And I Quickly Recovered

I'm listening to music right now, so if the mood in this post jumps around a lot then just blame that. I really need to learn not to try and type when I'm tired and emotional. I'm going to keep my last post up simply because someone actually commented on it. I have no idea who you are, but once again, thank you.


I have some (crappy) pictures that I took of some of the snow that's happened over the past few days. Most of them are out of a car window so they are probably blurry. I'm actually not sure yet since I haven't put them on any computer. I'm on my desktop right now, but will be uploading them to my laptop, so I'll add some after I post this and switch over. Update - Here they are:



This is the day after the blizzard. We didn't get near as much as I thought we would. 



This was on some other random snowy day the other week.



Side of the highway.



Exit off the highway.




I haven't really been watching movies lately which disappoints me. My dad has been sleeping on the couch in the living room (where I like to watch movies), so I've basically been playing WoW instead. Which is quite a bad idea. The other week I watched:





Which has got to be the most depressing movie in all of existence. I find it interesting that the picture says "Edited Version" when the one I watched was the "Unrated" one. The guy in the right corner actually looks a lot like someone I know personally, which highly creeps me out. I have yet to review this movie, nor rate it and I probably never will simply because....HOW?! How do you rate and review a movie like this? I knew nothing about this movie when I watched it, and I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not.


The movie I have from Netflix right now is:





Oh how nostalgia has overwhelmed me while watching this. The version my dad and I are watching is the concert one from 1996. I remember renting the VHS of it from the library when I was around eight or nine, but most likely even younger. We only watched about 45 minutes of it tonight. Don't want to lose all the magic in one night.


I need to start utilizing the "Instant Watch" function of Netflix more. I did that tonight by watching the first two episodes of this anime about two hours ago:





It is definitely different, that's for sure. It shocked the hell out of me when I started the first episode and English was the language I heard. It's a series that I was previously unaware of, so I was quite surprised that there was an English version of it. There's 26 episodes and I think I'm going to attempt to watch two episodes a night. Each episode is only 23 minutes long, so it shouldn't be that hard, right? Right?


Each episode is a different story, but the character you see in the picture is the main guy in each one. At least it seems like that's what's happening. It's heavy on the symbolism and some of the dialogue might make you go "Wait, what?" at first. I think it's going to be worth watching though.


I took the most pathetic test today. Since the blizzard was on Wednesday I had to reschedule my Personal Health class test to today. In class the teacher said that most people complete it within an hour. Well...over the past few years my test taking speed has decreased a crap ton, so I figured I'd end up taking the full hour. Wrong. I finished the test within twenty minutes. I could not believe how quickly I went through the test. I even noticed that four or five of the questions were ones that had been on the two quizzes we had taken already. Now if Calculus could just be that easy....


.....and speaking of such, there is no way I will be able to take the test tomorrow. I have class in the morning and then I work the rest of the day. I emailed my teacher at around seven, I think it was, asking if I'll be able to postpone it until Monday. I know he allowed a lot of people to do that last semester, so hopefully he'll ok it. I seriously hate when everything decides it needs to happen all at once.


I actually received a postcard from Postcrossing the other day. I have no idea why I got one since I haven't sent one out in quite a while. It's inspired me to try to get into it again, one postcard at a time. The last postcard I sent actually hasn't arrived yet for some reason. It has three or four days until it expires too. I just hope it didn't get lost among the insanity that is the post office. Here's the PC I received though:



It's the first postcard I've gotten from Russia, at least if I'm remembering correctly. I think it's awesomely adorable. And yes, I think I love alliteration.


I know I've been quite terrible about keeping up with posting what I've received in the mail lately. If I miss posting anything, which I probably have a lot by now, then I apologize. I did get an ATC in the mail though for the I Love Narnia ATC swap on Swap~bot:





I'm also in a Dollar Tree Valentine's Card swap, and have received two of the four cards, but I think I'm going to wait until I have all of them before I scan them and post them. I wish I had places in my room to actually display all the lovely things I've gotten.


Besides playing WoW like an idiot, I've been trying to play some other games as well. I've been extremely awful at saving my money lately, so I've acquired a few more games:


 


I still need to play the first Bioshock, which I started at my cousins last week. So overall in the past two weeks I've only played an hour of Darksiders and about two to two and half hours of the first Bioshock. I am completely terrible at managing my time so that I can fit in everything I want to do.


Darksiders is actually a lot different from how I thought it was going to be even after reading the reviews. I've barley played it, so I don't really have an opinion on it or anything like that yet. I'm loving the short time I've played Bioshock though. My cousin watched me play it and was just "WAT" the whole time through it though. He needs to play better games.


Since this seems to be turning into a beast of a post I believe I'll try and stop here. I'll upload all the crazy snow pictures and try to get them up here ASAP though.


By the way, don't watch Requiem For A Dream.


EDIT - Because I can here's some kitty pictures:



Charmin giving my grandpa some love. 



Jack likes to play Peek-A-Boo on the stairs.



And finally, Charmin being a fatty. 

And It All Begins Again...

Sure enough, it's time to head back to class. Today was definitely not the greatest day I've ever experienced. Actually the past week has just overall been a little bit crazy. I'm actually quite surprised at how well I've been handling it all.

First off I'm sure I've said a million times on here so far that I had a meeting with Best Buy's General Manager about my employment. Well...it turns out that they wanted to keep me so I am now a permanent employee there. He even said that they didn't have any openings, but that I performed well enough that they wanted me to continue to work there. Another seasonal cashier employee was hired as well. She was actually who I considered my "competition" for the season, so it was cool to find out that we were both hired. I've seen a few of the seasonal employees that did not end up staying though, and it's weird to see them in the store when I'm working since I feel bad and like I'm flaunting it in their face or something.

When the GM told me that he wanted me to stay at Best Buy I actually almost started crying right on the spot. I expected to go in there and be told that they simply didn't have enough room. I mean...that actually turned out to be true, but apparently it didn't matter as much as I thought it did.

All of that happened on Wednesday, so I ended up working the opening shift Thursday, Friday and Saturday which is 10a-3:30p. That is so early to me and I wanted to wake up two hours before my shift so that I'd be properly awake and everything when I got there. Saturday was also a meeting at the building. We had to be there by 7:30a, so my morning shift was not the greatest. It also snowed like absolutely crazy the night before, so barely half of the employees were able to make it to the meeting. Since it looked like a blizzard outside we also barely had any customers, so luckily I was able to leave early and was out by 1:30p.

Now here's where another story begins...My dad picked me up at Best Buy in what looked to be a brand new car. Turned out it was a 2008 used vehicle from a dealership that he was testing out. Now we've been down to one vehicle for a little while now since the van crapped out on us. Before I was told that we couldn't even afford a $2000 car, but now all of a sudden we have a $10000, 2009 Hyundai Accent. I'm not happy at all about my grandmothers purchase, especially since she complains about money problems constantly. Way to add more debt to your worries.

The other thing that seriously sucks about the car is that it's an itty bitty front wheel drive car that can't drive for shit in the snow. We have no truck, now have no van, and are down to only having tiny cars that can barely hold a grown man. I'll try to take pictures of it tomorrow if I remember.

I haven't really received anything lately except for today. I was surprised to see an envelope addressed to me in the mail since I wasn't really expecting anything yet. It was for a group I'm in on Swap-bot. In the forum for the group we posted a wishlist and then each member has to send someone something on that person's wishlist.  I received a beautiful PC and some recipes that I should try out soon. Here's the PC:


It's from ladyaries7 and the PC isn't that bright in person. I don't know why my scanner is obsessed with bright colors. I really do love the postcard though. It's similar to one that I actually found downtown here.

I've only watched two movies since my last post. My dad wanted to watch a movie from 1971 called Two-Lane Blacktop, and that was here for about four days I believe, so there hasn't been time for many movies to come in since then. The two I watched are:

  

The first movie I've seen many times, but it's been ages. It was pretty neat to see it again and it's still a very good family movie to watch as well. The second has Nicolas Cage in it and the guy that did Hiccups voice for the animated movie How To Train Your Dragon, so that was why I originally wanted to see it. I remember when it came out in theatres that people weren't really saying good things about it. It turned out to be pretty decent and I definitely enjoyed all the magical elements in it. The end wasn't the greatest though and zoomed right by, but damn, Nicolas Cage is hot as hell as that character and I normally don't like him at all.

This week is going to be pretty intense for me it seems, but luckily one of the harder days is past. I'm taking four classes this semester, so my schedule as far as that goes is this:
Personal Health: MWF - 9:10a-10:10a
Calculus II: MW - 6p-8:40p
English 101: TR - 2:30p-4p

I also am taking Total Fitness II, but that doesn't have a set schedule. I wish my college would hurry up and get everything in the system though so I can get my pre-assessment for the class done so I can start working out asap. I really want to get to the Wellness Center at least three times each week. I definitely want to make some progress this semester.

This schedule would be pretty ok, but now that I'm working as well it's going to increase the difficulty. For example I had my morning class today...and then my shift at BB started at 10:30a. I got out of work at 4:30p, which gave me enough time to change, eat dinner and then head out to the college for my night class. I got home from that at just about 9p and have just been kind of relaxing so that stress doesn't overwhelm me. I really cannot afford to get sick again, so I'm glad my body has been holding out so well these past few months. I just need to take the time to relax and calm down so that it doesn't get too extreme or anything. Wednesday is going to be a repeat of today though, so I'm sure that'll be some deja vu.

My schedule at BB for the rest of this week is:
Wednesday: 10:30a-4:30p
Friday: 10:30.a-4p
Saturday: 3:30p-9:30p

All the day shifts I've worked the past week have been extremely dead. It's almost a shock going from the holiday season to almost nothing. Saturday night should be the busiest day of the week, so it should go alright. I also get to sleep in, so that will definitely be welcome.

This semester is basically going to be me trying to balance school, work, and me time. I have a new friend that I've been hanging out with a bit and it's been really nice to get out of the house, although most of the time we just come back to my house to play video games. That's completely alright with me though. It's nice to have someone to talk too and hopefully I'll be able to expand my social circle a bit.

At my shift today it was so slow that I pretty much just talked to the other cashier that opened the whole time.   We talked about dinosaurs, paranormal stuff, cars, and a lot of other random stuff. Best Buy certainly doesn't allow me to be shy and I'm interacting with so many people. It's awesome and I think that's why I haven't gotten sick.

I believe I'm going to stop here. This post is probably not the most coherent one I've posted. I'm extremely tired, need to get to bed and my thoughts have been kinda disconnected the past few days. I've also left out a lot of details since I simply don't feel like typing forever. Ah well, I'll try to include more stuff tomorrow.

Oh Boy, It's Been A Little While.

I have a lot of stuff to type about, but since I don't really want a huge mass of text for a post I'll most likely shorten things down. I'm also not going to write about everything, since I don't want some of it to be posted on the internet. 


I honestly don't remember what happened during the last week of August. Trying to think about it now, nothing comes to mind or jumps out at me. Starting on September 1st through the 6th I had to dog sit for my cousins. I suppose I was house sitting as well since I basically lived there during that time. The first couple days were great actually, since I was away from my family and didn't have to deal with anyone. It was like a mini-vacation even though I was only three minutes from home. After those days though I felt really sick and stayed at home for the night. My grandma stayed at the house for the next day after and then I spent the last day or two by myself again. 


Taking care of the animals was fine; there was only two Golden Reteiver's and a bunny. The dogs were kind of fun to play with outside. Jersey (The younger dog) is obsessed with tennis balls and fetches quite well. The second to last day I was there I actually brought my dog, a Chihuahua named Tiny, over since they have a fenced in backyard. At first the other two were very curious about him, but then Abby (the older of the two) lost interest and went on to do her thing. For most of the time Tiny would just follow me around, but he eventually got enough courage to explore the yard on his own. 


Here are two pictures of Abby and Jersey playing:








And here's two pictures of my dog, Tiny:








If the quality seems a little off on them, it's because I took them with my new phone. Oh, yeah, I got a new phone on my cousins birthday. That was the 25th of August. I can't believe I forgot about his birthday. He turned 18 and to celebrate we went to this local restaurant called Gershwin's, I think it is, and he tried to take on the their challenge of eating almost a four pound burger in an hour. He was doing very good at first and was half way done before 30 minutes was up. He really slowed down though and when the time was up he had about 1/4 of the burger left. I really can't believe how huge it was. I wish I had some pictures of it.


That night though I got my new phone. It has a qwerty keyboard and takes pictures, video, and you can put a memory card in it to have MP3's as well. It's a really cool and nice phone, but I was having a lot of issues with it, so I had to take it back and exchange it. Calling the company to keep my phone number was a huge ass hassle though. I was on the phone for an hour and of course I got someone who was from India. No offense to anyone, but I could not understand anything he said since he had a thick accent and talked way too quiet. Half the time I was on hold though since he was relaying information back to another "department". I don't understand why he didn't just transfer me to them so I could talk to them myself, but at least it's done with.


College started back up on September 7th, which was a Tuesday. The classes I were going to take was originally Sculpture 1, Intro to Softball, and Calculus 1. From 12:40 P.M. - 4:00 P.M. I have sculpture on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that was the first class I attended. That was fine and only lasted about an hour and a half since we just went over the syllabus. From 5 P.M. - 6 P.M. is supposed to be Softball on Mon, Tues, Wed, and Thurs. I go to the room where we are supposed to meet at and no one is there. Class is supposed to have started and still, no one is there. I go to the front desk and the lady there says that this happens every year. She calls up the teacher and she's in her office. Somehow she knew who was asking about the class and told me to go meet her in her office. I go down there and she informs me that the class has been cancelled since only six people signed up for it. For some reason they didn't even have the courtesy to email me to tell me that it was cancelled. Each student has a college email address that is available to every teacher, so there was no excuse to not use that. This, of course, screws up my whole schedule since I only wanted to be a 3/4 time student and with that class now gone I was considered a 1/2 time student. 


When I got home I looked through all the one credit courses offered and they were all full since school had already started. I eventually checked out a class called "Total Fitness" which is basically an open gym type thing. I ended up adding that and am now a 3/4 time student again. I actually added a movie class that is only once a week, which would bump me up to a full time student. But since the class is three hours and on a day I have sculpture class, it would greatly interfere with my homework for Calculus. I ended up dropping it the next day. 


It's now the weekend and the first week of classes was pretty alright. Calculus goes by a lot faster than what I expected and sculpture is way too long for my tastes. I have yet to do the Pre-assesment for the fitness class since I have papers to fill out beforehand, but I'm scheduled to attend that on Monday. I just hope that my exercise routine fits in well with everything else I'm doing. So far everything is looking good, and I really hope that it continues in that direction. 


I've received a few things from Postcrossing and Swap-bot as well. Here are the new postcards from Postcrossing:



This one's from a nurse in Germany. 



From an older man in California.



This is my favorite card so far. Those are Dugongs and they are so adorable and derp. 


And here's what I've gotten from Swap-bot. They're all PC's as well:






A German lake. 





I'm definitely going to try to update more frequently, even with school and whatnot. I just don't want to get behind on updating and then have to write an insane amount like this. I'm pretty sure I included everything I wanted, but who knows...I am quite the forgetful person. 

Demo Derby, Postcrossing, and More

Wow, I've received quite a lot of stuff since I've last updated. I think I'll write about what's come in the mail first, although the Demo Derby was absolutely awesome!


Today I received a package for the Love My Cat # 2 swap from Swap-bot. They did an amazing job and it makes me feel bad about what I sent. Now what I sent surpasses the requirements, but it's nowhere near as fancy or neat as what this person accomplished. This is the picture they sent me of their lovely cat:





In what she wrote, she told me that he's a Snowshoe Siamese named KoKo and that he likes to sing while in the bathtub early in the morning. Haha. I wish the pictures I had sent had come out as nice as hers did!


A few days ago I received my first foreign postcard in the mail. It's from Germany and the person who sent it only speaks German, so that's the language the message is in. I could kinda guess what it said, but I used a translator from online to really figure it out. I love foreign languages, so these cards really are special to me. Here's the first one:





My scanner, for some reason, put purple and yellow lines all through the picture so it looks kinda funky. I've also received three other cards from the past few days. One of them is from today even. The first one is from Portugal, the second from the Netherlands, and the last one is the what came in today from Malaysia:











I am definitely enjoying Postcrossing so far and will continue to use it. I actually have four cards that I need to send out still. I was going to do it today, but just had too much to mail out and it was nearing closing time at the post office, so I had to leave with what I had.


The post office is crazy. I need to mail four hardcovers to the same person, but I don't have a box big enough for them all. I figured I would just get a box at the PO and mail them Media Mail that way. NOPE! They wanted me to pay $10.70 for a priority mail box. There is no way I am paying that much for just a box. I'm better off just finding something at home to mail the books in if I can't find a cheaper box. I never realized before today that they didn't have normal boxes to sell.


Saturday was the Demolition Derby at the fair grounds. I haven't seen it in a few years so it was really nice to be able to finally watch it with my dad again. They started a little after 7 P.M. and ended just a bit before 10 P.M. They were going through everything pretty fast, so I actually thought that they were going to end way early, but it turned out lasting till it was supposed to.


I think the first, third, and last matches were the best. At one point there was even a match with trucks and vans and one with garden tractors. People of any age could enter that last one.


There were some pretty cool moments during the derby though. The cars were so loud that my ears hurt for the whole night afterword. There were a few cars that I really thought were going to explode, but the people running the show weren't too worried about it. Twice an engine caught on fire and flames flew straight up into the air from it. Firefighters had to jump in to put it out and the people in the cars would jump out the windows really fast. One time two cars hit head on and sparks flew straight up to the top of the grandstand and back down. In the last match, when there were two cars left, the back end of one of the cars went up onto the hood of the other so the trunk ended up catching on fire that way as well.


Some of the cars would really smoke. When the derby was about half way over there was a car that was almost right in front of us that was smoking like crazy. It was stuck between two other cars that were stalled and so the driver was flooring it to try to push his way out. It smoked up the grandstand so badly that you couldn't see anything. It wasn't fun to breath in either, so a bunch of people left at that point.


There were only two female drivers through the whole thing. I hate that and would love to drive a derby car and smash cars up. Maybe I could ask my neighbors if I can borrow one of their race cars. Haha. The people who put on the event also allowed there to be passengers. The rules were a bit different from the huge derby's as well in that both passenger and driver side doors could be hit. It was basically an "anything goes" type of thing.


During the last match, when there were two cars left, the one that could still steer and stuff backed up into the other one so hard the the back end up it went up onto the drivers side and one of the tires went through the window. The driver of the car that had been hit was fine, but both cars were now kinda stuck. The car on the bottom had lost its steering a while ago and so it hadn't been able to hit any cars. Multiple times the announcer guy said that he would give the drive 10 seconds to hit something or he'd lose. Well...he'd count to two or three and then stop. The crowd got tired of this, so when the disabled car was stuck under the other car and the guy counted down again the crowd continued when he stopped. The announcer didn't really acknowledge this, but shortly after ended the match. Everyone immediately got up the leave and as we were pilling out the announcer declared the guy that should have gotten second, the winner, and the guy that should have won, second. The guy that should have won was so mad that he threw the trophy at the announcer. There were cash prizes, so it was a pretty big deal that he wasn't given first place.


Overall it was really exciting and LOUD. The last match was the loudest and biggest since there were 16 cars crammed into the small space. At some points it was so loud that it was like you weren't even hearing anything anymore.


I'll definitely be trying to attend the Demo Derby each time the Fair rolls around.

First Swaps

I have completed and received a few swaps in the past few days. Two have been electronic swaps, and two have been a mail swap. One was a coloring swap where we had to color one page and send it with an uncolored page to our partner. Each person had two partners. I also received a postcard today from my Basic Postcard Swap partner. Since today was cooled off enough I was able to scan the pictures. 



This is the colored picture I received from a member of the Character Coloring Swap.



This is another colored picture I received from the same swap as above. 



This is the uncolored picture I received from the same person that colored the one above. 



This is the PC I received for the Basic Postcard Swap.


Since I have completed five swaps and have a good rating I was able to host my first swap. It's called What's Your Favorite Animal? and in it you draw your favorite animal with whatever you want, however you like. You also write a note/letter about why you like that animal so much. I also made an optional thing where you can include some information about the animal as well. I figured I could make it a little educational...especially since I'm allowing people's children to be involved. So far 6 people have joined the swap and 18 people are watching it, which is more than I thought already. 


So far four of the five postcards I sent out about two weeks ago have made it to their destinations. The ones that have been received so far went to: Taiwan, Netherlands, Germany, and Finland. The one to Australia has yet to arrive, but I bet it will within the next few days. Four more people have been assigned to me from: USA, Taiwan, Netherlands, and Spain. Hopefully the next country I'm assigned will be Italy. Since my cards have been received I was put into the system to be sent a card. So hopefully I'll be getting a few in the mail within the next few weeks. 


I mailed out a few things today as well. I had to wrap five books, which took forever. Three of them are going to the same person so I was able to wrap them as a group instead of individually. I ended up not having an envelope big enough for them though so I had to wrap them in the brown wrapping paper type stuff. I also mailed two envelopes; one was for Swap-bot, while the other is to a personal friend. 


I also received several things today. Three were books; two from the same person. There was also a letter swap and then the postcard. The two books were wrapped in a plastic bag and then printer paper. The paper was half ripped and just hanging there when I got the package. Good thing they had used the plastic or else the books probably would have been damaged. 


Updated on 8/15/10 with pictures. 

New Sites That I've Become A Part Of

Recently, I thought about how it might be fun and interesting to have a penpal. I absolutely love to receive things in the mail, so it would be very fitting. I also thought about sending postcards as well. These are the websites that I decided to join:


Postcrossing.com.





This site, after you join, has you click a "Send Postcard" button and randomly chooses a person, that has also signed up for the site, from around the world for you to send a pc to. At first you can only click that button five times, indicating five different people, until you have sent twenty pc's. After that the number of how many pc's you can send increases by one. Here is the chart:


0-19 = 5 postcards
20-39 = 6 pc's
40-59 = 7 pc's
60-79 = 8 pc's
80-99 = 9 pc's
100 - 149 = 10 pc's
150 - 199 = 11 pc's
200 - 249 = 12 pc's
And so on in increments one postcard for each fifty you send. 


Each time you click the "Send Postcard" button you are then entered into the system to receive them. This means that someone else in the world will end up sending a postcard to you. The site assigns each postcard an ID number that the member must write on the pc before mailing it. This allows the person who receives it to enter it into the system so that it is marked received. The only time your address is visible is when you are randomly assigned to a person, and even then it is only visible to them. 


The site is really easy to use and to understand. I have sent my maximum of five pc's out, but have not received any yet since I've only been there for a little over a week now. 


Swap-bot.com





This site allows you to check out everything about it before you join. Each swap is user created, so there are many different categories of swaps. Filling out your profile well on that site is highly recommended; almost required. At first you can join up to five swaps. There is also a "Watchlist" that keeps track of the swaps you are interested in. Swaps can either be regional or international as well, so make sure you check that out beforehand. After each swap is completed you rate your partner either a one, three, five, or a five with a heart. The last one is the best rating, and the one is obviously the worst. The swaps range from being electronic to envelopes to packages. I've decided to not participate in package swaps for now since I don't really have the packaging materials for them and do not wish to spend too much money. 


Interpals.net





This site allows you to search for penpals and friends. Whether you want to correspond via snail mail or email is up to you. After joining the site you have a profile that you can fill out and are allowed to post pictures as well. You also have a "Wall" (like Facebook) where people can post messages to you. They do give you the option to block people if you are being harassed and if someone's profile is inappropriate there is a "Report to Moderator" button. 

Besides just the profiles they also have a chat and a forum. I am mainly in the forum since it's a good way to waste time. Be aware that you may piss some people off with your posts. 


I have only been apart of these three sites for a little over a week now. They all seem to be pretty good though, but make sure that if you get involved with the swapping sites that you go through with each swap you join completely. 


I'll most likely have updates when I really start swapping and receiving things.