Summer
Semester's over, got an apartment with Sarah and our cats (Pinto and Duster).
Working at Law Bulletin again. Same place I was at two years ago. Let's just hope that nothing else from two years ago comes back...
S’Been A While
I think things are getting a lot better, all around. I'm somehow managing to keep my apartment AND put food in my belly! Granted, my main diet has consisted of peanut butter and sometimes jelly sandwiches, tuna salad sandwiches, and ramen (with ingredients, like peas and carrots and potatos and cheap sausages/hot dogs; so I'm still getting important stuffs and not wasting away on terrible food), but I figure a budget of $40-$50 a month for food for a poor college kid is NOT a bad deal.
Sold the Lumina. Somehow we got $1500 for it instead of like $200. That's how I'm gonna survive the rest of the summer, and then excess money from student loans plus work study should help me out quite well each semester.
Why things are getting better, I think:
- I'm able to monetarily survive the summer.
- I've got my own apartment, where I can do my own things, and cook my own food, and lounge around petting cats and watching Conan on hulu.
- Nicole's cats are freaking awesome.
- My new computer (by need, remember?) is performing great and is allowing me to catch up on some much needed gaming.
- I'm getting back into Animal Crossing (on the Wii now).
- Hanging out with good friends (Casey, Jeremy, Amber) quite a bit these days thanks to the Tai kids.
- Helping out again with the Taiwanese Cultural and Academic Exchange program.
- Got my first above 3.0 semester GPA this past Spring.
- Because of that, I am still allowed to attend IIT! :D
- My beautiful girlfriend comes back to Chicago in less than a month!
- In six days we'll have been together for four months (this still surprises me immensely, to be perfectly honest).
- She's bringing her ferrets back with her and they're going to stay at my place! (this has me extremely excited for some reason :razz: )
- She is learning German and this is the perfect reason to brush up on my skills with the language!
- I bought a game for the first time since... forever. I honestly forget the last game I bought prior. Last weekend Frictional Games was having a sale on the Penumbra trilogy (a survival-horror/puzzle/adventurer series). It was $5 for all three games and they were on Linux. This is not something I could pass up. I love survival-horrors (as much as they get to me), I love puzzle games that make you think (as much as they frustrate me), and I love supporting developers who release their games natively on Linux.
- I've been following the Hundred Push-Up Program and, while I've had to repeat two weeks already, I already notice a HUGE improvement in my strength and muscle mass (then again, any muscle mass is a huge improvement over none :razz: ).
- Because of this I have a greater confidence in.. me and my presentation. It's kind of surprising, really. I wasn't at all embarassed when I took my shirt off at the beach the other day, for example (I've always been kind of self-conscious about my extremely skinny and muscle lacking body, but I'm actually doing something about it now, which itself is also a huge improvement).
- Summer is flying by, despite every day being pretty much me sitting in front of my computers doing nothing productive.
I apologize that this summer isn't nearly as post-heavy as last summer. I believe there are reasons for that, though (mostly lack of generally interesting stuff to talk about that hasn't been outlined above and lack of boredom at work. Boredom at home leads to me dicking around on the web. Boredom at work led to me writing because I couldn't dick around on the web. Well, led to. Since I don't have work this summer.). I think it's also due to a lack of.. doing things. If I'm in a doing things mood I tend to think about updating the site more often.
Things with Sarah are going pretty damn well, I'd say. We had a couple of misunderstandings or little fight-type things near the beginning of the summer, but definitely nothing too serious. I'm more excited for her to come back than I am for the ferrets to come with her, than I am for everyone else to get back in the city, than I am for James to move out, than I am for.. a lot of things. I try not to let my mind think about.. much beyond the next couple of days, but sometimes it's hard (nothing more than like.. a season or two... I'm having thoughts of us just cuddling up on the couch under a blanket drinking hot drinks and just hanging out in the winter, for example.. perhaps after ice skating or something (I can't ice skate, by the way, Sarah.. It could make for hilarious times)). It's a mental defense I've set up thanks to previous relationship failures. And, really, why think too much about the future? Obviously one has to have goals and stuff for school, work, general life things; but one does not live in the future, one lives in the present, they're living NOW. I try to focus on what's going on now and make the most of it. No point in worrying about the future or lamenting the past (as much as things tend to pop up and try to distract you, it's just something one has to deal with).
It's been really nice to get out of my apartment for hours at a time last week and this. I am going to be kind of sad when the kids leave and I really won't have a need to leave my apartment...
Anyway, four fourty-eight is kind of a late time to finish up a post and go to bed.. My sleep schedule was good for like.. a total of two weeks this summer.. not even consecutive weeks at that...
I dunno, ever since the car sold I've just felt really good about things. That lifted a huge burdon from my mind and now I'm looking around realizing that I have quite a few good things going on. I am immensely happy I asked her out. It almost didn't happen, but I forced myself to NOT think about it and just see what would happen. It was a twofold decision, really... On the one hand, it was kind of like an experiment.. in that whole "can I actually get a date with someone that I barely know? (as opposed to having been a friend for some time)" way, and on the other it was a necessary step forward, to move on. It seems like kind of a weird way to look at it, but that's how I've rationalized it out in the time since. And I've had a lot of time to think about it (four months worth, to be almost exact :razz: ).
Gah, five oh-six. I really need to get to bed.
...I mean it.
Beans at Six
Assignment three for this class consists majorly of learning how to develop Java Beans and minorly of learning NetBeans and JSP. Once I figured out what I was doing, the first two parts were easy. The second two parts look to be as well, I just really wish to get to sleep right about now, but it looks like Sarah has taken the whole bed :/
Based on how I go about it, our one month is on Wednesday (the 29th to the 29th). Her point of view is that our one month is four weeks after the 29th of March. Either way, we ended up celebrating (I guess?) today (Saturday) because doing things on a Wednesday is just kinda lame, since there's school all over the place during the week.
She was alerted to this ice cream place on the north side by the name of iCream by (a friend | TechNews | I don't know for sure, I should pay more attention). The main reason we were eager to check it out was that they offer soy ice cream in addition to regular milk based ice cream. They also offer soy and regular based pudding, yogurt, and sorbet (dunno if the last two have soy variants?). Basically, you pick your base (ice cream, etc.), your flavorings (banana and vanilla for her, mint and vanilla for me), your toppings (she: blueberries, me: oreos), and the color you want (she got green, I forgot to ask for purple). Then you can watch them inject the flavoring extract into the liquid base, stick it in a mixing bowl, and LIQUID NITROGEN. Shit was delicious. Hers tasted like some sort of candy, mine was exactly what I expected, but that does not detract from it at all.
We came back and hung out in my room and watched Firefly and talked and stuff. When she started getting really sleepy I started working on my Java.
I really don't like my writing style in this post. I blame it on general tiredness not having written in a while.
Besides some school stuff here and there.. life is fantastic.
Nicole and I move into the apartment in two weeks. That is going to be hectic and wonderful at the same time.
When did I last update? April 20th? Hawking got better.
Last real update? March 26th? Exactly one month ago? Damn.
I bought two new pairs of jeans at Target the other week. They're both size 28/30, yet one is slightly looser than the other. They're the same brand, even. These are the first pairs of pants that sit at my waist without the aid of a belt. I have always warn 30/30s in the past, often with a belt, but it was never really required. It feels better to just have them sit naturally at my waist, though. It's weird, I like it. I also really really really like the cut of the jeans, the legs look and feel a lot better on me than my other jeans' do. I think I'm finally starting to look decent with these new jeans and my small shirts (instead of baggy khakis and large shirts). I've heard several times that if one is skinny, one should wears clothes that show this, but not in a gross way (i.e. tight pants, skin-tight shirts). I like the direction my wardrobe is taking. It's neat.