Tea girl, you inspire me.

Evening everyone. 

I got a toaster. It's red, $7 at Wal Mart. I bought a bunch of stuff today. Useful stuff that I look forward to using such as some moisturizer for combination skin, Neutrogena grapefruit wash, some boring bodywash that took FOREVER to pick out.

This is what I ended up picking. It smells okay, I'm kind of wishing I would have gone with something sweeter though. I really wanted the smell of pine. It sucks, they don't make pine smelling bodywash! I really love that smell, my mom has this handsoap in the kitchen that smells like it and I adore the smell it leaves on my hands so I decided while walking around in Wal Mart today... "HEY! I want to wear pine body wash. Wait, there is none." 

I was probably meandering around those aisles for 40 minutes before I found all the random junk I realized I needed. Happy I did though. I also got a few school supplies, whatever. I've been picking up things at Rite Aid lately, remembering things I'd need. It's funny, Wal Mart is a lot better about product placement, they really remind you of all the things you'll need versus the little dinky, overpriced sections at Rite Aid. Usually I'll just shop their out of convenience. I'm sooo happy my sister is getting groceries, I'll be able to pack a lunch tomorrow morning. 

10 More Shifts

I think I need to start packing a lunch from now on in general. The food that I buy at Rite Aid isn't good for me at all, typically. Sometimes I'll buy disgusting bags of spanish rice that you cook in the microwave. Everything is too high in sodium and long shelf life like that. God, I need to stop buying stuff, today was the last day I swear to God. Usually I'll also buy fruit or something but today I was in a rush because I'd bought shampoo and conditioner and wanted to get to the break room to text. Texting after dealing with all these people at Rite Aid is nice... 

My job gets old but as I've said before I'm making the most of it. Sometimes at work I think about the "Tea Girl." 

In North Korea one of the highest job titles is to be a tour guide to foreigners that come into the hermit country. The "Tea Girl" is a very pretty North Korean girl that works in a tea shop under the communist regime. The economy in Korea is dead, and goes there to work every day for one visitor every 10 months. You'd have to watch the documentary to understand this, I really encourage you to. 

This is the "Tea Girl" from the documentary by Vice that has caused a lot of comment "thumb ups" on youtube. She's struck a lot of people as both enchanting and well... sad, we all feel extremely sad for her circumstances, and all these other poor, innocent people under the communist regime in North Korea.

I could go on about the regime all day. That's not my point. 

Why she inspires me.

Because my job is extremely tedious. You're stuck all day doing and saying the same damn things under the corporate eye. Nobody is really in charge. This is sort of like North Korea. The Rite Aid (and Wal Mart, for that matter) corporate machine is parallel to the North Korean communist regime when you're working for them. You have to follow a certain protocol, act a certain way, wear a certain thing... it's all atrociously boring. 

So when I'm at my boring job and feel my knees ache or my stomach growl, I think of the tea girl, stand a little straighter, put on my Noh mask, and deal with these people as professionally as I possibly can. Of course she doesn't even get the luxury of customers. It is complete pointless boredom. 

S'okay. Not gonna have to do this again, 10 more shifts. 

4 sunday shifts, 6 hours each.

3 saturday shifts, 6 hours each. 

3 thursday shifts, 6 hours each. 

I'm not going to add up those numbers because it'll distort the truth, I've only got three weeks left! Three weeks until I move! Yahoo, things are getting really interesting. I texted Kristin today about buying the toaster and she said she's got a futon and end table that she's bringing for the front room. I feel like I should provide a chair of some kind then. I'm going to need chairs for my business. 

Deal with it later.

peace. 

Working out feels pretty good, it's a nice way to finish off the day. I'm planning to go to bed here pretty soon, there's nothing else to do today.

Lessons went well, that was the end of week 11. It's hard to believe, it doesn't seem that long ago that I started getting lessons from him but it's already been eleven weeks. This week I'm going to be really focusing in on "To Tame a Land." He told me to break away from picking exercises and stuff like that for the most part and really work on the piece as well as technical exercises-- vibratos and hammer-ons/pull offs. I'm actually getting the hang of those now so that they sound much cleaner. This is going to be a good week. At the end of Week 12 my goal is to have something up on my youtube page. I want to feel ready enough with To Tame a Land, even if it's just the first couple minutes of it.

________________________________

Tomorrow I have work. Work sucks but I've got my job down to a science so it doesn't bother me anymore. I go, get stuff done, clock out. I don't want any catty, bitchy drama or any of them getting into my personal business. Nor do I want to go to this bowling party thing they are trying to coordinate. I really don't want to be a part of job merriment (hahaha). They're adults, I'm 20... that's so awkward.

In the break room I'll usually sit there with my shred neck and practicing picking exercises. This makes me feel more productive as well as meditative. Traci will sit there and laugh out loud really hysterically and I'll try and keep my head down. She's sitting over there reading a book and suddenly bursts out, "BAH HAHAHA." I'm like, "....gulp." tickticktick-tickticktick,  tickticktick-tickticktick. That shredneck doesn't make any actual noise, it's just a warmup device. It really does the job but I need to install some new strings on it because it sort of hurts my fingers using it. 


Wow, hard to believe June is coming to a close already. I barely even feel like it's summer, with the weather we've been having it feels more like a warm April. There's been these random storms that keep popping up out of nowhere. 


This routine is getting pretty mundane. It sort of reminds me of middle school summers again, but instead of on Neopets or Gaiaonline I'm practicing my instrument. Still, same concept. It's summer, people are out doing stuff, I'm in my room in front of a computer screen. 


Nothing more to say. I hope to hang out with Samantha one of these days. I'm happy because I'm getting paid so I'll finally have a little money in my account to go have some fun without stress. I'm sad that I missed the renaissance fair. Actually, I missed a lot of summer things that I normally check out. Having these expenses at the beginning of summer for me sort of hit me like that. Luckily, I'll be going to California soon and getting that time out of here is WAAAAY past due.

Also, did I mention that I'm going to LA? I am going to make a point to visit Katharine when we go to California, maybe it'll be on the way out, I don't know.. I'd really like a chance to see the city with her. I hope I won't be exhausted as Hell by then.


peace. 

Finally done with CBC, yessss,

Sorry about my negative attitude yesterday. Guess I was just stressed out and sad.

I'm feeling a lot better today though because I'm DONE with CBC! Officially done, I've got my AA and I'm well on my way out of here. I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm sure I got a 4.0 in Japanese, which could potentially push up my GPA a tiny bit further too.... OH WHAT THE HELL, there's a block on my transcript!! Damn it, damn it I thought I was done with your bullcrap CBC. I'll have to call my mom to call them and get things figured out because I've got work. She won't be happy about it but oh well, this is supposedly her job at Ki-Be is to help kids go to college, why can't she help me.

Graduation is tomorrow at 7. I'm going to meet up with Delaney R. at 5:30 and we have to be by the Zamboni entrance by 6:30. I have no idea where the zamboni entrance is but I'm sure we'll figure it out with hundreds of people waiting there. We're both honors so I assume we'll be sitting in the same section anyway.

I've got a couple more hours until work. The Japanese final was pretty easy so I have a little extra time. I'm extremely awake right now because I took caffiene and brokaid this morning for the first time this week. I hardly take Bronkaid anymore because I only really need it on Thursdays when I have school and then my closing shift. It creates a long day. Luckily today is freight day, which means I'll be pretty preoccupied. I'm wearing my blue t-shirt instead of the Rite aid polo, and if anyone has anything to say about it I'll gladly say that they need to tell Shelby the same thing. She wears a sparkly V-neck blue shirt to work.

Iconoclast, the CD I've been listening to practically nonstop all week. I can't believe how into progressive metal I've become, I hardly liked it when I first got into it...

Jacob got on my ass yesterday about something. He was sort of impressed by the work I'd been putting into Cemetary gates and To Tame a Land, but he was really irritated that I hadn't been using my amp. He asked if I had been using it and I said, "Eh.... no..." and he told me that I HAVE to use it when I practice electric. I figured this was true but I guess for a long time I was scared to use my amp because I was afraid of hearing myself suck.

That being said, from this day forth, whenever I practice my pieces I will always use an amp. Just using the guitar enables me to believe everything sounds perfectly clean. The second I turn on the amp though, there's about twenty other things I have to worry about... is it too loud? Is the gain high enough? How am I going to manage turning the gain down when I play that verse? Why the f*ck do I sound so muddy? But it's just going to be another thing I conquor with this. The ability to play with an amp is huge with the electric guitar, obviously, because how else are people going to hear me? Plus, once I get the amp settings on my baby amp down I'll be able to invest in a bigger amp and really start shredding.

I'm stoked for Jacob, though. I guess his lessons are almost completely full and he's got 14 new students since he got his own place. His "place" is essentially a small room with two chairs, his amp, his acoustic guitar, and a fan. That's it. But it totally serves it's purpose; he's probably making way more money than he has to pay to rent the place, and he doesn't have to deal with the lameasses at Music Unlimited. I'm wonderng if he's going to paint the place or keep it as is until he makes enough money to move again. Shouldn't even be too long, I think he said he was making $10,000 a month or something crazy like that. Someday I hope I can be as good as he is now and teach people myself. That's a lonnnnng way down the road though.

Here's this last week's practice minutes:

June 6, 170 min

June 7, 147 min

June 8, 242 min (when Skyler came over)

June 9, 164 min

June 10, 80 min (rest day)

June 11, 203 min

June 12, 175 min

Total: 1181 min

This week I am pretty much retiring the 2 string arpeggio packet (cutting it down to 10 minutes a week, and having it be the last priority). I told Jacob this and he disagreed, saying 3 string arpeggios are 6x as hard as the 2 string. I've played the hell out of those 2 string exercises though... I'll keep messing with them here and there for the next week but by next Wednesday I really hope I can get the 3-string packet. I'm replacing that time with a strum packet that I requested. I suck at strumming so I want to get better at those (even if it's something we previously skipped).

Why I'd stress strumming so much.... I don't want someone that just knows chords to have a 1 up on me because I'm not very good at them. I memorized all the basic chords and their names about a month ago and retired that packet but I realized when I was playing with my friend Dylan Nevard that I can't strum worth anything. It's a simple enough skill but it's always been hard for me to get that kind of rhythm.

It's almost 12:30... work starts in an hour and a half. I should stop writing now, lets hope work goes smoothly and quickly.

peace.

33.

みなさんおやすみ。

I'm just in my room right now. Have been for most of the day today. I did 100 leg lifts and some arm lifts because I ate a bunch of bad calories like cookie sandwiches and junk like that. Not usually something I'd eat, but because of today's sort of funky, isolated schedule I've been sorta bored.

Anyone who knows my life routine might be wondering why I was at home all day. Well, CBC was cancelled today. This was sort of a blessing to me because I wasn't particularily prepared for my accounting test this morning.

Last night was fun. The concert was supposed to start at 6' but Tyler picked me up at about 5' in his big rig. It was still snowing outside, and the roads are frozen over with a sheet of snow. Tyler's four-wheel drive green SUV didn't slide at all the entire way. He's lucky to have that thing, even if it probably burns through gasoline really quickly. I was sort of blazed when he came and got me, but I doubt he noticed much. We talked a little bit about school and other stuff going on in our lives right now. Not much changes. Sometimes we subtley flirt with eachother but anymore I don't think either of us have that same attraction toward eachother. Well, he never really liked me that much in the first place. At least he didn't in highschool, a little bit more as we got older though. For the most part, though, me and Tyler's relationship has consisted of being of us arguing, then randomly making out, maybe having a decent conversation here or there, and then arguing again. Yet somehow, four years later, we're now closer than we've ever been friendship wise.

Anyway, I expected Theory of a Deadman to suck but they actually didn't put on a bad show. Their song order was pretty bad though... Like, they got the crowd going with their first song, it was really fast and uptempo, and after everyone had waited like, I'm not even kidding, FORTY-FIVE minutes for them to start up after their openning bands, everyone was in a pretty pumped mood. If they would of played upbeat songs the whole time it would of been a lot better. But instead, they played two sloooow ass acoustic songs back to back and were never able to get that same energy. By the end of the show I was definately ready for it to be over. Actually to be honest by the third song I was ready for it to be over but at the same time I really wanted to have a good time so I sort of forced it. But overall, yes, had a pretty good time and jumped around with a bunch of pissed off drunk rednecks.

I didn't see ONE person I knew there. There was the typical 16 year old girl groups that show up to all of these things, but the actual fans of the band were guys that reminded me of Chad Vaughn. Guys that look like they have 10 year old kids. People weren't very riled up though because it was a Wednesday. weird day to have a concert.

The lead singer seemed sort of gay. No, I don't mean in the derogatory sense because I never say "oh that's gay." I mean in the sense that he probably catches gay. I at least got that vibe, which is so ironic because his music is supposed to be so testosterone-y and you know almost all of their diehard fans are straight, white men. This actually reminds me of Rammstein. Till's totally gay and Rammstein has the same audience here in America.

Omg, I cannot escape the random IMs on facebook and it's pissing me off. Sometimes I just don't want to talk but I leave my messanger on so I can talk to Samantha or something.

And of course my computer almost freezes up right there.

ugh.

peace.