Forum Thread

:)

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Last Thursday: A night to remember

I feel like all I write in here are sad things, but tbh that's the only time I ever feel like writing. As someone has said, and science has proven, the bad far outweighs the good- in people's minds. People tend to give bad things that happen a hella amount of weight compared to when good things happen, so basically, 50 good things have to happen to match up to 1 bad thing for a person to feel alright. So yeah, I don't post many good things or fun stories or memories in here because they don't seem so important compared to the negative. But--! I can change that. And I'm going to start with last Thursday.

Last thursday a bad thing happened. Something full of negative emotions and emptiness. It didn't really start out like that- I was writing a thing to someone to just, close an issue and get all my thoughts and feelings out in the open, and tbh that was all ok. At the end of it I felt a little empty, but not overall bad. It was the aftermath that made me upset. The fact that multiple status of friends were going up just after I sent it, and that my datemate was beating themselves up for kind of being in the middle of it as well. Which was so not ok.... Just the fact that the other person immediately told so many people- and who knows what they told them? Did they just rant angrily? Did they show them my letter? Did they tell their story? Did any of them know mine? Were they all against me now? And I broke.

I don't like to drink, not a fan of the taste, but honestly... I didn't care. I was too empty to cry, to empty to feel, just wanted to get away. I was going to just start driving and not stop, but then I thought, why not hit up downtown and drown in a glass of dizziness and blank memories? I did at least try to get some friends to go out with me, texted some people. Cause I wanted to be alone, but I didn't, and maybe I just really wanted a distraction. None of them could go out with me that night though, so I resigned to sit at the bar and probably cry and just not stop drinking for a while, maybe pass out in a gutter somewhere, i didn't really care.

Ahh, but fate smiled at me that night.

One of my friends that couldn't make it out gave me a tip on where to go- it was actually kind of funny, our text conversation-- here:

me: Hey you up? Want to hit a bar with me or something?
him: ...why you do this to me haha I just got home from the bars
me: oops :] it's ok I think someone else might meet me
him: lol goofer, I know a few greeks downtown tonight if you're looking for a crazy night
me: I guess I'm looking for something. What you got for me?
him: Oh jesus actually? You alright Eri?
me: Not really. I'm looking to drown tonight, good time works too. What you got for me?

and he proceeded to list some places I could go to, including one where they had drinks for just a dollar, starting soon, so I decided to go there first. Backtrack- I just thought it was really funny how he immediately knew something was wrong since I wanted to go out. Like I said, I don't go out much. I maybe went out with this guy once last year? For a trivia night somewhere, and even that one time was a struggle to make me go haha. Just thought that was cool that he knew I wasn't ok. Anyways, I went to that one place like he suggested and, while purchasing my first drink, just about to climb onto a seat and claim it for the night, an old friend, my old good roommate, that I hadn't seen in a month, tapped me on the shoulder.

Like I said, I was looking for a distraction that night, cause I don't really want to drink in depression, so this was way too perfect. He introduced me to his band of friends- a lovely couple, two beautiful nonbinary peeps, a fabulous gay man, and a very outgoing pixie of a woman. Plus some other random friends that came and went with the others. And they were all fantastic. I chatted with the fabu guy for a long while, Tracy, I think his name was, and got to know him while cheering on some random people playing pool. Then him, the pixie, and I went out to the food truck and got noms, then free drinks because the $1 shots were out and people were buying a ton and just setting them in places and I did the entirely NOT smart thing of sliding by and grabbing them when they weren't looking (seriously that's a bad idea you don't know what might be in those random drinks) and it was fun. Around midnight we changed up and ran off to another bar and hung out there for a while. I'm a little sad I didn't go dancing- we hung out on the back deck and just chilled- cause I really like dancing, but I also really, really wanted to kiss one of the nonbinarys (cause drunk Eri really likes kissing people, and yeah, Max already knows this happened) so I stuck by them for a while haha. After that we went to another place with live music! And swing danced and met another awesome pixie of a woman and he husband and she made us take selfies with her and stole my phone and facebook friended me, so that was funny lmao. After that it was 2am and the bars closed so we parted ways with most of the group (and I did get that kiss!!). My old roommate and I decided to walk around downtown for a while and get rid of the rest of our buzz before driving to our respective homes and we chatted about random things and told each other stories about our lives and whatnot, and it was a lot of fun.

The night didn't go as I had expected by a long shot, and I am so grateful for that. Not sure how the pieces lined up so perfectly, but someone was smiling down on me that night and they did.

I made some new friends, got a great distraction from the negative feelings, got to kiss some awesome people, caught up with an old friend, got home alright, woke up with a minor headache, skipped my first morning class, got some wicked af bruises out of it. All in all, a good night :]

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As We Grow Older

As I grow older I'm noticing a lot of things changing. Most of them have to do with myself- my personality and how I perceive the world or present myself have changed so drastically through the years. When I was young, I loved being in front of the camera, being outgoing, always wanting to play or sing or dance or just be loud. At some point, just around 12 years old, I developed immense stage fright and became so camera shy. I couldn't smile on camera or barely look at it, and even thinking about talking in class or being called on made me shake so badly I could barely speak. Now I don't mind the camera, though I'm still not fond of it, but in rare moments of self-confidence I thrive in front of it. As I grow older I also have learned not to care so much about what others think. In high school I remember planning oh so carefully what I would wear each day to gain or not gain attention from others. Heeled boots, to click past everyone and add a little swing to my walk- dark eyeliner and heavy jewelry for that 'I don't care' attitude, when in actuality I was hyper aware of what they thought of me- pretty dresses, tighter shirts, flowing skirts- everything was about how others would see me. I cared so much about that, but now? I go into the closet in the morning, flip through my dozen fandom t-shirts, and pick the one that I like the design of that day. I own one pair of pants, maybe two fancy dresses for fancy occasions, two big hoodies, and a snow jacket. That's pretty much it. The amount of care I have for what others think of my looks at this point is so close to zero most days, completely the opposite of just a couple years ago.


Another thing I've noticed that's changed drastically through the years is my friendships with people. Not counting online, since I only got into that a year ago, we'll just talk about the irl friendships. In elementary school, friends were a dime a dozen- everyone was friends at my school. At lunch time almost our entire class of 50ish kids would crown together in the field and play various games of tag together. Some times we'd break up into groups and go play on the swings or play basketball or other games, but there were no cliques, there were no bullies, kids would wander freely from group to group depending on what they wanted to play that day, and everyone was welcome. I remember spending a lot of time with a couple kids in particular- we had a close group of around 6? girls that would always hang out together. In the afternoons I would go over to the neighbor's house which had a little girl exactly my age and we would play in their pool or the treehouse or the sandbox or go to the local park, anything as long as we were out, always together, doing something. In middle school I made a new group of friends who were complete nerds and we would play tag in the big courtyard. They got me back into singing and I joined the choir, then started acting again, eventually moving backstage to do set work. We'd spend weekends together, holidays together, we'd go on trips together, we became the Platypus Legion. I remember spending sleepovers during holidays in high school together where we would all flop down in the living room on top of each other and just 'cuddle puddle' for hours, chatting idly about anything with the person you were using for a pillow. Or we'd play board games or card games, or hide and seek in one of their huge house, or we'd go to the park and play (can you guess it?) tag or something. Then, fast forward to college, where I left them all behind. Through college my time spend with friends has decreased dramatically. Now it's all about finding excuses not to hang out with people, or not getting close enough to a person to be invited anywhere. In the few year of college I made good friends with a girl in the dorm. We'd spend weekends together watching movies in the lounge, have dinner together in the dining hall, walk around town and make grocery trips together. At the end of the first year she left the college for financial reasons and it was two years before I made another friend that I got close enough to to spend time outside of school classes with. His name was Daniel and he fell in love with me hard core, which is probably why he didn't just let me disappear into the woodwork like I usually do with everyone I meet. It started as having classes together, then he would tutor me, then he became my TA in a class or two because he was a year ahead of me, then he started inviting me out places and wouldn't take no for an answer cause he knew I would always say no unless pushed a little since introvert (which I actually genuinely appreciate- having someone push you to get out of your comfort zone) and we got to know each other really well. I never returned his feelings, and we had many a conversation on that front, but it didn't stop us from being good friends. He introduced me to some of his friends, two of which would go on to become other very good friends, and we'd have game nights and movie nights and holidays together, and it was something that I had missed for so long. The girl I met in the dorms was nice, but I missed the group aspect of so many people having such a good time together, something that I hadn't had in so long. Daniel got me into sports again too- which is where I met one of the afore mentioned good friends. He was playing flag football and they needed more women players and he asked me to step in, and that's where I met Danny, the walking Dad joke who is absolutely the most hilarious person I have ever met, and began my now 3 year career of playing flag football with him.

Daniel graduated spring 2015 and now I don't hang out with anyone anymore, not really. There's no one I feel close enough to. It's just so strange to think back through the years at having such close bonds with these people, and then we grow up and they're gone, and now I don't really create any close bonds with anyone. What was once an entire group of 15-20 people I loved dearly, is now somewhere between 3-5, if that. And now I just feel like there's no one to talk to at all. The last person I felt so close to to share my feelings with was over 5 years ago.

I miss having long, meaningful chats. I miss talking so deeply about the other person, and having them so interested in you back. I miss deep heart to hearts and poring out every thought and emotion running through you. I miss chats about having an existential crisis and about the universe and about politics and about those weird shower/late night thoughts and then just sitting in silence perfectly comfortable with just the other person's presence. I miss having someone who knew all about the other people in my life, someone I could talk to about my day. I miss having someone that I have history with. Years of history, of school and teachers and other students and outside of school memories and inside jokes and just... everything. I miss that so much.

Is growing up really worth it? Is this all I ever wanted to have as a kid? Or is the freedom of being an adult a burden, a price to pay in exchange for the life experience. I don't want to grow up if this is what it means. Take me back. Please...

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Wedding Bliss

Hello, hello, hello~! Just got back from my weekend trip down south to see my sister and her wedding!!! Ahhhh it was so beautiful and amazing. She was absolutely gorgeous and my new brother was so handsome, and they were just glowing, and the place where the wedding was held was spectacular and everyone involved did such a great job. There were some down moments, but nothing compared to the utter joy and love surrounding the whole affair. Shall I give you a play by play? YES ABSOLUTELY.

FRIDAY
Ok, so the day started at about 10am on Friday when I went over to my sister's house to help her move some things to the wedding site (I had arrived in town the night before). My sister went a liiiittle crazy with the wedding planning the past year. She used to actually do wedding planning as her job at this absolutely gorgeous inn/restaurant/events place, so she knew all the people to call and everything she needed to have done- and then she went even further and planned out multiple showers and parties and got a TON of stuff handmade on etsy and did some work herself. It was crazy involved. Oh! And yes, she had her wedding at the same place she used to work! Since she knew they would do an amazing job, and the area was just so beautiful. Anyways, the day started at 10am at her house, gathering the rest of the wedding decorations and gift bags for certain guests, and her dress and overnight bags. Then she and I picked my dad up and the 3 of us went to the wedding site, checked in for our rooms at the inn, and my sister and I went and hung out in her room. We did some decorating in the room- my sister had this little banner to put over the fireplace, and we put lace and gold table runners along the tables and set up the sofa table with snacks for the next day for the bridesmaids while getting ready, and then my sister put out bottles of wine with each girls' name on it on the coffee table. We hung up our dresses in the bedroom and my sister took a shower and did her hair in prep for dinner later, some people came by the room to say hi and see how we were doing, and it was then about time for the rehearsal. Rehearsal was easy enough- gather in this courtyard, stand next to the groomsman assigned to you, walk down the aisle, stand here, listen to the officiant give his piece, listen to their vows, exchange rings, pop the confetti, head over to a different lawn for pictures. Nice and simple, wouldn't take too long. We did two run-throughs of the ceremony and it only took about 30-45 minutes for that, so we went back to the room, got changed, and headed to dinner at 5pm. My sister wore this really fun dress to the dinner- all white (of course, all of her dresses for wedding related parties were white lmao), stopped above the knees, all lace, with long bell sleeves. Very 70's look with the sleeves, it was so fun and cute.

Dinner was a blast just seeing all this family we haven't seen in so long. It's great how events like this bring together all the family from the far corners. Some of my cousins that were there I haven't seen in nearly 15 years! And it was all good family, so it wasn't awkward or weird seeing them all there. Dinner was absolutely amazing- they started with caprese salad on toasted bread, then fried mushrooms, then braised pork with rice, and that was just the appetizers. Dinner itself was a buffet of salad, mashed potatoes, chicken with chimichurri sauce, maple encrusted salmon, and little custard tarts for dessert. The only problem with the food was that it was buffet style, cause it meant that many people either didn't realize it was out, or wouldn't take the time to go get some since they were so busy chatting with others. So we had a room full of 30-40 adults barely eating and drinking a LOT of wine. Not the best combination haha. So many people were far past tipsy by the end of the night. I ended up driving a group back to the hotel since I was one of few who was still sober haha. But! they all had a wonderful time, so it was ok that they got a little crazy. My sister had gift bags made for each of the bridemaids and myself with a cute heart shaped bowl, a wine glass with our name printed on it in fancy gold lettering, some earrings to wear for the ceremony, this neat mini bag full of random essentials you might need, and a long ribbon with some jewels on the front my sister made for us to wear with our dresses (I ended up wearing mine in my hair since it didn't go with the dress- my dress was different then the other girls, since i was the maid of honor). I said hi to everyone that came in and held some conversations with a couple people, though spent most of the evening with my big sister from another mister (she was our babysitter growing up and so was with us when my sister was just a baby till I was grown, around 18 years! Basically family, yup!) and her 12 year old daughter. Her daughter was so cute- very mature and beautiful, so outgoing, and she clung to me the entire weekend. She actually called me her big sister at one point aahhh~~<3. AnYwAys, sometime in the middle of dinner, after my dad and the groom's mother made little speeches, the groom brought out his guitar and started playing for my sister. It was Wagon Wheel, the first song he ever sang to her on their first date, where he invited her onto the roof of her house for homemade margaritas and guitar playing and sang to her. She was all smiles and trying not to cry and cursing at him, it was great. And then during the chorus I stepped up and we sang together and she cursed at us some more and then started singing along, it was wonderful. Afterwards when she hugged us she started crying though, ahaha. At one point during dinner one of the bridesmaids decided I needed a drink and got me one despite my protests (i don't drink beer or wine, cant stand the taste) and literally held it up to my mouth to make me drink. She wasn't pushy or anything after or with that, really- I took a sip, made a face, and she was all drunk hurt and then decided that she could just drink it and was happy again lmao. One of the other bridesmaids was relatively sober and acted as a mediator between her and I and helped drink it too haha.

After dinner, I drove my dad home and then the rest of us back to the hotel, but when we got in I realized I had left my purse with the room key in my dad's car. Whoops! My sister was all drunk and mad cause she was suddenly so tired and just wanted to take a bath, so I sent her to reception to get another key while I went to get my purse (its about 10:30pm at this point, btw). I get back, get to the room, my sister is in the bath and she calls out to me that she lost her leftovers from dinner and was so sad and all she wanted in life was those mashed potatoes. So i went, omg fine, and ran out to look for them. I cruise through reception, then cut into the kitchen and dining area and meet up with two employees, explain the situation, they both start helping me look- we're going through trashcans, looking in the fridge, checking under tables and in the seating areas- nothing, no food. So i thank them and head back and give her the sad news and she grabs a bag of popcorn and starts eating that in the bath (and all i hear for a couple minutes is her dropping said popcorn in the water and exclaiming shock when the piece is all wet and soapy when she picks it up and eats it) then gets out and eats some of the wrapped salads we got for everyone while they got ready the next day. After that I do a little computer work while she relaxes in bed, and I join her at around 11:30pm.

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Saturday

Wedding daaaaaay!!! We wake up around 7am, get presentable and head to breakfast at 8am. Best way to wake up? We walk out the rood, and sitting on top of the low stone fence just at the end of the walkway out of the courtyard, was my sister's leftovers from the night before. We couldn't see them in the dark of the night, but they were in plain view right there, and a big orange cat was pawing at it with his giant head stuck in the open box. She didn't much want them anymore, but still moaned over the loss of the good food. Breakfast was a choice between eggs benedict or dumpling pancakes, with fresh fruit and pumpkin spiced pound cake. We had breakfast with most of the bridesmaids and then headed back to the room. The girls brought over all their stuff and we hung up the dresses together for pictures and then took turns taking showers. At 10am the hair and makeup ladies showed up- yes thats right, we had our hair and makeup done professionally. My sister spared no details for this wedding. I went first in hair, then makeup, then just chilled for a couple hours while the other ladies got theirs done, my sister being last. I was on eating duty, meaning I got to make sure my sister actually ate something substantial throughout the day before the wedding at 3 so she wouldn't be tired and hungry at that time. the photographer showed up somewhere during that and took some pictures, then we donned our dresses, helped my sister into hers, and took a bunch more pictures out in the courtyard.

here's one of them someone got on their phone (the professional ones aren't out yet)


At about 2:15-2:30, the groomsmen and groom arrived and then did a first look where the bride comes up to groom facing away and he turns around once she gets to him and sees her in her dress for the first time without the crowd or ceremony or anyone else around. From our doorway we could JUUUST see them meeting so all the bridesmaids and pressed up against the door frame under each other watching them in classic peeping tom fashion. He cried, it was great. After that we took group photos with the groomsmen and the bride and groom, then the ladies went off to wait in the courtyard while the men did their group photos with the groom. It took the boys a bit long to finish their photos so we got to make fun of them for being late to the wedding (only a couple minutes, but still).

The ceremony went off without a hitch, my new brother cried a bunch during his vows (they wrote their own), my sister managed to keep it together, just having to take a break at a couple points to breathe and calm herself, and BOOM they were married. The best man and I signed as witnesses on their license, and we took some family photos with the entire extended family and then certain shots with like, just the bride and her close family, then just the groom and his close family, the bride and groom with each others family, etc. And then small talk and drinks in a different courtyard! One of my friends from high school and her husband were invited, thank goodness, so i hung out and caught up with them for a while before heading into the dining room for dinner at 5pm. Dinner was fantaaaastic beside being nervous as all heck for my speech. My dad and the groom's mother made another speech each- dad's was funny, her's was emotional and she was crying by the end. The videographer for the wedding put up a spotlight and a camera on the bride and groom during the speeches, which I can't wait to see for their reactions. The best man and I gave our speeches between salad and main course- his was relatively funny and a little emotional, and thEN I WENT. I went for the full, punch-you-in-the-heart emotional speech, cause WHY NOT. From where we stood to give the speeches, you couldn't really see the bride and grooms faces, so I wasn't sure if she was crying or not (which is what i wanted :^D) so I just kept pouring it on at some point. At the end I went back to my seat, next to the bride, and OH MAN SHE WAS COMPLETELY IN TEARS. Thank goodness for waterproof makeup. She cried for a solid couple minutes- not just about my speech but some of the things I said in it brought forth a lot of emotions she had pushed down leading up to the wedding regarding our family and troubles we had the past year- so I just smashed right through those floodgates and she bawled. It was great. AFTER THAT CAME DINNER lmao.

After dinner we all filed out to the library for cake cutting and chit-chat while the employees cleared the tables in the dining room for dancing. My sister rented a photobooth too so we were all taking silly pictures while we waited. The dancing was so much fun- the DJ played some really good songs that were all fast pace and fun so we got all the young people AND the old people up and dancing lmao. The newlyweds first dance was super cute, the father-daughter dance was super cute and funny since my dad doesn't really know how to dance so every time he spun my sister the crowd would cheer, and the mother-son dance was super cute and awesome since they both knew how to dance so he was spinning his mom all over the place and we were cheering.

After the dance we all did a sparkler send off where we all went outside to ANOTHER courtyard, stood in two long lines, then lit sparklers while the bride and groom ran under them, cheering. And then to the after party (at this point it was about 10pm)!!! The after party was at a local night club and the hotel did shuttles for everyone so there was no worry about people driving and they could come back whenever they wanted. I skipped out on the first half hour and stayed at the hotel chatting with my high school friend before sending them off and grabbing the shuttle. Only stayed out till just after midnight, since i wanted to get back and clear out my stuff from my sister's room so she and her new husband could relax alone once they got back. And finally passed around about 2am cause i watched some tv before bed ayyyye.

And this morning I said goodbye to my sister, goodbye to some of the family still around, and headed to the airport at 10:30am! Good weekend :]

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Tired and Stressed

This past week has been an absolute terror. Got back from India on Sunday afternoon, the 28th (1 ½ weeks ago), after traveling for 26 hours on Saturday, spending the night at my parents house, then traveling another 9 hours on Sunday due to delayed flights. Don’t even get me started on the flight situation the entire trip… I never want to fly with United again after that. Upon getting home I got some food for the geckos then headed home and started unpacking immediately. Or at least, I managed to get to the point of strewing all the clothes across the floor and digging out the gifts for people and going through those (still need to send those gifts, ugh…) and then giving up. Monday classes, and fell asleep at around 6pm, not getting up until 7ish the next morning. Tuesday classes, with homework until late, getting around 5 hours of sleep. Wednesday classes, falling asleep around 7pm and not getting up till around 8 or 9 the next morning. Thursday classes with spending the evening setting up for a fundraiser for a school club the next night. Friday classes, then the event, complete with cleaning up afterwards, getting home around midnight. Saturday work from 9am-11pm. Sunday work from 10am-2am Monday morning from which I went straight to school to work on an assignment due later Monday, worked on that until 8am then went to the lounge and slept for 5 hours before going to classes. The rest of Monday I did nothing even though there was a report due at 10am Tuesday (I still haven’t done it…). Tuesday (yesterday) afternoon my group mates and I filmed the video for our final project, and I spent the next 7 hours editing and working on that, getting maybe 3/5 of it done before having to run out of the lab at 9:30pm to get to work before it closed to get some crickets for the babies since I had forgotten the entire week until then since I’m a terrible mother. This morning I took some time off and showered properly (Monday I took a shower in the gym after the report, before napping, cause felt gross) and did laundry (it had been a few weeks) and now I’m at school about to head to class to write a technical report for a tooling fixture that another student and I designed and machined last week that’s not due till next week but might as well get it done. Tomorrow the lab notebook for the class I still have a report to write for is due and we get the take home final for another class. Friday I have two quizzes in one class due online, work in the evening, then the weekend is endless work, extended hours due to the holidays. And next week is finals. Yay.

I have to go to class now.

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What is this feeling... Crawling down my Back?
Oh yes, it's Fear

The other night at work one of my coworkers got really mad. He had already been going through a tough time with the management and with school, and customers were just being awful to boot, so he lost it a little. And by a little I mean he came over to the kitchen, out of site of the drive-thru window (it was late-night so only drive-thru was open, not lobby) and cameras, and beat the heck out of the heating cabinet. Punched it really, really hard a couple times- he had to ice his hand later when he calmed down because he bruised it from hitting it so hard- and then screamed with a kind of on-the-verge-tears voice that he freaking hated it here and hated the customers. And it was so angry, so, so angry, and it scared me. I don't know if it's the generation I was raised in, or just me being that stereotypical female, but when another female is that angry in my presence, I can work to calm her down. I can talk to her, bring her down, do that soothing thing; but when a male is that angry? I just want to get out of there. I don't want anything to do with that. Am I scared it's because he might turn on me? Do that stereotypical, what you always see in the media, thing of turning on the female and taking his anger out on her instead? You're absolutely right that's what I'm afraid of.

He punched the cabinet and screamed like that and I froze. My manager and I went completely silent and just kept making food. Manager man asked if the cashier was ok, he didn't respond, we shared a glance and a shrug and kind of kept working. But I was scared. The cashier, my friend, the slightly younger one, shorter than I am, the one that calls me dad and told me he was bi, the one who puts all his trust in me and looks up to me and said that one day he hopes to get over himself enough to tell me everything he's kept secret from his other friends and his family, that he wants me to be the first to know, to be his confidant, he came over to us, and I didn't notice his presence until he spoke, and I actually jumped slightly and took a step back. This kid who puts all his trust in me and I care about so much, I took an INVOLUNTARY step back from him in FEAR. And every time he walked behind us back into the kitchen to get something, I could feel it. Like, when you're hyper aware of someone and you can feel it in your body when they move behind you or too close to you and it's like every cell in your body is tensed and waiting to jump into some kind of action. The fight or flight instinct has been activated, and you are on high alert for flight. Later, he took a break in the office and another coworker went in to talk to him and they both came out and he apologized to me and the manager and we talked about it and he and I hugged for a long moment. And he hugged me so tightly, pouring all his frustration out and squeezing every drop of comfort I could give him out of it. And what am I supposed to say when he hugs me like that? When he has no idea how terrified I was of him? How that bit of fear will still linger every time I see him now? How my mind now knows that he could easily hurt me, even if he never would? What do you say to a person when that happens?

I won't see him again till the weekend, and then we'll see if that feeling is still there. I hope to Arceus it isn't- I don't want to be afraid of my kid- of someone who looks up to me like he does. I don't- - - I don't know what to do...

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Dream Journal

Just writing down some dreams I've had, nothing interesting.

BTS Dreams:

Will update when new, interesting dream happen
(sorry they're all about BTS right now lmao
but that's all the dreams I can remember from the past week)

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A Week Away

Hello Internet. Got to spend last week on a little school trip to Vegas to check out an ASHRAE convention. That would be the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air conditioning Engineers. It was alright- kind of boring honestly. I went on this trip last year too in Orlando, and that one was a lot better. The group was closer last year, we all got to stay in the same rented house since the group was smaller (14 vs. 21), the late night activities were more fun, and the seminars hosted at the convention were more interesting than any I saw this year. I don’t know, it just seemed very lackluster and a bit of a disappointment, but I’ll tell you about the trip anyways :3.


THURSDAY

Alright- so a group of us drove, leaving early Thursday morning to get there Thursday afternoon, and the rest took a flight late Thursday afternoon to get in late Thursday night. We had two big cars rented since there were so freaking many of us and both came to pick us up at the airport. Once car took the peeps inside to meet up with some others and get them while the car I was in decided it was dinnertime and we shot off to In and Out to get some burgers. At the diner these two guys came over and asked if we had any aches or pains or hardships and offered to pray for/with us to relieve them. No one in our group is religious at all so we said nah, bro, thanks. They moved on to the next table who welcomed it and they all had a long prayer session and then talked about religion and hardships and getting better for a good forty minutes. Yes I kept track cause it was kind of interesting. It was cool though that the two guys didn’t press us at all when we weren’t interested. Like, they were just there to pray for anyone who wanted it; not to push their religion on anyone.

After dinner we headed back to the house we had rented and it was probably just after midnight at this point. The girls on the trip actually had a hotel room booked since there weren’t enough beds at the house, but our teacher messed up so it wasn’t booked until Friday night, so we stayed at the house. Not everyone had arrived in Vegas yet though (some were coming in the next night and a couple others on Saturday morning) so there were plenty of beds. I elected to sleep on the couch to stay up and read. Some of the guys went out to scope the casinos out and didn’t come home till around 3am.



FRIDAY

Remember those guys that didn’t come home till around 3am? Yeah, we woke them up at 7am with our movement around the house. Apparently pool balls are very loud when they hit each other. Our president, Tim, came down after we stopped playing and was just like, ‘hey can you guys not play that in the early morning, it was incredibly loud’, and we were all, ‘no idea what you’re talking about bro, no one was playing pool’, and we basically confused the hell out of him and convinced him it was just a dream. And then we all ate homemade French toast.

The group split for the day to go do whatever they wanted. Tim and another guy went to go climb some rocks out in the canyons, another little group went to go hang out with friends who were also in Vegas, and the group I was with went to the Hoover Dam. The dam is pretty incredible if you’ve never seen it and I’d definitely recommend. The shear massiveness of it is incredible to see even if you aren’t interesting in the mechanics that run it. Right now, the lake that runs into the dam is at an all time low and you can see the levels in the rock as it’s been dropping which is really sad. Just 34 years ago the river was at the highest it’s ever been, when the Dam had to use the spillways located on either side to divert the water and keep it from going over the top of the wall. The spillways were absolutely incredible to see and we debated for a while what it would be like to jump down into them and take it like a water slide. The group was pretty convinced that you would die immediately. Buzzkills.

That actually then brought up the conversation of how many people died while building the dam. According to the tour we took a little later, 96 people died in construction accidents while the dam was being built, which brought up another conversation about safety regulations today vs. back then and how if even a single person dies on any kind of project today, the project is usually closed down, investigated, new paperwork written up, then maybe continued. And all that paperwork could take years to go through. Meanwhile, the Hoover dam was started in 1931 and officially completed in 1936 from start to finish- a feat that could never be possible in today’s world.

Anyways, the rest of the tour was in the power housing where we got to see the enormous generators at work. The generators run on hydroelectric power (they produce energy by using the water running through the dam) and create enough energy to service about 1.3 million people, which may seem like a lot but it’s barely enough for maybe half of just the city of Las Vegas. The power doesn’t all go to Vegas and Nevada though- the dam itself actually sits on the border of Arizona and Nevada, and the Colorado river runs through California, so those three states share the power, with the majority going to California. The quick and dirty on how a hydroelectric generator works is that there are large magnets in the turbine, as the water flows, it hits blades on the turbine, spinning it and the magnets, creating a magnetic field. This magnetic field couples with copper wiring inside the generator, producing electricity. Ain’t that fascinating?

After the Dam we walked across the Sky Bridge that connects two hilltops across the river and a lot of the group freaked out because heights are scary. Also Josh kept leaning over the edge. Freaking Josh. (His girlfriend eventually just kept a hold on the back of jacket to hold him back away from the edge haha)

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Vegas and checking out the different casinos and places to hang out. There honestly wasn’t much to see.


SATURDAY

Saturday started the actual conference and we headed to Caesars Palace, a hotel on the strip with big ballrooms and halls to host the convention, around noon to check in. After check in we went to a student meeting thing, which was the worst thing ever, and I cursed every moment in that room. I remember from last year that anything that was ‘student’ related was a bunch of boring bull, but still went to that first meet and greet and basically just colored on the notepads they give you for 2 hours. Seriously they just talked about the different kinds of seminars available (already knew) and then talked for 2 hours on how to network and talk to people and they brought up these 3 ASHRAE vets who talked about their experience with ASHRAE and what they wish they had known and done during their first convention and we’re all in the back like, ‘please just end me now’.

After that we hightailed it the HELL out of there. Unfortunately there was another thing scheduled for us that was mandatory- the keynote speech. The actual speech was pretty awesome, though the welcome greeting, short speeches by the Pres, VP, and Secretary, and the award ceremony for various names in the industry were boring as heck. The speaker was Adam Steltzner, an engineer with NASA who worked on several of the space probe and Mars rover projects and his speech was AMAZING. Last year the speaker was some lady that was the press coordinator for the President of the US a couple presidents ago, I think? Which is cool! It was neat to meet her, but she knew absolutely nothing about engineering or ASHRAE and honestly I’m not even sure she knew what ASHRAE stood for. Her entire speech was about networking and how you should always talk to everyone in the room cause you never know who’s there and how engineers are superheroes and so awesome and I’m just like, please stop. This guy though actually was in the profession and had real stories and life lessons to tell us. He told us about the Curiosity landing and how the engineers designed the mechanism that would allow a safe landing for the rover. Did you know it took them 10 years to design just the landing gear? Isn’t that insane? But so much had to go into designing it and there was no way to actually test any design completely accurately since they couldn’t precisely simulate Mars on Earth. They went through a ton of different iterations of ideas before exhausting the list and locking themselves in a room until they came up with another solution. Three days later they finally had something- a sky crane that would jetpack propel the rover to the surface, break off, and go land (crash) somewhere else. You know why the engineers and scientists are so happy and excited in that footage you see when their rover makes a successful landing? It’s because they legit had no idea if it would be successful or not. Like I said, there was not way to accurately simulate what would happen in a real life test, so when it was successful it was amazing.

Anyways, his speech was pretty sweet, and he gave really good career advice, like find something to love in each of your coworkers to make it easier to work with them. Separate the idea from the person; when someone is attached to their idea, they can’t take criticism for it and can feel personally offended if someone doesn’t like it or wants to change it, but when an idea is separated and is just an idea on the table, people can work with it, change it, improve it, and make it better. Lastly, an idea may look crazy at first, but don’t let that keep you from giving it a chance. Like the sky crane for the rover looked absolutely ridiculous- but it worked perfectly.

After the welcome speeches, we hung out for a while before heading to the welcome dinner, still all in the same hotel. The welcome dinner was pretty lackluster, but the food was good and that’s what matters. Two of the girls and I got to talking to this one representative from a company down south for a couple hours. He was pretty cool- he presented us with a problem his company was trying to figure out that I can’t actually write down. He didn’t swear us to secrecy with non-disclosure papers or anything (haha) but he asked us not to really talk about it, so I won’t. After that event a couple of us drove out to Old Vegas to play in the casino and see the sights. I really liked walking around there cause it was all pedestrian walk, not like the strip, and there were multiple live bands just playing the street and sights to see- but the guys wanted to gamble so we spent an hour just watching one of them play games and I'm pretty sure I fell asleep standing up against a wall for a couple minutes. The other girl that went and I decided to head out after a while and left the guys to gamble.


SUNDAY

Sunday was the real start to the conference and we were supposed to go to student seminars for about 5 hours, but the group said oh hell no and split to go do some real seminars instead. I started the day by going to a breakfast event at 7am and stole a couple muffins for the day. I mean, that wasn’t the point of going, but, you know- muffins. Saw a couple seminars that day too, nothing overly interesting but I’ll give you the short story on each of them:

Designing for the Future:
Not entirely sure what this one was about since they guy just talked about this hospital he built and then compared it to a hospital he had built 30 years ago and showed us the energy readings from each. Ergonomically, the new hospital was very nice with high ceilings and loads of natural light to make the patients more comfortable, but it used more energy than the older hospital so I failed to see the point. Also they screwed up the wiring in the new hospital due to budgeting by bundling the mechanical systems so 5 years down the road they had to spend more money to fix that. Moral of the seminar: don’t sacrifice for budgeting because it will probably cause costly problems down the road.

The second speaker made more sense as he talked about the University of San Diego campus and how they’re working towards making it an emission free campus by reducing energy usage, car emissions, optimizing ride share, buses, and school vehicles, and reducing water usage. The entirely of their plan won’t finish out will 2035, but they’re doing something which is more than most of the country, so good on them.

BIM Models Direct to HVAC Heating/Cooling Load Calculations:
Using building information modeling to more easily perform HVAC loading calculations on a building. The amount of HVAC calculations that go into a building is stupid. There’s so much to consider and so many variables to take into account with the ceiling, floor, walls, doors, windows, and any change in geometry of the room such as a small ledge or windowsill or vent or rounded corners or sharp corners can change the values. By using building software, where the general layout of the building is created virtually, usually by an architect, with all the information already inputted, the loading calculations would be a breeze to run through. The seminar was about how accurate using BIM is and, spoiler, it’s not really. Oh well.

Those two were all I had time for since we didn’t get to the convention till a bit later in the day and had an event to go to at 2pm. Honestly, they were pretty boring seminars and I was zoning in and out between taking some notes. Which was too bad because designing buildings for the future could have been so interesting, but the guys stories were lame and his hospital layout really didn’t make sense in the long run besides being fire proof and able to regulate air well, which he was really happy about since wild fires are frequent in that area. And kudos on the air regulation! They did good with that, but the high ceilings for natural light for the patent’s comfort was unnecessary since they could have implemented something with the lights to simulate the passing of daylight instead, saving on space and money without sacrificing the daylight effect they were going for. But whatever.

At 2pm we headed over to another hotel for the AAON event where AAON, one of the leading names in the HVAC industry shows off their new products, which is mostly heat ducts, basically gigantic metal boxes with a bunch of pumps and wires in them and are incredible boring if you aren’t interested in the science behind them. Which I’m reaaaaaally not -_- so it was boring as heck. At least they had some good food. One of the guys I made friends with on the trip and I hung out for a while and wandered around the event before leaving to go wander the hotel and casino for a while. The event started at 2pm and we weren’t leaving until 6pm, so there was plenty of time to wander around. We found a place to sit and played on our phones for a good hour and then went wandering through the various shops. We found this awesome photography studio for a famous photographer named Peter Lik and the guy I was hanging with seriously considered buying a $3000 photo from there before I dragged him away. The photos were amazing though- and the paper they were printed on had multiple layers to it that made it look like it was glowing. There were various dark rooms in the studio where they had a certain picture or two on display and you could turn down the lights to see the photos glow.

After the AAON event we went to dinner with our entire group as well as the other school groups from our region. I think there were Kansas, Nebraska, and Kentucky people there, but that’s all I remember. Idk if that’s all correct either, but it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that we all ate waaaay too much and it was really tasty Italian salad, pastas, and desserts. Afterwards some of the group split to go to the casinos and the rest headed back to their various homes. Guess which one I was part of (it was home).


MONDAY:

Monday was another day of conference seminars in the morning, the exhibition, and a party at night. Here’s a quick bit on the two seminars I saw that day:

Zero Net Energy Feasibility and Issue by Building Type and Climate:
Zero net energy means to have used virtually no energy. This is done by a building working to offset the amount of energy they use by use of solar panels, wind, water, geothermal, etc., so by the end of the year their energy gained and energy used cancel each other out. This is important as it could reduce out carbon footprint on the world and make it more ecofriendly. There were a bunch of calculations and stuff in there too, but that’s boring. Moving on!

Fire in the Grand MGM, Fire and Safety Codes Today:
Big fire in the MGM hotel where a bunch of people died due to terrible building structure and failure to take into account smoke stacking. Smoke stacking can be fairly common in tall structures where the lower floors aren’t actually in any dangers if a fire occurs on the first floor, but it becomes more and more dangerous as you move higher, about past the 15th floor, due to all the smoke getting trapped in a sort of vortex that cycles in through the building. In the MGM fire, only about 3 people died in the actual fire, while 15ish died due to smoke. Those who rebuilt the hotel made sure to take when they learned from the fire into account when designing the new building.

Fire safety and air ventilation has honestly always been interesting to me. I took a seminar last year on smoke ventilation and learned about building indoor gardens one-on-one during an event in a building with a giant pond and tree in the center of it, complete with turtles, fish, and some alligators, and it was incredibly fascinating. Learning how the building can cycle out humidity or put it in when need be to keep the garden happy and fresh, but the rest of the building cool and humidity free was great. Too bad I didn’t learn squat during this fire safety seminar. The only new thing I learned was the smoke stacking affect and how any building taller than 20ish floors is basically screwed if it catches fire unless it has major internal fire fighting built into it- which, hopefully, any new building these days should have.

After the seminars we headed over to the exhibition hall where over 2000 venders had set up stalls showing off their products to interested people and potential buyers. Another girl and I walked around the expo for a couple hours gathering free stuff and asking a few questions to the people we were really interested in. There were a lot of giant fan companies there, it was weird- but I got to play with a big power clamp, so that was fun. Also talked to the owner of a steam and boiler company who seemed really interested in my schooling and gave us his card if I ever wanted to look them up for a possible job. I probably won’t since it would be a 3-5 year contract and mainly being out on the road, but it was a good conversation.

After the expo we went back to the hotel to rest for a while and then headed out to the final party of the trip around 7. The party was at a club next to (part of?) the Hard Rock Hotel and it was rocking. Buffet style food everywhere, live band and DJ when the band went to break every now and then, free beer and wine (and water), and a side room full of random HVAC equipment where you could win jackets, water bottles, backpacks, etc., if you asked good questions on the equipment. So we danced and ate for a couple hours, headed out (we were kicked out, end of the party) at about 11pm and decided to keep the party going by heading over to a club nearby. BUT OF COURSE those plans were dashed for a few of us because clubs in Vegas have dress codes?!?? And A couple of us didn’t fit the bill because we were wearing the wrong shoes. Yup, the wrong SHOES. So the group split up, which was sad since it was our last night together :[. A couple went ahead into the club and the rest, me, this other girl, and three guys, decided to go to this hole-in-the-wall bar that the other girl knew about. Apparently it was the bar when Tupac was shot, so wooo. The bar was definitely a hole in the wall, little dingy place, but the bartender was really nice and took care of us and made the best drink I had on the trip, so there’s that. We also got hot dogs there haha.

At around 1am one of the guys who went to the club decided he was done and came and picked us up to go back to the various hotels. The others that went out to the clubs didn’t get back until late in the morning, I think 3am ish? Not sure since I was passed the heck out and didn’t wake up when they came home.


TUESDAY:

We were up and starting to pack around 9am for the car to pick us up at 10am. We didn’t end up getting out of the hotel till around 10:30 since two of the girls were hungover as all heck ahaha. No sympathy.

We went to another seminar that morning but I don’t have anything to say on it because I was not paying attention at all. It was a technical seminar so just a lot of, well, technical stuff that none of us could focus or pay attention to. Something about concrete and tall buildings? I don’t know.

We headed to the airport pretty early that day since we had to return the rental cars. Oh yeah, and one guy in our group slept in the car all morning/early afternoon while we were at the seminar since he was even more hungover than our girls. Heh. Anywyas, headed to the airport, got on a plane, got on another plane, and got home. Nothing else to really say- besides that there was a good foot of snow on my car from being parked for a week at the airport. Yay, home.

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Writing Fiction: My Do’s and Don’ts

The following writing is just my person opinion and might not apply to all people.
These are just things that annoy me when I see them in writing.

Do:

Story Writing: fiction, original stories, fan fiction
• Use Third Person (reader insert writing)

I hate seeing people use I or me in story writing. In blog writing (like this) it’s absolutely fine. It’s your own thoughts so it should be in first person- but fiction writing is completely different. For me, I can’t stand first person. It makes the story harder to relate to, harder for the reader to imagine themselves in the role. For fan fiction writing or reader insert writing, you should want it to be reader insert so that whoever is reading it can feel like they’re a part of the story. I mean, it IS ‘reader insert’ after all. Using I or me makes me think that it’s the author who’s in the story, not myself. When I read a story, it’s like the author is right there reading it to me in my head. So when it says I or me, it’s like the author is talking about themselves. But when it’s in third person saying ‘you’ it’s like I’m in it. Giving the reader physically attributes like hair color/height/a name also ruins it. In reader insert writing it's perfectly acceptable to just use [your name] or [hair color] instead of actually writing out the name or color. But try not to use that often. It's easy to write a story without ever having to use the bracket descriptions.

• Break Story Up With Paragraphs

BREAK UP YOUR STORY. I can’t tell you how much it bothers me when someone uploads a story and it’s all just one huge block of text. Hell to the no. Every time a person talks there should be a line break. Every time there is a new thought or the story changes scenery there should be a line break. Those are just necessities in writing. But it’s not just that- a person can’t read a huge block of text easily. The mind and eye can’t keep up with that on a computer screen and can easily start to skim because it’s losing focus in all the letters. Break up your writing to make it easier to read and keep your audience’s focus.

• Use a Beta Reader

Not completely necessary, but it can help for tips and any mistakes you might miss. I read through my writing on word once or twice after it’s done and still catch mistakes after I’ve uploaded it. Something about the change in background (going from the word screen to the format on whatever site I’m uploading it on) helps to show those mistakes that my eye just glanced over before. If you can’t get a beta reader, just re-reading your work on another site can do wonders. Microsoft word also offers a text to speech option where a voice will read your writing out loud.

• Check the Grammar

Watch out for changing verb tenses and grammatically correct sentences. I’ve caught myself changing up the verb tenses on multiple occasions- when your mind is working too fast and you’re just getting all the thoughts down and not completely paying attention. Another instance of making sure you read back through your work to make sure everything makes sense.


***


Don’t:
• Start every Sentence the Same Way

Don’t start every sentence the same way. This is really easy to overlook when writing in first or third person. Make sure you’re not starting every sentence with I or you or if there’s another person in the story, don’t start everything with he or she or they. Vary it up, i.e.:

She gently placed the cup on the table and leaned back in the couch. She looked up at you and smiled, motioning you to sit with her.

She gently placed the cup on the table and leaned back in the couch. Smiling, she looked up at you and motioned for you to come sit with her.

or something like that- you get the point. Don’t start every sentence the same way.

• Overlook Criticism

Be glad that someone is interested in your writing enough to give some creative feedback. Some people might just be mean and trolls, but others might actually have some good feedback on writing that you could benefit from. Don’t’ worry about pleasing everyone either. Sometimes a critic’s words and advice doesn’t work with your style of writing and you shouldn’t worry about changing your style to please that one person. If you know that people like your writing, or if you like your writing, then don’t worry about it. Be proud of your writing.


***


And that’s about it. Just a couple tips from me on improving story writing skills. Again, these tips might not work for everyone and some readers might not have the same Dos and Don’ts that I have. This is just my personal pet peeves and ideas.

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Another Retail Rant

Looks who's back with another rant! Yeah, I just like to rant about things I guess. Not that it's hard to make me annoyed haha. I know I've had a retail rant before, but I have some new material this time so have another!

Alright- let's start with people are terrible. Like, seriously, I hate working the service industry because customers are complete jerks and always seem to come out with the worse attitudes. Working in the service industry just shows you the worst of the worst kind of people- like they think that because you’re a ‘server’ they can get away with anything and walk all over you. We are just mindless drones here to do their bidding and they can get away with anything because the customer is always right.

But you know what really sucks? That's legit company policy. The customer is always right and we don't question them, we just make sure to do everything we can to make them happy. And that's the worse freaking thing ever. There's no consideration for the employee, only the sale. We mean nothing to the company and that's the absolute worst. When a customer is a jerk all we can do is smile, apologize, and give them free stuff to make them happy. Not like that ever does anything since we still get bad reviews from the stupid survey customers can fill out with their receipts.

Like-

Let me give you a rundown of how Taco Bell works behind the scenes (im a manager there and have worked there nearly 3 years). Ok so, we get graded as a store every couple weeks on VOCs, the Voice Of the Customer, which is basically a short survey that customers can fill out online asking if our restaurant was clean, if their food was good, if they experienced any problems, how the service was, etc. And a lot of the time we get really nice comments where the person will mention the cashier by name and say how nice they were and how impressed they were with the service and stuff, and that's great! But then you get people who give us 4/5 stars rating and say 'not 5 because it's not a restaurant, it's just fast food'. ? ??? ?? ?? ? Why the heck are you eating here and judging us badly if you were looking for a majesty of a culinary experience ? ?? Yeah it's fast food, its not healthy, a lot of it is processed, and were you somehow not aware of this?? ? Gtfo. And the worst thing is that 4/5 hurts us. Corporate only cares about 5/5 stars so anything less than that counts against us and I hate that. There's also a ton of policies that get shoved down our throats when you start working about how to care for the customer and how the customer always comes first and the steps you should take to ensure they're happy. My favorite is the one where they tell you not to question the customer when they complain and just remake the food for free and also you should give them a coupon for a free taco for their next visit cause you have to make sure they come back. As if these fat jerks would stop coming.

So there's the behind the scenes bit about how corporate doesn't give a care about its employees, now let's get into how the customers also don't care and treat us like dirt, shall we?

Alright, to start this off, we're going to go back to Petsmart real quick cause I have a story that will always piss me off to think about. One day, an older lady comes in and it's pretty clear she's not in the best of moods. So I smile, I greet her, I ask about her day, I keep quiet after she gives clipped answers and doesn't really reply back, I give her her receipt, I wish her a nice day, and she turns back to me and says, "I don't know if they tell you that you're supposed to say "have a nice day", but that isn't enough. You should thank me for coming into the store and spending money because I could easily go somewhere else."

What. The. Actual. Fudge.

This lady, towering over everyone else on her high horse, says something like that?? Like, what kind of self-entitled jerk do you have to be to tell someone that?! Fine, go please, like this giant corporate business spread out across the country, that makes over $10k a day from just one store, really needs you.

Another story from petsmart because this one I was legit furious during it but had to keep a smile and 'customer service attitude' on even though I was literally shaking from anger. The guy after the lady noticed it and he was like :0 'wow.. what a terrible lady' and he cracked a joke or two to try and lighten my mood after she left. I can't remember exactly what she said or anything, but it was about the credit card machine. Corporate had updated the system so it asked for a donation first, then the cashier had to press a button for cash or credit/debit, and then there were a few steps for the customer to do, and honestly corporate did a terrible job on the update because it left a lot of things unclear and confused a lot of customers for a while. Usually they complained about it for a moment and then let it go, and while that does get annoying after the 10th time in a row it happens, this lady was beyond angry at the machine and decided it was my fault the machine wasn't easy to understand. I remember something along the lines of 'why can't you just make it clear, - this is stupid, - this doesn't make any sense, what is wrong with this? Ugh, so annoying' and just things like that, but she placed all the blame on me for it and I was so angry. Like, she was enough of a jerk that other customers noticed, and I guess it was pretty obvious I was pissed off since they guy behind her tried to make me feel better with some jokes. What kind of person do you have to be to blame a cashier, a young person who's probably a student just trying to earn some money, who works for minimum wage in a huge company that doesn't care about them at all, for things like that? I hate people like that so much.


Ok, now let's go back to T-Bell, cause I have a few stories of that as well. Nice and recent too, cause the food industry never fails to produce some terrible customers. Let's start with a week or so ago when our machines stopped taking Mastercard because Mastercard is stupid and a lot of places don't take it. Something was happening with the card company, so our machines weren't taking it and we had to give away a lot of free meals in the first few hours before we put up signs everywhere stating that we couldn't take it at the moment, and of course many customers who only had Mastercards blamed us entirely for not being able to. Some were ok with it and said they'd come back in a bit with cash or drove off without getting anything and were all sad about it. There were a few who drove off without anything while complaining and huffing about it, but one lady really took the cake. First, she complained when she saw the sign ("What do you mean you can't do Mastercard?! What's wrong, this is bull!!") and she cussed at us, then drove around the drive thru, flipping us off when she passed the windows. Cause, you know, our machines being down is completely our fault and she should blame us for everything.

There's another lady who comes in pretty often that we all hate. She always orders a ton of food for her 5+ children who are 'very picky', so everything is special. No cheese on this, no lettuce on this, extra sauce on this, etc etc. And every time, EVERY time, she comes into the lobby after and complains that we didn't make her food right. And, according to policy, we have to remake her food and give it to her for free. And she does this EVERY FREAKING TIME. Like, a couple months ago our old store manager actually called her out on it, saying that she couldn't come in every time and complain because he knew that we made it correctly, and then we didn't see her for a long while lmao. But eventually she was back, cause our customers are fat jerks. Last time I remember her coming through, she asked for a free cinnamon twist and 4-pack of cinnabons because we made her order wrong last time. Ofc we said yes, but I didn't hear it so I only put in a 2-pack of cinnabons and that was it. Lo and behold, lady comes in and says we didn't give her the FREE desserts and asked for more. Like, they were already free? Why are you demanding more free stuff? Can you just go away with your horde of ill-behaved offspring and maybe not have any more kids and never come back because you're really grating on my nerves rn? Thnx.

Along those same lines, some college girl came through drive thru a while ago and demanded a free drink for 'waiting so long in line'. If. you. didn't. want. to. wait. don't. come. through. drive. during. lunch. rush. idiot. Self entitled jerk. Boi was it hard to keep my customer service smile for that one.

And now tonight. Tonight really pissed me off completely because it was a perfect example of how little people care for 1) other people, and 2) service people specifically. One of our cashiers, Tyler, came in for shift in a bad mood. Today was not a good day for him and he was upset. But he worked hard and got through the first couple hours and was finally starting to be in a good mood while he joked around with me and the others. And then he moved into drive thru, handing out the orders and the night got bad real fast. A car came in and asked for an ice cream cone. We don't sell ice cream. Ok, then they'll have a slushie. Cool, pull up to the window. So Tyler gets the slushie ready and starts to hand it out to the guy in the car. Suddenly another guy comes running past, smacking the cup back through the window and all over Tyler. He then jumps into the car and the two guys and two girls in the backseat go speeding off.

Ty left for a while after that to calm down and clean himself up, he was so mad. Apparently this happened a lot to cashiers when he worked at McDonalds with ice cream cones. People would buy one and then throw it back in. There are also a lot of 'prank' videos online of people yelling 'fire in the hole' before tossing drinks back in the cashier's face, which makes me seethe with anger i stg. Having 'fun' at someone else's expense is never a prank. It's never funny to hurt someone. And you never know what that person is going through?? Like Tyler who was going through something at home and was finally feeling better at work when this happened. Wt actual f. Again, as I said above, we're teenagers/college kids making minimum wage just trying to earn some money. We're still freaking human with feelings, not service drones here for your fun and to serve you.

The car with the jerks actually hung out in the mall parking lot across from the store for a bit after they threw the slushie back in, circling the lot slowly, like they were watching the store. One of our other coworkers actually came in to check her schedule and after she went out and drove near them, catching a photo of their license plate. They started circling again and I went all mother bear and went outside and stared them down as they passed, daring them to come back. They circled again and this time I followed after them a ways (jerks had the gall to drive really slowly), but now I wish I had run after them, if only to scare them off for good. They probably thought it was so funny to have me watch them leave. Well I hope they find it even more hilarious when we press charges since we have their license plate number and the entire incident was caught on camera since we have cameras on all the windows (idiots). Soooo funny.

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What are your plans for the future?

"What are your plans for the future" is probably one of my most hated questions. As a new graduate, I've been asked this question more times then I care to think about, and each time, I have no answer. I'm looking for a job, yes, but with no prospects yet, it just feels embarrassing to say that, and I hate it. All the friends that graduated before me had multiple prospects when they graduated and are now doing incredible things in their jobs. One of them works in bioengineering and revolutionized how to deal with broken bones. He, and a team of only about 5 people, created new technology that now makes their company about $4 million a year, and now he's working on various cures for diseases. Another friend also works in the medical field and recently unveiled a new type of respirator that's infinitely times smaller than the ones on the market now, and much cheaper. Another friend works for the National Labs doing things that he contractually can't tell anyone about. Another one is doing stage/automation engineering for Cirque de Soleil, Broadway, and Disney. And i'm just over here like- well, I'm looking.

Do you know how much that hurts?
I feel like a complete idiot.

I can't stand that question- what are your plans for the future? What are you doing after graduation?
I. Don't. Know.
Just stop asking that, please.

In a weird way, people at work are kind of helping me not be so depressed over not having anywhere to go without knowing. One of my coworkers has said that he lowkey hopes I don't get a job any time soon so he can hang out with me over the summer, at least. And in a backwards way, that's nice to hear. At least I'm wanted somewhere.

But, I also completely hate my job with a passion. The people are fun to work with (most of them) but I can't stand the work. I hate my uniform, I hate the customers, I hate the work, I hate the weird hours, I hate the company, I hate the upper management. Work doesn't necessarily always have to be 'fun', but you shouldn't wake up in the morning dreading your job and thinking, 'is there any way I can get out of working today'. I used to be highly allergic to ibuprofen and legit asked people at work one day if anyone had some. Customers and the work were so freaking awful I was completely willing to have an intense allergic reaction- complete with swelling, and possible throat closure and a hospital visit- to leave. Work should never be like that.

So yeah, no, I don't want to be there any longer than I have to, regardless of if my coworkers are awesome.

I talked to an old teacher a few weeks ago for some help on one of my job prospects, but it's been a couple weeks so idk if he can help anymore at all. Or if he even knows anyone at the company- he said he might but he'd have to look around for the contact info. God, guys, I want this job so badly... Out of all the 30ish jobs I've applied to in the past 2 months, this is the first one that's actually gotten my heart beating a little faster in excitement. I haven't wanted something like this in nearly 2 years.

Honestly I never had a 'dream' growing up- a goal of some sort. Becoming an engineer was just sort of an offhand thing like, yeah sure why not. But I was never passionate about it. Joining the military 2 years ago was the first thing I was ever truly passionate about. In 20-21 years, that was the first thing I ever truly wanted. I was willing to give up everything for it. When the news came that I wasn't qualified for medical reasons, it was devastating to say the least. Fast forward 2 years and here I am, still without a dream or goal and no real passion in pursuing anything. "What do you want to do in the future? What do you want to do with your degree?" I have no freaking clue ok. I have no passion, no drive, no freaking care. Stop. Asking.

But... then I found this job, and I want it. Looking over job descriptions for the past months was always disheartening because I generally only meet half the qualifications since I have no experience- but this job, I did. I met every requirement and that was so freaking in itself. I could finally have a chance at this one. And freaking heck I wanted it. Now it's been about a month since I applied and there's still no word back and I'm starting to lose hope again. There's no way to contact the company to ask about the applications and I don't know what to do anymore and screw this let's just fall back into mild depression. We'll just go to work, hate everything about it, come home smelling like disgusting food, play video games way to late into the night, get barely any sleep, then repeat.

Who needs a future anyways.

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Kpop to Me

TODAY'S TOPIC
Well hi there internet, it's been a while hasn't it? Today's topic is going to cover how I got into Kpop and what it means to me now. As always with my posts, it will be long, drawn out with unnecessary fluff, and brimming over with emotions and philosophical thoughts. Shall we begin?


I was first introduced to kpop with the group BTS through GOT7 in the fall of 2016. Max was complaining that no one ever watched the videos he linked in our skype group and being the good datemate, I thought FIIIINNNEEE I'LL DO IT IF IT'LL SHUT YOU UP. I believe I watched the Baepsae dance practice video first where I was introduced to Max's bias Suga, then the music video Dope, where I started to fall for Namjoon. Of course, I had no idea who anyone was, though Max was very helpful providing screen shots of the video with the member's names written on it so I could learn. He then proceeded to spam me with Bangtan bombs and short vids of the guys being derps (each video helpfully followed with screenshots with their names attached) and I was forced to watch. After the 5-6th video it wasn't so forced though- those guys were super cute and adorakable, plus I liked the music.


From there Max and I screamed about BTS for many months and I scored a ticket to their concert in Anaheim, California in April. Through that I met more kpop fans, two of which continue to be good friends. The concert was incredible, but really it was the entire experience that was truly amazing. I've been to concerts before, but nothing of this scale. People were lining up in the early morning for a concert that wouldn't start till 7pm! The all day event was something I've never experienced in a concert, and I was really happy to have gotten there early to be there for all of it. I met a lot of artists, got some free stuff, bought a LOT of merch, and made some random friends with people around the venue. During the concert I jammed with a younger girl that sat next to me, she was adorable and as big a fan as I was- we had an awesome time :]. At the end, my phone died and I had no way to get home, besides the 40 minute walk through a ghetto/homeless campground on the bike trail, though I didn't know the turns in the trail exactly so that probably would have ended badly too. In the venue I managed to find a girl with a charger and she sat with me for 15 minutes after the show to charge up my phone and we chatted. ARMYs are so precious and awesome, I love them~


Fast forward about 2 weeks when I met Osacrys. I truly have no idea how she found me (maybe she was trolling the recent posts and just decided, 'hey let's message this person'), but I posted a 'someone come talk to me' feed while highly intoxicated one night and she responded. Idk if she knew I was an ARMY when she first messaged me? Due to other feeds- but anyways, that's not important. The main thing is, boom, new kpop friend. Through her I met a bunch more friendos, main ones being -kookie-, Mochi, and Saikyaru, and I'm really happy to have them.


Thanks to hobi and kook I also started to stan more kpop groups, main ones being Day6 and Astro. Can I just pause for a second and say how much I love these two groups? I'm totally in the honeymoon phase of everything they do is just adorable and I want to talk about them all the time and every time I see their faces I scree and I need all the merch and, well, you get the idea.


Anyways, I'm really thankful for kpop. Most people when I mention it don't understand why I like it- why listen to music when you don't understand what they're saying? But, it's not about that. There's so much more to music and to the community that kpop has introduced me to than just 'understanding what they're saying'. If lyrics where all I listen to when I play a song, I wouldn't have a music staff with the words "Never lose the music" tattooed on my arm. Music is about feeling and letting it become a part of you. Music envelopes the soul- it isn't something you only listen to with your ears. It's pure feeling and you don't need to understand all the lyrics to feel the emotion in someone's voice. You don't need to understand what they're saying to tap your foot along to the beat. You don't need to know what they're saying to love the song regardless.


And the community- I've made so many friends through kpop, people I never would have spoken to without it. Hoseok and kookie have become two of my best friends and I love them immensely and we never would have met if it weren't for kpop and BTS. Even though we don't talk anymore- I met a lot of other people through ARMY fan websites and blogs too. The community is as much a part of loving the group as them just having awesome music. It's a full package deal and I love every moment of it.


There's another beauty of kpop that isn't found in Western music- the closeness of the group members to their fans. Idols put out so many pictures and social media feeds and videos to be close to their fans. Watching the BTS boys grow up over the past year has changed me as well. It's not something I can easily put into words, but I have definitely changed by knowing them. And I know I said you don't need to know the lyrics to love the music, but can we go back to that? Google boi. Translate that. And OHMYARCEUSTHELYRICS. Beautiful and profound, the topics they talked about in their songs never failed to strike me. The music is so different from Western music in that regard- they actually talk about issues and powerful subjects instead of repetitive love songs or breakup songs. Not to say, BTS didn't have their fair share of love songs- but even those had different feelings than western music does. They found a way to touch on the same subject while still being different and making an impact.


I've been thinking of getting another tattoo dedicated to them in a quiet manner- meaning, if you weren't a pretty hardcore ARMY, you'd have no idea it was a BTS inspired tattoo, but the meaning behind it would still be easy to see (hopefully).

I want to put on my wrist a small pair of demon wings with the words "Let us fly with our beautiful wings" wrapping around my wrist. The entire thing would be small enough to cover with a watch. The quote is from Namjoon's thank you speech after they won Artist of the Year last year. The meaning behind the entire tattoo is that, even though my wings are ugly, -demonic-, maybe someone will find them beautiful one day, and even though they're tattered and ripped, I can still fly.

BTS, the people I've met since diving into the fandom, and the entire kpop community has affected my life in so many ways. I can't express how thankful I am for being literally forced (to a degree ;]) into the fandom, and I look forward to seeing how my life continues to change as I get to know more groups and watch the ones I currently know grow up.

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Still Not Sure What I Am, But We're Working On It

I think I might be a form of asexual.

Maybe not so much in the "physical" sense, because I do like kissing up on a cutie, but I also haven't felt any kind of need to, for lack of better phrasing, lay with someone in many years. My sister says I just haven't met the right person yet and it's not something to declare when you're not totally sure, and maybe she's right in saying that I'm not asexual in the physical way because I have found enjoyment in such activities in the past- but a mind and body can change and as I've said- it's been some years. And a lot has happened in that time.

But, regardless of the physical stuff, I can pretty sure say without a doubt that I'm asexual romantically. I don't form romantic attachments with people- I just can't do it. I've felt lust at first sight, I've had strong emotional attachments to people, and I've felt love of friendship, but I've never truly been in love with anyone. Usually it goes that I have "feelings" for a person, a crush on first sight sort of thing, and we flirt and my heart is bubbly and jumping everywhere, and then I -catch- them and we're together in some way and then all those feelings I had just *poof* gone. Idk what to call that, maybe someone else wouldn't call it asexuality, but I definitely don't do the romantic bonds thing. Maybe that's why I'm still really good friends with most of my exs: those friendship feelings never truly changed, so as soon as that awkward conversation of "hey maybe we shouldn't date anymore" is out of the way, they're still there and nothing really changed in my mind.

I usually say I'm a hunter. I chase my prey and the hunt is exciting, but as soon as I catch my prey and the hunt is over, it's boring. I'm bored and just want to get out and look for something else. And soon enough I'm up and glancing around for some new prey to hunt.

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Berry Garden

EASY (green)
Aguav _______________________ 37
Aspear _______________________ 51
Bluk _________________________ 30
Cheri ________________________ 58
Chesto _______________________ 100
Eggant _______________________ 17
Figy _________________________ 22
Grepa ________________________ 20
Hondew ______________________ 20
Iapapa _______________________ 20
Kelpsy _______________________ 20
Leppa _______________________ 20
Lum _________________________ 21
Mago ________________________ 20
Nanab _______________________ 20
Pecha ________________________ 100
Oran _________________________ 20
Persim _______________________ 20
Pinap ________________________ 20
Pomeg _______________________20
Qualot _______________________ 20
Rawst _______________________ 20
Razz ________________________ 20
Sitrus _______________________ 20
Tamato ______________________ 20
Wepear ______________________ 20
Wiki _________________________ 20


MEDIUM (blue)
Babiri ________________________ 9
Belue ________________________ 20
Charti ________________________ 14
Chople _______________________ 9
Coba _________________________ 6
Colbur _______________________ 16
Cornn _______________________ 15
Drash ________________________ 5
Durin ________________________ 12
Haban _______________________ 6
Kasib ________________________ 9
Kebia ________________________ 8
Magost _______________________ 9
Nomel _______________________ 3
Occa _________________________ 3
Pamtre _______________________ 9
Passho _______________________ 7
Payapa _______________________ 3
Pumkin _______________________ 9
Rabuta _______________________ 11
Shuca _______________________ 3
Spelon _______________________ 4
Tanga _______________________ 4
Wacan _______________________ 5
Watmel ______________________ 13
Yache _______________________ 15


HARD (purple)
Apicot _______________________ 14
Chilan _______________________ 7
Lansat _______________________ 3
Liechi ________________________ 3
Ganlon _______________________ 3
Petaya _______________________ 5
Salac ________________________ 7
Starf ________________________ 2


SUPER HARD (red)
Custap _______________________ 6
Enigma ______________________ 6
Jacoba _______________________ 5
Micle ________________________ 6
Rowap _______________________ 1

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Writing Prompts

Osacrys and I are working on her creative writing skills and I gave her some prompts to pick from. Problem is, I like writing too and couldn't help but want to use them as well :3

I gave her the task of writing these with descriptive imaging in mind- but I wrote them more like mini stories. Aim for descriptive over anything else and for a single page in length.



Write an opening to a story that takes place during a storm



Describe two people saying goodbye to each other

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October 23rd, 2018

[insert cool title here]
I'm too tired to think of one, just have the date. Ugh.

You know what I'm tired of? Flirting. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm more often than not, the king of flirting. But not really? At least, not anymore. Recently I've grown really tired of it and I'm kind of sick of seeing it in every chat everywhere. Can't we just talk? Why does 70% of the conversation have to be flirt fighting of 'you're cute' 'no you're way cuter' 'ugh, fight me you're so cute'. I'm so sick of it??? ? I just want to have a normal conversation, or like, a conversation with some kind of topic and substance. I'm tired of jokes and puns and topics that make no sense to me. I'm sick of group chats in all honesty. I'm in so many right now that have so many people and I don't want to be in any of them. I can handle a maximum of around 5 people in a group chat, more than that and it becomes too clustered and topics change too fast and 3 people are having one conversation and then 2 are having another and 4 more are having another in a different chat oh but 2 from the first conversation and 1 from the second are in another chat over here and I CAN'T KEEP UP. And I don't care to.

Don't add me to group chats. Don't expect me to reply with more than a sentence or two to a joke or a pun anymore. You know what, just don't talk to me at all. That's probably easier. I'm a month away from leaving behind everyone I know in real life, and, honestly, I'm thinking of doing the same online.

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:)

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:)

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A Need For Interaction

No I’m not talking about interaction like pokeheroes interacting with the pokemon- I’m talking about human interaction. I’m a full on introvert, right? Parties make me uncomfortable, being in new situations is awful, all that kind of thing. Even with close friends, I have my limit of, ‘ok we can hang out for a few hours but after that I need to go’ or ‘we can continue to hang but I’m going to need you to be quiet and let me be in my own world over here’. That pretty much happens all the time, but tonight I found myself missing the interaction of this past weekend.

This past weekend I moved in with an old college friend (I’ll write about living with him in another post) in a new city, and by coincidence a different friend from college also lives in this city so we all got together over the weekend and hung out to explore the city. We’re talking multiple hours hanging out, four of us the first day (roomie’s girlfriend came with) and then just the three of us the next. We explored all over downtown and had dinner and then came back to the house and hung out for a while playing video games. And once our other friend left, me, the gf, and the roomie would continue to hang and we even just sat in the living room playing with the cat and talking. And it was nice! And now, I’ve been alone in the living room for the past, six hours or so listening to my roomie and his gf watching movies and playing games behind the door of his room, and I miss them. I was going to go to sleep at like 7pm (it’s now 11) so that i wouldn’t have to deal with the feelings of loneliness, except I’m addicted to the internet so here I am still on it 4 hours later.

Anyways, I guess that after so many months of not really having this social interaction, I’ve been really craving it. Or maybe I miss my old work and that one coworker I always hung out and chatted with. For at least a couple hours a day, besides the weekend, I had some kind of good, no mask, be who you are, we’re all close friends here, social interaction, and for the last month or so I was at that last job I didn’t get that every day because the new boss split up me and that coworker. Am I getting ahead of myself? I feel like I haven’t explained everything- alright.

So I had this job, right? And a good coworker named Cole. Cole and I were partnered up for the first 4 months I worked there, and when I say partnered up I mean we went everywhere together. My job was a lot of driving out to businesses and fixing machines and whatnot, so we were on the road a lot, which meant a lot of getting to know each other and conversations. And Cole and I were a lot alike- we had a lot in common so it was easy to be really good friends. But the last month I worked there a new/old manager came in (he worked there for a couple years, left, then came back) and he was really cool! But he split me and Cole up most of the time since it wasn’t really necessary that we both go on all the calls out. And that was awful because I had no one to really talk to all day, and when I wen’t home my roommate was an antisocial hermit, so I had no one at home either. And I love my online friends, i really do, but there’s something that’s really missed when you’re not face to face with someone, or even just on a call but none of my online friends really ever want to call. But anyways, I’ve been seriously missing that social interaction that I’ve gotten used to over the past few months, and moving in with my old college friend has brought that back. Or, at least it did over the past weekend. Now it’s monday and he’s super concerned that I want space and it must be weird for me to be living on the couch in the living room and he’ll just go in his room and not bother me, and I’m like, no way bro! I love having you in here even if we’re not saying anything and you’re playing Xbox and I’m on ph and there’s no interaction besides being in each other presence. Like, that’s awesome! I love that kind of thing.

But that did not happen tonight and I’ve been mildly depressed about being alone out here so I think I’m just going to go to bed. Good night ph.

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PS I hope all the above made sense, I can't focus my mind right now. Every time I try and read it the words just go in and out and I can't retain it at all. Ugh. Ah, you probably get the overall picture. ovob

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Chest Pains

Heyo- you can mostly ignore this post. I've been having some chest pains lately, so I want to start writing down when they happen, for how long, the severeness, and all that for medical reasons. ovob

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