolutely nothing on the internet.
But, things have been changing. My schedule has stabilized; the people at WinCo still care about me; I have familiarized myself with my new job; most of all my personal dissatisfaction has begotten me a desire for change. All I needed was a spark to get it going...
I don't know why I remembered what my dad had said to me a year ago, but something clicked when I was thinking of a place to eat that didn't cost much, after not going to Amy's. A year ago from today, I was unemployed, starving like an Ethiopian, but not putting forth the effort to get enough school credits done that semester (I was searching like mad for a job, though). Upon hearing about my planned school schedule, he told me: If you were born into a rich family you could play all you want; but you weren't. I don't have much to give you. You were born poor and don't have the luxury to play. You must work. You don't play until the work is done. No matter what, if the work isn't done, you can't play. My dad says the worst things sometimes, and, unfortunantly, he rarely changes his opinion until what he says, fails. To others, this may seem lecture to hear. But, this man is my dad, and no matter what, I can't help but feel obligated to listen to what he says. My worst depressions stemmed from things he did. He doesn't even know this...
I always recover, though. But what a tangent this is.
Anyway, the point is that this memory had meaning. They say that an emotional trigger can be very powerful: it can conjure up motives and keep a person driven to complete a goal. This is what happened to me. I couldn't change my dad's opinion; he's too irrational to do that. I had to suffer the consequences of a further strained financial situation with plans of even less support at set dates in the future. Thereafter, whenever I'd ask my dad for help or advice with, say, an insurance company or with school habits, he'd always shrug me off. "You're big enough to take care of it yourself." Thanks a lot, dad. You cost me money and aide from places that could've helped me if you had given me the right information.
But now is not the time for this! I was so pissed off at the world, so angry with so many things going south in my life, that I took that advice to heart. Nothing was going to get done by itself; I had to create and define every last detail of what I wanted. I felt rage, and a desire to do anything and everything that I could. I would keep going forever to help myself.
I spent months doing everything I could, and I did so much that I impressed myself.
And therein lies the problem. When I'm satisfied with progress, I don't push to keep going. I even fear that I'm going to burn up. Thus, I get stuck going nowhere, in a comfort zone. It's like someone looking forward for the longest time while driving, but eventually, for a moment, wonders what's in his lap. So, he stares at his lap for a long time. Meanwhile, the car is still going, but he doesn't know what's coming up on the road. What's more, he may be encouraged to look backwards to see who is seated with him. He may find that no one is sitting with him: They all bailed out when they saw him looking down. Now, all he can see is where he's gone, but he doesn't know how he got to that point, nor does he know where he's going. He's trapped in the past.
I've been looking down. I've been playing to "not lose", rather than to "win". Let me tell you, settling for second best (or even less) stinks, and it gets something inside me bubbling, telling me I can do better.
And now, the chain reaction of change inside, this deep burning flame in my chest that I've been yearning to feel once more, has come back. I know it when I feel it there, never waning, always burning. I am dissatisfied with everything, and now I know it's up to me to change it. I'm poor, uncared about, being thrown out into a violent and dangerous world that would soon slaughter me for the betterment of others. It's me vs. the world.
For the quite a while now, I have been trying to do things because I feel like they'll help me. Now, I've got a drive. A true reason to work, and work hard. It's for the success of myself, and my community of people that deal with me.
My community of people... I have too many people to deal with. I spend so much of my free time from work talking to people... It's turned into an obligation. It must be controlled and regulated, or I will fail. But, what do I do?
Anyway, I had other things to rant about. I'm getting so fed up with people that I know who act "elite". It's such a terrible disservice to themselves and to others! For example, one of my friends is too good to work for McDonald's or gas stations. He works very very hard, too hard in fact, but refuses to take out a job that pays less for super duper easy work. Furthermore, and more importantly, he won't go below a certain standard of living. "My house must have this in it. Nothing less!" is his mantra. The thrift shop will occasionally have what he needs, but he's too good for that, even with his low wage. This person is DROPPING out of SCHOOL because he has to pay his bills to maintain such a standard of living. That's the price he pays for not settling for something merely workable until he gets out of college.
And another thing, those elitest groups, such as the macintosh groups. "Best Operating System" in the world, my ass. Sure, it's great for desktop publishing, but has terrible support for other things. It's such a limited system, with such a high price tag... it's not justifiable! Windows and Linux have more support than Macs, at a fraction of the cost.
Macs are like Porsches (and laptops). Very expensive and hard to fix/tinker with.
They're getting better, though. But, until then... such a waste of money!
I believe the rest of the world agrees with me (particularly businesses) when we see how many PCs are sold compared to macs.
Same thing with people saying exercising is a bad thing. I hate hearing people spittle such nonsense down their lips and chins to their shirts. It's horrendous.
But what a waste of space. Macs are fine, as are porsches, laptops, thrift shops, McDonald's (well... almost!), and gas stations. It's just when people start saying, "I'm better than everyone else because I have this" that I have to stand up.
And I'm here to say, "No, you're not better than the rest of us. Now sit down, please."
There's so much you can gain from keeping an open mind. It's staggering. I must go to sleep now, but I'd like to conclude that an open mind isn't just keeping yourself open to activities you'd normally never consider, but also understanding the activity.
I hated rap for a long time... but it was because I didn't understand rap. It took Paul to show me rap, to understand why people do this usually abominable form. I don't like rap all the time, but that's just like other music. I don't like to hear the same genre all the time.
Most relationships end because of misunderstanding between the two parties. Furthermore, differing interests stem from past experiences.
Bleh. What have I just wrote towards the end here? I haven't given any justifications. I have plenty, but I'm tired. I must sleep!
Oh, quick notes
Paul wants to buy a gun on Saturday. I, being one who has shot many a different gun in my youth, am going to help him. Could get interesting...
Film Noir is my favorite Genre. I love how it shows the dark side of society... So creepy. hmm...
Eat right and Exercise. What could be more difficult than this?
Update: Fixed the problem. Blogger has such a screwy WYSIWYG editor....
Friday, July 30
A Satellite Castle:Ultimate Romance?
Today was like a crappy hangover from my four day party of fun.
I was just so tired, I couldn't help it. I was a grouch. Not a good attitude to have on the switchboard! (Though I was told that I was doing a good job)
I just didn't get anything planned to do today. Kind of caught with my pants down, so to speak. It was terribly boring.
Anyway, I have lost track of time. I cannot really remember what happened last week, save for Friday, when it seems my minds' recorder of history decided to come back from vacation.
Thus began the start of my four days of events.
The first day, I was planning on hanging out with Paul. Not really sure what we were going to do, though the future did not look promising when he kept wanting to put down flooring for his house. I would be game for doing something like that, but only if i'm learning it for the first time. I work 6 days a week typically, and spending my 1 day off installing floors does not seem like time well spent to me.
But!
When he got to my house, we decided upon making a pizza. Through his gracious generosity of footing the bill (I, admittedly, am too poor right now. I'm not worried or bothered about it: I'll see better days in the future) , this project was to be...
magnificient!
Ok. Maybe I'm getting full of myself. *pats knee, motioning children to sit on it* I shall tell story now.
We decided that it would be a wonderful day for me and Paul's *cough* girlfriend to meet (she insists they're not in a relationship like that. "I don't want to get attached to him before I go to college in a few weeks," she says. Whatever. It's too late. I know.) . We decided to meet at the grocery store. As luck would have it, the not-advertised McKinleyville Farmer's market was happening! So we got to eat good organic produce from the locality.
We didn't go for regular veggies to put on this pizza. No sir, we stuck by odd-named sorts of tomatoes and peppers and such; The type that tasted very good but costed a little bit more.
We went into SafeWay and bought the rest of the ingredients...
And then, we set out upon our glorious project of cooking mayhem. All natural, from-scratch components were set together to create this mechanically perfect machine. Its purpose: to feed the hungry.
We did a lot of cutting, rolling (improvised with a flower vase, since I didn't have a rolling pin. We were thinking about a wine bottle) , and mixing. Then, we Slammed the food into the oven and made string beans with feta and grape oil (I love oil). When the food came out, we arranged it with elements of beauty (such as sesame seeds. It made it look like a blizzard was happening on the blood red/orange/pink tomatoes) and set about enjoying the fruits (or meal) of our labour.
I had a vision of a new culture when we all sat down on the kitchen floor at 90 degree angles to eat. Why aren't there any restaurants that use the floor as seating?Maybe I enjoyed this heavily romantic idea because everyone was happy, sitting there and enjoying themselves without a table, and the light streaming through the blinds in a dazzling pretty display (we sure do get pretty weather sometimes)
Anyway, after eating, we talked for many many hours and then said our farewells.
The next day, I had to work, and could think of nothing but the LAN party that I had planned with Eric, Nick, and Ben. Back to my nerd roots.
And when work was over, I immediately drove over to Nick's house to pick him up. Me and Nick used to be participants of large LAN parties, and the nostalgia that I got after picking him up was just killing me.
When we got his computer, a backpack, and a chair in the car, we set out to the house... but
the nostalgia was too much. Traditional LAN parties call for soda pop. So, we stopped at the store and found, surprisingly, a whole bunch of soda on sale. We picked one 2 liter for each member of the party (minus Ben, who doesn't ever drink sugar water. Right on, Ben!) and joined the crew.
I won't bore you with the games we played. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun, and I drunk my entire 2-liter of mountain dew in an hour (I can drink a lot quickly) . Towards the end of the party (on my 18th hour of wakefulness) , I convinced Nick to relinquish his anime shooting games. I *love* spacecraft anime shoot-em-ups. I begged and whined... I wouldn't take him home until I had them!
Then, I drove Nick home and talked with him for a long time at his house, getting updates on my former gamer buddies of yore. Then I drove home and tried to sleep.
Tried to
I had drank too much Mountain Dew. I never drink soda pop. As I tossed around in bed, thinking with a mind that operated like an engine stuck in gear, I vowed to declare war on sugar, and to stop the caffeine intake (which may be why I'm so grouchy and tired today). What's worse about that night, I was stuck playing particular clips of songs in my head like a broken record. I couldn't get to the next part of the song... I was forever stuck hearing the same track repeat.
I tried not to think at all. It was hard, but I made it through, didn't I? Now, what did we learn about soda pop, kids?
crowd of bored children:Soda Pop is bad
Good.
So then, the next day was Sunday. Me being slightly groggy, I went to work again. There were a lot of births that morning (the first), and I had to register them all by my lonesome (that and fill out lab requisitions for patients that dropped in), Which I did.
As the day wore on, I got a call from some crazy Italian lady. Originally, she had charged me with calling home health for her, but decided to "sit down" (or so she said) and tell me her story about why she needed my help, without asking me if I had better things to do. Well, I did, but I supposed that it might be interesting to hear what she had to say while I did my work (albeit at a slower pace). So, I did. As I heard her stories, she got weirder and weirder. She kept telling me about her mental problems, how this therapy of looking at certain angles was helping her feel the best she had felt in years, how she was old enough to be my mother, yet had friends my age, how she wrote children's books and needed an illustrator (I can't really draw, but I said that I might have friends who could do the work. Anyone need some money?) and so forth. Then, she magically hung up, and that's the end of it (though she claimed earlier in the conversation that she would call me again on the weekend. *shudder*)
This all reminds me of Evan and the lady in upper Washington who, being 12 years older, was knitting him socks for christmas, and desperately wanted him to come visit her. He says that the lady was an inspiration in some ways (she had 2 jobs and was working to get away from her husband with 2 kids. Bah. Too much to say about this. I'll stop right there)
But anyway...
So, once work was off, I picked up a couple of people and took off for Japanese class. We did our usual studying, and when class was over, me and my friend Eric (not anapolsky the nerd) ran off to WinCo for food. We got munchies, talked to Evan (I don't know if he's still joining the military. He just found out that his friend (a big influence) got screwed over by the military, giving him the wrong training, and the military isn't compromising), and went back to Richard's to watch old movies.
Paul and his girlfriend were there.
I was planning on bike riding with Meghannraye the next day. But, I knew she needed to some sort of transport for the bed she wanted to buy. Paul has a truck. I just needed a way to get it from him (actually, I got an agreement to use it earlier on. But I got the agreement for Wednesday, not Sunday)
So, in a heroic, balsy feat of bravery, I started getting all macho right then and there. I started hitting my chest with my hands, saying "Bring it", when food was getting made by Koichiro. Paul knew what I meant.
I was challenging him to an eating contest.
The rules were so simple. Eat the most of selected dish, and win! That day's theme was spaghetti, prepared by Iron Chef Koichiro Mochimasu! (well, he's an Iron Chef in my heart, at least). We had Koichiro working hard, working fast, working strong! To create the dishes of doom. And create them he did.
I consumed 2 VERY LARGE plates of spaghetti. Paul had 3 plates of normal portions of spaghetti. Lots of bread was served, too.
But, as I neared the completion of my 2nd dish, I started having lots of pains in my stomach. I couldn't really continue, though I knew I must. I kept thinking of hernias *shudder*, and didn't want one over this. The stakes were high.
I knew I was getting gas from the spaghetti. So, I waited, slowed down my eating significantly, and then let it out (I couldn't contain it. It was reflexive, really. Quit giving me that look!) Paul was pleased. "You have restored honor to the Brower clan," he said. "You have much potential."
Yum.
So, I impressed him enough to loan me the truck. But I felt like I jeapordized it all with my pick of the movie. It stank.
The movie was undercurrent. I had heard good reviews on it, but man, what a chore to watch that thing! In the end, me and Paul were making bets, almost always nailing it on the nose! In the end, Paul correctly guessed the only twist in the movie -- that the horse was going to kill the bad guy -- before the plan to ride the horses even happened! That's how dull it was...
Anyway, everyone else left and I watched movies with Richard until close to midnight, when I was to meet Meghannraye. She took me to her place in her car.
And there I slept, after suffering terrible caffeine-caused time schedule problems, and 2 days of little rest. We woke up in the morning and ran off to CostCo to get the bed.
I discovered that my dad's membership had expired (my dad just can't be counted on with ANYTHING. Of course, this should already be known to me, since he's actively trying to drop me) so, with all these bills running me close to a deficit, I renewed my membership right then and there. Then, we got the bed.
Hehe. The bed fit, but only at an angle. Meghannraye proposed not using rope, saying that we'd be ok. I aggressively disagreed. She just wanted to get out of CostCo, and I knew it. She felt bothered at how we now had to find rope. I suggested that I guard the truck while she go to a store to get rope... but she had a better idea: ask CostCo!
They gave us a ton of rope to use, and we tied that sucker down TIGHT. Then, off we went. Me, driving this Isuzu P'up, with her right behind. I had trouble looking out the side view mirrors, and the back was full of bedding. The P'up is designed to have something tied to the sideview mirrors, so A string was there to guide me on the tension.
Off I went.
As I drove on the freeway, the string showed that it was slightly tensioned, and the beds looked fine, so I kept driving. I felt a little leary of it all, especially when people passing me from the side (I was doing under the speed limit) gave me looks. When we got to her place, Meghannraye said she was kind of distressed by what she saw from behind. The bed in the back was floating in the air from the speed, but, luckily, The rope had saved the day!
So, after swapping the beds, we both laid upon one of the most comfortable beds ever... I know I didn't want to get off of it! Now, as soon as I get the chance to test drive it (sleep, you fools!)...
Meghannraye had to leave for work (though she wanted to lay on the bed) so I had to go return Paul's truck. I told Paul I'd only go to CostCo, then to Meg's house, then to his, but I made a pit stop -- at the carwash.
I cleaned the dirty insides of the windows, vacuumed all the hair, everything. I was certain Paul would be pleased that he had a "sweet ride". (I stole that line from a guy who believed that washing his car would deflect police radar (the stealth bomber must be washed every day or something!) , and thought that putting car accessories like yosemite sam mud flaps and chain steering wheels on the car made it faster) , but when I got to Paul's house, he forced me to wear the "Jacket of Shame", for not doing exactly as I said I would do (was just a regular thrift shop jacket) . We walked around his town (west haven), talking, and then ate fruit from his trees and bushes (growing fruit from trees is such a good investment, if you think about it)
During the discussion, we talked about how Paul went to the casino on his 18th birthday and watched erin blow 10 bucks for nothing, with me chiming that I had never gambled.
The choice was clear:I had to go to the loser's palace (as I call it). Paul thought that, because I am close to the edge of my budget, that we shouldn't do it, but I decided to since I was only going to put in a max of $1.50, AND If I won, even once, that was it. Time to leave. with that agreement, we went.
We were checked for ID, but allowed to pass. Once in, I had Paul put a quarter in on one of the machines, which he lost. Then, it was my turn to lose. I stuck the coin in the betty boop slot machine.... and won 5 quarters!
With me giggling with glee over my new-found fortune, we left promptly.
Thus: I left the Loser's Palace Smelling Like A Winner!
We decided to Celebrate by eating in Trinidad (I love visiting the local restaurants there). We found a restaurant that did American and Mexican food, and was (surprisingly!) cheap. We ate, and then I went home.
I crashed on the couch from more exhaustion.
But, Paul and Ben woke me up! After a little bit of wakeup jerk action on my arms, we went weight lifting. To me, it was kind of disappointing. I didn't have a clear plan down, so I spent a lot of time wandering, and what's more, I discovered that some of my muscle groups have deteriorated since I last lifted 3 years ago (I was shocked to find myself losing in a struggle to get the barbell with two 25 lbs on both sides, up when I was doing bench presses) . It takes so much to maintain your strength...
I will have to train and do better. I'm better than this!
Then, we went to the scale, and I found that I lost a lot of weight again. I'm down to 153 pounds... -_-. Granted, I don't eat like I used to, and I'm hungry more often, but...
Well, anyway, we did some old school Arcata Pizza and Deli socializing (though we were missing a very important and indispensible ingredient to the mix -- Erin), and then I went home to crash.
Which leads to today, where I'm cranky from NO Caffeine, NO candy, and a diet that is very meager (not purposefully, of course, but i'm having trouble finding good dishes to make)
I had to fight my insurance company today. I hate my insurance company. Grr!!! They upped my rate, so I had to go moan and complain... which I did. Surprisingly, I won the argument. I thought that they had adjusted my rates because the contract was changing, but no... I won!
Anyway, I'm tired so much of the time... I get up at 5:30, but i'm a night owl... here's to another repetition of work!
Oh, I missed you...
D.
I was just so tired, I couldn't help it. I was a grouch. Not a good attitude to have on the switchboard! (Though I was told that I was doing a good job)
I just didn't get anything planned to do today. Kind of caught with my pants down, so to speak. It was terribly boring.
Anyway, I have lost track of time. I cannot really remember what happened last week, save for Friday, when it seems my minds' recorder of history decided to come back from vacation.
Thus began the start of my four days of events.
The first day, I was planning on hanging out with Paul. Not really sure what we were going to do, though the future did not look promising when he kept wanting to put down flooring for his house. I would be game for doing something like that, but only if i'm learning it for the first time. I work 6 days a week typically, and spending my 1 day off installing floors does not seem like time well spent to me.
But!
When he got to my house, we decided upon making a pizza. Through his gracious generosity of footing the bill (I, admittedly, am too poor right now. I'm not worried or bothered about it: I'll see better days in the future) , this project was to be...
magnificient!
Ok. Maybe I'm getting full of myself. *pats knee, motioning children to sit on it* I shall tell story now.
We decided that it would be a wonderful day for me and Paul's *cough* girlfriend to meet (she insists they're not in a relationship like that. "I don't want to get attached to him before I go to college in a few weeks," she says. Whatever. It's too late. I know.) . We decided to meet at the grocery store. As luck would have it, the not-advertised McKinleyville Farmer's market was happening! So we got to eat good organic produce from the locality.
We didn't go for regular veggies to put on this pizza. No sir, we stuck by odd-named sorts of tomatoes and peppers and such; The type that tasted very good but costed a little bit more.
We went into SafeWay and bought the rest of the ingredients...
And then, we set out upon our glorious project of cooking mayhem. All natural, from-scratch components were set together to create this mechanically perfect machine. Its purpose: to feed the hungry.
We did a lot of cutting, rolling (improvised with a flower vase, since I didn't have a rolling pin. We were thinking about a wine bottle) , and mixing. Then, we Slammed the food into the oven and made string beans with feta and grape oil (I love oil). When the food came out, we arranged it with elements of beauty (such as sesame seeds. It made it look like a blizzard was happening on the blood red/orange/pink tomatoes) and set about enjoying the fruits (or meal) of our labour.
I had a vision of a new culture when we all sat down on the kitchen floor at 90 degree angles to eat. Why aren't there any restaurants that use the floor as seating?Maybe I enjoyed this heavily romantic idea because everyone was happy, sitting there and enjoying themselves without a table, and the light streaming through the blinds in a dazzling pretty display (we sure do get pretty weather sometimes)
Anyway, after eating, we talked for many many hours and then said our farewells.
The next day, I had to work, and could think of nothing but the LAN party that I had planned with Eric, Nick, and Ben. Back to my nerd roots.
And when work was over, I immediately drove over to Nick's house to pick him up. Me and Nick used to be participants of large LAN parties, and the nostalgia that I got after picking him up was just killing me.
When we got his computer, a backpack, and a chair in the car, we set out to the house... but
the nostalgia was too much. Traditional LAN parties call for soda pop. So, we stopped at the store and found, surprisingly, a whole bunch of soda on sale. We picked one 2 liter for each member of the party (minus Ben, who doesn't ever drink sugar water. Right on, Ben!) and joined the crew.
I won't bore you with the games we played. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun, and I drunk my entire 2-liter of mountain dew in an hour (I can drink a lot quickly) . Towards the end of the party (on my 18th hour of wakefulness) , I convinced Nick to relinquish his anime shooting games. I *love* spacecraft anime shoot-em-ups. I begged and whined... I wouldn't take him home until I had them!
Then, I drove Nick home and talked with him for a long time at his house, getting updates on my former gamer buddies of yore. Then I drove home and tried to sleep.
Tried to
I had drank too much Mountain Dew. I never drink soda pop. As I tossed around in bed, thinking with a mind that operated like an engine stuck in gear, I vowed to declare war on sugar, and to stop the caffeine intake (which may be why I'm so grouchy and tired today). What's worse about that night, I was stuck playing particular clips of songs in my head like a broken record. I couldn't get to the next part of the song... I was forever stuck hearing the same track repeat.
I tried not to think at all. It was hard, but I made it through, didn't I? Now, what did we learn about soda pop, kids?
crowd of bored children:Soda Pop is bad
Good.
So then, the next day was Sunday. Me being slightly groggy, I went to work again. There were a lot of births that morning (the first), and I had to register them all by my lonesome (that and fill out lab requisitions for patients that dropped in), Which I did.
As the day wore on, I got a call from some crazy Italian lady. Originally, she had charged me with calling home health for her, but decided to "sit down" (or so she said) and tell me her story about why she needed my help, without asking me if I had better things to do. Well, I did, but I supposed that it might be interesting to hear what she had to say while I did my work (albeit at a slower pace). So, I did. As I heard her stories, she got weirder and weirder. She kept telling me about her mental problems, how this therapy of looking at certain angles was helping her feel the best she had felt in years, how she was old enough to be my mother, yet had friends my age, how she wrote children's books and needed an illustrator (I can't really draw, but I said that I might have friends who could do the work. Anyone need some money?) and so forth. Then, she magically hung up, and that's the end of it (though she claimed earlier in the conversation that she would call me again on the weekend. *shudder*)
This all reminds me of Evan and the lady in upper Washington who, being 12 years older, was knitting him socks for christmas, and desperately wanted him to come visit her. He says that the lady was an inspiration in some ways (she had 2 jobs and was working to get away from her husband with 2 kids. Bah. Too much to say about this. I'll stop right there)
But anyway...
So, once work was off, I picked up a couple of people and took off for Japanese class. We did our usual studying, and when class was over, me and my friend Eric (not anapolsky the nerd) ran off to WinCo for food. We got munchies, talked to Evan (I don't know if he's still joining the military. He just found out that his friend (a big influence) got screwed over by the military, giving him the wrong training, and the military isn't compromising), and went back to Richard's to watch old movies.
Paul and his girlfriend were there.
I was planning on bike riding with Meghannraye the next day. But, I knew she needed to some sort of transport for the bed she wanted to buy. Paul has a truck. I just needed a way to get it from him (actually, I got an agreement to use it earlier on. But I got the agreement for Wednesday, not Sunday)
So, in a heroic, balsy feat of bravery, I started getting all macho right then and there. I started hitting my chest with my hands, saying "Bring it", when food was getting made by Koichiro. Paul knew what I meant.
I was challenging him to an eating contest.
The rules were so simple. Eat the most of selected dish, and win! That day's theme was spaghetti, prepared by Iron Chef Koichiro Mochimasu! (well, he's an Iron Chef in my heart, at least). We had Koichiro working hard, working fast, working strong! To create the dishes of doom. And create them he did.
I consumed 2 VERY LARGE plates of spaghetti. Paul had 3 plates of normal portions of spaghetti. Lots of bread was served, too.
But, as I neared the completion of my 2nd dish, I started having lots of pains in my stomach. I couldn't really continue, though I knew I must. I kept thinking of hernias *shudder*, and didn't want one over this. The stakes were high.
I knew I was getting gas from the spaghetti. So, I waited, slowed down my eating significantly, and then let it out (I couldn't contain it. It was reflexive, really. Quit giving me that look!) Paul was pleased. "You have restored honor to the Brower clan," he said. "You have much potential."
Yum.
So, I impressed him enough to loan me the truck. But I felt like I jeapordized it all with my pick of the movie. It stank.
The movie was undercurrent. I had heard good reviews on it, but man, what a chore to watch that thing! In the end, me and Paul were making bets, almost always nailing it on the nose! In the end, Paul correctly guessed the only twist in the movie -- that the horse was going to kill the bad guy -- before the plan to ride the horses even happened! That's how dull it was...
Anyway, everyone else left and I watched movies with Richard until close to midnight, when I was to meet Meghannraye. She took me to her place in her car.
And there I slept, after suffering terrible caffeine-caused time schedule problems, and 2 days of little rest. We woke up in the morning and ran off to CostCo to get the bed.
I discovered that my dad's membership had expired (my dad just can't be counted on with ANYTHING. Of course, this should already be known to me, since he's actively trying to drop me) so, with all these bills running me close to a deficit, I renewed my membership right then and there. Then, we got the bed.
Hehe. The bed fit, but only at an angle. Meghannraye proposed not using rope, saying that we'd be ok. I aggressively disagreed. She just wanted to get out of CostCo, and I knew it. She felt bothered at how we now had to find rope. I suggested that I guard the truck while she go to a store to get rope... but she had a better idea: ask CostCo!
They gave us a ton of rope to use, and we tied that sucker down TIGHT. Then, off we went. Me, driving this Isuzu P'up, with her right behind. I had trouble looking out the side view mirrors, and the back was full of bedding. The P'up is designed to have something tied to the sideview mirrors, so A string was there to guide me on the tension.
Off I went.
As I drove on the freeway, the string showed that it was slightly tensioned, and the beds looked fine, so I kept driving. I felt a little leary of it all, especially when people passing me from the side (I was doing under the speed limit) gave me looks. When we got to her place, Meghannraye said she was kind of distressed by what she saw from behind. The bed in the back was floating in the air from the speed, but, luckily, The rope had saved the day!
So, after swapping the beds, we both laid upon one of the most comfortable beds ever... I know I didn't want to get off of it! Now, as soon as I get the chance to test drive it (sleep, you fools!)...
Meghannraye had to leave for work (though she wanted to lay on the bed) so I had to go return Paul's truck. I told Paul I'd only go to CostCo, then to Meg's house, then to his, but I made a pit stop -- at the carwash.
I cleaned the dirty insides of the windows, vacuumed all the hair, everything. I was certain Paul would be pleased that he had a "sweet ride". (I stole that line from a guy who believed that washing his car would deflect police radar (the stealth bomber must be washed every day or something!) , and thought that putting car accessories like yosemite sam mud flaps and chain steering wheels on the car made it faster) , but when I got to Paul's house, he forced me to wear the "Jacket of Shame", for not doing exactly as I said I would do (was just a regular thrift shop jacket) . We walked around his town (west haven), talking, and then ate fruit from his trees and bushes (growing fruit from trees is such a good investment, if you think about it)
During the discussion, we talked about how Paul went to the casino on his 18th birthday and watched erin blow 10 bucks for nothing, with me chiming that I had never gambled.
The choice was clear:I had to go to the loser's palace (as I call it). Paul thought that, because I am close to the edge of my budget, that we shouldn't do it, but I decided to since I was only going to put in a max of $1.50, AND If I won, even once, that was it. Time to leave. with that agreement, we went.
We were checked for ID, but allowed to pass. Once in, I had Paul put a quarter in on one of the machines, which he lost. Then, it was my turn to lose. I stuck the coin in the betty boop slot machine.... and won 5 quarters!
With me giggling with glee over my new-found fortune, we left promptly.
Thus: I left the Loser's Palace Smelling Like A Winner!
We decided to Celebrate by eating in Trinidad (I love visiting the local restaurants there). We found a restaurant that did American and Mexican food, and was (surprisingly!) cheap. We ate, and then I went home.
I crashed on the couch from more exhaustion.
But, Paul and Ben woke me up! After a little bit of wakeup jerk action on my arms, we went weight lifting. To me, it was kind of disappointing. I didn't have a clear plan down, so I spent a lot of time wandering, and what's more, I discovered that some of my muscle groups have deteriorated since I last lifted 3 years ago (I was shocked to find myself losing in a struggle to get the barbell with two 25 lbs on both sides, up when I was doing bench presses) . It takes so much to maintain your strength...
I will have to train and do better. I'm better than this!
Then, we went to the scale, and I found that I lost a lot of weight again. I'm down to 153 pounds... -_-. Granted, I don't eat like I used to, and I'm hungry more often, but...
Well, anyway, we did some old school Arcata Pizza and Deli socializing (though we were missing a very important and indispensible ingredient to the mix -- Erin), and then I went home to crash.
Which leads to today, where I'm cranky from NO Caffeine, NO candy, and a diet that is very meager (not purposefully, of course, but i'm having trouble finding good dishes to make)
I had to fight my insurance company today. I hate my insurance company. Grr!!! They upped my rate, so I had to go moan and complain... which I did. Surprisingly, I won the argument. I thought that they had adjusted my rates because the contract was changing, but no... I won!
Anyway, I'm tired so much of the time... I get up at 5:30, but i'm a night owl... here's to another repetition of work!
Oh, I missed you...
D.
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