All is Well

June 25th, 2018

Woke up to another “A” on last weeks paper.

Had a full nights rest compared to the past few weeks of coming home at 3am from that crazy job. Which, by the way, may have contributed to my exhaustion. Possibly. But I was waking up at 10am. Just unnatural sleeping schedules I guess.

Nevertheless, feeling better today. Probably because I know I can get a full day of studying and classwork done without the pressure of going to work. I got there last night, it was like a tornado struck the place. Nobody did any cleaning while I was gone the past two days. I handed in my time slip for the week, left that vest they issue to use for safety, got dinner for my wife and I and went home.

Aside from that momentary feeling of disgust for people, I’m calling today a refresher. A full restart and targeting the construction of the ultimate tech resume. I’ll get another job within a week if I do it right.

In the tech industry. NOT sweeping fucking floors. Look, it was admirable work but fuck … let’s face it. The American way of doing things specifically demands that we make good money smartly. Not by busting your ass.

Thus, the enhanced education.

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.

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.

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.

Worn Off

May 21st, 2018

I start work today. Unusual hours of 4pm to something in the morning. From what I hear, they needed more people and they have lots of overtime. I’m to meet some guy named ‘Luis’. Here’s my interpretation:

Mostly Spanish speaking workers with highly rotational employment of idiots that don’t want to do any work. Spanish people got the better hours of daytime hours and lots of Blacks working the night shift. Spanish people there don’t even try to speak English and Blacks there don’t even try. Only White people there are supervisors and managers.

That was the same setup at that warehouse job I had last year. I’ll bet you a $1.00 it’s the same here. I’m going to come in and be the odd man out.

Anyway, the Zoloft wore off. In fact, it faded off yesterday. I have more, but I wanted to document the timing. I took it Saturday night around 10pm, but the effects started on me around 2AM. Couldn’t sleep and overheating. For much of the morning when I did wake up, sluggish and very slow. Also dry mouth and thirsty.

What it did do is silence the extra thoughts. When I say extra ‘thoughts’, it’s my mind replaying memories I deem embarrassing or regretful. Think of something you did awkward at a party, then a year later, out of nowhere, your mind remembers that segment of time for NO reason (maybe a song, a smell or something someone said); causing you to wince or react for the stupidity you believe happened. That’s what goes on with me: a mind forced to replay the sadness, awkwardness, etc, etc. A private kind of hell and my memory is DEEP. I’m being shown things from elementary school that, yes, did happen. Not hallucinations. Not delusions. Memories.

I have explored meditation and attempts at rerouting my thoughts. There is a certain level of thought redirection I can actually do. At one point, I used to imagine this box and everytime a random thought I did not want to come up, I would throw it in the box. Sounds strange, I know. But it worked. I was usually able to catch the thought just as it started, and in the box, it went. Barely any time for my mind to consciously recognize ‘what’ that thought was about. Kind of like willfully forgetting something.

The problem I noticed is those thoughts, in that box, actually, have weight. Incredibly, these thoughts actually back up and clog my system somehow. Many, many MANY times I try this “throw it in the box” routine, after awhile, the box breaks and the emotional residue of those thoughts flood me. Those are usually the worst weeks. The weeks that are darker than dark. When I don’t try the ‘box’ method, I go long stretches of time without being morbidly depressed, but I am forced to view my life’s moments. It’s like they have to happen. Like a running faucet. Stop the flow, it will explode. Keep it running, and all is relatively fine. Not good. Just fine.

The pills kept them in check moderately, giving me a foggy clarity. And if something did pop up in the mind, I was too slow to care.

Right now, my mind is racing. Normally a good thing. Getting more writing done.

I did not take Zoloft last night, deciding to take it today (AM) with some food. Haven’t taken it yet. I wanted to monitor the difference between my rate of typing now compared to yesterday. I’m writing faster and pushing the thoughts of what I want to write much more fluent. Yesterday’s journal entry was slow and full of errors I had to back up and correct. I mentioned long before I could not write on Lexapro. I definitely shouldn’t write while on Zoloft.

With my school work at 95% writing, that’s a problem.

Having said that, does Zoloft affect anything else I do? Working? Driving?

I’m so fucked. Why can’t I just be normal?

I can’t take the pill now cause I need it to write. I probably shouldn’t take the pill to pay attention to a new job. But I need the pill to be a subdued version of normal.

It’s funny. I know exactly when the Zoloft wore off. It was around noon yesterday. I suddenly started getting those random thoughts and memories back and I was waking from that zombie-like state too have an emotional feeling about it. The Zoloft curbed the emotions. By late afternoon, I was writing a little (schoolwork), after much of the day not interested in it at all.

Yeah, I’m going to skip Zoloft today. The thoughts come, but I’m not ‘manic’ like I was last week or super depressed. I think the pill worked ‘enough’ and probably works enough when I need it as opposed to when I don’t. Probably not the way it is recommended to work, but I have to NOT be foggy in the head when starting this job. I might consider taking it AFTER work if the medicine is expected to wear off by the time I go BACK to work.

Paralegal

May 16th, 2018

The writing stopped. I needed time to pack away and/or destroy everything relevant to that creative end. It wasn’t working. I thought I could have fun doing it, but the truth is, with no one reading — no one reviewing — there is no fun in it. A creative lobotomy — that side of me had to go. It was killing me.

Back to this lifeless, but eventually lucrative, law career decision with no other diversions than to play a video game or two during downtimes.

The career path has led me to explore, before law school, work as a paralegal. For that, I need to be certified and I found a 1-year course at Kennesaw State University that can provide the study and the certification. I was looking at a course at Emory but they expected a bachelor’s degree FIRST in order to take the same course, for the same certification.

I’m still doing fine in AIU with a GPA of 3.92. Environmental science fucked me. I inquired about disputing past grades. Because I did not discuss it with the teacher and open a dispute at the time, it wouldn’t be worth it. My fault. At the time, I did not think it was worth it. But, seeing that I am doing great with my essay’s now, as to say, I should not have had a problem with the previous essays, I’m feeling I should have slapped that bitch for grading me so poorly.

Well, I have one week left in this course, and I have all A’s.

Oh, I had an event with my daughter this past weekend. My daughter told my ex I was going back to school and how well I was doing. My ex was proud of me and said: “I always knew you could do it”.

She’s of that very educated, 6-figure variety. The problem wasn’t that she didn’t support educational endeavors. She never supported my creative endeavors. Not just her. My mother wasn’t interested either. Years upon years of my own lack of faith in myself based on negative feedback from those around me who didn’t even READ my work. My ex made up every excuse possible not to read anything until SOMEONE ELSE read it and reviewed it.

My writing was an uphill struggle. I knew I was talented. Just not supported and it’s in me to have self-hate and resentment about it. Meanwhile, kids like this get full support for whatever he’s doing since 11 years old:

https://www.vogue.com/article/food-recipe-eureka-flynn-mcgarry

It’s never about “he was a prodigy.” I was a prodigy in storytelling. Writing since 5-years old. Taught a few classes in creative writing. But I’m Black. No supportive family. No money. I can sum it up and wonder if I was ever any good at all and here we are at giving up and just focusing on going to law school. There. Saved you another paragraph of ranting. As for teaching creative writing again, I hate people too much now to even try to be caring in a classroom.

So, here’s the plan: I continue the work I’m doing in AIU. Continue to get the good grades. Get the Bachelor’s degree in 2020 for Information Technology. between now and the end of 2019, I take the Paralegal Course and get certified. This allows me to get work at a law firm with my final year getting the degree. Naturally, I let them know the intention to take the LSAT.

Getting a job as a Paralegal breaks me free of crap temp jobs like the one I should be starting any day now. That’s another story. I got the job but didn’t start yet.

Working as a paralegal is like pre-law realtime, plus being paid.

That’s the plan anyway. Left-side of the brain things work. All this shit about the law, working in law and going to law school will fall into my lap easier than my struggle to be a writer.

Even finding that better course at Kennesaw is an example of serendipitous momentum. I couldn’t get that kind of convenient momentum for my writing whatsoever. It’s hard to explain. It’s the little and big things. The writing was always a struggle with no one caring. Law pursuit? I hold out my hand and all things fall into place.

People are ‘proud of me’ suddenly. Including my mother. Were they not proud when I was writing? Fuck all of them. Every last fucking one of them.

Let the record show I don’t give a rats ass about law and it’s all about ‘people’ and you know how much I don’t give a fuck about people. Fucking lovely. I’m going to be the House M.D. of Law.

Moody

April 22, 2018

What’s happening right now? Nothing.

I have classwork to do, a novella to finish, JavaScript to study, employment to seek but I can’t focus on any of it.

Is it what I’m eating? Not eating?

I think I solved the problem by exercising so I think I’ll have to get back on that.

My GPA dipped to 3.92 … after that damn environmental science class. I got a final grade of B+. The issue was her petty demands in my reports. At first, I was angry, but knowing I’ll do better moving forward, it will climb back to 4.0 status by the end of the psychology class.

But right now. This moment. It’s a cross between depression and cloudiness in my brain. The inability to really concentrate and no desire to do anything.

I hate this.

Working with People

I JUST said I wasn’t going to complain about Walmart. So what am I about to do? Complain about Walmart.

Well, not really about ‘Walmart’ but the people I work with. Typically, I am a hard-worker. I may find time to coast a little, but my coasting is still degrees higher in getting the job done than the average worker’s base-work.

Dude I work with does absolutely nothing but sit on the phone, walk around the store while on his phone, does a little work to keep up appearances and goes back to texting or talking on his phone.

Meanwhile, I’ve stocked out half my department leaving a bunch of empty boxes. Yesterday, I had enough and left him with those boxes to throw out.

Because I know this type of guy— the kind of guy that bitches about other people but fails to see how little he does himself — he’ll be saying shit behind my back as he does with everyone else. How can I leave all those boxes for him to do? From my point of view: easily. You don’t do shit, so I left you something to do.

Today, in hindsight, that kind of abrasive ‘i’m going to fuck you over for fucking me’ isn’t part of the plan. Now I’m in a position to complain that he doesn’t do shit after he complains I didn’t empty boxes. Back and forth and petty shit.

It’s not part of the plan to dance with petty shit.

Not with petty small people.

Not to become small and petty because of them. I’ll end up hurting myself because, in this environment, it’s not what they see you did that was good, but what you didn’t do. Ultimately, they won’t see that the man who created all the empty boxes in the first place was the man doing all the work without the lazy fuck.

I said I wasn’t going to complain about Walmart. Technically, I didn’t.

I’m complaining about ‘people’ and this sort of scum could have been found at ANY place of employment. Including a future law office.

Also, this is my journal to vent and plan next steps. I’ll handle this sort of thing better next time.