Thursday August 27

I wasn't entirely sure I'd have time to write here today, my Thursday's are jam packed. I have 4 classes and not a lot of time in-between. I'm done by 4:30, but I'm usually so brain dead by that time I usually just go home and fall into a semi-coma while watching Dexter. Good times.

Lately, though, my Monday's and Wednesday's have been pretty tedious too. At work on Monday I just did data entry and on Wednesday, I finished the data entry, but they didn't really have anything else for me, so they told me to read up on some of the studies the analysis center I work at does... i.e. busy work. I guess busy work is better than super hard work, but I couldn't help but get the notion that the time could have been better spent. I don't go back until Monday, though, so hopefully they will have something for me by then. One study, though, about the NM film industry was pretty interesting and I will have more to say on that one later.

Schoolwise, things are certainly starting to pick up. I have a micro theory homework assignment that has been looming over my head for a few days now, but I'm just now starting to get to it. It took me a few days to accurately remember my calculus and even then I'm not totally sure. Today, I was given an Excel assignment that is due the same day as the micro. I think I need to buy a copy of Excel. Two policies are conflicting here though: one is to stay away from Microsoft as much as possible, but the second is to stay away from campus as much as possible. Yes, the Open Office spreadsheet function is free, but it isn't nearly as good as Excel and doesn't do the math functions in quite the same way. I'm all about efficiency this semester, so I think I need to just buckle down and buy it. Hopefully somebody has it as a stand alone so I don't have to shell out hundreds of bucks for the whole Office program.

Tuesday August 25

I'm really in the thick of it now. I started my new job yesterday, I only work 10 hours a week from 12-5 on Monday and Wednesday, but with my school schedule, that's plenty. I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing when I walked in and when I walked out yesterday, I still couldn't say with certainty what it is I'm actually doing. Yesterday I was just doing data entry for the whole 5 hours. I know, it sounds glamorous, but it was actually quite tedious. Not as bad as scan-pulls at Hastings though, those are tedious beyond compare. From what I could deduce, I'm sort of a free agent, they don't really have me working on any one particular project, rather, just random things from various projects that are already going on. Yeah, I'm moving up in the world.

I was, however, somewhat impressed with myself on the way in this morning. The last few mornings, the freeway has been an absolute bitch, especially the exit that goes to the university. Traffic on the school roads has been terrible too, mostly because of those damn pedestrians who don't like to watch where they are going. I don't recall such a problem last semester and it almost made me late on Thursday. Today, however, I was smarter than the traffic and took all the back roads to get where I needed to go. That is a certain advantage NMSU has over UNM, there are about 4 ways to get anywhere you need to go and if you are smart, you can get places without too much trouble. My commute in wasn't quite an epic success, because I would have liked to have been able to park closer, but I'm not one to complain about NMSU parking, it's a freaking delight compared to UNM.

As I mentioned, my first class got cancelled today which really helps me out a lot, 3 classes as opposed to 4 makes a huge difference.

Monday August 24

When I was on the elliptical runner this morning I happened to catch a quick diet segment where they were discussing the Time article I mentioned a week or so ago that so thoroughly annoyed me, the one that said it might be a myth that exercise is important in weight loss. My contention was, due to the lack of any discussion on metabolism, the article was crap. Thankfully, the Today show contributors seemed to agree with me for the reasons that I stated. Not much, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get at least a little bit of smug satisfaction out of it. They also mentioned something else, something that I already knew but needed to hear again, diet soda could wreck a diet and throw off your appetite. My consumption of diet soda (in all it's variations) has increased exponentially over the last few years, so has my sweet tooth. Obviously they are related and it is definitely something worth thinking about more.

Had a pretty decent weekend, did something that I've never done before and always used to make fun of my brother for doing years ago, went to the movie solo. I wanted to see Inglorious Basterds, but my usual movie partners are hundreds of miles away, so I really had no other options. I wouldn't say it was a bad experience. I've always thought that movies were bad social outings anyway simply because you sit in a dark room and can't talk to each other, but it still never felt quite right being there alone, even if there were other solos. Its something I can get used to and I might make more of a habit of it... or I might not... we'll see how it goes. I've decided to stop making these grand pronouncements about how my life is going to be from now on. I need to learn to take things from moment to moment.

Episode 2 (season 3) of Mad Men last night wasn't a particularly interesting one, rather, I think it was a set-up episode for things that will happen in the future. Two key events: one the date of Roger Sterling's daughter's wedding was revealed to be November 23. I noticed the date and thought it was a bit odd, but the significance didn't hit me until I read about it later, November 23rd is the day that Kennedy was assassinated. That is obviously going to be the key historical event this season and a really, really BAD day to get married.

The second event was the last scene of the episode where the Draper family was at Sally's field day. Would almost seem like a throw away scene, but Don was staring awfully hard at the teacher with somewhat hippyish looks... and feeling around in the grass. I suspect California is on his mind again. Who knows where that will lead.

First day at my job today. I will report back on that later.

Saturday August 22

I did something novel yesterday, an evening workout. I went to the gym at about 7 and as far as I can remember, I have never gone that late before. 5ish maybe, but never 7. I actually had a pretty good workout, which was amazing since I usually don't when I go at times that are out of the ordinary. This was spur of the moment decision that I made when I decided I didn't want to sit at home and feel pathetic on Friday night. Granted, it isn't a GREAT way to spend my Friday night, but its something, right? Right?

A few weeks ago I bought the Firefly series and now that I'm almost done with it, I can say with honesty that it is a fucking crime what they did to that show! Some episodes were just alright, but others were near-brilliant. "Out of Gas", for example, is how a tv show should be done. It's a damn damn shame.

Friday August 21

I suppose I should say a few words about the first day of school: to sum it up, I would say it was alright. Not great, but not terrible.

The day started off kind of strange. I made a complete and total time miscalculation and was very nearly late to class the first day. I didn't quite anticipate the line of traffic being backed up from the school all the way to the off-ramp. Good thing I know the back ways and exactly where I was going or I would have been really, really late. I should have known better, but hey, sometimes I'm not as smart as I pretend to be.

Of course it ultimately didn't matter, the professor was late himself, which knowing what I know about this guy, didn't surprise me at all. Just another day at the NMSU grad school, right? After going to all the classes, though, I concluded 3 things:

first: only one of my classes should involve a serious amount of work. This is good because my schedule is going to be a little more pressed as it is, but I still think it's going to get fairly busy due simply to the fact that I have 4 classes this semester and a job.

two: probably won't know for sure if I made the right decision about switching concentrations until the end of the semester, at which point, it will probably be too late. I made my bed, now I have to lie in it.

three: still haven't been able to get an accurate read on my classmates. I don't know if they think I'm some joke weirdo or.... uh.... something better? I don't know. Maybe I will never know.

Thursday August 20

Some people just never learn from their mistakes and by some people, I mean Congressional Democrats. Rich Lowry said it on Fox yesterday and I totally agree, they are making the same mistake with health care that they made several years ago with Clinton's plan, ramming too much too quickly down the throats of Americans. Different tactically yes, but the same basic problem.

What is this fascination some people have with trying to change the world over night? One of America's finest qualities, I think, is that it doesn't respond well to rapid change. Slow, steady change is the way to go, and make it much more likely to stick long-term . What they should have done, and what I mistakenly thought they were going to do, is do a health care overhaul piece by piece and before people realize, bang, socialized medicine. But I think I give those morons in Congress too much credit. I used to think that it took some sort of special intelligence to be a high ranking official with our government, but now I realize that the truly smart people stay out of that business completely.

Like they say, politics is Hollywood for ugly people.

But enough of that, more practically, I start school here in a few hours. I only have class on Tuesday and Thursday, 4 classes each day, and I'm starting to think that it might be a mistake to try and cram so much into one day. Not that I had that much choice, mind you, but I probably could have found a way around it.

A nice thing about it, though, is that it gives me a good, solid, block of time for my new job, which I got the run down on yesterday. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing, but it's in the policy analysis center, so I assume I'm going to be doing..... uh...... policy analysis? I met my boss (although I use the term loosely, he looks to be about 26 haha) and set my schedule and now everything seems to be rolling.

I think part of the reason I was in such a pissy mood the other night was the uncertainty of the new semester. See what a little bit of anxiety does to me? But now that things are a bit more clear, I feel pumped, primed and ready to take on the world.

Tuesday August 18 part II

Fall 2009.... The List

1) Clean up this fucking disgrace of an apartment

2) Get my fat ass to lose some weight... a goal of sub-200 by the end of the semester

3) A new wardrobe... I fucking hate everything I own

4) Cut soda consumption in half.... my teeth are stained and eventhough it's mostly diet, I don't think that much can be good for me

5) Read two books a month

6) Send fewer bitchy emo texts to people about how pathetic I am

Tuesday August 18

Been longer than I thought since I've written in here. I should stop trying to force it and just do it whenever I feel like, but I always feel the need to have some sort of consistent schedule when writing in the blog.

Anyway, a busy few days:

The big news, first of all, is that I'm back in Las Cruces to start the new semester. I had a fairly easy trip down and stopped in Albuquerque for a few hours and saw an old friend of mine from UNM that I haven't seen in years. Our relationship was almost becoming a joke in that we text each other almost every day, yet, never saw each other, even when we lived in the same town. Such is the nature of 21st century friendship, I guess.

My last few days in Farmington were fairly eventful, seeing people and whatnot. We had a minor crisis on Sunday morning when we realized the basement had some water damage. This is probably the 4th or 5th flood we've had down there and having to haul some water damaged stuff out to the dump was not quite how I wanted to spend my last day in Farmington, but I guess it's better than being a lazy bum.... which I did on Saturday. My mom took the whole thing less than heroically, but that is her nature. The flood combined with one of my brothers leaving for the first time caused nearly a full-scale nervous breakdown, although the rest of us suspect that my brother leaving played a much larger part. She'll be ok though.... I hope anyway.

Friday August 14

Had a pretty fun day yesterday. Hastings was chosen (right word?) to work the concession stand for the local bigtimeevent baseball game last night and I was volunteered by the store manager to work in it. I've worked in a concession stand before. No big deal there. It was kind of fun to work with my co-workers in a different setting. I could have, however, done without the snootiness of the regular workers who mocked my inability to know the price of frito pies off the top of my head. I'm sure they couldn't tell you the price of a movie (with tax) off our best renter wall either.

We got out about 9:45 and I was tempted to just go home, but I was badgered into going to the bowling ally to hang out with a few people afterward. I had a drink, which was strange, because a lot of these people had never seen me drink before. I also bowled, which was fun, and I'm glad to know that I STILL suck at bowling. All-in-all, I'm glad I went.

For some strange reason yesterday, in my idle moments, I was reading my mom's Time magazine and read two interesting articles. The first was the review of Amy Adam's new movie Julie and Julia. A somewhat uninteresting review as a whole, but had this little nugget:

There are the memoirists like Child who write about what made them famous, or infamous. There are unremarkable people who write about a remarkable thing that happened to them. And there is the 21st century memoirist who makes him or herself interesting in order to write about it.

So, so true. This is sort of the peril of the Internet age. On one hand, anybody willing to do something stupid can become famous. On the other hand, ANYBODY WILLING TO DO SOMETHING STUPID CAN BECOME FAMOUS. Oh, what a world.

The second article was the cover story "The Myth About Exercise". What they basically did here was cram 3 paragraphs worth of story into about 5 pages. The basic idea is that heavy exercise may be counter productive to weight loss because it causes us to eat more afterwards. Like oh so many popular magazine stories, this one seems to get the facts right, but misses the point entirely. Not once during this whole article was the word metabolism used. It even used that old canard about how if you eat ____ (in this case, a muffin) you would need to do ____ minutes of ____ exercise. That may be true as far as it goes, but without bringing metabolism into account, which is increased by physical activity, you are totally missing a huge part of the equation. People who work out a lot burn more calories in the course of everything they do, not just the work out itself.

Thursday August 13

I keep telling myself to do this in the morning or else I will run out of steam and not do it at all. That's what Success Magazine told me, anyway. Get the creative juices flowing early. It does seem that I think of a lot more crazy shit when I write in the blog in the morning as opposed to the afternoon, but I was so groggy when I woke up this morning, who the hec knows what I would have written.

I'm feeling old. I'm tired, my body aches and worst of all, I really have nothing to show for it. If I was busting my ass in the gym, like I am, and having it take a toll on my body, but I still looked great, it would be worth it. I don't though. My weight hasn't dropped a pound. Maybe I'm a little leaner, I don't know, but certainly not enough for it to be worth it. My eating habits have been the problem. Always have been, especially when I'm at home and don't usually do my own cooking. That's the one thing I'm almost kinda sorta looking forward too when I get back to Cruces on Monday, having an easier time modifying my eating habits.

190, that's my goal. My arms are looking pretty lean, and that's good, but I still have a flabby stomach. I guess pizza, Chinese food and Taco Bell will do that to you.

I watched two movies yesterday, I Love You, Man and Fragments (aka Winged Creatures). The first one was pretty funny, the second I'm not sure I understand. Fragments had two Oscar winners and another nominee yet it was kind of an uninteresting movie. Forest Whitaker has made some strange post-Oscar choices, but he's trying, and thankfully hasn't yet gone down the Cuba Gooding Jr. road to oblivion.

Wednesday August 12

Didn't write a blog entry yesterday. I didn't have much to say, but the real reason was that I just didn't want to. Been working too hard lately, tired and grumpy. Work hasn't been too bad though, less stressful. I think it's because I'm squarely in the "I'm leaving soon, I don't give a fuck" mood. Strange place to be. I've quit jobs before, but I don't think I've ever felt that way at any of the other ones. Perhaps that's a good sign that my days at Hastings are done for good this time.

Oh well. Onward and upward, right?

You know what would be cool? To own a deli. I was watching this show on the Travel channel last night, which was a big mistake, btw, it just made me really hungry, and if you have a good one, you can make tons of money. But what do I know about sandwiches, right? Pipe dream Brian pipe dream.

Had a discussion at Starbucks yesterday about the futility of thinking too hard about the future. If I had to guess, I would say that roughly 10% of our lives are under our direct control. Things happen to us and we have to operate around or within that structure of the universe. What's the point of worrying so much about the future when it will, by and large, take care of itself?

Monday August 10

A close then open the next day is always kind of a bitch. Everything always starts out good, but around 12 or 1, the fatigue sinks in and I start to get grumpy. Yesterday, though, while tired, everything went pretty smoothly. I did have this group, whom I call the moron brigade, come in and sell us more videos. They all look straight out of Gangland and act like a bunch of damned idiots while in our store. One, the guy who seems to be the leader, openly admitted he was out on parole. Another said he went to (alternative school for bad kids) High School. I'm not sure what the 3rd ones story is, but I'm sure he's done something. The brigade curses in our store (loudly), is boorish and, what annoys me the most, deliberately sets off our alarms over and over again. Ugh.

Later that evening I went and was G.I. Joe. I knew it was going to be bad, and it was, really, really bad. So bad, in fact, that it was almost entertaining. Almost. People in the audience were certainly laughing, but NOT because it was funny. The plot was stupid, the premise more so, the characters were horribly undeveloped and the dialogue was terrible. So naturally, it will make millions of dollars and have 2 or 3 sequels.

Sunday August 9

The close in books last night went pretty smoothly. Saturday nights can sometimes be a strange thing down at the store, we usually aren't as busy as we are on Friday night, rather, it's steadier through the whole day. However, the crowd on Saturday is always a really late one. Especially in my magazine section. They come in around 10-10:30 and seem to forget where they picked up a magazine just two minutes before and simply put it wherever they were standing at the time. Nice. Thanks.

I decided to chance my approach this time around. The way I usually close the department is doing magazines last, but I always end up in a grumpy mood that way. I decided this time, however, to do the super tedious stuff, and the stuff that is usually in the worst shape, first. It didn't really make any time difference, as I got out the same time I usually do, but saving the easiest stuff for last is probably the best way to do it.

That, and I decided I don't really care anymore how good my close is. That's always been part of my problem, I let perfect be the enemy of good. I figure if the book manager is going to have a problem with my close regardless of how good it is, what's the point of even trying to do it perfect?

I watched one movie yesterday, The Counterfeiters, the 2007 Best Foreign Picture winner at the Oscars. I walked right into this trap. I didn't really read the description before I got it and when I started to watch it I found out that it was......... wait for it......... a Nazi movie. The fact that Nazi movies, almost regardless of quality, are considered serious Oscar contenders right out of the gate is one of the most annoying things the Academy does. The Reader? Best Picture? Yuck. Anyway, this one wasn't too bad, certainly an interesting piece of history and an interesting moral dilemma... you are a Jewish counterfeiter, a master, and the only way to stay alive is by counterfeiting foreign currency, which also finances the Nazi war effort. What do you do? The movie was alright as far as it goes, but I somehow doubt that is the best foreign film they could have come up with.

I'm about to go to work again. Those close then open can be a bitch and by 12 or 1 I'm a total crab. All of my epic customer service fails, in fact, have been after I had opened that day after closing the previous. Crossing fingers for a smooth day today. But then again, I still don't care, so I don't foresee any problems.

Saurday August 8

Garage sales are an interesting cultural phenomenon aren't they? Why do people have them? Rarely do they ever make any sort of meaningful dent in their junk piles, nor do they ever make any money. They take lots of time and effort, not to mention you always have to get up freaking early in the morning. They also have a way of irritating your neighbors, espeically when the people who go to the garage sales think it's a good idea to park in front of the neighbor's driveway or in the middle of the street.

Another question is why people actually go to garage sales. I guess the idea is to save money, but I figure if you needed the item badly enough, you would buy it retail anyway and you wouldn't have bought it at all if you hadn't seen it at the garage sale. Sounds like that would waste more money than save it. Mabye 1% of the time is there truely something worth having a garage sale, most of the time, it's just a transfer of junk from one garage to another.

I had Friday off, which was nice because I rarely do. This will change once school starts again, though, when I will have way more days off than I will on, including Friday. But this summer it has been a novelty. I didn't really do anything interesting, most just sat around and watched movies. I watched REC, which is a Spanish original of the American movie Quarantine. I was undecided which one I actually was going to see, but I figure, go with the original, right? I liked it, and since I heard they are almost exactly the same, I see no real need to see the American. I also watched The Hudsucker Proxy by the Cohen Brothers. Strange flick, but good. Very much a Cohen Brothers movie.

Friday August 7

Friday Friday Friday. Usually, Friday doesn't mean much to me because I work weekends, but today, I actually have a Friday off. Well, I didn't technically, but somebody wanted my shift, so I happily gave it to them... good times. I guess I shouldn't say usually. When I'm in school I always have weekends off, if I wanted them off, that is. I usually had something to do on the weekends, so I guess it wasn't really off, was it?

It looks like Vanessa Hudgens has another naked picture on the internet scandal. That's the second one in 2 years now. You would think somebody who likes being naked, as she obviously does, would be a little more careful. I guess her Blackberry got hacked or something this time and the naked pictures got sent out. Seriously? What kind of person, especially one whose privacy is constantly under attack, would keep naked pictures of themselves on their phone. Strange, strange girl.

Yesterday I watched Revolution, the train wreck of a movie that nearly cost Al Pacino his career back in 1985. The interesting part about this was they did an interview afterward with Pacino and the director (I forget who, some hack) and they still didn't see anything fundamentally wrong with the movie. They still thought it was good, just lacking in certain areas they couldn't fix because it was so rushed by the studio. Lame man. The movie was bad in a lot of areas, particularly the story. It was all over the place and had NO consistency at all. Oh Al, you make such great movies, but why must you torture your fans with crap like this?

Thursday August 6

Went in to work last night to help somebody out who needed the night off. The shift started out ok, but I'm such a ditz and a social retard that the night quickly went to hell. Part of the problem is the fact that corporate is putting the squeeze on us too much and we just can't do the job that they expect us to do in the time they expect us to do it with the amount of people they expect us to do it with. It is simple math.

I also worked with this certain team leader that I always seem to screw up in front of. Actually, I screw up regardless of who it is anymore. I used to be good at my job and go several shifts without screwing up, but not anymore. I don't even really know how valuable an asset I am to this company anymore.

But the bottom line is this, I'm ready to move on again. I liked the job before, but not now and I think the only thing I'm going to miss about it is all the friends I'm going to leave behind.

----

Watched the movie Cinemania yesterday. It's a documentary about really, really intense movie buffs. They have no jobs, no friends (besides the other people like themselves) and they basically plan their lives around going to see movies and they can see almost 1,000 a year. That's more than Roger Ebert and he's paid to see a bunch of movies! What a horrible life that would be, to have such a compulsion.

Morning pages August 5, 2009

I closed in the books department last night. I hate doing that. Something about closing shifts always makes me cranky and if I'm already in a bad mood about something, watch out. Part of it is just the utter tediousness of it, every single book in the store, and there are thousands, has not only a section, but a sub-section, and often times a row. An exact spot. Nice when you are trying to find something fast, but pure 100% torture when you are trying to put them away. It's not so much an issue of just stocking, you eventually learn right where the big name authors (Steven King, Janet Evanovich, John Grisham, etc) go, even where some of their specific books go, but its the fact that you can find stacks of books that have been misplaced by customers in the wrong place that can get really, really unnerving.

Magazines are even worse. I don't know how in the hell there can be a market for such a thing, but we have at least 15 tattoo magazines and people always (and I do mean ALWAYS) put them where they don't belong. Then there are other magazines, magazines on subjects you couldn't possibly imagine. The teen magazines with the same 4 people on every cover (Hillary Duff, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart and the horrible Robert Pattinson). Recently I've also noticed a new face popping up everywhere, Selena Gomez. Who is she? What does she even do? Magazines are the absolute bane of my existence at Hastings.

Closing books is such a huge job. I could start at 8:30 and still not be done until 11:30. It's almost too big of a job for one person to alone, so naturally, they only have one person doing it. I try to be efficient and not have it take quite so long, but every little thing I miss gets found and I get called out on. It's easy to be a department manager and criticize the work of the closers, they never have to actually do it. Neither do the guys who work at corporate office.

There is one universal truth to retail, though. It is hard to make people who earn 8 dollars an hour care about anything.

Tuesday August 4th

Sometimes I'm not sure what it is that I feel anymore. I must be bi-polar because I'm all over the place. One minute I'm mad the next I'm depressed and the next I'm level. It's an exhausing cycle. Often times I find myself wishing I could just go numb to the world, a Don Draper or Dexteresqe level of escape. I know that's probably not the best way to do it, and I'm not sure how it would be done, but this sort of basketcase existence doesn't work for me anymore.

For a while I thought it was the job, retail can be a frustrating as hell environment, but I'm starting to realize that it might just be a symptom of some bigger life issue. This cloud seems to follow me wherever I go.

I'm way too open about myself. I'm often prone to going on these incredibly emotional and sometimes passive aggressively angry rants to people I don't even know. THAT IS NOT HEALTHY. People are nice about it, but I know deep down it irritates them. I know it certainly would me. I can't do that anymore. I feel a little too much.

Sunday August 2

Things happen in your life. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are bad and they always, even if it is slight, leave an impact on your life. When dealing with your personal past, you can do one of two things, face it or run from it. I've been doing nothing but facing it for the last few years and it really hasn't gotten me much, maybe it is time to run.

Part of my problem is that I'm too open. I leave no room for mystery or the imagination. That needs to change.