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. 

It's About Time I'm On My Desktop Again

Yep, that I am. The bad part is that I have no idea what's actually new that I've gotten this past month. I definitely need to try to keep up with scanning and dating what I receive so that my memory issues aren't as ridiculous.


ANYway, I do have four things I'd like to post on here. The first is a postcard I received through Postcrossing. It came in the mail a few days ago when it was still 2010:



It's from a Chinese college student who's studying in Canada. I think it's funny how misshapen Michigan looks.


This next one is also a postcard that, if I'm remembering correctly, I received earlier in December. I don't think I've posted it yet and I'm far too lazy right now to check. Someone from Sendsomething.net sent it to me, so I'll need to check out their profile soon to see what kind of PC's they're interested in:



It's kind of amusing to me that the picture is of falls in South Carolina. My mother just moved down there on Thursday. That's a whole other story though.


The last two things I want to post today are both ATC's that I received in swaps. This first one I wasn't expecting since it came as an extra in a Thanksgiving card swap:



Daydrifter is who created this card and it definitely was a surprise. It's really beautiful.


The second ATC is from a Dark Tower Series swap. Stephen King wrote the series, which is seven books in all. Bluemonkeymama created this one and it's awesome as well. The picture is kind of messed up since some things are 3D and there is a reflection since it's in plastic. I would have taken it out, but I have before and almost couldn't get it back in! The background also isn't as dark as it appears in the picture:



I'll try to take a picture of it later to replace this scanned image.


I should be getting back into more swaps soon, so more pictures will definitely be posted. World of Warcraft is still keeping me occupied, but last night there were some technical difficulties going on with the game that the creators, Blizzard, had to address.


There were authentication errors going on, which made it quite difficult to login to the game and once in game things would freeze and you'd get disconnected easily. At first I thought something was wrong with my internet, but pretty quickly there was a message from Blizzard on the login screen saying that they were trying to identify the problem.


This was all fine except right before they posted the message I was attempting my first dungeon with a group of people. Things were alright at first until it started freezing and finally I got disconnected. Since logging in was being stupid as well I gave up.


Since then they've figured out what was wrong and everything should be fixed. I haven't really had any issues today when I was playing, so hopefully it'll be smooth until the next issue pops up. Right now I'm just trying to figure out where the hell to go to in the game and how to get there. Here's all the things I had to purchase to be completely up-to-date on the game:


 


Thank God for Christmas sales. I paid $9.99 for the first, which is the original game + the first expansion: The Burning Crusade. The second I got for $20, while I believe it's normal price is still $40. The third and final expansion (for right now at least) just came out in early December, but I got ten bucks off of it, so I paid $30.


The newest expansion brings two new races to the game as The Burning Crusade did: Worgen and Goblins. I created a Worgen Warrior the other day and have only played it once, so it's level nine at the moment. Their start is quite different from the others I've played and the added cinematics are interesting. I'm thinking I picked the wrong class since I'm not really enjoying it at all. I didn't want to make another paladin though. It's definitely time to make my Tauren Hunter.


I really want to watch another instant movie tonight, but I'm completely unsure of what I should pick. Right now I'm leaning towards this movie:





I still haven't seen it yet and the reviews that I've read so far are praising it quite a lot. A cute family movie is probably what I need right now too. I also don't want to watch something really long, so this fits the bill quite well.


Don't be surprised if there's a review of it up by the end of tonight.

Take It Easy On Me

I've been wanting to update this thing for about a week now. Shows how busy/tired I've been lately. My computer has also been giving me the worst trouble. Either last Thursday or Friday I did a virus scan and had it do its thing on all the problems it found. Well...a few hours that I click on Hotmail to login and check my email. For some reason the page won't load. I try a few other sites and some load while others don't. Turns out if the page requires a login then it won't load at all, but if not everything's fine.


This became extremely frustrating very easily. I have no idea how many pages I went through on Google trying to find a solution. I tried so many different things and half of them I had no idea what they were doing to my system. Finally I decided to try a system restore even though I have never been able to get it to work before. Amazingly, it does.


My computer starts back up and I can login to my email again! Hooray! Well...not quite yet. After about five minutes it starts doing the same thing as before. I am so far past frustrated at that point. I undid the system restore and then tried it again. This time I went back two weeks just to make sure. Now everything works fine.


 For some reason though my iTunes became uninstalled during all the craziness, but a quick reinstall and it was fine. If that's the price I have to pay for it working normally again, then so be it.


Speaking of computers though, I just put a new laptop on layaway at Best Buy. I can't even remember what kind it is, but I do know that the graphics card on it is kick ass and that's all I care about at the moment. It also has really good memory for a laptop, so I should be all set for quite a while. I've needed an upgrade for so long now that a decent computer might startle me.


And I'm going to use Best Buy to move into the next story of something that happened a few weeks ago. I believe it was after my second shift there. I had just clocked out and had all my stuff together and was just waiting to get it checked up by the AP. All of a sudden I heard my name being shouted. It was my best friend from high school whom I hadn't seen since the middle of 2009. I was in such shock that I just stood there and stared at her.


Turns out she moved a little bit closer to me, so now she was only an hour away. So this past weekend on Saturday I drove up there and spent the night. There isn't much to do right where she lives, so we drove about 20 minutes away to a huge mall. It had escalators, so it was well worth it in my opinion. Of course I didn't end up buying anything even though I saw about 349583495 things I wanted. I'm just really cheap like that. The next day we went to several thrift stores where I bought a bunch of books and SCOOBY DOO Monopoly. I seriously flipped out over the monopoly game. It's just too cool. I'll have to update this with a picture of it later.


Also, speaking of thrift stores...my grandma and I also went to Goodwill today where I found this awesome little jewelry box/chest thingy. It had just been put out there today and I had to have it since it looks so cool. Here's a (crappy) picture of it I just took a minute ago:





Since I'm dealing with pictures at the moment...I have a few that I took of the first snow of the season. I woke up one morning and looked out the window and was instantly pissed by what I saw. I'm not a fan of the cold, at all, so snow is not my friend whatsoever. Here they are:









This one is right out of the side doors of the college I go too. It was after class and the snow was STILL on the ground. According to the news it wasn't going to stick. Yeah right. At least it was just a dusting.


A lot of stuff has happened these past few weeks and with my terrible memory there is no way I can even begin to recollect everything that's occurred. Maybe it's a sign that I should update more often? Who knows. ANYway, if I remember random things that I originally wanted to include in this post, then I probably will edit it. Speaking of which, I just remembered something I need to talk about still: Calculus.


Oh, that lovely subject. Which I'm surprisingly not doing too bad in at the moment. We took the Chapter 4 test a little while ago and my brain completely froze. I thought I was adequately prepared, but about a fourth of the way through I just couldn't think anymore. It was the strangest thing and I've never had it happen that badly before. So naturally I started to write a story.


One of the problems talked about a guy in a boat and the path he'd have to row and run on land to get to a town the quickest. My answer was something about how it was irrelevant since Cthulhu took him to Bacon Town instead. Of course writing about bacon distracted me, so then there was no getting my focus back on Calculus. I ended up getting a 74 on it.


We've turned in two quizzes since then. Well...I have...the one quiz isn't due until after break, but I did it all and turned it in on Monday. There's no way I'm doing homework over this mini-break. But anyway, he showed us what our current grade is. I have an 84.9%, so that puts me at a B. To take Calculus II next semester you need at least a C, so I'm at an alright spot right now. I just can't bomb anymore tests like I did before.


I actually have a few swaps that I've received from Swap~bot to put on here. There's one that I really love that I'd like to show, but I can't find it for some reason. I'll have to update the post later when I can look for it better.



This one I received for the Totoro ATC Swap.



And this one's from the Harry Potter Coloring Swap.


I actually saw the midnight showing of the newest Harry Potter movie. I bought my tickets at the beginning of November and several days before it came out I realized that I didn't remember where my ticket was. I recently switched wallets, so I started panicking since I should have seen it then. Turns out it was in between a folded receipt in my old wallet. Good think I found it or else I would have taken a family members ticket.


The movie ended up being pretty good. the beginning was a little boring, but it got into the main part pretty quickly. Overall it was definitely better than the last one. I have read all the books, but I read them so long ago that I don't remember every little thing. It's nice though since it allows me to still be surprised by some of the things that happen in the movie. Near the end it even made me shed a few tears.


I think I'm going to wrap it up here. I still haven't quite jumped back into Postcrossing yet, so I'll update with those pictures when I've accumulated a few more. Not sure how my Holidays are going to go, but to everyone who celebrates it...


HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It's November? Really?

Which means everything is now going to be about Thanksgiving. This year really has gone by extremely fast. Merely two months left and we'll be celebrating the New Year. I am determined to do something fun for New Years. One of these times I'll make it to New York City to celebrate. 

It's also almost November 5th, so the V for Vendetta references are probably going to increase. When I was in high school there was always one guy who would dress up as V on the 5th. I just watched the movie on October 30th, so my contribution is complete.

The cold weather is also forcing its way in. The news is talking some snow flakes this weekend, but luckily nothing is supposed to stick. I am never ready for Winter. I don't like the season at all. My house turns into an igloo during Winter since it's about the same temperature inside as it is outside. Terrible.

As far as postcards though, I only have two that I haven't posted on here yet. I stopped sending on Postcrossing so that I could save what little money I have. Now that I'm going to be working, I'll be able to start sending (and thus receiving) out some postcards again. These are both from Postcrossing:

From Finland

From Russia. This is definitely my favorite card so far. It's a lot prettier in person obviously. Where ever there is silver, it's actually sparkly. 

So far I've had two out of the three Best Buy orientations. The one I had on Monday only lasted two hours, when it was scheduled to last four, but I'm in no way complaining. I was surprised with a phone call today from Best Buy though. I'll be working this Sunday from 10 A.M. - 3 P.M. and next Wednesday from 1 P.M. - 5 P.M. There's also a mandatory meeting this Saturday at 7:30 in the morning, so unfortunately there's no sleeping in for me this weekend. 

As far as Calculus goes, this chapter is so much better to comprehend than chapter 3. I got the first Chapter 4 quiz back today and my score was 22/25 due to some stupid mistakes I made. We turned in the second Chapter 4 quiz today and after going over the quiz key, it looks like I'll be getting 100% on it. I really need to keep a decent grade in that class, so those two quizzes will help me a bit. Since we're done with the chapter now, it's time to get ready for the test. Oh fun. 

I was looking at a swap description yesterday and this site was listed in it: http://oneword.com/. I checked it out, and ended up creating an account there. Basically you are given a word and a box to type in. You have sixty seconds to type whatever you want. The word shown is the prompt you write from. Each day there's a new word, but I'm unsure of the time they change words. Creating an account allows you to keep track of what you've written. It seems very interesting, and it's a very quick thing to do. 

Not much is going to be happening. My posts are probably going to be even more focused on school and work related things since that'll be about all I'll be doing. I'm definitely glad that I'll finally be able to build up some savings. 

L'Hôpital It!

That's about all we said in Calculus class today. Fun fact: L'Hopital isn't the one who came up with L'Hopital's Rule, Bernoulli did. L'Hopital basically commissioned Bernoulli for it and put it in his book. 


ANYway, for some reason I have a stupid amount of energy right now, even though I'm quite tired. I've already tried to sleep once, but that failed, so here I am typing up a blog post. 


We got our Calculus tests back in class today...that wasn't very confidence boosting. I did absolutely horrible. I went from getting an A on the first test, to getting a D on this (The second) test. Not many people did well at all and a few failed it. The good news is that we are allowed to drop one test grade, so this will most likely be it for most of us. 


Apparently someone in the other Calculus I class got 100 on it. I have no idea how that is even possible. Since they accomplished that then the rest will be a breeze for them since the teacher told us that was probably the hardest chapter. The one we're on right now is pretty simple. I understand it well, although I'm pretty sure I made some stupid mistakes on the quiz we turned in today. Once again I'm alright with the Calculus part, it's just the simple Algebra crap that's getting me. 


I think this'll be around the middle part of my post, so here's all the postcards I've received from Postcrossing:



From Japan. 



These are the Lake Ontario lighthouses. It seems I'm starting to like lighthouses more and more now. 



I believe this is the front of Xiamen University in China. 



From a fellow Michigander. It's from an online comic and my scanner really butchered it. 


Besides Calc class I also went over to Best Buy today. I still hadn't heard from them and my dad kept telling me to call them, so I figured I might as well head over there and talk to someone face to face. Turns out they were going to call everyone tomorrow, so all the freaking out was for nothing. I found out the orientation times though. It's over three days and the first day is this Saturday from 11 A.M. - 4 P.M. I think it is. I'm going to be so incredibly tired. 


The other two days are this coming Monday and Thursday. Monday is a few hours after my Calc class, so I'll probably be dead tired during that as well. As for Thursday I'll have to miss most of my Sculpture class. That's not too big of a deal, but I hate missing any classes. Ah well I suppose. 


The only problem now is I forgot to ask what I wear for orientation. I'll have to look over all the papers they gave me and see if it says anything about it on there. We don't have any Best Buy shirts yet, so I'm assuming (For now) that it isn't too work-ish. We'll see though.


This past weekend I got to see some family that I haven't seen since March. I went over to my mom's for a few hours and found out that Friday (22nd) was my grandma's birthday and that there was going to be a dinner at Papa Vino's (Italian Restaurant) that night. Way to leave me out of the loop family. 


The dinner wasn't all that great. Sure, it was nice to see some family again, but the way my mom's been behaving over the past year just made it blah. I'm not going to discuss it on here, but I don't agree with any decision she's made since October of last year. 


I really wish the family would get together more often though. We all live really close to each other, but stay isolated. I highly doubt that I'll hear anything about Thanksgiving or Christmas until they have already passed. I kind of feel like the "forgotten" grandchild around my grandparents now, but I'm not going to reach out to people who disown a different family member every other day. 


The family is definitely chaotic, but I do miss seeing them and still love them. I just really wish that everyone could get over their grudges and hypocritical selves so that we can actually be a family. Even if it's only for a little while. 


That little part is kind of depressing, but over the past few days I have been laughing at so much. My situations with people are just ridiculous. I'm not even sure how to explain it, so I won't bother going into detail. 


All I know is that my dreams have been telling me a lot more than I wanted to realize lately. 


Also...


L'Hôpital It!

Oh Calculus, How You Eat My Time.

Seriously, why am I in this class again? Oh right, because I'm crazy. We've had four quizzes and one test so far and I'm already wanting to throw in the towel. We do two take home quizzes per chapter. One when we're half way through and the other when we're finished. Seems easy, right? Not when it takes five - six hours to complete. I swear I must be the slowest person in that class. Doesn't help that I've never even had a Pre-Calculus class. I wanted a challenge and dear Lord...I definitely have one.

We got our most recent quizzes back today. My score was 19/25, which is pathetic considering how much time I put into it. The worst part is that I seem to understand the material mildly well, but it's simple things from Algebra and whatnot that are incredibly slowing me down. I just can't seem to remember what I learned four years ago, and who the hell would? I'm not going to be a Mathematician, or an Engineer, or anything like that. So it really is pointless for me to be taking this class. I'm going to continue to push forward with it though and try to get the best grade I can. I cannot afford to fail and if I can pass a Calculus class...well then I'd definitely feel accomplished. We'll just see how I feel after the test tomorrow....

Speaking of college though, I sent an email to this one community college I've been highly interested in. I don't remember if I've ever really mentioned it on here before. The first email I sent last Sunday (The 10th) and never received a response, so I sent another Monday night. Tuesday morning I got a response and apparently they had never received my first email. I have no idea what it is with my email and colleges, but it seems to have a problem with them. The first email was in my "Sent" folder and all I did was copy and paste the email address I was sending it too. Did the same thing with the second one, but for some reason it went through this time. Ah well, at least some of my questions were answered.

Major college plans are going to have to be put on hold now though since Best Buy hired me. Haven't heard from them yet about the day training is going to be on, but I'll most likely hear from them tomorrow or Friday.

I've received several postcards since my last post. They are all for Postcrossing:


Pretty scenery from a man in Pakistan. Apparently there aren't many members on Postcrossing from there.


From Oklahoma. This is probably my most favorite postcard right now. I just think it's really cool. Haha.


Just received this one today from the Netherlands.

I've had to put sending postcards out on hold. I'm down to almost nothing when it comes to money. Scholarship checks get mailed out on Friday, so I'll be putting that in my bank account right away. The new job at Best Buy will allow me to finally have a flow of income as well. It'll definitely be nice to have some savings for once.

I really love sharing pictures, so just because here's two pictures of the edge of the field next to my house:


It was starting to get dark out in this picture.


Definitely earlier in the day.

I wanted to get some pictures of the trees and leaves around my house. I have a lot more pictures, but that tree(s) was the most colorful so far.

Maybe I'll share some of the other pictures in my next post. Not bad for a cell phone camera, eh?

Surprise, Surprise.

Not too much has been going on this past week. I've been feeling pretty sick, so I've been trying to get more sleep. That didn't really happen this weekend though. I'd be really tired by eight or nine, so I'd go to bed, but only end up sleeping for a few hours. Of course I'd then be awake until six or later in the morning. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to go to bed at a decent time and stay asleep.


On Tuesday I got quite the surprise. A number I didn't recognize called my cell phone, so I didn't bother to answer it. A minute later I had a voicemail though, so I listened to it and it turns out that it was the man that had interviewed me. I immediately called back and a woman answered, so I asked for my interviewer. She put me on hold and a few minutes later she was back on the line asking if I'd be able to come in for a second interview on Thursday at twelve. I obviously said that it'd be fine.


Now I had never been to a second interview before, so I really did not know what to expect. I was nervous since I had no idea what new questions they would ask or anything.


Thursday morning comes around and I get a call on my cell at about 10:30. It's Best Buy and they were asking if it was possible to move my interview to five. I agreed to it, but it was an extremely good thing that they called, since for some reason I was originally scheduled to come in at four. How I mixed up hearing "twelve" instead of "four" on the phone I will never know.


Having a later interview time made it a little more nerve racking. I got to Best Buy about ten minutes to five. My dad came with me since he wanted to browse the store while I was being interviewed. I told the greeter why I was there and I was informed that they were running behind and that I could roam the store while I waited. There really wasn't anything I wanted to look at, so I just kind of followed my dad around the store for a bit. I went to the video games section and they had the newest Guitar Hero game set up, so I played one of the songs on that. By then about twenty minutes had passed so I went back up to the front to see if they were waiting for me. No luck.


My dad and I hung around the front of the store for about twenty five more minutes until a man came out of the back room. He went up to the greeter, who pointed at me. The man then walked up to me and apologized for how behind they were. I was quite nervous by then since the interview had been delayed.


For the most part it was like my first interview. I was asked to describe myself and answer several questions that would gauge my suitability to the company. After his questions were done it was my turn. Of course my first question was "How long will it be until I know if I'm hired or not?" I was given my second surprise when his answer was "Oh. I'd like to offer you a position here." I probably had a shocked expression on my face. He then went over things like Dress Code and the drug test I'd have to take the next day. I walked out with a stack of papers and a huge smile on my face. My dad was in the car waiting for me at this point and he knew right away that I had gotten the job.


Earlier, while we were waiting, an employee had come up to us asking if we needed any help. I had said that I was just waiting for my second interview and her response to that was "Oh, congratulations on joining the company!" I was really confused at first since no one had mentioned anything about a possible job offer, but now that I have the job I understand what she meant.


Wow, that's a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, so I think it's time for some postcards. This one is what I received for the Lighthouse PC Swap on Swap-bot:



I think it's very beautiful.


These are the ones I've received for Postcrossing:



From a fellow Michigander.



From Taiwan for a private swap.



From California. I actually like this one a lot. I find it pretty in a strange way. haha.


I really need to find a way to store my postcards. I wish I was able to put them on my wall or something like that, but my room is too small to have enough wall space for that.


I've still been playing Pokemon HeartGold. I'm still in love with that game. I was only going to play it for a little bit last night, but after defeating the second to last Kanto gym leader I figured I might as well battle Gary/Blue. All his Pokemon I got a one hit KO on except for his lvl 60 Pidgeot. It makes no sense either. I ended up defeating it with my lvl 56 Ampharos, since apparently flying types are weak to electric attacks. I've forgotten that a billion times throughout the game.


I now have all the 16 gym badges in HeartGold. I'm going to hold off on going to Mt. Silver and battling Red though. I want to capture the legendaries and get a decent water type before doing that. My main water Pokemon right now is a lvl 51 Feraligatr who's move Hydro Pump has missed every single time. I seriously hate that Pokemon. I'd rather have a water one that I actually like. I'm also able to battle all the gym leaders again, so I'd rather do that as well. I still haven't even put together the Pokewalker yet.


Other than that not much has been going on. My mood seems to change with the seasons, so I'm starting to get more depressed at night. When I try to sleep I think about things that I thought I had forgotten or had dealt with and moved on from. Even my dreams are putting me through a crazy range of emotions.


Ah well. At least I'm getting through it.

What Is A Man? A Miserable Little Pile Of Secrets!

I'm going to start this post off by saying that the missing cat I talked about in the previous post was found shortly after. I went into the kitchen at around 9 P.M. on Saturday to give my diabetic cat her insulin shot and heard Jack meowing and scratching at the garage door. I was so happy that I cried. She's fine and was her normal self immediately, so all is well in that aspect.


This past week has been a mix of ups and downs so far. I've been barely getting any sleep, but that's mostly my fault by staying up until four in the morning talking and playing games. Today was a dozy though.


I had to wake up two hours earlier than normal since I had an interview with Best Buy. I was pretty happy about  the interview until I started getting ready. I couldn't find anything I was looking for, none of my dressier clothes fit, and to top it all off I was being yelled at by my grandmother. So needless to say I wasn't too happy with how the day started when I headed to Best Buy.


When I got there I found out that it was basically a free for all. Anyone could come in and have an interview, so I really don't understand why they bothered to call me. There was 8 or 9 people sitting in a little area they had designated, so I had a seat with them to wait until my name was called.


The interview itself was short and all they did was ask designated questions and wrote down my answers. The interviewer said over the next few days they're going to compare notes and chose who they think will work the best. Considering a ton of people were interviewed I highly doubt I'll get a call back, but at least I had something I suppose.


Besides that about the only other good thing that has happened so far this week is that I got a 91/100 on my first Calculus test. Apparently the average score was a 78/100, so I did really well and am highly pleased with it. The teacher also said that our class was weird in that people either did really well, or failed. All I know is that what we're going over right now seems really pointless and no one's understanding much of it at all.


I think this will be about the middle of the post, so I'll update with the postcards I've received. These ones are from Postcrossing:



This one is from Japan and since I don't know any Japanese I have no idea what it says. I also don't know anyone who speaks/writes it, so I guess I'm kind of out of luck with this one.



From the Netherlands



From Arkansas (USA) I really like how the moth looks.



From Finland. My scanner messed it up, so it looks a lot better than that.


I thought I had some from Swap-bot as well, but I guess I've already posted those on here. Ah well.


Anyway. I'll now get back to why this day was terrible besides what I've already said. I had a little bit after the interview until my Sculpture class so I took a little nap. Got to class alright, blah blah. We had to wait about 20 minutes before the teacher showed up. We were all about to leave when he walked in. Everyone seemed to either be really tired (like I was) or just not into doing any art today. I slogged through the 50 minute drawing we do almost every class and then started on my 2nd sculpture. After an hour and a half I just wanted to leave, but there was still 45 minutes of class left, so I asked if we didn't want to do anymore if we could just be done for the day. He agreed, so that was really good and I was happy since I'd be able to get home early and just sleep for a while. Apparently the world didn't think that was a very good thing.


I get to my car and leave the college. I take the highway home, but am only on it for 2 exits until mine comes up. I was in the center lane and sped up a little bit so I could get past the car in the right lane before merging into it and then getting off at my exit. Right as I'm about to put my turn signal on I smell something terrible and BAM! instantly smoke has filled the cab of the car and I can barely see. I immediately turn on my turn signal and just swerve to the side of the road. I'm glad I didn't hit any cars or anything, but I panicked. I put the car in park and turned it off and got out of the car as quickly as I could.


I stood a little away from the car and called home. My grandma answer, but I could barely hear since I was on the highway so I just told her where I was and to come get me. She took forever to get there even though my house was only four minutes away. But she got there and we popped the hood and there was no smoke. It didn't even smell like anything weird either. However, it still smelled absolutely terrible inside the car.


My grandma called home to see if my dad was there and he had just gotten home so he came out there. So there we were with a 1978 Oldsmobile (Mine), a little sports car (Grandma's) and a huge van (Grandma's but dad drives it) on the side of the highway trying to figure out what happened. My dad used to be a mechanic, so he knows what he's doing and looked it all over. He didn't notice anything wrong with it so it turned it on. It started up fine and there was no smoke, so he drove it home while I drove the little car and my grandma took the van.


On the way home it was fine, but we've been having problems with the heater core in it for a few weeks now, so my dad thinks that finally gave out. He doesn't want me to drive it tomorrow, which I am grateful for, but it definitely scared me. I've never had anything like that happen before. I'll probably use the incident to reinforce that I'm cursed. Haha.


Other than that things have been pretty ok. I feel less stressed and actually have the opportunity to go do something I've been wanting to do for a few years now: go to ACEN. That stands for Anime Central and is a huge anime convention in Chicago. It isn't until May, but planning early is definitely something you have to do. I'm skeptical about it though since I doubt I'll still be talking to the person I'd be going with by then, but who knows.


Another fun/annoying thing I did last night/today was download and play the Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow demo. That was a bitch to download. When it first started it was just about midnight last night. According to the time it said it would take it should have finished by around 4 in the morning. I only paid attention to it for the first 20% before going to bed, so at the rate it was going, the time seemed accurate. Well...I checked it at 11 in the morning and it was at 93% I have no idea what happened during the time I was sleeping and at my interview, but that download was taking way too long. Luckily by the time I was home again it was finished. I only played it about 2 hours ago though.


I'm not sure where in the game the demo starts you off at, but Gabriel (the main character) already has a boat load of skills and abilities. His weapon is also a whip and for some reason that thing can hit enemies from extremely far away. It makes the game seem way too easy since you can just keep mashing the buttons and kill everything.


My favorite ability/skill though is the Dodge Roll. Gabriel rolls so quickly and far that you can just keep doing that and nothing can hit you. Where it started me off I had to fight some werewolves and then a werewolf boss. For the boss fight I just kept rolling all over the area and then jumping and doing the aerial combo.


I've read that the boss fights can be really hard, but with how the fights are done I honestly don't see the difficulty. My only playing a demo doesn't really show me much, but hopefully without all of those abilities there's a challenge.


The graphics are definitely really good although I did notice some things that seem off. How Gabriel runs is an example, it just seems really strange and awkward. When I was fighting something I didn't notice it though since things move a lot faster, but just running up to things and stuff like that it's highly noticeable. The scene the demo also started on, it was raining, but how everything looked wet was really strange. The horse Gabriel was riding was definitely messed up. It almost looked metallic and a lot more reflective than it should have been for just being wet fur. I'm probably being too picky, but for all the hype about it I almost have to be.


I doubt I'll ever play the full game of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, but if I do it'd definitely be a long ways from now when it's discounted. I'd probably just play it to see the environment since what I have seen of the game is pretty damn beautiful. Hopefully the graphics live up to those standards and not what I've already witnessed with the demo.

A Few Postcards, Two Horses, And A Missing Cat.

I think I'm going to start this post off with the good things that have happened recently. Craigslist actually came in handy and got me back in the saddle, literally. 


I've been wanting to get back into riding horses again after taking a year long break for school, job searching, etc. I don't want to just take lessons once a week. In fact, I'd rather not have to pay to ride at all. I actually posted an ad on CL stating that I would like to work on a horse farm in exchange for being able to ride. I never got any responses, but last Saturday or Sunday I saw an ad about a lady who owned a horse farm that had broken her ankle. She was looking for an experienced rider to ride two of her Thoroughbreds.


 I sent her an email about my experience with horses, but wasn't really expecting anything since I hadn't ridden in a year. Well she responded and we exchanged a few emails until she gave me her number. The next day I called her and we set it up so that on Wednesday afternoon I would come out to her farm and ride her schooling horse, so we could see how I was doing before riding the more spirited ones. 


Wednesday came and it was so nice being in the saddle again. Once I asked the horse to trot and starting posting I could definitely tell that I wasn't in that good of shape anymore. I rode that horse for a little bit until they brought the calmer of the two Thoroughbreds out. She told me prior about the "bad" things the horses would do on their off days, but it was really nothing compared to what I had dealt with before. 


I mounted the horse and rode about the same amount of time as the first. This was definitely more of a "get up and go" type of horse, but I like that since they don't take much encouraging to change their gaits. I rode the horse at a walk, trot, and canter. The only time the horse got over excited was when I asked him to canter one of the times and he took off at first. He was very easy to bring back down to a walk again though. 


Overall I really enjoyed it and am hoping to go back out there tomorrow. When I first left the farm I wasn't sore at all, but a few hours after I got home I was definitely feeling the burn. It's not Saturday and I am still a little sore in some spots from it. It's definitely worth it to be doing something I love again though.


Now is where I think I want to put in the Postcards I've received. Putting the pictures in the middle of the post seems like a good thing to do. These first cards are from Postcrossing:


From Canada



Karleby, Finland



England



U.S.



Minsk, Belarus

I really like this card. It looks like it was done with watercolors. 


These next two PC's are from Swap-bot and the Fall Leaves PC Swap:








I really love this card. It was handmade and it's laminated, so it's all shiny. Haha. I'm not sure if that's the way it goes, but it's how I prefer it. I really have no idea why I like it so much, but I do. 


Ok. Now is when the sad stuff that's happened comes out. I think I'm going to copy and paste most of it since I've told the story several times now. Here it is:


I got home from class yesterday at a bit after noon and was informed by my grandma that one of our three cats, Jack (female), has been missing for around an hour. All of my cats are indoor cats and most of the time they are in plain sight. They are really friendly and mainly sleep on the couches or our beds. If Jack ever is hiding and I want to pet her or whatever I just call her name and she'll appear. 

I was feeding one of my other cats when my grandma told me, so I grabbed the treat bag and started to shake it and called for Jack. Nothing. I tried upstairs. Nothing. I thought it was odd that she wasn't coming out of hiding, but didn't think much of it then. About an hour later I start looking for her since I'm getting a little bit worried. I spent a few hours going through every single place in my house several times trying to find her. Still nothing. 

At this point it's about 4 in the afternoon. Jack has never been out of sight for this long, so of course I'm getting even more worried. I ask my grandpa, who is always working on stuff outside, if he left a door open or anything to where Jack could have gotten outside. He doesn't know for sure, but he thinks the door might have been open a little bit, but that he was working right next to it all day. 

Now Jack has only been outside several times and that's only because my dad's stupid and let her out. When she was outside she would go right into the garage and just wander in there since she seemed pretty scared about being outside of the house. So it really makes no sense to me that she would go outside in the first place, let alone run away. 

I went outside though and walked around and called her name. Our backyard is a ravine, so I spent a lot of time over there listening for any movement and stuff. Nothing still. We also live right next to a busy road, so that has me extra worried since she could very easily get hit by a car. 


It's now 8:10 P.M. the next day and there's still no sign of her. I've posted an ad on Craigslist stating that she's missing and put a few pictures up on there as well. I really don't know what else to do since we've looked everywhere around here. On Monday I'll probably check some animal shelters and places like that for her. Another thing that has me really worried is the weather. It's been really cold and rainy all day, so I want her here and in the warm house. Everything about this situation just sucks. Here's two pictures of her:








I just really hope everything turns out ok. I don't need more stress and craziness right now.