The B-Side (aka. my mood piece)

Man I'm tired. And I hate not having a car. On the bright side, Conference is good so far. I only fell asleep once, and I felt really bad. So now I'm in desperate need of a nap, I have no car and my parents have taken the van to my house to look at my car, and I really am feeling guilty at even the thought of a nap when my chemistry homework needs to be done this weekend and I have a test Wednesday. Or Thursday. The point is that I only have the weekend and Monday before I go back to work, and Monday I have too many classes to do much homework. What I really need is caffeine right now, but I have no car to accommodate said caffeine. Dave says I shouldn't have caffeine, and that I should be taking vitamin B pills instead. Whatever David. I really just need a break, only I haven't applied myself enough to deserve one. I need a break from my breaks.
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I'm listening to the Polyphonic Spree right now. Kind of random, but they are a happy bunch of people if nothing else. I think that helped. And I changed my template settings, just for the heck of it. I think I like these better.

My car is now fixed, but in Salt Lake, so I have to take Traxx to get back to it. I think I want to go to Graywhale right now. I love their selection of music you rarely find in places other than the internet. I really shouldn't buy myself things to put myself in a better mood, but I do enjoy it so. And music puts me in a better mood than most things. I need to start doing plasma again so I don't feel guilty buying random things, now that I have so many expenses. A little bit of blood money to pay for things; plus I think it's pretty funny how my parents react to it.

So much for writing daily. Ever since my off week started I haven't been around a computer on a regular basis. I've mainly been just chillin' though. I've been bringing my homework everywhere, like old times, but I haven't gotten as much done as I should, considering my first O Chem test is on Wednesday, or Thursday? But I haven't been doing much. My car broke down again, which makes me sad because I love that car. I can't even be mad at this one, like my old new car. I really should be more stressed now. Instead I'm kind of just coasting. Thankfully I'm going to dinner with my sisters tonight, so I will be less bored, and this weekend is Conference Weekend!! I love Conference. It's my favorite time of year, twice a year. But I like Fall better. And breakfast. So now I'm stuck in So Jo for the weekend; I took Traxx down here, and here is where I have access to a car. I figure I'll be doing a lot of errands, instead of my homework, but it's when I'm down here that I go to the library, and check the internet, and print off my homework...but I rarely have time to take my time. So it's too good of an opportunity to pass up.

I really haven't posted for a while; so much for more often. My off week hits and I have no internet though. I'm at the Marriot now, in the underground Microsoft portion of the library I just discovered--the rest of the library is plagued by Macs.

So I was talking with my roommates last night about how this semester sugar has been the major staple of all of us. Right now my leg is shaking because I'm high on caffeine and I'm worrying about my O Chem lab tonight. I still have to write my post-lab. This stupid lab stresses me out more than I can say--if I didn't have it I wouldn't be nearly as stressed out for my other two classes, which are actually worth something. Turns out I don't even really need this lab to apply to my program. That was a sad day when a friend pointed that out to me. I mean, if I go onto medical school I'll need it, but who knows if I will at this point. I just want to be done at this point.

So I guess there will be short stories here after all, where they can't be avoided. It's hard to write about feelings when you can't vent about situations. And I'm so over the blue font...for now.

Yesterday I seriously thought I was falling off the edge of the world. The things I thought would push me over didn't actually (school), but a lot of other unexpected stuff happened...work stuff; stuff that I'm okay with now, but yesterday I was 2 steps away from breaking down. I felt upset, panicked, angry...but more than anything else I just felt helpless; and while indifference was definitely not on my list of feelings, I was at the almost point past caring. You know, the point where you feel you tried as hard as you possibly could have, and it still wasn't enough, so you just don't feel like trying any more.

Anyway, my Genetics test was not as horrible as I thought. I knew I wouldn't ace the thing, but I am surprised by how much I knew. Basically, I knew enough that I enjoyed taking the test, regardless of how I did on it. I tend to panic in situations where I'm lost and/or have no plan, so really I was just worried about how I would feel looking at an exam without knowing how to get to point B. But I do freakishly enjoy taking tests, and the more prepared I am, the more I enjoy it. So all that was pleasantly unexpected within my day, but before that point I was running on no sleep,and I was at my mellowist moment. Anxiety tends to counter-effect caffeine apparently.

Phase two of my story: Upon arriving back at work my supervisor, Micro Manager, was at our bench. He's this very Southern, good natured but too-anal-about-things-to-be-as-laid-back-as-he-seems, guy. I've never seen him not smiling, even while making suggestions that are basically code for, "I say so, so it goes." But he's becoming the area manager, and he's been really stressed lately, so I unfortunately was on the receiving end of his breaking point. Before my test not much was going on, and I had gotten to work at 12:30 am to get everything that was going, well...going; my main reason was so I could skip out and go upstairs and study for a couple of hours before I went to take my test. My co-worker (who is actually the person on the other week, because Leon had some council thing to go to for this council he's on) had my number, and I told her, "If you need anything, I'll just be upstairs, so call me and I'll come back down." I thought this reasonable, since I was clocked out while I was upstairs. I then came down to check on things right before I left, and all was as it should be. Two hours later when I came back, things had gone horribly awry. An allergen cap had been dispensed wrong and got caught in one of the wheels on the instrument, and that stopped everything from processing. At least 500 tests were ruined. My co-worker was off training for one of the new instruments she'll be working with (basically everything in our department is changing, and even my role will be affected by cross-training pretty soon), and no one had told me she would be. I guess where I'm getting at is that Micro basically blamed me for what happened. He was ticked off that I had been upstairs without okaying it by him first, even though he wasn't even at work at that point, making that possibility a null one. And I wasn't about to skip my test, one that he knew about, to babysit an instrument because of this 1 in a 1000 chance that something bad would happen, which naturally decided to happen.

With this whole situation I kind of just felt like...I've been trying so hard to do what he wanted me to do--namely not doing my homework at work--and he had said they'd be willing to work with me when it came to school--namely that I'd be able to at least clock out and do my homework when necessary--but when it came down to it I was taking all the effort and no one was keeping their end of the bargain. Talk about a bunk system. And I was thrown by the onslaught. I couldn't even really respond to his berating. Then he just kind of went into a meeting, and I went on lunch. At this point I vented a little to Sheidi, and was ultimately less upset after lunch than before. Then before I left for the day I pulled him aside and basically said, 'I left my number, everything was fine right before I left, and I couldn't have missed my test.' He said, "I know," and he was back to not being a jerk, so I'm willing to put it aside and largely forget about it at this point. I think he ultimately knew it wasn't my fault, but I do think I'll have to be cautious from now on. He's the kind of guy who second guesses everything, so I never feel he has much confidence in me, or any of us. I hate that. And I'm guessing that some brown-nosing will be necessary for a while here.

It's really early in the morning. My roommates are still on last night's schedule. I just spent my sleeping hours studying for a test I know I won't do well on. Kind of an interesting feeling. I don't care enough to push myself to my breaking point, but the subject matter is interesting enough (and I'm curious enough) that I want to understand it anyway, even if it's not as fluently as I could wish. I guess that will help me on my future tests in the class, because I won't get as far behind. But it's amazing how much you can learn when there's no stress. I guess there's a little, but I'm a perfectionist, so if I know I can't do it perfectly I have trouble making myself do anything. I'm currently working on a schedule that will utilize my time to the fullest extent, and sadly am enough of a nerd to be really excited about this plan of practically isolating myself from natural daylight.

So my test is in little less than 12 hours. After that I get to head back down to civilization and see people I've started to really miss hanging out with. Then after that I put my plan into action. I still have stuff planned to keep me from going crazy, but I'm going to know Genetics and Organic Chemistry inside and out if it kills me.
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That is my line of time for those who don't know. I just thought of something though. Pinkie asked why I need another blog. I guess the main reason is so that I can write stuff that's completely unimportant to all but myself. Not that anything I ever do write is anything but that, however, I like to humor myself. Anyway, I think all the posts here have dealt pretty much exclusively with school. Very boring and monotonous. But I need to vent, and this is it. So much is changing in my life right now, and it's easier to get a better look at it in writing, where I'm detaching myself ever so slightly. There will probably be more frustration expressed, and happiness too. Ultimately, any little bit of creativity that I contain will come across in my other blog, but here I refuse to have any such expectations.

It's Thursday. Obviously. I'll have to update the saga of how work is becoming more and more painful to deal with lately (which I will do on my other one, which was bound to happen after 3 years. Main point: I can't do homework at work anymore. That's one of the reasons I took the job 3 years ago, but things have changed, and my manager is trying to become a dictator. A friendly dictator, but how friendly can a dictator be? Anyway, I'm going to have to creatively arrange my schedule so I'm utilizing every spare minute I have towards studying. That's not to say people shouldn't invite me places still, if they feel so inclined--I'll need the releases. But I do need to buckle down and work hard. Partly because I really am not at all prepared for my Genetics test tomorrow. I know they're only going to get harder, so dropping this one isn't ideal, but with everything at work turning upside-down, my car deciding not to work, and just random other things here and there (such as me not studying as uniformly as I should have at the beginning of this unit)...I'll just have to commit to doing what I need to so I can do really well on everything else. It definitely sucks for my perfectionistic nature to give into failure so quickly, but I've been trying to make myself care for the last week, and I can't do it for this test. I need to change some things first, and it unfortunately will take longer than I have.

So for now I need to get back to work, so I can leave early, then I'll go home and study so I at least can understand Genetics as much as I need to in order to not get behind for the next test.

So why would a person create another blog when they don't really have anything of importance to write about in the first place? Or seemingly the time to do so?

I can't really say, other than that it gives me the leverage to switch up things a bit. For starters, I really don't like the word "blog." If you're going to make up a word, make it sound cool. Like the guy who make up the word "malapropism," or "behoove"...or "kife, which isn't really a word, but is definitely still fun to say. So I guess I'll consider this a record? Roughly at least, because I don't really plan on including long stories here; so for those of you who refuse to read my "blog" because it's too long, you'll have to come up with another excuse not to read this one. So I guess it's not a record of events, but more of my thoughts and opinions? Only time will tell.