Today really should be an exciting day.

Man, graduation day started out extremely shitty and it's barely 10:00 am. I got up at 7:30, knowing that I'd be blowing about a third of my savings to pay for Spring quarter. I tried to find some sort of proof that we actually had paid for some of my Spring tuition, but it looks like I unknowingly blew the entire thing. There was no proof of checks written to CBC from my Dad in April.

I posted a status about this. Another status about my distaste with how the financial aid system works and how minorities are "spoonfed" the money they need when the caucasions are expected to pay it in full. When I say "minorities" I was of course implying Hispanics. African Americans get financial aid as well, but not nearly as much. Asians and Indians (of India) of course get no easy aid because the school system knows that their culture knows the importance of a good education and would be willing to pay anything to get their kids ahead.

I feel that this is wrong, the way financial aid segregates people based on their race. I feel financial aid should be based on a students grades and how hard they work. Shouldn't that be who the state invests in? The students that get the best grades and therefore deserve to not have to live in this constant fear of their own family's finances? No. Because in order for our country to prosper, we have to supplement the education of the people that can't afford it because if the lower income households don't get that money, their kids won't go to college, then they could potentially cost our country more money in the long run. But because all the financial money is going to young welfare Moms, Hispanic people, and other low income households, where does this leave the caucasion middle ground? Fucked. Paying out thousands just to get by and forcing their parents to live paycheck to paycheck just to get their kids a decent education.

And these are families that did the "right" thing. Got married (no money for married couples). Got some sort of degree-- whether it be their bachelors or even some vocational degree. Maybe they don't have a degree at all but they make enough money to make it appear that they could support the thousands it takes to ge their kids through school. The amount that people make per year isn't nessasarily the most accurate indicator of how much money they have available to them. We've been getting by alright, but I'm certainly not going to be doing anything too fun like take any road trips or do any major splurges. Nope, gotta save up.

I had to give them $500 right out of pocket this morning. I got paid yesterday, so I had $600 in my checking and $1300 in my savings after this guitar expense that my Mom still hasn't helped me out with. I had told my Dad that because I knew he didn't want to pay for any more Japanese, I'd pay for half of it.That'd be $250, which was doable, just like my guitar was. Of course had I knew that I needed to pay for this I would have waited a couple weeks on the guitar.

..No, I couldn't of, that's a lie. I love that guitar like a baby now, seriously it's like my lifesaver right now because without it I'm pretty sure I would have gone stir crazy.

My mind is almost entirely off men again, Jack never made an effort to get ahold of me after my text message that essentially told him that he's dead to me. Wait, did I write about this? I've told almost all of my closest friends about this but I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my blog. This is definately significant enough to talk about though. I'm waiting for Katelynn to get back at me so I have a little time. We're going to run into town together. I really shouldn't be spending the gas money because I'm going to be as cheap as possible for the next two weeks but I have to buy it.

Anyway, yes, I finally told Jack that I'm completely done with his games and that I never want to talk to him again. It took me nearly a week of courage and waiting for any sort of contact with him before I actually did this, but when he didn't initiate anything I decided enough was enough and I was tired of waiting.

"....I've been like a book that you pick up again every time you break up with your girlfriends and don't even have the balls to admit it and that's whats driven me nuts. I am serious when I say I never want to talk to you again, you are dead to me now. Have a nice life."

This was the end of it. And I think that's the end of it, period. I mean four years of this, four years of him unknowingly torturing my emotions and playing with my head. Making me think that he ACTUALLY found me appealing, liked who I was as a person, thought I was beautiful.. etc etc. Nope, because if he found me beautiful, interesting and someone that he'd actually want to be with he would not play me like this. He's always treated me like I was second best to all these other bitches.

Katelynn was right when she said I would feel a lot better about it once it was over and I do. I feel numb again, repressed, alone. But I feel this is the way it's meant to be, and could be for a long time and I have to be patient. Katharine and Katelynn BOTH told me that I need to not let this happen again; not let some guy dick me around again and again and fall for it.

I just can't believe I somehow fell for it a third time. My mom had a lot to do with it because she was egging me on and asking me a lot of questions about it. She didn't tell me at all, "Emily, no, Jack's just doing this same bullshit that he always does... Stay away." I think Katharine tried, having questioned it IMMEDIATELY when I said that me and Jack were spending time together that day two weeks ago.



Man, it's already been two weeks, hasn't it? I guess time does ease the pain of this because I'm getting closer and closer to where I was before he started talking to me emotionally. I'd say it'll take another week of drowning out my emotions with guitar playing and spending time with people that I care about to not care anymore entirely, and he'll barely cross my mind if at all. I don't know how long it would take to get over someone, but I try to quantitate everything to ease my mind that No, even if this was the first time ever really having feelings for anyone, it won't be forever. In fact I like to think I'm fickle enough to be totally immune to most of these feelings, which is true....

I've just been so drained. The graduation ceremony is today but I don't have any enthusiasm about it at all anymore because of the money I had to spend. That and I'm practically starving because I didn't eat breakfast but I don't want to spend any money on food. I've got $90 in my checking account right now after the $500 deduction. I've got $1,200 in my savings account, which I feel is money I don't even really own because it's only for future expenses in college. $40 of that $90 is going to go to my safety blanket today, and the other$50 I am going to try to stretch as far as humanly possible for the next couple weeks until my Dad pays that money back.

shit, I'm too hungry to fast until I get home. I really don't want to spend any money at all but I have to or I'm afraid I'll get dizzy on the road or something. My mom doesn't understand why I do the things I do to save money but it's because I am 100% dedicated to making it so I don't have to rely on anyone in my future. I want to be 100% financially reliant on myself. I'm not going to be like the Hispanics and have the government pay for my school. I'm going to get a loan and have to suffer the consequences later. I'm not going to be like the entitlement culture that gets welfare money from the government or food stamps or reduced lunch for my kids or anything like that. The whole process makes me sick, so I will bust my ass so that I never have to deal with it. The first half of my college is done, that means I'm halfway to making my own decent money.

This is a huge step in the right direction for me, yet I don't feel very excited because I feel it's very insignificant and it's much too early to celebrate. It took me forever to get my AA... 3 years feels like way too long for CBC, and I almost feel humiliated about it.

But I'm DONE. That $500 is going to buy my degree today, my parents will pay some of it back eventually. My mom is now saying that she doesn't "owe" me any money even though she still promissed she'd give me $100 to help pay for my guitar plus the $40 to help pay for my lessons. I'm having a feeling she's not going to actually pay me for either now that the guitar's been paid for. Whatever, she doesn't have too. She needs to save her own damn money so my Dad will stop yelling.

peace.

No time for pity.

As somewhat expected nothing with Jessika ended up happening.

I texted her about it after work around 4, asking her if she still wanted to jam and she responded "Yes ma'am." I remember thinking, "Okay, good deal.." and responded asking her what time it would start. No response for awhile, then she told me that her friend had flaked. As in the guy she was telling me has been helping her out with the guitar and so eagerly wanted to me to meet a few weeks back. I then offered for just us to play, I mean why did we need this guy to jam together? She then told me that she was at her parents house and that she had no guitar there.

I then offered the resolution of bringing both my guitars. I mean I have an acoustic. She was the one that brought it up in the first place so I figured she'd appreciate the offer, but then she sort of snapped at me that she's "With her family doesn't doesn't want to ignore everyone" and that I'm the one who HAS to play guitar. Ugh. Again, she was the one who wanted to, so I just wanted to give her options outside of what she had intended. She really wanted me to jam with her a few weeks back, but only under the circumstance that some guy is there who is, according to Jessika, a pro at guitar and can "help us out." (I put this in quotes because this is what she said, not out of tone)

I'm not really seeking much help outside of what my current routine. My habits are getting worse, this week I didn't meet my 180 mark three times. :( Better do a little extra tonight and tomorrow.

Last night I hung out with Connor and we had a very nice time together. He's gotten really laid back around me, and we respect eachother to an extent. Like, we're both very stubborn people and we can both be such assholes to one another but we click very well. I don't know if there's any feelings there necessarily. We're physically attracted to eachother and have similar personality types, but actually dating again would be sort of silly and out of the question. He's got a lot going on and so do I, but he might actually be moving up to Bellingham at the same time I will be.

That's one thing about Connor though is you really don't know what he's up too. He sometimes seems like he's majorly talking out of his ass, but then he manages to ACTUALLY DO what he says he was going to do and has proof of it. He's not stupid, either. Regardless of having the appearance of being a rather lazy hippie with his dreadlocks and beanies, he's really intelligent and manipulative. We get along well, but I'm not sure how much time we'll be spending with eachother during the summer. By the sound of it, he's going to be travelling all over the place.

I'm sort of nervous about this summer. Not because I'm moving or anything but because I think about last summer and how lonely it seemed. Man, it's really been a year since the Guy Stevens fiasco. It was about this time last year that I was hanging out with Cory Bunn, Josh Fischer and that Ed guy. It was back then that I was packing those silly bento lunches for myself and trying to figure out some stupid identity for myself. It was all so fake. I'm happy I'm no longer like this. ANYWAY! Looking to the future now...

I'm assuming this summer I'll continue to just do my thing. But without much of a purpose on the weekdays, I'll have to either find more hours of work somewhere, or maybe just stay home and apply for a bunch of scholarships I don't know. Summers are tricky because it's a lot of time to consolidate. This is definitely going to be my last summer living in the tri cities, which is an interesting thought. I think I think about this kind of thing too often and shouldn't be so high strung.

I hope something magical happens this summer. I've been pretty patient. >:(

peace. 

26. O-OVERDRIDRIVE

My brain is on overdrive lately.

I've been doing really well at not procrastinating lately because of my work and school schedule colliding and not really having any time to procrastinate even if I wanted too. The to-do list helps a lot too because it helps keep track of my goals for the day. Yesterday I didn't get done with as much as I'd like too, but I've been really proactive about studying accounting today to make up for it. Gotta make some flash cards for the accounting vocab, cards for Japanese vocab, and it's definately on my to-do list tonight to download and fiddle around with the Visual Basic program at home. That's how I'm going to learn to use it. The book is pretty complicated, but the program itself is interesting enough to me that I know I'll be able to figure it out. It helps that my teacher is totally helpful, too.

This weekend is going to be a lot of working at Rite Aid, unfortunately. I don't really want to work I just want to study and keep caught up. I am so afraid of failure this quarter because so much is on the line for me. My parents are really rooting for me to do well in accounting, Visual basic is my last requirement to graduate, and I'm trying to absorb as much Japanese as possible before I start going to Western. Reason being, the sensee up there might not be so nice.

Last night I had a somewhat interesting adventure, though I'd rather not post about it. . . Probably shouldn't of gone out late on a Wednesday but I managed to get home around 1', get a few hours of sleep, and I've yet to get hit with the exaustion yet. I'll probably be really tired when I get home, though.

I work until 10' tonight... Dana is on vacation, so I'll be more relaxed at work knowing I don't have anyone watching my every move waiting for me to mess up. I know she so badly want to throw me under a bus and it makes me sort of anxious. No use worrying about it though, it'd probably just make matters worse. I've been getting good hours lately, so I know my next paycheck is going to be decent, but SURVIVING until that paycheck is going to be a challenge. I don't even want to look at my bank statement because it'll just make me depressed. After the first few days of school I know I've spent at least $200 on books, gas, etc... But I've been trying to think of school as an investment. Yes, it's expensive, but it'll make me a HELL of a lot more money in the long run if I play my cards right. Accounting might be my major, after all, depending on how I do in this class. It makes a decent amount of sense to me but it's going to take a lot of practice to get the hang of it. It's just a matter of getting used to all of the new terms.

My thoughts are so all over the place today. Just so much going on. I need to go do some mindless work for awhile.

yours,
Emily

The horrendously annoying yet simultaniously catchy song that's an accurate representation of how I've been feeling lately. I am not using cocaine. I've just been so high energy lately... maybe from not being on anti-depressents and finally coming out of a 20 year depressed slump? I have no idea.

Finals Day!

My slow ass computer is making me mad tonight. The internet just hasn't been running properly, maybe because it's a busy night or something. Who knows.

Anyway guess what?! We can all (well, I..) rejoice now because MATH 98 IS OVER! Which means that ALGEBRA is over and I am officially college level, which means I can get my AA! Aren't you all proud of me? It's pretty fantastic. Studied for hours and hours and hours this quarter, and I passed my final today and it almost brought me to tears. Granted, I haven't taken it three or more times like some of the other people in my class that I'm sure were happy that they passed, but it doesn't matter. I worked so hard, and Mrs. Lambert even said she'd be surprised if I didn't pass it. She's so sweet to us, she used the scantron to match answers before we left so that we didn't have any rude awakenings next week.

Also, Japanese IV is now complete! I took the final this morning, it wasn't too terribly hard and I almost wung it. Like, I didn't overstudy too hard because I was too concerned about my math.

I'll just back up to this morning with a play by play.

I got up somewhat later than I'd anticipated, and got to school around 9:30. I sat down with Betsy, Caitlin and Nathanael, and started making random chit chat until I finally decided to stick in the earplugs and start studying. That didn't last long before Hannah showed up and sat down, saying she was nervous. I asked if she wanted to practice, leisurely looking down at my phone thinking we had an hour to study at 10:15. Then Hannah says, "We have 15 minutes.." WOAH,WOAH. I suddenly frantically start going through things like "Crap, speaking activities, now." haha. We worked together for about 10 solid minutes, which is a lot more than 40 regular minutes of study when it's with Hannah, before "Tay Tay chan" showed up blaring some rave music.


Not to mention he was wearing stockings and a headband? I have no idea. He always cracks me up but this morning I wasn't particularily amused when I needed to cram. Me and Hannah ended up getting another good 10 minutes of study in the classroom before sensee handed out exams.

Tay Tay chan is always trying to out-TayTay himself. Check out my sexy arm there on the desk. Lol you can just see the intensity.

たくさん難しい試験だ！あとで、眠いです。。１００点でください！！！

Anyway, got that done, even if I was the very last one in class to complete it and felt like a boob. Oh well, I bet I got a pretty good score so that's all that counts right? The kanji on this one got me though... I could barely remember anything and had to use deductive reasoning to figure them out.

Okay so onto math. After Japanese I headed over to the S building with Brenna, and ended up taking to this Mormon kid who was sitting at the couches. No Shavonne or Lily today, though I did give Lily the present I made her. Neither the necklace nor the bracelet fit fantastically, but I hope she likes it regardless. She made me a bracelet and caught me not wearing it... shit. i'm sorry I just can't wear too many things or it'll bug me! I've already got my hemp necklace that I'm still getting used too. It's sort of itchy right now.

The conversation with the mormon guy was interesting, and turns out he's related to the Norman family here in Benton City. He reminds me a little of Lindsey, super gung-ho (enthusiastic, never actually wrote that word before) but also very sweet. Didn't talk to Thomas much because he was talking to Colin about... something, weapons.

I went to the S building, and about halfway there I realized I'd forgotten my math book at home. D'oh! I didn't take too much notice though, went into the tutoring center, and got the last bit of instruction on the last few things. They always help me so much, though one method they used today confused the Hell out of me on the Final later, but it's just one problem. Without them, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't of passed this class. Them and of course Brad Pitkin who showed me all the math rules initially.

So yes, very happy and accomplished that I got through algebra-- math 96, 97 and 98. And I must say, I did a pretty damn good job. I got an 87% overall in the class, which is almost an A and won't bring my GPA down! So I didn't just barely scrape by, I kicked ass.

In other news, looks like as expected I'm postponing my college goals again. I'm going to go to Western in the fall to give my parents more of an opportunity to save money. I just realized that the only reason I wanted to go so bad is just... to GO. To get out of here. And that's not a good enough reason to up and leave when nobody else transfers in the Spring. Brenna had the same plans, and just like me she comes from a white middle income household and it's hard for us to get anywhere without a lot of saving. I am very happy though that my parents are supportive of me, because my life would be a lot harder if they didn't. I don't even know what I would do... it's not like financial aid is easy to come by, middle income or low income. So i'm just going to enjoy my time here. Enjoy my last year that I don't have to pay bills and such and have food in the cuppords without having to think about it.

So it's Christmas break now. For at least the next week I don't have work, that is unless my boss calls me to add hours to my schedule which I doubt he will. Jodi asked me if I wanted to be part of the secret santa. Yeah, on what money? No I don't think so. The only extra money that I'm getting is going to my actual friends.

In totally unrelated news, Guy added my sister on Facebook and today he "liked" a comment that I made to Daisy. Interesting. Of course at the time I commented the photo I didn't realize it was his promotion page, thing... or at least I think it is. Again, I don't get the whole raving thing. I don't even think that picture was taken on halloween. But yeah, really strange that Guy added my sister. Probably just because she's involved in the clubbing scene, but Avery does hip-hop dancing instead of raves. I've honestly been kind of wondering what he's up to, where he's living now, how his daughter is doing, etc... but I'd be pretty weird for me to message him when I pretty much told him I don't want to be involved with him in ANY way back in August or so. I don't dislike him, we had some really fun times this summer (and some *not* so fun, the Abby situation continues to make me feel a little sick) and I'm glad he kept me busy.

But yeah, errm... He's got a lot on his plate. All the time. Though it'd be interesting to know what he's been up too, and why he's adding my sister. Probably because he's adding everyone in the tri cities to promote his thing. Just weird that he's popping up everywhere suddenly.

I'm too lazy to continue my count tonight but I will again tomorrow. i'm excited, me and Katelynn are gonna hang out and I got some KILLER tilapia that is just, sticky and insane. The person that gave it to me surprised the hell out of me today.

I'm gonna get some rest, can't get on too vicious of a sleepless cycle.

yours,
Emily

Ahh, back to the old grind.

I love school, I really do. I love being around people. I love feeling like I have a purpose. I love the stress. Stress and busyness is HEALTHY for me.

Today is the first day of school of my last year at CBC. Of course, this "year" is actually the last two quarters of my Sophomore year of college. It's somewhat hard to believe, but it makes me feel accomplished that I'm so close to my goal of getting my AA. I have math in four hours, so I'm just here killing time. I'm in the tutoring center, and nobody has realized yet that I'm not doing schoolwork. I guess blogger looks a little like schoolwork, I'm writing aren't I? …I moved the document to Word as soon as I wrote that because I think Word is more convincing.

There’s no more TechFee computer lab in the W building, as I might of mentioned before. This sucks for me because BOTH of my classes are in the W building. It would have been nice to just stay there but now I have to deal with walking all the way to S or L to do any work that needs printing. I wanted to make the cover of my Japanese binder for 4^th quarter, but decided to not even bother with the L building. The computers were full this time of year even WITH the W building computer lab, so it’s guaranteed to be more crowded in there now. It pisses me off, what if I have a last minute assignment to do that I HAVE to use the computers in the library for but they’re all full and all rented out? Luckily, with only taking math and Japanese, I probably won’t have to worry about too many writing assignments. It still sucks, though.

Or maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, let’s think of the positives. Facebook is very distracting, and without it, I can now spend my time more constructively.

Andrew told me today before Japanese class that he reads my blog every day. Hello Andrew! Lol. I am really surprised that anyone would take the time to read my rambling. Katharine told me that she does too. This blog can be very depressing at times but I feel happy that my life is turning around for the most part. It’s just nice to be busy again. And with my job, I’ll have money, and then I’ll have more of a social life, and it’ll all come together. I’m gonna see Katelynn tomorrow, I miss her already even if I just saw her last week, ha ha.

I’d like to meet Katelynn’s boyfriend one of these days and see what he’s like. I’ve met him briefly. She says she’d think I’d like him because he’s into System of a Down and plays guitar. Yep, he’s A-OK with me, lol.

The first Japanese class went well today. Sensee is as sweet as always, and went over the syllabus with us quickly. We’ve heard it four times now. I was happy with how much I remember to do grammar wise, because even if I studied quite I bit, I still felt like I wasn’t entirely prepared. I will continue to study, especially now that she’s added a “chit chat” time of the class where we are assigned to talk to our neighbors in Japanese. Today, me, Hannah and Leah talked to eachother about what we did during the summer. It was pretty difficult, and our conversation was pretty paused and awkward, but we tried and that’s what counts. : ) Its weird not having Michael in the class with Leah, she seems a little lost about it. I felt bad today because she was going to sit by me and I told her that I’m sitting by Hannah. Me and Hannah have always been speaking partners and I know we do really well together, so I had to be honest. I tried to tell her as kindly as possible, and said she could sit by me on the other side if she’d like too.
Mark or “Markie,” as Leah and Michael call him, is no longer in the class. I didn’t hear Sensee call his name out, and I noticed that nobody noticed he was gone. Unspoken Philippino guy, Ken san, is no longer in our class either. Neither is long haired Zach, who rarely showed up to class last quarter anyway.  We picked Japanese names today. I’m going to write the ones I know so I can remember to call them by that name.

So the final class roster is: Hannah, Me (now known as Aiko, my Japanese name), Leah (Akane), Brenna, Manuel (he’s going to have a Japanese name), Betsy (Aki), Caitlin (also pending), Alex (Shiro), Ashley (Haruka), Jose, Taylor (Godzilla), Jon (Umino), Sean (Daragon), Phil, Andrew, Geoff (pending)

I might be missing person as I always do, but I’m almost sure that was everybody that was in class today. 16 people. Dwindled down a lot from the original 50+ students that said they were going to go “all the way” with it. I remember Colin during second quarter telling me he was going to take all the classes and about a week later he dropped it because his wife was going to have a baby. I know it may seem weird that I keep track of who has come and gone, but after you spend a year with the same group of people, you start to get to know them.

If I did have a Japanese club party, it would be a LOT smaller of a group this year, unless I invited all of the first year people which would be a ton of people I don’t know, haha. I’m still intending on having a going away party, but it’s going to be all of my friends, including the Japanese club group that is still taking the class by then. Hannah doesn’t know if she’s going to be taking Japanese V, but I’m very thankful that she’s taking IV with me. Got a little nervous this morning when she was the last one to show up to class.

I got a text from Leah this morning saying that “The Troll” (aka Ashleigh) was sitting in on the first two Japanese I classes. What the Hell? I thought she said she was transferring. Ugh, I should of known, she’ll never leave. She’ll be here at CBC long after I’m gone. At least she’s not “sitting in” in our class too… But god, just the thought of seeing her at the club meetings makes me irritable. I’m just not going to let her bother me, there’s nothing she can do that can affect me. I just hope that if I do have input in club meetings that she won’t shoot up her hand and tell why it wouldn’t work or something lame like that. Leah said that she’s going to be tutoring in the Japanese I classes. Hmmm.

Well, I’m gonna get going. Getting sort of hungry. Simply put, things are going good, I’m happy to be back in school, and I’m happy to be alive.

Yours,
Emily

I'm afraid I'll be stuck here forever if I keep pursuing this goal.

This quarter is so close to being over I can almost taste it, with only nine more days. It's sort of scary, but at the same time a huge relief that I'm going to be done with it and move on to another clean slate. I have my math final on Thursday and my Biology final on Wednesday. I also have a councilors appointment on the 19th to work out everything that I need to get taken care of before I graduate.

I have pretty bad news though. Fucking Symbolic Logic credits-- UGH. Turns out I CAN'T take C++ this next fall because it REQUIRES you to have math 98 under your belt. That being said, I'm probably going to be taking just math 98 and Japanese IV this next fall, then taking JUST C++ during the Winter... unless of course CBC forces me to take math 95 in order to graduate as well. That being said, I feel like I'm going to graduate sort of late in comparison to how long it typically takes people to get their two year degree, and it's all because I've waiting until the last minute to do my math and didn't do a very heavy work load during my senior year of highschool. So much for saving time. But hey, who's really judging anyway? If anyone has anything to say about how long I've been stuck at CBC they can fuck off. I have a goal, and unfortunately math and this pointless symbolic logic bullshit has put me out a bit.

Another option, of course, is to transfer over to Central in the winter ANYWAY without my AA and just get those two credits at CBC next summer when I come home to live with my parents again after the schoolyear. Though this is an option, so badly I want to be able to put my AA down as an accomplishment. I just want to take one thing at a time. First my AA, then my BA, then maybe my masters down the line once I pay back my student loans... sort of depends what I'm going to do. Because I've only been taking 10 credit quarters, I feel that I am partially to blame for my own failure to finish my AA as quickly as I wanted too. I should of never taken stupid CWP in highschool and should of taken a full schedule instead. : (

But I continue to ask myself if I even want to go to Central afterall... Everything in my life has come to me so fast that I haven't even been able to stop and think about what it is that I want. All this information regurgetation, studying my ass off, flashcards, hauling around books, selling those books and buying new books about subjects that I have no interest in... have I actually learned anything? I wonder if I am actually any more intellegent now than I was my Junior year of highschool. Like if I sat next to 17 year old me and took a big test with a bunch of different subjects, would I get a better score now or would it be the same? I don't feel like I've learned much of anything here, but I could be wrong.

...Well, I've certainly learned the basics of Japanese. That's something.

Maybe the reason why I'm feeling so inquisitive is because I hung out with my friend Mitch Missett yesterday. He's one of these people that when you talk to him, you really start thinking about your life because he tends to talk about things that I think about a lot-- like what my "plan" is to achieve success, and if success really is the ultimate goal to all of the work that we do. He's been through some really rough shit in the past few months. I won't go into detail, but my predictions for why he wasn't around (that he'd moved back in with his ex girlfriend or something) were very wrong. I'm pretty concerned for his brother, too.

I recently learned from Mitch how prominent meth is in benton city. I really had no idea.. I mean, I figured some people used it but the amount of people that use it that are around our age is pretty damn sad. I guess our town is #5 for most meth labs per capita in the United States or something like that, and Finley is #3. I don't know where Mitch got the statistics, but I trust his judgement. Regardless of it being true or not, it seems to be a pretty big problem. Not really a concern of mine though, considering I'm not involved with people that use it.

Anyway I'm gonna go, I've been in this computer lab way too damn long.

yours,
Emily

I hate money. . . God, what am I going to do.

My dad just accused me of overdrawing my account by $300, which is complete bullshit because I've been keeping really good track of my finances and he acts like I'm out spending money on whatever the fuck I want every day. Like I'm "taking advantage" of the card and PURPOSEFULLY going out of my way to go into the credit line. You know, just to piss him off.

Let me tell you a little about my money situation....

I earn a little money from ebay each month. I don't know how much I am going to make from month to month so I just put in practically all money that I get so I have a little income and can buy what I want/need every so often as well as save. I am cheap as FUCK. I haven't bought clothes for myself in over a year. My Dad told me last night "You have money, why don't you go buy yourself some shorts?" Wow, contradictory much? I didn't. I have two pairs of shorts, both of which are from Value Village last year. I really would like to buy some NEW shorts but I don't because I don't want my dad to get mad at me for spending too much money and I'm trying so hard to save. Honestly, the only spending that I do that is actually for enjoying myself is when me and Katelynn go out to sushi once every couple weeks, which usually costs me about $10-$13.

Most of my money goes to gasoline.  My parents think they've been the only ones spending money on gasoline but I continually have to buy it going back and forth to pasco every day. This adds up. I spend about $20 on it a week since the gas price inflation.

I am cheap. I am one of the cheapest people you will ever know because I DREAD getting lectured by my dad on money. It gives me panic attacks because he and my mom were always fighting when I was a kid about my mom cutting into the credit line. When he came in with his papers and starts telling me that I "not only" spent the money that he paid me back for the tuition but ALSO cut into the credit line $200, I literally began going into hysterics and told him to get the fuck out.

I've put away about $300... so my dad said I have $350 in the bank right now. That transaction for the costume probably didn't go through yet so I have about $300. I'm not planning on spending any money, if possible, this next week unless it's on gasoline. I'm planning on also avoiding driving or having a social life because that costs money too.

That being said, this is going to be a really lame week. I'm going to spend a lot of time playing the bass and messing with sculpty clay. Probably get together with Katelynn a couple times, but I'm not going to smoke weed because that costs money, too (I bought $10 worth recently and felt a little sick that I did it...).

There are things that I would like to buy, such as:

- A new computer that won't overheat on me that I can actually rely on not dying on me in the middle of my work.

-Some new summer clothes. Not that much, just some shorts and a skirt or something. I really just don't have anything and have just been wearing a lot of athletic clothes..

-Some new foundation. Unfortunately, this probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. I want to buy MAC because it's really the only one that works for me with my oily skin... but they're foundation are about $19 a bottle and the trip over there costs money so it ends up being a $40-$50 trip into town.

My dad doesn't understand my major problems with money because of what I went through when I was a kid. My mom used to be afraid of my dad yelling at her so she'd hide things, and then when my dad would see the credit statement he would freak out and scream for hours on end. It makes me feel so sick inside.

 I wish I could get a job but I always spend too much time with school and it'd be really hard for me to find a job right now with unemployment being so high. I refuse to work fast food... and it still pisses me off that my sister has a job at the pizza place in town because my mom recommended HER instead of me even though my sister doesn't even have to pay for gas or anything and I am constantly having to bug my parents about it because my life is so fucking expensive lately.

It makes me sick. I'm so excited to move out of here and SOMEDAY hopefully be able to put some money away. Probably won't be better at all at a university when I'm racking up lovely student loans.

That's another thing. I'm at CBC to save my parents a shit pot of money, and promissed myself and them that I would get my AA before transfering. Now that I'm almost done with this, I have been talking to my parents about potential colleges and they're set on Central because it's the cheapest and closest to home. I, personally, was considering Humboldt but my mom basically said "You won't go there" because of the out of state tuition..... I am hesitant about Central because in Ellensburg it's so depressing, there doesn't seem to be anything going on. I'd rather go someplace closer to Seattle. I really want it to be the first time in my life that I'm happy. But I have been telling myself this practically every year of my life... Things will be better next year. I admit, they have been significantly better now that I'm out of highschool, but my home life is a constant burden-- I just don't feel like I "connect" with my mom anymore, can't stand my sister most of the time, and I just feel like my Dad thinks I think of him as an ATM. I appreciate them not kicking me out, even though they probably rightfully should with the way that I've been acting around here.

yours,

Emily