BLAH!!!!

NO ONE LIKES TO GO TO WORK AT FOUR AND GET OFF AFTER TWELVE. NO ONE! D<

~H.D, who does not want to go to work at four.

Red, the color of desire. Black, the color of despair.

It's been a while since I blogged, so this is kind of overdue.

Lately work has been, well, work. Every since school started back up the sandwich place has pretty much been a madhouse. Except for the last two days I worked. But even then it wasn't so great, because the day shift is apparently ticked off that I don't have enough stuff prepped for them when they get there in the morning. It's not like they don't have a few free hours before the place actually opens to lay cheese and fill dressing bottles. Meh.

But I don't wanna complain anymore. For real. I don't. I do enough while I'm at work. And while I do want to continue to use this blog to blow off some steam I also want to look back on it and remember the good times, not just the times I felt like being bitchy.

Anyway, back to the sandwiches. We have a new manager working with us now and he's tremendous. What I mean by that is he's an amazing guy, very nice and polite (even when he's obviously tired/angry/upset/etc.) and works hard to make sure no one is understaffed. It's terrific! I know all of us who work sandwiches are grateful to him for his awesomeness. He's already on his way to being a sandwich ninja himself. He just needs to work a bit more, become "one" with the wraps, bread, dressings, veggies and other toppings, and he'll be counted amongst the greats working alongside my valiant sandwich crafters. ♥

Yeah, if you haven't guessed I'm pretty passionate about sandwiches. DEAL WITH IT!

~H.D., who's feeling melancholic and depressed but trying to remain genki despite that

Stargazing : Isn't that what tabloid journalists do???

I FOUND MYSELF A HERO!!!

That doesn't mean I've never had a hero in my life. Obviously, Jesus Christ is a big hero who loves me very much. I'm thankful for everything he's done for me. I consider him my spiritual hero. He's present, I know this, and someone I depend on when I need to talk about... anything! He's great, but he isn't who I'm talking about today.

I also have a... writing hero? I don't think that was the title I really need in this instance but I can't think of what else to call him. Osamu Tezuka was a master storyteller, with a huge cast of characters that just inspire me out the wahzoo! Though he's been gone for over 20 years now, you could not find a better a better sensei. But he's not who I'm going to talk about today either.

A few days ago a dear woman I've been following on Live Journal posted a very touching story. She wrote about how as a young teenager she had sent an email to a very distinguished artist in a fandom along with a small bit of artwork. A few weeks passed.... and to her utter amazement, he replied. She admits that her artwork at the time was terrible (and I've seen some of it, it really was... unpolished) but the artist only gave her encouragement, AND he sent her a drawing back in response as well.

This began a small correspondence between the two of them, Rookie and Artist (as I will now refer to them, no disrespect to Rookie, of course). Though Rookie now realizes her emails could be nothing more than childish rantings (think what your small, pre-teen cousins would say if they met the Jonas Bros. in person... yeah, like that) but Artist never once treated her like an annoying fangirl or ever was terse and uninterested. Instead, he only continued to encourage. She would send him art and he would respond back with more. The Artist even tried to emulate the Rookie's style in his replies and she's shocked how he would care to do such a thing.

My new hero, however, is not the Artist. Instead, it is the Rookie. After all, after all these years the Rookie is not longer a rookie. Instead, she's a great artist whom I adore greatly.

Sometimes, like her, many of us find ourselves excited about something someone else has done. We send fanrants or make fanart. Some write fanfiction. And how many times have all our good intentions get smashed by trolls and snobs? The internet can be such a cruel place. You want to be expressive and artistic but sometimes people just don't know how to be nice about it. They'll tell you things like "you suck" or "it's insulting to have you talk to me this way" when you're honest to goodness just trying to express your love for something or someone.

Rookie has always been kind to me and everyone else who comments on her art or LJ. I guess you could say the legacy of being kind moved down to her, so she's nice to everyone even when she admits she doesn't feel like it. I... wanna be like that.

I'm a bit of an irritable person, especially when I'm tired. I've never been terribly popular about my fics or anything (I don't do art) but if I ever get to a point where people ask me for betas or something I want to be able to say I'd do it gladly, even if their stuff isn't great or full of stupid chatspeak or something.

So, I think I'm gonna stop this rant here since I'm feeling like I'm about to lose consciousness even though it's in the middle of the day. Grinding away at the same game will do that to you.

Anyway, I'm out.
~H.D., who does this for the android

So if you want to find me look to the western sky...

Guess what I got for Christmas???? Lotsa stuffs, but I'm especially excited about my new games and CDs. You know, this is first year in... I think the last five that I got more than one CD and NO Border's bookstore gift cards. Crazy, ne?

Well, the last week or so has been pretty crazy for me. You know that big blizzard that pretty much turned the entire south central U.S. into frozen pastry? Yeah, my dad had us all pile into a car with all our presents and the food we were supposed to bring and drive through that, after 2pm. You know, it was ridiculous! I'm just thankful we had 4-wheel drive (my dad is adamant that we never would have left if we didn't have a car with 4-wheel drive but I wonder...) or we would have gotten stuck. We passed a LOT of accidents because people were dumb and out in their low to the ground sports cars. Stupidest. People. EVER.

But my family survived. We had to stop in a different town than we expected, since visibility was already difficult without it being night time. We were a little less than half-way to our destination... Normally, when we go to the city to see my grandparents it takes us less than 2 hours to get there. We were barely half-way there... and it took us over 3 hours, and we had to stop for the night. Yeah. It was a blast. 9_6

I'm currently trying to blast my way through Persona 3 (PS2) but I had forgotten how absolutely crazy the dungeon in that game is. It's a tower, for those of you who don't know. It's over 200 levels high. And certain levels won't let you pass until enough game-days have passed. Yeah. I'm about half-way through it and I've been grinding those dungeons for over 60 hours now. I'm about ready to put it to bed, but I need to finish that game or I can't join something amazing. I'll tell you more about it if I get to that point. Until then, wish me luck!

............... This is my last post of the OLD YEAR. In less than 6 hours it will be the NEW YEAR. I'm a little anxious, as I always am on New Years Eve. It's non-specific anxiety. General anxiety. You know.

But I don't wanna let it get to me. This last year I hung out with two people I didn't realize were so dear to me, both of which I sorta only met this last year anyway. One is definitely a kindred spirit but the other is more of a foil of myself. I love them for their differences. But I know I get on their nerves ALL THE TIME. Hopefully it's not going to be an every day thing this next year.

I also discovered that writing is not my forte. I love to write. It's what I want to do. But I don't think I'm particularly great at it. It's just... what it is. I want to do something spectacular with my talents but sometime I don't think even I know what they are. Perhaps my future forever lives within the realms of sandwich crafting............. You know what the sad part is? I think that may be true.

I'm not depressed. I've never been a depressed person, but I'm rambling now because I'm being sentimental about last year. Maybe I should take up the Japanese tradition of blocking out the old year with booze and just focusing on the future! That would be great. Except I might nix the booze part. I'll replace it with chocolate..... or tea.

Anyway, I wish you get more out of this year than the last. May your harvest yield ten-fold, and may your children and oxen forever be healthy. Kanpai! Ciao~! Fuzzy pickles! And all that rot.

~H.D., who sometimes feels like Elphaba though maybe I don't deserve such a sentiment

The Den of Woe has a Christmas Tree at the end of it!

So, how were finals for all of you? Mine.... pretty much were okay. In hindsight, I wish I had done better but I can only do so much after all that carnage.

My novel, as you all know I've been diligently writing since the beginning of the semester for my PW class, was a huge fiasco. Honestly, I was literally just vomiting words onto the document. I just had to stop because it was getting rediculously stupid. For real, I just hated it. But I think I'll be able to write a little easier next semester. I plan on finishing it before the school year is done and over, but we'll see. Please keep rooting for me! I want to finish it! Then some of you will read it and tell me what you think.

The rest of my finals were fine (despite the lack of study due to novel and inherint laziness) BUT IT WAS WORK THAT NEARLY DID ME IN!!!!!

Okay, so we expected to be slow the rest on the last day of finals. Just about everyone had moved out and there was just about one customer every hour after eight that night. We spent our time reading, talking, working on projects (nothing for school, just fun stuffs) all the way up until about 11:30pm. Then, They started coming. You know, They. The people who are determined to spend every last one of their exchanges before we close. They are also the ones who never changed their dumb 12 meal/150 point plans to something more managable and, therefore, had about 10 more meals left to spend. 10 more meals = AHEKOVALOTTASAMICHES!!!

One of the orders was 10 of the same sandwiches.
One order had four different sandwiches plus three soups.
Another had three different sandwiches plus one soup and two salads.

IT WAS JUST.... I almost wanted to go to the back and scream. Luckily, one of our more vocal employees made his complaints very well known the whole time we worked, slaved over those 50 or so sandwiches. It was a great stress reliever to hear our resident Lord the Poet rant and rage while I piled at least 3 different sandwiches with all veggies and three meats.

Yes, yes, it was death and destruction. I usually can keep my own cool under even the most stressful of situations (at least I won't show my anger to customers) but I felt incredibly abused after all of that. One guy even had the gall to come up and try to play the "I been where you've been, I understand what you're going through" card, but our Lord Poet told him up-front that we didn't want or need to hear that kind of crap (though with a much more colorful dialog than my own, as you can imagine). Here's a newsflash for people like that: IF YOU KNOW WHAT WE'RE GOING THROUGH BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN THERE, THE WHY IN BLOODY, BURNING HELL ARE YOU HERE?!?!?! Seriously, if you really know what we're going through then obviously you know it's freakin' rude to show up at a place that's just about to close and order tons and tons of food like that. Rude and dumb. Like they're even going to be able to eat all that food anyway.

Yeah. It was that bad. And was I tired after I reached home that night. I realized about 20 or so minutes before I got back home that my muscles were aching a bit. My mom said it's probably due to me finally releasing all my stress; now that finals and work is done for the semester my body is finally able to relieve all the tension that had been building up. Kinda crazy how this stuff works, you know?

Anyway, now that I'm home I plan on playing a bunch of Phoenix Wright and Persona 3. I need to work on my application for a new game I'm trying to pick up on and then I'll also be helping to clean house and cook a little (that is a very little) for when we have company/go visit family. Christmas promises to be nearly a whole week-long affair and while I'm excited about the holidays and seeing family, I know I'm going to be exhausted the entire time. I'll probably lose my temper a time or two, and being grouchy is one of my specialties. Hopefully, I'll be infected by Chirstmas spirit and my mood will reflect a much more Christ-like attitude. I think it would do me good to immerse myself in that kind of feeling, rather than cold, prickly doubts and insecurites.

Peace out,
~H.D., who's plans to avoid listening to too much Christmas music before the holidays seems to be a success, so Take That! those of you who let yourself get sick and tired of holiday tunes before the season is even over

Dun dun DUNNNNNNN!

FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!

....... that's all I have to say.

Losing my mind... and something to relieve my woes

(art by zarla; Phoenix Wright, Edgeworth and Gumshoe (C) are property of CAPCOM)

This comic is pretty much hilarious if you've played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, case file 1-4. Zar said this is how she imagined the ending scene to go, which is pretty funny since Gumshoe really does worship the ground Edgeworth walks on. Poor Edgy looks like he's having troubles breathing.

But in other news, I've been trying my best not to put a figurative gun to my head and pull its imaginary trigger. Finals are upon my doorstep and my time seems to be falling away... falling away...

I just can't seem to concentrate, you know? I need to practice my presentation more but I did manage to finish my power point in time at least. Now I just have to write 10,000 words before December 15 and maybe I won't die. The pains I'm taking to be a writer are more than you can imagine.

SO LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT IT!!!!!!! TIME FOR SOMETHING FUNNY!

So, at work we generally have to say goofy things and come up with reasons to be happy we're alive at all and not depressed that all we're doing is feeding the endless droves of students that flood our campus and get messier and lazier every semester. Sometimes we sing songs and sometimes we crack jokes. I have the annoying habit of ranting on whatever fandom I'm into at the moment, AND YES I KNOW I'M ANNOYING YOU ALL SO JUST STOP JUDGING ME BEHIND MY BACK!!

Well, one particular night a few of the girls and I were talking about something random and I started singing The Fun Song from Spongebob Squarepants. You know, from the episode when he tries to become friends with plankton and everything majorly backfires but not until he and plankton share a time of singing and dancing. Here's the lyrics if you still don't know what I'm talking about:

F is for "friends" who do stuff together

U is for "you and me"

N is for "any time" and "any where at all"

Down here in the deep blue sea!

Now, that's all nice and sweet and fun if you hear Spongebob singing it to a grumpy bottom feeder like plankton, but apparently ANG Mark II had never heard this song before. As a result... she started looking at me like I was some crazy sicko. Apparently, she thought the lyrics were a bit... suggestive. And when you actually take the time to sing it nice and slow, and then lower you voice and try to make it sexy.... yeah, the lyrics do seem a bit racy, don't they? Isn't that odd?

Who knows? Maybe Mark II is right and Spongebob has more innuendo (after which she would turn and say "in your endo!") than previously believed. I don't know myself, but I don't think I'll be able to hear that song in the same impartial, innocent way I used to.
~H. D., and God speed to any others who are lonely tonight