Don’t worry, baby. Everything will turn out alright.

-“Don’t Worry Baby”. Original by the Beach Boys. (My favorite version is a cover of it by Keith Moon.)

Bonjour, faithful blog readers! I am back. Comment avez-vous été? (How have you been?)

Can you believe it’s the first day of Spring already? Snow has been melting steadily for about a week now. The roads aren’t huge sheets of ice, and I don’t have to navigate a huge snow bank to get to my car anymore, and I can actually see some green grass.
Thank god. I didn’t think I could take winter much longer. If it keeps going like this, all traces of snow should be gone gone gone by the beginning of April. As it should be. ^^;

I’ve been okay. I still haven’t found a job, but I am actively looking. I did a tutorial on Microsoft Excel this afternoon, and this Tuesday I have a test at Express. The same test I’ve taken twice before. Having taken tutorials on both Word and Excel, hopefully I pass all sections of the test.

That way, Express would be able to find me a job doing that sort of thing. The prospect is very exciting. Well, that, and summer is coming. Soon, PM Park (a restaurant in our town) will open, and since 1, I already have my foot partially in the door;  2, the whole hiring process is pretty informal, and 3, the lady in charge of hiring is very, very nice… Well, to make a long story short; whether I get a secretary type job or not, there’s a good chance that I could pick up a dishwashing position at PM Park. Which would make my summer.

I want to have some fun this summer. I want to visit Vanessa for at least a few days, possibly a week (and that would go way better than last time because I’d have a job, and therefore have enough money to not run out after the first two days). I will have a job and therefore have enough money to get my camera back, so obviously I’ll want to have some of those days where I just gallavant around town, taking pictures until dinnertime. And maybe even afterward.
I want to do all of that, but mainly, I want my summer to be about work.

If it turns out that I do not get the type of job I’d be going for at Express, the PM Park job would only be for the summer. So I’d have to work my ass off almost every day of the week. And, if I do get a job through Express, I could work during the week at wherever Express put me, and weekends at PM Park (which is when they need the most people anyway)

And. There’s another reason I wanted to write this entry. It’s not big or anything, but I am talking to a couple people on the singles site I am a member of, and one of them in particular is looking a bit promising. I mean, we’re just chatting back and forth now, but my first impression of him is that he’s a sweet guy. It’s still too early to know, but in that area, it’s good to have a sliver of hope back… I mean, after that Tim asshole gave me an ultimatum, I haven’t had a lot of hope in the area of the opposite sex, but things might finally be looking up. At least a little.

So, overall, I’ve been alright. I’ve been a little more depressed than normal. Maybe it’s like, hormonal or something. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it will go away (it always does).

In other news. I went with my mom and brother to my grandma’s house yesterday. We had fun. The way there, listening to a great radio station and laughing at random things. Grandma and grandpa were, as usual, very entertaining what with their euphemisms and such. We briefly visited my great aunt and uncle, who have sadly been on the decline for a while now. My great aunt Virginia, she’s started to go senile. She’ll forget names, names of things, and will tell us a story we know she’s already told us about three times before, but oh well. They’re in their 80s…

Okay. In other other news (lol), I went to the second hand store today. I got a plastic baggy full of random jewelry and a record by an older group called The Lettermen (oddly enough, the title of the album was ‘Springtime’).
I also got two ’45 singles (One was a one hit wonder I believe, and one was a Billy Joel song I don’t know) and a white coffee mug with red hearts on it…

I got that all for two bucks. Hooray for bargain hunting.

Argh. I just heard the weather forecast. We might get like 3-8 inches of snow tomorrow.

If mother nature values her life, she had better change that ominous forecast, and QUICK. xP

It’s been a long cold lonely winter…

Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it’s all right…

-The Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun”.

Well, hello there.

I am rejoicing. The snow is finally starting to melt. I can actually see pavement on the road, it’s amazing. I didn’t even have to wear my winter coat today, it was so nice. It was a bit windy though, that I could have done without.

Anyway. If you’re wondering why I wanted to write this entry, wonder no more!

Okay. So today, I went out at got applications from about six places (there are three more I need to do online, and one I can print off, fill out at home, and then take to the store). So I felt good about that.
I also exercised. I slacked on that last week, since dad had that week off and I hate exercising when there is someone home. But yeah.
Another reason why I wanted to write this is simple pleasures. Sometimes the simplest thing can make my day.

My dad sent me to put gas in my car, and get a gallon of milk. As I was leaving the gas station, a guy held the door open for me. Simple and mundane as it may seem, it made me smile.

Sidenote: I also got some banana chips today, those things are laced with crack, I swear. ❤

I forgot to mention that I had a tutorial thing at Express Personnel (temp agency) today… It was on Microsoft Word. Of course, I only did the areas that I don’t ever use, such as the auto formating, macros, and that sort of thing. Thing is, I type so fast, it’s actually just faster for me to type everything in than to try and remember macro shortcuts and auto format. I actually hate when Auto format tries to correct something I purposely typed the way I did (dialects in stories are particularly annoying to un-edit).

I am scheduled for a tutorial on Microsoft Excel on Monday. A worker at the temp agency said they’d probably have me retake the proficiency tests on Word, Excel, and typing speed after I completed the tutorial. I hope I pass it… The typing, I’m fine on, but Excel and the more advanced functions of Word are what got me before. I’m also not great at typing numbers… ^^; I’m sorry, but when the test gives you a random list of like, seven digit numbers, by the time I’ve looked at the book, and looked back up at the screen, I’ve forgotten half of the numbers. I thought it was quicker to memorize each entry and then type it, but I was wrong!

Anyway. Hopefully one of these job things will go through, so I will finally be able to earn the 100 dollars I need to get my camera back. 

The clock on the wall’s moving slower, my heart it sinks to the ground…

-“Fool in the Rain”, by Led Zeppelin.

Well. This sucks. I mean like, this really goddam sucks. I’m probablyoverblowing it, actually, but I’m pissed off. And for once, I’m pissed at myself.

Okay. As you may or may not know, yesterday, I went to this place called Express Personnel Services (or something to that effect). The husband of one of my high school teachers works there, and I was told he might be able to get me a job. So, I filled out the application and everything. I came back today to take the same computer assessment that I didn’t do that great on last time.

See, I do not know how to use advanced functions of Microsoft Word (like running macros, and such). I mean, I can figure it out, but it’s not something I do every day, and when taking an assessment test, it’s a lot more stressful than an actual job would be. And…. I don’t know how to use Excel at all. For fuck’s sake, the last time I had to use a spreadsheet was when I was a sophomore in High School. That was almost five goddam years ago.

The typing, I can do. I’m not great with typing numbers, because I don’t ever need to type a million numbers at a time…

Well, I didn’t think it was possible, but I did worse on the test this time than I did before, and I sucked pretty bad at it before. Last time, on the Word and Excel assessments, I got about 40%, which is pretty damn good for not using those functions, but is still a failure.

This time, on the ten key test, I didn’t even qualify for their “acceptable” range. The alphanumeric typing was alright, but the typing assessment? 63 goddam words a minute. I type up to 90 words a minute, and I get a fucking 65wpm score? What the fuck is that all about? God dammit. What the fuck is with that? I am still really, really torked off.

So. I signed up for a tutorial there. I go in on Monday at 2pm… I’m hoping that helps. If not… if I can get financial aid to go to school next semester, I might take a couple classes on it, so I can actually get a goddam job. Anyway.

So, this is the last night of my night class. I hope I actually learn something tonight, because I haven’t really learned a whole lot up to this point. I am going to take down some notes on doing normal things a person would have to use Photoshop, so I could potentially do these things at a job… And. I’m going to download a 30 day trial of Photoshop, so I could even practice that stuff.

So still. While I’m really kinda mad at myself, it’s not all bad, I suppose.