Deep Thoughts

June 16th, 2018

Yesterday, I helped someone who’s car battery was dead. I had the wires to help jump his car and I was happy to do it. I’m often available to help people, oddly enough. As much as I can’t stand people, I haven’t turned from someone in need. It’s “working with” people that sucks ass.

But my misanthropic views of asshole people isn’t the topic of the day. I thought I would record something I always knew about life and where we stood in it. Some of these thoughts are clear in the progress of this entire journal: our life’s purpose and the things we WANT and LOVE aren’t always the things we are MEANT to DO and BE. I love writing and filmmaking. I struggled to be a writer and filmmaker. I hate the educational system and law. All of that is flowing easily for me. Almost serendipitously. Therefore, I am a round peg fit into a round slot that I have mentally and physically fought for years against. Film and writing was the wrong slot, though I still want it.

You’ve heard me comment on this throughout the journal and nothing has changed to prove me wrong. You can keep doing what you love, and if you are being hammered at every turn to make it work, and still keep hammering and nothing is working — people tend to keep saying “keep trying. Never give up”, while nothing still seems to make it work —- thats a problem.

Then, of course, you have people who fit perfectly: they love what they do, it all comes easy, and opportunities flow into their lap without any effort even though it will be said they “worked hard”. No, the man fighting uphill to get his dreams is working hard. Against the grain of what he or she was slotted for and still not winning.

In a nutshell: there is a purpose for the life you have. Something you are supposed to do and be — do those things and universal order will put it in your path to make sure you obtain it. Guaranteed.

Now, added to that is WHERE you are supposed to be. This totally goes against my rejection of people, but I’ve come to this conclusion before each time I help someone. It’s a mindbending examination of what you’re supposed to be doing, where you are supposed to be and time.

An example: You wake up, get ready for work, eat breakfast, drive to work, get into the office, sit, do whatever work you’re supposed to do, get up to go to lunch, cross the street to the cafe, sit at the cafe, eat your food, throw out your garbage, hold the door for someone on your way out, cross the street to go to work and a car smashes into the front of your building jumping the curve, hitting three people. In your mind, anyone of those people could have been you if you did any one of these things:

Woke up earlier.
Ate breakfast earlier.
Got to work earlier
Ate lunch earlier
Crossed the street earlier

You avoided getting killed because of a set sequence of time that you had no control of. Sped up your steps at any time could have connected that accident with you.

So, you’re saying I’m crazy and it’s a random event and you’re just blessed to not have been in that accident.

I ask you this: so, the people that got killed “weren’t blessed?”

I’m ‘enough’ of a Christian to believe in blessings, but I also like to tear down the logic of things. The example above has multiple timing events that go without saying:

The driver that hit the people could have been a senior that lost control of the car. What was his schedule and life’s events that led up to this? How many warnings was he or she given that could have prevented this? How many warnings did he or she ignore?

The people that got hit also had schedules of time they were on. Individual things that slowed down or sped up where they had to or wanted to be.

With all those factors at play, we just throw our hands up to call things random because we don’t want to think it through. What? Am I saying we can foresee our future to avoid tragedy?

No. Not at all.

But, we all have a voice that speaks to us. Some stronger than others, that aligns us with the path we should be going. Take a drug user. He wakes up and needs to go see a drug pusher for his daily fix. I am certain, there is a voice speaking to him in his consciousness that is telling him — or making him feel — “I shouldn’t go out this day” (if not anymore). The free will of us and desire to get that ‘drug’ overpowers that voice and he goes to the drug den where he gets shot and killed. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He could have avoided it.

My example above would have to assume each person had a voice they listened to, but suffice to say, they didn’t listen to except for the main person in the example.

Aside from hunger, the voice in the example could have been the person waking up and getting out of bed on time — urging him to get going and not be late. For no other reason than to be diligent as opposed to other days where he or she is slacking — dragging to get to work. Today, he or she is urged to keep it moving. At work, do his or her job and the urge to eat ‘at this time’. Not later. Not earlier. Right now. Don’t stop, keep moving to the next thing. Eat, throw out your garbage. Don’t hurry. Don’t waste time. Cross the street… and he/she misses the accident.

For the others that did get hit: their voices could have urged them to keep a schedule and they denied it. They dragged their heels. They hurried when they should have slowed down. They all caught up with a time and a place that connected with a senior citizen that was told by others and his/her own conscience to stop driving because you’re too old. The senior citizen ignored it and thus consequences.

Do I believe we are slotted to die, as in, those three people were MEANT to die at that place in that fashion? That appointed time, those three were to be where they had to be so they can get hit by a car? Here’s where logic continues to play itself out by asking another question:

Are we born just to die violently?

I don’t think so.

Could we be born to die by cancer or any of the millions of diseases? Like a baby born today and dies a month later from something out of our control?

It happens and ‘why’ is a hard answer to reach. So we back up time again: were the parents SUPPOSED to have children? Were there voices at play that said ‘we shouldn’t”. Were there countless attempts to have a child, and it never happened — then they kept trying and finally had one — then later that child dies (disease, accident, any age)? Looking at life that closely makes you start questioning was the child SUPPOSED to exist in the first place.

Something you can’t answer. But based on my theories, if there is a struggle to have a child and you have one, then the child dies at some point early— based on my theory, there is no foundation that supports the existence of the child. No plotted ground for them to really keep moving forward. They live, do things they think they want to do or be, and then, out of step for a universally planned future to be someone, do something or connect with others — they die young, or die old unfulfilled.

Then you have people that give birth to a child out of wedlock, or by rape — then they go on to be world leaders or scientists. By choice or slotted by life to ‘be’?

Going back to this guy I helped: I had a good feeling to get out of the house, go to the store for my wife and was hungry right at that time. With a few choices to make, I felt I should go to the Waffle House, park the car with intentions of ordering my food, crossing the street and going to the store for my wife.

As I parked the car at Waffle House, I met a young kid that needed his battery jumped.

He must have been out there for a little bit. No one was able (or wanted to) help him. But I happened to have my charger cables and helped him out.

A lot of events led up to me having the charger cables in the car — that could conceivably lead up to this day to help this young man onto whatever purpose he had. But that’s a long and extra trip. Suffice to say, I had battery issues with this car for the longest and swore never to drive without cables again.

But today, I was up, out of the house and had to be somewhere — comfortably. Not a rush. Just instinctively had to keep it moving and that’s when I came to help this young man. Any other day, I would NEVER be at the Waffle House.

Coincidence? Random meeting? It’s easier on our brains to think that.

And to just sum it up as “I was supposed to be there” isn’t enough either.

The connectivity to the consciousness we hear — that little voice — the urges we get to adjust to time and space to be ‘where we are supposed to be’ cumulates depending on what we ignore, who we are and what we are doing. I think it even extends to what we are supposed to or not supposed to eat as well.

I know, it’s a lot of thinking this morning. But If I’m right, I don’t really think the term “it was his time to go” is how this thing called life and death works. I’m beginning to believe we have the ability to live a very long time — provided we listen to how to live. From my example above, it wasn’t that it was their time to die in that accident, it’s more like “they did not have to be involved in that accident if they listened to —-” what? A bio-alarm system? A bio-time adjustment recommendation?

Or were they part of the born pointlessly and could die any day theory? No, that sounds too cruel.

Way too many variables so I have to stick with the guarantees: we have a voice/feeling that adjusts us to where we should be in time and space should we choose to listen to it. Helps us adjust to WHO and WHAT we should be in life as well. I rejected that voice on my desire to be a filmmaker when I got hints of law through many aspects of my life. Not just now. I listened to that urging to get out of the house yesterday and was there for that young man.

It’s just a matter of working that conscience muscle further.

Legacy

June 15th, 2018

I should be sleeping but I’m annoyed.

My mother. I don’t talk about her much here. She’s still living in New York and we just recently became friendly. She’s of the type and age that to be friends with, you either have to say nothing to her or keep your conversations brief.

In the past, we’ve been contentious with each other. Never agreed on anything and she never really believed I was adult enough on decisions or the ability to do things. Seemed it shocked her that I wrote a book.

Lately, as long as it’s hi and goodbye from texting, we’ve been good. When I started school, I didn’t tell her. I revealed my ambitions only after I started getting awards. You see, if I told her I was going back to school I wasn’t going to get anything encouraging. She’s the type that encourages only after evidence of success. Now, if you waited only for your child to succeed at things before you believed in them, well, that would be a problem.

She would bring up things in the past that I gave up on. True … I started and stopped things in her mind, like, when I was between 5 years old and age 16. I don’t think my track record with finishing projects is any worse than anyone else. I know I had trouble executing things…but always tried. Honestly, I have a lot more successfully finished things than I tell her because she just doesn’t deserve to know. If you weren’t with me when I started…

Anyway, she’s selling the family house. A place in Jamaica Queens that was first bought by my grandparents, her parents, back in the 40′s. She grew up in that house. When my grandmother died, she took over and it rotted from the inside. She sent m,e pictures recently and I couldn’t believe the way she let it fall apart. I’ll post pictures later. It was horrible.

So, she’s selling it as is. The last I spoke to her about the whole selling process was she was going to sell it, living in a small apartment and then move to Vermont to retire. I don’t even think that plan is happening because I don’t think she got the money she wanted for the place. She’s not telling me but there are holes in what she tells me that make me feel her plans aren’t happening as she would like and now she’s out of what was the family house. The place that was supposed to be passed down.

I didn’t agree to her plan of selling the place but I didn’t tell her that. With my mother, you can’t discuss things with her because she only listens to whom she deems ‘smart’. In her mind, I’m not one of them.

Her only son, by the way.

She’s the originator of those in my life that don’t listen to my advice, but more than willing to hear the SAME advise from someone else who either has money or whomever she believes in. I’m very sensitive to people like that in my life. Very resentful of people that do that to me. Discounting what I have to say in favor of same or BAD advice from others. My ex did that a lot.

So, I had to watch the sale of this place happen before my eyes. And it gets worse. She only moved five houses down to someone basement apartment and she’s giving away a lot of the furniture and paintings that were in our family …well, since the 40′s. Stuff that was legacy of our family. Things that mattered to me. In that house, I wrote my greatest stories. Had many of my first experiences.

All gone. Without even asking me what I thought or should do.

So, I should be sleeping but I want to cry. I want to yell. I want to blow up on my mother for, yet again, not listening.

The question is: did I speak?

The answer is no.

I did not.

I did not question her judgment. I did not ask her questions to challenge her decisions. I did not ask her to save anything for me because I love and miss my grandparents. Why?

Because I sacrificed the legacy for the comfortable relationship with my mother we’ve had this past year. We were not fighting. We were not angry. She genuinely cared about my academic success and I finally got my mother to love me for my accomplishments.

That’s no way to live. To only speak to your family ‘in a certain way’ in order to have a relationship with them. When it’s time to speak to them openly, you can’t. I missed an opportunity to salvage my grandparent’s things. I regret that.

You see what this journal is all about. It isn’t just about me making a highly probable shot at going to law school. It’s the regeneration of a once deflated, depressed man making global changes in his life by being aware of his failings and what needs to be changed. In order to get there, the raw unfiltered ‘who I am’ needs to be revealed, addressed and reshaped. Most of all, documented.

The documentation is for me to purge my thoughts. A therapeutic move.

But mostly for you. Someone who might be trying to dig your way out of a hole of depression and your life needs changes. Maybe even suicidal as I have been, and want to see if I can make it, so can you. Change is possible.

I am not the same man that started this journal last year. Lord knows I am not the same man from years ago. With academia and learning the guitar (by the way, I also started ‘Fender Play’ to practice with intentions of getting ‘in class’ tutorials in a few weeks. The guitar is going to arrive next Tuesday), archery coming back again and joining this tech frat, “who am I” is a fair question. Certainly not last years guy.

That said, what did I learn from this experience with my mother?

I need to save my family home. I’m told it’s sold already. Right now is a good time to win the lottery. I’m playing first thing I can today.

Aside from that, I keep doing what I always have been doing with my life and my children. For me, making greater strives to be a better man. For them, talking to them honestly and letting them speak to me openly. No judgments. I save everything they make or give me. I have stuff they made for me since they were babies. A form of legacy items. I’m saving things of my own I will pass down to them.

The guitar will be one of many guitars I think I’m going to buy. The bow is another. Then there are the comic books, figurines, collectibles, etc, etc. LOL.

Working on actual ‘money’.

I need a family home of my own.

Some place they can come to and know they can get a fresh start, or recharge. A place they can always go to as comfort.

As of right now, I do not have that. My family home safety net is gone.

I will have a home that will be our family legacy.

You can guarantee that.

Nootropics

June 14th, 2018

I left work early yesterday because I hate working with lazy idiots. I didn’t quit, I just left 8 hours early to come home and went to sleep till this morning. Naturally, I’m well rested. No need to rant about the job: just stupid lazy people expect me to do the work they fuck up and I had enough. I go in today expecting the place to still be a mess. I’m learning not to do an excellent job and just do a small job.

I’m not hard-wired to do ‘less’ at work, believe it or not. But this job pushes you into a corner to do less because everyone else is doing less. You’ll end up being the fuck that does everyone’s work if you don’t scale back.

Schoolwork is getting serious. Next month I have algebra. Nuff said. I’m still doing well. It’s just a study of knowing how to play the game that instructors will grade well on. Little petty things are going on with details on writing reports that affect my grades, but nothing serious to rant here about. I’m still getting A-averages. I’m happy.

So what’s going on? Nootropics. The best way to discuss this is breaking down what I want, what I’ve tried and what I will try. My discussion of the use of Nootropics and other legal pharmaceuticals will be the best reviews you’ll ever get. I don’t get free samples. I pay for them myself and I have serious issues that can help me understand if it’s working or not: depression and cloudy attention deficit issues. If something works or doesn’t work, I’ll let you know without a company backing me for a false report. besides, to my knowledge, nobody gives a fuck what I write anyway.

What I Want:

The effects of Adderall.

With Adderall, you can see the moon and stars. The whole universe opens up to you and you can hear a cricket talking about your mother from a mile away while you’re doing your homework and other chores. It’s not so much about giving you energy as it gives clarity. I can focus on one thing with pure sensibility without cloudiness. If you read anything in my journal here is that I used to have a prescription, STILL couldn’t get Adderall because pharmacies are assholes and now I don’t have insurance and no means of getting another prescription anyway.

There are underground options to get Adderall, but do I feel comfortable with sending my money internationally? No. Do I feel comfortable canvassing college campuses for someone selling it? No. For someone who doesn’t commonly buy ‘drugs’ from a street corner or otherwise, my conscience isn’t really warm and fuzzy about getting Adderall from dark means. That also underscores how I am NOT an addicted fiend to get my hands on the stuff. If I were, I wouldn’t give a fuck.

That said, I want the clarity back. Which leads me to …

What I’ve Tried

With the idea that I’m looking for clarity, which can translate to ‘energy’ (though energy isn’t what I don’t need in itself) — clear thinking and the ‘desire’ to do things accents a form of ‘energy’— I’ve been forced to utilize off the shelf things:

NoDoz – Keeps you WIDE awake. Like eyelids propped up with pins. Pros: Keeps you up. Cons: You will crash with sleep harder than ever. Practically for every pill you take is a day of sleep you’ll get when you come off of it.

5 Hour Energy – Just keeps you awake with a 1% clarity effect. Pros: Keeps you working. No crashing effect. Cons: No enhanced clarity. I’ve noticed certain flavors actually causes aggression! Orange flavor fucked me up badly. No lie. I would look into further — but It’s a strong pissed off feeling I hated repeating.

Red Bull – Again, keeps you moving or awake to keep working. Pros: Same as the rest. Just keeps you working. Cons: taste is annoying.

Adderall – The wonder drug. Clarity 100% Pros: You can speak to God. For me, non-addictive. Not always the case for others. Cons: wears off later int he day and your body adapts to it after a few days. You have to come off a few days and get back on to feel the benefits. Not off the shelf, unfortunately.

* For the record, if you get your hands on Adderall, you need to try it with Red Bull. If talking to God happens with Adderall alone, with Red Bull you can create a new galaxy in six days and rest on the seventh.

(Recently) Coluracetam – Okay, so let’s talk about this stuff. In a nutshell, it’s supposed to be stuff used for Alzheimer’s, failed to be FDA certified, bought by another company and repurposed to help cognitive failings. I read up on it on a few websites, it was a cheap purchase from a site that turned out to be honest (https://healthbynaturals.com/). Got it in two days and used one pill day one.

So, at least for me, what it does is lift my mood. as you know from reading my journal, I can be a snarly bastard that hates everyone. I took the pill on the way to work after I got it in the mail. I was hungry, already pissed that I had to go to the damn job anyway and safe to say not in a good mood.

Thirty-forty minutes after taking the pill, I found myself ‘not angry’ and focused on doing the job I had to do and ignored the fuckery around me. Even said hello willingly to a few people. THAT is not typically me, so I knew the pill did something.

That was maybe three-four days ago. Since then, I’ve taken the pill in variant times and come to the conclusion, three pills a day (morning, late afternoon and later evening) is just fine to keep the momentum going. I already notice my body adapting to the pill after daily use so pauses in between might need to be scheduled.

Pros: It’s a mood lightener. I’m less ornery about it and busy with whatever tasks; especially schoolwork. It’s not so much giving ‘clarity’ — like I can unravel the mysteries of science like I did with Adderall, but it gives me a less depressed feeling. Since I do have issues with depression, that’s a benefit I can’t overlook even if it doesn’t give clarity.

Cons: There is a metallic taste I’ve been getting since the first one. Over time, my tastebuds were funny. Like foods and simple things like water just tasted funny. Not bad, but almost tasteless. Also, it wears off in a few hours (like 3-4).

I did some research online and found that this stuff is best stacked with other stuff, so that leads me to …

What I Will Try

I’ve done a little research and stacking Coluracetam with other things creates a dynamic package of performance enhancement in the mind. Based on a recommendation from this site (https://www.livecortex.com/2-powerful-coluracetam-nootropic-stacks-1-sublingual/) I recently ordered the following:

20 MG Sublingual Coluracetam
100MG Alpha GPC
200MG Caffeine
300MG L-Theanine

Ordered the other three from Amazon and they are expected to arrive on Saturday.

I get the caffeine pill. It might as well be NoDoz. I read the Theanine counter-acts the Caffeine. Not sure about the Alpha GPC.

The next thing I’m looking into will be something called Adrafinil which is supposed to be a low dose version of Adderall, but we shall see. I know Adderall and that’s a mighty assessment.

Naturally, I’ll write my full assessment of the pills when they get here. I’m off from work Saturday so I’ll be here to receive them.

In fact, I even thought about going to Archery on Saturday.

No matter how you spin it, looks like ‘something’ is working.

Oh yeah…one other thing: I ordered my first acoustic guitar.

Yeah. Something is working.

Tired

June 13th, 2018

Quite a few good things are happening. An experiment I’m working on has shown results, my credit score is getting higher and I was invited to join an IT fraternity because of my GPA. Also got a new credit card so I can play my ‘game of credit’ routine to enhance my credit score even further.

The problem is I’m just too damn tired to write it down right now. 9-10 hour shifts, six days a week, getting home, on average around 2:30am every night. Plus hammering out schoolwork. Most days, I just have enough to push out classwork.

At the same time, I have a bunch of things I wanted to document here. Especially about that frat thing. I have to fill out an application. What’s on the application? Listing organizations I’m part of. What did I tell you months ago that I KNEW would be important to be part of but I failed to join anything because I hate people? Organizations.

Anyway, this segues into the stuff I’m too tired to chat about that I’ve been experimenting with: nootropics. Not quite Adderall. Not quite gingko biloba.

Just too damn tired right now. Another day. This doesn’t reflect on my use of any nootropics, though. The stuff I’m taking (

Coluracetam) doesn’t necessarily enhance energy. For now, let’s call it a ‘mood lightener’ and surprisingly works. I’ve scouted around and found out about other things I can take with it (called stacking) that would also enhance the energy levels.

Not sure I want more energy to sweep fucking floors. But I’m getting around 490-550 a week. I shan’t bitch no more.

The Last Rejection

June 6th, 2018

A free location to submit your work to get review actually rejected reviewing one of my novella concepts. It’s beyond words why this is happening, but I’ve since abandoned pursuing writing. This is just for the record that I’ve submitted 40 years of my life to something that did not work; while I develop on the theory that there will be things you are not passionate about that will work serendipitously. That is to say, your life isn’t exactly yours.

Here’s an example: AIU doesn’t provide certification for CompTIA’s A+ BUT, I happen to be in a class that gave me free access to studying the current A+ exams. I don’t have to pay for it the study material, it’s hands-on simulations and I’ll take the test right after I study all the material. Fell right into my lap.

I couldn’t get that kind of ‘easy of access’ for my writing if and when I paid for it.

Rough Day

June 2nd, 2018

Nt one day off and I spent the latter half of it very anxious and looking into a lot of self-destructive shit. No, I don’t drink or do drugs, but the desire for sex is just as equally destructive. Sometimes, when I feel this anxiety coming on, it’s coupled with an extreme need for a female and then I start looking for company that I shouldn’t; married or not. Sex, in the past, calmed me down especially when masturbation is getting boring. Finding something extra-curricular is exhausting. Being single in a world of idiot game players is incredibly time-wasting. I would invest in prostitution but thats expensive and I’m not fond of condom use at all.

So, took a Zoloft (half of one) and I’m stabilized. By that point, I already looked into a lot of trouble, but I’m good now. Let me tell you … Tinder isn’t as easy as one thinks to get some pussy. Well, maybe not at my age anyway. or maybe it’s just me. Plus down some money using all the stupid features for a quick fix that never happened. Might as well have given Tinder the money for free. All I wanted was a straight, no strings fuck and I couldn’t even get that.

Was it wrong to look for sex? of course it was. On normal days, I don’t look for ‘extra ass’. When I get in this frame of mind — I feel overwhelmingly lonely. I need the touch of woman and just have her until we’re finished. Like a person looking for drugs or alcohol to fill a void. It’s my go to when I am not on medicine. Through the day, I wasn’t thinking of taking the medicine and I let it carry on too long. About an hour ago I took the Zoloft and I’m calming down.

Like a person on drugs/alcohol, sometimes, the damage is already done. Today, I’m straight. No issues. But I remember years past where it was damaging. The child support I owe underscores that.

Perhaps if I had married a nympho. Just raw, daily, hourly power sex nonstop. Then I’d have other problems. Like no sleep.

I’d pay anything to be normal.

Financial Hard Times

June 1st, 2018

I mentioned before it seems expensive to GO to work. Seems like I am right.

The money I spend on food and gas is ramping up and not enough to cover other bills. Sadly, not even the payment I want to make on the Certification class. My wife was covering the load of things but she was short on rent and possibly other bills. We’ll catch up, but not any time soon. Then there’s child support. Eventually, GA will take the money and cut my income by a little more than half; making going to this job even more painful. I won’t be able to stay at this job very long after that. What I need is a better job with less distance.

Work at home? That would mean customer service and I’m avoiding that.

Meanwhile, school presses on. Still doing well.

On another note, a recent article proclaimed that unemployment is at it’s lowest since 1963. All hail Trump, right?

Well, first of all, Fuck Trump. He hasn’t done shit except be a white man in the office to make people feel ‘normal’.

Were you aware that businesses during the Obama era pathetically refused to hire people? This during a time when his administration lifted us out of the Great Recession. People were buying homes again and life was stabilizing. But businesses were not hiring anyone and I was part of that mess. I couldn’t find a job anywhere when it should not have been the case.

There is no reason for businesses to be hiring more people today other than willful selection. You can crunch all the numbers you want, the bottom line is: make the people miserable under Obama to make him look bad during growth.

With Trump about to have multiple wars physically and in trade, how in the hell is unemployment so low now when businesses should legitimately be giving him the same grief they gave Obama and these times are worse! It’s like me rescuing you from drowning, you don’t thank me and you slash my tires. You go and almost drown again, a white man rescues you, you not only thank him but you buy him a new car.

CompTIA A+ Certification

May 31st, 2018

Prior to taking the Paralegal Classes for certification, of course, I have to pay for it. Looking at the current job’s pay, while on a weekly basis it’s a start in the right direction to start stabilizing financially, it’s long-term is bleak. I would need to do 12-hour shifts daily, including a day or two extra, to make any significant money to save/lower debt. Even though my body is adapting to the hours, it’ll be challenging to go to school, plus go to the paralegal course, and be awake at any of them and still work 12-hours daily.

The key is to get a better job that pays more without the challenging hours. How do I do that? Get a certification in the middle of everything.

I’m currently taking classes in AIU toward Information Technology but they don’t contribute toward getting A+ certification. A lot of jobs are looking for IT professionals WITH certification in at least A+. I never took the test in the past because it was incredibly expensive at the time. We’re talking an easy $300 just for the test alone.

Now, it’s $90 bucks per test (there are two parts) and $140 for the practice/study of it all. Yeah, I know you’re saying it costs more now than before. The $300 was just the test. The practice was either on your own or some other amount. There’s a saving of $100 today than back then PLUS it seems to be done at home online. Back then, you had a location you had to go to.

In any case, I’m in a better position now. Tomorrow I’m paying for the practice/study program. Over the next two months, I’ll practice/study the A+ work, and around August, take the test. If I can do it within a month, that would be awesome but two months is realistic. Get certified and get better work in order to properly balance a better job and paralegal study.

Naturally, the certification is going to be a huge benefit to the overall IT degree process. If it goes well, I’ll take other certifications. Particularly the Network+ certification.

If this plays out as planned, I’ll have to be at this job til August/September. It’s not bad, but just inconvenient. My wife needs to take Uber every day I’m working and that adds up. Getting a second car is a goal, but again, need a better job.

This is life. Always need a strategy to keep afloat.

360

May 29th, 2018

You know, I might just be pulling off the greatest turn-around in history. The degree and other future happenings not only look probable but due. Verily expected and grounded in reality.

Even though I spent a lot of this journal swamped in depression, spurts of anger, rage against people and myself, occasionally suicidal and in debt with off and on again employment — the core reason I started the journal in the first place is bearing fruit. Regardless of the inner turmoil, the plan is working. I can even go on to say, the plan that is working is healing the inner turmoil.

In a little bit, I’ll be in my sophomore year of college with an excellent GPA. I am considering a paralegal course on the side to achieve certification to help toward the LSAT and law school — as well as a means to gainful employment of a professional level. Something to get me out of the ‘Walmarts’ and soda warehouse blue collar sector and make ‘real’ money.

Should any of that fail, the backup is Information Technology. With the IT degree, I can still get great pay in this era where digital investigations are necessary. I’m considering taking the CompTIA A+ certification to complement the IT degree.

Should both succeed, I will have a shield of knowledge and experience to be more than the man I was when I started this journal.

I can actually start formulating a proper resume that is really who I am that I could be proud of.

So what still needs to be done?

1) Maintain the job I currently have. It doesn’t pay much, it’s just sweeping the floors, but it helps with child support, paying minor bills, saving some money and paying for the CompTIA A+ and the paralegal courses.

2) Keep looking for tech work to replace the current job. Start fleshing out the career path in IT exclusively, if possible. Nothing customer based. I don’t want to do IT support for stupid customers that think putting their phones in rice is a great idea.

3) Take the CompTIA exam. Never hurts to have it.

4) Take the paralegal course and get certified. Solidifies one potential guaranteed future.

5) Take my wife out more. We’re going to Savannah next week. I’m sure we can find other places to go.

6) Consider getting back to archery.

7) Buy all books and study material for the LSAT.

I’ll have to keep working my way back up the social thing to want to go to a lodge or Toastmasters. No rush. The paralegal course looks like it emphasizes on speaking and communication with others anyway so I’ll wait for that.

All in all — as of this moment — I feel stable mentally, with ‘adult grown-up’ career and financial stability on approach.

What I hope anyone gets from this journal is exactly what is happening: Make plans in life, see things fail, make adjustments, come up with new ideas that work and come close to the original goals as possible. Losing your mind along the way, but finding where to stabilize.

It’s been an incredible year.

This Job

May 27th, 2018

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Almost forgot about it being that I slept all day yesterday and today. It’s Sunday and there is so-called mandatory overtime.

There’s a couple of reasons I don’t foresee myself at this job past Monday or Tuesday:

1) It’s hard on my feet. I’m too young to grind my joints down for just being a guy that sweeps fucking floors.

2) My wife has no way of getting home from work while I have the car, forced to take Uber every night. That adds up and it’s bad enough we don’t have extra money. No, it won’t get any better if I quit — but when a job becomes expensive to GO to work, you have to start really doing the numbers. I didn’t even include the gas and more food I’m eating.

3) She has a job-sponsored event to go to Tuesday and Wednesday where she needs the car. I entertained taking the bus but after mapping it out via my usual mass transportation app, it will take me 4 hours by multiple buses and trains to get to a job that I’ll be on my feet for the next 8-10 hours after I get there.

Call me a lazy American all you want, but that shit isn’t worth it. Plus I have to figure out where to get the bus cards and load it up with cash I don’t have.

4) The job hinted at giving me more jobs to do outside of sweeping. Picking actual orders and what not. My feelings on that is simple: I do not want any further responsibilities that will force me to stay past a time I want to leave. Typically, people at this job have been leaving at 4, 5 or sometimes 6am. Technically, they expect me to stay until the end of the shift — as of now — sweeping the floor.

I’ve been leaving at 1am. Maybe 2am because I was done and sticking around was a waste of time. You might say: fuck it. You’re getting paid. Why not stay the extra couple of hours?

So you’re suggesting I stay on my feet for 16 hours a night? Sweeping and mopping floors. Looking busy when there is, most times, nothing to do?

I need the money. I can’t deny that.

But, as you can agree, I also need my sanity and my sleep is connected to that.

45-minute drive to and from work. At 4am, I am serving on the road exhausted. I chose to leave at 1am to give me ample time to come home, shower, eat, sleep and be well rested for the next day. It’s balanced giving them the work they need and the sleep and rest I need. Keep this also in mind, this is supposed to be a 12 hour shift Monday through Friday. Most 12-hour shift jobs I know have three off – two on days alternating weeks. These dudes working this job are doing five days straight.

Let’s also be clear: they are riding around on electric pallet jacks. Less foot time, but they do lift a lot and have other responsibilities for picking orders. None of which I want to dig into at my pay rate.

Lastly, there’s ….

5) I start classes again this coming Wednesday. I had a week off (some sort of Summer break I guess) and my next two classes are focused on my major.
Discovering Information Technology and Information Technology and Society.

They ‘sound’ easy stuff. Not so much trouble as, say Algebra coming up after these. But with my goal to not just do well but do OUTSTANDING (fuck Environmental Science and that instructor that fucked my GPA a little), do I have the energy to do this cornball maintenance job, take a four-hour bus ride and still concentrate on what i have to do for class?

The argument can be made that it’s only two days and I have plenty of time to catch up on all the class stuff over the weekend — possibly.

But four hours is insane.

What I might do is tell them I’m not coming in Tuesday and Wednesday. Leave it like that.

I’m getting ready to go in today. If there’s more talk of me picking orders and doing more than mopping, I’ll consider it but it’s putting one of my feet out the door. You see, I want this job to be simple since it’s already taxing on body and expenses as it is.

That said, I’m reviewing my resume/job search game. I got this one, with a few calls from others, with a particular format that worked. The IT jobs I want, but not getting, are being overlooked by that ‘honest’ resume I had help with from AIU’s career center. As mentioned, lying and cheating works, I need the time to adapt the resume that works into the IT sector.

It can’t be all lies and cheating because I am ACTIVELY in a major IT Bachelor’s Degree program. I just got to find a place that will take on students and talk up that part of my resume. I’ve seen IT jobs at 18.00 an hour doing things I know I can do even if I wasn’t in this degree program. Might I also add, stuff I can do that the degree program hasn’t touched on yet or even plan to.

I need to make this degree talk the talk these fuckers only want to hear.

This is the American way of working: paid more, less work. Working smart.