WoW, That's Interesting...

Well so much for updating often. I've been meaning to write up a new post everyday since the semester ended, but I've just been ridiculously tired when I get the chance to finally do this. I can say that this will most likely be another huge ass post though.


Winter break is now half way over and it's just flown by! Last week I was called in two days, so overall I worked 5 days and clocked in around twenty nine hours I believe it was. I worked Christmas Eve as well from 7a-1:30p, which was not very fun since seven was extremely early for me. I was only supposed to work until 1, but was asked to stay the extra half hour so someone could take a lunch break....I never even got my fifteen minute break.


Friday I work as well from 2:30p-7:30p and it's my last day as a seasonal employee. I seriously thought there was another week left, but turns out there isn't. When I checked my schedule on Monday there was only my half hour interview with the General Manager on it, so Friday is it. I also don't think there are any cashier positions opening up, so sadly I'll be without a job in two days. It really sucks that it's ending...I've talked with some cool people and have even kind of made a friend.


I mentioned in one of my previous posts how I exchanged cell numbers with a coworker at Best Buy...Well we met up last night and grabbed a shake at the Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts hybrid place. Which reminds me that half of my shake is still in the freezer. ANYway, he's seasonal as well so he's in jeopardy of not having  a job soon too.


Speaking of endings, the semester's been over for a week and a half now. The last day of Sculpture class I took pictures of almost everyone's sculptures. We were putting the patina on them, which is like a glaze. Here they are:



This is my only completed sculpture. I know it looks like crap. I've never gotten along well with clay.



This is one of Melanie's completely finished sculptures. At least I think that's what her name is. Her's were definitely the best out of the group.



Melanie's second one.



This is Nicole's. She was in Sculpture II, so she chose to sculpt a skull. It's not finished, but it's extremely cool.



This is one of Kinsey's finished ones. She took her other one home before I took pictures.



This is one of Mija's. (I think that's how you spell her name, I believe she's from Korea) She wasn't there the last day of class, so her's is unfinished. I also forgot to take a picture of her other sculpture.



This is Terrance's. His second sculpture is better, but it was in the other room when I took the pictures real quick.



This is one of Jane's sculptures. She's older and apparently works with clay pretty regularly if I'm remembering correctly.



Jane's second one.


We had pizza and pop while we finished up our sculptures, but the next day was my Calculus test. It took me three hours to finish that thing and I thought it was alright. There were several questions that really confused me, but other than that I thought I was going to get a decent grade. Apparently I thought wrong since I ended up getting a D on the final exam. I couldn't believe it when I checked the grade. It brought my overall grade down dramatically and I ended up with a 79.something % It really pissed me off since it made me end with a C. I'll be taking Calculus II in January, so I'll have to up my concentration in that class.


Besides work and school, I have watched a few more movies. It hasn't been as much as before due to being busy and tired though. They are:


   


I'd prefer not to talk about how my Christmas was, but I only got a $25 gift card to Meijers of all places from my mom's side of the family. The next day I went there and bought:





I used to watch that movie five times a day when I was little. Best Buy also had Toy Story 3 and Inception on sale for $9.99 so on break I went to snatch those up, but we were out of Toy Story 3. I might have to check if there's more tomorrow.


I do have some postcards to put up, but since I'm on my NEW laptop it'll have to wait until I'm on my desktop again. I went to make a payment on this laptop last Monday and my dad offered to pay the remaining balance as a Christmas gift. Of course I agreed so I was able to take it home that day. It's absolutely amazing! I had to wait a day to really mess with it though since I downloaded World of Warcraft and that was a ridiculously huge download.


 At first I had only bought the WoW Battle Chest that has the original game and first expansion, but then the second expansion was $20 off and this week Best Buy has the newest expansion, Cataclysm, on sale for $10 off, so I picked that up as well. WoW is now fully upgraded and I am loving getting back into it. I think I'll be making a second character soon, but for right now I'm playing as a Draenei Paladin and am lvl 31, which is a higher lvl than any of my characters ever got to when I played two years ago.


I do have some postcards to put up on here as well as a few other pictures I'd like to post, but I still need to go through my stuff and scan everything. I might hop on my desktop later tonight to update with those, but for now I'll keep it as is.

It Feels As If The World Is Slowing Down

The past two days have felt a little strange to me. It seems like a lot has happened, yet it also seems like nothing has happened. I blame the cold that decided to hit me last night.

Sunday night the weather took a turn for the worse, so come Monday morning every single school and college was closed, as well as many businesses, except for the one I attend. Of course. Here are a few pictures I took on the way to the college:




Someone spun out on the off ramp of the highway. Not exactly the best spot to be.







As you can see it wasn't the snowfall that was making travel difficult, but the wind. We had 40 MPH winds that day, so I wasn't exactly happy that college was still in session. Plus I had a Calculus test, so having two extra days to study would have been amazing. When I got to the college though I saw why it hadn't been cancelled. Here's how the sky looked near the college:





Without driving on the highway it takes ten minutes to get to the college. There is no way there should have been this huge of a difference in the weather. Ridiculous.

Surprisingly everyone showed up for the Chapter 6 test. It turned out to be the most difficult test of the semester (So far...there's still the final on Friday) and of course it was the one where my brain refused to use any of its power. I thought I blanked out on the Chapter 3 test...well this one was about 1000 times worse. I couldn't remember how to do things that I have been doing all semester, so I most likely failed this test. On the bright side I did answer all but one of the questions, but they are all most likely wrong. I also had my mom to thank for distracting me a bit...

That morning my mom sent me seven pages of text. I don't like mentioning her shenanigans on here, so I'm just going to say that she's gone so far past insane this time that I can't even comprehend it and thought that she was joking at first. I suppose I'll find out more details at the family Christmas party this Saturday. One's things for sure; I'm not holding back my thoughts on her actions anymore. If she brings it up at the party I'm going to tell her exactly what I think. I doubt it will do any good, but she needs a serious wake up call. Especially since she's dragging my brother along with her.

Monday night I watched a documentary by Michael Moore called Capitalism: A Love Story. I had actually watched it Sunday night, but watched it the next day as well with my dad and grandma. It really shed some light on some things and I found it extremely interesting. Here's the cover:



Of course throughout the whole thing my dad was making comments. He enjoys shows that confront corruption and conspiracy, so this was definitely his cup of tea. If anything that movie is motivation to get the hell out of this country. Especially since a lot of what they showed was in Michigan...the state where I live. I think Michael Moore sums it up perfectly by saying "What the fuck happened?"

I watched this documentary using the instant view feature thing on my Wii. I've also watched two other movies using the DVD format:

 

I really love Robert Downey Jr's character in Sherlock Holmes. I know that the whole movie is completely different from the stories, blah blah blah, but I enjoyed the movie pretty well. It didn't hold my attention as much as I thought it would, but the ramblings of Holmes entertained me.

Date Night was just a brainless movie to watch. I don't want to watch anything sad or dramatic since it's finals week and I don't want to feel depressed, so I figured a "comedy" would be a good change. There's definitely more action than comedy, but my favorite part of the movie was the car chase, so I suppose the action enhanced it rather than detracted from it.

Through everything I now officially have a cold. My throat has been bothering me for weeks, but last night I started getting a stuffy nose and by the time I went to bed my throat felt swollen and I couldn't breath through my nose at all. By morning my ears felt clogged as well and I now feel a pressure in my head. After a trip to Walgreens we now have the knock off of Sudafed and a bottle of NyQuil. I took two of the pills several hours ago, but I haven't noticed any difference. I'll probably be taking the NyQuil soon, which I have never had before in my life, so we'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow is study time in Calculus class and then the post-assessment for fitness. I'll need to write a paper for that class as well as for sculpture. Then on Friday there's the final exam and I'm free. However, I have work on Friday from 3:30p-11:00p I am seriously hoping that my cold is a bit better by then. Being a cashier and having a cold is not a good thing at all.

Wish me luck, since so far this week has just been getting worse and worse. There's a light at the end of the tunnel though.

Another Update? So Soon?

Why yes, I am updating again already. I'd rather do this every few days and keep it short and sweet instead of having a massive post one or two times a month. Knowing me though, my posts will probably be quite long no matter what. Ah well. 


These past few days have been pretty good actually. On Friday I finally found out my Calculus Chapter 5 test score...which is a 91. I haven't gotten that score since the first test back in September. I kinda freaked out in class when I was handed my test since I was ridiculously happy. My percentage in the class has now risen from an 84.9% to an 86%. Still not an A, but my teacher says I can still pull it off. With how frustrating Chapter 6 is though, I'm highly doubting I will do as well on this next test. 


Speaking of the test, we're doing it a little bit differently since there is only one week of classes left (Finally!). We're going to take the test in class during normal class hours instead of scheduling the test with the assessment center. He's making sure we have an adequate amount of time for the test though, so if need be we can still work on it after the time class is usually over. After getting through that there's only the final on Friday and then I am free from this semester. Apparently the final is about half an exam longer than normal, so that'll be quite a beast for me to conquer. 


Since I have still been kinda taking a break from Postcrossing I don't have any PC's from there to post, however I participated in a Lighthouse PC swap on Swap-bot the other week, so here's the two I received:



This is a Romanian Lighthouse (According to the back of the PC), but the sender lives here in the U.S. 



Pretty self explanatory here, but the sender lives in New Hampshire. I sense a theme going on.


For a few weeks now I've been wanting to display all the postcards I've received in my room somehow. I don't want to use normal tape since it might damage the cards, but I found little tab things that you put on the edge of pictures to keep them in a scrapbook. I saw them while I was browsing the art/craft store, Michaels, the other day and so far I've put one postcard up on the wall to see how well they stick. So far so good, so I might end up staying up half the night (as usual) to put all of them on the walls in my room. 


Yesterday and today I worked at Best Buy. Last night my shift was from 5p-11:30p, but I ended up going home a little over an hour early since we had really slowed down. It was kinda funny though since at around 4 I got a call from my supervisor asking me to come in to work since they were so busy. Apparently he had forgotten that I was already scheduled to come in. Since they were busy though he let me clock in about a half hour early, so I suppose that makes up a little bit for leaving early as well. 


While we were slowed down I took a look at our ad to familiarize myself with it. Turns out it expired today anyway, so it was pretty pointless...BUT...I saw that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for WoW was on sale for 50% off, so right after I clocked out I snatched up the last one on the shelf. Now I just need to get my new laptop out of layaway so that I can actually play the damn thing!


Today my shift was short, just from 2p-6p. About half way through my shift I saw that one of the people I had gone through orientation with was working. I've talked to him a few times and on one shift where I had opened we played the "questions game" since there was literally no customers in the store. He seems like he'd be fun to hang out with, so I asked him if he'd like to sometime. I've never asked anyone anything like that before, so I thought it'd be a little weird, but he accepted. I gave him my cell number and he texted me so I'd have his as well. It'd be awesome if I can make a new friend, and I am extremely proud of myself with going out of my comfort zone. 


Since I have Netflix now, and am therefore going to be watching a hell of a lot of movies, I figured I can just post my reviews that I wrote on the site here as well. I don't review all the movies I watch, but I try. Sometimes I just don't really have anything to say about them. This is going to make this update even longer than it already is, but oh well, that's the beauty of having your own blog. 


Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire





I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.


This is one of those movies where you feel very strange if you say that you liked it considering the subject matter involved. It's interesting and fascinating to watch though since you know that events similar to those portrayed occur everyday. It makes you want to do something to help the world more.


 As for the way the movie flows...it was kind of awkward in some places. I understand when she's dreaming/remembering things, but they are placed in some odd scenes. Another thing was that I had to keep changing the volume of the TV throughout the movie. Some spots are extremely quiet, but then the very next scene will be ten times louder. It's obviously just a minor thing, so no worries. 


I think the use of the "F" word could have been a little less. I'm no prude and use the word quite often myself, but it was an overkill in this movie. Overall, if you want to be motivated to help people and are not easily disturbed, then I would highly recommend this movie.


Shutter Island





I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.


I've been wanting to watch this movie for quite a while now, and thanx to Netflix I was finally able too. However, I don't believe it lived up to my expectations. I remember when it first came out in theatres I was hearing good reviews left and right. I checked up on what people had to say about it before putting it in the DVD player and discovered that it seemed to be mostly mixed thoughts now. 


It was very slow in the beginning and took at least 45 minutes to get interesting. Since most had been revealed an hour later, it made the movie feel too drawn out. Something that slightly bothered me was the camera. The way they had it moving and the flow between scenes stuck out a lot to me for about the first half hour, but it either got better, or I just got used to it since I didn't even notice it after then. The end is actually my favorite part of the movie, especially the last few lines said. That alone was worth watching it. 


Shutter Island could have been an amazing movie, but the things mentioned above took more away from the experience than it should of. Overall it's still decent though. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of some suspense and movies that set up the story before getting into the main dish.


The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus





I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.


Well this is definitely an interesting movie to watch. I was able to follow the story pretty well until the end where the scenes really start jumping around. Besides being a bit confusing...When the credits started rolling I was still unsure what had happened to one of the characters. I looked the movie up online though just to clarify everything that had happened and discovered that I simply hadn't recognized the character when they were shown. Overall I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys magic, the unusual, and fantasy.


Letters to God





I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. (Wanted to do 3 and 1/2, but Netflix doesn't allow that.)


This is one of those times when I wish that using half stars was allowed. For about the first third of the movie I was actually distracted by how forced the acting seemed to be. It was disappointing since I really wanted the message it was portraying to come through well. After a while though it wasn't as noticeable, but by then you already knew how the movie was going to end up. 


Overall it's a decent movie if you want to let some emotions out. The message it sends is the strongest part of it, which overshadows some of its shortcomings. This movie does show that you don't need a huge budget to create something inspiring and thought provoking.


The Lovely Bones





I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. (But wanted to do 3 and 1/2)


I tend to read a lot of reviews before I watch a movie. To my surprise most of the ones for this movie are quite negative. Through the first hour to hour and a half of this film I kept thinking "How is this rated so low? I'm definitely rating a 5!" But then I was shown why. 


The story starts to become convoluted and completely unsatisfying. Some of the actions of the characters seemed out of place and a few of the scenes could have been completely left out. With those it was almost like they added the scene as a filler. However, The Lovely Bones did keep my attention the whole time. With most movies I watch I'm usually multi tasking, but with this one I completely stopped everything I was doing to pay attention and be absorbed by it. Another thing I quite like is that it ties up all the loose ends and answers all the questions pretty well without having to come right out and say it. A lot of things are implied in this movie, or said in a different way with the narrative. 


Overall I'd give this movie 3 and 1/2 stars. It had a strong beginning with me, but sadly trailed off into disappointment. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in the supernatural and with what happens to us when we die. You also have to be able to tolerate drama genre as well.


Well I had more reviews on there than I thought I did. I didn't watch any movies tonight, but I did watch the first episode of a TV series: The Tudors. The first season came out in 2007 I believe and the fourth (and final) season ended in June of this year. I didn't pay attention to the rating before hitting "Play", but boy, I wish I did. 


Five minutes into the hour long episode it's like "BAM! BOOBS!" There were three or four sex scenes all throughout the episode, so I saw three or four different sets of boobs and a mans ass.  One of the women had such small breasts that I actually thought it was a man at first. Oops. Here's the cover of the first season:





Looking at it now I should have known about the sex, but I didn't realize it was aired on a station that allows nudity. There's another show called Spartacus that I believe is aired on the same station. I've heard in that one there's even full frontal male nudity. It's also available on Netflix, so I suppose I might just have to see for myself.

And It's Almost Coming To A Close...

Well there's now less than a week and a half of the semester left. Thank God. One quiz and two more tests in Calculus and then I'll be free for a month. I don't remember if I mentioned it in my last post, but I currently have a B in the class. I took the Chapter 5 test last Friday though and felt extremely good about it, so hopefully I won't be disappointed.


Geez, we're already over a week into the month of December and I still haven't written about my Thanksgiving. I've actually been stupidly busy, so I'll catch up on everything right now, including pictures.


Overall my Thanksgiving seriously sucked. I got to my Aunt Tammy's at around 3:45 P.M. My mom hadn't even gotten there yet. Turns out my grandpa got pissed off at some ridiculous thing and went home. My mother showed up just a few minutes after me...with her room mate in tow. Instantly everyone was voicing their disapproval considering she never even told anyone that she was going to bring her along.


The dinner was short and it was strange not having the whole family there. Everyone's become so disjointed and are holding so many grudges that I'm not even sure who's still talking to who anymore. There was a lot of arguing since my mom decided she was going to flaunt her online boyfriend collection. I was very close to saying something to her, but I hate stirring things up even more than they already are.


My brother and I decided to go see the movie "Tangled", but of course even that couldn't go smoothly. We misread the time and ended up going into the theatre a half hour late. We didn't realize it though until we walked in and saw that the movie was already playing and people were everywhere. Turns out we didn't miss much at all and it ended up being an extremely good movie. It doesn't end here though.


The car I drive is a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme...A.K.A: Old and doesn't want to run. It takes a long time to warm up, otherwise it'll stall. Normally if it does stall it will the first time I hit the gas. Well this time it decided to do things a bit differently.


I was taking my brother back to my mom's house when a red light came on in the dash. It said "GEN", which means generator apparently. Immediately my car started to deaccelerate. I was not a happy camper at this point, especially since I was going 75 MPH on the highway. Obviously I pulled off to the side, which was when my car decided to not allow me to steer anymore either. Here is a picture I took while stranded on the side of the highway:





You can kind of see part of my car and the window on the door that's open. My mom, dad, and grandma all ended up coming out to get us. My dad and grandma came in the same vehicle so that my dad could drive the Oldsmobile. Of course it was fine for him all the way home. My dad used to be a mechanic, and according to him the Oldsmobile stalled. I don't think I've driven it since then.


Of course with it being Thanksgiving and all the next day was Black Friday. My original shift at Best Buy was supposed to be 4:30 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. I ended up getting there at 4 in the morning and found out they extended my shift until 2:30. The good news is that it wasn't near as bad as I expected it to be and only one customer yelled at me. Apparently an employee was telling people that we were doing price matching that day when we had a meeting that morning that specifically told us that we WERE NOT doing price matching on anything. Hell, we weren't even matching our own website. So the customer got pissy and threw the items around. Oh well.


What was kinda funny is that even our lunch breaks were all scheduled, yet they had people taking them early anyway. My "lunch break" was at 9:30 if I'm remembering correctly. I also ended up getting out of there at 1:30. One of the supervisors let me leave since I was originally only scheduled until 1. I would have stayed if I could, but I honestly could not take much more. I was dead tired and completely exhausted, so I snatched up the chance to leave.


Besides the terrible holiday and the end of the semester coming up, I have been finding time to relax. Almost every night I watch a movie. I signed up for Netflix a few weeks ago, and it is seriously the best thing ever. I only tried out the instant watch thingy the other day since I wasn't sure how it would go with my craptastical internet, but it works amazing and I have already watched three instant movies:


   


Here are the ones I've watched using DVD's:

      

Since I'm posting quite a lot of pictures right now, here's another one from the night I went to the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie. Hopefully you can see it, but it looks like there's a rainbow above the moon. The picture really didn't capture much of it since I was using a phone, but in person it was truly amazing:



Now that it's December it seems like it's opened the doors to all the good ol' lake effect snow. Here's after the first snowfall of the month:



And here's on the way back from work on Sunday:





And finally on the way to the college I attend on Tuesday:







On the way to school I actually saw my art teacher in a vehicle going the other direction...away from the college. Turns out class wasn't cancelled, but he was just 5 minutes late. One whole side of the art room is windows, and at times the visibility out of them was zero. It was just pure white outside. I have no idea how these geese and swans tolerate it:



I do have a few postcards to post, but I have yet to scan them so I'll just wait until next time. I do, however, have some pictures I'd like to share of my cats:


This is Charmin...


...He loves boxes


Jack also loves boxes.

My computer is now starting to get very angry with me from all these pictures, so anything I've forgotten will have to wait. Hopefully I'll be able to post more often, but it might have to wait until the end of the semester.

I'm still hoping for an A in Calculus. Hey, miracles do happen.