My week long vacation starts now. I'm going to post the things that I've been holding off posting for various reasons, and I will also be sitting down at my desk refreshing my blog stats and seeing what I can improve on. So if you haven't already, check that out now.
I'm kind of concerned (no wait, really concerned) that I'm going to lock myself in my house, play my guitar, sleep for 3 days straight, and probably won't do anything until Thursday when I noticed that I slept the week away. I'm starting to worry that I'm going back into those "dark ages" where everything wasn't the way it was now, and when I really wasn't the person I am now. I think that I just need to write it all down and talk about it because all the things that I want to say are swirling around in my head like a almost done smoothie.
I might bring back the "What I did" series on vacation because I honestly don't know what to do over vacation. If I do block out what I do over vacation, then I can try extra hard to get something done over vacation, so you guys have something nice to look at. I think that my life is kind of like a 3 paragraph essay on repeat "I did this, then I did this, and then I went to bed". That's all. That all I do. But I'm sure that I'm not just a "person with a routine life"; I only do the same things on vacation.
I guess that I really want to talk to someone. That's all. I'm just lonely. I just want to talk to my friends and just say "Dude, can you just forget about everything that is going on in your life and talk to me for 15 minutes?". I'm sure that someone would say "Yeah, I have time to talk for 15 minutes. What do I do all day anyway?". The differentiating factor is that I don't want to tell my life story to everyone that I talk to. I told myself that I don't want others sympathy, I want others to tell me what to do right now because I frankly don't know how to do it myself.
I have 200 dollars that I have saved over the past 3 months. No, it isn't going to education, but to other things that I find more important right now. I know that I'm going to buy some things that I need and buy some more guitar picks because I've been playing with the same one since July. I need to pay for my shrink visit, but they might wave it for me because they know I'm broke and I really need someone to talk to. (Handy tip: Shrinks won't charge you for "verbal" therapy, or "e-mail" therapy. Milk out their morals and use it to your advantage.). They might even let me go to the park with their 125 pound Golden Retriever (btw, that dog weighs more than I do!!). I guess if no one else want's to talk to me, the dog will show some concern.
I kind of already know that I'm going to go to bed disappointed tonight. I don't every night, but what else do you do when everyone else is having "fun" and you don't even know what "fun" is anymore? I'm going to do something now, I'm not sure what it is, but I'll be sure to tell you all about it tomorrow.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Reader Survey
I just learned that my reader survey was on a page that didn't allow for my readers to fill out the survey! I'm doing the survey on another website so it will open a new window. The survey shouldn't take longer than 7 minutes. When you are done, check out some of my latest posts.
Click here to take survey
Click here to take survey
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Papers, papers, papers.
Today was the first novice home meet. It started pretty late (11am) and got done around 7pm. In the Debate world, that isn't too bad. At home meets, we have to work if we are not debating, I had to work because I'm not a novice. Working isn't too hard, unless they put you in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time. As you might know, I'm a Leo, and I can't deal with people infringing on my domain. However, I just had to suck it up and just deal with it today which isn't something that I normally do.
So I left my house at 10:45 and got there at 11, that isn't too bad because the traffic was light, and we weren't started 'till late anyway. Because I'm a varsity member, I take it into my own hands to great everyone but some of the novices that I dont' know don't want to say "Hi" back to me, or answer my question of "Do you need any help?" I think that I should get to know all of these kids before the end of the year when they say "Hey, that girl is part of our team? I never seen her around before." I should probably say that the world of Speech and Debate is a dog eat dog world, and if you don't want to get eaten, you have to do what you can to make it out ok.
I got my ballot and judged a novice LD round, and although one kid didn't have his case, he did a really good job attacking everything that this opponent said. His opponent, did have a case, but he did a crazy good job with evidence. I gave them a little extra prep time than I normally would because I felt like being nice to them. I thus went into the cafeteria and got a slice of pizza (Cheese, because they don't order vegetarian. My school never does) and a smoothie that I got a discount on because I know the people who make them. I then sat at the ballot table and started to "run" ballots to the Tab room (where they put the ballots into folders and make sure that everything is ok with them). I did this for about 30 minutes until they said that I needed to stay to "help them out".
I got into the tab room and my coach said: "you take the ballots, you look at the code on the corner of the ballot, put the ballot into the folder with the correct school code. The Aff team/person gets the white sheet, the Neg team/person gets the yellow paper. Pink papers go into the recycle bin". That didn't sound too hard. I got the ballots, tore the first two papers off, and put the pinks in the recycle bin. I got through the first 40 or so papers like that, but once the other ones came in, I had to up my game. I say that I could get the staples off 100 papers, sort them and put them in the right folder in about 2 minutes. Yes, I'm a fast worker.
That reminds me, I never really told you how many papers I was filling. Here is a math equation in case you are visual person:
Speech Events
4 people in a round x 7 rounds in a wave x 3 rounds total = 84 ballots per event.
84 papers per event x 6 Speech events = 504 speech event ballots total.
Debate Events
2 debaters per debate x AT LEAST 6 debates in a wave x 2 per wave (double wave = 7 debate at once, then 7 more) x 3 rounds = 72 papers for the debate types.
72 x 3 debate types = 216 debate papers total.
504 + 216+ 100 for 2 congress houses= 820 papers to be filed.
That is just a rough estimate. I know that there was a range of 600 ~ 1,000 balots that I filed today in a really fast 1:30 minutes. No paper cuts on my hands. But those god darn coaches got in the way of my filing, and they wanted to "just look at the ballots. I held every ballot of a judge that took 3 minutes looking at ballots till the end of my filing because they were getting in my way. I forgot to say that the table was round. You know what happens when you block one side of a table right? I'm not rude, don't get me wrong, but when you are asking me to "see your folder" I'm going to snatch the paper from you and say "File it yourself. I think you know where your file is, and you can put the ballot that I put ON TOP for YOU inside your folder." This is the only thing that I hate about volunteering, how rude people get and how much they ask you to do when they can see that you are doing something very important.
At awards, everyone else got a "thank you" except for me, (unless I was the judges table). I didn't really care. I can just say, that the next time I'm working this, I'm setting some boundaries down, so I can have this done and taken care of.
So I left my house at 10:45 and got there at 11, that isn't too bad because the traffic was light, and we weren't started 'till late anyway. Because I'm a varsity member, I take it into my own hands to great everyone but some of the novices that I dont' know don't want to say "Hi" back to me, or answer my question of "Do you need any help?" I think that I should get to know all of these kids before the end of the year when they say "Hey, that girl is part of our team? I never seen her around before." I should probably say that the world of Speech and Debate is a dog eat dog world, and if you don't want to get eaten, you have to do what you can to make it out ok.
I got my ballot and judged a novice LD round, and although one kid didn't have his case, he did a really good job attacking everything that this opponent said. His opponent, did have a case, but he did a crazy good job with evidence. I gave them a little extra prep time than I normally would because I felt like being nice to them. I thus went into the cafeteria and got a slice of pizza (Cheese, because they don't order vegetarian. My school never does) and a smoothie that I got a discount on because I know the people who make them. I then sat at the ballot table and started to "run" ballots to the Tab room (where they put the ballots into folders and make sure that everything is ok with them). I did this for about 30 minutes until they said that I needed to stay to "help them out".
I got into the tab room and my coach said: "you take the ballots, you look at the code on the corner of the ballot, put the ballot into the folder with the correct school code. The Aff team/person gets the white sheet, the Neg team/person gets the yellow paper. Pink papers go into the recycle bin". That didn't sound too hard. I got the ballots, tore the first two papers off, and put the pinks in the recycle bin. I got through the first 40 or so papers like that, but once the other ones came in, I had to up my game. I say that I could get the staples off 100 papers, sort them and put them in the right folder in about 2 minutes. Yes, I'm a fast worker.
That reminds me, I never really told you how many papers I was filling. Here is a math equation in case you are visual person:
Speech Events
4 people in a round x 7 rounds in a wave x 3 rounds total = 84 ballots per event.
84 papers per event x 6 Speech events = 504 speech event ballots total.
Debate Events
2 debaters per debate x AT LEAST 6 debates in a wave x 2 per wave (double wave = 7 debate at once, then 7 more) x 3 rounds = 72 papers for the debate types.
72 x 3 debate types = 216 debate papers total.
504 + 216+ 100 for 2 congress houses= 820 papers to be filed.
That is just a rough estimate. I know that there was a range of 600 ~ 1,000 balots that I filed today in a really fast 1:30 minutes. No paper cuts on my hands. But those god darn coaches got in the way of my filing, and they wanted to "just look at the ballots. I held every ballot of a judge that took 3 minutes looking at ballots till the end of my filing because they were getting in my way. I forgot to say that the table was round. You know what happens when you block one side of a table right? I'm not rude, don't get me wrong, but when you are asking me to "see your folder" I'm going to snatch the paper from you and say "File it yourself. I think you know where your file is, and you can put the ballot that I put ON TOP for YOU inside your folder." This is the only thing that I hate about volunteering, how rude people get and how much they ask you to do when they can see that you are doing something very important.
At awards, everyone else got a "thank you" except for me, (unless I was the judges table). I didn't really care. I can just say, that the next time I'm working this, I'm setting some boundaries down, so I can have this done and taken care of.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Stress plus some.
I'm really stressed out right now. Today was just lame, I woke up and realized that it was Columbus day and I didn't have it off. I have a really bad headache and I'm worried about my classes and getting good grades in all of my classes before the end of the quarter, which is in about a week or so. If I keep my grades as is, I'll be somewhat happy, but what is so bad about upping your grades?
I'm not too concerned about the work load, but I'm more concerned about how my grades and how my health is doing. I've been hungry all day, my neck and shoulders till hurt, and I slept for about 14 hours yesterday. I'm just so exhausted, and I have no idea what to do. Most likely I'm going to go to bed early, and as soon as I'm done writing this, I'm going to go to bed an hour and a half early. I'm sure that I can sleep easy tonight because I"m done with all of my homework and that stressor is gone.
I'm still wondering why my neck is still really messed up and why it cracks so much whenever I tilt it back. I think that I need to go to a doctor or chiropractor, but I'm kind of hateful when it comes to doctors. The last time I was going to go to a doctor I fractured my wrist playing tennis. Little did I know that I put my half broken wrist back into place when I was asleep, slept on it, and had a swollen wrist in the morning. I know that I should go to the doctor but when do I have time to?
I'm going to end it here so I can write more later. Hopefully I will be feeling better by then.
I'm not too concerned about the work load, but I'm more concerned about how my grades and how my health is doing. I've been hungry all day, my neck and shoulders till hurt, and I slept for about 14 hours yesterday. I'm just so exhausted, and I have no idea what to do. Most likely I'm going to go to bed early, and as soon as I'm done writing this, I'm going to go to bed an hour and a half early. I'm sure that I can sleep easy tonight because I"m done with all of my homework and that stressor is gone.
I'm still wondering why my neck is still really messed up and why it cracks so much whenever I tilt it back. I think that I need to go to a doctor or chiropractor, but I'm kind of hateful when it comes to doctors. The last time I was going to go to a doctor I fractured my wrist playing tennis. Little did I know that I put my half broken wrist back into place when I was asleep, slept on it, and had a swollen wrist in the morning. I know that I should go to the doctor but when do I have time to?
I'm going to end it here so I can write more later. Hopefully I will be feeling better by then.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Whatever happened to artists?
I'm an artist. I create art, I love art, and I would fight for art if it was in a war. Now, I don't always paint to make art, sometimes I make artful music , sometimes I write about things in an artful way and I share it with the world (ahem, my blog) and even I just like to take a normal sharpie and decorate a T-shirt with some random slogan that just happens to say "Whatever Happened to the artists?" I really wish that I knew.
If I knew more about why artists are on the decline, then I would love to talk to someone about it. Even at school (yes, I'm that into school) I can't find the artists. When I talk to my friends about "art" and why "art is on the decline in society" they just call me off as being "crazy" or that "I'm the one who can't see the art in today's society, not us.".
So I'm lost. What the heck do I do now? do I keep wigging out on my guitar and making it so loud that others around me leave because they "wish I played something with chords?" Do I keep making and wearing the things that aren't "in" and wearing the shirts that have the things that "people don't get". Yes I know is hard but, I think I just need to think about where I'm going so I won't become that "starving artist" that I really don't want to be.
If I knew more about why artists are on the decline, then I would love to talk to someone about it. Even at school (yes, I'm that into school) I can't find the artists. When I talk to my friends about "art" and why "art is on the decline in society" they just call me off as being "crazy" or that "I'm the one who can't see the art in today's society, not us.".
So I'm lost. What the heck do I do now? do I keep wigging out on my guitar and making it so loud that others around me leave because they "wish I played something with chords?" Do I keep making and wearing the things that aren't "in" and wearing the shirts that have the things that "people don't get". Yes I know is hard but, I think I just need to think about where I'm going so I won't become that "starving artist" that I really don't want to be.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Just a note.
I went to a concert on Monday. I blogged about it. I didn't really have time to write for you all because I was doing this 300 point essay that is due tommarow and I wanted to get that done. I will be back to writeing as soon as I can :)
Thanks.
Thanks.
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