I'm sick of this semester. I just want it to end. Then again, that's what I've been saying about all my previous semesters. I got a test tomorrow in computer science and I'm not even halfway done with the study guide. I plan on waking up at 8 AM to work on everything till about 1:30ish, then I'm gonna study between classes. I really shouldn't have this mentality, but I'm probably gonna fail that class. I just don't fucking understand it.

The one thing you should never do when studying for a test is stay up all night to study for it...which is exactly what I did last Wednesday night. On Wednesday, I got home from work at 10 PM and had work at 6 AM the next day along with a Spanish test. I figured that I might as well study for the whole night, and accomplish whatever I needed accomplished. I went to work at 6 AM the next day feelin' like you just stayed up all night studying for a test. I work in the meat department, and it's always cold as hell back there. I had to organize some shit, so I ended up sluggin' 40 pound boxes all over the place until snot was dripping out of my nose. By the time I was finished, I was sweating, deep breathing, and pissed off. I wanted to go the fuck home but our newest co-worker was working today, and he's not 100% able to work the department in the morning by himself. No one should really open up the department by themselves but sometimes it happens. With all my stuff going on, I just wanted to do my shit and get out of there. I wanted to ask my Spanish teacher some questions about the test so that I could understand things a little bit better, so I wanted to leave a little bit earlier. Normally Kroger doesn't have a problem with that, but I failed to tell my store manager that I was leaving. The reason why I didn't tell my store manager was because I wanted to tell her, but she kind of pushed me off and didn't think anything I had to say was really important. Considering I was tired, I kinda got pissed off about that because I considered it rude and disrespectful; mostly because she's the store manager and she was in the building walking around. When you walk into your job's building, you can't just push anyone aside. Sometimes, before I clock in (or clock out), a customer might come up and ask me for something. What do you think I'm gonna say to that? "Sorry. I'm off work right now. Can't help you." You have a certain responsibility that you need to fulfill. Unless you aren't working for the day, then I don't see why you can't help someone. I was just gonna ask her for something and she brushed me off when she wasn't even busy. I waited for her to get to work so I could tell her as soon as possible so that she'll understand that I'm gonna leave at 12 instead of 1 PM, but she became an inconvenience to me because I had to wait even longer to tell her important information. So I just decided...to hell with it. If you're gonna inconvenience me, then I'm gonna inconvenience you. I didn't think it would be a problem considering the fact that my other co-worker was working and he would've had to only endure an extra hour by himself in the afternoon. The very least, he just had to stand at the service counters and weigh some shit up for some customers so it's never really a big deal. But 11:30 AM rolls around, she comes up, inspects our department, and says that I need to do the seafood service counter over again. 

The seafood service counter isn't easy to set-up. It's a tedious process even if it's a simple concept. Apparently I fucked up certain things, added too much ice, and she told me to do it all over again. By the time I got the seafood case down to the beginning of setup, I had to go. I had shit to do. I told my co-worker I was leaving at 12, and I wasn't gonna wait. I told him "sorry" and that I didn't anticipate something like this to happen. We've been having to change some shit around, and I wasn't exactly sure where everything went. About 90% of the case was correct, but the 10% was what resulted in me having to do the service case. Since it was 12 PM, I slipped out of work to wash off the smell of fish off my body at home so that I could talk to my teacher and study for my test. As I went to school, I realized that working made shit even worse; now instead of having Spanish on my mind, I was pissed at my store manager for coming around our backs and making me do something right before I'm about to leave. I was sleep deprived and pissed, so you can imagine that I went into this test not very excited. When I finally got to do the test, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I skipped an entire section because I forgot how to do something, and my brain wasn't clicking. I wanted to go the fuck home after the test and go to sleep, but I had to attend my Computer Science class in case he gives a review or examples of what's gonna be on the next test. The test is Thursday, so I've gotta find time between then to create a study guide and shit like that. In between classes, I'll be doing homework so I won't have to do it during the night.

The only reason why I made Thursday was because of my birthday. I was excited about celebrating my birthday with my girlfriend, so I accepted the fact that I probably failed the test. I went to sleep around 9:30 PM and had the greatest sleep this year so far. It was one of those sleep deprived sleeps where you wake up and don't even have a concept of time. I didn't even know why my alarm clock was going off; I think I woke up faster than my brain rebooting.

Friday night was a kinda emotional night for me considering Spartacus is about to end and something happened to the point that I started to cry. Something happened to one of my favorite characters in the show, and it really hit close to home.
 It was pretty much an average weekend with my girlfriend until Sunday rolled around and she cooked me a dinner of my choice. For some reason, I was craving rice, corn, and chicken...so she cooked all those things and it was delicious. I ate about three bowls of rice, and I don't regret a thing. She also gave me an envelope that consisted of a ticket to ride in Rusty Wallace's nascar car (or something like that) on the Atlanta Motor Speedway. To me, that's really freakin' cool. I've always wanted to know what it's like going fast, but I've always wanted to do it legally and with a car to do it with. I won't be driving the car, but riding is still going to be an adrenaline rush. I'm sure there's going to be an option for me to take videos in-car camera for a certain price (hopefully not too expensive), and maybe I'll get a picture with a signature on it. I don't know. It's gonna be super fun, and it's going to be in May. May is the awesome month of the year, apparently.

When I came back to work on Monday, a manager pulled me aside and told me that my store manager was pretty pissed that I left early. I told him about how I felt about the whole thing, that I know I'm ultimately responsible, but I told him that it could've been prevented if she had listened to me in the first place. Kroger isn't going to talk to me about being a "team" when there's segregation of managers and associates. But of course...no one really cares about what I think.

This weekend will be kind of difficult for me because I'll be going with family to a family reunion of some sort in North Carolina. My sister is going and everyone else is going, so I don't want to feel like I'm not being part of the family. My dad thinks I'm a stranger and that I'm excluding myself from the family, but that's his own personal opinion...which everyone is entitled to. He's wrong, but you can't please everybody. I'm growing up, you know? I found something that keeps me pre-occupied and feelings of ANY kind of motivation, so I'm gonna keep doing what makes me happy. It has come at a cost, for instance not being able to see my sister as much, but we still hang out every now and then. Kinda sucks that she has cats in her apartment because I'm allergic, but...what can you do? It's gonna suck because I won't be able to see the next episode of Spartacus with my girlfriend (or even at all). She may not be able to either considering she's got another "girl's night" and she expects to be home by 10 PM to watch the episode. Oh...my baby sure is funny. The thing I've learned about college kids in university is that they sleep all day during the weekend and stay up all night...which is great if you're 14 and it's summer vacation. But after 20? It's like...can't tell if you're too boring during the day time or a vampire. If you're a vampire, then I completely understand going out during the night time.

I'm just glad I'm not working tomorrow. My grandmother on my mom's side of the family gave me 30 bucks for my birthday and  10 dollar lottery ticket (I didn't win anything). I almost used the 20 dollar bill to buy a 20 dollar lottery ticket, but then I thought about it and realized that I could pay for gas, or even another model car. I never win on those things, and I think Kathleen and I are starting to get addicted. We're getting too desperate, and that's obviously why the thing works out so well. Welpp...I help myself pay for my own college tuition, so it's like giving myself a pat on the back. Gotta stay positive.

Can't decide if I should read a book, or play some games.

On Monday morning, I saw some pretty bizarre shit on the highway headed towards downtown Atlanta. I was driving in the middle lane of the highway, what I tend to do, and there was a big rig about three seconds distance away from me on the far right lane. I didn't notice anything suspicious until I saw the big rig turn the steering wheel too fast like he was avoiding an obstacle on the road suddenly. Naturally, I released the gas pedal in case there'd be a sudden stop on the highway so I wouldn't have to slow down so much but realized everything was cool about a second afterwards when the driving collected himself. I kept my eye on him and I saw him drift off into the emergency lane, narrowly avoiding the bridge wall and I immediately noticed that his hood was open, water was gushing out, and sparks were flying everywhere. I thought the big rig was going to explode. I wasn't sure what the heck was going on -- a guy in a small truck pulled over from a short distance, and I was on my way to school.

A couple distance away, I realized that I had my dashboard camera recording the whole time. To avoid any content writing over it, I decided to turn off the camera. Today was going to be the first time my camera recorded anything other than the normal driving routine. The whole time during Psychology class, I couldn't help but think about that video I recorded and was excited about taking it home, plugging it up the computer, and reviewing it. However, when I got home, the video where I had the incident with the big rig was black. There was no video. There was audio to it, but no video. The videos before that were fine recording and even after I recorded, but it was just that one that didn't record correctly. Even still, I put it on my computer in hopes that it would show on the computer and it didn't work.
When I realized that it was all hopeless, I thought to myself..."well, that would happen."

Sounds awfully similar to the experience I had many years ago when I was a kid. My sister had a friend who I really liked. My sister and her had the door locked, and I found out she was naked. Naturally, I wanted her to come out. Eventually she did, but as she opened the door, my eyes went blurry to the point that I had to wipe them. By the time I got rid of the blur in my eyes, the door was already closed. I missed my golden opportunity all because my eyes got blurred for that 5 seconds. And that 5 seconds would've made all the difference if I had just had a PEEK at that body, but I didn't get anything. It's something that I'll never forget. And it totally sucks ass.

So I didn't get the video of the big rig, but you can imagine that it was definitely something to wake up to in the morning.

Last Sunday, my girlfriend and I went out to a dinner and a movie. I wanted to take my girlfriend to TGIF's for steak along with a movie. The original plan was that we were going to see two movies, but TGIF's was going to take too long of a time so we decided to see a late night movie. It was almost a bad date because we got there super early and we sat down like a bunch of homeless people for a while before we decided to go outside and walk around. Then we sat in the car and talked. The movie started at 10:00 or something like that and we saw the new Oz movie. I gotta say that it was really good. Certain parts tugged at the heart strings a little bit, but I enjoyed it. We even saw a scene from Jurassic Park 3D and it was fucking amazing. That night, I had a nightmare about dinosaurs and I don't regret a thing.

I'm still getting ready for Brazil. Tomorrow I plan on giving my letter and everything to my store manager so that she can send it into HR to get it approved. I just really hope that I'll have a job when I come back. But some good news though is that I think I found out what I want to do with my life: become a high school guidance counselor!

I really thought about it one day and I think it's something that I would really like to do. It's something that I feel passionate about, about helping kids through an important part of their lives set themselves on the right track, and I just can't see myself doing anything else. Which is great because I've really narrowed it down. The problem is getting to that point. Apparently I need a masters, and I really don't know how I'm going to stand another 100,000 years in school. I may not be working till I'm 31 years old at this point. I don't know how my sister did it so fast. But hey...at least I got a dream now and understanding of what I want to become, right?

Well, my birthday is in 4 days. It's on a Sunday, but I don't know if my family is going to celebrate it this weekend or not. I know nothing about it. I'll be 23...can you believe that? Ridiculous.

I haven't posted in a while. My birthday is in four days. Shit is pretty much the same right now. Gotta update my shit so I won't feel so bad about my Xanga. One day I'll have a good little update. But not right now.