Wow, it's a good thing no one I know can see me right now...I'm wearing a skirt of all things!  Why?  I felt like it for some reason.  After living most of my life in just shirts, pants, shorts, and shoes I thought trying something different would be nice for the day.  Besides, come Friday I'm going to be wearing slacks, blouses, skirts, and pumps anyway (which will take some getting used to).  I might as well get used to wearing something other than gym clothes...or stuff that I wore back in high school.

   Christmas was pretty good...nothing too traumatic there.  It sorta felt like Christmas then at least.  But, one of the best presents I got was a solid 3 lbs. bar of Hershey's chocolate!  (Don't know how I'm going to be eating all of that, but I'll think of something.)  I am considering taking it to the new workplace on Friday and just have everyone there eat it with me...I mean, I love eating chocolate and all but I don't think I can finish 3 lbs. of it before it starts going bad.  Odds are, I'd OD and never want to eat chocolate again as long as I live (or I end up with diabetes early).  Neither consequence is a good idea.

   I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve...not that I'm doing anything special.  The most I'm going to be doing tonight is watching the two dogs and preventing them from going bonkers with all the fireworks going off.  But, while doing that, I'm definitely going to be watching the DVDs I got for Christmas: Platinum Edition of Peter Pan and the last season of Teen Titans.  *cheers*  Thanks to my brother, I'm now finished with another series that I put on hold (the Platinum Disney collection is going to take me a few years to get together).  I've still got a few more series to complete (unfortunately) before I start working on collecting anything else.  I think between the two, I'm going to watch Teen Titans first because I missed watching most of the series by the time the last season was being aired.

   Resolutions, do I have any resolutions?  Besides the usual "I'm going to exercise more and eat healthier", I'm planning on finding a place of my own.  If all goes well, this should come to pass in about three months or so...give or take.  (Which is another reason why I'm not going to try to finish up the series that I still have just yet; I really don't need more stuff to transport out of the house.)  However, this also means I need to further sort through my stuff, weeding out what I don't need.  I got through most of it, but now I'm going to need to give up some of the items I really wanted to keep probably.  Then again, I lost quite a bit of what I originally had already so, maybe I can get away with keeping what I've got now...we'll have to see.

   Alright, I should get out of here and do some work for a change.   

   Let's see, I've been sitting at the computer for about 4 hours straight so far...and yet, I'm not sore all over yet.  I figured something would've been aching by now...but, I guess I should take this as a good sign that I'm not as "old" as everyone else likes to think.  Thank goodness for small miracles.

   I think I could really use a vacation right around now...if I had to choose, I would be California visiting Disneyland.  That would be so much fun right now!

   And, I've been listening to some old songs...like the ones that were popular back when I was in Elementary and Intermediate school.  Those are always fun to listen to...

   Anyway, it's time to hit the books again...

   Wow...so many things have changed since I was last blogging here.  Unfortunately, I was swept up with the whole MySpace, Facebook, and just about every other single type of webpage you can think of to post information on and "express your inner creativity" while keeping in touch with multiple people all at the same time.  Since the school computers block MySpace and Facebook most of the time (there were a few instances I managed to get in and put up a blog on MySpace) and I'm pretty aggravated with life, I've decided to come here.

   So, what have I been up to?  Considering it's been, what, a year since I was last here?  I figure going back a year and trying to remember what happened to me is a bit much to cover in such a short amount of time.  Let's go with the recent irritations and news:

   I've spent the last 4-5 months trying to find a full time job.  Coupled with the economy going to hell and all these stores closing up shop, saying "it's been hell" is the biggest understatement of the year.  Trying to find a job has been worse than hell, in fact.  According to the list I kept of all the jobs I've applied for (a grand total of 111 positions with a few repeats, so it's probably more like 104 different ones), I've only had 23 official rejection notices.  The rest haven't said anything so I'm just assuming the worst.  And the average time of response seems to be about a month.  Some businesses are a little faster than others (I managed to apply and be rejected for a position within a day).  But, it's CRAZY.  Yep, it's been taking about a month for people to get back to me and trying to schedule interviews has been an absolute NIGHTMARE.   I've been having to miss class left and right for the last two, three weeks or so.  How I'm going to manage doing well on my finals is going to be quite a feat...probably won't be sleeping for a few days straight at the rate things are going now.

   So, I've got the whole "transitioning to the real world from college" stressing me out terribly.  The fact I'm failing so miserably at it is only serving to aggravate me more.  Finding a full time job doing anything shouldn't be this damn difficult.

   School, of course, is also stressing me out because it's the last week of the semester and finals are next week already.  (Who wouldn't stress out over that?)  But, in comparison to the lack of success in job hunting, this is small potatoes. 

   My parents were giving me hell earlier in the semester about my boyfriend.  Apparently neither of them like him...AT ALL.  And, they made no effort to hide it either, even in his presence.  I mean, it was to the point HE could tell neither of my parents liked him around.  Un-fricking-believable.  I couldn't believe how rude they were being towards him and I can only imagine how poorly it reflected on me.  They always reinforced manners in me and yet here they were treating him like dirt.  Maybe even worse than dirt and I had to take it.  Their comments were getting pretty vicious after awhile and by the time September rolled around, I had had enough of their belittling/derogatory comments about him.  So, I packed up my things one night and moved out.  Even though it might seem like I left home for him, the aggravation being generated by my parents has been building up for YEARS.  It just so happened that their problems with him was the last straw for me.  I just couldn't take it anymore.

   Unfortunately, this also sparked a family dispute...which may still be going on, but I'm not entirely sure since my family has a habit of hiding just about everything and anything.  But, I'm sorta pass the point of caring already.  I've got bigger problems to worry about, like this whole securing a full time job problem...the biggest one so far.  Sheesh.

   However, even though I'm stressing out like hell, I started reading the Twilight saga.  I've finished the first two books so far and I'm 6 chapters away from finishing the third one.  But, I won't get to read the last one until Christmas since it's part of a combined present my boyfriend is getting.  It's a pretty interesting story so far; definitely a different take on the vampire and werewolf ideas.  There are some things I had predicted were going to happen from Twilight, but are only coming up now in Eclipse...so, I guess the story is a little roundabout in that sense.  Hmm, I also watched the movie last week Friday and thought it was a pretty good interpretation of the novel.  I was a little disappointed when I saw the Cullens though...they weren't as gorgeous as I imagined.  Out of all of them, I think Alice and maybe Carlise were the closest to what I pictured in my head.  Otherwise, no one else was really "beautiful" in my opinion.   But, Bella was pretty much as I imagined her though and Jake was spot on too.  But, that's okay if it all didn't line up; it's only a movie anyway.

   Anyhow, I guess I should get back to work now that I've vented a little.  At least I feel a bit better about life for the moment.

   You know, I had big plans for this summer and now that it's almost over (well, about half over anyway)...I haven't done anything I set out to accomplish!  *laughs*  This is what I had planned out:

   1.   Catch up on anime (mostly just Bleach)...which I sorta did.  At least I stopped on episode 81 instead of the 60-something I was sitting at for the longest time.  *shakes head*  I'm a little closer than I was before anyway to keeping pace with the series (which is probably somewhere in the 130's by now).  *types away*  According to Wikipedia, it's up to 133 episodes.

   2.   Re-read the Harry Potter series before the movie and the last book are released...didn't quite make it there.  I didn't even bother trying after getting all these other books from Dad to read (that I've been waiting to read) and a new Lincoln Rhyme novel (which I had to stop reading partway through because of Austen).  So, I'm not really sure if I'm going to find time to re-read Harry Potter.

   3.   Finish reading all the books I didn't finish yet...I've got at least two other books I haven't finished besides the Lincoln Rhyme novel and more than ten books I have sitting around that I haven't started reading at all.  I was hoping to read everything I haven't read yet by the end of this summer.  *shakes head*  Which is looking like a goal very far in the distance.

   4.   Practice juggling...I was sorta learning during the Fall semester but ended up stopping (I needed the time to focus on schoolwork instead).  Unfortunately, my sister still juggles better than I do and we both started around the same time (self-taught jugglers we are).  Even if I were to test her out now, she'd still be kicking my ass in it.  I've got no rhythm I guess.

   5.   Learn new card tricks...unbeknownst to most people, I like magic tricks and above all, card tricks.  My repetoire is all of two card tricks, but I wanted to learn some more.

   6.   Memorize an old song...and I do mean old.  I picked Battle Hymn of the Republic and haven't gotten past the first stanza of the song.  Not to mention I'm not entirely sure about the tune either...when I look at the lyrics, some of the lines don't seem to fit the tune.  However, I know that just my fault.  *laughs*  But, at least I have the chorus down.  At the very least I'll be able to complete this goal more than the others.

   7.   Memorize the flags of the world...I had been passing by the McCully Shopping Center with a friend of mine and we were trying to identify the flags that were hanging off the second floor balcony.  I didn't do so well.  Other than the obvious ones like USA, Hawaii, and France, I didn't know what the other ones were.  But, he did...sad.  I can very honestly say I don't know what the flag of Singapore looks like (but I do know where it can be found on a map at least).

   Anyway, those were my big plans for the summer.  I don't think I'll get through all of it, but I do know I'll at least finish off one.

   My prof. for this summer session is pretty cool; a lady named Linda Middleton.  Maybe not as laid-back as the previous one, Mr. Kelsey, but she's got an entertaining sense of humor.  Which mostly consists of her talking to herself.  *thinking*  Okay, maybe that's not quite right...it's more like she adds in her own commentary on the novels (which is funny) and if you catch it, you laugh.  If not, she continues on as though she didn't say anything in the first place.  A little weird, but quite amusing at the same time.  I haven't come across a prof. like her before.  So far, most of the class has been pretty quiet since they either aren't listening to what she's saying or just don't care about it (the girl diagonally behind me fell asleep in class yesterday and must've woke up drooling or something because I could hear some wet sucking going on, along with her chair creaking as weight was being shifted).

   She also swears (but not at us) and refers to people to have read all of Austen's works as "Austen freaks"...the rest of us who have read two works are "Semi-Austen freaks" (which is where I am apparently).  I didn't realize so little people actually read literature unless forced to...however, I'm hoping to get a lot out of this class.  More than likely will.  =P

   Anyway, I just finished Northanger Abbey last night (I wasn't too far from the end) and it was pretty damn funny.  I will be starting Sense & Sensibility tonight if all goes well...not to mention I need to start working on my first essay for this class.  Sad to say, even though I had those two major essays and smaller assignments in the Creative Writing class, I've got a lot more work ahead of me for this one.  Middleton is trying to squeeze in 5 quizzes (one on each novel), 3 papers (the first two are 3-4 pages, the third one is 5-6 pages), and a group oral presentation on one of the novels.  In fact, I have a quiz today and my next one is next week...Friday I believe.  But, according to her, the quizzes aren't going to be all that difficult.  Or, at least I'd like to hope so since having to analyze this stuff will take some time.

   I got my grade for Creative Writing: A.  Whew...I was a little worried there because of the whole +/- aspect of his class.  Unfortunately, this Austen class is also +/- grading.

   What else?  I haven't really talked to anyone in the class...there are two girls from my Creative class who are also in Austen, another girl I had in a summer class last summer, and one guy who I was with during the Spring semester is there as well.  But so far, I haven't tried talking to anyone.  Mostly because everyone else seems to know one another already.  *thinking*  Those situations are a little weird since you know you're definitely the outsider, but I don't mind it too much.

   Finally, I started working yesterday afternoon and if all goes well, I should be getting my first paycheck stub on August 3rd.  There was this whole mess at Student Employment and they were saying something about me not having an I-9 filled out, which is impossible because you can't work on campus without filling out the I-9 first.  So, I went in and the guy helping me told me I filled out one already, but discovered I had three active campus jobs!  Absolutely crazy because I had left those jobs some time ago (with the exception of the most recent one I left).  But, it's all been sorted out now and should be good.

   Alright, I should be heading off the class now.