Ah Crap... I've been meaning to write in here for sooooooo long. Since my last entry a lot of big things have happened in my life, I wanted to give most of these things their own entry, but things left undone become become harder, so I will just write a crash course entry instead.
Bergen Community College I finally graduated from Bergen Community College and got my Associates in Liberal Arts!! This is a huge deal for me. It took longer than expectcted to finish, but I went through at my own pace, and thats just fineeeeeee.. Fact is I finished! I didn't hate BCC, but after a while that place became a dark cloud over my life and its so nice to see the clear blue beyond it now. I am the first person in my family to get a college degree, and it feels great to be moving on to the next level!
California Was AMAZING!! I will remember it forever.. It was so nice getting to see Rockelle again, i missed her. Roman and I had some fun west coast adventures. We ate space cakes and went to disneyland! It was awesome because during decemeber at the Cali. Disney park the Haunted Mansion ride becomes the Nightmare Before Christmas ride! It was awesome.. We ate sonic, I saw all 3 famous Blvd's, Chilled on the beach while there was a snowstorm in Jersey, hung out at a few hot spots, saw Courtney Love (i think i got an STD from looking at her), saw Paul Stanley (Tried to convince roman to get into a fight with him, haha), and just enjoyed every minute of it
Thank You Scientist At the moment, Tempus is on a hiatus. Everyone in the band just wanted to take some time off and do our own thing for a bit, we will probably make music together some day soon.. In the mean time I started up a new group called Thank You Scientist. I am soooooo excited for this project. I've been wanting to make music like this for a longggggg time and now I feel like i've found the right musicians to help make interesting, technical, challenging, catchy music with. Keep an eye out for this project, there are good things to come.
The Holidays Were nice. I got to spend a lot of time with my family. Adara was adorable.. as usual.. My favorite time was when she put her first ornament on the Christmas tree by her self and got soooooooo excited and started clapping! it was priceless. I rang in 2009 in a retro house. Our friends new apartment who the tenants before them left all their belongings from the 70s. We were listening to Stevie Wonder 8-track, We listened to the ball drop on the radio cuz there was no tv, haha.. It was fun. I've got a good feeling about 2009. After new years, my parents went to disney world for 9 days. It was great having the house to myself for that long, and now more than ever I want to move out and live on my own.. Im still not ready for that though.
Montclair State University After getting my degree at BCC I transfered over to MSU to get my bachelors degree in Communications/Public Relations. I'm taking night courses so it doesnt interfere with work. I've got mostly speech courses to take, but so far i'm loving going to school here. The people are so much friendlier, the facilities are so much nicer, the girls are so much better looking, and the teachers actually give a damn. I just started going here, but already i've made a bunch of new friends and i'm excited to learn more!
Myron Corp. I got a new job doing sales at a personalized business gift manufacturing company. It pays $15 an hour plus 10% commission, and there are a LOT of perks. I get a gym membership for $1 a week, Medical/Dental, bonus', etc etc... this job seems to go really out of their way to take care of their employees and I for the first time in a long time really like my job. I am ready to work hard to hang on to it and get out of debt finally.. Then save up to move out. I work M-F from 8:30am - 5pm now.. so im tired all the time.
Crazy Car Adventure... I was being nice and driving a friend home and i had to drive through the sticks to get there while i was there someone in a stolen car sideswiped my car and tried to speed off. I chased them through the town sharp turns running red lights trying to get them to pull over, until they hit a street light.. streetlight broke fell over and the people ran from the car. Then these thug guys pulled up next to me and were like "yo, my boy was in that car. if i were u id take the plate numbers and just leave. You dont know what kinda trouble you're getting yourself into, you in a bad area". The cops were like "If u want them to pay u have to file a report and take them to court but i can tell u if this guy is stealing cars and fleeing the crime scene i HIGHLY doubt they are going to pay for your damages.. and thats IF we even catch him.." The girl I was driving home works for an auto body and she was like "you wouldnt be down here if it werent for me. im soooo sorry, dont worry about a thing i will fix this its on me. I know a guy and he will probably fix it for free and ive got this taken care of" but now my friend says her friend wont do it, and she wont even help me pay for it at all.. I hate Hudson County... Now i've got this big dent on the side of the car and it hurts my soul to look at it.
Sooooooooooooooo....... thats whats been new in my life lately.. Pretty eventful since last entry, sorry i haven't updated sooner. Thats all for now.. Til next entry.......
Tonight while I was at work our cat, Juliette, died at home. She was pretty old, 14, and has always been a bit unhealthy. But the fact that she was a little fatty was part of her charm. We have been through so much together, and I have been dreading this day for years. Death is just part of life.. There is nothing else to be done aside from miss her and think about the good times. I can at least say that we gave her a happy home and a family that loved her with all of our hearts. It may be funny to some of you but we truly do consider her one of the family, She will be missed a great deal.
I love you Juliette. You were a shining star in my life, and will never be forggoten.
Emotions are running high around the house, I decided I need to get away from Jersey for a few days. Sooooooooooooooooo, on an impulse I bought a plane ticket to California. I am leaving on December 17th at 6:45am and staying til December 23rd. Roman is being sent down there for his job and he got a four star hotel in the business district of Los Angeles. The circular buildings are where we are staying. The Westin Bonaventure Hotel
I'm so excited because it all kinda hit me at once that im really going. I'm going next week and I've never got to leave the East Coast, so this is huge for me! Also, I get to visit Rockelle who moved there a bit ago. I havent seen her in a really long time and I miss her. It's going to be so much fun, there is even talk of going to Disneyland while we are there!!! woot!!!
Hello Hope you all are having a nice holiday season so far.
My family and I are staying strong, but moral is low around the house at the moment. I was able to find a decent job to hold me over until I'm finished with BCC (December 18th, baby!) but since my last entry my Dad also got laid off and he hasnt been as lucky in his search. What a shitty time of year to lay people off.. bastards.
Juliette, my cat, is not doing well at all... My parents decided to just let her die naturally. It makes me so sad, seeing her the way she is. Shes not my little fat girl anymore, shes so thin and weak. It's breaking my heart to know that I have to accept that these may be the last few days I get to spend with her. I think my parents are right though.. she does deserve to go out in her own home rather than be chosen when its time to go. blarg.
Tempus is playing a show in Hoboken 2 weeks from now, we are donating all of the money to a charity. A friend of the band's daughter is anorexic and needs money to be sent into rehab, we were glad to help out. After this show, however, the band is taking a break for an indetermined amount of time. I've seen bands fizzle out and not recover from "breaks" before.. I dont really want that to happen with tempus, but we will see what happens. Everyone kindof wants to just do their own thing for a bit.
How am I doing through all this? I'm keeping my cool and still trying to work on bettering myself. Things are by no means easy at this point in life. Quite the contrary, I feel like I'm on the brink of loosing my composure. I'm just trying not to let everything kill me in the end. There are lots of things I try to shrug off like feeling lonely or getting hurt by the same girl again.. I know things are hard, it would be easy to give in and let everything come crushing down on me. I'm trying not to take the easy way out though, i want to just be strong. Right now I'm just trying to focus on the positive.
A couple things that are keeping my mind off the negative things are:
Central Services, Romans bossa nova jazz project that has been in the making for 2 years is finally coming to fruition. Roman wrote a series of songs on an acoustic guitar and has a different line up of musicians for each track. He bought time at a recording studio and we've been finishing up the album recently. It's all coming together so well, at our rehearsals there are like 16 musicians that are all so talented. We still need to record percussion, piano, horns, and vocals, but the foundation (drums, guitar, bass) are all done :) It was so surreal getting to go into a professional recording studio and lay down tracks with odin. We've been playing music together for 12 years, since we started. Who woulda thunk over a decade later we would be as good as we are and still playing music together.
Adara is getting so big and cute.. she says "dude" now, haha.
Christmas is coming.
I'm becoming more of a man on my own. I find myself making more responsible decisions, and my world around me reflects it. It's weird that more often than not I decide to wear my loafers out instead of my converse. I bought myself nice new clothes, and i'm actually starting to dress/act like a successfull 23 year old.
I'm done with bergen in 2 weeks! That place is a dark cloud over my life.. Now dont get me wrong, i dont think BCC is a bad school. I think it is what you make of it.. but i've just been there for too long. It has got to the point where that school is holding me back from feeling good about myself. I am so glad to be ready to move on and strive for better things. More on this when it happens though...
So yeah.. thats how things are in a nutshell.. I'm expecting things to get rocky up ahead, but just like my good friend Gina says... Things have to get worse before they can get better. I know everything will be okay in the end. Til next entry...
So today, my company let 60 people go... me included.
Receptionists, Security, Agents like me... all gone. The big job we were depending on postponed til next year... so that means there isnt enough work for us to be there. However u slice it this just sucks. I'm tired of being dicked around. I'm tired of going on job interviews. I was just starting to get used to having money, now the money I made becomes surviving money... like the 40 dollars I had set aside to get a halloween costume tonight, has to stay aside to survive.
I got a job at the call center of quest diagnostics as a "Proxy Agent". I call shareholders and fill them in on issues that meetings are being held over and get their votes so their shares are represented at the meeting.
it
is
boring
But I'm kinda digging it. It's caused me to have a pretty big lifestyle change and it feels for the better. I work Mondau - 8:45am to 4pm. It pays really well too. It's an interesting feeling actually having money in my pocket. The job is Business Casual dress code so i had to buy nice clothes. I enjoy dressing like a 23 year old.. I got badass loafers haha. I'm still getting used to waking up at 7:30am... its just that moment when the alarm goes off and u have to get out of bed. once im up, im up. ............. I didnt even know 7:30am existed 2 weeks ago haha.. I'm not having as hard of a time waking up as I am falling asleep. For instance its 1am right now and im still up writing this. I am getting in bed after I post this though.. im pretty tired. If you dont know me... getting in bed at 1am is really early. I usually cant fall asleep anytime before 3:30am.. its still been that way even though ive been waking up early.
So we will see how this job goes, at least its money that I can start saving up to move out.
I filled out my application for Montclair State University today. It's going to feel so good to be done with bergen.
oh, hahaha, I started wearing one of those european man purses to. You can make fun of me if u like. I had all these papers i needed too bring into work and i was bringing them in my red backpack from highschool with grafitti on it. High school backpack doesnt go well with nice clothes, so I had to get a fag bag..
No offence, fags... same goes to you, bags... Til next entry...
Well, I quit Starbucks last week. In the end it just boiled down to me being unhappy working there. I've always been impulsive. Maybe it's a strength, maybe a weakness.. but in this situation it was on a whim that I put my 2 weeks notice.. I'm not the type of person to allow myself to be miserable for very long.. it just makes sense to me "you're unhappy? change what’s making you unhappy" Now.... don't get me wrong... I didn't HATE starbucks. I loved most of the people that I was working with, I made a lot of friends that I think will last the test of time, got to work in a more social environment (which is the main reason I applied.. something different than Lincoln) but.. I just wasn’t making enough money, I was tired of smelling like rotten milk/coffee grinds/garbage all the time, getting out of work at 2:30am, being behind the counter looking out at all my friends hanging out and having fun and not being able to join in with them, wearing a band-aid over my eyebrow piercing, and mainly........... I just didn’t see myself as a barista at 23 years of age. It's a real reality check when you're elbow deep in trash at 1:30am and not making enough money to go out with your friends on the weekend. I thought to myself "if someone said to me 'Hey, I will give u $8.53 to clean this entire store for me." I would tell them to suck my ass, but essentially that’s what I WAS doing. So I quit. I feel like I will be out of the loop now with all my friends who worked there, but I will still try to stay involved with everyone. but in the end.. friends don’t pay the bills. I need to get back into sales.. I'm good at it.
A week after my birthday I met a girl at starbucks who I started talking to and casually dating. I've been single for about a year and this is the first girl I’ve met that I actually felt a connection with. Things were going great between us and I was happy as a pig in shit when I got to spend time with her.. But things between us died before they even got a chance to get TOO serious. She told me that she was still in love with someone and didn't want to get involved with another relationship.. Swing & A miss.... It's fine. I mean... I really did like her, and I'm really bummed that things between us wont go any farther, but if I put things in a different perspective I guess its not so bad. After all, I did only know her for about a month & a half, and although our personalities seemed to be similar our circumstances of life seemed to be opposite. ah well, life goes on.
I am about 2/3 a semester away from getting my associates degree and being finished with BCC! That may be a laughable achievement to you, expecially since it has taken me this long to get here... but I will be so proud of myself when I get it.
So there it is.. I am currently Unemployed, Unwanted, and just drifting through life.. I should be miserable.. but for some reason I'm not, I'm just.. existing. I have to be careful though, I am dangerously close to getting into a very deep rut. I have a hard time dealing with/getting out of ruts. I've been going on a lot of job interviews so hopefully I will have a new job soon. I'm done trying to meet "the right girl" after all the soul searching I’ve done I just feel like I'm some kind of weirdo now. It's all that seems to make sense on why I don’t seem to meet girls that I have a spark with, so I’m just done looking for now. If someone comes along then great, if not... oh well...
The fall is here.. It's my favorite season. Til next entry...
I've been thinking about dropping everything and moving away from New Jersey... Starting over, everything new.. We'll see.
sleepy
busy
sad
amused
pissed off
calm