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This is Ass (Part 2) September 9, 3:27 PM I promised a more positive entry this time so here it goes! Wrong Personality Fuck that. You can't have a "wrong personality". There are personalities that are conducive to making a lot of money. People like this are usually lying, cheating, snakes that will do anything to destroy anything and everything that gets in the way of them making money. I am not like those people. I am not an asshole. I am quiet, reserved, and generally keep to myself. There is nothing wrong with that. From the outside it looks like I just don't care about my future. But nothing could be further from the truth. I try every day to be better and better, not only for me, but moreso for Mandie. And there is nothing wrong with that. Wrong Hobbies I'm not even really sure where this one came from. If I had not spent all that time gaming and messing around with computers, I guarantee I would not be the same person today. I would not know what I know or do what I do. Your hobbies are what you do for fun, and I happened to learn a lot about how things work and the world in general from mine. How could this be bad? Lots of peoples hobbies include getting drunk and drug abuse. Am I suppossed to feel bad that mine aren't like that? Fuck that. Wrong mindset Okay, I can see some problems here with this one. I am not willing to move out of my parents house yet which limits me as far as jobs go. But I also have Mandie. I don't want to move away from her either. I also tend to not be very aggressive in the area of career development. This may be limiting me as well. I think that the optimal thing to do would be to get a list of every company that exists in my own county and all surrounding counties, and call each and every one of them to see if they are hiring tech support. Then I would know for sure if anyone is hiring. But I'm not the kind of guy that does that. Why? I'm not really sure. I guess I'm just not that pushy. Maybe I should be. Wrong area of study Bingo. This is what fucked everything up. Since I did not go on to grad school, My B.S. in Psychology is totally meaningless. I does not qualify me to do anything. However, If I did major in something like Chemistry, Physics, or Astronomy, I really truly doubt I would be having any easier of a time finding a job. I was in Engineering, and Engineers seem to be the only thing anyone wants. I hated my life in engineering. I hated it. I can't imagine how anyone could enjoy working on CAD all day or drafting all day. It is mind numbing, frustrating, and boring as hell. So maybe I will call the chamber of commerce and see what I can dig up. I think that is basically my only remaining option. I've tried classifieds, monster.com, regional help wanted, craigs list, and cold calling several organizations. I really don't know what else to do short of going into business for myself. And I stand by what I said about what to major in at college. Just liking it isn't enough. Employability comes first. Then from the list of highly employable majors, you pick one you like. I wish someone would have told me that five years ago. I love you more than I can describe! You are everything to me, I love you forever darling! <3<3<3 This is Ass September 5, 7:55 AM I haven't done a morning entry like this in a very long time. That's because I am still up from last night. I haven't been able to sleep at all. Sooooo...still unemployed. I have sent out a total of about 22 resumes to various companies, many of which I do not even know the names. My information is floating around on Craigs List, Monster, and a local job board. I have sent my info to all of these places and I have not heard a peep from ANY of them. It is really starting to irk me. How can I provide a suitable living arrangement for my cupcake, one where she can choose not to work and only worry herself with looking pretty every day, when I cannot even find a part time job let alone a new career? Many of my friends/aquantences have very good jobs or are on their way to them. I am just as intelligent if not more so than all of them. How did this happen? I have pondered this matter carefully and I have come up with some reasons. Wrong kind of personality Wrong interests Wrong hobbies Wrong mindset Wrong area of study Let me break these down. Wrong personality Let's get one thing straight. I hate being around people. I don't have a lot of interest in making friends and never have. I don't like networking professionally or privately and never have. I don't like to be aggressive in a career sense and never really saw the point in doing so. It's just not the way I roll. What I DO like is working alone, coming up with my own ideas and executing them myself. This is not conducive to the job market or the rest of real life AT ALL. Wrong interests I love astronomy. In fact, I would say that only video games rival the attention and thought that I give to space and everything in it. Unfortunately, all that I know about stars, planets, black holes, neutron stars, moons, dwarfs, and everything in between, is completely and utterly worthless in any real world application. Even the demand for new astronomers is non-existent. I do have other interests, but they don't come close to astronomy. Wrong hobbies I am a gamer. That is how I identify myself. I have been a gamer for about 20 years, and I have enjoyed every second of it. I like gaming more than any sport. I liked gaming more than any of the clubs I joined in college. I would rather game than do almost anything else. In fact, I remember taking a gaming magazine quiz many years ago that rated me as being "Beyond Hardcore". Whereas many casual gamers would experience real life and look for similarities in games, My mind often works in the opposite fashion. I play games, and then I go out and notice things that remind me of the games that I play. The problem is that everything I have ever accomplished in gaming, every victory, every high score, every pwning of another player, means precisely DICK in the real world. I have years of experience doing something that completely DOES NOT MATTER. Wrong mindset The whole Mindset category ties all the others together. I am a gamer who hates working with people and is only interested in things that are totally unmarketable. Yeah, I'm pretty fucked. Wrong area of study If you look back through my blog, you will see that I started out as an engineering student at college. I HATED it. I HATED my life when I was in it. And that is what drove me to be a psychology student. Everyone told me: "You are doing the right thing!" "You should always major in something you like!" Let me go on the record saying that the second piece of advice up there is the single worst piece of advice that you can ever give a college student. I followed it, and it resulted in me having no direction after graduation, working minimum wage or less than minimum wage jobs for a year afterwards, and in me being unemployed for a month as of today. The advice SHOULD read like this: "You should major in something that will make you a lot of money AND that you also happen to be interested in doing." The whole reason you go to school is so that you can get a kick ass, high paying job afterwards. That is really the whole point. Period. Don't kid yourself, we all like to hear those pie-in-the-sky ideals that college should be an enlightening and personal growth experience, but that is simply not the truth in the real world. In the real world, college costs $60K and higher, and that money has to come from somewhere. It has to come from the good job you get afterwards. College is a means to an end. It is very unfortunate that I did not understand this until after graduation. I know I am smart enough to be a chemist, or a physicist, or an astronomer. I just didn't like studying those things as much as I liked studying psychology. Had I known my employment opportunities would amount to ASS after graduating with a psych degree, I would have majored in one of those other things instead. I dont know if I can do anything about what is "wrong" with me. Perhaps I am destined to be a deep thinker and a gamer, and nothing else. If that is the case, I better find a nice big cardboard box to call home. This literally embarrassing. I am nearly 24 years old now. I am still living with my parents. Men who do not make a lot of money and cannot live on their own are NOT ATTRACTIVE. I feel like my balls have been cut off. I feel like I can no longer impress Mandie. I feel like my life as it stands right now is a total failure. Maybe I'll feel better when I finally do find a new job, but I will always regret the mistakes I made in college. Good night, and good luck. You are my everything. See you Saturday!! I hate Intelligent Design August 9, 1:17 AM I love writing in this thing! Today I cashed the last paycheck from my old job. It felt kind of strange, but it felt good at the same time. It was like it was the end of an era of my life. I also sent out another resume, thus increasing my chances of finding a good job even more. Now, for the past few days I have been watching many videos on Youtube dealing with the debate between Intelligent Design (Creationism) and Evolution. Essentially, ID claims that all life on Earth was blinked into existence at the same time by an intelligent designer of supernatural origin, and that Evolution is impossible. And they want to teach that in schools. IN SCIENCE CLASS. It is SHOCKING and FRIGHTENING to me that 41%...FORTY ONE PERCENT...of americans believe that Humans and Dinosaurs existed at the SAME TIME. In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to vomit. These proponents of ID tout it as a "scientific theory" (vomit rising again). Yet none of them ever make any predictions or try to explain any observations using it. These people are so blind to what is all around them that they spread the idea that the earth is 6,000 years old, Dinosaurs, Trilobites, Humans, Cats, Dogs, and all other life all existed simultaneously at some point, that all types of evolution are impossible, and they ignore the MOUNTAINS of evidence that support evolutionary theory. These ID pseudo-scientists have such a poor understanding of real science that it ought to be criminal for them to speak in any sort of educational setting. All they do is attack hundreds of years of science and reject all that it has done for us without offering ANY explainations of their own. They demonize science and make it "evil" to believe in Darwin or Newton or Einstein or Hawking or Galilleo or any other scientist. They plant seeds of distain for science in the minds of children and teach them that God did everything and thats all there is to it. They turn our kids into SHEEP. And unfortunately those SHEEP become adults which contribute to the 41% of people who think the Flintstones were real. I am infinitely grateful that my own home state was not STUPID enough to accept ID in the science classroom. What happened in Dover was a shining example of the intelligence that exists here. The school board tried to shove ID down the students throats and the voters THREW THEM ALL OUT. I can't say the same for places like Kansas. God help those poor kids that will be turned off from science. I can't believe that this problem is so prevalent in this country. What happened to reason and logic and scientific scrutiny? Its gone from some places. Now I got my heart racing. It feels good but it also increases my Tinnitus which is nowhere near as bad as it was yesterday. This is a very good thing :) However, something still feels screwy in my right ear. Tomorrow I'll be seeing Mandie and we will be exploring more of the woods! This time we are going to take a camera and take really nice pictures of our adventures. I know it's going to be a blast, and I can't wait to see her again! Thats all for tonight folks. Mandie, you are amazing and I love you with all my heart! <3<3<3<3 Sims August 8, 1:15 AM Its been a month, and much has happened. I quit my job and put in applications at several different places to be a computer tech. Its time to put that A+ certification to work. I felt good about finishing up the work at my old job, but I'm ready to find something that pays a little better. Mandie and I have had two excursions into the woods around my house, and we both loved them. It is so much fun to find streams that are full of rocks you can climb on, I am very lucky to live in an area where these opportunities are free and easy to come by. The first trip was to an old reservoir which we explored, and then to a large 30 foot ditch that had sheer sides to climb. We were in the woods for three hours. The second trip was to explore some old ruins and find new streams, both of which we did. This also took three hours. We have many more expeditiions planned and we can't wait to go! Its also amazing exercise and helps us lose weight. My ears seem to have taken a turn for the worse. Specifically my right ear. Today it felt as if it was completely clogged with something and the ringing was very intense all day. I have been able to mentally sequester the effects the ring has on my emotions, to an extent. It takes a lot of mental energy to actively deal with these effects 24/7. I feel it has had a significant impact on my ability to learn new things, be relaxed, and basically feel normal, since I am constantly fighting this ring. This is a curse on my life and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. I might update again tomorrow. See you all later. You are the love of my life! I love you forever!!<3<3<3<3 Sins July 7, 10:57 PM Here we are a week later. The past week has been quite eventful. I had a three day weekend this past weekend for the fourth, and I went out to my cousin's place for her high school graduation party. The best part was that I got to take Mandie along with me, and we even got to sleep in the same room! That one surprised me, I almost had to sleep in a different room on a different floor. The party was alright, Mandie and I got yelled at for not "mingling" enough, whatever that means. We went off by ourselves for maybe ten minutes and we get hounded. Figures. Towards the end of the party was pretty nice, as Mandie and I got to sit with my cousins and their friends and drink wine. Of course Mandie kept my glass full and as a result I was a little tipsy. I made sure she was too though :) Mandie has also made me aware of problems she has been having with getting Medieval Total War (the original) to run on her new computer. I think it might be a combination of getting the disks mixed up (she has two versions of the game) and trying to use an 8000 series Geforce card. Thankfully I think we can get around each of these problems with a little tweaking and using her onboard video. Also, Firefox was freezing up on her a lot, but that seems to have gone away for now. Intermittent problems like that are often hard to figure out. On my weigh-in this past Friday, I discovered I lost more weight and I am now down to 196 pounds. That means I have lost 4 pounds since starting this with Mandie. She has lost over 10 so far, and she looks amazing! Her goal is to lose a total of 30 pounds, and I'm sure she can do it. I'm shooting for 25 myself, and hopefully by the end of all this we will both have reached our goals. In other health news, my fight with Tinnitus continues. I cannot tell if it is getting any worse or better, which probably means its neither. What I do know is that now I am super sensitive to noises that never bothered me before, such as a running dehumidifier or spraying my compressed air can to get rid of dust in my computer. It seems that noises far below 85 decibels, which is the threshold of hearing damage, still bother me for some reason. Also, if I get angry or get in a heated argument with someone (usually my mom), my ears just start SCREAMING. I think it might be due to blood pressure rising in those situations, so I will need to find a way to control that. I am considering seeing a specialist, although I am quite certain he/she will be no help at all. I am also thinking about trying some herbal or homeopathic treatments, and if I do I hope the placebo effect is strong enough to fool my brain into thinking they actually work. Speaking of Tinnitus, I've been thinking a lot about my faith in God lately. Over the past several years I have basically built up my own private religion that, in my mind, isn't twisted and corrupt like the Catholic faith I was force-fed as a child. I do believe there is a God and I do believe He has the power to heal any disease or condition. I thought that by going to church over the weekend, a big church, with lots of people around might help me if even just subconsciously. What I got instead was a loudspeaker blaring the shrill high-pitched voice of some bitch cantor straight into my ears. I would have walked out of the church had I not been in the middle of the damn pew. After that fiasco I was so pissed and my ears bothered me so much I just walked straight out and straight into the car without even looking at anyone. So much for the healing power of church. It actually made me worse. In happier news, my new game, Sins of a Solar Empire, pwns. It is one of the better games I've played recently. It is like a cross between Supreme Commander and Civilization, and set in space. You can build trade empires or military empires or some hybrid of the two, and the object of the game is to take over the map by destroying any opponents on that map. The maps themselves are set on a grand scale, even the smallest is the size of an entire solar system. The large maps are multi-star constellations, with dozens of planets and asteroids surrounding each star. You build cities on these planets and asteroids in order to produce tax income and raw materials, which you use to build ships, further improve your colonies, or spread to new planets. The music is simply incredible, and I'm listening to some right now. At first, I have to admit I wasn't sure about this game. As soon as I started playing it, it reminded me immediately of Hegemonia, a different game which I did not like and never bothered to clear. My lack of experience with this type of game also hurt my initial impressions, as I felt like I was flooded with information and options I didn't understand. However, after a few games and reading a FAQ, I discovered this game was NOTHING like Hegemonia, and was far better. I forsee it staying on my hard drive for quite some time :) Thats all I got for now, see ya! I can't wait for this weekend! I love you forever cupcake!! Computers are pwnage! June 30, 10:25 PM Wheeeee ten days later, we have the following: This past Friday I helped Mandie build her new computer! It was very satifying when we turned it on and it worked right on the first try! That A+ Certification is quite useful indeed. I wish I could have seen the look on her dads face when she told him it worked! You see, he didn't believe I could do it. I think this may have been some sort of challenge from him. I don't think he sees my environmental work at my job as a real job. In fact, I don't think he regards me very highly at all. Him telling Mandie that I would never get her computer to work is proof of this. Well, proving him wrong was icing on the cake of Mandie getting her new, pwnage computer. It has the following specs: Core 2 Quad Processor 4 Gigs RAM Geforce 8800 GS Vid Card 160 gig HDD Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit Pwnage Pink Case Putting it together was so much fun! We even had matching anti-static wrist straps. We got everything out of their respective boxes, and we first figured out how to open her pink case. It was a pretty standard thumbscrew/slide-off configuration, so it didn't take us long to get it. Next, we screwed in the Mobo standoffs in the "U" holes (U stood for Micro-ATX). Then we set the motherboard in and immediately noticed something was wrong. A bunch of the holes weren't lining up. At first I thought it was just a weird case setup, which as it turned out it wasn't that at all, just some of the holes were improperly marked. Once the mobo was in, next was the CPU and dreaded cooler. The CPU popped right in, and then I went to work on the damn cooler. It took me a very long time to get it in right on my own computer, and it would have taken just as long with Mandie's had she not had a revelation: "Why not push in the pegs diagonally?" "OF COURSE!!" It went right in then. Next were the RAM sticks (they are also pink). We each put one in. Then came the Hard Drive and DVD Drive. I accidentally put the HDD into one of the floppy drive bays. Then we realized you could take the other side panel off the case and immediately it became clear that the HDDs went into their own bays closer to the bottom of the case. Once those two things were in, the Video Card was next. As always with those video cards, there is some concern as to whether or not they will fit in the case. This one did with plenty of room to spare. Last came the Power Supply. The familiar PC Power fishnet wrappings made it easy to arrange the cords in an orderly fashion. Once the power, data, and case leads were all plugged in, we took it into her room, hooked up the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, and BAM, it worked flawlessly, on the first try. I guess I really do know what I'm doing :) but of course it wouldn't have gone so smoothly without Mandie. Behind every good man is a good woman. We got Windows installed, and after some driver issues with the network card were resolved, she was off enjoying her new PC. I understand AutoCAD works amazingly well on it. Over the weekend Mandie went to see her friend in West Virginia. It sucked because she spent the whole time taking care of her extremely drunk friend. Figures. Tomorrow we are going to Toys R Us to buy some new board games. We love board games! We play them together all the time, and I can't wait to get some new ones. Well, I'm exausted. See you all next time! I love you with all my heart, darling. I wish I was with you every day! Hi June 20, 9:00 PM So here we are at another update. Last week I took my A+ Essentials exam and passed. Today I took my A+ IT Technician exam, and passed even better. So now I am officially A+ Certified. That means I can put that on my resume and enjoy the benefits of having this fine credential. I plan on pursuing the Network+, Server+, and Security+ certifications next, in that order. That may leave you wondering, "what about your 4 year degree?" Well, I realize I have it, and right now I'm looking at it as a supporting credential. Something that will help me land a management position someday after I've logged a few years as a tech. I can only hope. A lot of projects have been going on at the house too. We have put new carpets in each bedroom, painted all the walls basically everywhere, knocked down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and put in new floors, and now the patio is almost done. My parents also plan on replacing the roof this summer, and finishing the front wall. I made my mom promise that there would be no new projects for at least 5 years after this. Mandie and I continue to have a wonderful relationship. She really is the brightest part of my day! Right now we are losing weight together, and she is doing FAR better than me. I'm so proud of her and I hope she makes it as far as she wants to. I love her so much and I can't wait to see her again! Well, back to cleaning the house. See you all later. You are the most wonderful woman anyone could ask for. I love you forever darling <3<3<3<3 Another Update June 7, 10:52 PM Well that last post was a little depressing wasn't it? Today I helped my parents with some things around the house, like opening the pool and cutting grass. I brushed all the animals too. Unfortunately, Mandie left with her family to the beach today. This was a vacation that I was not allowed to go to. Her father said that she could bring one friend, and boyfriends didn't count. So I wasn't allowed to go. Thats right, after taking Mandie with us to Ocean City and FLORIDA, I am not allowed to go with her to Myrtle Beach. We are both very upset about this as you can imagine. It's a crock of shit and everyone knows it. We will have to be content with text messages for a week. I miss her a lot already. I hope the next week goes fast! On another note, I think I'm getting pretty good control over my tinnitus. I'm at the point now where I don't usually hear it unless its really quiet, or if I think about it. Reading and everything else is almost as easy as it was. I hope things continue to improve. I love you so very much darling, hurry home so I can see you!! An Update June 3, 11:29 PM I don't really update this anymore. Nobody really checks it anymore, but I feel like I need to write an entry today. I don't think anyone will notice, and I don't mind of noone does. I don't think anyone wants to hear about my troubles anymore anyway. In my last entry I ended with me hoping to get my A+ certification. I should be taking my exams next week. It has taken me long enough to get to this point, but I wanted to make sure I was absolutely ready to take these tests. They cost a lot of money to take and I don't want to screw it up. Work is basically the same as it ever was. Boring. But there was something that happened in April, which is the main reason I wanted to post again. I was riding with Bryan in the truck to a place where we could get trees for the tree sale the office was holding. The whole way there and back, we rode with the window down and the radio on. Of course, this would be of no consequence to any normal person, but we are talking about me here. During the trip back, I noticed my ears popping constantly. I figured this was no big deal, just a result of the wind coming through the open window. But the popping continued after the trip, the whole way home in my car, and for the rest of the entire day. Pop, pop, pop. It was also difficult for me to hear anything, I felt as though I had kleenex in my ears. Hoping not to have this problem in the morning, I went to bed with the popping. The next morning, I woke up and noticed my ears stopped popping, but now they were ringing. Loud. Like a little referee was blowing his whistle inside my head. The ringing continued all day. And all the next day. And all the rest of the week. At this point I was getting extremely scared. I had never experienced anything like this before. I looked online for answers. I searched for "constant ear ringing" in google, and something called Tinnitus came up. What I was reading scared me even more. I read that Tinnitus can be caused by excessive exposure to loud noise, a bad ear infection, high blood pressure, TMJ, or some other sort of trauma to the ear. That in itself wasn't scary, but what was scary was that there is no cure for this condition. Once you have it, you have it probably forever. My mind was racing. I couldn't have a referee whistle blowing in my head forever. None of my music sounded right. I couldn't enjoy playing games. I couldn't enjoy talking to Mandie. I couldn't even get an erection anymore because the ringing was so loud and distracting. I couldn't enjoy doing all the things I loved. I wasn't Me anymore. I need silence. I read in silence. I sleep in silence. I think in silence. Suddenly, my A+ certification, my job, my relationship with Mandie, my future, all seemed to be ruined beyond repair. This ringing was driving me insane, and as a result, into depression. I was hyperventilating. Due to the ringing, all of my coping mechanisms, like meditating, reading, listening to music, and other things, were shattered. I had no way of relieving the stress. I decided to see the doctor, and made an appointment. When I went in to see him, I described my symptoms, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Tinnitus". He may as well have told me I had brain cancer. I think that would have been easier. That way I would die soon, and not have to live for decades with a whistle in my ears. The doctor also told me that the ringing could be caused by an inner ear infection, so he gave me some pills to take to see if they helped. I wasn't holding my breath. Somehow I knew it woudln't be that simple. As another (second) week of ringing went by, I told Mandie that if it continued getting worse and I eventually went deaf, she did not have to stay with me. I did not want my perfect woman stuck with a broken man. And I meant that. She told me she could never do that to me, that she would never want to do that to me because she loves me. Thats one of the reasons I love her...she will never leave my side, and I will never leave hers. I went and visited her on that second weekend of ringing, and it was the most difficult weekend I ever spent with her. It was nearly impossible to hide the fact that I was teetering on the brink of deep and abysmal anxiety and panic. The ringing followed me everywhere. To her apartment, to the store, to the living room, to the shower, to bed with her. I had, for the first time, difficulty falling asleep with Mandie. The Tinnitus was that bad. I told everyone about it. My parents, my sister, Mandie, even my coworkers. I even filled out an injury report. And the pills were not helping at all. Everyone told me, you just have to ignore it, you just have to not let it bother you, you just have to not pay attention it. They had no fucking clue. I remember my mom asking me, "Honey, is it really that loud??" Would I be in this condition if it wasn't? I remember taking a picture of myself and sending it to Mandie around this time. I tried to force a smile, but it still came out crooked and fake looking. Thats because it was. I felt I had nothing to smile about. But then, things started improving bit by bit. I noticed that when I talked to Mandie on the phone, her voice seemed to cancel out the ringing in whichever ear I was holding the phone to. It was then that I noticed I could understand her perfectly on the phone, something I could never do before and was the main reason we almost never used the phone to talk. In contrast, I also noticed that I generally could not hear as well as I could before the ringing. Things that used to hurt my ears didn't hurt them anymore, which I took as a very bad sign. People speaking on TV were hard to understand unless the volume was cranked. It was impossible to read. I tried so many times, but the ringing distracted and frazzled me so much that I would skip words, misread sentences, and see words that weren't even there. Reading became a difficult trial when it was once one of my favorite things to do, and I could do very easily and quickly. The third week of ringing arrived. The pills did absolutely nothing and I was driven further and further into a very dark place. I could not hide it anymore. I was always tired and very irritable. I didn't enjoy...anything. Everything was ruined, and there was no hope of anything getting better, ever. Every day was awful. I started questioning things. I started questioning whether or not I would have the strength to go on. What if I didn't? Would I kill myself? How would I? And could I go through with it? The ringing seemed to mock me, not stopping even while I was thinking of these terrible things. There had been no change in its intensity whatsoever. Until the end of the third week. I was playing Counter Strike in some desperate attempt to feel happy again when it happened. It felt like something physically moved inside my ears, and I noticed immediately that the ringing was significantly reduced. No longer was it a piercing referee's whistle, but now a much softer white-noise type of ring. It continues as such to this day. I don't know if this softer white noise will ever go away. What I do know however, is that my music sounds good again, I can read again, I can think again, and I can sleep again. Although those things are doable now, it is still harder than it was before. Mandie is once again nearly unintelligible on the phone, and loud things hurt my ears again. As of today, I have not felt any more movements in my ears. The ringing continues, but it is not as troubling as it was before. I can only pray to God, if there is one, that He will show mercy on me and totally lift these awful sounds from my ears once and for all. Happy things started occuring again. I didn't have to try to cover up any crushing anxiety while I was around Mandie or anyone else. It was easier to function now, not as easy as it was, but better than when the ringing first started. It was fun to do normal things again, it was easy to become aroused around my love again, and my mind could once again wander the vast expanses of my subconscious in my many daily daydreams, although with more effort now. Sometimes the ringing increases, and sometimes it decreases, but it never totally goes away. My most fervent hope is that whatever is causing this heals itself with time... This Summer, Mandie has an internship at home, so we get to see quite a bit of each other. Every time we are together, it's magic. She gets me and I get her. We always want to be together! We have so much fun, even if we just hang out and talk. Nothing is better than having a woman who loves you no matter what. I only hope I am just as good for her. We saw the new indiana jones and the new narnia at the drive-in already. Thats one of my favorite things to do with her, it is so much fun and we both love doing it together! She's so perfect, I think about her all the time, and I don't think that will ever change. Its really late now and I have to sleep...maybe I'll post more tomorrow...I dunno. <3<3<3<3 You are everything I need my love, you are my other half and I never want to be without you!! <3<3<3<3 Cobwebs Part 2 November 14, 9:35 PM In the beginning of August, I started work at the office. Bryan, my boss, actually reminded me a lot of one of my bosses at the park. It turns out they hate each other, which was really weird. The first thing we had to do was shovel lime, by hand, into a lake where the pH was too low. My first day of work was a 12 hour shift, and several days after that were 10-11 hours just so we could finish shoveling this lime into this lake. I also found out that we might have to do it again in the spring if the pH is still too low. After the liming project, we got to what we were actually supposed to be doing, which was sampling the tributaries of an area creek. There are 66 in all, plus a few mine discharges, all of which need to be sampled six times in order so that we can analyze the data and write a report. When I started, Bryan was halfway through the 5th run. September... Work continued for me while I started getting over the fact that I really wasn't going back to school anymore. It was a surreal feeling, like I was in the twilight zone or something. Visiting Mandie at college every other weekend was a lot of fun though, it was and still is just like old times at my old apartment. Mandie and I went to a football game, which was really cool. Other than that, I don't remember a whole lot about this month. October... My 23rd birthday. Mandie got me the Medieval 2 expansion, which was awesome. I played it for a long time and of course let her know how my campaigns were going. My parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary this month as well, and Mandie was able to go to it with me. For some reason, many people there saw it necessary to grill us about when we are getting married. It was very annoying and people need to mind their own business. Having Mandie there was very special to me though, and I never wanted her to leave! Halloween came and went without any fanfare from me. I even forgot it WAS Halloween on the 31st. November... And here we are at November. It's Mandie's birthday this month, and I actually got her the present right after my birthday in October. I still don't think she believes I did that. Work is going really well, and I even managed to get a lot of work done while my boss was on his 3 week vacation. Sampling tribs is a lot of fun, but I need to get a better job than this. It pays like crap and is going nowhere. Thats why I'm working on getting my A+ certification. This way I can work a job I actually find interesting and has some earning potential. Thats about it for now, see ya! Babe you are amazing, get home NOW!! Quoteless. Cobwebs November 13, 9:19 PM Edit: November 14, 9:30 PM I turn on the light in a dusty, old section of my internet basement...I find my blog under piles of old bookmarks and dust off the cover. What is this? I ask. My blog!! Oh my gosh I haven't seen this thing in MONTHS! I quickly turn to the first blank page after my last entry and begin to write... The last time I wrote in this thing, I was still a senior at college. Ah, those were the days...but really, a lot has happened since then. And I do mean a LOT. I'll try to start from the top. I don't remember much from the month of March, but I do remember April. The 9th was Mandie and my 3rd anniversary. We went to the usual Red Lobster, always a good decision. The rest of the month involved us both scrambling to get ready for final projects and final tests, and what for me would be the last few things I ever did in college. I remember vividly my final astronomy paper. I spent days on it. I researched the f*** out of it. And all the while, I was with Mandie. She is what made it enjoyable, I never would have been able to do that good of a job if I didn't have Mandie there for support. And I handed it in...and the prof said it was one of the best papers out of the whole class. I got an A. I also remember my last exam ever. It was in Business Law. As I filled in the last little circle on the scantron, I looked around the class, careful not to appear to be cheating, but enough to soak it all in. This was it. The last test of the last class of the last year of college. In between my last class and graduation, I decided to start Weightwatchers. As my weight crept all the way up to 240 pounds, I decided something drastic had to be done. (Since then, I have lost 40 pounds). At graduation, I couldn't believe it was over. Everyone was there, Mandie, my family, and a bunch of my relatives. Before the ceremony, we had a Quaker Steak and Lube party at my apartment. Wings everywhere, and they were awesome. At graduation, I found my friends and sat with them, all of us in our graduation gowns. We got our diplomas, took pictures outside afterwards, and that was it. I was done. I couldn't believe it. And now, I had to find a grad school and work at the park again in the summer. June... The park was the same old park, nothing had changed at all except that Brian no longer worked there. Instead, we got a replacement named Frank. Frank became the butt end of basically every joke anyone told at the park that wasn't about John. This guy was telling us every day about some new skill he had mastered or tournament he won. We also got a new Dixon which nobody liked. The seat was uncomfortable and it was not as fast as the old one, but its deck was huge. I figure thats why they got it. The 244 constantly overheated like always, but I think the kids weren't as bad as last year. Frank wrecked the cub cadet that Sean half ruined last year, so they got a new one to replace it. NONE of us were allowed to drive it, not even me or Mike, who were considered the most trustworthy workers there. On breaks, I would read the A+ book I bought back in March in order to prepare for the new computer I decided to build. Yes, I wanted to build my own. The Gamefaqs message boards had convinced me that it was for the best. There was some slight drama between my two ex-roomies, Brad and Tom. Apparently Tom never trusted Brad and didn't like him at all. This caused some problems with payment for the carpet cleaning with Tom took care of. They got it all straightened out though, and Brad hopes to never see Tom again. About midway through the month, Nick, a seventh worker at the park, was hired. Nobody saw this coming since the park never had 7 summer helps before. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy with no end of stories about his partying and other activities. July... I continued reading my book, and continued to see Mandie as much as I could. Her job at the store always seemed to have opposite schedules than mine at the park, so it was really tough most of the time. My job at the park continued to be physically demanding but fun at the same time. I became better friends with the workers there, and went to a couple parties that Scott hosted. I continued to ponder what I would do about grad school, and gradually began losing interest in going. My A+ book seemed a lot more interesting than management methods and corporate assessment centers. And finally, at the end of July, the big day came to buy my new computer parts and get ready to piece them all together. Mandie was right there with me when I was about to click the Buy button, but I hesitated and didn't do it. The next day though, I had no trouble clicking that button, and man it was one of the best purchases I ever made. I bought: Intel Core 2 Quad @ 2.66 GHz Intel D975XBX2 Mobo Nvidia Geforce 8800 Ultra G.Skill DDR2 800 RAM, 2 Gigs Seagate Barracuda 500 Gig HDD PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W Power Supply Chimei 22" widescreen LCD monitor Sony NEC 18x DVD Burner ThermalTake Shark Full Tower Case Win XP Pro And it all came to $2500. Understand my hesitation now? Lol. August... All my computer parts arrived. It was time to put it all together. Unfortunately, the stupid power supply was delayed for a week and a half so I couldn't finish it till about the 10th I think. MAN was I pissed! Mandie helped me put it all together, and after a quick re-application of thermal grease to the CPU heatsink, it was up and running beautifully. Every game ran flawlessly. Even Supcom with 8 players on large maps. I was, and still am, ecstatic. I got a phone call from John at the office while I was at work one day. Wanted to know if I was interested in working for Americorps starting at the end of August. I told him sure, I had no job after my time at the park would be up, and I figured I may as well stay working for the county while I decide what to do with my life. I went in for the interview and it went really well. I ended up getting the job, and on the 27th I was officially an Americorp Member working at the county as a Water Testing specialist. Oh man, that was a lot of writing. I'm gonna call it a night and make this a two parter. I promise Ill update tomorrow! Baby you are AMAZING! You are the greatest woman alive...I never want to be apart from you! "You aren't dragging me anywhere babe, you drag the world around me" Updating Status March 8, 2:08 AM Hello all, and welcome to a new edition of my blog. I made quite a few breakthroughs since my last blog update. I'll start with the career fair back home. So I get all dressed up in my suit, print out resumes, and drive to this career fair. I get there...and something inside me freezes. Sure, all I had to do was go in there and see what was being offered. But I couldn't. I ended up sitting in my car for half an hour, starting it back up, and leaving without ever setting foot in there. I realized that I had to do what I wanted to do, and not what everyone else thinks I should do. And my first desicion was not to go in there. I hate career fairs, so why go in? After explaining all of this to my pretty upset mother, I drove back up to college, and planned the rest of my stay in academia. Later on, I went to the Barnes and Noble here with Mandie, and bought a book on A+ certification. It's very interesting, its a book that all about putting computer components together and making them work right. It's 1100+ pages, so I'm pretty psyched about it. I'm even considering getting my A+ certification, with will make me more desirable in the workplace. I like it! In the next week, I went to the B&N again with Mandie, and we each got a new book. I got Dante's Inferno, and she got a book of historic unsolved mysteries. I finished Inferno in a couple days, and Mandie is still working on her (much larger) book. Speaking of books, Mandie and I decided to go on a library tour this week. Yesterday we decided to just walk around the central stacks of our college library. We were in there for an hour and a half and barely scratched the surface! There are so many books to look at, and about so many different things. Today, we got on the computer and looked up the call numbers of many different books we would be interested in, and then ventured into the library to find them. We went all over the place, up and down, all around, back and forth finding all our books. We found so many history books, really old books, weird books, Irish books, Scottish books, King arthur, Tolkien, Books about Rome and the Byzantines, and books about just about anythign you can imagine. The whole place smelled of old paper, which is a great smell to smell. We even came across people that were lost, the place is so big. After this little adventure, we went to dinner, which was very filling and very good as well. Tomorrow we are going to where the oldest books are kept. Should be a lot of fun! Thats about all there is for today. Catch you all later! You are amazing, I love being with you and doing everything with you, and I love you. Supreme Commander! That was Sweet February 20, 12:40 AM Nothing like a two month break to make you want to come back and write. Christmas Break was quite a fun time. I spend all of it hanging out with Mandie and gaming until my eyes bled. Well, not literally of course. I spent Xmas Eve with Mandie and her family. It was very nice, there was a lot of good food, and for the first time ever Mandie and I got to spend a Christmas together. It was lots of fun, and we played lots of Monopoly too. I'm going to talk a bit about academics now. My 7th semester did indeed wrap up to be an A and B semester, which means another Deans List honor is under my belt. But that also means...oh God...it's my last semester! So yeah, here I am, a graduating senior. I don't feel like a senior. I don't feel like I've been here long at all. But, when I think back to my Altoona days, they do seem distant and blurred today. In fact, I can still remember that fateful night, one of my first at Altoona, sitting in the mens room of Smith building, reading my C++ book, and wondering if I really wanted to be a computer engineer. Fast forward to today, three changes of major later, and right now I'm wondering if I really want to be a graduating psych major. It's a problem I've had for a while, vented on Mandie about, vented on Allison about, and vented on my parents about. What the flying hell am I going to do with a Psychology degree? Did I even really want this degree? Should I have chosen something else like business? Well, it's too late for all of that now. Whether I like it or not, I'm locked in to finish school this May with a B.S. in psych. Speaking of school, I haven't looked into grad schools AT ALL since early November. I am wrestling with myself over whether or not I even want to go now. The thing is, I want to want to go to Grad school so badly that I could taste it. I want to be able to say, wow, I got into a really good school and I'm going to do a lot of good work and I'm really excited! But I have the T.M. complex, a disorder that I named after myself to feed my ego. The disorder causes the person to drift aimlessly through college, trying and hating every group he joins, not being able to get excited about his own major, not wanting to do any work that has anything to DO with his major, and generally being too unmotivated and frustrated to do a damn thing about it. I've talked with Mandie about this several times. She assures me it will all work out, as does Allison and my parents. I can only hope. I can't figure out why I seem to hate leaving my apartment to do anything at all. Tom and Dan have invited me to go bar hopping with them several times, and I always declined. I have hated every club I have tried getting into. I hate sports, I hate going out partying, I hate hanging out a lot with friends, I seem to hate everything people my age are suppossed to love. WHY?? I seem to have always been this way. I never do anything extra because thats just one more thing that gets between me and doing what I like to do. And what do I like to do? What is it that I like doing so much that it seems to override every other activity presented before me? I love gaming. I want to game until I CAN'T KEEP MY EYES OPEN, MY HANDS GO NUMB, until my consciousness has fused with the game to the point that I can see, smell, hear, taste and touch everything in it for REAL! Then I want to nap and game some more! I want to build my own levels and stages, and have others like them. I want to increase my skills to the point where I am unbeatable, the greatest gamer that ever lived, that ever WILL live, All will come and challenge me at ANY game ANYwhere and I will PWN them all! I want to order parts from newegg.com and build Godly computers to run my games! I want to read gaming message boards and post reviews, hints, help, tips, anything, all the time. I want to have a pressence in the gaming community. I want to be a Goddamn authority in everything games. I want to play the music of games, hear them orchestrated, critque them, make my own, remix them, and post them so ALL can hear my pwnage, then be pwned by me in the game I remixed! So that about covers it. If you come across a job like that, LET ME FUCKING KNOW. So where was I? Oh yeah, academics. heres the last course rundown for my college career: Astro 130: Black Holes. So far its very interesting and I rate it my favorite class this semester. B Law 243: Contractural law. I uh...needed it for my minor. Mgmt 100: Introduction to Management. Its a decent class, I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. Psych 485: My first and last ever online course, and God do I HATE it. Its so annoying, there is group project after shitty group project. I can't stand it. Psych 490: But what I can't stand most of all is THIS crapheap of a class. It meets once, for 3 hours, every week. Its a seminar, so the grade is based purely on papers and participation. Ugh....I hate it so much. It's probably not a good sign when you hate all your in-major classes is it? No, I didn't think so. Now I'll talk a bit about Mandie. We just celebrated V-day together, I got her white roses and dark chocolate, she got me brownies and a Calvin and Hobbes book. It was a very enjoyable day, especailly since it was a SNOW DAY for the university! I thought I'd never see it...but the Valentines Day blizzard made it happen. We were both so happy! Mandie is also very busy with her Architectural Engineering major. It basically leaves time for studying, working, and going to class. Thats it. I could never live like that, but she does it somehow folks. Once again, amazing girl. We very much enjoy our weekends. Every Saturday and Sunday, and sometimes Friday, we have a seafood and mushroom dinner. It usually consists of shrimp and scallops with the mushrooms over some linguine, but we (I) have been known to dabble in Salmon as well. Speaking of food, we found a burger place in town that has the absolute best burgers you'll ever taste in your life. It's called Five Guys, and damn am I glad I suggested it on Ron White night! We ate there the night Mandie and I were to see Ron White on campus, and the food was so good we ate all of it. Ron White was also hilarious as well, it was a spectacular night for us. I'll never forget it. In other news, I'll be going to a career fair this week back home. Maybe I'll find something...maybe I won't. You never know. Also, I just bought Gradius 5 for PS2. Good game, insanely hard. I'll keep trying till im the best of course. I also found out that my poor 5 year old Dell won't be able to handle Supreme Commander, even with the Gefore 7600GS I bought for it. Oh well, better start saving for a Godly rig I can build myself... I think thats about all I'll write for tonight, I've been going for over an hour. See you all later! I love you more than I can ever say in words <3<3<3<3<3 Even if you're on the right track, you'll still get run over if you don't move. |