Domestic Geek

Well, I had my annual birthday gathering today. The festivities were marred by the fact that I had to do 16 batches of dough today and cut the side of my left index finger off in the process. It took 45 minutes to stop the bleeding. I thought I'd have to end up going to the ER. I whacked it about 6:30 this morning. Right now it's throbbing terribly and I can't type worth crap. I'm afraid to take the bandage off for fear of starting a gusher again. I'll give it a day or so before I even try that. I need to be studying for my Unix test, but I'm so tired. Maybe I'll go to bed and try in the morning.

I decided to give up on the Win2K Server class. It's not worth the grief. I don't need the credit and my time can be better spent elsewhere (like getting my resume ready to go). Some things that I don't wish to talk about here are going on at work and they're just more signs that I need to get away from it. The owner is such a wuss. Marcus and I had wanted to keep doing dough at the store we share to keep the part-time income (after I get another job here soon), but when I asked him about it he gave me some half-assed wishy-washy answer about low sales and not being able to afford it, blah, blah, blah. Whatever.

Laura has decided to stop blogging, I guess. That's a daily read I'm going to miss. :(

ONLY 8 MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT!

I wish Marcus was home from work. I need a hug.

I got into it with the networking teacher today. Man, that guy is either delusional or a liar. I don't know which. Either way, I'm pissed, I still am not learning squat and more than ever I want out of that place. He and I were in the office of the person in charge of staff (I don't know her title). He claims we're learning stuff and the problems the class is having is a result of broken/insufficient hardware. Bulls**t. The Win2K lab was up and running on the first day and nothing was wrong with it until he started playing with it. Our class is down to three people. Anyway, I hate meeting with administrators. I hate those conflict management techniques they all use. I can see through them and they make me even more angry. Their solutions to everything is offer me more classes. I don't want more classes. Why would I keep putting myself through this torture? I'm tired of promises that things will change, just give them a chance. So, she tells us to get back to class and try to make the most of the next two weeks. What does he do? He hides out in the bathroom, takes a smoke break, calls another school on his cell to inquire about open instructor positions, then claims he's going to work on a lesson plan for Monday. So, did we learn anything today? NO. The head of staff lady caught up with me after school and asked if we were finally learning something. I told her no. Well, she wants to talk to me on Monday again. Oh, boy. I think the thing I'm still most angry about right now is after class I was talking to some of my friends about what had happened. I told them I got into a "screaming match" with him. He was right around the corner and he comes up to me and says, "I wouldn't call it a screaming match." Well, excuse me, Mr. Eavesdropper. I considered it screaming for me (someone mild-mannered who prefers to sit in the back of a class and take things in and not confront anyone) to raise my voice to a teacher in front of others. I think it was rude of him not only to listen to my conversations, but to butt in as well. As usual, I bawled through the whole thing. He kept saying "Don't cry, it makes you seem weak. Don't cry, you'll get your point across better if you don't seem so upset and angry." Well, guess what? I AM UPSET AND ANGRY!! I WASTED $18,000, I'M TIRED OF THE CRAP AND I'M FRUSTRATED! I'm sorry, I'm emotional, I cry, it happens. Don't you think that if you get a degree in networking you should be able to set up and administer a network? Is that way too much to expect? Am I delusional?

Oh, I forgot to mention once again that school blows. I was hoping that the long weekend would give the Networking teacher time to pull his head out of his ass and figure out what he was going to teach this module. Man, I must be living in a fantasy. We did NOTHING today. He actually told us to play games or whatever it is we do while he figured out what he was going to do. It seems like he spent most of the class with his head on his desk. He promised us on the first day of class that he would never walk out on us. Right now I'm hoping for that. Top all that off with another hard drive that crapped out on me in Unix class today and I'm really getting stuff accomplished this month. Dallas finally helped me get RedHat Linux installed on yet another drive halfway through lunch today. Hopefully I'll finally get to start working on the lab tomorrow that was originally supposed to be due tomorrow morning. That ain't happening. Combined with the SSDD at work and I'm frustrated to the breaking point. I just need to remember: ONLY 10 MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT!

I was watching Dr. Phil on Oprah this afternoon. I love that guy. He said if your life is not turning out the way you want it to, stop whatever it is that you're doing that's making it this way. It sounds so simple. Oh, if only it were so easy. He also had a quote that cracked me up, something to the effect of "Pray to God for help, but in the meantime, keep rowing for shore." That wasn't quite it, but you get the idea.

My father gave me heart failure today.

I emailed him over a week ago asking him if he wanted to come out to celebrate my birthday next Sunday. He usually responds to my emails in a day or two. Well, after a week and nothing, I tried again. That was sometime Sunday, I think. Well, as of the end of class this afternoon, still no response. I'm starting to panic. I speed down Alameda Ave., past the police headquarters, no less, to get to his apartment. His car was parked outside, so I knew he didn't go to Blackhawk to go gambling. I go inside and pound on his door. Nothing. I pound again. Nothing. I went back out to my car and got my cell phone. I called. I could hear the phone ringing inside, I got the answering machine, I call "Dad, Daaaaaaaadddddd!" The machine hangs up on me. I bang on the door again. Still nothing. It's after 2 p.m. While Dad works nights like I do, he's usually up by 1 p.m. or so. He's getting hard of hearing, but I should've rousted him by now. I call again. I plead into the answering machine for Dad to answer. Hung up on again. I beat the door with my fists. I'm sure by now his neighbors can hear this and are going to call the cops. I start hearing my sister lecturing me in my head about not checking up on him sooner. I start imagining the worst possible outcome. I was fumbling for the key to his apartment to let myself in when I finally see an eyeball in his peephole. I was so relieved. The man scared me half to death. He says, "I'm sorry, I haven't checked my email in a couple of days." Try over a week. Oh, well, at least he's fine. I, on the other hand, have a new batch of grey hairs.