Okay... now that I've calmed down a bit.

Wow it's 11:42 pm. I always get to bed later than I anticipate. What's worse is that when I lay down in bed I'll play my DS for about a half hour to bore me to sleep. So yeah, lately bedtime has been 1 am. That'll have to change after this quarter when I've got my intermediate micro class next quarter at 7:30 am..

Sooo I was finally good and spent a couple solid hours writing my policy analysis. It's coming pretty smoothly. I've still got a week to do it, and my goal was to have some sort of rough draft to give to Sipic by Monday to make sure I'm going the right direction with this and get pointers on how to improve it. I'm definitely also going to take my paper to the writing center to get help proofing it. It's not like I'm expecting Toni to actually read through and correct the whole ugly mess of rough draft... lol that's for paid people like Kat L. to do. 

Kat works in the writing center in the library and I see her practically every time I go there (usually to print something..) I'd have to say I probably see her and Alex S. more than anyone else from back home. I see them enough that I try not to initiate small talk every time I see them around campus. 

So I guess you could say I "found"..okay I sort of stole a new recital piece. At least that's the way that I'm still seeing it because the way I found this song was really unoriginal and Jacob is going to know exactly where I got it... on his own facebook wall feed from someone else. 

Creds to Jordan S. for finding this.... He's no longer taking lessons from Jake and therefore won't be playing this at the recital.... Though if he suddenly decides to I am SOL, I am willing to take my chances. 

I have every intention of learning this by the Christmas recital in a little less than a month. I know it sounds crazy but I am really inspired to learn this. Master of puppets was NOT a waste of time-- it was a good song to learn because it probably improved my ability a lot more than I realize but I am so ready to put that sh*t to bed. I'm really hoping Jake says he thinks it's plausible for me to nail this thing in less than a month but there's still a chance he could say I'm crazy and recommend that I need to stick with what I started, who knows.

peace. 

Want to punch a hole through a wall

God I've felt so unmotivated on the guitar lately.

It's like I'm dying to play but I can't because I have no idea what I'm going to play. There's so much out there but I have zero inspiration coming from anywhere because I have to find something that will adequately showcase my skills but also be appropriate for what I need to do with it. I've got a Christmas recital coming up in four weeks.. Something I was really looking forward to until just recently because I'm doubting what the Hell I'm doing. After months of practicing Master of puppets, no questions asked, and having been suggested to learn this for the recital... here it is late November and Jake tells me that won't work because everyone is playing Christmas songs and it'd be kind of inappropriate for me to "metal out" the Christmas concert.

That makes sense... But now I'm so angry with myself because I feel like I've wasted time learning this... Granted no time practiced on the guitar is wasted time but I really wanted to do something awesome for this recital and at this point the plan is that I'm going to play the solo from master of puppets-- which I know about half of right now and barely even want to practice it because I feel so pissed about the circumstances and still don't know exactly how it should sound. I've had issues getting instruction on this via skype so maybe I should look on Youtube. The solo is only like a minute long.. I'm afraid that I'm going to get nervous and speed through it.

I need to figure something out fast or I'm not going to be able to play in the Christmas recital. I feel like the guitar was once so important to me but now I feel like crying because I've lost my motivation and direction....

It's 6:13 pm. In two days I have a test in managerial but I've still did a couple hours of studying for my other classes today as well. This weekend I've probably done a total of about six hours and redid my resume which was a plus. However I still haven't started anything on my policy analysis and that's starting to put a lot of stress on my shoulders because I keep on putting it off and putting it off.

So tonight to make myself happier then what I'm feeling right now I'm going to do the following:

-Study managerial for 2 more hours at my kitchen table-- Chapters 4 and 13.

-WORK ON POLICY ANALYSIS... Just start the damn thing, ugh! Why has this been so hard for me to start? Why do I dread writing papers so much?

-Practice my guitar for a solid hour. I don't care on what.. Hopefully Jake will get back to me soon and help me figure out what I'm going to do with myself because right now I just feel like quitting. I don't want to play master of puppets and everything else that I've got printed out and downloaded is shit. What am I going to play, what am I going to play.... 

I just feel like I'm going crazy right now and want to punch something... There's so much I need to do before it's too late. 

peace. 

Nice Friday evening. And some of my stupid hangups.

I've been desperately searching around for... I guess more mainstream guitar tabs in standard tuning. So desperate that I actually downloaded some....

Even hearing the word Greenday makes me think of Katelynn's voice going "Blagghhh!" like.. 'so stupid!!' 

Saying that I'm learning something by Greenday would still be embarrassing for me to admit for some reason, I think it's because I liked them in middle school. I've also always felt hung up on learning Red Hot Chili peppers, Beatles and Foo fighters. Lol those are pretty much all of my Mom's favorite band's. I think it more has to do with the fact that these are some of the bands I remember Jack playing a lot.. which at this in my life I've grown up enough that it barely makes my stomach churn anymore. 

It's been a long time since I've mentioned him. I did see him briefly standing outside the library talking to someone (I was on my bike, I don't think he saw me or has seem me all year) so I know that he's still going to school there. I don't even know what the deal is, he's got to be close to graduating. I wish he would. I wish he would graduate and move far away so I don't have to see his face again. 

Lately I feel much more content, like I've fully gotten over most emotions that were once just hindering progress. Regardless of taking some hard courses this quarter I've yet to feel completely out of control or did worse than a C on any tests. That's something. Terry's so funny, he was all butthurt this morning because I didn't go to managerial today. 

He's like "You left me in that boring class alone!" 

Ha ha ha ha, I'm like "Payback's a bitch ain't it?" He skipped Money and Banking twice this week. Tuesday I sent him a text like "Go to class today, I really don't want to go...." When he didn't show up I sent him another text that said "FAG." 

Terry responded, "Sorry I had to eat." So when he sent me a text telling me to get my ass to Managerial yesterday I'm like "Sorry I had to play guitar."

To be honest I haven't gotten as much reading done as I should have the past few days. I've been reading bits and pieces but nothing in comparison to the days that I had my internet down. Facebook wastes a lot of time and I'm hoping to use my time wisely this weekend for some upcoming tests this next week. Sipic posted the test guide of everythinggg that's going to be on the exam that I have like an entire week to study, there's no reason I shouldn't nail this. The only reason I got a C on that last test is because I was lazy.

Alright I'm going to get some reading done. It's 7:30 on a Friday, it's likely that I'll get hit up to do something later tonight so I am going to squeeze in some work now.

peace. 

Quit spilling sh*t on my floor, cat! And classes winter 2014

Typing on this mac computer is incredibly annoying..

I'm sitting in the library waiting for an econ meeting at 4:30 pm. I would normally be home at this time but today I had to drive (and walk... mostly... Every time I use my car here it's such a waste of time) to Barge Hall to get a hold lifted from my account so I can register. I'm actually waitlisted in my intermediate microeconomics class at 7:30 am. I did have an option of taking it with another professor at an easier time but it would require me to take it with a much harder professor.


I just texted Terry to tell him my schedule and we're both taking intermediate micro. The war wages on!! He's also taking pre-calc and intermediate macro. It's been forever since I took pre-calc, that was a nice one to get out of the way early..

Next quarter I'm also taking an "Intro to financial management" and a "Principles of management" class online. I would much rather take that in person because the professor is Chinese. That and I generally dislike online classes because of the motivation it takes to check regularly online. But I'm going to put forth all of my effort.. I'm going to have to, next quarter I've got my first 400 level classes.

Today I finally got my eyebrows waxed and my bangs trimmed. That was really needed, my bangs were so long that the shortest part of them completely covered my left eye. Blegh. Anytime my bangs get that long my hair has a tendency to get greasy because I'm continually having to swipe them out of my face. Not a good look on anyone.

Okay it's 4:15 pm, I'm going to be late if I don't head out here pretty soon. Overall I've been good lately. The bigger Marshall gets the more daring he gets and he's got this bad habit of climbing on the curtains. He's also extremely persistent when he begs for food whenever I'm eating something. He'll stick his face into any drink and spill anything.

But I've still been feeling a lot happier.

peace.

Getting organized for my last 3 weeks. Newfriendnewfriend!

Hard to believe this quarter is actually sort of close to being over.

I realize that I have three more weeks of class to go, and I scored C's on a couple of my midterms and quizzes. That's really not acceptable for me so I've decided to write out everything that I'm going to need to do in the next week to get in the process of working hard enough to get A's on my next tests and raise my grades in the classes from high C's to B's.

This guy Jesse in my public finance class told me that I should try to keep my GPA above a 3.3 because that's where a lot of grad schools draw the line. That's really hard, especially when getting B's only makes the tiniest increase in the GPA but getting a C can drop it like nothing. I don't understand how the whole system is weighted.. My parents still don't understand how important it is to me. Like I'll talk to my mom and she'll be like "All you have to do is pass to get your diploma!"

F*ck that's pretty much like telling me to lay down and give up... American parents are so soft, ha ha. I mean I feel there's a ton of room for improvement right now. I have to do better than what I was doing this past 7 weeks from here on out, and where I'm going to start is creating weekly concrete task lists like I did last year...

This is my task list. Each one of the squares represents an hour of time spent working. 

That's the reality of what it's going to take if I really want to get A's on my upcoming exams. It's a really high goal even for me... These classes are so hard and it's going to take so much work and patience these next three weeks. I think these checklists will give me the visual motivation that I need. 

Of course I can't forget about guitar. I've only been squeezing in about a half hour of solid work a day (I know isn't that terrible?) mainly on the metallica solo. I'd like to practice more this upcoming week, at least an hour a day... I know that Jacob can see when I haven't practiced as much as I had wanted too. He's somehow able to read me really easily and it sometimes pisses me off, ha ha I must be really obvious when I'm stressed out.

Today for the most part was actually spent sleeping... I did practice guitar for 45 minutes and study for a couple hours and I'd like to get in more time of each before I go to bed (It's potentially going to be a challenge to sleep tonight after sleeping so much today... I'm probably going to have to drug myself at 2 AM or so just so my sleep schedule doesn't get completely out of whack)

Yesterday I met this really interesting girl named Audrey when I went to the Surc to eat before meeting up with Sipic to discuss my enrollment plans for next quarter (there's a freaking block on my account so I have to go to the library to pay a stupid fee before I can register, bitches...). Anyway she's a freshman here at CWU and makes the trip all the way from Rosalyn to get here. She likes to draw, and originally thought she wanted to be an art major before she took an art class here and said she's bored out of her mind in it. 

She seems awesome, I'm happy to have met her and hope we hang out sometime this week. She likes rock music, too. 

peace. 

I needed someone to feed

MIA came out with a new album November 1st, I just did my first Tiffany Rothe workout video in a long time to this.

I think I need to download more workout videos and start going to the gym because I think my body has gotten completely used to these workouts and they are not bringing me the same results they once did. I've heard that can happen. 

Nooo economics reading! This was this morning when I was studying for a money and banking test.

I have had a really good few days. I feel like having Marshall has put me in overall better spirits, and his mischievousness is a low price to pay for how wonderful it's been to have him around. Just like any other kitten he loves to play.. Like right now he's jumping through the arm holes of my backpack and making me laugh my ass off. Marshall also learned how to climb the stairs which was a proud accomplishment.

Let's see, what else. Well my Money and Banking test today went alright I think. This morning I met up with Randy on a bench in Shaw to study the notes. I crammed them really hard for every second of 40 minutes I could get in that he was there. Like I stood outside the door and looked at that packet of questions until 9:59 am (class starts at 10, lol...).

It was funny because the frantic Mexican girl that's always late and wears cute clothes came up doing the exact same thing with her packet. Granted I did not prepare for this as well as I could have... The reading was just painfully boring in two of the three chapters and I would find myself fighting to not fall asleep while reading them. I mean they were okay... I don't know, it's all relevant so I need to keep as positive of an outlook as possible. 

I'm really excited for tomorrow because I should be meeting with my adviser to figure out what classes I'm taking next quarter. He asked me about it yesterday and was like "Emily do you know what you're registering for next quarter? You're the only one of my advisees that hasn't talked to me about it yet.." And I'm like "Uhhhm nope!"

Guitar went well today. I'm getting into the really difficult, intricate solo parts of master of puppets and there are communication issues via skype. Jake is going to make me a video and upload it to Youtube instead with exact instructions. He's the best teacher ever what can I say.

peace. 

Wow, feeling 20x happier today...

I think I might have finally found what I needed to make me happy here.

Lol can you see him? This is Marshall, I adopted him yesterday at the pet store in town.

I seriously could not be happier. Having this little guy to come home to after class has made me feel so much less alone in this place. Because I realize that not having a cat was what has made me feel so lonely! When I'm not living with other people I feel the most productive and content, and for said reason I'm never going to have a roommate again in my life. So it was really hard for me to figure out why I felt so bad-- like I wanted to be alone but didn't.. It was all just because I wanted something to feel unconditional love from and to take care of. Friendships don't satisfy that.

Adopting a cat from a pet store in town was not as cheap as picking up a free barn cat from a litter on craigslist but for me it was totally worth it. I knew that pets adopted out from small pet stores are usually very well bred and taken care of prior to release. Marshall was already litter box trained when I got him which has saved me a lot of hassle. 

So yeah I've just been 20x more calm and happy since I got him... He's can be very playful and curious but also very loving and relaxed with me. He has a little whiny cry right now and "mews" a lot to get my attention when he wants something-- which is usually just to be picked up. He can't climb the stairs but he's already really used to me carrying him around. When I first got him yesterday he made me nervous when I'd try to pick him up and he'd whine in pain and tense up like Michiko does but he stopped doing that too. 

Today I had a public finance test that I think I did pretty well on. I got a 75% on that Money and banking quiz-- pretty sucky but the grade I expected to get after not studying as well as I should have. I'm REALLY hoping Ghosh gives us back that test and the quiz tomorrow... that's getting old.

I am developing a crush on a guy in my Money and Banking class. The more I've noticed him the cuter I think he is. Unfortunately I know he has a girlfriend. At this point I quite honestly do not care.... if he ends up talking to me that is. All of our conversations we've had to this point have been very school related and "small talk-y." Definitely not flirtatious. 

peace.