There are certain people in your life that you meet and feel so lucky to have happened to cross paths with because they're the masters of what they do and are willing to take the time to teach you.
That's how I felt when I met Jacob, feeling desperate to learn the guitar and he had the tools to teach me how to do it. I spent a half an hour each week with him and he'd give me as much information as possible to practice and process the following week. After doing this for months and months I finally got to the point I was able to teach myself new songs and didn't really need lessons anymore. But those ten months or so that I did put my all into-- writing down and following every detail of the lesson, practicing three hours a day, not letting anything discourage me... is what got me to where I am today on the guitar.
...Another random person that inspires me, "Deelishis", not only because she has a bodacious a** but because of her amazingly confident personality in Flavor of Love (I've been watching that since it's leaked onto Youtube recently, nostalgia crack much?)
So I will of course be eternally grateful to Jacob for getting me over that intial "hump" that gave me the tools to teach myself. It makes me shudder to think of what might have happened if I hadn't been at that music store that day and met Jake in the first place. I could have ended up with another dead end instructor that had no idea what kind of motivation I needed. It's luck.
And in the same sense I feel this way about Ed. Back when I was 19 or so and had Math 96 with him I could see he was a good person and he could see that I was intelligent. After that class we of course lost touch but I added him on facebook. About a year ago he'd randomly came up on my news feed when I saw he had his first daughter (which led me to checking out his facebook to see that he'd fallen in love with a pretty girl about a year back, was still managing at some casino, etc..) and I messaged him to congratulate him.
Maybe that's been why he's been willing to take me on as a dealer at Lucky Bridge Casino. Because I absolutely suck. The other night Ed had me come over to his Dad's bar and help them out but having a *very* mediocre knowledge of the motions of the game and what winning hands are made it a very slow (and stressful) process. On top of that I had these really nice dudes that wanted me to chill out buying me drinks which I happily accepted and ended up getting too drunk to drive home until I threw up in the bathroom.* Beautiful.
So yeah. I've just been practicing poker online against the computer any chance I can. I've been working at Caesars a lot lately and started my accounting 305 class so I've been keeping pretty busy.
In other news my birthday is coming in three days. Two days in two hours. I get paid tomorrow so I'm considering planning a party but I've gotta figure out what my work schedule is for the next week. Having a party should really be at the bottom of my priority list when I've got so much at stake right now. Like tomorrow I've got my first accounting homework and quiz due at 9, I got invited to a birthday party at 4 pm and I might get asked to come in and job train more. I don't know. tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.
Wow, today was really great. I wrote down my goals and was able to accomplish all of them.. And had some unexpectedly good things happen during my errands.
First of all, this morning I practiced a solid hour of guitar, breaking the hour up into 3 segments instead of just boring myself to death playing Aerials all the time. Diversify my playing, I remember Jake stressing that.
Recently while tuning down to System's weird tuning I broke my high e string, that's always the first one to go. I bought two packets of strings today-- both of which are Slinky's but I've decided to move up slightly in string thickness to maybe provide more clarity. I need to get that stupid Tremelo removed from my Ibanez. It's sitting there collecting dust because I never play it anymore. Now that I have two batches of strings that would be a great project to restring both guitars but I don't want to bother with the frustrating tremelo on my ibanez. The thing that fucked up the tuning on my guitar for all of my recitals that I remember playing.
ANYWAY.. I went to the music store today at the Uptown and picked up strings, picks and an awesome Metallica tab book that will let me play a LOT of my favorites... Including FRANTIC! I could NOT believe Frantic was on that song list, it's an underrated song but I've loved it forever. It reminds me of racing my bike around campus to get to class....
Prayer tick tick tick tick tick tock, prayer tick tick tick tick tick tick tock...
In case any of you forgot what song this is:
MY LIFESTYLE, DETERMINES MY DEATH STYLE... RISING TIDES, THAT PUSHES TO THE OTHER SIDE...
Such a great song. Getting that book is going to be just the push I need to start practicing 3 hours a day again.
Okay what else.
My payday was two days ago so I deposited my check. A big ole whopping $167, ha ha. Granted my hours were really scarce two weeks ago, but since I've become faster at sheetouts and can really make a difference when I'm there Rita has started scheduling more hours at a very consistent time. I like that. When I went to the bank I took $20 out in $5's and checked my available balance to see if I'd managed to save something from my previous paycheck on August 21. Total of $189 in there, not too bad. I have some potentially lucrative opportunities coming up in the new future... maybe, I'll explain that later.....
YangHaiYing said something really eyeopening today when she said that it's important to go different places and window shop to find what you need. I took her advice when I found this pressure cooker after going to like 4 places.
The first place I checked was Rite Aid. It's fun going there because I always see at least one familiar face of the women I worked with. Tammy and Traci were running the tills when I went back to look i in their small appliance aisle for the pressure cooker. Nope. No surprise there. I actually checked there briefly after going to Goodwill to no avail. The only one there was broken and I asked a larger Grandma looking lady in the aisle if that was indeed a pressure cooker. She said "Yeah it is but it doesn't have the plug on top to vent it." I didn't want to risk spending $7.49 on a used piece of crap so I checked the next place.
When I went up to say hi to Tammy and Traci I was like "Oh you guys don't have what I'm looking for! I thought maybe you'd have this weird thing!" They actually told me that a pressure cooker is not that weird, people still use them and they work very well when my Dad had convinced me they were almost completely obsolete. I personally had certain.... "alternative" uses I wanted to experiment with that I'd seen in a YouTube video by a Canadian. It worked tremendously and haven't smoked all night. The tea tastes like Thai tea, oddly enough!
I did try looking at Fred Meyer. There are a lot of beautiful appliances and things there, especially huge coffee makers, oh my gosh they are lovely. Only one pressure cooker for sale, $69.99. I couldn't spend that much and left. While cutting through cosmetics I caught a glance at a clearance bin. Tanning lotion for HALF OFF... Like I got two for the price of 1 today on my favorite tanning lotion. That's nice because I was starting to run out. I think I'll use some tonight.
ANOTHER reason today was awesome is that Jonny C. said something profoundly nice to me that made me smile. . .
I went to the grocery store today with a sole purpose of getting a small 1 serving bottle of whole milk. I ran into the Raider clan (Ken and Kathy) and as always they're so friendly and make you feel really special when you talk to them for some reason. They're really cool, entrepreneurial people that have always been their own bosses.
After I picked up my milk I sort of meandered around to find something to improve the taste of the tea. I found Mexican chocolate milk mix that worked surprisingly well. It was a great discovery. Anyway when Jonny checked me out he immediately laughed at what I was buying. I told him how much I appreciated him always liking my drawings and he told me how much I'd been improving. He said he did it because I amaze him. And he meant it in such a sincere way, I was just like, wow Jonny thank you...
But probably the best news of all today is that I got an interview on Wednesday at 1:30. Surprisingly this person actually knew that I worked at 3 on that day which will save me the drive into town which is lovely.
My night ended with my mom bringing home KFC, which is like Christmas for dinner (*Lol I love that Japanese tradition) that I very rarely enjoy but when I do it's super delicious. I did workout by playing Just Dance and doing the splits video on Youtube. I feel like my stomach is getting a little flabby though and need to work more on my core. Today was a day of awesome food in general.. When I got the $20 in 5's one of them was designated for a delicious carne asada burrito from my favorite taco establishment of all time here in town. I used the word "siempre" today which means always to joke with Mrs. Lopez because I always order the same thing.
It's nice living in a place where you know people around you and can more or less keep in touch with people's lives on facebook so when you see them you typically have something to talk about.
Goodnight all, what an amazing day. Tarparnum and the new moon has started and the spirits are on the earth plane according to my favorite spiritual instructor on Youtube. Now is a great time to pray and think about your dead ancestors and they can help you. The fact that it just so happens to be the day before the new moon and I recognized tarparnum for the second year in a row makes me a believer. Coincidence? Maybe. Who knows.
