Self-discovery and some reminiscing of a sort

It's Memorial Day weekend and school starts again tomorrow. I've yet to even think about how I'm going to go about organizing my class work this summer, but I know it's going to be vigorous.

I'm turning twenty five next week and I lose my insurance with my parents. Fortunately for me, I've bought myself some more of that nifty insurance stuff that I probably don't even need anyway because I rarely get myself seriously hurt or sick enough that I have to see a doctor. I see my doctor maybe once a year for annual check-ups. Otherwise, I don't even see the doctor's parking lot at all for a long time. My immune system is in tip-top shape, and I can take care of myself just fine when I get sick.

But back to my utterly insignificant ramblings...

A lot of thoughts come into your mind when you least expect them to. For me, they happen when you've got a lot to think about and a lot of time to let your mind think. Random things come to mind whenever I simply sit and play Minesweeper on the computer. Even more random thoughts happen as I'm showering.

Worse yet, today I've realized just how much of a caring and compassionate person that I... well, that I'm not.

It's Memorial Day weekend and it's a chance for all families to get together, visit the graves and have a picnic or barbeque. I go walking with my friend, then I visit my grandparents' graves with my family and everything feels so obligated and meaningless.

For a few dull, odd minutes, my parents debated over which side of grandma's nameplate to stand on to be correct. To the side, an old man stood before another grave and bowed his head in respect as he was probably thinking about old times and remembering things about his deceased loved one. Back to grandma's grave, my parents are now discussing my grandmother's true age because, after all, let's face it, all Asian women who'd come to America will falsify their age at some point in time. And apparently, my grandmother was one of them.

Dad wanted to make sure we knew that.

After our simple little visit, we walked away and my parents end up discussing why there's a particular tombstone that is shaped oddly like a bench with only one name inscribed into it. My dad conveniently points out that another grave nearby belongs to the guy of the same name on the bench and Mom wonders why someone would want to put a bench in the middle of a cemetery anyway.

Dad says that people donate to the funeral home and get their names carved in places. For instance, some trees were donated and little plaques are set up next to them to indicate exactly who had done this nice deed for the home.

So there's my lovely little life in a nutshell of reminiscing about deceased loved ones. To make matters more interesting, the one major thing that I actually notice about my grandfather's grave when he'd visited him (at another cemetery earlier) was that his tombstone was leaning very far forward. But it's okay, right? Because all of the other tombstones are also leaning very far forward.

Dad says it's to make them look ancient or to depict which graves are older than others.

But you know, I'm not sure how much of what Dad said today was really just guesses, cause I'm sure landscaping has a lot to do with how the tombstones are put down...

But anyway, enough about depressing cemetery conversation between my parents.

In a nutshell, it just seems as if I found the conversation much more amusing over realizing that Memorial Day is supposed to have meaning behind it. Instead, I find no meaning behind anything anymore.

I've discussed this with my friend. There are no holidays out there that have any meaning for me. None of them actually do anything for me at all. Nothing holds meaning for me and it's not just about the holidays or whatnot.

I've found that sometimes I can be completely indifferent to my friends' cries for attention and help. Sometimes whenever they talk, I just don't care. Whenever some other acquaintances seem to have issues piling up in their laps, I just don't care. Whenever people I know seem to be breaking down and having a hard time... well, again, I simply just don't care.

I don't care enough to listen and I don't care enough to offer my condolences, nonetheless offer a shoulder to cry on or a false promise of "Let me know what I can do to help you." Because sometimes those words are said hollowly anyway and you expect that 99 percent of the time, you won't be told if there's really something that you can do to help.

I don't offer any of that because I know for a fact that there is never anything that can be done to help or to make things better.

And in my mind, people love to lay out their problems to the world anyway. I've always said it: People love to glorify their misery. Drama is a true best friend to many, especially a lot of women. It's a sad thing to admit, but it's the truth. But don't get me started on that soap box of opinions.

Simply put, I'm just a horrible, horrible little person.

I mean, just the other day, I was talking to my best friend and telling her about that guy I have a crush on who has a girlfriend. I'm a bad person when it comes to dating and I'm not quite sure that I'll ever be ready to take on relationships of the romantic, intimate kind. But my exact words to my best friend had been, "Is it bad that I'm waiting for them to break up?"

Oh yea, I'm a horrible person. I really do like him, but I barely know him. And I think he's a great guy and because he has a girlfriend, I don't ever want to hear about it. I just like to hear that he's single and willing to hang out with friends regularly. But I just don't like hearing about his girlfriend and I'm wanting them to break up. The most horrible part of this situation, however, is the fact that even if he breaks up, he won't be interested in dating me and if he is, I don't know how I owuld handle it.

I definitely won't be the one doing anything to make things happen.

So, in the end, I'm just a horrible, unsympathetic, incompassionate jerk. It's great, we have so much fun being assholes.

The last final this semester and an Elvis impersonator

I worked as a bartender on Saturday and ended up watching the most interesting form of entertainment for a group of fifty chiropractors. After listening to a short speech by Miss Kansas, of whom I did not recognize, but thought had the weirdest looking skirt and funniest looking crown, the group got an Elvis impersonator to perform for them.

So I usually have no problems with entertainment and singing entertainment. Not everyone is good, but he wasn't a bad singer. And I don't really know Elvis that well, but I've heard his music even if I'm not really a fan.

However, where my bar was set up including how the stage was set up, I had the most unfortunate angle to view the Elvis impersonator and his... less than left to the imagination pants. Spotlights and white clothing equals a bad combination. Let's just say I spent a good amount of time averting my eyes from him. And those pants should never go into fashion again.

Yea... I'm not that much of a fan of the guy, impersonator or not.

But enough of that.

This morning I'm taking my last final of the semester. Whoop-dee, it's almost over... well, for a few days and then school starts up again in a week. All is cool, but because my boss found out that I have a week off, I'm practically working every day.

That's fine, my friend will be home soon and I'll hopefully get to hang out with her at least once before the summer semester starts. On top of that, my twenty-fifth is coming up in two weeks, right dab smack in the middle of the two week pre-session of a vigorous class. And then I lose my insurance coverage, so I need to get something new from the school.

At least there is ONE thing to look forward to: I've asked my friend to make me a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting as her birthday present to me and she agreed. I'll be happily chowing down on that and, well, being happy. I love cake and I haven't had strawberry cake in a while. This will be nice.

There are other things I'd love to get as well, but that's for the future when we all actually have money. Right now, we just perservere with what we have.

You know those days I used to sleep...

So it's Mother's Day and I can't quite feel my arms or my back. I hate to say things like this when it's a significant holiday, but I am seriously in lots of pain at the moment. My arms are literally threatening to fall off and I'm wondering if it isn't because I stayed up most of the night to do homework...

Well, it's my own fault really. If I hadn't spent all Friday being a bum then I could've been done with my take home final already. Instead, I spent my day half working on it and half playing around in virtual reality. And now I've barely skimmed the bulk of my work. On top of that I have a test tomorrow that I'm freaking out about for some reason despite it being mostly a common sense subject and I won't have time the rest of today to do any studying nonetheless finish that take home final.

And then there're all my other finals to think about. I shall not be sleeping because only one of those finals are even remotely dreamably doable.

Yea... Sleep will not be in my near future but at least I get to take four days to myself the following week. Although I did stupidly inform my boss that I would be available during that time. That just means that I'm asking to be put to work which I am definitely not.

I'm so tired and cranky right now.

But enough of the woes...

Plans... but not really

I actually have a Friday off from work this week, which I would be completely ecstatic about if I didn't have finals coming up. It also doesn't help that the one person I would normally be hanging out with is in Louisiana right now. I can't exactly take my own road trip to Louisiana just to hang out for the night. By the time I get there, I'll have to turn around and come right back because even with Friday night off, I still have to work on Saturday.

So as a means to remain as productive as possible, I've made my own stay-at-home plans to sit in one place all night and do some studying. I have one take home final to finish up, which will probably take a couple hours cause it's really long. And then I have a test to skim notes for on Monday. And then Finals will begin to conquer my life next week.

I've already told my friends that I won't be very present in the following week... or for the next few weeks... months... even the rest of the year. I will be buried beneath text books and they'll be wondering whether or not I'm still alive enough to hang out. And if so, will I become cranky all of a sudden.

At work, I've been run ragged from those groups of people who think that banquet servers are like magic and can teleport from one end of the hallway to another within seconds. And I swear, I think one of those women last night thought I had more than two hands, because she kept trying to hand me her dirty plate even though I was already carrying more than my share of stuff.

People never cease to amuse me.

And then there are those coworkers who simply don't know when to stop talking about their personal lives. Well, it's fine if you want to vent... but really now, some times too much information is too much information and I'd rather not be listening to certain things. Makes you feel a little awkard. And then you don't know what to say and silence ensues.

And then we change the subject to "So I saw the funniest thing yesterday" to which you try and claw at some random humorous event you may or may not have seen, be it yesterday or not. It's okay, amusing things happen regularly. There's bound to be something you can tell your friends about to make the awkward silence go away before someone shoots someone else.

In other news, my dad has gone into ultra monetary nag mode once again and I have to start thinking about how I shall pay both my parents back for all the money I've spent of their's since the beginning of my life. It's like he thinks that I can just pull some wads of hundred dollar bills out of my ass and hand it to him. Really now, my dead beat job doesn't even pay enough for me to be handing out hundreds of dollars... even for fun.

And my younger brother who makes more money than I do at his job thinks that I have money to "pay back" my parents for stuff. I really, really wanted to punch him. I think I wanted to punch him more when he asked me whether or not I'm sure I'd be finding a job after this Med Tech program is over and done with. You know, because according to him, all med techs do the exact same thing anyway, so why do we need so many of them? Two can handle a lab right? I really, really, really about punched him then.

The little prick has always been a bit arrogant just because he has a nice full-time job with good benefits and I don't. I guess he forgot to consider that he had gotten his nice little full-time job with good benefits through connection. Basically, my older brother said, let him work here... and they did. My older brother never did something like that for me. The little prick didn't even have to go for an interview and was hired on because he was recommended by one of company's favorite whipping boys.

And me... through connection, I got a dead beat, $2.35/hr plus gratuities job where you can either have no hours, be run to death, or sit around and make money. Take your pick, I hate working with customers and pretending that I'm a cheery, happy-go-lucky person, but it's all I got right now. I'm not ungrateful that my uncle connected me, but this is not exactly a real job, and I didn't even have an interview. And so I'm not going around gloating about it as if I were better than my brother who has a nicer job.

I really, really feel like hitting him sometimes.

But anyway, all of this is relative.

In a perfect life, my ideal job would be where I sit at my desk all day long, write stories, review all sorts of stuff and make money from it. I like to just sit and write, but of course, this isn't a perfect world and if it were, it would probably bore me to death.

I'm so, so hard to please despite being an easily amused person-- those are two different things anyway.

The near future and a funny smell

This break room literally reeks of formaldehyde from the gross anatomy class and it's giving me a headache.

Aside from that, I really should be studying for my finals and other tests upcoming, but my mind is kind of preoccupied with nothing right now. I'm just on that downslope we like to call "Slacker Hell" wherein I try to come up with all reasons possible to procrastinate and put off staring at endless slides of notes and study questions.

It's horrible, but it's nearing the end of the semester and I tend to do things like that because... well, it feels easier. I've lost steam these past few weeks and really, all I want to do is sit around and do nothing.

Granted, I've been forcing myself to study and I've been finishing up all the homework and take-home finals I have, but that doesn't mean that studying for upcoming finals are going to be less arduous. I'm straining and I hate it.

At home, my mind is more interested in playing an endless game of Trivial Pursuit with my brother even though we've probably already recycled all the answer three times. Movies are more enticing and I'm sitting through reruns of the first three seasons of FREINDS just because I can-- not to say I'm not enjoying it since FRIENDS is one of my favorite series.

And I think that I may have even ticked off one of my friends because I've been ignoring her on account of my being buried in work and suddenly I want to go out and do something. But lo and behold, she's leaving town-- of which she's probably already told me ten times plus when she would be leaving and I just kept forgetting.

I am a great friend!

The smell of formaldehyde isn't getting any better and there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it.

And lately, I've been having the weirdest dreams about a certain somebody that I would rather not make public. Let's just say that I'm relieved that at least not all of them are... well, rated adult. Oh my god! Don't tell me that stupid virgin sexual frustration is finally catching up with me...

Okay, TMI. I'm sorry. Just ignore all of that. I think when I stop staring at endless med tech notes and school work, I'll be able to come back into reality and be a normal person. Well, at least I'll be able to be the person I was before I... crossed further into the realm of insanity. So everyone just has to deal with it for another year. And then after that, you only have to deal with my usual abnormal self.

In other news, I think I'm botching up my "Musings of a Random Girl" series by going too far overboard into the reality sector. I need to take out at least 60% of the truths in those short stories and replace them some fiction, otherwise, I'm just ranting and ranting is always best left for the blogs. In the story, it needs to be more than just me screaming injustices at the world.

In fact, the first two shorts of "Musings" are actually perfect with the exception of those too close to personal reality stuff. Without them, the stories would probably be left without substance, but I don't want to use too much of personal reality to write them. I'd rather make up half of it like I sort of did with the second story. So a lot of rewriting will be in order even though those are the official first stories I have ever finished to the end without it being part of a school assignment a la Creative Writing class which did nothing to boost my ego and did nothing to improve my writing skills except to tell me that I'm wordy.

Oh yea... I'm extremely wordy. I'm random, I ramble, I'm wordy, and I take forever to get to the point if there ever was one. It can't be helped, but it's going to be the death of me. I was alway hoping that I could balance out wordy with humor, but I'm not sure if it works that way. We'll just have to see.

I have a friend who has agreed to read my two finished products and critique them harshly. So if I come back to the blog with a depressing, virtually tear-stained post, that will be why.

Anyway, I have a lab practical to do in about forty-five minutes; and so in order for life to continue on, I must prevail. Or whatever. I'm a geek and I pathetically admit that I'm a loser too.

None of the above has anything to do with anything, and now I'm just rambling even more.

Sudden Freak Out

I had originally planned to have this written by phone and sent as a post before getting to work, but of course, texting and driving at the same time is not a very good idea. So here it is now.

What is my sudden freak out?

My day right after getting out of classes, I'm exhausted and tired and ready to go to sleep. But I can't so I'm sitting and slacking off and waiting for the hours to go by before I start getting ready for work.

My dad calls me at around 2:30, maybe 2:45 in the afternoon and asks me: "Is Mom home yet?" And since I'm holed up in the basement with no connection to the outside world when I'm slacking off, I simply say: "Probably not." Because I hadn't heard the door open nor the dogs barking.

"Well, can you go and check?" he asks.

So I say okay and head up the stairs; even though I know very well that Mom is not home. While I'm upstairs, I tell my dad exactly what my conclusion is: Mom is not home.

"Go check the driveway for her car," he insists. He really wants to make sure that Mom isn't home or something. So I obey and trudge back down to heed his commands. And of course, as I suspect, Mom is not home and neither is Mom's car. So I tell my dad just that.

There is silence on the other line, and then he finally says, "Well, when she does get home, can you tell her that there was a fire in her Chinese kitchen." And it is right about there that I freeze and raise both my brows as if my dad can see my confused and surprised expression.

"Fire," I utter.

"There was a fire," he tells me. "Let her know and then tell her to go back to check it out. Hopefully everything is okay."

"Okay," I say.

He repeats his request a few times, and he even worries that something bad may have happened. I repeat my assurance that I shall do as he orders. I will tell Mom when she gets home that there was a fire in her Chinese kitchen at Dillons. And I will tell her to call Dad when she gets the chance.

Then I return to my chair in the basement and continue my slacking off. But all the while, I'm wondering why Mom hasn't gotten home yet. She's usually home around this time for her lunch break and yet there hadn't been a sign of her yet. Of course, my sleep deprived mind doesn't think much of it. I only conjur the idea that my mother is currently on her way home for her lunch break and when she does get home, then I can relay the necessary message to her.

It never occured to me that Mom never left Dillons to begin with.

At least it never occured to me until Dad calls me yet again around 3:00. By this time, I was trying to kill more time before needing to be off to work by 3:30 He again asks if Mom has come home yet. This time, I confidently respond that she is not home yet. And then he tells me that he's been calling the other Dillons (he works at one and she works at another) and no one has been answering. He's been calling her cell phone and she hasn't been answering.

By the time he finishes this sentence, I am on my feet and he is asking my to leave for work early and swing by Mom's workplace to see about what may have happened and determine that everything is okay.

It's all fine and dandy. I decide to change and leave at that exact moment. At this time I'm still slightly laid back and dull. I go and change, I leave the house and I head for Mom's workplace. But as I'm heading there, everytime I come to a stall in the road, like being unable to pass slow cars, being unable to make a left cause of traffic and things like that, the panic begins to seep in. I'm thiking, What if something actually happened? and What if Mom had gotten hurt in the fire? and I just continue to come up with bogus deals about what could or might have happened.

There had been a fire in my mother's department at Dillons. I literally freaked out. I flipped back and forth from wondering if something might have happened to reassuring myself that everything was okay. I was practically in panic mode.

To cut to the main point of this blog, yes, there was a fire in the Chinese kitchen. The entire Dillons store was closed for the meantime to clean up and when I arrived, the staff of Dillons were trying to usher all costumers away, telling them that the store was closed for a while.

I reached the entrance, I recall stuttering and saying something about my mom being an employee and then I was told to head on inside and see to my mommy.

Well, basically a deep fryer caught on fire because it was defective. Everything was okay, nobody was hurt, and I got told that I look exactly like my mother, twice. It was a lot of interesting fun... really...

As soon as that fiasco was all understood, I left for work and as I drove, I pretty much felt my entire body lose all steam and become even more exhausted than I was before. I called my dad to tell him that everything is okay and then I go on my not so merry way to work.

Yea. I'm tired and I'm pooped out today. All has been chaos and hell and to top it all off, I lock my keys in my car.

Life is swell.

In other news, school is coming to the end of a semester, finals are coming up, summer will begin soon, I will have no social life starting then, and I've written and for the first time, finished a story on my own. It is a short, one-shot that I still need to reread and edit and change for the better. And it is one of a coupole in a series of stand alone short stories.

Otherwise, life is still swell.

My try at something new...

This is my first official Blog on the Go post. Yea... You really can't tell the difference between this and a regular computer based post, but this one is coming from my phone and it's so cool because now I can post on my blog no matter where I am.

Pretty nifty!

Party this weekend!!

I know this is probably not something I should publicize since I'm supposedly little miss "doesn't know how to have fun", as according to a lot of my few friends. But I am so looking forward to this Saturday where I can just kick back, relax and enjoy at my friend's kegger. It's actually her parent's kegger because I think her dad's birthday is coming up. So there will be tons of wasted adult figures by the end of the night, which may feel a little weird to me. My parents don't drink and I only know of few other friends' parents who like to party.

I'm invited, all of her friends are invited, and I can even bring friends if I so feel like it.

But anyway, my brain is grasping for what little relaxation I can get, and this party couldn't have come at a better time. I've finished taking two tests this week, and there is only one other next week on Wednesday. I have no work hours this week either, and so I have all day today and all day Sunday to study for that test.

On top of that, I was informed that a certain someone will probably be attending this little party as well, and so I am very much looking forward to seeing him again. But this is only important to an extent; I still live in a world where boys have cooties...

It's been a while since I've done any actual drinking and now would be a good time.

At least it'll keep me from going completely crazy.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net


In other news, I'm brainstorming story writing again. Geez am I pathetic or what...

Back to school and back to insanity

So Spring Break was a week ago, but time flies and it didn't even feel like it was that long ago nor does it feel like it was only a week ago. Spring Break pretty much just disappeared before I even knew what I was doing with it.

I had had so much planned to do on all of those days off, and it amounted to nothing whenever I sat down and realized that there were other things I'd rather be doing than studying or finishing my homework. And so instead of catching up, I'm still at that same standing point I was at before Spring Break had started.

And now I'm two tests later and I feel like slacking off some more. There are at least twenty more questions of my Serology homework that needs to be done, but I am in no mood to finish it... as can be concluded from the fact that I'm blogging instead of working. It's just so much easier.

School is going rather well, I'd say, as I'm not totally bombing tests and I'm actually enjoying a lot of the lab exercises that we do. I actually understand a lot of it too. So all is great and I'm still looking forward to finishing all of this up so that I don't have to spend everyday studying and looking up information that I don't already know.


In other news, I've been trying to get back into the mood of writing. A few stories are getting a new dose of brainstorming, while a few newer stories are being developed. I'm a pathetic writer who can't seem to choose one story and stick to it until it finishes, and so even though I say that I've been writing, it's not really getting very far. In fact, I think I reread my material more than I come up with new drafts for the rest of the story.

Yea, pathetic-ness is my forte, apparently.

Since when have I been able to think about plans outside of homework...

I am so ecstatic, cause I feel like I finally have a couple days to breathe. Aside from having one exam in Chemistry and one small, very, very small quiz in Hematology, there's not much else I need to worry about this week. Just as well-- and I blame our down falling economy-- I have absolutely no work hours this week. The only big things happening are during the day, in which I'm in class, and one party on Saturday, in which my mother told me to get the day off because the parental units would like to take a few days and go somewhere.

And yes! Spring Break is coming around the corner and I feel refreshed. I only have two exams right after Spring break, but I'm quite caught up with one of the two classes that I'm not too worried... yet. I'm sure the panic will finally catch up to me halfway through Spring Break and I realize I haven't really been able to memorize every last detail of my notes. And then I'll lose sight of all my homework assignments, my mind will go blank, and I'll sleep in on the day of...

My worst nightmare-- which I had a couple weeks back-- happened to be me sleeping in until way after all the classes are over and still trying to rush out the door in hopes that I can still make it in time to finish my exam within ten minutes. But alas, the class period is already over and now I'm failing and I still can't figure out why the heck I can't find a decent pair of jeans to wear out the door.

Well, I've had worse nightmares, but this is one that I am adamant will never happen. And to make absoute sure, I have at least three alarms in place to wake me up every morning. And my mom serves as a persistent alarm as well.

But anyway, this week will allow me a tad bit of slack. After my exam on Wednesday, I think I'll make some plans to do other things and take a breather away from school for at least one day. I'm craving some good eating despite my lack of money, but if I continue to stare at my computer and notes and more notes, I think I might lose my mind-- not that I haven't already lost it.

In the midst of all of this chaos of going back to school, I am extremely annoyed to find that my motivation to write has been coming back to me. Of course it would, because it's something I'd rather be doing over studying constantly. And so my mind is coming up with any way possible to drag myself away from text books and notes and dumping my fragile brain on top of unfinished stories with new ideas that if I don't write down now, I'll never remember again.

Yea... I love you too brain. You strive to ruin my life and make me miserable, don't you? I thank you for your efforts. One of these days, I may have to bring you out and put you on a pedestal for worship.

But just you wait, as soon as my year and a half of this studying and cramming is over, I will overflow you with poisonous alcoholic products so that all those awesomeness brain cells will have to take a nice long vacation. Just you wait.

Nah... I haven't quite gone completely insane yet.