I've had a nice few days. When did we last talk...

Ahh okay, the Renaissance fair..

Turned out to be a really good time. What of course made it better was getting in free because of my friend Andrew's extra vendor pass. Alasdair's girlfriend apparently couldn't make it so I signed in as her (shh, don't tell anyone). Anyway this gave me a little extra spending money to try things out, like this $5 archery range where you get to shoot 3 arrows while taking a quick lesson if needed. 

I of course had never shot before so I did need it. The woman that helped me was actually really good at showing me what to do in a limited amount of time. Even if I didn't hit the target (a goat on a tarp in this case), each arrow that I shot did land closer to it. I had come with Andrew who he was kind of flaunting his archery skills but he wasn't able to get any closer to the target than I was! 

One kind of nasty occurrence while I was there... I saw an old friend of mine. I'm not going to name names in this case because it's sort of embarrassing. He was in front of me in the archery line and I hadn't seen him in awhile. When he finished he turned toward me and I'm like "Hey *bleep*!" and I gestured to give him a friendly hug. He wrapped his arm around me and his armpit wiped against my shoulder and when he pulled away I noticed my shoulder was like.... drenched in something. Said individual made off in kind of a hurry when I was making small talk, and I can see why.... My God my shoulder wreaked like Hell. 

While Andrew and I were standing in line I was clearly grimacing and I told Andrew what had just happened. He's like "Wow that's.... Odd..." This girl in front of me dressed in a full out renaissance costume looked back and sort of gives me a sympathetic look. Ha ha I could only imagine how crappy this situation would have been if I was wearing a costume like hers with velvet sleeves.. You'd easily wreak the rest of the day. Because I was wearing a tank top I was easily able to go into the bathroom and scrub my shoulder a couple times with soap and water.... Then again with soap and water.. to remove the majority of the scent.

I was then on a "quest" to find one of the many stands selling scented oils and choose one to cover whatever was left of the stench. I came to a stand called Gia's Traditions and she was super courteous about helping find one I liked. We went through a few... Patchouli, Nag champa, "Bitch" (some strawberry-tangy mix).. Nothing was really sticking out to me. Then I found Sandalwood which I almost almost love the smell of regardless of the product (incense, candles, etc..) so I picked that one and I'm so glad I did.

It's got the nicest scent.. a lot like cedar and reminiscent of the plants around my Grandparent's old house in Atascadero. When I realized how much I liked it I wanted to go online and post a good review but Gia's Traditions is  nowhere online. True traveling gypsy vendor!!  

Andrew and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the fair and looking at shops and eclectic people. I saw his Mom and she was really friendly. She's got the best British accent, I could listen to her talk all day.

That reminds me, lately I've been a lot more into asmr videos on youtube while I'm practicing guitar instead of watching cartoons. I switch back and forth between Youtube, Netflix and Amazon for entertainment. These days I'm watching (listening to) a lot of ASMR videos to relax as well as keep my brain active, as well as made tedious activities like chores more enjoyable.

Here's one of my favorite videos from one of my favorite users, she's got millions of views for a good reason-- she's an enchantress

GentleWhispering

In this video Maria gives a Russian culture lesson and I found the subject matter especially fascinating because of course I love to understand other cultures. She also does Russian language lessons that I like to listen too.*This video is actually somewhat underrated and I'd highly encourage you to check out her actual channel if you're interested in ASMR.


That's all for today folks.

peace.

Bored ass friday night. (My Mom's out partying and I'm sitting at the computer lol)

Hi. Soo, my day was going relatively well until I made this idiotic decision to buy the direct download of the Sims 2 Seasons expansion from Amazon and accidentally ordered the Sims 3 version. There's $16 down the toilet for nothing. Tomorrow I've got to put the $60 cash I've been hanging onto in my wallet back into my debit card because I now have no clue how much is in there. ...Stupid, stupid... 

Hate wasting money.

I do have some really good news though! I got a job interview at Maverick. This guy Brad called and asked me a few questions like whether or not I've got a reliable source of transportation and how long I'll be sticking around and what not. Every time I've gone to Maverick the people that work there seemed really friendly so I'd be happy to get the chance to work there.

They're open 24 hours so I should get a good number of hours if I let them schedule me whenever. I'd be fine with that, I've been sleeping at weird times lately anyway and would like to have some kind of routine again even if it's night shifts. It's going to feel nice to finally make some money and buy lots of new clothes for my last quarter in college.

Andrew and I are gonna be GAY amd MERRY at the Sance faire tomorrow!! 

Today was pretty boring. I finished painting the benches in the backyard and played guitar. I've been doing quite a bit of that lately. I'm going to exercise after I finish writing this and probably go to bed considering it's 10:30 and I've got a fun day planned tomorrow! Andrew C. scored me a vendor pass to get into the renaissance faire so I'm very excited to be getting in free this year. The fair is always a blast. I love going anywhere that people are dressed up in costume and some are taking it really seriously, lol. I've got a gypsy costume my mom helped me put together today.

Oh jeez I did have something interesting happen the other day. Dalton and I hung out for the first time the other evening. I invited him and Darren over to chill for a bit and we all just talked while the TV was on. Darren M. has been in town from Texas and staying at Jon K. house (which I passed like 6 times when I was working out at the orchard).

Dalton's going into his Junior year of college so has taken some business credits like accounting 251 and 252 so I was quite impressed. We kind of both related on the fact that we thought accounting's boring but it was fun to learn at the time. Darren is in the military so he was telling us about that style of life and how you live according to certain protocol but still do get a lot of free time. He was dating a girl for quite awhile and they'd just broken up so he brought her up a lot. You can tell she's still on his mind and might have come to Washington to not think about it, who knows.

Anyway I'm gonna get going. Dance time!! woo

peace. 

My life be like ooo aaaa

Today is going to be nice. For the first time since I've been back my parents are going to Olympia for my Dad's business trip and won't be back until Thursday night. I'm planning to have a friend over this evening that I haven't seen since... Christmas break I think?

It's 10:38 am and I need a shower. My Dad is going to keep me busy today with some projects like watering the plants and painting some benches. That'll be nice, I like having the chance to listen to some music, exercise and get tanner. I'd like to give myself a manicure at some point today after I play in the dirt, I hate when my nailpolish is half chipped off.

Yesterday was fun. I got paid and made about $170 from only 3 days of working, that's pretty damn good, especially considering how easy and enjoyable my job was. My Dad went out to his cousin's house yesterday and apparently this dipshit didn't make proper records of his worm spraying so the USDA marked the fruit "tainted" and unfit for regular grocery store produce sections. He's got an entire orchard of perfect cherries that he would make no profit hiring people to pick. He'll probably go out of business because of his own laziness.

He, my Dad and a few other people were apparently out there yesterday picking everything they could to be sold to different warehouses that decontaminate the cherries for canning and frozen desserts. They're only going to sell for $3 a bin or something ridiculously low like that and he'll be lucky to break even. What a dumbass.

I started drawing my first family portrait yesterday and it looks really good. I know the person I'm drawing it for has wanted one of him for a long time so this will be even better.

peace.

Got time, time, to wait for tomorrow

Evening folks, I've had a nice first week of summer so far.

last day working at the Edward's farm. 

First of all, I was able to land a brief farm job this summer two days after moving home. It lasted from Tuesday to Thursday morning which was a lot shorter than anticipated. The job itself was really easy in comparison to what I'd dealt with in my own family's orchard a few years back. Basically I was assigned to stand by these large white bins, wait for pickers to pour in a bucket of fruit, and punch their ticket to recognize they'd done it. The only manual labor I had to do was pick the leaves out and stack the boxes that weren't terribly heavy-- probably around 70 lbs, but just really bulky and awkward.

My crew was interesting because none of them I'd had extended interaction with before. All good guys though, like none of them were complete dicks about when I woke up an hour late on the first day (which ended up being canceled anyway, whew...). This guy Dalton did give me a little sh*t on facebook that day and added me as a friend. He was on my crew along with Vlad R. (Really smart kid for only being a Junior in highschool, impressive), Dalton's brother Brandon who was running the tractor, Jaron G. (who I could not believe is a sophomore in highschool now. Wow I felt old.), another 16 year old that looked a lot like that guy Abe and Cruz Del A. Cruz's uncle was there too and stopped by my bin a lot to talk to me and cracked me up. I remember him saying, "You've got them beautiful eyes God gave ya."

Doing this job gave me a little summer color and got me in better shape which was nice. I've been exercising every evening since. Maybe out of boredom and feeling a little stir crazy at home already, I dunno.

Today I applied for a job at Maverik and talked to a woman on the phone who said the boss wasn't going to be around until Tuesday but she will leave a sticky note on it to definitely give me a call because I sounded nice and they were still running interviews... Yay! They're looking for evening shift cashiers which is perfect for me-- I function the best at night, it'll keep me out of trouble, and will enable me to sleep in late if I want to cuddle with Marshall.

In other news, I finally got my new glasses. My Mom picked them up for me in Ellensburg when she had to go back to check out my apartment. I honestly dodged such a bullet there, those people that inspect the apartment are humongous assholes looking for any tiny thing to charge you for on your way out. Blegh. My mom is awesome.

Alright it's almost 10 pm, about my workout time. I've been really getting back into guitar since I arrived home. That's what I've been spending most of my freetime on lately. I'm sure that'll continue once I have a job. I've decided I'm not going to take a summer class and just take it online next winter. I could really use a break and for some reason my computer will NOT let me access the class on Canvas or Blackboard.

peace. 

Annoying log-in problems has made posting difficult.

Okay, I was finally able to merge my gmail accounts so that I can log in to my blog using my primary address. For some reason I'd still had it set to my hotmail account and couldn't remember the password. Anyway, you'll be seeing more posts from me from here on out. Finally.

Today is June 17th. The last week of school was incredibly stressful and moving back home was crazy. Joel and I ended on a rather shitty note and I'm just happy to be back home, even if in less than 24 hours I've successfully made both of my parents really mad at me.

Before I tell you guys why I'll talk a little about my last week of school.

The forecasting project that I thought I was more than ready for turned out to be the total pits. I can't tell you how many hours I spent trying to finish that thing. It was so frustrating because it didn't have to be that way if I had just picked a more predictable dataset in the first place. I originally tried forecasting propane sales by using this weekly data that had over a thousand observations and no obvious seasonality. I'd done about half of the project when Wassell told me the data needed to be seasonally adjusted before I could model it. The adjustment didn't help me and I decided to switch datasets altogether.

What made having to redo the project twice even harder was that Joel was already finished with his project and was able to study for the ETS exam with Logan the econ tutor that night. Joel ended up getting in the 96th percentile, which is fantastic. I got in the 86th which is better than I'd expected. If you look at the distribution curve on this exam there are more people in the 50th-60th range so I did better than 86% of other college econ kids across the country which I felt quite accomplished with.

Seeing that test score made me feel more confident in having made the right decision to be an economics major. It really proves that I learned a lot about business, the economy and scarcity instead of just regurgitated information for tests.

That night after my last exam I went out with my neighbors Gabby and Een for Een's birthday. He hadn't been out to the Ellensburg bars before so we tried to pick the best bars to avoid making him feel awkward (no 301, ha ha). We went to the Tav, Starlight and Shooters. We shared a pitcher at the Tav but the rest of the night I was drinking tequila, mainly because my mind was completely zonked after staying up all night to study for the ETS and tequila makes me feel awake and fun (ha ha). 

Going to the Shooters was the last time I saw Joel. He was surrounded by a couple trashy looking girls and I just stepped right between them and started talking. The girls kind of gave me a look and I just laughed in their face. Right, like your skinny ass in that tiny dress when it's 50 degrees outside and windy deserves my respect? Joel looked drunk but I offered to buy him a drink so I could close my tab. 

When I asked the bartender for a tequila+lemonade and a rum+diet he looked at Joel and was like, "It's not for him, is it?" I didn't say anything because I knew Joel had probably been ordering them all night and if I was smart should have ordered something else (or nothing for him at all). The bartender then looked at Joel, pointed at the door and said "Get out." and Joel starts arguing and asking why. The bartender just kept saying, "I don't need to tell you why. Get out." It was kind of embarrassing. I mean guys get kicked out of bars all the time but he always seems to go overboard. 

We didn't talk after that night. I'd tried to get ahold of him multiple times to see him one last time before I left but he ignored me completely. It made leaving Ellensburg a lot easier. I hate goodbyes in general so maybe it was better we ended this way.

So now I am home! Kind of feeling like a guest here because everything has changed so much, including no longer having my bedroom. I am under a lot of pressure to find a job, and I managed to get a four day gig working cherries for the Edwards but my first day I f*ed up big time. My stupid phone was on silent this morning so I didn't hear my alarm and didn't make it at 4 am like I should have. I lucked out because they didn't work today because of the rain but my parents were both humiliated and extremely mad that I would be so irresponsible. I don't blame them. 

I'm just hoping I can work hard and get back into the groove of things so I don't get yelled at like this every day.. it sucks

peace. 

This week wore me out

Evening to anyone out there reading, it's Saturday June 7th. 

This is the first weekend I've had in awhile that I'm not doing anything and it sucks. But then again that's because the last few weekends I've spent hanging out with Joel so it's probably good that we have a break and he does his own thing tonight. 

Last Wednesday, Matt, Joel and I got together to study, originally having planned to work on forecasting in the library at 5. I went there and worked on the retail project for hours before they showed up. We had our econ midterm the next day and were all feeling the pressure so I was surprised when they weren't there until about 8:30. 

That evening Joel seemed really distant. When we saw eachother we didn't touch or kiss at all. In fact we didn't until he put his hand on my leg in the car and said I was going to do fine on the test I was so nervous about. We then kissed passionately when I dropped him off at home so I felt okay. 

Thursday was test day and that morning I went to Shaw an hour and a half early to finish up. I hadn't taken my Prozac in two days and was taking Wellbutrin instead until I got the refill so I was feeling really on-edge. I sat down with that guy Kyle F. that I thought was cute at the beginning of the quarter who I'd noticed was studying that morning too. 

When I'm desperately trying to cram information into my head I don't like chit chatting. Usually the morning before a test I'll be wearing earplugs just to fully focus on what I need to remember instead of getting distracted by ambient sound or other people's conversations. When we were sitting there Kyle kept on talking, like reading to himself and every so often going "Oooh! Did you know that [insert random fact from the questions he's working on while I have earplugs in and am trying to study my own shit]..?" And I'd pull my earplug and be like "What?...oh yeah sure, whatever.." I was in the zone, I didn't want to be bugged. 

Joel walked up and sat with us at about 8:30 and they started talking and talking. I felt myself having to re-read things over and over so at one point I pretty nervously said to Kyle: "Hey, I'm sorry I get distracted really easily, can you not like... read aloud to yourself?" and Joel turns and says, "Uhh translation shut the hell up.."

Kyle just grinned at me like "Well that's you, I'm going to do whatever the Hell I want. What you want me to leave?" I'm sure my eyes got really wide and I'm like, "No..? I didn't mean you had to stop talking entirely I just meant when you read to yourself it's kind of hard to focus..." and then there was this long, awkward silence. I felt like such a dork for saying anything.

I guess maybe to get my mind off them I reached into my backpack and grabbed a bag of popcorn, set it on the table and ate a couple pieces. Joel looks at me and says impersonating me, "Uhm Emily I get distracted really easily and when you're eating that popcorn it's making it really hard for me to focus." Kyle's like "Nice." Again making me feel like a complete dork. I ended up leaving early to go get coffee. 

So yeah it wasn't a great morning before the test but I did get a lot of studying done. I think I did alright on the test itself, it's really hard to tell because it was hard. We have the ETS exam next Thursday that I know I'll be doing a ton of studying for this week.

Yesterday aside from going to Carbaugh's class to get information about the test I didn't do much. I slept a lot, played guitar and worked out in the evening. Today I slept in really late and did a ton of art. I think my body is just trying to recharge from how hard I've had to work this last week.

Anyway this next week is the final stride. Just have to do my forecasting project and the ETS exam. I'm hoping Joel and I continue to spend time together regardless of acting kind of weird and distant from eachother in the past few days. 

peace. 

Last regular week, I can barely believe it.

Evening everyone, it's 10:52 pm, last Tuesday of the last week of regular class this quarter.

Next week of course is finals week but because I won't have class while I'm studying for the ETS exam and doing my forecasting project, this week feels like the last. I've written out my plan of action to finish this quarter strong and I'm feeling confident in my ability to do so if I stay strong and don't let burnout take control.

That shouldn't be a problem this quarter. Regardless of the fact that I've worked extremely hard, these past few weeks have been probably more fun than what I'd normally be having in the summer. Hanging out with  Joel and his friends has made schoolwork and my weekends much more enjoyable. I still like him as much as when we started hanging out but I really have to continually remind myself that it's temporary.

This isn't even something I have to worry about when I'm sober, either... When I'm sober our "relationship" is clear-- That he's not my boyfriend, we're just spending time together in college (thus should not try to hold hands in public, etc) and there's probably little to no chance we'll see eachother this summer, if ever again. But when I've been drinking and we're hanging out for hours and hours on end things get kind of fuzzy.

Sunday night we'd both had a couple beers and met up at his place. The plan was to come back to my place and study. Honestly when I'd got to his house I was feeling pretty goofy, enough so to have got my yoga pants caught in my bike chain about four times on the way there. When we were walking back together through campus I grabbed his hand (which I figured was fine, considering we'd held hands before when we go out but then again he was probably drunk...) and he sort of shook it off. Like, 'no, not cool.'

We walked back together most of the way but when we got to Brooklane I kind of bolted ahead of him. Like I started speedwalking and he didn't keep up so I kept going. When we got back he thought I was mad at him. I think part of me was.

One morning I'd made a comment that my study habits have gotten worse "since we started dating.." and he said "I wouldn't say we're dating."

So there you go, nevermind. Apparently spending almost every day of the last three weeks together still wouldn't constitute as "dating." It's fine, I've still really enjoyed his company and will hopefully continue to until school is over. We work really well together and he's extremely complimentary of me so it's been nice having him around but we've obviously spent too much time together lately and I was starting to get the wrong ideas.


Today I did a solid 3 hours of econ studying for my midterm the day after tomorrow. I also had an AWESOME grocery shopping trip today. I was able to get all of this at Bargain market for only $46:

If I'm able to cook and eat as I have the past week-- innovative to run down my actual stock of food, this could be enough to last me until I move out. I'm not sure the exact date of that but I know I really need to start job hunting. I can't have another summer where I'm unemployed for the first four weeks of being back, that sucked last year. 

Man, I'd honestly love to go work on the farm this year. I know that's kind of fucked up to say with what happened to my Dad and never really getting an apology from Grandma about it but I need the money and me and Ty really don't have beef with eachother anymore. I mean trust me, I hate what Ty did to my Dad kicking him off the farm. Ty owns the farm completely now and it would be really hard for me to deal if he got mad and started yelling at me or something... Though somehow I couldn't picture him doing that if my Dad wasn't around to rile him up. 

I'm going to message my aunt and see if Graham's planning on working this summer.

peace.