You know what? I had a whole long thing typed in here about the disappointing score I got on the math test today. I deleted it. To hell with it. I'm not wallowing in self-pity/hatred over this anymore. I'm gonna do as well as I can. I can't decide if that's apathy talking or resolve. The latter, I think. Or a mixture. But it is what it is. It'll be what it'll be. Quit yer bitchin'.

Tomorrow, there are going to be cats on campus. PAWS is holding a stressbuster event, and the cats will be here from 5-7pm. I am going up there at some point tomorrow, after I'm satisfied with how much I've built my vessel up (because I didn't get to the studio at all today and MUST work on it tomorrow, as it's due next Thursday and I won't be here for three full days) and playing with kittens.

Actually, that's a whole other problem. The vessels--the completed vessels--are due next Thursday. That means they have to be built and the slip has to be applied. The way I'm seeing it... neck of the vessel built tomorrow, very top built Tuesday when I get back, slip applied Wednesday. That's the schedule I HAVE to follow, or it won't be done. And I need to cut away part of the base, because the whole thing is slightly off-center, so that should be fun.

This week is almost over. Then, family. Going to give Mom a huge hug when she gets here. Uncle Arnie died yesterday, and she's had a stressful day getting everything together for his funeral. Momma needs a hug.

There was a sneaker/shoe/hat sale to raise money for one of the women's sports teams here (basketball, I think). I got a couple of hats and a pair of Skechers shoes. They're black and clunky. They have zippers on the side, though. I was completely taken by the zippers. 

If you ever see that a guy named Matt Glowacki is speaking somewhere, go see him. He's awesome and hilarious.

I'm still awake and not really tired, or at least not as tired as I should be. I want to skip religion so badly. ^^;; I have a headache right now. My eyes hurt. Possibly my body telling me to shut this thing down and turn the light off already. I'm just in a mood to stay awake, listen to music, maybe do something creative. I think after all the feeling down on myself, I want to cheer myself up, and the easiest way I know of is to work on personal projects. This isn't really the time for it, and if I don't go to sleep I risk sleeping through class. I'll stay awake until two. My watch will get me up at 9:30. If it doesn't, it's no big deal. We're only talking about writing field notes tomorrow, and I have the PDF on that.

EDIT: Oh, this is so cool.

The shoes I bought yesterday are called Tredds Interactive, and I was wondering about the "interactive" part. Turns out the zipper on the side of each shoe is an actual small pocket you can stick things in.

I'm getting the brown ones. XD The ones I got are black. The brown ones are actually less expensive, so yay!

HAND BOOK 2009

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, and prayer.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2008.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.


Personality:

11. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.


Society:

25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy.. So, be happy.

Last but not the least:

40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about.

I realized something today. And I mean really realized it, because I think I have said this before.

I'm content.

This is undoubtedly a result of the meds. I know it is, and I accept that. But I haven't come home in a bad mood, I haven't gotten TOO irritated at things (although it hits every once in a while, but that's expected), and my entire mood has gone through a serious shift. I don't have that urgent "must escape now" feeling I've been suffering from. Between the medication altering my mood (for the better of course) and having all that money in my account Wednesday (and the knowledge that, thanks to the retroactive pay increase and the increase I got for being below my salary grade's pay rate, I bring home $900 every two weeks), I'm content to stay where I am right now, and just save money and take classes here and there, take a trip or something. The current state of our economy doesn't hurt: At least with a state job, they can't let me go barring something REALLY ridiculous happening. If I were to go anywhere else, I could be dropped two weeks later. (And I could go back to my job since it wouldn't be past the six month mark yet, but I might as well just stay where I am.)

So, yeah. Is it a bad thing that it took an anti-depressant to make me feel better? ^^; It's working, and that's all that matters to me right now. Even Mom's noticed a total change in me.

Anyway, I'm getting tired, so I'm going to get something to nibble on before I get too tired. Shall keep myself awake for a bit by playing Bookworm.

So I was browsing NaNoWriMo's forums (because, really, what else do I look at online these days?) and happened into the Big, Fun, Scary forums to look at what everyone's planning to do for themselves over the course of this year. In a weight loss thread, someone mentioned SparkPeople, and several people agreed that it's a great site and they've lost weight since becoming members. I took a look around (FREE site, no restrictions on how much non-members can look at, yay!), and decided to sign up.

( My plan details and such. )

First, one thing to all the men out there: If you're going to ogle some woman's ass, don't make it so damn obvious. It's one thing when I see some guy walking and he passes a girl, and he turns around and glances. It's another thing entirely when my boss freaking STARES. I caught Kwesi looking at mine while I was talking to Cheresse. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and I really should've looked him dead in the face. He looked, started to turn away, and looked again. ARGH. Fucking pervert. Of course, that got me down again because I immediately went back to "didn't get the job for my brains" mode.

Anyway, the real point of this entry is this, from an e-mail sent to me today (took out certain contact info):

"Congratulations, you have been selected to take the Air Traffic Selection and Training (AT-SAT) test in the subject city. The test will be administered for the FAA by Robinson Aviation (RVA), Inc. We plan to administer this one day test between 10/1/2007 to 10/9/2007. In order to ensure a slot in the test, contact the AT-SAT Program Manager, or reply to this email with you current address and phone number not later than 9/10/2007.  Alternate location may be available.This email will be followed by a letter, once you confirm your slot, you do not need to confirm it a second time.  The letter simply insures that we do contact you. Alternate Locations are: Miami, Daytona Beach, & Jacksonville FL, Portland ME, and Harrisburg PA."

WHAT. How the HELL. All I have is clerical experience, how the hell does this happen?! I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, just... holy crap. I may be on my way out of office work. Air Traffic Control is a stressful job, but... eeee. I'm kinda excited about this. Mom's happy. ^____^ I'm going to see if I can take the test in Harrisburg. I applied for New Hampshire because it was the closest location (everything else was Florida and California and... somewhere else o_o). What would be really sweet would be if there are job opportunities in Harrisburg. Well, I don't know much about Harrisburg, so maybe not. It could be a hellhole. But it's not far from the house. Like, a few hours.

The whole thing about the test date means I may have to take time off work to get there, because only two of those dates are on the weekend. OOPS.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but this could be what I need. Hopefully I pass the thing...

Peter is freaking AWESOME. Once again, that show made me curse several times in one episode. Happens every episode and never gets old. The plot wrenches you in eighteen different directions and you just go along for the ride.

Anyway. Have finished Elebits, and now have to wait about an hour for it to upload to Megaupload. o_o I'd better get a million thank-yous for this, hehe. No one better be an audio snob, either. The tracks are all recorded at 192kbps, and they'll like it at 192kbps. I don't see anyone else ripping.

I was being totally completist about the whole thing last night. I would not let myself turn the game off before I'd gotten every track recorded. And technically it wasn't every track, since I'd already said I wasn't doing two of them. (Everyone that's interested in the music of the game has already bought or downloaded the official OST by now. They have those two songs. They won't miss them in my collection.) I haven't done that since the last time I stayed up late drawing/inking/CGing.

My birthday's coming up, next Thursday. I've decided that Age 25 is going to be a good one. I'm going to do better for myself. I'm going to work at getting myself a different job (although I like where I am in terms of the people I work with, I don't really want to be there for too much longer than a year... I told Kwesi during the interview I didn't plan on leaving within a couple years or so, but at that point it was about doing anything to get the job and get me the HELL out of Tax), I'm going to break this evil 6-month creativity blockage I've got going. I'm going to keep saving my change, because I've already got over a hundred dollars in silver coins and I'm steadily adding to it. The money will not be put in the bank. If I put it in either account, it will get spent. It'll sit out and be like the $300 I pulled out last year sometime. I took that stuff out, put it in my armoire, and didn't touch it. Out of sight, out of mind.

This is the last (albeit small) milestone age I'm going to have before 30, so I have to make this one count.