Monday, February 28, 2011

Second day off~

Went out to apply to a few places again, since I wasn't scheduled (big surprise!) at work; I was also able to get a few hours doorhanging, which is actually nice when the weather is warm and not too bright.  It also gives me a chance to get a little exercise and listen to some of my backlog of audio books, which is what I usually do while delivering.

I decided to get the Birdemic Rifftrax, and hope it's as funny as the others I've watched.  I haven't seen it yet, but I have high hopes for the quality of the .gifs!  It probably won't distract from the pumpkin festival action at all, but I will have extra gourds with me just in case Nguyen decides to go light on the squashfests.
 
Having a lot of free time is a problem I'm not used to; even with the job search, there are long hours where I don't really have much to do, so I have been going through my backlog of recorded tv.  Since I had never gotten around to watching TruTV ever since it changed from CourtTv, I tuned in and saw some commercials for Bait Car; that and the Operation Repo show actually look interesting to me, if slightly... seedy (Kind of like Pawn Stars, perhaps?)  

I will have to go grocery shopping in the next day or so, and despite it being quite unhealthy, I have been living off ramen/banquet tv dinners; at least I'm not breaking 1800 calories, and may even lose weight!  It will only cost me my heart what with all the salt, but hey it's not like that kind of thing is important or anything right?

-Joel de Bunchastu

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Good news!

I have off for the next few days, but that is of course not what I'm referring to.  I have been informed that my hours will be going back up at Deleto's, as long as I keep my times as they are/my car stays clean, which won't be a problem at all! 

I am still going to be trying to find a second job, just so that I can save much more quickly, and that all the money I get doesn't go to car maintenance.  My dream is to become a pharmacist, but I might also be interested in work with chemicals in general; after all, why restrict study to those substances which affect human health that are taken *deliberately*?

For a bit of a topic change, I've recently gotten my Xbox 360 to read a disc again!  The solution was depressingly physical, tapping the top of the xbox over the disc drive so that the laser realigns as it's reading it.  This wouldn't be necessary if Microsoft wasn't so overzealous in their anti-piracy coding and ended up disabling a huge amount of non-pirated games and dvds; truly, your ability astounds me.  Here's hoping that Microsoft actually admits it was their fault; at the moment it seems they are blaming customers, either citing pirated or dirty/scratched discs.  I have seen people send in their xbox to get it fixed, pay $100, and have it *still* not working due to the same disc reading error!

Shame on you Microsoft, how dare you steal people's money and then not even correctly fix a problem!

-Joel de Bunchastu

Friday, February 25, 2011

Back from work!

Thankfully, I found out that instead of the 3-day weeks I've been having (Sounds good at first, but also entails a $60 paycheck after taxes and health insurance!), I will be working four days next week, possibly 5 if a coworker goes through with wanting me to work for her.

I am finding myself much more content nowadays; I think it has to do with more living in the moment, and paying attention to what I am doing *now*, rather than trying to cram long term planning into every moment of my life.  It has its place, of course, but that's what I'd be doing then, after all.

Thankfully, I received my paycheck today; unfortunately, it was the lowest yet, $54, due to the fact that my hours from doorhanging are on my next paycheck,  Hopefully it will be an even bigger one then, at least, but at least I will have something to look forward to!

I have been trying to re-open my online activites; before I usually just was passive, looking at videos and lurking on forums, with the occasional irc visit.  However, that is even less healthy socially than just staying online all day, because at least then you are communicating with actual humans.  I am hoping that this will help me reconnect with some old friends, which would of course be wonderful.

 Tomorrow I will go by the temp agency before I have to go in to my first job, to hopefully pick up some side work.  Who knows, last time I went there I got a 10-month job out of it, which only ended because the project I was helping with finished, and therefore had no more funding.  Perhaps I will be as lucky this time; I sure will hope for it.

-Joel de Bunchastu

Documentary of Work

For quite a while, I have let myself be content with living paycheck to paycheck, never really looking ahead farther than the current moment.  While this is, on the whole, a great way to become something like a zen master, it tends not to help if you find yourself losing hours at a job that, until now, had always been "enough".  Perhaps I found inner peace a little too early in life; after all, part of career seeking is an inner drive to do well.

My current job is pizza delivery, at Deliberately-Obscuredo's, and it has been a position that has always been there for me to fall back on.  I have no intention of leaving entirely once I do find a position which does *not* involve using all of your money to maintain your means of making money, but I will probably have fewer hours, if not because of reduced availability, then so that I do not use all of that other paycheck maintaining my vehicle.

My other concern is to return to school; I was accepted into a few colleges, but at around the time I was applying to them, my father had passed away.  With money relatively tight, I had thought that there was only enough money for myself or my sister to go to college; therefore, I made the decision that my sister would go, and I would spend my first two years at a community college, earning credits and intending to transfer to a four year college later.  Unfortunately, my foolishness in spending ended me up in debt when I first received a credit card, which I did for a while relatively responsibly maintained.  To make a long story short, much of my money after this was dedicated to paying off debt.

Despite these setbacks, I intend to finish my education, and also obtain a career, rather than just a job.  I hope to document my attempts here, mostly for my own records, but perhaps helping out someone else who happens to be in a similar situation.  Perhaps you, who may just be entering the workforce for the first time, can learn from my mistakes; at the very least, this will help keep my thoughts in order.

-Joel de Bunchastu