You Look At Me and It's Like You Hit Me With Lightning

So, I haven't posted in something like 2 years.

A few things have happened. Quick recap:

Rebecca moved in, we dated for a year, then I decided to end things. She moved out a little while later. We're still friends.

I (finally) graduated in May '11 with a double major in Math and CS. That was super, super, super exciting. There was a long time where I didn't think I would ever accomplish that. It really scared me to think that I would be spending the rest of my life working at places like Sonic and Domino's, that that's all I would ever amount to. I don't mean to impugn the people that do work there; I only mean to say that it's not where I should be. After graduation, i began applying at places in Austin, and got great responses - I was interviewing with several different place, got a job offer from a place called Starmount, and accepted immediately. I mean, I suppose it might have been prudent to wait and compare the offers, see which one was best, and which company would be the best fit / opportunity for me, but I was so desperate to get out of Domino's, I wasn't going to wait another day if I didn't have to.

It was actually an interesting (well, kinda) story how it happened. I did a phone interview on Wednesday or Thursday, and he said he'd call me back within a week to let me know if they wanted to bring me onsite for another interview. He then called me back 10 minutes later (!) to ask me about coming in for an interview. The soonest they could do it was Wednesday, so that's when I went in. It went pretty well, and again, he said he'd call me back within a week with their decision. I couldn't think about much else the next two days (other than the other jobs I was also applying for), but Friday evening at 5pm rolls around, and I'm very sad, because I thought there was no way I was going to hear from them over the weekend, which meant I had to wait until Monday to hear anything, either way. However, my phone rang around 530, and it was Starmount, calling me to offer a job! I was totally freaked, and accepted immediately. There were some formalities involved, but that Sunday was my last day (ever) at Domino's. That was 8 months ago, and I've been pretty awesome ever since.

I moved out of the house (finally) and got a town house on the upper east side. Well, I'm leasing one in a complex that's literally at 183 and 35. Ended up with Ambra as a roommate again, not sure how I feel about that. Sometimes, it's cool; other times, she can be a little annoying. I mean, I'm sure she'd say roughly the same thing about me, so at least it's balanced.

So, life for the most part is pretty awesome. I've been working out a little and lost some weight, now I just need to lose like 200 more pounds. I have a few goals, and I'm definitely going skydiving as soon as I'm able.

Oh, and there's a girl - Katie. Met her at work (what else is new?), and we've been hanging out a lot lately. Like, she came over Saturday at 9 pm, stayed all the way 'til Sunday at 8 pm, and then sent me a text that says "So yeah that was cool. We're totally weird but I think it's pretty awesome."

I'm finishing this up right now, but don't worry, there'll be plenty of over-analyzing, stupid obsessing, and overthinking things in the posts to come.

Also, I can't believe this is still online.

Ellie Goulding -- Starry Eyed

Take the glitz back, I want the soul instead

Five months.

It's been about five months since I've posted. I'll try to catch up with what I've missed.

School:

School's going really well so far. Took those three classes during the Spring semester, got a 4.0. That was pretty neat. The day of Finals was kind of funny. They schedule like 2 hours for each final, and mine were back to back to back. Each final took me around thirty to forty-five minutes to do, giving me between forty-five minutes and an hour to kill between each final, in addition to the half hour break they already build in to the schedule. The obvious answer would be to use that time to review the material and/or study for the next final; the only problem with that, of course, is that I don't like to count on such intangible, unsure variables like that, so I was completely ready for each final. I went to a dining hall and grabbed some breakfast during one break, and I don't recall what I did during the other final. After the last one, I had to walk to work where Mom was picking me up to give me a ride home.

Something had gone crazy wrong with my truck. Ended up dropping quite a bit on new tires, then I had to have the engine remounted and stuff (they did it wrong during the original installation). That was fun. I ended up only taking three hours during summer school, one class during Summer I. Phil 1305, Introduction to Philosophy and Critical Thinking. The class was okay, I guess. Every morning at 8 am, for two hours, Monday through Friday. I ended up late to work quite a few days because of it, which was fun. I pulled a strong A in that class as well, which was really good, 'cause it was a Writing Intensive class, and I hate writing. It seemed like the more outlandish I made my conclusion, the better my grade on the test was. I don't know if it just did a better job of making my point, or my writing just got stronger as the semester went on, or the professor just appreciated someone who could effectively communicate the material and their understanding thereof, while still making their conclusion fun to read. I hope it was the latter, but I'm not counting on it. Whatever.

So I didn't take any classes during Summer II, 'cause of the money I had to drop on my truck. I'm registered for 13 hours, 4 classes and 1 lab, for the Fall. Chem II, Chem II Lab, Prob & Stat, Data Structures, and Intro to Fine Arts. I even got some financial aid for this and the Spring semesters. It's pretty awesome. Class starts in about two weeks. I've got most of my textbooks, bought two textbooks online - ebay and amazon are pretty neat, around half price of what the bookstore wanted, *and* I could flip them back for most of the price. I still have to pick up my Chem book/lab manual at the bookstore; the professor wrote both of them. So that's fun. Got my classes blocked Monday/Wednesday, which works out well. I start at 9:30 both mornings; Monday, I go to 6-something, on Wednesday, I'm out around 3-something. Long days, but I'll be taking both days off work so I don't have to go in that night. I might take the occasional Tuesday night off as well, to give me some time to get some real sleep. Of course, that's all depending on the work situation, which will have to get better before I'm able to do so, but we'll get to that later.

And I'm officially a senior.

So I don't feel like going into work just yet, so I guess I'll go with personal stuff next. I finally started a good diet that I'm comfortable with, and I feel confident that I can stick with it, for the most part. Coupling that with the amounts of exercise I have lined up, I hope, I really hope, that I can finally lose some weight.

Socially, it's just as much of an abyss as always. Didn't talk to anyone in any of my classes over the fall semester, or the one I had in the summer. I ended up sitting behind this semi-cute girl over the summer, didn't really get her name or anything. She was a hippie (Wait. Her parents were hippies. I'm not sure?) from Austin. Anyway.

So still friends with Matt, we work out and/or play racquetball in the mornings when our schedules work out. Haven't talked to Cullen recently, though I hope to remedy that soon. Rose is moving out of her parents place, which is cool, getting a little one bedroom; I'm helping her move (no big surprise there). Haven't made any new friends (except at work, but that gets covered in the work section) lately. Maybe that'll change in the Fall. I doubt it, but whatever.

Work's been interesting. Our new GM is working out really well, he's a really cool guy. We're getting pasta and sandwiches in the next few weeks (Sh! Nobody's allowed to know that!), which means we have to regear a lot of things, and find room for a bunch of new products, and retrain everyone on new stuff. It's going to be somewhat more labor-intensive, which kind of sucks. The only good part is that we're getting some good stuff, like sliced provolone, genoa salami, and chicken. Of course, they don't really fit in with my diet, so I'll only taste them sparingly, but it'll probably positively impact sales.

Bill no longer works there; he left to go to Colorado or something, leaving me as the only MiT right now. Jen Fee almost came back, but she went to Kyle instead. I've mentioned to Ambra that she should come back and be an MiT for us; new gm, new dm, there's a good chance they'll let her. They should - she's well trained, she's smart, they let her GM a store for over six months. Oh, and we're NOT DATING, nor WERE WE EVER. They're cracking down ever harder on employee dating, transferred a GM to a completely different district because she was dating another GM. Whatever. We did hire this awesome insider named Becky, but she only worked here for the summer. That made me sad, especially when she left like two weeks ago. Thanks to that, we're still working on improving our inside staff. We need another shift runner or MiT, probably another insider or two. We did hire Janelle as a driver, that's pretty neat. She might be moving back here for her last semester and/or year of school, which would be interesting. Her and Mom don't get along as well as her and I do, so she's a little worried that it might not work out, that they're going to clash too hard much for her to live here. I keep telling her that it was hard for me at first, but that it got a lot better, especially once school started.

Anyway.

So that's what's going on with that.

Vanessa Carlton -- Nolita Fairytale

Mrs. American Dream since I was seventeen

Just took a three hour nap. Good times. Had a weird dream about school. It's already starting to fragment, so I'll post what I remember. It was supposed to be college, this semester coming up (Spring '08) that's about to start, but it was set in my high school, for the most part. I had a problem finding anywhere to sit at lunch, since nobody had saved me a seat and everything was full. I fell and spilled all my stuff, and was trying to fit everything in my backpack, but it wouldn't fit. Mindy walked by during that part, I started to say something, she looked at me and said "Safe distance", indicating that we shouldn't be any closer than we already were. I managed to get everything into my backpack, but it was too tight and almost didn't fit, and was incredibly heavy. In English class, the crazy professor had assigned us to record one of our fantasies to share with the class for next time - Chelsea was in that class, for whatever reason. As I was trying to get everything in my backpack, someone came up and yelled something about coming to see someone who had done the assignment very well - we all followed him into the classroom building (one of the buildings on the old SMHS campus) into a courtroom-esque setup, headed by Matt Parkman from Heroes. We all get there, and he calls for them to start over.

I woke up for a few hours, then fell back asleep. I had a second set of dreams. I went into Mrs. Schiflett's english class, and she called on me first to get up and share my fantasy with everyone. I told her that I thought we had until Thursday at 10 to do them, she asked me why, and I told her 'an apparent misunderstanding, followed by a dream I had last night', which is weird - that's the first time I remember referencing one dream in another. Odd. Anyway, then she calls on someone else, who starts dancing, then on Brandon, this guy that I went to High School with that's deaf. They both started singing, and looking back, they were both singing the Britney Spears that happens to be emanating from my speakers right now. Good times.

Britney Spears -- Piece of Me

Now, that this love has overcome me

So, it's been quite a while since I've done an in-depth post about what's going on in my life, so I'm going to try to provide a brief history of what I've been up to.

So, I was working at Wal-Mart, doing overnight stocking on the grocery side of the store. I really liked it, for a few reasons. First, I didn't really have to deal with any customers at all. Well, I did occasionally, but it was stuff like "Hey dude, where's the Gatorade?" "Aisle six, right side, halfway down the aisle after the Kool-Aid." Usually, two to three of those a night, more on Fridays and Saturdays. The time period was great - 10 pm to 7 (8/9/10) am, which was fantastic. Work all night, sleep all day. I loved it. Had two days off, which didn't change from week to week. I was working with Matt, which meant we never had scheduling conflicts (at least, not work-based) for playing racquetball, and it made transportation fairly simple. There was even a cute girl, Robyn, to look at from time to time.

However, there were some definite downsides. First, we were constantly understaffed. I mean, systemically and intentionally. (In a related side-note, they've recently laid off even more people, causing massive understaffing throughout the entire store. Productivity has suffered as a result.) We were often running behind due to our lack of sufficient people. Of course, management didn't see it that way - we were "slackers" and "needed to pick up our pace." Juan constantly threatened us, saying that when the remodel was over, we were going to all be replaced by the remodel workers that they hired. That kind of frustrated me. At some point, Javi called me on my cell, asking if I still wanted to work there (in desperation, while searching for a job before Wal-Mart called, I stopped by there to see if they would hire me back. Dave waffled on it, but eventually left the option up to Javi, who called me, though by the time he did, Wal-Mart had called, so I declined.). He told me that Bubba, the former GM of Buda, was now our GM, and that things were totally different. Also, Ashley (of Domino's fame) was also an assistant there now, which was really neat. I really like working with her. We talked about it briefly, and I told him I'd call him back.

As luck would have it, a few days later, we had a ton of freight come in, a few people call in, and Juan was in particularly rare form. Ambra had started working there at this point, and Mindy was gone. Well, at that point, I decided I'd had enough. I went to the bathroom, called Ashley, confirmed that they still had a place for me, and walked out. It was fun. I clocked out, went up to Juan, and handed him my discount card that had my clock in bar code on the opposite side. He was kind of caught off-guard, as a good walk-out will always catch management. It was awesome. He told me that he'd always confirmed (excused) my absences - I had like four or so - and that he certainly wasn't referring to me when he talked about how much we suck. I wasn't going to be dissuaded, though, and I left. I kind of apologized to Ambra on the way out, because she was still there with all this terrible freight to have to deal with. On the way out, I stopped to talk to Robyn, let her know I enjoyed working with her but that I was leaving, and that I thought she was fantastically cute.

The personnel lady called me a few days later about why I left. I told her about Juan, she said something like "Well, that's certainly not true." Not the point. "Well, he shouldn't have done that." Yeah, I believe I indicated I already thought as much by leaving. She asked me if I wanted to talk to Terry (our GM), I half-heartedly accepted, but never showed up.

The next day, I was talking to Javi and Bubba at Sonic. One week after that, I walked into my first day of Sonic. That was interesting, because only Javi, Ashley, Bubba, and a few people who were still there - Larry, Cruz, Pedro - knew who I was. Everyone else just saw this new guy - goofy looking - in a shirt and tie, walking around like he knew the store like the back of his hand. Which I do. Anyway. I knew it was going to suck going in to it, but I figured, hey, Javi and Ashley are there, so how bad could it really be?

I quickly became acquainted with the new crew, which was in some ways better, some ways worse than the old crew I dealt with. Well, the old crew was probably better in most respects. I won't go too much into specifics, but there were some very constant things that really defined the new crew. Whining, for one thing. Attitude problems, for another. There were a few people I really despised, and a few people I really liked (Emily, Ashley S, Katie). Things started off pretty good. I started getting around 70 hours a week, which was nice, since it amounted to a FUCKTON of overtime, and very nice paychecks.

Then Ashley left.

That really, really, really sucked. I was really sad that she left, but I totally understand her decision to leave. She was really frustrated, since she had only wanted to be part time, and she hadn't worked less than 50 hours on any week since she started. She felt that either Bubba or upper management, whoever was responsible for it, just wasn't doing enough to get us more assistants, and Bubba kept scheduling her a ton (more on this later). That, and how frustrating and stressful of a job it is to begin with, made her leave. We didn't get another manager or anything for a quite a while, and we had a bit of a staffing crisis for a while. We got through that.

Then Javi left. That was really the beginning of the end for me, as well. Javi's last week, I worked 90 hours without a day off. Now, I was used to 70 hours a week with one day off, and that was okay. However, 90/0 wasn't really okay. Well, it would have been okay, but Bubba didn't see fit to warn me or anything. I mean, he knew about it as early as Sunday morning, possibly earlier. I wish he would have warned me or something, since he wasn't releasing the schedule for the week until Monday afternoon, which was also really frustrating. So I had to take this annoying Serv-Safe class (8 hours, 90 multiple-choice question test, test took about six and a half minutes), then go in and close afterwards. That was alright, since the early draft of the schedule had me off on Tuesday. However, I walk in around 6:30, look at the schedule, and find out I don't have a day off that week. Yeah, I was kind of upset. I mean, I know a lot of people work seven days a week, at jobs much harder than mine. I just wish Bubba would have warned me or something.

So Javi left, and it was just me, Angie, and Bubba. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Bubba took over doing the order and the schedule. We'd run out of stuff a lot more - tater tots, ranch, barbecue sauce, M&M's, spoons, bananas, sugar, you name it. That, and people would get scheduled when they weren't available, which, to be fair, stopped for the most part eventually. There were several weeks, though, where a lot of people couldn't come in when they were scheduled and it was our fault. Good times. The other fun thing about having Bubba in charge of scheduling... well, it really had nothing to do with him being in charge of scheduling, but something systemic about him managing, was that he expected every employee to be 100% devoted to the Drive-In. I'm not talking about just while they're on the clock, which I agree with, but ALL THE TIME. Every time someone called in, he'd ask people to stay late, and come in early, and come in on their only day off, and would get annoyed when they couldn't. I mean, I'm talking about people who'd already worked eight, ten hours, or had worked six days and it was their only day off. We didn't seem to be pursuing the long term solution, hiring more people so we didn't have to keep asking people to work stupid amounts of hours.

So yeah, I have a few grievances with Bubba as a GM. I think part of it might be the difference between Buda and San Marcos. Most of our crew members, at least non-cook, are college kids, who aren't looking for 40 hours a week, and will work that much if you need them to, but didn't apply for that. They're going to highly value their time outside of work, and place a greater premium on social time and interaction then on being at work, hence the frustration with always, ALWAYS being called in. Now, most of them are more than happy to help out occasionally. However, it starts to get annoying, when every other day, you're asked to stay late or come in early, when every day you "have off", you're asked to come in for a bit. There's a line between "helping out" and "being expected to be overly devoted to your job". That's one of the reasons Ashley left, as well.

So yeah, I put in my two weeks notice almost two weeks ago, on Saturday the fourth. I walked out on Friday the tenth. Almost made it. I didn't really tell anyone that I was leaving, except for Aaron, the assistant we were borrowing from Montopolis (who was a friend of Bubba's) a few days a week. That week, we finally had a new assistant start; he was an ex-GM from Round Rock or something.

Yeah, I feel pretty bad about walking out. Sort of. I mean, not really. I was really pissed off. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, Sergio got the store, and called to offer me an MIT position. So I took that; I'll be starting there in a week. That's fun.

So that's where I am in terms of work. On to other matters.

I moved out of Les Chateaux a month or so after starting at Sonic. Moved back home instead of getting a 3-bedroom place with Ambra and David, decided to go back to school and the cheap rent offered at home would be a huge help towards that goal. I'm just now, three months later, that I'm finally starting to move in and get everything unpacked. I'm almost done there. Janelle moved out the other day, that was interesting. Not just into a dorm for the semester, but into a four bedroom apartment at University Springs with three dudes. That's cool. Spent Monday picking her up from the airport, then helping her move out. Got a decent entertainment center out of the deal, so I came out ahead.

Haven't talked to Lilie in, oh, probably two months now. I was going up to Austin every day off to play DDR and/or ITG2, and I'd usually call her before or during to see if she was around to see if she'd like to meet up, say hi, that kind of thing. The first time, I actually got a hold of her, and she didn't really seem very enthusiastic or anything. Every subsequent time, no answer whatsoever. A few weeks of that, and no reply whatsoever to any IMs/phone calls/emails, and I got the hint.

So yeah, I've already put in my application at SWT. I got re-accepted as well, so that's neat. I just have to go in for an academic advising appointment, then I'll be good to go. I'm starting in the Spring, and I'm pretty sure of what classes I'd like to take - Discrete I, Data Structures, Chem I, whatever CS course is next in my progression, and possibly Probability, depending on scheduling.

Oh, I sold my WoW account to David. Just didn't have the time working 70 hours a week, usually in 12-14 hour days. That, and the internet connection here SUCKED. It's getting better; we've upgraded our connection, and are on our third modem. So, we'll see. I'm contemplating buying it back, but I want to see how things go at Domino's first. Oh, Gina marked me down as non-rehireable, so that's fun. Eileen let Sergio rehire me anyway, so that's cool.

I think that's a sufficient return to blogging. More to come as updates warrant.

DJ Smooth -- DUI 091406

The kisses of the sun were sweet; I didn't blink

So my three day weekend ends in like thirteen hours. I don't know that I got anything notable accomplished. Truck registered and/or inspected? Nope. Room cleaned? Nope. I did play some WoW and get Femaledwarf up to 25 (Really close to 26, I could get that level before going in to work, if I felt the urge). I did vacuum the living room and mop the kitchen, which I suppose isn't completely insubstantial. It's something.

Wait!

In my defense, I went down the truck registration place Friday morning to do my registration, but they were closed for Veteran's Day, so I wasn't able to do it. I'll probably wait 'til Thursday, when I get paid, and will be running some other errands anyway.

I'm currently scheduled for nine days straight, but they don't like it when you work seven in a row, so they'll be changing my schedule around (again) to prevent that from happening. Hopefully, this will lead to having Saturday off, so I can go to the hockey game with Bambi and Mom on my birthday. I get to bring a guest as well. I'd really, really like to bring Lilie along; she lives in Austin, and likes hockey to boot. I don't know how well her and Mom get along, if they really like each other, Bam as well. It might end up being a moot point if i have to work Saturday night anyway, since it's up in the air if I'll be going if I do.

Mom asked me something earlier - she asked me if this is where I thought I'd be at 24.

Frankly, no, it's not.

I feel like somewhat of a failure. If not for a series of bad choices on my part, I could have been out of college for two and a half years (give or take a semester) ago, in a real job, working on building a real life. Right now, I feel like I'm just treading water, moving from moment to moment with no real goals or plan. I mean, I know where I'd like to be, and I have a vague idea of how to get there. It's just a matter of fighting the apathy that's been such a defining characteristic of my life the last five and a half years. The only thing I can of that's positive about the entire situation is that I have moved out, I'm kind of living on my own, earning a living. It's a start? I guess? of course, having Mom as one of my top choices for roommate in May kind of potentially negates that as well, although if it makes it easier to get back in school, it'll be worth it. I'm just not sure if it would, and it would definitely be a step backwards in other directions.

Then there's this whole thing with Lilie. It's pushing two and a half years since we've met. I reviewed most of our relationship, relived a lot of memories when I was going back through my 750 posts and putting tags on all of them; it's been the same situation almost the entire time, with a few exceptions: me being hopelessly in love with her, her not being sure how she feels about me, and the intimacy we tend to share whenever we're together serving to confuse the situation that much more. She remarked earlier that I've changed a fair amount since she'd met me, and I think it's reflected in our relationship, which has become a lot more stable, more comfortable, less confusing. There's any amount of repetitive analysis I could do about our history and relationship, but I've done it enough times. Too many. I know the rhetoric by heart at this point, and it doesn't really clarify anything. I think we'll continue along the course we're on now, which is a great one, to be sure. She's become a huge advocate of me moving in with her and Rose, now that she understands that I'm alright how we are, who she is, all that stuff.

I hate putting it like this, making it seem like an afterthought or something, but it'd be great living with Rose as well. I love her just as much, if in a different way, and really miss not seeing her very often and not getting to talk to her very much. As weird as it was when she lived with David and me, it was great seeing her every day. We clash occasionally, usually when one of us is really depressed, and the other one is feeling pissy and doesn't want to deal with it, but that kind of spat doesn't last too terribly long.

So yes, other than a few issues, these two, in no particular order, are my top choice for living companions in May.

Moving on.

Things I still want to talk about:

• People at work that annoy me - Brenda, Conner, and I'm sure there're others
  
• Running into Kenny and Jason after getting off from work the other night
  
• Lilie's breasts
  
• A 5 year plan, complete with incremental steps, to getting my life back on track
  

Note: One of those probably won't happen. I'll let you figure out which one it is. (Hint: I like breasts.)

Also, if this post seems sporadic, it's because I'm lying in bed, watching one of the top five cartoons of all times, Rocko's Modern Life. (The other four, in no particular order, are Transformers (Generation One), The Angry Beavers, and two other ones that I'm not going to disclose at this time, because I don't feel like it's in our national interest. Hey, it works for the president, as it's about time I started exercising my privileges as Supreme Allied Commander of Dinosaur Moonbase 2.)

ATC -- Around the World

The kisses of the sun
Were sweet I didn't blink
I let it in my eyes
Like an exotic drink

This is crazy Mr. Jim McVey.

I'm crazy for crying; I'm crazy for trying

So, the first day of school. It was actually pretty cool. My first class is at 8 am, which means I have to get an early start.

Yeah. That worked well. I woke up at... 7:30? Something like that. I got my ass out the door, though, and got there in record time. I was a minute or two late to class (Intro to Philosophy), and walked in as he was calling roll. Nothing notable in that class. After that, um... Assembly Language. I'm actually looking forward to that class, because we're going to be digging deeper into how computers work. We've all heard the "well, there's a bunch of 1's and 0's, and they represent stuff", but *how* do they do that? The teacher is... European. Not sure where - I'm terrible at deducing accents and speech styles. But I really like the way he talks, and oddly accents and pronounces certain syllables. After Assembly Language, I have Chem I. The professor is Mr. Jim McVey, who's really cool. Kind wacko. That'll be a *really* easy class. Immediately after that (yeah, four hours of four back to back classes), I have Probability. When the teacher (God, Lilie's being a sarcastic bitch. Normally, that's a great quality...) came in, I thought he was a grumpy old guy.

Nope.

He's a crazy (notice a recurring theme here? You will.) Scottish guy. I mean, really Scottish. I keep expecting him to yell "Freedom!!!" and throw a sword. Or something.

I was smart this semester, and gave myself a two hour break from noon - two to play DDR. Last semester, I only had half an hour, and frequently skipped CS as a result. Now, I just walk into my next class very tired and sweaty. As usual, there was a crowd watching. Well, a few people. When I got there, there were a few regulars playing (I still don't know any of their names.) I hate showing people up, but it's getting harder and harder not to. Arrogant? Probably. But I'm tired of holding back, of pretending I'm not as good as I am, or being afraid to admit it. So I ripped two of them apart. Not really. Sort of. You would have had to have been there to understand.

But the important part (well, one of them) is that some people saw. After all, it's right next to the cafeteria, and there's a lot of people walking through that area.

Anyway. I'm an attention whore.

So.

So, then was Data Structures. This is an interesting class. I've taken the majority of it in Java already (again, Java >> C++), so a lot of it is review. It's interesting that OOP is such an awkward topic in C++, whereas in Java, you can't do ANYTHING without having to deal with classes and objects. The professor is a crazy old Asian guy. He's supposed to be really challenging, which means this is going to be a fun class.

So, that was the first day of school. I'll have some pictures of my teachers and stuff up soon. I'm actually writing this over at Lilie's, as I write my character backstory on the Autumn Weave forums.

This could be messy

Here's my course schedule for this semester:

PHIL	1305 0251	-M-W-F-	0800A-0850A	PSY 00204
CS	2318 0251	-M-W-F-	0900A-0950A	DER 00235
CHEM	1341 0252	-M-W-F-	1000A-1050A	CHE 00100
MATH	3305 0261	-M-W-F-	1100A-1150A	DER 00330
CS	3358 0253	-M-W---	0200P-0315P	DER 00241

Semester Hours: 15

So yeah, I start at 8 am, which means I'll be able to find a parking spot in my parking lot of choice when I head to class. I've got four straight classes from 8 - 12, then a two hour break. That gives me plenty of time to play some DDR, do a little homework, catch my breath, whatever. Friday, I'm done at noon; otherwise, I have another hour and fifteen minutes later in the day. So it's going to be a fun semester.

You've washed your hands clean of us

Argh, so many things, don't know where to start.

Let's start with work.

Actually, no, let's try and finsh my recap that somehow dovetailed into a bizarre... I don't even know what. I'll get back to that weird tangent, though, and try to clarify what the hell I was talking about - assuming I can figure it out, of course.

So yeah, over at Lilie's Thursday night. Ex-girlfriends can't veto haircuts. She wants to be thought of as a friend, not as an ex-girlfriend. Which is no problem, because she's my closest friend. Well, it is a problem, because I can' t let go of my feelings for her, but I won't really mention them anywhere but here, so I guess it isn't really a problem. I ended up staying over there pretty late - I think it was around 4 or so when I lied down on her dining room floor and was opening her computer case, to see where the second hard drive was going to go - she has two disk drives, so the floppy drive is where the second hard drive would go. I'd just pull the floppy and put the hard drive there while she gets what she needs off of it, but apparently, its Keven's project, so I didn't really make any comments. Anyway. She came over and lied down next to me. She was really tired, and I wasn't that not-tired either. We *almost* fell asleep - I'm not sure how close she came, but I know she was almost, if not entirely, asleep. I got her up, though, and to bed, and went home. Had Friday off. Her car was getting out of the shop, so she asked me if I could come over and give her a ride to her car around 4:30 or 5.

So I left my house around 4:30 or so. I was sitting at the N LBJ/Sessoms intersection when I heard someone yell "Billy!" - it was Shelley, in what I could only gather at the time was Kevin's truck. I waved back, not wanting to tax my already sore throat. I was going to stop by Sonic to confirm with Javi that I was coming in around 9 or so to close for him since he had to work a long shift, as well as check the schedule for that night so I would know what I was going to be dealing with. Sure enough, Shelley/Kevin headed to Sonic as well. They parked on #3, I parked in the back and headed on via the other side. Shelley was standing in the lobby talking or something when I walked in, so I just went to the dry stock room to look at the schedule. When I came back, she was gone, so I talked to Javi about that evening - it was on. After that, I headed over to Lilie's. Her car wasn't quite ready, so I just hung out on the couch, watching TV. She made a comment about how Kevin didn't think she should be hanging out with me, and that he was also surprised that I hadn't made any moves to "get into her pants" Thursday night (or something like that). Annoying, but I can see his angle. And sure enough, Shelley and Kevin came in fairly soon afterwards. I gather Shelley had been trying to find someone to work for her on Saturday, so that she could go to a wedding with Lilie during the day, but to no avail. I didn't really say anything while they were there, mindful of Shelley's recently declared animosity towards me. I was invited (I think) to the wedding (as a last-minute escort, or something like that), but I had to work Saturday evening, and would have been unable to attend. They left fairly soon after that.

Lilie called to check on her car, and it was ready. We headed over there to pick it up, then came back. After that, we decided to go out to eat - she was really hungry. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go, so we stopped by Danielle's house first to pick up Kingdom Hearts and Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail: Special Collector's Edition DVD. I was wearing my cowboy hat the majority of the trip, but it turns out that neither Danielle nor Lilie like it. How terrible.

We ended up going to Bennigan's for dinner - she had the Fettucini Alfredo (I think), and I had the Monte Cristo. After that, I took her home, then headed into work. Nothing notable there. Saturday, slept in, and went to work at 5. Again, nothing notable. I think. Sunday, some thing. Well, one thing happened. The phone rang about 11:30 or so on Sunday. I answered it, and it was Lilie. My heart jumped with joy, until I realized that she was just calling to let me/the store know that Shelley was extremely sick - she may have caught the death flu, which I'm still dealing with the lingering effects of - and wouldn't be able to come in on Monday. I left a note, and I think Erica came in for her.

Monday, I had to re-attach my battery cable right before I left for work. Of course, it was incredibly corroded, and as I was tightening the terminal, it ripped off. It was... kind of scary. I was supposed to be leaving for work then, so I didn't really have a whole lot of time. Mom and Janelle were busy, so I tried Lilie. no answer. So I called Jarrod. Luckily, I got ahold of him, and he immediately started heading my way to give me a ride to work. As we were driving, we ended up making some plans for last night - he was going to pick me up from work, we'd watch the second DVD of RvB that I had just finished burning, play some video games, have a grand old time, and in the morning, he'd give me a ride to the bank, the part house to grab the parts I needed to replace, then to my house. I was only about half an hour late, nothing terrible, since Bruce was still there. I was originally supposed to close fountain with Rick running the show, but Katie wanted to stay and carhop, so Lacey stayed for me; I got off around 9:30 or so. Everything else went as planned. I crashed on their couch; we did our thing this morning, and I got my truck repaired. Fun times.

I did manage to talk to Lilie as Jarrod was driving me to work. We had an... interesting conversation. I asked her if she'd like to go skating sometime - Janelle really wants to go as well, since she's getting in some new skates (oh yeah, she's hired at my Sonic as well, and will probably be starting Sunday. More on that later.) , and when I mentioned it to Jarrod and Danielle, they seemed interested as well, so there might be all kinds of people there. Now, if only they had a real DDR machine instead of Pump It Up, things would be perfect.

I got my truck fixed, went to my Academic Advising appointment today, and got to work. Of course, I was late again, 'cause my appointment ran late - it was supposed to start at 3:30, but it didn't start 'til well after 4, and he had to take 2 different phone calls during my appointment. I wouldn't have minded, except I had to be somewhere at 5. Eventually got it done, left, and got to work. Nothing exciting there. Came home, registered for classes. I've got 15 hours this semester. More to come.

...And it brings me to my knees

This is my third posting location. I'm actually hanging out at Shelley and Lilie's apartment. Lilie's making some Tuna Helper for Chris and Shelley (both of us aren't that hungry); Shelley is playing FF X-2 (we'll make a gamer geek out of her yet), and Chris is trying to help her. I'm just sitting here, typing; Lilie is, at this moment, leaning over my shoulder, and kissing my ear. So, yeah. Fun times.

It's been an interesting weekend. Lilie and I had a date Friday night. Well, sort of. I went to class first off; had our first Chem Lab. I have pictures from it, but I haven't uploaded them yet (I actually have about 120 pictures to upload so far, but I'm about to have a ton of free time, so prepare for some massive picture posts). Afterwards, went home and talked to Lilie; we were gonna meet up around 5 or 6 to go to Will's thing, then go to Sights & Sounds. I was feeling really ansy or anxious or something, so I ended up back to the LBJ Student Center and played about an hour or so of DDR. Went fairly well; two girls were watching me play, and one of them asked me if I practiced on the same songs repeatedly. That's always an interesting reaction; the vast majority of the time, I'm sightreading - Nonstop Random All rocks!!

So anyway, Lilie showed up around 6:30 or so. I was watching Red v Blue (which I've started burning onto DVD), and almost asleep. We went over to the Baptist Academy where Will's school was doing a little Christmas performance. It was... cute. I'm not terribly fond of small children, but as far as these things go, it was okay. There was one part where a large number of kids came out in various costumes; Will was a shepherd, and five little girls were sheep. They were SO CUTE. We left a little early so that we could catch Janelle performing at Sights & Sounds at 9. I ended up giving Lilie a piggy-back ride across the Baptist Academy to my truck. It took forever to find a parking spot near it, so we parked off the Square and walked the rest of the way. Turns out Janelle wasn't performing until 9:45, so we had some time to kill. We sampled some of the food available - chicken on a stick, caramel apples, hot cider, etc. They had one booth that had a bunch of interesting stuff available - alligator on a stick, goat, boudin sausage, squirrel, and rattlesnake. I wanted to get some squirrel (not in the sexual way (at least in this instance)), but they didn't have any, which very nearly crushed my soul. However, they did have rattlesnake, so I tried that. And, as much as it pains me to say this, it tastes... well, like chicken.

I never felt like a townie before, despite being very nearly the perfect picture of one. Maybe it's because all of my friends are townies? Well, not really - Josh and Jarrod are, but Luke, Matt, etc., aren't. It was just hanging out with Lilie at Sights & Sounds... it was best summed up as we were standing there, watching the Jazz Band perform. I heard a college girl behind me say "I've never really done any small-town stuff before." It was at that moment when I realized that I'm a townie.

Anyway.

Ran into Barbara and... Mike. I hadn't met him before, and I wasn't particularly glad to do so. It's not really any of my business, but I don't agree with what she did to David. It was fairly shady. The weird part was when Lilie and Barbara were talking about my head and keeping me from shaving it. Really weird. Next, we saw David and Nikki. Haven't seen either one of them since AvP. It looks like David's not going to get the job at Best Buy, so he's looking elsewhere. Nikki's going through her back surgery, so she's not terribly happy. While talking to them, I saw Mr. Mann wondering around, so that was fun.

Briefly saw Beth Matthis and Maggie Hernandez as well. We walked by Elinor, and exchanged waves. I told Lilie the Elinor tale, which is always fun. We had a few interesting discussions while we were there (which I'm not going to go into here). The performance was pretty good - we had a blast screaming for Janelle. I finally introduced Lilie and Jarrod, so they are both now convinced of the other's existence. Danielle was there as well, which is good as well. Jarrod asked me what we were (relationship-wise); we weren't really sure - it wasn't something we had really talked about yet, so Danielle says "Now's the perfect time to decide." I wanted to punch both of them.

Not really.

So we wondered around a little more, and finally left. Sights & Sounds seems a lot... smaller. Or maybe I'm just bigger. Or older. Or something.

***

So I finally got to sleep about 3 or 4 or so. Had to work 5 - C Saturday, which meant I didn't have anything pressing on my time. Saturday was... uneventful, partly. Oh, wait. I asked Lilie out Friday night, and she said yes. So we're official. Er... officially a couple. Or something like that. Anyway.

I was awoken around 11 am Saturday by a phone call from Shelley. She called... to apologize. Seriously. I mean, I'm typing it, and I don't believe it either. Turns out she wasn't aware that Lilie reciprocated my feelings for her. Which kind of scares me. She thought I was just chasing her and putting her through all this just for a piece of ass or something. We had already had that conversation WAAAAY back when Shelley first started working at Sonic, but apparently she didn't believe me. She read my journal where I wrote about Tuesday afternoon, and all became clear to her. I mean, I can't really fault her for acting like she did - it made sense to her, from her point of view. She may have been a little... vehement in being a bitch, but it was at least mostly justified. And she apologized. I still don't believe it either. She explained that that was why she was acting towards me the way she was. So... yeah. Her and I have been getting along much better now. Didn't do much else Saturday, until I came over to hang out with the girls before going to work. More later.

Fly Robin Fly

Now that we've got the summaries out of the way, let's go back and recap some of the more interesting moments of this week.

Unfortunately, I kind of got caught up doing other things, and it's almost time for me to go to work. But I still have a little time. Or something like that.

Mom was trying to open a bottle of wine last night, but couldn't. She had this tiny little bottle opener that wasn't going to do anything, and couldn't get the cork out. She tried having me pull the opener while she held the bottle, but that didn't work either - I ended up just pulling her around the kitchen. Finally, she pulled out her better wine bottle opener, which had a brace and everything. Still no avail; finally, she gave it to me to open. I couldn't get it the normal way, with it in front of me, because I have weak wrists, arms, and chest. However, I put it behind my head and pulled, because I do have strong, um, well, I don't know what they're technically called, but we always called them 'wings', and pulled really hard.

The cork came out, along with some wine. On my plate, on my clothes. That was fun. But hey, it worked.

Tx State is full of idiots. All I hear in my classes is people being confused and thinking that there's too much work. That's one of the key reasons they're letting me get away with what I am - because I actually want to do the work, and can. It really cracks me up sometime. And, now that I have a semester's worth of experience, I feel better qualified to say this - the girls at UT are definitely hotter, on average, then the girls at SWT. Seriously.

In my Intro to Fine Arts class, we were discussing some Fauvistic and Futuristic works, when one of the students - a fairly intelligent fellow, judging on our previous interaction and my observation, said, and I quote, "It's like, woo, ya know?" He is probably in his late 20's or early 30's. I really, really wanted to walk over and smack him.

I have more stuff to write about, including more inane, stream-of-consciousness rambling about Lilie. So that's something to look foward to.

...

Holy crap. I just realized I've started bobbing my head when I type. Kind of light side-to-side motions. Well, not 'started', 'cause I've been doing it for a while. And I know where I picked it up - Suzie. That's just weird.

How can we sleep when the beds are burning?

It's been almost a week since my last post of substance, and for that, I apologize to my regular readers. To those of you who come here through searches for 'Pretty Life' by "Katie B Jackalope' or whoever the hell sings it, or those of you trying to download 'The Bounding', the short from the beginning of The Incredibles, or any of the really bizarre shorts, you're just out of luck. Or something like that.

So. A recap of the past days' events are is in order.

I took the CS test, then went home. I didn't really do much (that, or I just don't remember it. Perhaps it was really painful, and my mind has blocked out all memories of the event as a defense mechanism. I doubt it.) Rem IM'ed me at some point, asking me if I was doing anything. Turns out he was organizing some Halo 2 action, and invited me to join him. "When?" "Now." I called the guys to see if they wanted to come, but no one was up for it. I headed over there, but had to park in Alkek. Oh, 'there' was San Jacinto. I had to park in the Alkek parking garage, which was a trial, since I can't park. I finally got there.

Holy crap.

They have a big screen TV in the lobby on each floor. Turns out Liz, the girl in the burgundy dress, is the one that lives there; we were just her 'guests'. We plugged into the building LAN and started a 4 player Slayer FFA to warm up. The controls are basically the same, slightly modified to allow dual-wielding, vehicle boarding, and those niceties. We ended up in a 16 player game and had all kinds of fun. We did a few team games of Slayer, some 16 way Slayer FFA, King of the Hill on Beaver Creek in which no one lasted on the Hill more than 2 or 3 seconds, all kinds of craziness.

Halo 2 is, well, FUCKING AWESOME. I from far from a fanboy - I knew of the incredible anticipation, but never even visisted ilovebees.com. I don't play FPS's at all, with the sole exception of Halo. Well, and now Halo 2. I know a lot of people, like Daniel, think it's a really crappy FPS.

They're wrong.

But anyway: Played 'til about 1. Went home and crashed after that. Had to open Thursday morning, which went okay. Dave came in in a decent mood, and it was the last shift I worked with Ray as a manager. I got out of there 'bout 2:30 or so. I'm trying to remember what I did Thursday evening...

Nothing comes to mind.

Friday went to school, then came home. Sort of. I had to go get Jarrod at this little Mexican restaraunt where his car died, and gave Danielle a ride back to their apartment (she had a doctor appointment at 4 at home, and he had to stay at the car for when the tow truck arrived). It would later turn out that something had come unplugged. That's just funny. After that, I had to run home and do my critique for Intro to Fine Arts, then went back to campus and turned it in. It had been a really, really crappy week, so I called Lilie and asked her if she wanted to go see The Incredibles, which she did. We decided to meet around 7 or so for the 7:30 show. Jarrod called while I was on campus and asked me if I wanted to come over for some Halo 2. I told him I'd probably show up; that all transpired before I talked to Lilie.

So I went to the movie. When I pulled up at the stop sign at 35 and Wonder World, the car to my right kind of pulled up a little more than normal; turns out it was Lilie. We each went into the parking lot through different entrances, then passed each other again (I was just playing around), but ended up parking next to each other. Went in and watched the movie. It did have the Episode 3 Teaser Trailer on it, and it was cool at times. It was cool enough to let me start getting my hopes up again, even though I know it's going to suck. There was also a short at the beginning called "The Bounding" which contained a jackalope - Chelsea already told me as much. Lilie said, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree, that the jackalope did sort of look like me. That was really cool, especially the last two lines - "In this world of ups and downs / Aren't you glad there's a jackalope around?"

The movie itself was cool. On one hand, it's another entry in the superhero movie field that's been going full-tilt since the incredible success of Spider-Man; however, it has a *great* sense of humor and had breath-taking visuals. All in all, it was a great movie.

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I headed over to Jarrod's after the movie. Lilie headed home because she was tired (but didn't go to sleep before checking here; I love sitemeter). We started playing the coop campaign on Heroic (Easy - Normal - Heroic - Legendary), and basically went non-stop. I mean, literally. He did get up during one of the FMV cutscenes to make us some peanut butter sandwiches, but that was it. It was 4 or so when we stopped for the night. I had a work meeting in the morning, which I was supposed to give Shelley a ride to.

She called at 8, and I answered the phone. Techinically, at least, because I fell asleep right afterwards (well, actually, I think I fell asleep between hitting 'answer' and getting the phone to my mouth. I woke up about 10 'til, and got my butt out the door. I called her repeatedly as I drove to Sonic, but she didn't answer. I figured that she'd either gone back to sleep, or decided I'd abandoned her and gotten an alternate ride there, or something. She still hadn't answered by the time I got to Sonic, so I just went in. There were only three people there when I got there, though most of the crew (it was a fountain/carhop meeting) straggled in. Dave started calling people that weren't here. He called me, and we had the following conversation:

Me (standing in the back area of the store with everyone else, waiting for the meeting to start; I notice my phone is going off; I pull it out, and it's Sonic calling): "Hello?"

Dave: "Hey, you forget about the meeting?"

Me: "Um, I'm standing in the back."

Dave: "Just now on your way in?"

Me: "Turn around."

He turned in his chair, and saw me standing RIGHT THERE.

Dave: "Oh; didn't see you standing there."

Idiot.

It got to be around 9:20, and Shelley called. Well, her apartment called. It was Shana. Long story short, Shelley had been waiting outside for me and didn't hear the phone. Um, okay. So I told Dave what was going on - he tried to turn it into it being her fault, but I explained, quite adamantly, that it was mine, then went and got her. We got back after missing only a few minutes, since she does live *right there*. I took her back to her house afterwards. We had decided previously (Friday night, I think) that we were going to hang out at her place and watch some movies that they'd rented after the meeting. I ran back to my place for a bit, then returned. Lilie was already there. We watched Shrek 2, The Girl Next Door, and some of Under the Tuscan Sun (which is really just about middle-aged lesbians).

Qw sus juaa dwq runwa r Agwkkwt;a, Giqwcwem ur q a ibkt qgukw agw q ab;r ub rgw eiin die rgw a nw ew aib U;n rtoubf kujw rgua, Ur ar erws ri dwwk qwuesm rgiyfgm kujw rg r swduburwkt dwkr kujw nicubf ur ubri rgw ;xgw rubf; ew kn, Vwdiewm ur q a hyar gyffubf bs xysskubf bs qg r birm bs ub deibr id deuwbsa, Biqm ur;a vwubf gusswb dein xkiaw deuwbsa drweq esam U dwkr niew kujw U bwwsws ri a t ainwrgubf, Ai id xiyeawm U susb;r,

Shana has this little dog, Duke, that was there while we were. It humped my arm. He really, really liked me. I ended up having to hide underneath the blankets from him. Oddly, though, those blankets were already occupied by Lilie, and we ended up under the blankets together. It was some nice cuddling. At one point, my hand was, in fact, (inadvertently) resting on her breast, though I did pull it off as soon as I realized where it was.

So anyway. Shelley and Lilie both went in to work at 5; I didn't have to 'til 7. I ended up falling asleep; Rudy called and woke me up about 7:10. I went in; it was a fairly uneventful shift. They had some music playing on the main computer, fairly loudly at that. All in all, it was fun - well, as fun as Sonic gets. Which isn't very.

Sunday, I slept in and had to go to work. Another fairly uneventful shift, though someone hit one of the menu boards. I brought in a CD to listen to as I did the closing stuff, and actually didn't mind it all that much. Today, I went to class, then came home and took a nap. That's about it.

These real emotions are shaking up the world

Argh. So I went to CS today, and we finally started doing class stuff. By classes, I'm referring to OOP, which is just awesome. But, of course, C++ does it all crazy and crappy. I miss java. A lot. I asked her about my Game of Life program, which worked great and did awesome things and everything. But when she compiled and ran it, it... well, it didn't work very well. So when I go to take my test, I'm going to ask her about it. I might not be able to get my grade changed, but at least I can show her that it works. Awesomely.

Note: Those sensative about suicide shouldn't read this next paragraph. It might also make you dislike me.

You have been warned.

So some guy on campus committed suicide. Good. People who don't want to live shouldn't. I'm very Darwinistic, and feel no remorse in finding out someone has taken their own life. I mean, if it's someone I care about, sure, I'll be sad, just as if they had been killed in a car crash some other means. But overall, I think life is a choice (Note: This DOES NOT mean I'm pro-choice. I'm also not pro-life. I don't have an opinion on the abortion issue, so don't try to assign one to me. Or I will maul you. Like a bear.) I'm not advocating suicide, nor am I saying it's not a tragic event. I'm just saying that people who can't handle life shouldn't.

So anyway.

I'm just chilling in the computer lab right now. I have to go take this test in her office 'bout 3, but I'll probably head over a little early. I'm going to go ahead and do the Student program, see if she'll accept it at all. Then catch up in probability. All in all, fun stuff.

Love, life, and laughter is all I believe in

That was fun.

Took the Fine Arts test. Studied a good bit for, and it showed - I was certain on most of the answers, except like two. So that's good. I still have to do a critique by Friday, and another by the end of the month. I also need to do the 30 points of extra critiques that I can, to see if I have any chance of salvaging this class.

I still have to take the CS test after class. That should also go well - I understand classes and methods, which seems to be the focus of the test. Almost embarrasingly so, oddly enough.

Shelley asked me an odd question last night - "Do we only talk because of Lilie?" Not really. I mean, sure, it helps. I can see how she thinks that, it's just... well, I'm not really very social lately. Not for the last three years or so. I've had a lot of difficulties meeting new people and cultivating new friendships, skills I seem to have lost, or at least misplaced. I've gotten a little better about socializing, but that's only because I show some signs of being co-dependent. At least, I think that's the word - where you have to have someone else to rely on to be able to really be able to deal with other people. That didn't come out quite right; it makes sense in my head, though. But anyway. So, without Lilie, or rather, without the relationship between us, I don't think Shelley and I would hang out very much, nor talk that often. But without Lilie, I'd still be very, very withdrawn and anti-social. Bad? Sure. But something I've learned to deal with. So it's more of a qualified 'yes', but not at her directly, but to the world at general.

Mom and Bambi both have asked me what I want for my birthday. I never know how to answer this question. Well, every once in a while I do, but for the most part, I'm stumped. I have been telling them I want a megaphone though, which seems to elicit a lot of laughter. Which is sort of the point, except that I *do* want a megaphone. The possibilities are endless.

I'm also having a ton of issues with the Season 00 TV Rip torrent for MST3K. That really sucks, 'cause that's really my best chance of getting all of the K Season downloaded. It's crashed my computer twice already. I'm afraid that the 1st Season will have the same problem; we'll see.

Safe in my own skin; I just want to be happy again

So I talked to my CS teacher, and she's going to let me take the test on Wednesday. That's all sorts of awesome.

I'm still worried about FA, but not too much. I'll deal with it and do the best I can.

So this morning, I didn't leave 'til about 9:15 or so, since I haven't had any problems finding a spot. But I did today. I couldn't just go home and walk to class, since I had to be at my chem test. The final replaces the lowest test, but only if you were there for it - no auto 0-replacing. So I couldn't find a spot - spent about twenty to thirty minutes looking for one, to no avail. So I jumped the curb and parked in the grass so I could make it to the test on time. And I did. I was a little late, but oddly enough, Paige had left a copy of the test on my seat for me. Which was pretty cool. I wasn't terribly afraid of them towing my truck - I doubt they'd be able to get the tow truck over the curb, especially given the tight confines of the parking lot. I was worried, though, that they'd give me a ticket.

They didn't. Booty!!

Called Rose, to ask her ud U xiyks yaw gwe ub ibw id nt oiaauvkw usw a ubcikcubf Kukuw,Vyr agw q ab;r rgwewl U kwdr jubs id b iss nwaa fw, Qw;kk aww giq rg r fiwa, As I was walking through the Student Center on my way home, I ran into Kenni. Yes, first kiss Kenni. Hadn't seen her in a *long* time. She's still engaged to Billy; she went up to Kentucky to see him graduate from boot camp, and he's coming down for her birthday. We talked for a bit...


ARGH!! FUCKING SONIC!! I HATE YOU!!

Ray's not coming in tonight - I think he's quitting or something - and they need someone to come in and manage tonight. Argh. We don't really have any assistant managers - Me, Ray, Javi, Rick, and Rudy. 'Cept we all have very restricted schedules - Rudy's only Saturday and Sunday, but not Sunday night; Ray's quitting, it sounds like; Javi works his ass off already; Rick is working tonight, but only 'til 10, so I might go in and finish everything up, we'll see. I know what Lilie's going to say.

Speaking of which, she's going to come over and use my broadband connection to download the WoW beta test client, burn it to CD, and take it home. So that's fun. We'll hang out as well, it's no t like she's just coming over to use my connectin - we didn't talk all weekend.

But I have to go now, and get ready.

I'm sinking slowly, so hurry hold me

Been having a fun day. Finally went back to Chemistry, just in time for the third test. I think I attended... one (?) of the days when we covered material for that test. So it was fun. I mean, seriously. I haven't had a test like that since high school, where it didn't matter - we get to replace our lowest test grade with our final, and I opted to make sure it was this one. Cocky? Sure. But it's about time I started showing that I'm still the near-genius I was a few years ago. That class is going to go fine; I just have to do some serious review for the final. The lab is turning out to be quite a breeze as well.

Probability is the other class I'm not worried about at all. I did miss a homework assignment, but I've already done this, back in Stat & Prob AP in high school with Stapp. We just go a little more in-depth, and prove statements that we previously took as axioms. I just have to catch up on the homework, and I'll be fine.

Intro to Fine Arts... I'm a little worried on this one. I have either 7 or 8 absences. He gives 5 free ones, then deducts something insane like 7.5 points for each subsequent one. That means I'm looking at something like -15 or 22.5 points. To get a 'C', which is 70%, I'd have to pull off a 92.5. Which I'm not sure I can. I *hate* fine arts. Well, to be more precise, I hate flat, 2-dimensional art. I mean, some of it looks cool, but I hate things like the impressionist movement, where they're just getting their emotions out and seeking catharsis. I certainly don't mind them doing it, I mind having to analyze and try to understand their thoughts in order to prove I can program computers. I suppose you could argue that it's just part of being an educated, well-rounded person. I wouldn't listen if you did. I enjoy classical music, and can deal with that fairly well, and I think that's part of what helped me on the last test. Come to think of it, I don't like analyzing literature either. I mean, I can do it - but it's like pulling teeth. I'm just glad I tested out of mose of it and haven't really had to do any of it since starting college. But back to Intro to Fine Arts (shouldn't the 7 years of band count for something?) - I'm going to get my critique in that's due Friday, then the one that's due at the end of the month, then do the 30 points of extra critiques, and prepare like crazy for this test and the final. That's about all I can do, and I guess I'm ready to repeat this class next semester if necessary (I'm probably going to take like 20-something hours next semester anyway).

CS - this class, I have to pass. Seriously. Right now, I'm looking at graduating next Spring, based on the CS bottleneck - my last two semesters are going to literally be nothing but CS courses, which they seriously don't recommend.

Fuck them.

In other news...

Closed last night as the manager. Looks like Sunday nights are 'my' shift now. Things went all right. Emily is an awesome fountain, and Freddie and Andrew held the kitchen down. But I lost a 21 again. That's endlessly frustrating - I'm not really sure what happened. Habitually, the first thing I do when I start counting a carhop down is count their 21, then put a rubber band on it and throw it in the drawer. But I am fairly absent-minded at times, especially when it comes to leaving small objects (I have the hardest time holding on to pencils and pens), so that's a possible explanation. The other is that someone stole it, but I don't really believe that. There wasn't anyone there that I would accuse of stealing. So I ran to the bank and replaced it from my personal account. Which is endlessly frustrating. But it was my responsibility, so I had little other choice.

I did manage to slam my finger (left index) in my truck door. It hurts like crazy, especially when I use it to put pressure on something else (like type). It still feels kind of compressed at the end as well. There's a decent chunk ripped of my cuticle, almost horizontally, which also really, really hurts. But it's nothing major, and should be healed up before too long.

Things with Lilie are still... well, yeah. I'll talk about that when I get home and have access to my cypher. I tried doing it just now manually, and it doesn't quite work.

That, and I want to see what I can do with that ass-crazy comment someone left.

I want to teach and I made you learn; I am the flame, and you just got burned

It's finally back up.

The posting mechanism has been down for most of today, which is annoying to no end. First, I'd like to finish my summary of the hectic weekend, then discuss some current events.

So we'll see how far I get.

Friday was fun. Went to FA like normal, then to chem lab. Chem lab is getting... weird. I still had a bunch of glitter on my face from the SFFS ball (my mom swears she heard that it's a yearly gay ball, which is just laughable), which drew some odd looks. Well, it did when I went to sit in front of chem lab and wait for the lab teacher guy. The guy who sits across from me (well, stands, since we don't sit at all) was the one who noticed and asked - he doesn't like me. Or he doesn't like DDR. Or something. Maybe I just get on his nerves - he definitely wouldn't be the first, and I'm fairly confident he won't be the last person that I annoy with my mere existence. So he asks about it, and I tell him - I was at a costume party last night, and I was a fairy, and not all the glitter came off. It does draw some weird looks throughout the lab.

So there's Grey (my lab partner) and I, then the group across from us - the guy, who looks like Clark Kent from Smallville (I think, I've never actually seen the show); the girl in the middle, who has a southern twang in her speech, though it's often barely noticable; and the girl on the left, who's kinda short, but has HUGE eyes, and they're very dark, so it's hard to tell where her iris stops and the colored part begins. Her name is... Jennifer? Jessica? I always get those two names confused, due to Sonic. Which isn't quite as weird as it sounds. Well, it is.

Anyway.

So we do the lab. We're supposed to combine groups to form larger groups of four, since our supply of Sodium Thiosulfate is somewhat limited; Grey and I were the odd group out, though, so we just worked by ourselves. We got everything done first and started to leave, when the blonde chick - I learned her name is Jayleen, or something like that - asked me for some help. I guess someone in there finally realized that I'm kinda smart. But anyway... The lab assistant - his name is Mahin, or something like that - he's fairly hard to understand, because he has this really thick Indian accent, and I have trouble understanding accents. I somehow pulled a 20 on the quiz out of my ass. Not sure how I pulled that one off, but I'm not complaining. We've been getting 20's on the labs as well, which is cool. So I walked her through the calculations, and got ready to leave (again). Then it looked like Mahin came over and started hitting on Jayleen - he walked over, leaned on the table, folded his arms across his chest, and asked her what she was doing for Halloween. It was almost surreal.

Anyway.

I went and played an hour or so of DDR after that. Afterwards, I drove over to Sonic to double check who was closing that night, to make sure I could come in and go through the closing stuff that night. Javi was closing, so that seemed alright. I stopped by NexLevel, the cybercafe on the square, on the way home. I have pictures of that, so I'll explain that stuff then.

I'm trying to remember what we did Friday night. That's right... I had the conversation I posted earlier with Shelley, so I headed on over. Lilie was already there. I think... we watched a movie? That's right - Mulan. Which is terrible. It has some of the worst songs I've ever heard on a Disney movie, and I found the whole thing insulting to Chinese culture as a whole. Nothing terribly exciting happened. I think.

Edit: That sounds kind of wrong. I mean, nothing significant happened.

Edit x2: That still doesn't sound right. I mean, well, I'm not quite sure how to put it. Nothing happened that hadn't already happened before a number of times. Or something like that. Yeah.

We're so worried about saving our souls, afraid that God will take his toll, we forget to begin - Jewel

As it turns out, I do have a life outside of Lilie. Shocking, I know. Let's see what I've been up to in other areas:

Works been going okay. I'm usually opening Tue/Thu/Sun, and a day shift on Saturday. I've got the opening thing down fairly well; no other alarm incidents - though Dave hasn't given me my own code yet, so I'm still using Javi's. He's finally agreed to give me my assistant manager raise, though I have a feeling it's going to be very small. Once I've proven my skills, I'll ask him about it. It's really weird for me to be working such a set schedule. Last semester and all summer, I was working a mixed schedule, since my online courses didn't bound my time at all. Now, that, since I can't work Mon/Wed/Fri day, and he's been giving me nights off when I have school that day (and now, on days when I open the next day), my schedule is fairly fixed. I haven't really worked with anyone from night crew in a while. I used to have fairly good connections to everyone else, from having worked with them, but no anymore. I haven't worked with Freddie or Katie in a long time, for example. I'll see Freddie tonight (I think) when I go in at close to review the closing procedures with Javi, and I've been talking to Katie intermittently online. There's really not a terribly lot more I can say about work, other than I loathe it incredibly.

Well, there's a few more things I can say. I'll be working 5 - C Halloween night, so there go any plans for me. We're encouraged to wear costumes, and of course, I only have one costume that I've worn in the past three or four years, so I'll probably wear that. They tend to get in the way, though, so I don't know how long I'll be wearing them for. We'll just see.

Classes have been going okay. We recently had an Intro to Fine Arts test, which I think I did okay on. He usually takes a while to grade, so it'll probably take a week or so to get the grade back. I didn't go to Chemistry class all week, but I did get a 15/15 on the homework that was due Tuesday night, so I'm fairly certain I have a decent grasp on the current concepts being discussed. I have to write an annoying program dealing with classes for CS class. Probability is, well, probability - the same as when I took it in high school, except that we're going into the proofs on equations that we just took as axioms earlier. Which is pretty cool. Chem lab is going better than I thought it would be. Mahin, our TA, is using express grading, and I've been getting 20's (out of 20) on all of the labs recently, as well on our most recent quiz, which I half pulled out of my ass. Apparently, there's some cool stuff up in there, need to check on that. I got asked for help twice in the past two weeks, which is good, because I managed to meet a f ew people.

After lab today, I went to play DDR at the Student Center for about an hour, hour and a half. There were these two guys playing as well; we alternated. They were... well, crappy. But they were beginners, so I'm not trying to sound really arrogant or anything. One played on Beginner, the other mainly on light, with the occasional Standard. I have trouble accurately gauging other people's skill levels, because I immediately caught the difference between jumps and 8th notes while playing, due to my musical background. I had to drive up to work afterwards to see who was closing tonight - Javi - to make sure I could come in and review the closing procedures. I went through the Sessoms & University(/Aquarena) intersection, and heard a car horn honk. I turned back, and sure enough, Lilie was at the light. She was on her way to work. I called her to say 'hey', but it turned out she hadn't honked. Which is really just weird. Very weird.

On the way home, I (finally) found "NexLevel", the new cyber-cafe on the square. It seems pretty cool (pictures to follow). They have like 14 computers, two tvs, and a PS2 hooked up to a nice TV. The rate for PS2 or Xbox is something like $5 an hour, or 4 for members. They also have two metal DDR pads; I paid $2.50 for half an hour of play. I didn't have any real problems on the pad, though it took a bit to adjust to the different feel. I even tried playing some doubles, but that didn't work. Pity. I played for almost an hour when I realized how long I'd been playing. Went over to the register to get something to drink, and admonished them for not letting me know my time was up. They said, and I quit, "Psh!" Or something like that. There wasn't really anyone else in there anyway. I took a number of pictures (to be posted later).

In fact, I'm going to have to cut this one short - Shelley and I had an interesting conversation:

determined_rose: :-P *** "determined_rose" signed on at Fri Oct 29 19:45:58 2004. mr_binky_the_jackalope: hey determined_rose: <):) determined_rose: hey yourself mr_binky_the_jackalope: Um, okay. mr_binky_the_jackalope: Hold on. determined_rose: k mr_binky_the_jackalope: k mr_binky_the_jackalope: back determined_rose: 8-} mr_binky_the_jackalope: I had to go hey myself. determined_rose: lol determined_rose: /:d/ mr_binky_the_jackalope: Um, okay. determined_rose: \:d/ mr_binky_the_jackalope: Right. determined_rose: thats what i was trying to do determined_rose: you dont like my disco smiley? mr_binky_the_jackalope: I don't like smilies in general. mr_binky_the_jackalope: So what're you up to? determined_rose: nothin determined_rose: just working on the playlists determined_rose: chris called determined_rose: he just sounded so excited to be coming up here! (sarcasim) mr_binky_the_jackalope: That's not good. mr_binky_the_jackalope: So what's up with you two? determined_rose: dunno mr_binky_the_jackalope: He has no idea about how unhappy you are, or what? determined_rose: guess i will find out later determined_rose: no he doesnt mr_binky_the_jackalope: Poor guy. determined_rose: maybe it was just meant to be a fling determined_rose: i dont know determined_rose: i am not trying to be a vicious bitch mr_binky_the_jackalope: You're a girl. determined_rose: but i dont want to do this if it isnt going to work out mr_binky_the_jackalope: It comes with the territory. determined_rose: :-O mr_binky_the_jackalope: I fully agree with that. determined_rose: buthhead! mr_binky_the_jackalope: Yep determined_rose: what crawled up your ass? mr_binky_the_jackalope: Nothing. mr_binky_the_jackalope: I just like teasing girls about being girls. determined_rose: you never say stuff like that mr_binky_the_jackalope: When I said I fully agree, I was talking about not going along with it if it isn't going to work out. determined_rose: i know determined_rose: anyway, i dont know what to do determined_rose: everytime i am honest with him he cries determined_rose: what the hell i am supposed to do with something like that? mr_binky_the_jackalope: That's probably significant determined_rose: grrrr determined_rose: i hate being the adult determined_rose: whats worse is i hate being the dominant determined_rose: what i refer to as the male figure in the realtionship mr_binky_the_jackalope: I thought you liked being dominant, except in bed? determined_rose: yes and no determined_rose: its not a challenge with him mr_binky_the_jackalope: I'm going to disagree with you. mr_binky_the_jackalope: On your "what I'm going to refer to as the male figure" statement. mr_binky_the_jackalope: What's wrong with "the dominant figure"? determined_rose: theres nothing wrong with it determined_rose: i was raised where the man was dominant at all times determined_rose: thats why i say it like that determined_rose: not that the male has to be dominant or even should be determined_rose: its just the way i tend to think of it determined_rose: didnt mean to insult you mr_binky_the_jackalope: You didn't mr_binky_the_jackalope: I'm just touchy about gender equality at times determined_rose: i understand determined_rose: i wish you were here, come keep me company mr_binky_the_jackalope: I'm not doing anything for the next three hours or so determined_rose: you have to come down here for work anyway determined_rose: so come on over determined_rose: k? mr_binky_the_jackalope: Um, sure. determined_rose: lol mr_binky_the_jackalope: Give me a little bit to wrap up this journal entry determined_rose: goofball determined_rose: see you soon, ok determined_rose: bye

How can I look in your eyes when I feel I can fly? I have to run away.

So when we last left our intrepid hero, he was just getting off of work on Sunday. (Warning: PoV shift back to first person).

I was fairly tired, between the back-to-back 8 - 5 shifts, with the non-stop frenzy of school, work, and DDR I've been doing the past two months or so. I pulled up to my street, and noticed in dismay that all of the convenient parking spots were taken. I initially elected to just park right in front of my driveway. I pulled up behind Jerry's truck, when a green truck pulled up right next to me. There were two girls sitting in the cab, waving at me. I didn't hear if they were saying anything; Paul Oakenfield's 'Send Me An Angel' was playing fairly loud. I paused the music, and the driver asked me a simple question - 'Do you recognize me?' 'No.' 'It's me, Mindy.'

I'm going to repeat that, as it bears repeating. 'It's me, Mindy.'

She then went to park so we could talk in slightly more convenient circumstances. I parked across the street, and tried to compile my thoughts and regain my composure while she walked from her truck to mine. I had NO IDEA what to say - this was Mindy. I haven't seen or talked to her in, um, three years? I was fairly certain she wanted nothing more to do with me. So she walks up to my truck - I'm still sitting in the driver's seat. I still can't get over how much she's changed. She was wearing a bikini type thing (I think, she's becoming a little fuzzy - my visual memory was never very strong, especially when it comes to describing people); she's dropped some weight. She was never very big, but she was... not quite thick, but almost. Solid. She's definitely 'thin' now. She's also aged a lot. Well, I guess that's to be expected. The last time I saw her (before this), she was... 14? 15? She's 18 now - that's a major bit of growing up, especially for girls. So both of those combined, she looks *way* different. She was always attractive, but now, even much more so.

We talked a little bit. She asked me what I'd been up, and I told her. 'Nothing.' Seriously, what have I been up to? Nothing. Told her I was at SWT now; still at Sonic, finally an assistant manager. She also asked me if I was seeing anyone, and I briefly mentioned Suzie, but that other than her, there hadn't been anyone else. She told me she saw a 35 year old for a while (2 years) (I guess that's who Rose saw her with that one time in IHOP), but no one else really other than that. She's going to UTSA, studying psychology (I forgot if that was her major or minor, and what the other one was), working full time in San Antonio. She was living in San Antonio, but she's living her right now to help take care of her grandmother, who's sick. She asked for my number, which I gave to her (entered it in my phone herself), and she also asked if I'd like to hang out sometime - go to a movie or something. Care to guess what I said?

If you said 'yes', you are correct. I think that about covers everything. Oh, and at one point (like I said, my memory of the event is fairly fuzzy, and growing more so), she asked, and I quote, 'Can I have a hug?' It felt good. The hug, I mean. Mindy and I clicked. We really did. Granted, our relationship (most of the second half, I think) was marked by a large number of tribulations, but I have a large number of good memories of her. I don't remember much of the fighting, but I do remember the hugs, and the kisses, and the looks of joy and happiness. The feeling of warmth, of love. I just don't know. Heather says I have some decisions to make, and I guess I do. If she ever calls me back, that is. I gave her my number, but failed to ask for hers.

I hope she doesn't construe that as a lack of interest. I was really tired from the 15 hours or so I'd worked, the lack of sleep, and was also in something akin to a low-level state of shock. I really didn't know what to say. I mean, I'm all for resuming contact with her. I'm probably close to her as anyone, save Rose and Jarrod. Being closer to someone you haven't seen in a few years than any current years is... odd. The weird thoughts come when I remember one small fact about Mindy and I. We got back together 8 times. To the best of my recollection, we weren't able to spend more than a little time in each other's company without ending up back together, or well on the way.

So I'm not sure how I feel about this whole situation. Except for one thing - I keep hoping she'll call, and we'll got out and spend some time together. Even if it's just talking, catching up on the past few years. Hypothetically speaking, if things were given the chance of progressing further and it was solely up to me... I just don't know. Things have been so weird lately, I've felt adrift in a lot of ways. My perosnal life has been.. odd. Take Suzie, for example. Don't get me wrong, she's a sweet girl. But that's a situation I *never* should have wandered into. If I had been thinking clearer, hadn't been going through such social withdrawal and lonliness, probably would have escaped the whole thing altogether. I'll probably just handle the situation like I do DM'ing a session - deal with it as it comes up. So we'll see.

I was *really* weirded out after that, but strangely exhilerated. So I did the next thing that came to my mind after going in. I called Lilie. We talked for about half an hour. Topics varied. Nothing terribly heavy, but it wasn't all just light-hearted fluff either. Definitely the longest phone conversation I've had with a girl (not counting Rose) in a while. Eventually, though, I told her I had to go, which I did, because I had to shower and do some stuff. Nothing else really of note on Sunday - studying for tests, homework, that kind of thing.

So then came Monday. Which makes sense, I guess. Anyway. Found out the DDR machine was broken Monday morning. It broke my heart. Well, not really, but it was annoying. I was really tired all day and fell asleep in CS. I think the two are related. Took a probability test, which went very well. I got everything right, except two things. First, I misunderstood one question, so I answered it the wrong way. I did right the correct answer down as an aside, so he may give me partial credit or something. That mistake, I can live with. The second is much more annoying: I didn't even see the fourth page. Seriously. Which is endlessly annoying. Luckily, there was only one problem on that page, and an easy one at that, but it really, really annoys me. I would have gotten it completely right, but instead, I'll get no credit for that.

Monday night, went over to Matt and Luke's for D&D. We decided to restart the campaign, so they started building new characters. I'm trying something new - no PrCs, fairly strict die rolling, stuff like that. Consider it an experiement. We'll see how it turns out. They seemed to resist it at first, but I think they'll accept it. Or not. They can always have someone else DM.

Tuesday was my first shift as assistant manager. It went okay. The new shirt didn't prove much of a hindrance, though we'll see how it does in the kitchen tomorrow. (Side note: "Send Me an Angel" just came up on Winamp.) It wasn't that different from what I've been doing, which gives me some encouragement. I definitely didn't have any problems with the crew. I did the deposit and what-not, and that took a while, since Javi had to walk me through it. I counted down the carhops, and two of them were 7 and 12 dollars short. I *hate* it when I have to tell a carhop they're short. It makes me feel really bad, and it's the main issue I have with the job.

I got home about 7 or so, and had chem homework due at 8 - with a 2 hour grace period. So, of course, Lilie calls. Which was really, really cool. That doesn't happen that often. We talked a little, and I invited her to fifty cent night at Showplace. Nothing terribly great was showing, so we went to see the Bourne Supremacy. Next week, Spider-Man 2 and the Village is showing, so I'll end up going to see at least one of them, if not both. Anyway. We went in, and sat down. We both had our feet up on the seats in front of us, and talked a little more. Some girls came and sat down in front of us (there were plenty of empty seats, but they choose the ones in front of us; how annoying). So we had to take our feet down. I actually had mine resting on the arm rest; the girl to the left said it was okay, that it didn't bother her, and I could keep it. She then turned and said that she reocgnized me, and correctly identified me as someone that plays DDR on campus all the time. Apparently, she works at one of the nearby businesses, and sees me all the time. Or something like that. But Lilie couldn't really see over them, so we moved back a row. And put our feet back up on the chairs. We talked a lot, which is cool - I've always been a talker during movies (I got 'shushed' during Catwoman. Seriously.) She did lay her head down on my arm for most of the last third or so, and I kind of lay my head down on hers. Or something like that. I even ventured far enough to play with her hair. A little. Very little. Anyway. After the movie, we loitered in front of the theater for a while (well, we sat in the theater for quite a while after the movie ended, probably twenty minutes or so), talking. Eventualy, we walked to her car, she left, and I went back to my truck and left as well. She might make it Thursday, but might have to work. Friday is anybody's guess - I don't think anybody's going to be there playing, so I don't know. I think we're both off, though.

I'm not sure about us. I think she knows I like her, but first off, I don't know how she feels, and she's never really voluntereed any information on the matter. Maybe I'm supposed to drag it out of her? I've never really known what to do in these situations. Rudy would say this is my chance to avoid being dragged down into the friend zone, if I'm going to do so. I don't think she's dropped any hints or anything, but I'd be the last person to know if she did, so I'm probably not a reliable source of information on that front. We'll see.