Happy Birthday to Me!

Hello everyone! Happy Birthday to Me!!

New picture of me in glasses, I actually wear them quite a bit in class in comparison to my life outside of school. I really enjoy going to school when I'm on top of things. I guess that's how today was. The fruits of my efforts this weekend paid off, I was able to pay attention in all three of my classes indiscriminately-- without being too confused or frantic because "SHIIIIIT I READ THE MATERIAL BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANNNNYTHING...." That's sort of how it felt the second day of law class. Today was the third, things went MUCH better and I got my participation points FAIRLY-- by having solid answers. Boo-yah. I felt that was sort of a reward for the... probably eight hours of study I did this last weekend.

It cracks me up to think I was going to have some guitar lesson business. I plan to give Corey B. lessons, and whoever else happens to come to me about it, but I will not be advertising lessons anymore. Actually, I would take down those signs but since nobody has called I don't care. I assume they will take down the signs in a month or so anyhow. I've got too much work to do, and any free time I get here will be spent with friends once I find some. Eventually, these things will happen in time. I'm beginning acquaintances with some people. I should start briefly talking about them here to keep track of people I meet....

Natasha H., she sits next to me in Accounting 252. She was one of the first people I met because she came in a little late and was stuck sitting in the handicap desk next to mine (nothing against handicap people, it's just not the first desk people run for). She's really cool, laid back, we're all sort of helping eachother out in this collaborative learning situation... It's sort of bizarre, I've never been in a class like it.

The professor had us divide into groups on the first day, which is how I met Burnadette, this girl that sits next to me in my law class as well (well, starting today). She's really intelligent, prepared and laid back. She clearly reads the material and takes her studies seriously like I do so I decided she'd be a good person to be in a group with. She's got a really funny, dry sense of humor too. I'm pretty we're going to help eachother out this quarter. 

My accounting class is two hours long and the professor only partially lectures. He's following a different classroom setup called the collaborative learning approach where we basically get into groups and review the homework together over the material that we read in the book. This would seem questionable to a lot of students because it might seem like this is just a good way for a professor to slack off, but I actually think it's more like the State requires this particular course to be taught in this backwards fashion. 

When I went to CBC I took the equivalent accounting 102 course for a few days during Spring quarter (my last quarter) but ended up dropping it because I was feeling too lazy. But that managerial accounting class had the same format, the professor split us into groups and had us come up with team names. She could catch us off guard with questions so you'd have to be on top of your work all the time. Teams would get points and lose points for extra credit so there was an air of competition. She was like an Accounting Senora Schmick! 

Makes me think I actually got off easy. My accounting professor has been teaching for 20 years so he's probably not entirely adjusted to these methods. At times he'll almost apologize for the way he's teaching it, like today he said-- "This is a special class, if you take a class like this you get hands on learning and it's very important."  Like he's quoting some presentation that told him how he was supposed to teach the class. So in following this he really just breaks us into groups, we do worksheets, then discuss the problems in class. When he does lecture it's not bad, it makes sense but at times can get really redundant.

Four hours is a long time to pay attention to lectures, period. I walked back and forth twice today so my body is pretty exhausted on top of it. The business building seems soooo far away.

The guitar is becoming a weird second nature to me. I don't know if it's that I've improved to the point that it's that much more comfortable for long periods of time or that I've hit a wall and I'm no longer improving. No, I'd like to believe that if I continue to do these picking exercises and spend the amount of time practicing I'll continue to improve and not hit a wall.... The possibilities are endless really. What I AM saying is that I've hit a wall of knowing what I want to play. I wanted to upload phantom of the opera but it's still not clean/comfortable enough to upload to the internet. I'd still give that a few more weeks. Once I'm done with that I'm done with Iron Maiden on guitar, for GOOD. . . . well, until I learn some music from other artists.


Things sure have improved since my last birthday. I remember going over to Jessika B.'s house for the first time. This started the chain of sketchy scenarios with her throughout the next couple months. Anyway, long story short, ended up calling into work the next day because I was hungover and had a grand time with her almost certainly alcoholic, creep ass roommate. I will never.... again... I don't even know what I was thinking, seriously. Thank God I found the guitar, otherwise my self esteem might still be that low...

1 year 10 months!

That's how long it's been now since I've been in a official relationship! Can you believe it, that's nuts, almost two entire years now! It's okay, it's funny this last year I've gotten such a different perspective on the whole thing it doesn't bother me at all anymore. Actually, I've found I'm the most relaxed when I'm not really involved with guys at all. Jason and I are.... DONE. We pretty gracefully cut that off.

He first tried blowing me off. I asked him why we weren't talking and that the "no communication" was making me frustrated. I asked him what his deal was. He told me this wasn't the time to talk about it. No response from me. He told me he was no longer interested. I told him okay, I respect that, we're no longer dating. See you around my friend, nice talking to you. Goodbye.

THEN. He has the nerve to drunken text me that night. Ugh, so rude. Men need to learn some respect.

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.

Tea in hand, I sit here rambling until I feel sane.

I worked for ten hours today.... Eight at Rite Aid, then two at this really lame estate sale that my Dad is working. I really didn't have enough patience to go there today, which I should of expected. My Dad yelled at me about practically everything.

I found some dishes that I'll probably need when I leave, and I set them in a box in the living room. Note that there was already a ton of junk in the living room... Anyway, my dad saw the pans sitting in short open box in the living room, and yelled at me for having it sitting there. I then moved the pans to a plastic tote and placed it by my mom's van in case I wanted to bring anything else out there. My Dad saw this tote as I was hauling in some card tables and started yelling at me that it didn't have a lid on it. So, go and get a lid, put it in my mom's van. He then yelled at me for using the unfilled tote. I'm not going to fill that tote up with junk! I only needed the few pans and the cutting board. Ugh.

Soo after I brought the tables in, I decided to leave. This was the first real work I'd done since i'd gotten there. I asked my mom what I should do and she didn't really have an answer because she was bullshitting with the neighbor and forcing conversation while smoking to cigarette to calm down. She always acts like she's hiding it when me or Avery comes around. I really don't give a rats if she smokes. She works so hard, I can see why she's stressed out. It just makes women look so gross though. But whatever, it's her life, her body.

But yeah, it was just pretty much a big yelling fest. My sister, Denae and my mom were listening to atrocious 99.1 music. I just hate all of it.... all of the upbeat singles that are on the radio right now sound the same. I wish I could post an example but it would require me to google song titles. I'm just too lazy right now..

Can't really say there's anything fun going on with me this weekend. Second weekend in a row I haven't really done anything particularily fun. That's okay though, it's expensive to have fun.... well, with other people anyway. I think tonight I'll just be doing what I like to do. Workout videos, get blazed, play guitar. Seems that's what I do with most of my extra time lately. That's okay though, I consider it quite productive. Better than spending the night browsing youtube or something.

So I bought a box of bronkaid today, and even had one of the pharmacists set another box aside for payday on thursday. The pharmacist told me they'll be taking it off the shelves, and I wouldn't doubt it. Better buy out what I can now and try to use it only on days when I really need it... Nice to actually get some today though. It's sort of a relief to know that I didn't go through any withdrawel symptoms aside from a little lathargy when I suddenly stopped taking it. That being said, if they do take it off the shelves, I won't be too bent up about it. It's a stimulant, but I've got a lot of caffiene to get me through. At least THAT will never go off the shelves.

Me and Alex have pretty much just stopped talking for the most part. I'm bored, he never has anything to say... Sex and physical attraction only goes so far. So I guess that was my first fall through of 2012. I don't consider Alex to be a mistake though, I mean it was sort of nice pretending like we were close for a little while. That and I needed to spend some time with a successful, presentable guy for awhile. Haven't had one of those have any interest in me for a long time. I mean this guy really has his shit together, he has a job, he's cute, nice house, nice body, classy, drives a motorcycle (which is usually a huge bonus for me). But I just don't feel it.. Maybe because when we talk he never really gives anything to the conversation? He just sort of agrees or says one sentence. He'll ask me how I'm doing, and I'll tell him a story or something and he'll just say "huh." ....yeah.

So yeah, efforts were futile. Again. But it's for the best, if it's not going anywhere why bother you know? I can tell he doesn't really give a damn either way.

I'm not currently interested in anyone else. Sometimes I'll think of Jay like he's some fictional fucking character. Like I'll just randomly think of him out of the blue, and my mind shuts it out and I feel guilty for even thinking of him because he clearly doesn't have interest that way. I mean yeah, we made out one night, laid together in my car for a couple hours and sort of had a moment a couple weeks back. But there's NO reason that I should believe it meant anything or should have any sort of feelings for him now. I almost feel mad at myself for even thinking of him at all.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't been lonely or anything at all. In fact I've been very happily numb. Here's a scheme of how everything's going (I feel like writing a lot today to calm down..), in the form of a progress report! haha

短大
School

School is going fantastic because i'm getting A's in everything I'm doing. I study for hours every day, I've been paying attention really well, yadda ya. I think I talked about this in my last entry. The point still stands though that school is very enjoyable right now with the classes that I'm taking and the people in them. My professors are ALL badass this quarter. I just love Key, he's hilarious and a fantastic teacher. I'm sad he's not teaching Accounting 202 now that I've got his system down, but a change of environment and learning from a female professor might be a good thing. I typically try to get male teachers (especially in a subject like this where getting straight to the point is important), but Wend is my only option either way. The accounting tutor said she's really good, so I'm actually looking forward to next quarter too.

運動

Exercise/Body Image

This is going well enough. I have a tendency to get the munchies when I smoke, so I have to be aware of the snacking and such. For the most part though when I'm completely sober I'm either running around at work or at school where I really don't have any food with me nor so I have any money for the vending machines. So I'm sure the food thing balances out. I am still eating a lot of whole foods. Lots and lots of bread, steamed veggies, beans, soups... I do however love chocolate, and find myself indulging in it a little too much if I'm not cautious.

I've been working out a lot because I discovered workout videos on youtube. It sounds weird but it is SO FUN to do foriegn workout vids. And I mean from all over the world, you're probably assuming I mean Japanese. Actually, a lot of the vids I've been doing are from Europe. I do a lot of standard American workout vids too. I also enjoy doing some of those hilarious high energy 80's workouts too. They're funny as Hell and a lot of them are a very good workout.

Confidence

I've been very self confident lately. Well, have been since this new year started. It's really given me a new beginning to start making better choices with who I associate myself with and spend my time productively. This new year has also allowed me to put a lot of old things behind me. I've had a lot of closure with people (particularily guys) that I've had past encounters with that ended badly at one time or another. Not having that hanging over my head is very settling.

Acne is rarely a problem anymore because of Differin. That stuff is a miracle and I'm pretty sure I have unlimited refills as long as I'm willing to spend the money on it. It's not like it's taken orally, it's a very expensive face cream... I'm happy I haven't had to go have follow ups with dermatologists. I think a lot of the acne has gone away because of age and my more productive lifestyle. I very rarely stay up past 1 am anymore, because I know that when I do I'm setting myself up to be exausted the next day and it makes whatever I'm doing that late unappealing.

Guitar

Still going very well. I recently learned how to set it on Songsterr so that I can play with just the bass and drumline, thus I really hear myself. At first, that was sort of hard because when I play along with a recording you can't really hear your mistakes too blatantly and you just keep playing... when you're playing as the main guitar part you can REALLY hear how crappy it sounds when you make a mistake. Soo now, I'm going to try to make it a part of my playing sessions to play *without* any kind of support like the main song itself or the Songsterr MIDI guitar part playing. This should improve my tone a lot. I am still gonna play with the main songs though, it's such a cool feeling to play along with my favorite songs.

That reminds me that I still haven't gotten the System of a Down tattoo yet. I've sort of lost interest in getting one. People take tattoos so lightly. It makes me scared thinking of something perminantly being on my body, yet at the same time I used to give myself scars diliberately so this shouldn't phase me too much, haha.

i give this a B+ because though I've been consistantly spending a lot of time doing this, I still feel like I don't have much to show for it. Just six or so songs that I know all the way through perfectly-- well, near perfectly. That's way more than I've ever been able to do, but I want moreeeee.

Friends

This aspect of my life has sort of gone downhill a little bit, but this is probably my fault. I just haven't been spending much time with friends lately.. Haven't seen Lindy in weeks, nor have we texted eachother. I briefly talked to Katelynn yesterday and I imagine we'll spend a little time tomorrow if I'm not too damn exausted after another eight hour shift. Heather I just pretty much gave up with.. if she wants to talk to me again then I'll be 100% down to spend time with her, but we've just flaked on eachother so many times now....

Talked to Katharine for a little while the other day, that was nice to catch up for a little while. We very rarely talk anymore, but I feel comfortable in the fact that we're at an agreement that we're both just fudging busy all the time and that we both know that we care about eachother. It's like that with Katelynn too. I love them both dearly, but we're all very very busy.  

I actually spend the most time with Samantha. I see her about once a week and saw her for a few hours over at Shawn's yesterday. I enjoy the environment at Shawn's house, it's very laid back and relaxing. I just sit and play Nathan's guitar and bullshit with Shawn and whoever else is around the whole time. Samantha obviously enjoys going out there too and likes having a ride, so it's a win-win.

I see Robert like, everywhere, but we never really hang out together anymore. I feel like he thinks of me as an obligation, like ohh man I better hang out with Emily because we haven't hung out in a long time. Instead of yeah, I *want* to go hang out with her. The reason that I say this is because he's really loving his new relationship right now and he's very wrapped up in that, which is awesome. I'm totally happy he's dating Chelsea. He liked her for a LONG time, and it's nice to see someone get who they wanted to be with. Things are just awkward with me and Robert now because we don't really know what to say anymore until we get together and BS one on one. Like if we see eachother randomly at the store (Fred meyers where he works), it's sooo awkward. Today it was awkward too, I was taking out the trash and saw him and Chelsea walking down the road and I said hi. Robert asked what hours I'm working, I was like... uhhh... hahaha. xD It was so awkward and pointless, it was hilarious.

If my life was a report card, I'd be sitting pretty good. Still feeling a little anxious and lonely at times, but it's only when I'm at home, which is rare.

peace.