As with most people I shop mostly online to avoid the crowded stores or waste gas. One thing I have always disliked about shopping online is the outrageous prices on shipping. Not to long ago I was going to buy something and the shipping was more than the item I was purchasing. I do not understand how you can charge more for shipping the item than what the item is truly worth. Angered by the entire ordeal I ended up not buying the item and went on a search for free shipping coupons. For anyone who loves to shop online make sure you look into coupons for the item and shipping so you are not being outrageously charged. I know I will never buy anything without first looking for coupons from now on.
I am not really in a good mood at the moment and considering I am not motivated to do anything else… I decided to write in my blog. I do not know why but lately every night around midnight I just want to murder the world. The anger and hatred for the world just comes out of nowhere and disappears again within an hour. It is really weird to me that this keeps happening (this being the third night in a row) to me. I thought after dealing with my depression cycle that I would be good for a few months before dealing with some crazy bipolar side effect again. Apparently, I was wrong. I do not know what I am going to do about it or if there is anything I can do. If this does keep occurring I will most likely go to my doctor and see what he has to say about it. Anyways, I think I am going to go sketch for a bit and try to take my mind off things, later.
I do not know if anyone else has ever worked with someone who collects weird things and likes to discuss them openly… but I have. There is this one man who works in my office who loves to discuss all the weird things I collects at home. One of the things he collects is silver bars. I do not know what someone would do with a collection of silver bars but I guess it is kind of cool. I have several specialty coins that have been given to me over the years but I have never actively collected them myself. The only thing I do have a large collection of is movies because my boyfriend and I are movie fanatics. Do you collect anything weird or unusual? If so, what got you into collecting it and is it a collection you plan to sell one day or pass down to your children?
I do not know if it is just me or what but this year seems to be flying by. I cannot believe it is all ready February! I also cannot believe that I have this week off from classes for a in between courses break. I have not actually done anything with the break but I guess that is the point? Despite my break from class I still had to work so I think during the weekend is when it will hit me that I have a lot more free time. I still have not figured out if I am going to do art this weekend or what. Oh decisions… I am so not used to having so much time to make decisions about my time. I guess we will just have to see what I come up with to do this weekend. 
I meant to update on Thursday but I got sidetracked by being super busy at work. We had a shipment come in of new computers and I was busy getting things organized. At one point I even had to use a Martor USA box cutter to help the IT department check the inventory. I guess it is true what they say that just because you are hired to do one thing does not mean it is the only thing you will do. I did not mind helping the IT department as I used to work in it doing web development and IT solutions. However, I am glad I chose to move to human resources when I did. I love working with insurance, company policies, and ensuring the employees have their needs met. Anyone else ever get pulled in to do work they weren’t hired on to do? If so, how did it make you feel?
Well here I am on another late night having trouble sleeping because of pain. Instead of pouting like I usually do I decided to burn a new CD for my drive to work tomorrow. It is amazing how songs can just speak to your soul. When I really feel down I turn on some music and just escape into the songs. I wanted to burn a collection of songs that would motivate, inspire, and speak to me so I could really face the day. Sometimes the pain I am in has a tendency to take away from my spirit. It is hard to admit that I struggle with the pain and darkness within my soul. However, I know that without my dark times I could not fully appreciate the light. I guess the point of all this is it has taken me my entire life to realize that it is okay to have the dark times. It is okay to struggle, fall, and have to learn to crawl again. So the next time the darkness surrounds you just remember there will always be another day filled with light. Do not spend your life trying to hide the fact you have darkness in your life or past. Do not waste as much time as I did figuring out you need both dark and light to be complete. It may have taken me almost my whole life to figure that out but I finally have. Once I realized it I was able to let go of my past and finally love myself. To be completely honest letting my past go has made me happier than I have ever been. I no longer have the burden of carrying my mistakes around and I can be in the present. I owe this realization to my boyfriend who has been the driving supporter in my life. I know had he not helped me there is a good chance I may have never realized it was okay to let go. I hope for whoever reads my blog they can find a person who inspires, supports, and loves them the way that I did. It makes all the difference in the world when you have someone who truly loves you for you and can save you from yourself. Anyways, I have rambled on enough so I am going to attempt sleep… night world.
I am not in the current financial position to be looking into outer banks homes for sale but I cannot help it. Michael and I have yet to even determine which state we want to live in or even if we are going to buy or rent. I just get into these daydream type modes where I start looking into houses and picking out the perfect place for us to start our family. I know it will be awhile before we make any concrete plans. However, I have always been the type of person to make plans and stick to them.
I like having things figured out way before they happen so I can prepare for surprises or bumps a long the way. That also means I have an issue with control. You know, for the longest time I hated that I had to control everything because of my OCD. However, thanks for Michael, I am able to say it may not be my greatest attributed but it does have its perks. For example, I am really great with organization, I have an eye for details, and I am usually prepared for any situation. I think the most important lesson I have learned from my boyfriend is that we have to learn to love ourselves no matter how hard that is. So loving myself is exactly what I am doing and I have never been happier. 
So I went to the doctor to figure out why I am still have pain and why my stitches were not dissolving. After receiving three numbing injections in my surgical incision (fucking ow!) my doctor attempted to figure it out. While I am laying back fighting tears and excruciating pain she begins to remove some of my stitches. Turns out my body was rejecting the stitches and was beginning to become infected. I ended up bleeding all over the exam room. I bled through the blood catching towel and the paper on the exam table before she was able to make it stop. She left a few stitches in and told me that without the other stitches it should heal more quickly now and not be so irritated. I really hope she is right because I cannot take the pain from the surgical incision. It drives me crazy!
After my traumatic ordeal at the doctor I did go back to work but I was sore everywhere from tensing up. The only place I wasn’t sore was where she had numbed the hell out of me. Even now almost 11 hours later I still feel sore, tense, and extremely exhausted. I know I should have came home afterwards to rest, but I had to work on a last minute project that has to be finished by tomorrow afternoon. I am hoping that I can get the project done early tomorrow and use the afternoon to relax. If I cannot finish it quickly I know tomorrow I will be completely worn out. 
You are probably wondering why I am blogging if I am going to complain about being exhausted. Well to be honest I had to come online to finish up some studying for some classwork due soon. So I signed online, studied a bit, and decided to make a quick post about what happened today. 
Anyways, the exhaustion is really beginning to get to me so I am going to go to bed. I hope everything is well for everyone else. Night everyone.
I know I just updated about random conversations but I feel it is necessary to address an issue from the post before that one. I had mentioned I was going to update my blog’s website and I have yet to do it. Here is the truth… I forgot all about my plan to change my layout. You see, I am now a PhD student and I get hit with a lot of writing assignments at once. Well once I finished the 1500 word paper and then a 2800 word paper I still had more work to do!
I was assigned the task of peer-reviewing two other student’s papers that were 2800 words long. Normally, I enjoy reviewing my peer’s work especially when my corrections are minor. However, this was not the case this week. You see, one of the paper’s I reviewed a guy wrote and he did quite well. Aside, from some basic APA formatting issues his rough draft was very well written.
Then I had to review this chick’s paper and she had so many mistakes I was actually baffled that she was successfully enrolled in my doctorate program! Granted it is the first research paper for the doctorate program and maybe she was not familiar with APA formatting but holy batman her paper was horrible. She hardly used any in-text citations, her references were incorrectly formatted, and she used NO level one or two headings. Her paper looked exactly like a huge blog entry! 
Due to the fact I would be graded on my reviews of these paper’s I had to correct her every mistake! I even used examples from my APA 6 Manual to show her the errors she made. I know she probably was pissed off when she received all my corrections but if she listens to me and makes the corrections she could possibly get a B. If she chooses to not listen to me she will be at risk of failing her final. I guess I will just have to wait and see if she is in my second block of classes to determine if she passed or not, lol. 
One thing that made me a bit relieved is that both my reviews came back with no corrections. I kind of figured that would be the case though. My writing is very strong and I do have APA memorized like the back of my hand. Not to brag or anything but when it comes to research papers I am pretty untouchable. 
I also found out that after this course completes I get a week vacation and I get a week vacation every time a course ends from here on out. My counselor told me the reason for all the weeks off is to keep students from getting overwhelmed by the rigorous demands of my program. Apparently, before they implementing the week’s off there were several students getting burnt out, dropping out, and even one committed suicide! (I do not think my counselor was supposed to divulge that information though) Either way, I plan to use the weeks off to focus on my art as I have been doing in my spare time anyways.
I also have decided that since work is kind of slow lately that I will be using my free time at the office to focus on my art hobby and fixing this site up. So later today while I am work I will be getting this site to look how it needs to. Also, I made a huge decision to not renew some of my extra domains. I just do not think I need 7 domains anymore so I will be combining those sites into this one. I did have to buy a new external hd to house all my extra domain stuff in the mean-time but it was well worth the money. I ended up organizing all my art, music, and clip art into the external and can take it with me to work if I need to. It made me feel like everything is a lot more organized now. For some reason if I do not keep things organized my OCD kicks into overdrive and kills my creativity. So if you start noticing a lot of random stuff being added to this site just embrace the extras. I promise I will make everything more cohesive as I get more time! Anyways, I need to get my stuff ready for bed so I can get up in a few hours for work. I hope everyone has a fantastic Tuesday!
I have found that I end up in some of the strangest conversations with people. Last week while at work I ended up in a conversation about restaurant funding and I have no idea how. I have noticed this happens a lot to me especially when I run out of any legit things to talk about. I am beginning to think I just talk to talk without any purpose behind my conversations. I really want to break this habit because I get bored very quickly in pointless conversations. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?
