Christmas and Car Stuff

Today is December 15th and there are only 10 more days until Christmas day. I've been looking forward to Christmas for a very long time now and I will be happy when it arrives. I love the look on people's faces when they open the gifts I get for them. That's my most favorite of things about Christmas; giving gifts to others. Oh sure, I love recieving gifts almost as much, but I'd much rather give than recieve. That's the honest truth. I hope that my friends and family like what I got them for Christmas. Some are hard to shop for and others are very easy to shop for. One thing that is nice about Christmas this year is that there are a lot more presents under our tree. Granted, most all of them are what I am giving to others, but it's nice to see packages under the tree. The last several years have been hard on my family and Christmas has typically been without gifts. Things are looking up though and I am glad. It truly makes me happy to know that we are doing better and that I have the means to make my family happy and give them the Christmas they deserve.

As you already know, I recently got a new car. I've finally given her a name too and I payed for her tags and taxes today. I've named my new car "Hope". I named her this because she is the first nice new car I've ever had and because it was difficult to find a dealer that would work with me and my not so good credit. It is my "Hope" that with this car and it's payments, I can repair my credit and make life just a little bit better for me. When I went to pay my car tags just a little while ago, I had known that it would be fairly expensive to do so. I had set aside $620 for it. Thankfully, it didn't cost even half of that. Since I had already paid for tags on my old car in November, I got a $24 credit. The rest was only about $280. Still an awful lot, but much less than what I had expected.

Well, that's all I have for right now. I'll try to update again soon. Merry Christmas all and Happy New Year!

Update

Wow! Crys was right. It has been an awful long while since I last updated this. I don't have too much of an excuse but I'll give it to you anyway. I've been very busy working two part time jobs. Neither of them is the job I ultimately want to end up with, but then it doesn't help that I don't know exactly where I want to end up. I do know that both of these jobs isn't forever though, and during one of them I am constantly having to remind myself of that. My two part time jobs are as an MCA at Sears (aka Stocker) and an emergency substitute teacher for the Salina School District in grades K-12. The substituting pays more ($90 for a full day) but is also one that I don't get as often. Sears is more steady work but the pay isn't the best. Only $6.20 an hour starting and they won't even consider me for a raise until I've been there for at least a year. I've only been working at both of these jobs since September this year. But it's something to bring in the money for now.

Speaking of bringing in the money, I have to work as much as I do in order to bring the money in because...get this...I just got a new car! Ok, a new used car but for me it's a new car. It's a white with black trim 4 door 2004 Chevy Impala. It has power seats, windows, locks, a cd player and lots of other cool stuff. I really love my new car and have actually only had it since the 15th of this month. I haven't gotten a name for her yet though. That I'm still working on. As for payments, they are horrible, but the money from both of my jobs makes it so I can pay them. Car payments are $295 a month and insurance (which I start to pay in Feb) is going to be $100 a month. Pretty pricey if you ask me, but it's worth it. All that money I kept putting into my old Lumina was just being wasted. At least now I know that my money is going towards something that is going to last me awhile, rather than towards something that might break down in the next several seconds.

I'm really anxious for Christmas to get here. I've already gotten all of my Christmas shopping done and the presents are wrapped and under the tree. At least the presents I got for people are under the tree. No one else has put any presents under it yet, but that could be because many of them haven't started shopping yet. We've been getting some snow yesterday and today. It's our second snow of the season so far. I hope that we have lots of snow on the ground this Christmas, but very little ice. I love the snow, but I hate the ice. Hehe.

Well, that's about it for now. Oh wait, I forgot one thing. As for my love life and social life...well they pretty well don't exist due to working so much. Although I am kind of sort of starting to make a new friend at my job at Sears. But other than that, nothing is going on in that area. Oh well.

Ok, that's really all I have for right now. Thanks Crys, for giving me a heads up about updating this. I appreciate it. Take care everyone and happy holidays!

Interview Update

My interview was Monday last week and it didn't go as well as I could have hoped. The guy kept asking me questions that I wasn't really sure how to answer without constantly repeating myself. The interview lasted an hour and at the end of it he said he was going to get in touch with my references and get back to me by noon the next day. He told me that he would call me at noon on Tuesday and let me know if he needed more time to reach my references or if I would get a second interview. Well he never called me back. I thought, ok, my references can be hard to get ahold of, so I gave him the rest of the week to do what he needed to do. Well by the start of this week, he still hadn't called me. I've called him twice in the first half of this week and left him messages asking him to call me about it. He still hasn't. I'm not too happy about it. In fact I'm starting to get very irritated. I'm going to give him just a little bit longer and call him next week. If he still doesn't call me back then I'm just going to forget about it and move on. Besides, with the way this guy is being, I'm not sure I want to work for him and his company anyway.

Interview

Well, this morning was supposed to be my interview at a place that I've been in contact with since May. I got up about 6:30 this morning so that I could take a shower, eat and get all gussied up. The usual getting ready for an important interview routine. So anyway I hop in the car, drive 22 miles into town and meet up with the guy that's supposed to interview me. Only when I get there I find out that he meant to call me yesterday and reschedule! I wasn't very happy about this but I just put on my happy face and made as if it didn't bother me though in all actuallity it irritates me a lot. So he asked me to go ahead and fill out an application, which I did. Thankfully he already has my resume and cover letter. And we rescheduled the interview for Monday at 11. I think what I'll do though is Monday morning, I'll call him and make sure he can actually make it to the interview before I drive the 22 freakin miles into town. I can't be driving into town every single day. With as high as gas prices are (between $2.35 and $2.45 depending on where in town you are) with no income, and vehicles that just don't have good gas mileage, it really isn't logical for me to waste gas like that. So anyway, that was my so called interview today that was rescheduled for Monday. I hope that Monday goes better than today has.

My oh so exciting life

Wow, it has been an awful long time since I last posted a blog. Shame on me for waiting so long to post again. I'm sure everyone is curious to find out what's going on in my oh so exciting life. Well believe it or not, not much of anything is going on. I'm still trying to find a job and am not having much luck. Though I do have an interview tomorrow which I think will go well. In addition to that I'm applying to get my emergency substitute teaching certificate from the state so that I can be a substitute teacher and have at least some money coming in from time to time. I should get that within the next two weeks if the state doesn't sit on it's butt like usual.

I'm still in the singles circuit, I'm still living at home with my parents, and I hardly ever get to go out and have any fun. I don't have any friends in this area of the state and the highlight of my days is when the mail person comes around 3 or so in the afternoon. Pathetic isn't it? But I'm happy enough for now. Ok, make that content rather than happy. I know that things will pick up for me and change for the better once I start working. For one, when I do start working, I'll be better able to meet other people and therefore can make new friends. Also, I'll have money coming in which will help me in saving up for a down payment on another car and give me some spare money to go out and meet people on the weekends or whatever. The thing that sucks though is that all of this depends on me getting a job and the getting the job is the hardest thing to do.

I spend a lot of my time at home cleaning house, watching Star Trek, and reading books that I've gotten from the library. I don't have net access at home and my computer recently went caput on me, so any computer time that I have at all is seriously limited. I can only use the computer when I drive into town and use the library computers or when I'm at my brother's house and he lets me use his. I'm not used to not having 24/7 internet access or a computer to play games on, but sometimes you just have to deal with it and so that's what I'm doing.

Well, that's about all that's really going on in my oh so exciting life. Lots to talk about huh? Anyhoo, I'll post again later on. Take care all and have a nice day.

Quickie

Just a quick update and will write in more detail later. Graduation was great. It was good to see so many of my friends and family there. I'm settled in back at home now. I've been keeping busy what with taking care of my mom and looking for a job. Still no luck job wise but I'm not giving up yet. Plus I've only been home two weeks. I can't expect too much right away.

Will write more later.

~C~

Upcoming Graduation

Well, it's official. There is only three more weeks until graduation. Or 18 days if you want to look at it that way. It's basically this week, dead week, and then finals week. In a lot of ways its kind of scarey but it's also very exciting. I'd have to say that the one thing that scares me most about graduating, is that I don't know where I'll get a job at. There isn't much for me where my folks live, which is where I'll be going, but I really can't afford to go any place else until I get some money saved up. There are several job opportunities for me in Wichita and Newton but those are a long drive away from where my parents live. It's looking like I might just have to find some pud temporary job until I can get some money set aside and find a better job, one I actually want, and be able to afford a place to live. Or even if I could just save up enough money to put a down payment on a newer car, then maybe I could make the long commute from where my folks live to Wichita or Newton. As of right now, I don't trust my car to be able to do that every day. Plus gas prices are way to freakin high.

My mom, dad, brother, brother's girlfriend, and one of my aunts are supposed to be coming to graduation. Two of my friends I know for sure are coming. I am really hoping that my sister can come and bring my nephews with her. But she has two jobs now and gas costs a lot so it would be hard for her to make it. Still I hope that she can even if she can only come for the ceremony. I really am quite anxious to see my family again. I miss them all so much. When you live five hours away from home it makes it a little hard to go home on the weekends like some other students do.

I think I'm ready for graduation. Sure, I don't know where I'll end up working, but I'm ready to be out of school. I've been in college for five years now and I'm ready to go. Besides, I'm tired of reading text books and journal articles and doing research papers and all sorts of other boring stuff. Granted, it's all a part of the learning process and I love to learn. I'm just starting to get burned out on it though. I'm thinking perhaps I'll take a year to three years off after graduation, get my affairs in order and then see about coming back for a masters or taking my minor and turning it into a second major. It couldn't hurt. I also would like to take some more computer classes. I've only taken two computer classes in all of my five years and I think I'd enjoy taking more. Plus, learning about computers is fun and its something I seem to be good at. My brother thinks that with some hard work and a little bit of time, I could get as good at computers as he is. But he is lucky, he taught himself everything he knows about them. But hey, it pays to have a smart brother, seeming as how he is going to be building my next computer for me.

Well that's about it for now. Things are pretty hectic what with finishing up the last of school work, packing, and getting ready for graduation. If I don't write again before graduation you'll know its because I'm super busy. Take care all!

Current Happenings

It hasn't been too awful long since I last blogged but still it's been awhile. A lot has been going on recently. Spring break came and went, uneventful as ever. I spent a good portion of spring break getting as many of my required volunteer hours out of the way as I could. I still have about nine and a half hours left to do, though when I'm going to do them with classes back in session and work as well is beyond me.

Graduation is getting closer and closer. Only 35 days left until the big day. I'm really excited about that.

I've been super busy working on projects for classes and doing assignments. You'd think being a senior you'd get a bit of a break but such is not the case and it really sucks. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't so much of a procrastinator, but what can I say? I think that sometimes I work better and do my best work when I'm under the pressure of meeting a deadline.

Work has been pretty crummy lately. We've been short handed cause people keep quitting which doesn't say much for where I work. The people at work are also being shit heads towards me because over spring break I got tendinitus in my foot and now I have doctors orders to stay off of my feet as much as possible and if I work I'm supposed to be as sedentary as possible while at work. Being sedentary in food service is kind of hard. The only sedentary jobs they have where I work is at the pasta station where I can pull up a chair to sit on, or as a checker who scans the student id cards so people can eat. So the people at work are basically just not wanting to work with me on adjusting things so I can follow the doctors orders. I tell ya, if I didn't need the money so bad I'd quit. I hate my job. Getting a paycheck, however small it is, is the only thing that keeps me working there.

I have fish now. Goldfish. I started out with two. One is a common goldfish that is silver and gold. I named her Kilala. The other was a type of goldfish called a Shubunkin. She was calico colored in silver, black, and gold. Her name was Misha. She died the other day though :( and from what I'm not sure. I think it might have been from me putting them in a new home. So anyway for awhile I just had Kilala, but today I went to the pet store and I found another goldfish I liked. This one is a fan tailed goldfish and it's all gold. I named him Nezdin. He's very pretty. They live in a 10 gallon aquarium with a filter and one small fake plant. I am going to get them more fake plants and decorations as well as tank mates once I get a bit more money.

My car was broke down for awhile. It kept dying on me when it was idling or when I would try to shift gears. It also backfired a lot. I thought maybe it was the fuel pump going bad or something wrong with the fuel system. I got it checked out and turned out the fuel pump is fine. Instead it was an ignition coil going bad. I had it replaced (which by the way was much cheaper than if I had to replace the fuel pump) and now my car is running just fine. I'm so glad I got my car running again. I tell you its hard to do things in college when you don't have a car. I don't see how some of the freshman girls on my floor that don't have cars can deal with it.

Well that's about it. Or at least that is all I can think of. My break from homework is over for now. I'll blog again later.

Take Care All!

Princess Christy

My Car is a POS!

You would think that with as unreliable as cars can be, that they would be a whole heck of a lot cheaper. I've had my car for round about three years now. It's an old car and it has lots of miles on it, but even still you would think a car could last longer than 168,000 miles. My car is a 15 year old 1990 Chevy Lumina. A pretty good car. But lately it's been a regular POS. I think I'm having a problem with the fuel pump but I'm not sure. I got to get it into the shop to be looked at. Anyway, I really need my car right now and I'll need it even more after graduation. Sadly though, I don't think it will last me that long, and what's worse is I can't afford to get another car.

I don't see why cars have to cost so much anyway. Even when you buy the cheap ones you still end up putting twice what you paid for it into repairs. I would love it if car manufactures could make a car that would last for more than 168,000 miles. It'd be a damn miracle if they could make one that would last more than 200,000 miles or even just 200,000 miles.

*sigh* I just wish my car would work like its supposed to. I know its old and that I should expect problems with it, but they always come at the worst possible times.

Venting

This semester really stinks. It's my last semester and its the most stressful of all. I missed a class the other day because I had gone to a blood drive to try and give blood and the teacher sent me an e-mail, which to me sounded very nasty and degrading. What irks me though is the fact that he even noticed I was gone. He has never noticed me before when I was in class, so why should he notice me when I'm not there?! Come on! Get a grip!

I'm just sick of school all together. I'm sick of the stress that comes with keeping up with readings for class and for doing assignments and writing papers. I'm sick of the worry about having and keeping a job just so I can pay for things I need while I'm here. I'm just ready to get the h e double hockey stick out of here. But wouldn't you know it, graduation is still another two and a half months away.

I've been so stressed out lately its not even funny. I've got all this school work to do, regular work, and practically no time for myself at all. To top it all off the days seem to be speeding by which in turn makes the week speed by. Granted, I should like the weeks going by fast because it just brings me closer and closer to graduation, but it feels like it cuts in on my time to work on stuff for class. It's like I want time to hurry so I can graduate, but at the same time I need it to slow down so I can get all this stupid work for classes done.

I've also been worrying a lot about my mom and about the rest of my family. My mom has been in the hospital lately because she has had some problems with her medications. We're hoping she'll get out this week, but I haven't heard anything yet. I wish that I could go home and stay with mom and take care of her and say to heck with school, but I'm so close to graduation that to do so would be pretty darn stupid.

To sum it all up, I'm stressed out, I am seriously hating school right now, and I'm worried about my mom and the rest of my family. Life and school really suck right now. Ok, that's my venting for the day. Later all.

New Friend, Work, and Wish List

I've made a new friend recently. Well she isn't a full friend yet. But she is cool and she is fun to hang out with. Her name is Traci and she's 17 and a freshman here at my school. We take Basic Helping Skills together and are in the same group for class. Because we have to do a lot of group work together, we've gotten to know each other pretty well and have discovered that there aren't too awful many differences between us. I think her and I will stay friends for awhile.

Not a lot else is going on. Just the typical school work, regular work, and the usual procrastinating. Hehe. Last week I worked an extra couple of hours to make up for not working on my birthday the week before. I worked an extra dish shift and it was at closing time. Man that stunk big time! I am never working closing dish again. Not to mention the other two dish people I was working with that night had some really foul language coming out of there mouth. Now granted, I use foul language sometimes myself, and I don't mind hearing it from time to time, it won't bother me. But these two were back and forth at each other all night. I think it was all in good fun but it did get to the point where I had to ask them to tone down their language because it was starting to become really offensive to me. Haha, they even got "talked to" by the head chef telling them not to do it because the customers could hear them.

One very exciting thing happened last week. I had made a wish list on Amazon.com of some books I've been wanting in hardback. And the next thing I know I'm recieving packaging slips in my mail box practically every night of last week. The first night there was four, then the second night there was three, and two days after that there was another one. 8 in all and all were books from my wish list! I figured out who sent at least three of them for sure and that's all thanks to packaging slips. But the others, I can figure out who sent them, so it's still a bit of a mystery. But it is a great mystery! I'm working on writing a thank you letter to the person that I figured out sent me three of them. I'm very greatful to have gotten all of these books. They are books from the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and now I have all of the books except four of them. I'm still missing books 3, 7, 9, and 10 in hard back. But hey I'm happy so I'm not going to complain.

That's all for now. I got to get going to get some breakfast before class. You all take care now. :)

Heart Broken Musings

It took me a long time and lots of hard work, working on the revisions for my poetry portfolio. Cynthia had been the one I would go to and get suggestions from. She was good at seeing my mistakes or clarifying things that didn't make sense to me. I consider her a friend. She told me she thinks of me as a friend. But tonight she really hurt my feelings. I was excited about having finally finished my portfolio which is due tomorrow in class. I went out into the hallway because I was so excited and wanted to tell someone. She was out there, talking to someone. I didn't think and I interupted and told her that I had finally finished it. She looked at me, almost disdainfully, and said "That's great Chris." The thing is though, she sure the hell didn't sound excited as I had hoped. In fact it was as if she didn't care at all. Granted, I shouldn't have interupted, and I realize that now. But what she said and the way she said it really hurt. It still hurts. Is being friends with Cynthia going to be like being friends with Stephanie? Where I have to watch what I say and do around her just so she doesn't snap at me. I just wanted to share my excitement with someone I thought might appreciate it. Is that so wrong?

Now, because of all of this, I feel like everyone hates me. Ok, maybe not hates me, but definately like they don't want to be around me anymore. Its as if I've worn out my welcome once again. I can't ever seem to find that happy medium between being around people and not being around them. Most of the time I crave my solitude because then I don't get hurt. But like a sim I'm a social creature at times and I need to be around people. It's just that I always seem to choose to be around them when I'm not wanted. And that only makes it worse.

Sometimes I feel like people pitty me, like they're just talking to me or hanging out with me because they know how pathetic and depressed I am. When I think about them and their pitty for me, it makes me kind of mad but it also breaks my heart. I don't want people to pitty me. I just want to have friends and be liked, like other people are. All I've ever wanted was to fit in and feel like I belonged. I've always wanted to be normal, average, just another Jane Doe. But it's never been like that for me and I really hate that. I don't want people to pitty me or to act like they like me. I don't want them to spend time with me just because they think it will make me feel better. I just want to be one of them without all of that happening. But I don't think it will ever happen. It hasn't happened yet and I'm almost 24 freakin years old.

It's pathetic really. It being me. I'm constantly depressed and I never know if it's attention I'm craving or if it should be solitude. I can't help but wonder over and over again, what is my purpose here? Why was I created and why was I created different from everyone else? Why did I have to get the big caring heart that gets broken so easily? I didn't ask for any of this. It was all just given to me and I hate to say it, but most of the time, it's a gift I could most certainly do without. In some ways, its nice to know that I'm one of the few people left in this world that actually has a heart and knows how to use it. But that feeling doesn't come around very often, in fact its pretty rare. Maybe if the world wasn't so hateful, so cruel, and so heartless, maybe then, my life wouldn't seem so bad. But a world such as I wish for and dream of is a utopia and a utopia can never exist. Not even in death.

Busy Bee

My life is pretty hectic right now and very very stressful. By looking at my schedule, one would think, oh she isn't busy at all. But that really isn't the case. I may not have that many classes, but I still have lots to do. In two of my classes I have these giant research projects I have to do. And what stinks is that these two classes are the ones I have to have in order to graduate in May, so there is added pressure there. Then, for some silly reason I thought I should take a creative writing class. Big mistake as far as time comittment is concerned. I love the class, but there is just so much writing I have to do outside of class that it's crazy. Now add that to the research stuff and already I have a pretty big plate full of stuff. I'm not done yet though. For one of my classes I have to do 48 hours of volunteer work or I automatically fail the course. I haven't even started that yet. My computer class isn't so bad. It's really something I'm just doing for fun and thankfully it doesn't take up much of my time. So that's all class stuff. But then you have to add in life stuff too. You can't complete my schedule without throwing life in there! Haha! So for life stuff I have my job in the dinning hall. It's only about 8 to 10 hours a week, but that still takes up time for other things. Also I really hate the job so I'm looking for a different job while I keep this one until I find something else. I have to have the money coming in. I also have to renew my DL this month and so I have to study for that test. And later on down the road I have to worry about putting in applications for places to work after graduation and so much other stuff!

ARGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about stress city. Oh great now it's time to go to classes! Whoever thought my last semester of college would be my busiest of all?!

Ex-Fiance Shows His Face

Well I got quite the surprise this evening. My ex-fiance who broke up with me back in September finally decided to contact me. I'm really not sure what to think about it. But the conversation below is how things went down. I wonder what will happen next.



John: boo

Christy: Well, this is a surprise. Hello stranger.

John: thats my moms catchphrase

Christy: Yes, I know. I've learned a lot about your mom and have become rather close to her.

Christy: How are you?

John: im good

John: u?

Christy: So what made you decide to finally talk to me after four months of silence?

John: i got my net back finally

Christy: Oh I'm doing quite well thank you. Just sitting here at school in my last semester and planning graduation and what's going to happen afterwards.

Christy: So, you only talk to me online then...even when you should have my phone number as well as my address at school. And even if you didn't have them you could have always gotten them from your family seeming as how I keep in touch with them and I know you have talked to them from time to time.

John: cool

John: didnt have a fone either

Christy: Well I'm glad that you have gotten your internet back. I'm sure that makes you happy.

John: yeah, its how i keep in touch with alot of my friends

Christy: Did you ever get the pictures your mother sent you through e-mail of my new hair cut?

John: no, dont think so, lemme check

Christy: Alright. Did you happen to get the handwritten letter I sent you regarding the pictures that were taken of the two of us over the summer while I was in California?

John: that i did, the one with the wallets?

Christy: Yes.

John: didnt get the email

Christy: Ok. Well it was nothing special. I just remembered that someone told me, probably your mom, that mom had sent you that e-mail. I could be wrong though. You know my memory.

John: may have been looked at as junk mail and sent to my bulk folder

Christy: That's always a possibility.

John: hey gonna go off to a friends for a bit, if your still on when i get back, ill talk to you then?

Christy: Ok. Before you go, would you like to see me on web cam?

John: sure

((see new picture on profile in order to see the same image he saw))

Christy: I may or may not be online when you come back. I don't leave my computer on all the time anymore. It's old and doesn't like that.

Christy: So what do you think?

John: nice

John: you look like youve lost more weight

Christy: I have and I'm a lot healthier than I used to be. Plus, my good grades from last semester helped to boost my spirits, so I smile more now.

Christy: I sent you an e-mail about that. I got all A's and one B.

John: yeah, 3.8 and dean's list

Christy: I guess blondes can be smart huh?

Christy: Haha

John: well my bud showed up so imma get off here now

John: lol

Christy: Later. Have fun and be good.

John: i will

John: ttyl