Back to School again

Well, the fall semester is finally under way.  Seems so far that my classes will be a tad bit difficult than in previous years.  It's nice to have some structure again though (as far as sleep goes, at least).

Economics 401 - Microeconomics - Taught by what I assume is a grad student.  He seems pretty cool.  He'll stutter every once in a while, though for some reason it sort of fits his personality.

French 101 - Taught by a short black woman, who reminds me of Kelly from the show The Office.  We started in from day one learning 50 or so new words.  It was difficult to keep up.  I'm going to have to study ahead alot to keep up.  It seems pretty fun though.  I'm one of only about 5 students in the class that did NOT have French in high school.  Should be interesting.

Economics 402 - Macroeconomics - Taught by an older gentleman from South Korea.  He has a very likeable personality, and adds humor to the lectures occassionally.

Marketing 300 - Taught by a guy who's taught there for 20 years, has a lot on his 'resume', including a lot of entries in business journals and other similar things.  Really knows his stuff, as well as how to truly capture the attention of students.  Should be a fun class.

Accounting 202 - Taught by a middle-aged woman who has an interesting sense of humor and makes it her goal to lessen the stress that students feel.  Luckily, she teaches the same exact class an hour and a half beforehand and allows us to switch between them as we wish.  This will cut down the break I have before this class from over 2 hours to just around 30 minutes.

So, yeah.  Overall, a bit more challenging (i.e. - I'll have to go to every single class to even attempt to get an A), but should be a lot of fun, and should actually learn something useful this semester.

Otherwise, D (older) and I went on a ride with the Bluegrass Bicycling Club.  I apparently thought I was in better shape than I actually was.  I ended up going only about 2/3 the distance of what the others did.  Though the lack of water (we only had 1 total), my chain starting to skip whenever riding uphill, me wearing a black shirt in the hot sun, and us being the only 2 people there that had mountain bikes instead of road bikes didn't help much either.  It was pretty fun though.  Once I fix up the bike (and hopefully get some road tires on it) and get a few miles in from biking to school and back, I should be at least able to keep up with them when I go again.

Went on a Date

Well, for the first time in my 12 or so years as an online dating site junkie and/or 'myspace stalker', I finally went on a date with someone I met online.  She seemed pretty cool, but I don't think there will be a second date.  From the second she saw me, I could already tell there was something about me she didn't like.  Based on context clues, either I didn't look as 'pretty' as my picture (which I thought actually looked even worse) or I didn't look 'classy' enough for her.  She's an only child and VERY spoiled.  She came wearing something I'd expect somebody to wear if they were going to a really expensive restaurant, and I came wearing black khaki shorts and a t-shirt with skulls on it (which seemed fine by me, since all we were just going to see a scary movie (The Orphan, which I highly reccomend)).  Either that, or she is very shy around strangers, especially ones only known from online.  Anyways, I had fun.

At work, they are being very strict about the 'beard policy', I either have to shave it and keep it shaved every day I come into work, or have an actual beard.  I figured I am too lazy to remember to shave it every day I come into work, so I decided to grow it out, and on reccomendation of the store manager (it's the franchise owner that's over 5 other stores who's being the strict enforcer), I decided to actually trim the beard.  It actually looks somewhat decent now.  Before, I never knew what trimming a beard actually meant.  The store manager is pretty good with stuff like that, patiently explaining things that should be common sense to most people.  Not having the facial hair full enough to do anything with it until recently didn't help not knowing anything about it, not that the fact that dad never even taught me how to shave helped either.

I finally got over to Walmart to get the oil changed in the van (as well as many of the fluids topped off and a replaced air filter and oil filter), and also got some desparetely needed clothes shopping done, though I'll still have plenty more to do once school starts.  The van still has issues though.  It's stalling has gotten worse, now reverting back to stalling sometimes when coming around curves in the road.  Sometimes it will even stall while just driving down the road if I don't have my foot on the gas pedal.  Nothing I'm not used to dealing with though.  Will make it harder to sell if I ever decide to try and cash out on it and get something that isn't in such bad shape, though I have considered the option of doing the whole 'trade-in a junk vehicle as payment on a new vehicle (though it'd probably be one of the cheaper 10k- vehicles if I ever did that anytime soon.  Even after the oil change and fluids being filled up, the van still overheats.  While delivering pizzas, it's high average is 3/4 the way to 'hot', so I may need to look into that more.  

I'm finally cleaning out all the stuff I moved into the new room, along with going through old mail, etc.  Saw that one of the credit cards was a few months past due (the debt counselors I go through really don't listen when I saw what is needed and what needs to be payed).  So I got it current again (and actually did so for the first time in years without having to borrow money from dad).  Also, looking at the credit card bills, apparently, even with just paying the minimum, my total credit card debt is down to just under 4k (from its max at 5.5k), so I'm pretty excited about that!

Lastly, I finally ran for the first time since I moved back to Lexington.  I blame it on not having the high school track to run at.  I always had that as a place I could go at any time of night to be away from people/alone with my thoughts.  Luckily, I've now found a similar place, though not entirely closed off from the world.  Unluckily, I'm somehow in a lot worse shape than I was even a year ago!  This last time I ran, I actually felt heavy (which despite what you might think is actually a rare occurance for me.  I guess I still have some of the advantages of being young)  And breathing also was more of an issue later on than it usually is (though having eaten Domino's cheesy bread with extra cheese, among other things a few hours beforehand didn't exactly help).  Getting free/discounted food from Dominos is about the worst thing in my diet at the moment.  Otherwise, I've been pretty good about avoiding fast-food, pop, chips, and junk food.  Anyways, I may or may not plan on running the race in late September that S had mentioned, depending on how easily I can get back into shape.  I'll definitely be working towards it though.

Woke up early!

For once in a long time I actually woke up early in the day (without the assistance of an alarm clock) and was able to accomplish something...so I spent 5 hours cleaning the van.  Vacuuming the carpet and apholstry, cleaning off pounds of dust, wiping the insides down with wipes that leave a glossy finish, washing the outside and cleaning out all the cracks between windows and doors.  Was quite a fun experience.  Last time I did the same thing was back home when I was supposed to go on a 'Hot' date (which didn't go through).  It's nice to have a clean vehicle.  Now I just need to change the oil and fill up all the fluids, and maybe a few spark plugs if needed (I really miss having cruise control).

Otherwise, life is going great.  Moved into the bigger bedroom, which gives a lot more room.  I now have a bigger couch to sleep on, an actual computer desk instead of using the table, the table for homework and other paperwork tasks, and even the huge weight bench I got from D (elder).  It's nice to have more room.  The couch was the only tricky thing to move.  It wouldn't fit through the hallway, or the doorway, so we carried it in through the window.  It was quite fun.

I've managed to get 2 of the books I need for the Fall semester so far.  I'll probably order 2 others online today (and save a good $50-100).  The other book hasn't yet been selected by the teacher, so I'll have to wait on that.  School starts in 3 weeks.  Can't wait.

Family Reunion and more car troubles

Family Reunion was fun, got to hike a lot more than usual, played cards almost every night (mostly spades), and it was nice to see all the relatives again.

About a week ago, I the van started having troubles again.  Over the course of a night delivering pizzas, my brakes went out.  At first, after chatting with C, I thought it might just be air in the line, but the next day when I tried to go somewhere, I found out the brakes were completely gone.  I couldn't even hold it still against the idle.  So, once again, D (the elder) came to the rescue.  We had to go the the store 3 times, but eventually got it fixed.  Ended up being the break cylinder for the back right wheel that needed replaced.  Having seen how it was done, it shouldn't be too hard to do next time it happens.

Life otherwise is fine, just trying to get books early for school so I can study up a bit.  They are going to be somewhere between $600 and $800.  It will be a tough semester when it gets here in about a month.

car troubles

So my breaks suddenyly stopped working a couple weeks ago.  Well, they sorta worked, but I had to press down further to get them to start breaking and even then, it was quite week.  So, I head over to D's place (the elder) and replace the right side breaks, which are only half-way worn down.  He was also nice enough to help me rotate the tires and fix holes caused by a nail in each of my back tires.  Looking further at the wheels, part of the structure holding the left front tire had come loose.  I ended up replacing that and a bar that goes between the two front tires (I forget what it's called).  Totalling $250.  Probably a bit cheaper than it might have been.  I was able to get it down by a mechanic who's friends with one of the other drivers at Dominos.  I'm just lucky that I didn't have to replace any springs like J (the younger) did (which costed upward of $500).

Everything with it is back to normal now, though I need to change the oil, check some fluids, give it a good wash, and possibly replace a few fuses (the cruise control isn't working currently).  What I really need to do is sell it before it completely breaks down and buy something cheap.

Job Hunting

Applied for a few jobs on May 5th - most promising was Dominoes.  Since then, I've made a total of 30 calls there in the 'hiring' process.  It took 10 calls to finally get ahold of the hiring manager and find out I needed to get a 'Motor Vehicle Report' (and ended up having to get a new driver's license in the process.  After that, they were going to hire me at the Eastland location, but apparently the manager there gave the job to his brother even though he had promised the main hiring manager that he'd save the job for me.  A few calls later, after having them look for Driver vacancies at the different locations around Lexington, they finally find that they could start me out working a few days at the Northpark location.  Only thing in the way at this point was getting me a Dominoes shirt.....5 days later and 4 calls later, I'm finally going to start training tommorow.  Geez

I much prefer Giovanni's way of doing things - Go in, fill out an application, talk with a manager right then and there for 5 minutes, start work that evening.  They were always good for that.

Otherwise, life is fine.  My sleeping habits are on the fritz without school or work.  Most of the time I fall asleep a few hours after the sun is up.  My grades from the semester were satisfactory - 4 B's and 1 C.  The C was suprisingly not in English.  I'll definitely be improving future grades, but I'm satisfied for now.

Finals Week is Over!

The semester is finally over.  I only had 3 finals, all of which were fairly easy.  I should get all my grades in a week or less.  Though I seriously doubt I made any A's, I should have at least a C in all the classes, which at least counts towards the major, which unfortunately has been changed to a Bachelor's of Science in Economics (with a Minor in Business), instead of the planned Accounting degree.  I have registered for all of my classes for the fall, though I still have one class which I have yet to find an opening for (Intermediate Microeconomics)

The classes I've registered for so far are:

French 101

Economics 402 - Intermediate Macroeconomics

Accounting 202 - Managerial Accounting

Marketing 300 - Marketing Management

Should be a fairly fun semester.  For now I just have to worry about finding a job for the Summer.