:: 2004 13 July :: 11.43 pm

not a good day...
So I go into verizon wireless this afternoon to sign up for a cell phone. All night and morning I had been debating in my head whether I should buy it now or wait until the end of the month. I wasn't sure that I wanted to pay $40 bucks for the first month when I wasn't really gonna start relying on it until august/september. Anyways, I decided what the hell. I'm here, I might as well do it. I knew there was a credit check involved. I've had a visa checkcard for the past 6 months, though, and I was told I should have some credit from that. Well, I don't think I do. I mean, it could be worse; I could have bad credit. But when you have no credit, it's hard to get places in life. It's hard to get a cell phone, for example. In order to buy one under my name at verizon, I have to put $400 down. That's 400 bones that I won't see until the end of the contract. If I sign a two year contract, that's two years worth of interest I'm losing, not that it's that much anyways, but still... Well I end up leaving. I headed over to american eagle to look for some jeans, but I saw someone I knew working there, and since I wasn't in too great a mood from finding out I am not credit-reliable, I decided to leave, lest I'd have to talk to this person. After this I get home to a bitchy/crazy mom. Fortuneatly it was just a temporary flair-up. She's better now. Still, it's so frustrating to deal with sometimes. Anyways, my dad left a message for someone to call him, so I did, and I found out that our green car is dead. (RIP magical station wagon!) This brings both good news and bad news. Good: we don't have to have a station wagon anymore and we can get a new car. Bad: we have to pay for a new car. It's a little distressing. My dad's looking to buy within the next two weeks. My family is rather dependant on two cars, so with one car it's kinda difficult to function. My mom, however, wants my dad to wait until december, when our other car is paid off, to buy a new one. There was a time after my mom's car got stolen in 6th grade when we functioned on one car, but then again my sister and I rode the bus to school and the store was within walking distance. After we moved to the house we're in now, my parents decided they couldn't get by on one car alone and bought the red one. For a while they had double car payments. But now that my dad's job situation is unstable, I guess so are our finances. I have this thought that life is just easier when you have money! Anyways, if we do end up getting a car soon, it better have a CD player. One of the downsides is that the money that we'll have to use to pay for the car, could've gone to help pay for my college education. Oh well. I'll be a naked, entertainment-starved college studnet. My dad seemed to distraught about the car, so I didn't think it was the best time to ask him if he'd buy me a cell phone (since the damn phone compnay doesn't trust me). A few nights ago I had a dream where I was smoking. Emily said that means I'll have prosperity. Not to be materialistic, but I hope that's true. By the way, it just dawned on me tonight that emily's only gonna be here for another week. I gotta savour this time. Tonight we went to the cold, windy beach and watched the storm over the water. Lindsey Earnest and some other park ranger (Malady?) startled us with their bright-ass flash lights, but at least they weren't all authoritative and bitchy. Well I'm gonna try to get some sleep.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 12 July :: 11.42 pm

Let's see. There's stuff I want to talk about, but I don't know how or what to say. Yesterday emily came over in the evening. We went to TCBY and to the beach, before going back to my place and deciding to go to meijer's for car paint. surprise, surprise, meijer's didn't have any car paint that we could find, so we settled on some dry erase markers. We were going to write stuff on someone's car...but he wasn't home. Instead, we "found" (and by found, I more or less mean steal - it's a bad habit, I know. My dad said next thing I'll be stealing road signs...and cars) a traffic cone. This one's huge though. Anyways, we were bored, so we hit up nikki's car and just drew smiley faces and stuff. I don't know if she knows who did it yet! By that time, there wasn't much else we could think to do, so we went back to my place. You know that raincheck I lost? Well, I still haven't found it, but it redeemed last night. Yep, I got my first lap dance. That was...interesting. Sometimes I think about doing more stuff sexually, but I don't because I know I'm not ready for it. Around three am emily and I went to wesco to split a fresh cinamon role. Then we went to the beach to eat it, talked, and I dropped her off. I still had sleeping problems last night/this morning (however you look at it), but I decided to permenantly get up around noon. I did some jogging on the treadmill, talked to a loyola student about questions I had, and went to the bank with my mom. I didn't know this, but I had two custodial accounts, and since I'm 18 we were being charged some stupid fees. so I ended up transfering the money in both accounts to my checking. By the way, the bank's atm machine ate my check card last night. Fortuneately, I got it back today. Later tonight my dad and I went to circuit city to check out their cell phones and computers. I didn't find any phones I liked, but we got a lot of info on the laptops. I don't know if I'll buy from that store location, but I think I'll definitely end up buying my computer from circuit city. Plus, I'm going to try to get a circuit city credit card and make monthly payments; that way, I don't have to have the money all at once, and it helps me build a credit rating. When we got out of the store, something was seriously wrong with our car. The engine was vibrating profusely and making sputtering noises. It's truly a ghetto car now! I mean, it's bad enough that it's a stationwagon, but now it sputters!!! Instead of going to the mall to sign up for the phone I want, we ended up driving the car to the dealership to be looked at tomorrow. My mom's gonna have to drive my dad into work though, and since I don't have to work I plan on going to the mall and seeing if I can get my phone. I may or may not have a good enough credit rating. We'll see.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 11 July :: 1.39 am

I hope my computer doesn't crash while I'm writing this...it feels like i have a lot to say. Let me start at the beginning. I've been having a lot of sleeping problems since I've been out of school. It used to be that I coudln't fall asleep, but now that I can fall asleep, I can't stay asleep. On average, I wake up about 3-4 times a night, which is very annoying! Plus, I wake up with headaches from all these dreams I have; it's kinda like information overload. Last night my dreams included my neighbor's house getting trashed and Sharron Osbourne investigating who did it (I think she was questioning my mom or someone) and I also dreamt that I was smoking. It was doubly wierd because in the dream my throat got all dry and itchy from the smoke (and yet I kept on smoking more cigarretts?) and I woke up and my throat actually did hurt. I feel like I'm just sick enough where I can still function, but where I am becoming sluggish and aggitated. Plus, my wisdom teeth are coming in, so the one side of my mouth hurts like a bitch. As you could guess, that didn't make for a very pleasant day at work. I had to work a suicide shift, and today it literally was one. Besides a brief lunch rush (which was rather weak) the whole day was slowest I've ever seen it. Don't get me wrong, I actually like not beiing swamped, but when you have nothing to do the time goes by much, much slower! Plus, it seems like everyone there is getting on my nerves. The one waitress is kinda bitchy in general. One of the manager's is annoying. He's a good guy and everything, but he tries to strike up awkward conversations with me, in which I feel obligied to pretend to laugh and pay attention. What really gets to me is just how this one guys points out every little mistake that I make or could make. I see how I do mess up, but I get so pissed off at him telling me every five minutes that "hey, when you do this..." or "you're not supposed to do that" or "dude, what are you doing?" Some things are okay, like the time I accidentally left the gas on. Okay, that was bad, but other things it's just like cooks have their own ways of doing things and he just wants me to do it all his way. It's annoying! Then today, one of the waitresses (who I actually think is nice) was talking on the phone and didn't hear me call out her table order. Hmm, I wonder why? So when the people finally got their food, the fries were cold. Then, I forgot to put cheese on this one nasty bitches special, so I guess the manager got to hear her bitch about it. For the meantime, I'm bottling it all inside, pretending to act indifferent when really I'm getting pretty pissed. Enough of the bad stuff. Jami and Amanda stopped by today, and that made my day at work! Today they were supposed to kidnap me but I accidentally requested the wrong day off, so we just hung out after work. They showed up with andre and jill...and they had graduation gifts for me. Amanda got me this storage drawer with a bunch of college stuff (definitely well thought out), and Jami got me an organizer/binder thing with a bunch of school supplies. Very thoughtful of both of them. Then they "kidnapped" me to the beach. We went swimming in freezing cold water, then we tried to get into Captain Jack's Bar & Grill but found out we had to be 21 just to get on the deck. So we ended up going to Henry Street Grill (or whatever it's now called) to fulfill our late-night munchies. And I'm spent. Tomorrow i have to get up extra early because the only time I can get to mass it as 9am ( I don't think I've been to a 9 am mass ever in the past 4 years). Seven hours until mass time...

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 9 July :: 11.37 pm

I just got back from Mean Girls. It's actually a pretty good movie. It's kinda like watching one long SNL skit because there were a lot of SNL cast and a lot of little punchlines. A little unrealistic, but worth it just to see Lindsay Lohan. Earlier today I had to work. I was at G&L for about 20 minutes before Jeff told me that Eric, the manager, wanted to talk to me. I was thinking "good, a rasie, finally!" But no. He told me that they were short a person at g&l downtown. It was actually kinda nice to work there today. Besides from things seeming strange to me, the hot dog buns burning my hands, and the excessive heat in general, it was better than sherman because the kitchen is right in front of a window, and I actually got to meet Pete, one of the owners. You know, Pete was a really nice, friendly guy, but I'm not sure whether or not I despise him for being so cheerful or not. It seems like every "rich" person I know is happy. And I seem to have this desire to be the best and have the best. Is happiness really in materialism though? What do rich people have that I don't? Financial security, perhaps? Freedom? Adventure? I actually am kinda content right now in life, but maybe that's the drugs. No, I'm not a pothead or anything, lol. Anyways, when I grow up I want to be Pete, but I want to be down to earth. I don't wanna feel like I'm better than anyone else. But you know what? I'll probably never reach financial stability or complete happiness, and life may turn out to be one big let down, but I guess that's the risk we take in living. In other news, I got two cool CD's today: The Ramus (dead letters) and Vagrant's Another Year On the Streets (vol. 3). Plus, I've definitely decided on which cell phone/provider/plan I want to go with, so now it's only a matter of deciding when to take the money out and buy the thing. I kinda want it now just to have a new toy, but I'm not sure i need it right now. On the other hand, I will need time to get used to my new cell phone...

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 8 July :: 2.41 am

Let me just say that Spiderman 2 is a good movie (I think the first was a little better, except this time...the ending is more "complete" in a way). From a visual standpoint, it looks like someone else directed it because there are a lot of freezeframes and other technical effects. The Day After Tomorrow was also a good movie...but not original. It followed the basic plot/concept of every other disaster movie from Titantic to Deep Impact. I guess the thought behind it was pretty cool: that all our air pollution will cause the ice caps to melt, eventually reversing the climate patterns and creating a sort of second ice age. I had a fun time at the drive in with katie and katie, even though I told my parents I was going to the cinema (it's just easier to tell a white lie than to fight about it). One thing worth fighting, though, is how stupid the government can be! I got a letter from Selective Services today telling me that I still haven't registered and that this will destroy me (ie no job opportunities, no financial aid). Okay, so I should register, right? Well guess what? I've already registered...TWICE! That's fucking bueracracy for you. The second time I got a letter back with the wrong birthdate. No, I was not born October 8th..try September 30th. And I highly doubt there is any other kid out there named Justin Garr Burt who was born on 10/08/85. So the second time registering I went online and got my selective services verification number. Just my luck, I couldn't find it today when I wanted to call and serve it to them. I tried calling their number, right? 100% automated. Yes, you can reach a human being, but only during business hours. Understandable. At least I found out there may be a chance that I have registered and they just messed up. But still, I don't want my life to be "ruined" (which they basically threaten) because the government can't do things smoothly. Oh well. The prices we pay for living in a superpower democracy.

1 burn | Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 6 July :: 10.44 pm

Another day, another suicide shift. I still don't like working 11:30 to close, but at least I'm getting used to it. I don't like the burns on my wrists though. Yesterday I finished reading The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel. It's this science fiction/mystery novel about a jesuit party that travels to a distant planet four lightyears away. That book is awesome. It's central theme is about God and who he really is. It hypothesized two kinds of people and two possibilities of God. One type of people see God in everything, The second search for God in something. Ultimately, the book suggests that either God controls everything, or that he controls nothing. Basically, God is just an observer. The book really makes me question my own beliefs about God. Okay...when I got home today my dad said my mom told him I'm not allowed to have a dozen "girlfriends." Okkay?? I hope they didn't find that "rain check." That'd be baad! Oh yeah, yesterday I found a cell phone that I like from verizon. Only problem is that it's a little over $200. I told myself I didn't need a camera phone, but now it's just too tempting. I dunno. Maybe I'll get a different phone. Tomorrow is payday though!

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 5 July :: 3.52 am

A lot has been happening lately, and I don't know where to start. Perhaps I'll recap my 4th of july. This morning I had to haul my ass out of bed to go to church, where i paid attention to the readings and not the sermon (what else is new). I got to come home, read, and sleep. Andre and I were planning on meeting at my house and then going to emily's, but because of outside factors, we ended up going with Jami to John Wenk's. It was pretty nice there. Mike, Nikki, and Scott (nikki's boyfriend) were there already. For a while, Mike and Scott talked about throwing Jami in the pool, which they did...but then out of nowhere scott picked me up and threw me in the pool...with all my clothes on. He did the same to andre as well. I guess I wouldn't have gotten in the pool anyways, but it was kinda funny because Mike and Scott were acting like they wanted to bang each other. We finally left around midnight (I was gonna stop at the Trzaska's to say hi, but I didn't want to wake them if they were sleeping) So we andre and jami came back to my house where we played spoons (I lost) and a game that jami/andre came up with called "ESP" (which I won). They just left and here I am updating. Another thing in my life...I gotta an email from someone that said "You gotta earn this...shady motherfucker." What the hell? What does that mean? Also, emily wrote me a raincheck for something, and I don't know what I did with it when i got home. Let's just say it'd be really bad if my parents found it, so I better go upstairs and try to find it...

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 1 July :: 3.43 am

I just got home and it's 3:30. Tomorrow I have to work at 11:00, but I think it will be worth it. I had another fun night at Katie's. First, I went out on the boat with her family and watched them all water ski/wake board. Then, we got ice cream and rented The Perfect Score (good movie). After the movie, Katie and I just talked about life, the future, the world, traveling, etc. for three hours. We're talking about backpacking through europe in a few years, and I hope it won't be just talk. Both of us love to travel, so it'd be awesome. well I need whatever sleep I can get...

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 29 June :: 11.23 pm

"Take more prozac and you'll feel better." My dad said that to me tonight after I was complaining about my job to him and my mom. That kinda weirded me out because I don't know if he was making a general comment or trying to tell me that he knows that I'm taking prozac. Oh well. Worked did suck today, but what else is new? My roomate e-mailed me again, but I'm too tired to respond. I also got a postcard from katie t. yesterday and a graduation card from her family today. I have a zillion things I need/want to do but I'm burned out.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 28 June :: 11.15 pm

$2.50 bought my admission to VanHelsen at Plaza I & II. Cheesiest movie/lines ever. Kenesha and I were mocking it the entire time. Don't get my wrong, it wasn't a complete waste of my money, but I wouldn't pay $8.00 to see it at the cinema. Can you believe that's how much they're charging now? Damn, I want a senior citizen discount, or at least a "see 10 movies, see 1 one free" kinda deal. So after work I was extremely bored. I called kenesha up and she came over. I stopped at G&L to order a shake (in a funny voice) and I'm not sure if I creeped lindsay out or got her to laugh. Anyways, Emily showed up when kenesha did, which was kinda weird. We all decided to find andre at work/home which was fun even though we couldn't find him. Kenesha cracks me up with the stuff that she says. Because we had nothing better to do, we decided to go to the movies. Emily said her grandmother's flight was delayed and thought she should be home in case she comes in on a different flight. So I took her home and Kenesha and I went instead.

If I may make a reference to the book I'm currently reading, I haven't been able to "take care of myself" lately, which tends to lead to heightened levels of hormones and, well, you know the rest. I haven't given that much (realistic) thought to "doing stuff" before, but lately...I don't know. Ah, enough rambling. I have a suicide shift tomorrow.

CHECK OUT www.ratemyprofessor.com IT'S ONLY FOR COLLEGES, BUT KAREN KELLER IS ON THERE FOR ALL YOU CATHOlIC FOLK.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 26 June :: 10.55 pm

FUUCCCKKKK! I worked another suicide shift. This time, things were pretty slow at night. It was practically dead in there. I think my carpel tunnel is slowly healing, but it's still there. Today I burned my hand draining the fryer. Yeah, having 300 degree lard splash on your hand is not fun. There's a lot more that I want to say, but I'm tired and I wanna watch mad tv and snl.

Before I go, you know how annoying those "a/s/l" kinda people are?

LuvMeNot: what do u look like?
Skudo85: I'm 5' 1", 103 lbs., and I have beach blonde hair
LuvMeNot: interesting

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 25 June :: 2.43 pm

I was twenty minutes late for work today. But let me tell you why. So I wake up randomly at 6:45, right? Instead of turning over and going back to sleep, I sit up and look outside my window. In that morning grogginess, not to my surprise, I see an orange glow accompanied by flying sparks outside my window. Not sure if I'm seeing things, I call my dad in to see it too. Appearently, the phone pole and electical wires caught fire. When I woke up it was just an itty bitty thing, but about half an hour later, it was a decent fire, and the sparks on the ground were turning into fire as well. I tried to call the fire department, but our phone line was out. Our neighbors called them on their cell phone instead. So the firedepartment comes, they spray out the fire on the ground and then I guess they let the fire on the phone pole to burn itself out? Anyways, I go back to bed. When I wake up, the power company or someone is fixing the wiring, but it's appearent that our power went out because all our clocks are flashing. To my relief, I find the alarm clock I took to chicago and set my clock to that time. I go back to sleep, wake up, and get ready for work. Somewhere between taking a shower and getting dressed I realized that it might not be 10:00 as my clock now says. I couldn't remember setting the clock back from Chicago time to our time, so it was really 11:00. I show up at work around 11:20, tell steve my story (he told me to check my watch - all my fucking watches don't work), and proceed to work. Now that I got that out, I think I'll take a shwoer and go get lunch. Oh yeah, I heard back from my roomate again. He told just a little about him, and it sounds like we should get along. The only thing is we both love music..but varying kinds. He's into some of the older stuff and I'm into some of the newer stuff. Oh well, we'll work it out.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 22 June :: 10.09 am

Hey! Right now I'm at orientation at Loyola. So far I've met a lot of cool people, but yesterday was long and boring. I found out there's 2000 kids in my class, and 200 of them showed up at this orientation. I don't know about Muskegon, but it was raining hard yesterday in Chicago. Nice first day of summer, huh? Anyways, yesterday I went to the honors student meeting. There's only 100 of us, but the program sounds good. Later I had to take the math placement test. I did well, but I didn't get to the last section. I should've just filled in random bubbles! If I get a 4 on my AP calc, though, my placement score doesn't matter. I also took the french placement test. Ouch. I scored a 183 out of a possible 375+! It's not like french is my first language or that I took 4 years of it, but I didn't do as well as I hoped. Basically, with all my educated guessing, I placed into french 101. That doesn't matter though. Today I have to meet with Dr. Ries (the dean of the SBA) to schedule my classes for the fall. I'm pretty sure I'll take Italian. Besides, if I go to the rome center, I might have to go my sophomore year instead of my junior year. Complications in the school of business, that's all. Anyways, yesterday evening we had a ton of "presentations" that seemed more like lectures. I only got 6 hours of sleep the night before (by the way, my hotel was nice) and I was exhausted. The presentations were good, but I was tired. We had to listen to a speech on diversity, on residential life, community living, and then we got to watch "Peer Theater: Scenes from Campus Life" which was actually pretty good, besides from sounding really, really scripted. We had to split up into our small groups afterwards, so when it was time for the ice cream social, I couldn't find any of the people I was hanging out with earlier in the day. Fortuneatly, some girl named Megan saw that I "looked a little lost" and let me hang out with her and some other girls. Later we went down to the beach. I heard the beach downtown Chicago is really nice, but not this one. Muskegon's beach has a lot compared to the tiny, dirty Loyola beachfront. Oh well, it was fun and I got to meet more people. When I finally checked into my room around 10:30 my roomate (for the night only) was already in there with his friend (they both live in Chicago) and they were planning their schedule for the fall. All I could do was check out which classes sound interesting. Other than that, my schedule is pretty much up to Dr. Ries, because I don't know anything. Well I better get going. I have to leave soon to go downtown to the Water Tower Campus to check out the school of business and pick out my classes.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 19 June :: 10.35 pm

I got out of work at 9:31! That's amazing. Steve actually helped me clean the kitchen. Today I went to andre's open house before work. I saw Melissa, Amanda, Lauren, and...Sarah Gurden there. I was mad that I couldn't go to jill's open house, but there wasn't much I could do about that. You know what's disgusting? What would your reaction be if you saw an old lady wearing a shirt that said "Give your tongue a full body massage"? That's what I thought. One of the waitresses at work has that shirt. If someone didn't know it was advertising the chili dogs, they could be disgusted. Oh yeah, there's this one lady who comes into G&L everyday (I don't think I saw her tonight though - unless she came in for lunch) and from her profile, she looks exactly like my mom. It's strange. Well I gotta pack for orientation. I hope I meet some good people there.

Do you want to play with fire?

:: 2004 17 June :: 11.57 pm

wake up, go to work, come home, sleep. That's what today is. Another shitty suicide shift. At least I got to close with eric, and he's actually a nice manager...he helped break the kitchen stuff down.

Do you want to play with fire?