Archive for the ‘School’ Category

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Maybe I’m just too dumb?

Sunday, June 24th, 2007

For the past few months I’ve spent countless hours working towards some form of financial aid to get myself into college. I’ve gone through scholarship applications, financial aid information and I’ve even began looking into some level of secured loans that only seem to make sense to the lenders and not me, the person who’s going to have to pay all of this back. I go in to ask about a student loan and he gives me a run-around about secured home loans and bad credit secured loans. None of this will help me. I don’t know if it was his first day on earth, let alone his first day on the job, but when you’re asking about a student loan – where exactly do home loans come into the mix? I’m not buying the school, I’m just paying tuition here! I know that I can Google resources on the internet but I keep getting links in regards to Secured Loans UK and other countries where I’m not even ELIGIBLE for them!

If anyone of my visitors knows anything about the loan process, other than just having to deal with some guy in a suit telling me what’s good for me, could you please kick some information my way? It would be greatly appreciated!

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Posted in PPP, School | Comments Closed

Just when things are going well…DAMN IT!

Friday, June 8th, 2007

I’ve recently been in touch with an admissions director at AIU Online. In order to go for my bachelors through them, I need to have already completed my associates because their school year starts on the junior level, not the freshmen level that I was previously assuming. The problem is, she only could really crunch the numbers for me – I want to talk to someone in the visual communications department and really learn some more about the actual course itself.

It’s going to cost me about $32,000 to get my bachelors through them, that counts for the entire course and includes books, software and other things. She claims it’d be smart to stick with them when it comes to the associates degree because it’s only going to take me about 10-15 weeks tops. The issue I have with that is, how am I going to come up with the $19,500 to take the Associates and then another $32,000 to take the bachelors all within maybe 5 months of each other. It’s also 90 credits in 15 weeks that makes no real sense to me, that’s borderline killing myself just to get the damn degree.

I could just go to Penn Foster and get that taken care of for $4,000 but I also have to factor in that at the end of each semester I need to take a proctored exam and I don’t know ANYONE down here that has the minimum of an associates degree that could help me out in that regard. So when it comes to that alone – AIU is looking much better.

Either way I’m going to be completing the degree through AIU, I need to get my ID’s taken care of to reposition me down here because any scholarship, grant or financial aid that I file for needs to be sent down here and I don’t have any current proof of residence other than my WAMU account being sent down here and my casino mailers coming here as well. If I spent $50 to register to live in the complex, I’m sure that’ll count for something as well. Either way I consider myself screwed just when things were starting to go well for me.

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Posted in Boyfriend, School | 2 Comments »

Student Loans, Debt, Valuable Money Articles

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

With the new flow of money coming in, I’m confident that I’ll be able to work towards getting a student loan to get myself into school. I’ve been doing a lot of research on a few schools and after talking to a representative from AIUOnline.edu, I’m confident that they’re the school I’ll be working towards attending. They cost about $32,000 for the entire course, this will give me a bachelors degree in web design, which is exactly what I was looking for. Sean was going to help me look into grants and scholarships, even financial aid considering I’m emancipated from my father at this point in time. The one I think will actually WORK is a student loan, because they know if money is lent they’re getting it back. While scholarships, grants and financial aid don’t require being paid back – I know that they’ll give almost anyone with a co-signer a student loan so they can overcharge you with interest rates.

Worse case scenario, I’ll have to pay off a student loan with a debt consolidation loan but this is based on whether or not business maintains the flow it is at the moment. There are a few aspects of this that kind of freak me out though. After doing some surfing around thriftyscot.co.uk, I came across a list of articles about loans, credit cards, mortgages and other money related things. There were a few that stood out for me; The real cost of borrowing is measured in fear. Another article that stood out was in regards to student loans, naturally I was looking for one about it considering what’s on my mind right now. It’s respectively titled The mechanics of a student loan. There are a lot of money based articles listed on thriftyscot.co.uk, I’d seriously recommend it to anyone.

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Posted in PPP, School | Comments Closed

How could I NOT be smiling?

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

I’m not sure how I managed it, or what powers that be are floating around me helping me out at the moment but I’ve landed some work that’s more than likely going to keep my schedule full for a while. I’m working hard on cranking out templates for current clients but after that I’m going to have a fairly solid work flow with a few people whom contacted me over the last couple of days. It could turn into some fairly decent money, adding a few thousand to my income every month. That on top of the $800 average a month on paid posting and then the web hosting subscriptions coming in, it’s safe to say I’ll be set for a while.

I’m keeping everything in savings though. Yes, I’m going to enroll in school. Yes, I’m going to buy an iMac (I’ve wanted one for years) and Baby and I desperately need a new bed. After that, however, it’s going to be smooth sailing for quite some time, I can’t wait.

Baby is still asleep at the moment, though I think he’s getting close to waking up because there’s a lot of sniffling going on in the bedroom and typically he can’t breath too well in the morning. It’s either him sniffling or there’s a bird outside the window making a strange nasal sound…do birds even have a sense of smell? :hrm:

Bella’s sweating her butt off but that’s because the air conditioning hasn’t been on yet today. It’s only about 70 something and while it’s rather warm in the office, it’s comfortable outside. It’s nice to air the house out on occasion so I’m keeping myself from switching on the central air.

In a little while Sean and I are going to take a quick trip up to Lewes because I need to pick up a few things from Dollar Tree. Last night I made corn on the cob with dinner and there weren’t any corn holsters to keep Karen and I from burning our fingers off. So I figure I’d drop a dollar or two and pick some up – cheaper than Wal-mart! Then I’m probably going to hit up the super market because I need to pick up some things for dinner tonight and Blockbuster is right next door, I know Baby needs to pick up a few things…I think he’s getting Norbit, It came out on Tuesday – who knows. I’m just waiting for Reno 911 to come out, I think that’s the only movie this month that I’m actually looking forward to.

I’m going to get some emails taken care of, then I’m going to continue working on a template for Shauna and then pick up on a few things for Dick. Nothing beats productivity!

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, School, Work | 3 Comments »

Not too bad.

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

I woke up rather late today but that’s because I didn’t get to sleep until about 5am. We wound up going to Milford last night, there’s a Big Lots there plus a 24-hour Wal-mart so we were basically shopping until about 1am before we took the half hour drive home. I went a little over budget yesterday but that’s mainly because I treated everyone to dinner last night. We went to Applebee’s after Big Lots and that ran about $50, so when I spent over $40 in Wal-Mart I knew I’d gone over. This is fine, however, because at least I’ve got the money to cover it anyway.

I’ve been rather productive today. I had my coffee and some quaker rice cakes so I only took in about 100 calories so far. I watered the flowers, cleaned out the bathroom, cleaned the bedroom. I made a quick snack for Baby and I so that we could put some real food in our stomachs as well. While I was outside I washed the cars as well, they were getting kind of dusty because of the trees in the area so I made it a point to get all of the dust off the windows especially – makes it difficult to drive if you don’t. Now I’m sitting here going through email so I can get started on my work day. I do intend to have the bedroom vacuumed and the kitchen straightened up.

We bought a lot of meat last night, we’re going to be barbecuing quite a bit this weekend considering it’s a holiday. Kay has a few extra days off so she’s going to paint her bathroom, bathe the dogs and then get some other things done around the house that she’s been putting off for a while. Baby will basically only have to barbecue but at least that will keep him entertained for a little while. It pushed 90F today and since the UV index is rather high I hope to have gotten some color with everything I was doing outside.

I guess I should get my ass in gear on some work. I’ve been slacking on my $20-$30 a day blogging goals so hopefully I can get back on track with that. Even then I could probably average about $750-$900 a month – not bad for a few minutes of work a day.

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Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Dieting, Randomage, School | Comments Closed

Getting very close…

Friday, May 25th, 2007

At the rate that business is coming in for me right now, I’m confident that by July I’ll finally be able to enroll into Penn Foster because I’ll have everything I need for the first semester. Part of me wonders if I should hold off until September so I can treat it like a regular school year or if I should work diligently through the summer so I can get things cranked out faster, at the rate of my impatience I’m confident that I’m going to do the latter.

Up until recently I was unsure of which program I wanted to take first. I’m going for two degrees, the first being Multimedia & Design, the other being Web Programming. As of right now I have more of a career with the visual aspect of things than I do with the programming side. I’m not even programming the new site I’m working on, I talked Baby into that one. He’s quicker with things than I am so I figured it would be the best thing to do, he’s also in school for it so he’s got the resources on hand if something comes up.

I’m sure that it would make more sense to just continue with what I’ve been doing but companies won’t look at you unless you have a degree to back up your portfolio (at least the ones I’ve applied to seem to work that way) so getting my degree in the more prominent field is obviously important to me. I guess I’m going to choose the Multimedia option after all – go figure, a random (and probably useless) blog entry can figure everything out.

There are some serious upsides to taking the multimedia course first – I’ve spent years wanting to learn flash and never sat down and did it. The cool thing to this course is I now have no choice but to learn it so hopefully I can start taking on more jobs considering I have to turn down or outsource any job that requires flash work for me at the moment – I hate that feeling. But with more money coming in it means more resources for me and I’ll also be able to get my hands on the Mac that I’ve been anticipating for a few years now as well.

: sigh : maybe if I got my ass in gear instead of sitting back and dreaming, this shit would happen faster…heh.

Posted in School, Work | Comments Closed

Not happening soon enough

Monday, May 21st, 2007

For some reason, my business email has been submitted to a few school databases. I’ve got colleges emailing me up the wazoo with information that I never requested. Most of these emails don’t even contain a link that says “Remove me from this mailing list” and that’s the worst kind of email to get. I’ve had one school email me about three times in the last two hours because they’re “Unable to get in touch with me” the phone number they have on file is the one in New York so this can only mean that they’ve been calling my fathers house and I have no doubt in my mind that he’s annoyed about it at this point. I guess I’ll call him in a little while and let him know what’s going on.

I already have my heart set on a school. I know for a fact that I’m going to Penn Foster to get my multimedia degree. At first I wanted to take the programming one but I think it’ll be easier just to get the design aspect taken care of. I’ve wanted to learn flash for years and the only way to do that will have to be with someone (well, in this case a book) walking me through it. This is why you’ve noticed more paid posting on my site. At first it was just to break even but I’m working on something much bigger. Averaging $25-$30 a day worth of posts is very easy but when you factor in 30 days a month that’s about $750-$900 a month, a part time job. Blogging is my outside job, I do still make enough with the design business to be covered but the extra $800 a month is more of a comfort thing. After the first month I’ll be able to enroll in the first semester and that’s really all I want at this point.

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Posted in School, Work | Comments Closed

Moving ahead in life

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Many people don’t realize the importance of higher education. A few people that I’ve spoken to feel that their high school diploma is just about all they’re going to need in order to get by in life. With technology on the rise, that diploma isn’t going to mean much for very long – unless you intend to be a life-long cashier at your local supermarket or a professional waitress making less than minimum wage and pushing for tips. The problem with most people these days is the ability to balance school with work. The cool thing is, here comes the technology reference, you can go to school online and work at your own pace towards the degree of your dreams.

I’ve been working towards enrolling just to get my associates degree. There are online schools, however, that will give you your bachelors degree. While that does look better on a resume, you’re really not learning that much more about web design in four years than you would in two. Most books are based on the internet up until 2002 and as we all know, things have changed. Now everyone is working with Web2.0 which I find to be extremely easy considering I’ve always depended heavily on CSS/DIV setups but Web2.0 won’t be available for you to learn in school.

Getting a degree online doesn’t mean that you have to choose an internet based field. You can get anything from an associates to a bachelors degree in any field of interest you please. Accounting, Business, Counseling, Health Care, Human Resources & Training, Human Services, Information Technology, K-12 Education, Nonprofit Management, Project Management, Psychology, Public Safety, Social and Community Services, and so much more. The possibilities are endless.

There’s no age limit, you can be in your 60’s and still earn your degree the same way your 20 year old grandchildren are. So for someone who’s been out of high school for a few years to feel as though they can’t accomplish it, that’s certainly not the case at all. Schools like Capella University can really help you reach your goals, try checking it out for your higher education needs.

This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com

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Posted in BLTV, School | 1 Comment »

Happy October!

Sunday, October 1st, 2006

If you didn’t already notice, there’s a new theme up on k.nu. The white swirley things at the top were based on a desktop I got off deviantart.com the rest was Photoshop. The ‘hill’ type layers were completely ripped off of Jackie but that’s because I envy her graphic work. I wanted to do a three column theme for a little while now, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to go about playing it out…I’m happy with it though, I guess that’s all that matters.

I had a fairly busy day. I took my AC out of the window, did a small rearrange with my room, organized my desk (again) and then cleaned up the rest of the house so that there wasn’t just one room that was uber clean. I typed up a scholarship essay that I hand-wrote over the week and sent that in and now I just finished up putting the final touches on this theme so yea, I guess I can say I did some shit heh.

For now I’m watching Law & Order: CI on USA and when this gets beyond boring I think I’m just going to call up the boyfriend and yap with him for a few hours.

I have some work coming my way so I’ll be able to reach my tuition goal a lot quicker. It’s my main goal to save up about $8,000 to get every purchase I want to make out of the way but for now the goal has dropped to $900 so that I can enroll in Penn Foster, that will cover the first semester so we’ll see how quick I can save that up.

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, I’m going to take a week vacation with the boyfriend and then at the end of the month I’m going up to Mohegan Sun with Dad (and maybe my aunt) for a day. I’m only bringing like $300 up with me. Some people go crazy and save up like $1500-$2000 just to go to a casino. I’m sorry but I see no point in setting aside $1500 that you may not even come home with. Even if I had like $20,000 in the bank, $1,500 is still a big enough chunk for me to say “Nuh uh”. I figure $300-$350 is fine. It’s already saved up and put away so I guess that’s all that matters. I should be bringing in about $1400 profit this month and that’s always a good thing. That’s what…$350 a week? Not too bad considering I’ve changed my hours around. I’m only doing about 10 hours a day instead of my previous 18-20, I’ve been catching up on sleep lol.

In any event, if you can read this it’s officially 12AM here on Long Island and I’m most likely on the phone with the boyfriend.

Night all!

Posted in Daily, School, Sitely | 7 Comments »

The Life Updates

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006

I’ve gotten a few emails over the last few weeks asking where I’ve been and why I haven’t been around. My only real answer to these questions is the fact that I’ve just been too busy to care about signing onto AIM and listening to people bitch and moan about every little thing. Yes, not all of you do this, nor am I singling anyone out with this.

The past 6 months have been extremely hard on me and very few people understand this. My main focus in life right now is work. I have valid reasoning behind this though. The only way to get out of a shitty situation is to tough it out for as long as you can and scrape and save everywhere you can. By the time I’m done saving up all the money I need I’ll be moving out of here. Right now, however, my plans have seriously been delayed.

After talking to a rep from Penn Foster College I’m now going full speed ahead with four associates degrees. They are:

– Graphics Design
– Internet Technology w/ an Option in E-Commerce Administration
– Internet Technology w/ an Option in Multimedia and Design
– Internet Technology w/ an Option in Web Programming

There are a few job offers that have been kicked my way over the course of the last two years that I’ve had to turn down because I do not have a degree in anything that I currently do. Each semester for these courses is around $900, there are four semesters for each course as well. In total for each semester and each course factored in, I need about $16,000. Oddly enough this is still cheaper than ONE year at Briarcliff and I can get everything that I’ve wanted in the process.

I’m balancing clients, I’m tutoring and I’m also working on a part time job at a local store. With this I’ll also be looking into Financial Aid and Student Loans. By the time everything has worked itself out I hope to have about $20,000. This will cover school and some ‘fixing’ around my room. I’m going to purchase a new desktop which will only run me about $750 and then upgrade my desk so that I have a lot more surface area to work on. So yea, that’s why I’ve been busy…sue me.

The block party on Saturday turned out fairly well. The family met the boyfriend and things went well. I had a little bit more to drink than I thought I was going to but I was completely coherent so I guess that doesn’t matter very much. I spent the weekend with the boyfriend because I missed him and he stayed here over night on Saturday. I didn’t get much sleep because we went out to breakfast and then I met his family. His aunt is really awesome though so I had a good time. That basically covered my weekend.

By Monday it was ‘back to work’ for me though. I’ve been busy ever since. On Tuesday, I brought Bella to the groomer, she’s no longer a big fur ball, she’s down to a skinny little shit that takes up a lot less room than she did before. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep on Monday night so bringing her to the groomer EARLY Tuesday morning wasn’t fun. For some reason, however, last night I completely crashed at 3 and didn’t wake up until 2 this afternoon which is screwing me up because I’ve lost a good half of days work that I had to very quickly make up.

I logged into my Digital Camera account with Freepay yesterday to find that they’ve FINALLY updated my status. My order has been placed with the Vendor and I’ll soon receive shipping information when everything has gone through. Considering how long it took them to send me the camera I’m damn sure that when it does actually show up, something will be broken on it. To refresh memories, I’m getting the Olympus SP-350, so I’m sure I’ll have pictures when it shows up. I know that Freepay is a legit company but I’m still not going to recommend that anyone looking for free stuff goes through them. The only ‘freebie’ company that I’ll ever recommend to anyone is Offer Centric.

October is going to be a busy birthday month for me. I’m going to be taking a week’s vacation with the boyfriend and then the following week I’m going up to the Casino with my father for my birthday. Maybe I’ll get lucky on a couple slot machines and won’t need to get a student loan so I don’t have to worry about paying back the interest heh.

In any event, there was my long drawn out ‘personal post’. Don’t expect to see another one for quite some time out of me.

Posted in Boyfriend, Family, School | 10 Comments »

I think too much

Thursday, August 10th, 2006

While working, I randomly take breaks to clear my head. I can only look at code for so long before I begin to go crazy. My main big thing to do when taking these breaks is research for future purchases.

My future purchases include:
– New Cell Phone
– New Desktop
– School Enrollment (5 courses)

Cellphone – In December, my cell phone expires. My father, my sister and I are on the family plan and it’s been two years so the plan is going to be reset. My father won’t be adding my number, and my sisters, back to the plan. I do pay him the monthly fee’s, don’t sit there and think that I’m not worthy of having it under his plan. The problem is with my sister. She runs her phone bills up 300+ each month, just for HER PHONE. Meanwhile, her plan is only supposed to be somewhere in the $20 range, like mine. Because she has abused this, my father is canceling everything all together. I’m not complaining because I’m sick of the telemarketers. So instead of having a monthly plan, I’ve decided to go back to a prepaid phone. Considering I rarely ever, if at all, use the phone. I figure it would be easy to spend $70-$80 on a phone that comes with 60 minutes, and then just put maybe $10 a month on the phone to keep it active. This is the financially sound thing to do, and the exact route that I’m going to take. I’ve been looking at phones everywhere, and oddly enough the one I’m going to go for can be found right through Wal-Mart – isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t that some shit? It’s $75 for the phone, comes with 60 pre-paid minutes and then within a month – I have to put maybe $10 on the phone. I’m content with this purchase.

Desktop – I know that for the past few months I have felt completely content (and extremely happy) with my laptop. The mobility factor is amazing. I have not, however, realized how many programs I use on a daily basis for designing and what not and now my laptop is beginning to fill up a lot quicker than anticipated. I’m using around 40 gigs of my 80gig hard drive, and I know that doesn’t seem like much but I was using 40 on a 120gb hard drive on my desktop – so you do the math there. I’ve been looking for desktops in places like Tiger Direct, Microcenter, CompUSA and of course HP. No matter which one of these companies I go through, I’ll be sticking with an HP desktop. I do not need anything over the top with bright lights and pretty colors like my last desktop. I just need something with a 120 gig hard drive and enough room to load my old hard drive into it so I can regain access to those files.

Now that I have mastered the art of linking computers on the network, I’ll be using the computer as a file server – mainly – this is why I do not need to be too concerned about the statistics right out of the box. I do know that anything less than a gig of ram is unacceptable because I will begin using the computer for heavy graphics. Over time I fully intend to be up to my ass in learning flash so that I can bring in some more money for business. So if spending $400 on a desktop is the route that I have to take, then so be it.

The reason for this – I’m going back to school. I’ve decided that sometime over the next few months I will be enrolling in new courses through Penn Foster and Stratford. Penn Foster will cover the technical aspects of things. I’ll enroll with them for Web Programming, Web Design and Graphics Design. I’ll then go to Stratford for Business Management and Accounting. My reason behind the Stratford courses is not only for me, but for Joe. He was going to school for Accounting and he was only a few months away from his degree before he passed away so I think this is my way of finishing what he started. Whether he’d appreciate it or not, I don’t know…I’ll never know. But there are cases when someone sets their mind to do something just because it feels right…this is one of those times. It’s my way of honoring him and, in my head, that’s all that matters.

In any event…I need to get back to work. I’m finishing up on a non-profit/Wordpress set of templates and my creative streak has been shot to hell because I’ve been ass-deep in work for a long time now. I can’t wait to finally be able to complete a project in its entirety and not feel bad that it’s taking me so long. I apologize to any client who comes here and reads up on things. I really am trying my best – I’m just balancing 13 clients right now and it hasn’t been easy on me at all. The power issues because of last weeks heat wave didn’t help me much either :grr:

Posted in School, Soul Mate, Work | 6 Comments »

Migraine Central

Thursday, May 11th, 2006

I’ve been in a very bad mood for the last couple of days; I’m not quite sure as to why. I woke up yesterday with the biggest migraine in the world, and I was so sensitive to light and sound that even Bella walking behind me was too much to deal with. It progressively got worse as the day went by. Living on the main road, all I listen to are cars and big trucks. Sure, the windows were cracked and I could have just closed them but at the same time, however, even with closed windows you can hear all the street noise. It wouldn’t have made much of a difference either way.

School/PC Shit
I’m putting money aside for school; I still owe them like $350 so I’m going to make it a point to pay that off in one lump sum. I’ll have to dip into my savings account for it, but if it means getting my degree sooner, I guess that’s all that matters. It won’t affect my laptop fund though; I do fully intend to purchase that next week when the $1500 has cleared to my bank account. If I have to hold off on my school pay off for two weeks, so be it. I’ve been waiting three years to order my laptop, and you better believe that I will. For now I’ll just continue to pay it monthly until I have one lump sum to pay them to complete the course, I’m absolutely fine with this, at least I’m still actually paying for it.

Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix E900 I sent in the account approval forms for my digital camera on Monday. I got some freakish test-email today so I’m watching my account closely to make sure that things actually completely go through. I’m anxious about it. So far, none of the referrals have changed and I’m still at 10/10 so I’m going to assume that everything is full speed ahead (for the time being at least). They’ve changed their gifts around. Originally I was going to get the Olympus SP-350 which is 8megapixels. They have the Fuji FinePix E900 with better zoom and stats in general, so I’m going to get that one instead. It has a smaller storage card, the Olympus gives you a 25mb the Fuji gives you a 16mb. It really doesn’t matter though; I can purchase a 1GB Fuji card later on for like $25-$30, so there really is no loss there at all. I’m excited about it, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Patio Woe’s continued…
So my sister and I did some more driving around the other night and of course I found the perfect set at the super market right down the street. I didn’t have to travel all over Long Island no, no, no. I just had to go down the road with the intent of picking up some freaking milk! It was my intent to get it this week, and then I decided to wait it out a bit. I’d rather keep the money aside in case any extra fee’s come up then after I’ve ordered my laptop – whatever money I have left will go to the patio. This will go towards the flowers, the table and the outdoor carpet (because the deck has really soft wood that dents easily). My total budget is $200, which I think is very reasonable considering I don’t even have to update the porch at all. For now, I’ll just throw one of the two table cloths I got off eBay on the table outside and that’ll take care of that.

I already informed the two other tenants that there would be some remodeling done on the porch this summer, one was opposed to it but fuck her I’ve got tenure. My grand parents own the building and I’ve lived here for 18 years. If I want to throw a hanging plant out there, oh fucking well for them. I let them both know that children were not to be anywhere near any pots I put out there, and I let the one in the middle know that if there is one ash or cigarette burn on the new table I’d throw her over the ledge. Both of them leave their shit all over the deck, it’s time for spring clean out, damn it.

My headache is coming back now. For some reason the pressure like changed in the room and now my ears are clogged up. I wish it would just start fucking raining already so the weather would stop being so damn annoying.

I’ll return comments later, when I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m in a better mood.

Posted in School, Work | 8 Comments »

Screw April…yay May!

Monday, May 1st, 2006

As of midnight it’s officially May. In keeping with the usual “new theme every month” routine, there’s a new template up. I thought it felt very spring-like without being a total eyesore, to me at least. I’m happy with how it came out though. I haven’t really experimented with colors this way before so I was glad to do it.

Work Related…
I’ve been kind of busy lately. I’m happy to announce that I’ve landed a very, very big client and I’ll be working with him for the next couple of weeks. I’m getting about $1800 from this project and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m to a point now where I have a whopping $52.54 in my bank account and there are quite a few bills to pay. Fortunately I’ve got the servers on credit for the month, so I’m going to wind up having to pay them off when I get the remaining 80% from this client. That’s not too big of a deal though, I’m not overly concerned. Tony knows I’m good for the money and that’s all that matters.

I’m just going to be VERY, VERY busy for the next couple of weeks. I don’t mind though, I kind of need that right now. April 27th 2006 would have been Joe’s 25th birthday. Unfortunately, since his death, I haven’t really done any work. I’ve done a few odd and end jobs, but other then that I haven’t really done any corporate based accounts (that’s where the real money is). Thankfully this client will get me out of my rut. All summer plans should now be full speed ahead.

Laptop Related…
I jumped the gun a few weeks ago and already purchased my wireless router. It only cost me like $5 so it was definitely not a dent in any sort of spending budget. The router originally was $69.99, it was on sale for $49.99 and I had about $50 in gift certificates to Circuit City. I basically just paid tax on it. So, I’ve got my router. In a few weeks (when I get my final check from this client) I’ll be heading to HP.com and putting my order through on the dv800z laptop. After configuration and tax, and before the $50 mail-in rebate, it’s going to run me $1,423; which is fine considering that’s $77 under budget. I’m still getting $50 back on it so then it’s really $127 under budget. I’ll then be heading to NewEgg.com and ordering my mouse and flash drive. My printer is a piece of shit, so I’ll be unable to network it so that I can print from the Laptop. The flash drive is easier than hooking up a USB/ZIP drive and transferring everything over. So I’ll just spend $15 on a 1-gb flash stick and the rest is history.

School Related…
I’m still waiting to hear something from school. I was finally emailed back about my essays. I sent the essays out on April 3rd, apparently they didn’t get there until April 11th, which I find to be a bit weird considering they were only sent upstate. I don’t know how long it takes for them to actually GRADE the essays and I’ll tell you that it’s ticking me off to no end that they haven’t even been looked at yet. I worked really, really hard on them and it’s kind of annoying that they’re taking their sweet time. I’m thinking that’s based on the fact that I’m paying for school monthly though. If I would have just given them the $550 up front, I’m sure that it would have been graded already. But since I have another 10 months left before it’s fully paid off, then obviously they can take all the time they want.

This doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep pushing it though. I’d like to get my degree ASAP damn it.

Miscellaneous…
Tax season has come and gone. Dad’s getting back about $5,000 and I owe money, but hey – that’s life! He’s made it a point to say that he’s going to be getting new couches for the living room. Many of you may (or may not) know that a little over a year ago I bought a big double seater wicker chair off Ebay. It was in my room for the first six months or so and then we started moving things around for Christmas and realized we needed another couch in there. So now, I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m couch-less. At the time of my purchase, we only had a loveseat and a chair in the living room. The love-seat we’ve had for about 10 years and it was falling apart when we got it. So now, we’re going to head over to some close-out furniture store and pick up a nice new set for about $500. I kind of thought it was going to be an uncomfortable set considering the price, but once I sat down I was in HEAVEN, my back didn’t bother me AT ALL and that’s a very, very rare thing these days. So thankfully in a few weeks I’ll be able to get my couch back in here, this way I’m not stuck in my bed whenever I’m reading. Usually it’s comfortable but now I’m going on six months without any kind of comfort what so ever. :hmph:

So if you haven’t already picked up on it, I’m rather excited about May. March and April turned out to be some very shitty months, I’ll be glad to start picking up and moving on. I’m still very upset about Joe’s passing, but for the most part I know that he’s still here with me, and that’s helping me to wake up in the morning. I guess that’s all that matters.

Site Related
I’ve gotten myself back into a few comment sites. Despair, Exentrique and of course Xposure. Sofar I’m content with them, I’ve already been yelled at by a member or two because I report users who don’t comment, sorry for ya but I follow the rules…unlike you. I’ve wanted to get Provance back up and running for quite some time but am unable to afford the script. I’m really, really ticked off that Russ bought it and let it fucking die the way it did. I’d beat him for it, if he wasn’t MIA for crying out loud.

AcidGloss Related
After a very long down time AcidGlossNET is finally back up and running. My portfolio, as well as design site is all setup into one big site that I’m actually HAPPY with. I intend to add more to it over time, but it’s going to take a little while. I figure, in order to keep on top of things, I’ll just add sites as I create them. It makes things easier.

In any event, this post has gotten a little too long and I’m sure you’re growing bored of it, so I’m going to head off.

What do you guys think of the new theme? Is it colorful enough for you? haha

Posted in School, Sitely, Soul Mate, Work | 26 Comments »

I’m just confused…

Friday, April 14th, 2006

After Joe died, I had no concentration level whatsoever. It took me almost a month to get back into the swing of things, especially with school.

I finally picked myself up and said “Okay, it’s time to get back to business.” I went ahead and completed the multiple-choice questions connected to my final course (English). I also completed the two essays required for this particular module. Upon the completion of this module, I’m basically finished with school. All I have to do is wait for them to grade the essays and then send me my degree.

The problem: They’re taking their fucking sweet assed time grading my essays!

I’ve worked very hard to get into school, and twice as hard to maintain a 95/100 average. I’ve emailed them three times and no response IN A WEEK. I’ve called them, and it seems that ALL OF THEIR LINES WERE BUSY! I’m so completely and totally annoyed about this, it’s not even funny.

I want to get a job outside of the house that doesn’t require bagging groceries. No there’s nothing wrong with bagging groceries – it’s a living…but not one that I want to do again. Been there, done that!

All I want is to get my degree so I can head up to the hospital and file an application. Then I can finally get out of the house during the day instead of sitting here WAITING like a little puppy for work to come in.

Is that so wrong of me? Am I like shooting my goals TOO HIGH? I just don’t understand?¢‚Ǩ¬¶I really don’t. I’m almost completely at the end of my rope. People are dropping like flies around me, I have hardly any money coming in (other than hosting fee’s that all go right back to the server). I just don’t get it.

In situations like these, the one person I would go to is Joe. He was my crutch and that crutch is long since gone. And even though I’ve turned into a schizoid and still talk to him on occasion as though he’s sitting right here, there’s never any kind of response that sets my mind at ease. I know it’s pathetic, I’m fully admitting to that. I just don’t know how to deal with it any other way. It’s been a month (as of April 7th) and I’m still waiting for him to call me and tell me it was all just a cruel joke and he’s been on vacation or something.

How does someone get through the rest of their life when their life-line has basically been sliced, diced, and julienned? Please, answer this for me because I really don’t understand.

I’ve had people tell me that I have to start taking care of myself, I have the ability to get through things on my own, blah blah blah. I am independant, that’s not the point. Everyone, no matter who you are, has that ONE person in their life that they can go to for emotional support. Whether it be a family member, friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, husband or wife, that person is there for you 100% whenever you need them.

Yes, I have Alicia, John, Heather, Christie, Stick Boy, Miranda, and the list continues. I love them all, but all of them combined will never have the same kind of effect on me that Joe did. He was at my beck and call for six years, six fucking years, and now I’m left here in the dark wondering when he’s going to pop up and let me know that everything will be ok.

I’ve closely considered going to one of those John Edward seminars, but there would really be no point in that. The only questions I have for Joe are very simple ones that are yes and no answers. One of those “Tap twice for yes, once for no” kind of responses.

#1 – Did you die peacefully? Yes, I’m aware of the fact that you were in constant pain because of your illness, and were very sick the night that you passed away. But was it a very painful death or did you just fall asleep and not wake up?

#2 – Are you still here? I just need to know if you’re still watching over me the way you used to. Always being at my side was something you probably did better than anyone. Yes, we faught, every relationship has its downfalls, but are you still at least here to keep an eye on me and nudge me when I’m doing something stupid?

#3 – Are you proud of me? You were the driving force behind my going back to school, you were going to be there to see me through it and help me with anything I didn’t understand. You held up to your end of the bargain, you showed up here when you were supposed to go somewhere else just to help me get through my Chemistry homework. Why couldn’t you be here long enough to see that it paid off and I’m finally graduating? I looked to you for everything because I know you’d never steer me in the wrong direction. Are you at least proud that I’ve now reached my goal?

I’ve written the same three questions down over, and over again. Few have told me to write him a letter, that’s as far as I can go without completely and totally breaking down. Yes, that are three literal questions from my private journal.

I’m just……BAH!

Posted in School, Soul Mate | 4 Comments »

Long time…no post?

Sunday, April 2nd, 2006

It’s been such a long time since I actually had the drive to blog. There’s really not anything going on right now though. I’m still having trouble with Joe’s passing, so much that being alone at night is really starting to get to me. I’m always anxious about something and it’s truly a pain in the ass at this point. I guess I just need to take a vacation, who knows.

Last Saturday, my aunt talked me into going up to Mohegan Sun with her. The casino is HUGE! I easily got lost a few times LOL. I brought up my last $10 with me, and daddy (for some reason) gave me $50. I managed to blow through his $50 in about 10 minutes, damn slot machines. I did, however, turn my $10 into $600 after I got lucky on TWO very, very nice machines. The issue is though, I got greedy. So instead of cashing out and putting it all in my pocket – I kept going with ‘bet max’ and weaseled myself down to $200. I did cash out after that, I just don’t really remember what happened – money wise – because I only came home with $48. So in reality, I lost only $12, but considering Daddy didn’t want his money back – I’m up $38. That counts for something though, right?

I’ve been putting a few dollars aside lately, and I’d like to get a little nest egg together for my next trip up there. I’m not going to say that I’m ?¢‚ǨÀúhooked’; I just know that I had a very, very good time. It was nice to get off the island for a day or so. We left around 10 am; it was a 3 1/2 hour drive up (thanks to major traffic on the bridge). We were in there for about 14 hours, and then made it home around 7am. I wasn’t that tired though, considering I don’t usually go to sleep until 8-9am anyway. What kind of freaked me out was once I went to lay down I was KNOCKED OUT. That’s not an easy thing to do, at all.

I told daddy that once I graduated, I wanted to go back up there. I’ve been working my ass off all weekend on essays. I’m totally done with all of the multiple choice questions with the course, I’m just down to two completed essays to send in and I’m officially a graduate, I’m happy about it. Heather proof-read it for me, helping me fix my punctuation mainly. So now, although all of that is ‘perfect, I still feel as though the grade is going to be a bad one. At this point, as long as it’s over an 85 – I really could care less.

The next essay that I have to work on is a small auto-biographical one which should really only take me twenty minutes to complete, however, I can’t bring myself to write the last paragraph. The first two were fairly simple; describe where you grew up and who you grew up with, the members of your household, etc. The final paragraph is to write about your most recent memory, and I just can’t do it. Anytime I’ve gone to start, all I can see is Joe laid up in that coffin looking very unlike him because of all the fucking make-up. I’ll eventually get around to knocking it out though. It’s my goal to be finished with it by this evening, and although its 6pm now, that doesn’t mean evening for me, once the sun fully goes down then its evening. So I figure sometime over the course of the next few hours things will fall into place.

I’m still looking for as many jobs as I can find, website wise. I know once all the school stuff is out of the way I’ll be going up to the hospital and applying there. My issue would be that since I don’t have a car, if they went to put me at another hospital…I’d be screwed. I don’t work well on public transportation and there’s no way to get someone to drive me out to Syosset every day, especially if it’s a morning shift. Bad, bad bad.

So if you’re looking for a template, or a domain and hosting, just head over to AGn Solutions, and note that on all weblog based templates, just write down ‘k.nu’ in the subject of your email and I’ll instantly crop 50% off the price, so instead of a WordPress template costing $75-$100, it’ll cost $30-$50.

In any event, I’ve said all I could say. I have to get my mind in gear so I can go write the last paragraph of this essay.

Later all!

Posted in School, Soul Mate, Work | 4 Comments »

How sweet!

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

[edit]

He sent me tulips! I heart the bald bastard today haha.
[/edit]

So, for some reason or another, I wound up at Wal-Mart again tonight. I don’t even really like the store; I just like good deals on useless things. I loaded up on some more plates, bowls and cups. I’m officially set for this summers BBQ. The only thing left is the new table which I’ll be purchasing in a few weeks, and then the new gas grill which dad will be purchasing soon as well.

While looking through the isles I came across a new hamper, something I was in desperate need for. My current one, although still in good shape, has a small hole on the side that’s driving me crazy. I also like separating clothes so I figured it’d be a good idea to have more than one for easy sorting. I bought it, it was only like $4 so it’s not like it was a major investment. I came home, popped it open and threw my clothes in it. So now I’ve got two full bags of laundry staring me in the face. I’ll start on that tomorrow though; I really have no choice now. I’ve only got one set of clothes left in my closet and I’ll be wearing them tomorrow after I get out of the shower. So a weekend-o-laundry is on my plate. I guess it’ll keep my mind off things; for some reason folding laundry has that effect on me.

I also intend to start on my essays this weekend. Originally, I kind of made little plans in hopes that Heather and John would come visit me on Saturday. Heather’s too busy though, and that’s fine because I’m sure I’ll see them soon. So, I’ve switched to plan B. Writing two essays, working on about 6 loads of laundry and then spending some much needed R&R time on the couch with Bella.

For some reason, for the last few days Shaun has been bugging me to make sure I was awake early on Saturday morning. I just called him a little while ago and nagged the hell out of him to tell me why. He sent flowers, how sweet! He was like “I owed you a V-Day gift and I know life sucks right now”. He then went on to ask if I could let him go back to sleep because he was really enjoying his dream and he had to wake up for work in a few hours. He promised we’d talk tomorrow and I know that he’s coming to visit me soon. I’m happy now; it brought a smile to my face for the first time in the last few weeks. Sure, I’ve had laughs and giggles because I have dear friends who care about me and want me to be happy again. A gesture like this, however, really means a lot to me. It was also very unexpected considering the source of the gift. He was a great boyfriend, but never this sweet to me in the past. I can honestly say this is the first time I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve gotten flowers; I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m touched. I’ll post a picture tomorrow, I don’t know what he sent me but I’m sure they’re beautiful.

In any event, it’s almost 4AM and if I have to be up early to accept his gift then I guess I should head off to bed.

Posted in Daily, School | 8 Comments »

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