I’m Hearing: The Pillows - One Life

This week has been rather craptastic so far. Meh. First off, of course, I’ve had no job. I will receive my last paycheck this Friday, then that’s it. There are finally some Graphic Design jobs starting to show up online, so I applied for 4 jobs while I’ve been sitting here at home. Haven’t heard a word back yet from any of them. I went over to my old painting teacher’s house again on Sunday to work on his Mac, but I ran into a brick wall because the damned thing just kept freezing, and I couldn’t narrow down what was wrong. I referred him to Tony (the dude who got the lab tech position I applied for last semester) so hopefully he’ll be able to diagnose the problem, cos I certainly have no clue. I got a little money from that, which is nice, but augh, I’m going to be so broke soon.

I think today was my first loan payment for my car…so there goes $150. Meh.

I guess I should probably mention the highlight of the week which really isn’t a highlight at all, at least not in a good way: yesterday I got a cease and desist letter about the fanfiction and transcripts posted on Sincereamore.com so I yanked all that down. Gah. More annoying in principle than in practice to me because it is a ton of work to maintain that site. I guess it’s a sign that I should focus my energy on something else. Still sucks though….there’s still a ton of people who frequent that site and use it to get information and communicate with each other. I considered taking the whole thing down, but I know people still use the forum a lot, so I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to see. Perhaps I could sell the domain to someone else if they were interested… :\

So that annoyed me greatly yesterday as you might imagine. That, combined with having no job and no love life made me quite melancholy. I ended up watching sappy romantic comedies with my roommates and sighing a lot.

Guh.

Enough misery though. I should mention Saturday as a counterpoint to this ridiculousness. Jon, Brian, and I went up to Green Bay to visit some friends. We played some DDR then had dinner at Victoria’s (YUM!) after which we went over to Will’s house. We spent the rest of the night playing video games with him and his friend Peter, who turned out to be really cool (and had a witty sense of humor). Hiroko slept most of the time with her head on Will’s leg. Later on we played 1000 Blank White Cards with them and eventually Ben came home. We tried to get him to play but he just sat in the periphery. Hiroko slept more. We got back to Oshkosh around 4:30 AM.

I’ve been playing DDR every day this week. I’ve gone back to Light mode for a bit so I don’t ruin my feet (they were starting to go wonky again)…instead of doing a hardcore dance I’m doing Endless Mode with wrist weights on Light, and I’m working more on my form than accuracy. It does the job quite well.

I had dinner at my parents’ house last night. (Mom baked.) Was really good. Also went to Appleton and got Return To Me, French Kiss and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2. Haven’t played it yet. I spent this morning playing The Hobbit and The Two Towers. I’m not very good at any of those games atm…I’ve been roaring and screaming and swearing at my screen a lot.

I’m really hungry right now. Only had breakfast so far. I think I’ll take a shower then have a little something to eat.

I’m Hearing: Squeals of my own delight

I just won an autographed Andy Serkis Gollum book off ebay. >_< guuuuuuuuuuuuu! I’m so excited!!!!! :-D :D :-D

An obsession is beginning to grow….I mean, the man has this gorgeous poofy hair….omg…look out. :o

I’m Hearing: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Venice Queen

Well, it’s my last day…again. XD Should be rather slow, so that’s good.

Last night I got home from work and started in on DDR almost immediately, and about an hour into it, Brian came over and played with me for a bit. I had bought some wrist weights so I put those on while I played, which made it a even more of a workout. I worked with the freeweights when Brian was dancing (I’m sure the motion distracted him somewhat.) I think by now I’ve regained all of the flexibility I once had (back in my Tae Bo days) and I’m moving beyond that. I never used to be able to reach over and grab the underside of my foot and bring my head all the way down to my leg…but I can now. :-) Tis nice. My mother says the flexibility genes on her side of the family are a bit whacked because her family is far more flexible than you’d otherwise imagine…like…she is a jogger so she has thick, muscular legs, but she can do yoga positions with very little trouble. I can do a lot of the pilates stuff on the first try too, except being able to sit up from a laying position (though I highly suspect that being a matter of being so damned top heavy rather than not having enough abdominal strength)

My boss just told me of a freelance opportunity for a book layout project that sounds kind of cool. Hopefully I’ll hear something about that soon. That would rock. Not only would it be money, but it’d be more work experience, and more contacts. :-D

So I got video capture to work flawlessly with the my Dazzle device. Got deinterlacing to look rather good, so the quality of the video is pretty good now. It’ll just take a long time to get all the CITC tapes captured now. Ah well, I’ve got the time.

Crocheted a bit last night…which is always fun, but can be tiring especially after I’ve just gotten done lifting weights. The blanket I’m working on is finally large enough to comfortably sleep under, so I did last night :3 The only thing is…there are long strings of yarn hanging out everywhere so I got a wee bit tangled under it. XD Ah well, it’s warm and comfy. I looooooooove crocheting…I’d do it all the time if I didn’t get tired.

What else…? Ummmm…yeah, I guess that’s really about it…I think it’s about time for lunch. I’ll eat the same thing I’ve had for the last 3 days: the same pizza. XD I made a frozen pizza on….Tuesday? I ate two slices when it was hot, then had 2 slices for lunch on Wednesday and Thursday and again today. Nothing like making a $2 pizza go a long way. Just one of the benefits of being a person who doesn’t eat very much. :-D My roommates Tiff and Alisha both said they could down the whole thing in one sitting…whereas I wouldn’t be able to move for hours if I tried that. Ah well. XD

I’m Hearing: nothing…again

You know what’s weird? When your boss tells you that you aren’t allowed to work the following week, so you plan on not having a job… but the next week you get an email saying “someone made a mistake, and you really are allowed to work for this week.” o.o When I got that email yesterday I perked up and was like “hell yeah, one more week!”

I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening working on one of my old painting teacher’s macs, which took somewhere around 4-5 hours due to slowness and lack of RAM. I think I’ll be going back sometime later this week to finish up.

Sunday afternoon was pretty cool…I drove my dad down to see my brother in Madison. It was the first time I’d driven my car that far…and in fact, the first time I’d gone to visit my brother since he moved down there. He made us lasagna and we watched some Family Guy episodes. I just have one thing to say: I LOVE my car!

Monday was MLK Jr. Day so there was nothing going on at the university and the banks were closed so both Brian and I had the day off, which was cool. He went apartment shopping and I basically spent the day crocheting and exercising. I tried doing ddr with free weights, (2lb in each hand) which really heightened the cardio part of the workout, but my hands ached from holding onto them, so last night I bought some that strap onto my wrists. I’ll give those a go tonight hopefully.

This seems like a pretty low time of the year for a lot of people. I admit I’ve already had my moments since graduation where I’ve felt that I was headed downward because there was no stability left in my life and I was headed into some financial trouble…and yes, I’ve been upset a lot because of that…but I haven’t been depressed over it. And now that I have time again to think about things other than work and school, I’ve felt lonely more and more, but only because I finally have time to realize just how much time I spend alone. I worry a little about Brian these days because he’s feeling really low. I still spend about the same amount of time with him as I always have, if not more these days, so I do what I can.

Things are looking up for others though…Hiroko came back from Japan so Will is back to his usual trick of spending all amounts of free time with her (by all rights) and Rosey will be going back to Australia soonly to be with Jules again. As much as I adore all these people and have a deep respect for their relationships, on the same token it does make me a bit sad that I can’t experience what they get to. It’s not so much a jealousy issue as it is a reminder of my loneliness. But then I spend time with my friends and it doesn’t bother me as much. It’s all a sliding scale, depending on where I am and who I’m with (or not with, as the case often is.)

One of my roommates wants me to help her put her picture on some online dating services. I dunno, I feel kind of weird about that. I mean, she’s totally cool with the whole idea…she told me last night that she’d try anything once. Personally, I could never bring myself to do that. Since I have a yahoo mail account, I’ve seen the advertisements for their online dating service so out of curiosity, I’ve checked out some of the ads (mostly to see if I knew anyone…I mean, who could resist that temptation?) but I must admit that I have been sometimes disturbed to actually find people I know…on the prowl. I’m really not sure why that bothers me, but it really does.

I’ve been having this odd Lord of the Rings obsession lately, and I’m not sure exactly why. I watched all the special features on the FOTR and TTT extended version DVDs plus 2 of the 4 commentary tracks for each film. Plus I watched the Gollum documentary on TTT disc 3 times. I’ve developed a bit of a crush on Andy Serkis as a result of watching that…I mean, he’s not a traditionally handsome man, but watching him act, the passion and talent that man has…I couldn’t help drooling a bit. He quickly grew on me to the point where I start feeling a bit giggly when I think of him. Heh. In addition to going crazy over those extended cut dvd, I also borrowed TTT and ROTK PS2 games from my brother on Sunday…I’m not sure when I’m going to play them but they look like they’d be fun. I’m still working on The Hobbit yet. I’ve also been reading FOTR bit by bit (mostly when I’m in the bathroom though XD XD) which I’m enjoying a lot more this time through (the last time I attempted to read it, I got distracted and lost interest after I met Tom Bombadil for some reason…)

I’m selling some of my unused electronics on ebay right now, like my old video capture device and my Handspring Visor. I’m trying to think up other things I could sell there…since I don’t have a job and I’ve got some time now. Only thing that came to mind is blankets, but they really wouldn’t be too cost effective considering they cost about $30 in materials alone. shrug If anyone thinks of anything, please let me know.

Oh, btw, I did try video capture with my new Dazzle USB 2.0 thingie that I got on Saturday, and the capture worked really well, I’m just having trouble editing it. As mpeg2 (svcd) it’s fine, but the video is interlaced to it looks like ass on a computer. As divx the sound pops and crackles no matter which settings I use…maybe I need a different codec. I’ll have to play around with it some more before I find what works the best. Hopefully I’ll be able to archive all my Caroline in the City episodes then.

I’m Hearing: Nothing

Well, Rosey wanted me to do that high school survey thing that’s posted in the entry below…I figured it was long enough to warrant its own space. God, I really really really hated high school. It was one of the worst periods of my life. Meeting my writing teacher was the only good thing that came out of high school because that alone has shaped me into who I am now more than anything else. It was because of her that I met Jonathan (when I helped teach the summer creative writing class) and because of Jon that I met Adam (my first boyfriend and first love) and because of Adam that I stayed in Oshkosh and because of Jon that I got so involved in computers…and it all stems from that. Taking that job was the best decision I could have made.

So yeah…I really don’t want to think about high school any more than I have to. Not fond memories in general.

I was feeling rather low this morning as I woke up. Last night I hung out with TR, Jeff, Becky and Andy. We had some beer and watched Old School and The Shining…didn’t get as much out of it since I was two sheets to the wind, so I’ll have to watch it again when I’m in a better frame of mind.

But I’m starting to get really upset about not having a job. I have one day left at my current job and then I’m unemployed. MEH! My boss took my coworker and I out for lunch today, which was really nice. I’m going to miss this so much ;_;

I’m really annoyed at Dreamweaver MX 2004 for OSX. It has some major fricken issues that cause it to crash anywhere from 1 to 5 times a day (on average)…just doing regular stuff. Dreamweaver MX was just as bad, but with 2k4, they’ve added more features that make it worse. Augh. It’s slow as molasses for some odd reason…like, you start typing a sentence, and for the next minute you watch the letters appear on the screen character by character. It’s ridiculous because this machine has a 1GHz processor and a gig of ram in it…there is no reason this should be running so slowly and inefficiently. I don’t understand why we don’t use PCs at work for web design, but I guess it’s just because all the people here are MacPeople(tm). The odd thing is…this program works flawlessly…and fast on my PC…I don’t get it!!! One day left of this situation…I’ll be glad not to have to deal with the DWMX Mac issues but I’ll miss the jorb. :-(

My roommate Alisha got a dog from the Humane Society this week. His name is Spirit, and he’s a black lab mix, about a year old. Such a sweet and loving dog…I should take some pix. Speaking of pix, before he came, I crawled into his kennel because I knew I’d be the only one who could fit in there…it was fun but I was sitting on my wallet the whole time so that was a bit painful. XD

Hrm…Brian, Will, and I met with the SBDC on Monday and got a packet of information, which was really helpful. It seems that we’ll only have to fill out about 3 forms to be a legal business…so that rox. I’ll have plenty of time to look that stuff over starting next week when I don’t have to be anywhere during the weekdays. :\ I guess that’s a blessing and a curse. I’ll be getting a lot of sleep hopefully, but I’ll try to make the most of the opportunity I’ve been given. Perhaps I’ll be able to come up with a solid webpage design by the end of next week (not sure about the logo though…that may take longer depending on how motivated I am.) I’m really going to try to be productive instead of lounging around looking at things in my room, wondering what to do. I do that way too often…I’ll just sit and stare, trying to decide what I’m motivated enough to do, knowing I have a million projects to choose from, and just wasting time by not choosing something. Usually when that happens I just stare at my DVD rack, thinking that picking a movie out might give me something to keep my mind occupied. Usually doesn’t work though, and I just end up taking a nap or plain going to bed.

I’ve been playing The Hobbit the last few days, which has been fun. It’s a typical platformer/rpg type of game, like Ratchet and Clank. Pretty cute, rather fun, not terribly difficult. I tried playing The Fellowship of the Ring but the Black Riders kept finding me so I got frustrated and moved on.

And after about a 6 month absence, David is back online again. It’s so nice to have him back…<clings> And I started talking to this guy JP on IRC, who is a fun dude to talk to because he’s also a web designer and gaming geek. This morning Phil, Rosey, and Qiang were recording their voices and uploading samples so we could hear them talking…which was awesome. I love hearing non-American accents, especially when they’re as cute as Rosey’s…or as seksi as Phil’s. :3

I’m Hearing: Mushroomhead songs in my mind

1. nickname in high school?
I never had nicknames by friends…or even by people who hated me…I dished plenty out but never had one myself.

2. sport you were into?
watching football, I suppose

3. had a circle of friends? how many were you?
One really good friend, Sarah, and 3 or 4 other people I spent time with on occasion.

4. best subject?
Art for sure…English and Creative Writing were next best.

5. worst subject?
Social Studies. I always hated anything dealing with sociology or history…I sucked terribly and never had the slightest interest.

6. a teacher you owe life lessons to?
Mrs. W…she was the writing teacher who gave me the opportunity to help teach creative writing and thus set me up for the course of my life…from that I met Jonathan and thus began a path that has led me to where I am now.

7. a teacher you wanna kick in the ass?
My art teacher…he was such a bastard to me and so many of my classmates, dishing out horribly low grades for art projects.

describe in one word…

8. freshman year:
overwhelming

9. sophomore year:
driving [learning to]

10. junior year:
abandoned

11.senior year:
love

12. your best friend was?
Sarah

13. your worst friend was?
turned out to be more than one bitch in the bunch…. :\

14. cafeteria food sucked?
Never really knew, I brought a bag lunch with me through most of it, or ate out at fast food places

15. most hilarious school rule?
They were so nazi-like in taking attendance that if you were more than 5 min late, you were marked absent and the school called your house at suppertime and left an automated message saying "Your student missed one or more classes today." So the next day you had to go to the attendance office and get the mistake taken care of…annoying as shit.

16. wore uniforms?
Not officially, but if you didn’t wear the trendiest of clothes, you stood out, so I suppose that is a uniform of sorts.

17. how was the prom?
It was…..a prom….I didn’t want to go at all, so I can tell you it wasn’t the highlight of my existence.

18. who was prom king and queen?
I think it was Adam and Diana that year…she was really nice and lent me her homecoming dress for prom (which I had dry-cleaned and ruined ^^;;;;;;;;;)

19. any achievements?
Always had some type of academic recognition…graduated with highest honors, national honor society, etc. Didn’t really try for that though…was just something that happened because I worked hard.

20. were you popular?
More like antipopular. I didn’t fit in anywhere.

21. best song that reminds you of high school?
Semi-charmed Life by Third Eye Blind

22. unforgettable high school crush?
Way too many….most notably Adam and Jeremiah.

23. most embarrassing moment?
Asking this guy Jim out in a letter then having him turn me down in the middle of the hallway in front of lots of people.

24. memory you’d like to forget about high school?
In junior year when this group of girls I used to hang out with basically abandoned me after I defended a friend who was coming out of the closet. I got a long letter describing all the things they hated about me and why I was too depressing to hang out with. It was the loneliest time of my entire life because I found out that even my closest friend had been part of that. I was, at that point, completely alone. I didn’t eat for a week. I am never ever ever going to forget what that was like.

25. best memory?
Being with Adam…he was my first love.

26. any regrets?
The things I regret are things I had no control over so I guess that just means I wish things had been different.

27. would you like your "future child" to attend your high school?
Abso-fucking-lutely NOT. First off I am not going to have children, secondly, I don’t want anyone I care about to have to deal with that kind of shit.

28. were the bathrooms clean?
For the most part, I guess. They weren’t filthy. Then again, they were girls’ bathrooms, so…yeah.

29. how were the lunch ladies?
Beats the hell out of me, never knew them.

30. lyrics would best describe your high school life:
hmmmmmm….anything sad and depressing and lonely and desperate and love-starved……

I’m Hearing: Revis - Seven

Not much time left now. Interim started on Monday so that means I have 2.5 weeks left at this job. ~_~ Arg. I’ve been spending about 1-2 hours each day looking online for jobs…and there’s just……..nothing. :-( I mean, nothing. I’m not a programmer/analyst, I’m not a registered nurse, I’m not an apartment manager…I mean, this is all that’s out there right now. :\ Been angsting about that a lot lately.

On a good note though, Brian set up an appointment with the SBDC for next Monday so hopefully that’ll give me a better idea of what to expect with the whole business thing. Maybe I won’t feel as anxious after the meeting…but maybe even more. I have no idea.

I started working a preliminary design for the company logo and website which has been pretty promising so far. Hopefully things will keep going just as smoothly as they have already…

Augh…I’ve been really sore lately. I think all the abuse I put my body through this past year has caught up with me and is waging an all out attack on me. My mom has been doing myotherapy on my back, shoulders, and feet this past week, which is helping a lot, but….wow….soreness…and headaches. I think I’m finally starting to get over my illness now, although I’m still tired a lot of the time.

The other day was really nice…Fet and Jules were making up silly blocks of question/answers and editing them together to form these wacky, nonsensical conversations. Muchly amusing. Then that night I talked to Jules on iparty for about an hour. It was so wonderful hearing his voice again. :3

I think I’ve been listening to accented speech “a little too much” recently because it was a major factor in my dream last night. I just watched all the special features discs on The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers…so most of the people on the discs are New Zealanders, Aussies, or Brits. XD So anyhow…in the dream…I was living in a building that was half apartments, half offices. The rooms were about the size of dorm rooms. I went back to my apartment and noticed that something of mine was missing (I believe it was film for my 35mm SLR camera). As I was searching for it, the guy who lives across the hall came over and matter-of-factly told me he’d taken the film because he’d ran out. I was appalled at his nerve and got angry at him. It didn’t seem to bother him at all. As I was fuming, he asked me why I had so much film. (There was a box about the size of a 100-pack of 3.5″ floppy disks with film filling it) I told him I was an artist, and suddenly his whole attitude changed. He was like “Oh….wow.” And as his attitude shifted, I loosened up a bit and told him a little bit about what I did. As he became more interested, I began to notice that his speech carried a vague English accent. As soon as I realized that, I warmed up to him really quickly; it was like that tripped my trigger and was all I needed to see past the fact he’d stolen from me. I started to feel that I’d finally met someone interesting enough to want to get to know better, and he was showing some real interest in me….and just as the dream had taken a turn for the good, my alarm went off. Damn! The thing that intrigues me the most about the dream was that I didn’t find this guy particularly attractive. I mean, he was average-to-below-average in appearance…but when I noticed the accent, his appearance became completely irrelevant; I was just instantly attracted to him. Hrm.

I guess it just goes to show that I really know what I like.

The other day one of my roomies made the comment that my part of the pantry was really organized…that I had sections of each type of food grouped together…he said “This is evidence of someone who knows what they like.” All my other roommates have a variety of mismash….well, more like a clusterfuck of ingredients and packages, a total disarray. That’s kind of what the whole house is like…just a clusterfuck. But my room is just 100% Ann. I don’t know how many people would really be comfortable living in that room, but I surround myself with things I love, so it’s comfy to me. (If not way too small for my stuff…but I have it all organized well-enough.) But that’s the thing about me, you see…if I like something…I mean, really like it, there’s no question about it. No one doubts it, because whatever it may be, I make it a part of my life. There are certain people I know pretty well who don’t really make any sort of display out of things they like. So when it comes time to buy gifts for special occasions…at times it’s difficult because there’s nothing they’re really gung-ho about. :\ I don’t understand that lackluster attitude about life…but I guess it’s not a stretch to say I’m a lot more emotional about things than most people.

Oh yeah…I got my car on Friday. It’s the sweetest car ever…nicer than I’d ever hoped for. *wheeeee!*

I’m Hearing: Underworld - Surfboy

I’m feeling anxious and upset today. I’ve been sick since Christmas Eve; I got a cold that night and had a nasty headache, and as a result didn’t sleep very well. After that the cold basically kept me in bed for the whole week. I’ve been doped up on Nyquil and DayQuil pretty much ever since then. :\

The cold is pretty much gone now; at least I can breathe now. But I still feel sick. I went in to work yesterday but suddenly got cold sweats and stomach cramps so I had to leave. I went home and slept for awhile then finished Dean Koontz’s By the Light of the Moon. Typical Koontz, not a whole lot more to say about it, other than Koontz really does have an understanding of the mind of a "real" artist, one who isn’t just an "artfag." I give him a lot of credit for that.

I took my car into the mechanic’s a few weeks ago and he told me my floor was about to rust through. That didn’t make me too happy (as you might imagine). So on a whim I took a look at the car lot where I got that car, and to my amazement there was a 2002 Grand Am SE in there. Before I got going on my Mitsubishi Eclipse kick, the Grand Am was my favorite car, and the type that I’ve wanted since I was 12. So I talked to my parents about it and eventually we decided that my dad would co-sign a loan with me so I could get it. We were supposed to get the car today (and trade in my rustbucket shitmobile) but the bank needed more papers for the loan so it got delayed. I rather expected this to happen so I can’t say I’m all that surprised…but admittedly I am disappointed. I was looking forward to being able to drive the car today for awhile and to show it off but I guess that’s going to have to wait until at least Friday. :\

Another disappointment is about tonight. I was planning on having a get-together at my place for New Year’s but the fact that I’m sick kind of put a damper on those plans. Jeff has another commitment and can’t make it, TR is working a double shift today and has work tomorrow and also is planning on hitting up Becky’s party so he won’t be here long, Dave went back to Milwaukee on my advice because I knew he’d have more fun with people whose bodies could tolerate mass quantities of alcohol…meh. So if I’m lucky it’ll be hachi and Brian tonight…and Brian doesn’t drink. So I’ll have 5 bottles of champagne sitting in the cupboard for several months, I’d imagine. *sigh*

I just feel….drained. There’s no other way to describe it. I don’t feel like I’m being abandoned or anything…being sick has a way of distancing you from activities and people, after all. But I do feel disappointment in the situation, that I couldn’t be at my full potential to enjoy it. I’ve had a lot of time off from work, which has been nice, but I’ve slept most of it away unfortunately. I made a mistake the other night by spending the day car shopping, going out to dinner with the guys, then staying up too late (TR came over for a bit) after I played a bit of DDR, then had a 40 with him. :\ I’m sure that, combined with the fact that I wasn’t over my sickness, was what caused the reaction the next day that forced me to leave work. I just have a hard time sitting still and waiting it out…I want to do things again, to live the life that makes me comfortable and happy.

Last night I worked on some logo ideas for "the company." It was nice to know that I could still do something with graphics, but it did exhaust me a great deal and I was blocked beyond creating one idea with several variations. I just can’t get past a single idea when it works right away. :\ Dunno if that’s a gift or a curse really, but it makes me feel really uncreative.

I took NyQuil before bed, and as expected, I had an odd dream. Somehow I was pregnant, and I gave birth to a human child that transformed into a kitten. The birth was practically painless…I just felt a little bit of pressure, and suddenly I had a child. I know it had a name of some kind, but I don’t remember what it was anymore. After the child became a kitten, it was really popular. In the dream, I woke up and noticed the kitten was gone and someone told me the father had taken it for the day. I didn’t know who the father was, so I wanted to find out. When I went to get it back, there were a ton of other people who wanted to spend time with it and suddenly it became impossible for me to be with it at all. Then I woke up in reality to the ringing of the phone.

Today was a really low-energy day. I didn’t really do…anything. I’m just dragging.

I just talked to the loan officer from the bank and I guess I’ll be getting the loan on Friday, which means I’ll be getting the car on Friday if everything goes well. She also signed me up for a bank credit card that I can transfer a balance to with no financing for 6 months. At first I was hesitant, but the more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed because I still have a helluva balance on my University credit card…and I’ve wanted to get rid of that for some time now. So it’ll give me 6 months to pay off basically my tuition from this semester. (Assuming the whole balance transfers over…I have no idea what the credit line on the new card will be…) So that makes me a little happier.

I do feel really really rotten about having to rely on my parents to help with paying for this car…with the loan and the insurance and everything…mostly right now I feel shitty because I don’t have another job lined up and I don’t know if I will have one after the middle of January. Which means there is a lot of uncertainty ahead of me. My dad told me not to worry about it…after all, the reason he was willing to co-sign the loan was because he wanted to help me build credit and get me into my new life as smoothly as possible. But I still feel like a third-rate loser for not having the money or financial stability necessary to own a decent car. I would feel so much better if I knew I’d be employed.

As uncertain as this situation has left me…there is one other situation that offsets it. Some friends and I are talking about starting a company. I have an idea of what is going to have to happen in order for this to work, and I feel absolutely no hesitation about it. As up-in-the-air as my "job" situation is right now…everything about this business venture just feels *right*. Usually when I’m faced with an uncertain situation, I get anxious and upset (like I demonstrated above) but with this, there has been none of that. I truly, honestly, and wholeheartedly feel that this will work out. I’ll just have to keep pushing it forward until it gets out of the idea stage and into the reality stage, and as long as I stay focused on it and not let things slip, its prospects are high. The great majority of my confidence in this lies in the people I’m working with, namely Will, hachi, and Brian. Each of them is talented and motivated in different but equally important ways, and it is their strength and interest in the project that makes me certain about its success. Other people have already expressed interest in it (after it gets off the ground) so that just steels my determination. Hopefully Brian and I can meet with a Small Business Development Center sometime in January so we can figure out where to go from here. In the end, though, what it comes down to is this is right.

I hope everyone else had a decent New Year’s. This year has been the hardest of my life because of school, but one of the most significant ever. The upcoming year holds a lot more surprises in store, I know, because my life as I’ve known it for 17 years has come to an end. Here’s to hoping it will be a positive and prosperous endeavor…or if not, at least a "breaking even" endeavor. *raises glass of NyQuil*