DAMN Steve Jobs was a hottie.

I finally finished the 3 hour documentary "Revenge of the Nerds" about the computer revolution that we were supposed to have watched in it's entirety by the 8th (not that I'm sure more than half my class hadn't also completed it considering there hasn't been an assignment due yet). I made sure to take really good notes on the 1995 film because there were going to be test questions about it and it's going to be "open note." It was a really interesting 3 part documentary... it's unbelievable how much Steve Jobs and Bill Gates along with many, many other "computer nerds" that emerged from the 1970's hippie movement have impacted the world we live in today.

Steve Jobs was like this sexy, brilliant, charismatic force determined to change the world even if he had to steal other companies ideas to make his own product work. His manipulative skills were so strong he was able to hire a Pepsi CEO to run his company while he was busy directing his engineers mercilessly. This merciless behavior ended up being his downfall when his own CEO and board of directors selected by Jobs turned against him and kicked him out of the company in the late 80's.

Then you have the young Bill Gates that was hired by the huge leading industry IBM. He was determined himself but didn't put nearly as much pressure on his fellow engineers at Microsoft.

The contrast between the two is kind of funny. But it was because of both of their determination and brilliance that computers are where they are today. Oh yeah, and the Xerox company who both Gates and Jobs stole the graphical interface idea from.... Yeah, the Xerox copy company could have been the hugest company in the world had they been more experienced in actual computer development.

When I heard Steve Jobs died I wondered what the big deal was. Now I know. He was the Apple corporation's heart and soul and developed the first version of the user-friendly graphic interface that we're all used to today. Of course Gates wasn't far behind making his own graphic interface on top of the clunky, hard to use "DOS" software of the late 80's. Their competition and unwillingness to give up on something was what drove the fast, incredible innovation of the PC in the past 30 years.

Okay nobody cares, lol.



It's 8:15 pm. I've been up working since about 3 pm. The day started late because Marshall drove me into complete panic when he didn't show up at my window this morning to be let back in. Let me back up...

 

Marshall, my baby, bless his little adventurous soul... had gotten really bored living here the past week. To the point that he was meowing at me at late hours of the night wanting to be let out but very shortly after I'd let him out he'd want to come back in because of the snow or insecurity about his environment. Like I'd let him out my bedroom window, he'd wander off for 15 minutes, and be back meowing to be let back in. So this just became the norm.

Last night my parents came to town and delivered me some nice new furniture for my living room-- including a futon that my Dad had disassembled to get down the stairs and this heavy ass mattress with an ugly pattern that I'd ordered online. Luckily my Mom, being the decorating genius she is, had already made pillows and a seat cover for my round chair and found a brand new futon cover at Goodwill for like $6 when they're normally QUITE expensive. I just lucked out, I really like my new living room and Travis is coming tomorrow and won't have to sleep on my twin sized bed.

Last night I read my finance chapter which I don't think I would have accomplished at my computer desk. The temptation to mess around online is just too much for me to get any reading done. At around 1 am when I finished reading I headed to bed and Marshall wanted to go outside so I let him out. I had put in earplugs assuming he was gonna immediately want to come back in and whine like always but he didn't.

I kept waking up throughout the night wondering where Marshall was. Like I'd sleep for 2 hours, have weird dreams, wake up, call for Marshall, go back to sleep.... This went on until about 9 am when I started getting worried. I got up and got dressed in my robe and sweats and went out to the icey back porch to call for him. When that didn't work I decided to search around my neighborhood a little bit and BAM! I slipped on the ice and biffed it on the pavement, really hurting my knee.That didn't stop me from getting up and looking for awhile. After calling "Marshall!" up and down the sidewalk for a little while, I went home, sad, and went back to bed. I called my Mom and she said not to worry.

I got out of bed at around 11 to search again. Nowhere to be found. I changed my cover photo and captioned it that he'd ran away again and I was panicked as hell. Kelly E. commented it pretty much relating to my feelings, she lovesss cats like I do and told me to keep her posted.

At around 3:00 I once again took to the streets to search for him, this time deciding to go door to door and ask if anyone has seen him. The first house I went to was a little old lady who lived next door. When she answered I asked her if she had seen a black tuxedo cat or one had tried to get in her house last night (something Marshall was known to do at the last apartment complex I lived at) and she said no. Low-and-behold, during this discussion I look down and see Marshall running toward our feet and sniffing this old lady like he wanted to go in her house. I was like "OMG that's him!!" and we both laughed really hard at the fact that Marshall was basically acting like he would go into her house if he had the chance.

I picked him up, relieved, but also frustrated that I'd wasted most of my day stressing out about him. He's done this crap before but since it was the first time it happened at this house with the busy road in front of us I couldn't help but be very concerned that something awful had happened. Nope. Just Marshall nonsense.

Alright guys I'm gonna go do some art.

peace.

There has to be a better future being created here.

Helllllloooo....

Today is the 12th of January, this month has been flying by already but I've been keeping on top of my schoolwork and stuff I need to do really well for the most part. Aside from applying for internships. However I didn't have much of a gameplan until now but I'm now thinking of goals to set in place to start the application process.

First of all, Katharine sent me a bunch of her old cover letters and applications. I'm going to use those as well as advice on Tenerelli's page to figure out how to write a good one. I'm also going to need to demonstrate my ability somehow, and I believe the best way to do this is make some spreadsheets using Excel and R.

I remember using R studio to a degree. My problem is going to be finding company data. Should I attempt to forecast stock value or future profits based on how much a company is taxed? I'm going to have to dig back into my assignments from Wassell's class and that website to remember how to do this. I think if I make a decent portfolio of my abilities I learned in economics and finance classes I'll have a good shot at something. Katharine is right when she says I need to apply for everything and here I've still applied for nothing. 

You guys will never believe how much more efficient my time has become since I stopped smoking like a fiend. I no longer have the anxiety to sit down and do things. The material I'm reading seems way more understandable and I'm able to comprehend it the FIRST time around, saving me hours of wasted time. I'm so glad I quit smoking, so glad. 

And I want this blog entry to be a reminder for myself in the future next time I want to pick up that habit. Part of me is afraid of the potential to fall back into it after I get my anti-anxiety medication but I think after all this positive re-enforcement and what is likely to come in the next couple weeks I won't ever be taking those horrible gravity hits again, especially not on a regular basis.

When I talked to my mom on the phone earlier I talked a lot about regretting the past. Regretting the time I could have spent really taking in the material. She just told me that I did the best I could, I'm definitely not the first person to have gone through college stoned,  and that I still have these next 6 months to make major change in my life to prepare for... well.... Life.

I'm 23. Do I know exactly what career I want to have? No. But am I confident about my intelligence and ability to work hard in the future? Yes.

I just keep thinking of how badly I want my anti-anxiety medication too. It sucks having had it for 18 days and then abruptly cut off when it was helping me quit but if they had never cut me off I might have never quit at all.


Okay this is all I've been talking about lately so I'm going to talk about something else. 

I watched Bob's Burgers this morning. I wish they'd upload the new season.

Since I've quit drugs I've stopped watching as many TV shows about hard drugs, the ones that were probably making me feel less guilty for the way I was living.

Marshall Marshall Marshall. He finally hit his breaking point of having to go outside last night. Luckily I had slept a great deal on Sunday because my ass was hungover so NOT sleeping last night was not detrimental. However annoying he can be at times. He was squeeling at me at around midnight and I tried to feed him, pet him, gave him some catnip, etc... but nothing was shutting him up. He would stop for like 15 minutes then start again.

At around 2 am I finally just got up, put on my sweats and a robe and took him outside. There was snow on the ground but he was more than happy to run around in circles and under the deck sniffing everything. I stood out there for about 10 min before I nervously got him back inside. Once he was back in he was meowing at the top of his lungs again so I just had to let him do his thing. Thankfully I was able to let him back in this morning safe and sound. He seems a lot more relaxed now that he's getting a chance to roam around more.

He still hasn't interacted much with my roommate's fluffy cat Kiki though. That'll be funny to see when they start playing.

Night guys.

peace.

Spent all day sleeping in this cave.....

What's up Gringos?

Today has been.... oh man, incredibly unproductive, no motivation to to sh*t. Likely because I got super drunk with my roommate last night on that big thing of Svedka my dad purchased me the other day and think I blacked out for the first time. Like I didn't remember saying goodnight or anything. What's weirder is that I woke up with a blanket on half naked! Which is course scared the hell out of me, like "What the hell did I do last night?" My shorts and underwear were thrown across the floor because it appeared I had spilt water all over myself. Of course I texted Veronica this morning kind of freaked out thinking, "Good freaking god please don't say I did this before you went to bed..."

Luckily no, thank God. She just put the blanket on me when I fell asleep and went to bed. I probably had woke up to drink the water, spilt it, took off my shorts when I was under the blanket, and went back to sleep. Still though. Holy cow. I think I had a lot of social anxiety hanging out with my roommate for the first time which is what led me to taking many-a-shot with orange juice. Veronica is totally cool though, she said not to worry about it, lol. I'm hoping at least she got a buzz and had some fun.

I remember being pretty blunt talking about my pot addiction and how hard it's been to quit. That's probably another reason I really wanted to get drunk last night, it was an "itchy" day for me because I had gotten everything I needed to done and I was really bored. Obviously alcohol is something I don't need to be making a habit of either but hey, what I did on a Saturday night is over and now I've got a whole week of being productive and cognitive at school this upcoming week. I'm excited to be able to learn and remember more the first time I hear it.

Uhm, god let's see anything else... I mean like I said today was completely useless. I had my head in a bowl first thing this morning. My limbs were twitching out and I'm pretty sure I slammed my head on something last night because I woke up with something that appears to becoming a bruise. Yea I was bad.

Did I tell you guys the other day my Dad came up and really helped me out? He took my entire stash with him in a safe, essentially preventing me from smoking entirely.. aside from this tiny bag of scrap I know is floating around here somewhere from the move that I might as well throw away but for some reason don't want to. Like it's on an "emergency needed" basis if I have a major panic attack at school or something. I don't see that happening anytime soon though, for the most part I've been happy since I moved here.

I just need to think whenever I want to smoke how much of a better person I feel now that I'm not doing this anymore. And really how much more productive I've become. I feel I have more motivation to keep a clean environment than I had before. Granted it's not perfect yet in here. I've still been trying to find a place for everything so I can post some pics online. Better do that this week.

Watching an Anna Nicole documentary might've triggered thoughts of dead blonde bimbos. 

Getting drunk sometimes gives me crazy, vivid and sometimes frightening dreams but I've never had one as bad as this.

Last night I had morbid dreams about death and killing. In my dream I remember confiding in someone my desire to stab and choke my nemesis in highschool then later had flashes of a man in an eye-less skii mask ripping apart her flesh with piano wire and just standing there not doing anything to help her like I didn't care. There was caked blood all over her blonde hair like she'd been stabbed. I had no idea my sub-conscious could carry such horrific, gruesome images. When I woke up I started puking again and didn't want to do anything today. It honestly kind of scared myself. 

I just think my brain was dealing with this pot detox, plus my anti-depressants, then throw a bunch of Svedka on top and you've got a good recipe for the perfect night terror. I mean I'm sure deep down I still hate that bitch but I'd never kill anyone or order someone to be killed. Freaky.

peace. 

Day 1. God, Here I go...

I'm quitting. For at least 30 days, starting now, this evening.

As I sit here on the couch at home in Benton city after driving all the way back from Ellensburg for my appointment I'm filled with regret. Regret that I tried to cheat the system to get my prescription that I intended to use to help me quit. I thought I could get away with using my friend's pee for a urine test but the hospital cups actually have heat sensory now.. And even if her pee did show up clean for marijuana they still wouldn't have prescribed it to me because it was full of cocaine!

Of course hearing this I had to tell my doctor it wasn't mine, the last thing I want him to think is that I'm actually addicted to stimulants.

My parents are here, I've gotta go. Basically today revolved around getting here for the appointment so I have nothing more to say but I will say I'm determined and ready to try college with a sober mind for the first time. My Dad is giving me a safe where I'm going to lock up all my pot and paraphernalia  when I get back to my apartment. It's time to actually do this so I can get my anti-anxiety medication again.

peace. 

I told you I'd get back to you.

Hello again. It's been a long few days.

On January 1st, the last night I had to spend with Travis, I got quite drunk. And I don't mean "Talking loud, wanting to watch something stupid on TV, semi-functional drunk..." I was full on wasted, like could barely get out of my bed and across my messy room and up the stairs to go to the bathroom because my legs were so floppy and uncoordinated. The next morning I figured I'd be doing some light packing but not the majority of it but come to find out at 10 am the next morning my mom had other plans.

I mean in retrospect, thank God we started packing on the 2nd because my mom and I spent until about 3 pm packing on the 3rd which was supposed to just be unloading day according to her. The actual unloading into the house was a bit of a struggle because of this strange stairway that leads to the basement, but it's so pretty down here I can barely complain. I'm still waiting to be completely done unpacking before I do a great unveil on here and facebook.

Being at this new place of my own I have so much new energy. Because I have a ton of storage my life is once again clutter free and I feel so much more happy and relaxed. Having my own supply of food, knowing where everything is and not having to fight with my family's (primarily Dad's) mass amount of clutter and crap that would flood into that basement on a regular basis.

It makes me happy because it makes me realize there's really nothing wrong with me in regards to organization and keeping my environment clean. It's just when I'm in an environment where I feel like other people's interference is making it to hard to handle I crack and do nothing. Allow it to become a mess, not give a shit and look forward to the next time I'm leaving. Isn't that sad? Makes me glad as F*ck I don't have a husband or kid to take care of.

Uhm.

OH. My sister got engaged to Jimmy last month! Ha ha, like nobody predicted that one. Still I'm very happy to see she'll be marrying the man she loves. They've got such a stable relationship and life, I feel safe with Jimmy. I feel like he's not someone that would ever cheat or have major problems that would complicate or even be detrimental to my sister's self-worth.

According to my Dad, Avery has hardly any plans of going to college anytime soon. Which is understandable considering she's pretty much a master at her trade-- coffee making. And she's known virtually all over the tri cities because of her regular customers that always yell "Avery! Avery!" when they see her places. She's like made her own fanbase.

Another great thing about Roasters is that they're a sole proprietorship now but they've expanded very significantly in the area since openning. If they were to ever switch to being a publicly traded entity my sister would undoubtedly get the best stock options for her and Jimmy's loyalty to the company.

Okay that's it for now. School starts tomorrow and I'm really, really pumped up for it. Gonna work out a little, maybe do a tiny bit more art, then go to bed.. I actually got up at a decent hour this morning because I was expecting to have a Dr.'s appointment but it was cancelled because Zirk was sick. Poor guy. It's cool, I'm looking forward to getting a chance to talk to him tomorrow, get three months prescription and finally make the necessary steps to cut back my smoking dramatically for school. It was pretty impossible when I didn't have the resources to do it before because the meds I needed were for some reason unavailable for the past two weeks. Whatever.

Get it all squared tomorrow and have them transfer the prescription up here to Rite Aid. I'm not worried about much because my Dad dropped a few hundred in my account today and I have all the food I'll need for at least a week and a half for only $100. Thanks Bargain Market. God, another thing I missed. Even if they sometimes don't have everything they have a sh*t ton of good stuff, cheap. 

Like today I scored 4 pomagranites for $5. Okay you don't care, lol, bye.

peace.

I've returned from a blogging hiatus. Last horror story from 2014.

Every so often I do this, where blogging at some point feels like a chore and doesn't feel like a privilege to me again until I've taken some time away from it. A month and 10 days was very sufficient for me.

I've had some interesting challenges the last month. First of all my accounting final of course. I studied for hours and hours days ahead of time for that thing. I really busted ass to make sure my bases were covered and I was adequately prepared for the test. Had I gone in at the right time I'm sure I would have pulled a B on that test which would have bumped my grade above a C+. But my Dad pretty much sabotaged me.

The day of the final I'd spent all morning preparing but I still wanted more time to study in the car. Ironically I'd actually asked one of my best friend's Dad, Brian, to drive me because I knew he'd be super reliable. I also asked another best friend, Brad. Both of them agreed. You see I'd been studying *ALL* night the previous night, which to some seems crazy, but I was so determined to do well on that test my adrenaline wouldn't have allowed me to sleep.

Oh but low-and-behold, that night actually offered to give me a ride and felt insulted that I'd ask other people... I agreed.

We left the house in his stupid new Hyundai at 4 pm people, my test wasn't until 8 pm. I spent literally every second in that car with my earplugs in studying, or dealing with my Dad lecturing me or screaming at me for God knows what reason. Just existing more or less. He offered to get us dinner and I told him we could get something quick at Shari's in Yakima which might help me relax.

My phone had been off for about a week. By this time I'd just let it die. My Dad's car's time was wrong because he'd just bought it and insisted we had "plenty" of time. I had no phone to double check. Of course after dinner we had to go to fucking Value village and he was in there for more than an hour looking at bullshit garbage like always. He's always gotta have his agenda and my final was the last thing on his mind right then.

We didn't pull into the Ellensburg exit until about a quarter til. I was struggling to direct my Dad to this building where I'd never had a class before but had the two exams for this class. We ended up pretty much circling the building before I just gave up and had him drive us through the Surc parking lot and toward Bouillon until I found it. Of course in the meantime he's screaming. And I mean just yelling in my ear about how much of a stupid sack of crap I am for not having a sense of direction and how all of my problems would be completely preventable if I would just "get my head out of my ass because you're just like your mother." My mom has more talent, heart and stability than he'll ever have.

So there I was, in the car at 8:05 pm. I was scrambling my things together and trying to get my composure together. When I went into the building the door leading to the testing room I needed to be in was LOCKED. The professor had probably opened it to the students at 7:55 pm and went back to his desk to distribute the tests. So there I was frantically running around the building trying to get someone to open the door for me to get to the classroom because my Dad had to get me there on the MINUTE.

You can imagine how much regret I was feeling in my heart at this point. In my mind among the panic of trying to find ANYONE in that empty building to get me to the classroom all these thoughts were going through my head:  How could I be so stupid as to let my idiot father who has no regard for other people's time schedules take me to this test? Why did I not just get a ride with Brad? Will I even make it into this test?

I wasted 40 minutes of the two hours of testing time double checking to see that the room number hadn't changed and finally found a professor in her office that showed me how to get through this weird back staircase that led to a little back corridor where the rooms where (wtf is this, Hogwarts?). After all that studying to run into the test 40 minutes late and not even have the significant time to set up the accounting models was the biggest slap in the face, terrible thing that'd happened to me since college started. I felt absolutely robbed.

Of course I didn't finish the test. I pulled a C+ on it ironically and it didn't harm my grade at least. But that was after having to deal with the panic and anger for the following days wondering how I did and the complete mental breakdown I had that night.

The drive home was almost dead silent. Initially when I got in the car I cried and yelled at him for getting me there so late but he immediately turned it on me saying if I knew where the hell I was going this wouldn't be an issue. Seeing my sadness and feeling uncomfortable had it been his fault he immediately started popping off reasons this was my fault. Feeling like complete garbage I just agreed, yelling things along the lines of "Fuck  I'm so stupid and worthless I deserve to die!!" and "What is my fucking problem, this is all my fault!! I'm such a loser!!" and screaming, moaning in agony. Finally this made my Dad stop blaming me and start to feel bad himself and pretty much begged me to stop crying. I did, holding in my anger or any conversation with him until we got home.

But I couldn't withhold my anger when I got in the door and saw my mom sitting at the computer. I immediately started explaining in anger and disdain what I'd just witnessed. In shock and horror I told her how I didn't know how after pretty much having to push my Dad out the door at 4 pm that he wasn't able to get least get me there by 7:30. I felt like shit about my grades, my internship that I plan to apply for, and my academic career in general. Telling you this story right now is bringing up a lot of those emotions.

Since then things have for the most part gone back to normal, being Christmas break and all that... pretty stress free rest of the month. It wasn't hard for me to forgive my Dad because I knew this was just his typical bullshit inability to see outside the box and I really shouldn't have trusted him to get me there in the first place. It's a lesson learned. I feel endangered when I'm in the car with him anywhere because he drives like a lunatic and goes 80 mph everywhere. Never again.

So my Dad can't blame me for not getting an accounting major. He might've been the one to try to push me into it and I originally thought it was a great idea until you sabotaged it by pushing me into that situation. I'm just fine with my economics degree with a business minor. I'll also put "with working accounting background using Excel" or something like that if anyone asks. That cost accounting class did teach me a lot. It wasn't a complete waste.

Now I've got to focus on applying to this internship at PNNL. I should probably do that tomorrow because the moving chaos starts. I'm moving out on the 4th-- Sunday, then have a doctor's appointment to come back for on Monday when I'll pick up Marshall. Classes start on Tuesday.

These past couple weeks I had a lot of nightmares about not being prepared for school, most of which taking place in classrooms where I'm not prepared for presentations or tests  or I'm at some weird desolate apartment building somewhere feeling very lonely.

But these past couple days as I was very proactive about searching for a place to live with a nice roommate (I believe I found one!) and packing away some of my extra stuff these nightmares have gone away. I mean I've still got a lot on my mind. Like obviously about 3 nights a week for the past few months I've spent with Travis so not having that person there is going to kind of suck. Luckily I've got Marshall and hopefully will get in contact with a Dad's friend of mine to work back home on the weekends. We'll see. 

So here's to a fresh start and a new quarter. These are my last six months at Central. It's time to experience a more clean, productive, social college experience because this could very well be my last change. I've got friends there that are already looking forward to seeing me like Gabby and Allie, and I'm really looking forward to meeting my new roommate. She looks like someone who enjoys art, anime and/or Japanese language/culture-- if not all 3. 

Alright that'll be it for tonight folks. See ya. 

No seriously, I'll be back. 

peace.