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</darkness> Note, this is my JOURNAL. It's not meant to be a "blog" with any significance in any of the writing. It's my own ramblings. If you don't want to read about random crap going on in my life, don't read it! =D My journal by months: Also, see notes about this page (and my site) here. August Hey, it didn't take nearly as long to update as it did last time!! I'm just finally sitting my lazy bum down and writing the stuff I've been brainstorming about for the last week (mainly since school started on the 16th.) Result of last entry Well Monday they convinced Brenna to go to the office even though her friend was in town, so I found out at around 3am when my mom came home that I didn't have to go in. You can't believe how relieved I was. The next day I stayed home and tried to find a way to Luis's house all day. Around five, Patrick called to ask if I wanted to go to Rachel's going away party. Since it didn't seem like I was going to be able to see Luis, I agreed. Then he asked me to come into work on the 15th. School started the 16th. That made me very unhappy, but again I went through the same self-torturing thought process I wrote about on the 11th. That made me really unhappy, especially when I thought I wasn't going to see Luis that day and if I worked Tuesday I wouldn't see him much then and he was leaving Saturday before the roosters wake up. It made me choke up when I told Patrick I was hoping to spend Tuesday with Luis and that he was leaving Saturday. We left it at discussing it at the party. Then I called Luis to tell him the unfortunate situation. My mom called while I was on the phone with Luis and asked me if I was going to the party. I said I was, and then told her what happened with Patrick and working Tuesday. I'd broken down and started crying while talking to Luis, so I continued sobbing while on the phone with my mum. While we were talking, she mentioned that the night before when she talked to me (as I said at 3am) she asked me if I needed a ride to Luis's that morning. That totally enraged me because in my sleepy stupor I said no. Even typing this right now is making me angry at myself. AGH!!! Any way. I got off the phone with her and I was literally screaming silently and pacing and kicking the air and trying to break anything I was next to. I was so furious I couldn't function. The result of anger Well, the way I've been releasing my anger the last few months has been different than the previous four years. Instead of scratching myself, I've turned to punching. I've punched my legs some times when I'm really upset. Other times I punch doors or my dresser or anything flat and hard (my walls are textured and thus painful to hit). July 19th, right before my Cape Cod trip, I got really angry and punched my dresser. My knuckles were bruised for a week while I was in CC, but the visible bruising went away. The pain continued, however. My knuckles were still sore to move some times and it hurt to put a lot of pressure on them, still. "Still" meaning as of August 14th, nearly a month later. Any way, I'd accidentally hit my hand on something that day and my knuckles were hurting a little bit even without putting pressure on them. Well, as angry as I was, I had to hit something or seriously hurt myself in order to be okay. I was literally going crazy as was. I got off the phone and wrapped my right hand up with a bandage to provide some padding, then went at my dresser. I don't even know how many times I punched it. Probably 10 to 15 times or so. Immediately after that I put ice in the bandage and left it on there for an hour until my ride to Rachel's party was supposed to arrive. During that time I was still angry but couldn't move my hand to punch any more, so I spent a minute screaming which is something I've never done before. I was so ashamed that I had to release anger that way even though Luis asked me not to that I didn't want to "face" him and call him for comfort. Instead I called Bin while crying horribly and just asked him to make me laugh. He did and it made me feel normal, again. Except my hand. Which hurt like fucking hell. After I took the ice off (one hour later), it looked like this and this. The knuckle was swollen to more than twice its normal size, and I couldn't bend it at all. The only way I could comfortably hold it was in the angle shown in the first picture. Of course, I was ashamed of what I'd done so I didn't want people to notice it at the party. I was generally able to avoid anything touching it or at least hide my face of absolute pain when it was touched (like when I shook hands with Rachel's mom... Her thumb landed directly on my swollen knuckle. F*CK!!, you could say.) Other than that, I gesticulated almost solely with my left hand/arm and held my drink on the bottom with my right hand so no one could easily see the knuckle. No one noticed and no one has noticed yet unless I point it out to them. (Meaning my parents haven't seen it.) Continuation on the result of the last entry So, as I said Patrick said he'd discuss working Tuesday with me at the party. When I saw him I went up for a hug and half way into the hug, he said, "Only hug me if you're working tomorrow!" Of course I still hugged him because I wasn't able to register what he said before stopping myself. Strike one. My mom assured me I wouldn't have to work because she understood my need to have time off and my desire to hang out with Luis before he left. Patrick was talking to my dad later and intentionally said loudly (expecting me to hear) "So, Lindsey's working with us again tomorrow!" I didn't react (didn't hear it) so he said, "Aww, she's not paying attention to me." I heard that and turned around, which is how I found out the first comment. Strike two - I was furious again. I made my mom get up and talk to me about it. She then handled it by telling both Patrick and my dad at once that I wasn't working and she'd take on the extra load from answering the phone. THANK YOU, MOM!!! My saviour that day. The rest of that day Again my mom came through for me as a saviour because she took me over to Luis's after the party which was the only highlight of my day, even if I mostly sat around watching him play CS =P. She also agreed to take me there on Tuesday morning. Since then Since then things have improved on most of the aspects. Luis is gone and my hand is still in pain, but the rest I'm pretty much over. I think I had my annual-ish break down where something fairly small made me blow up more than I have for about a year or two. The last time I remember being even close to this mad, I was in eighth grade. That's three and a half years since it happened, and I think it was worse this time in some ways. I think I was simply releasing harbored anger that I've built up for a while. I'm pretty concerned with my knuckle, though. Bruising is still obvious and the colors are amusing. It's like a mood err... ring/bruise? because it changes multiple times each day. The swelling finally went down around Friday or so, but a big gross-looking bump appeared on the bottom left of my knuckle appeared after about four days. Now, almost two whole weeks later, the pain is minimal unless I accidentally hit (or even tap) it on something. There's still apparant bruising, but it's not too noticable unless you compare it with my other hand or pay attention and recognize it's not just weird shadows. The middle knuckle is still huge, even in comparison to my left hand (my knuckles are generally huge to begin with.) I know it'll get better, but it's still going up and down on a daily basis, so I don't know how quickly that might happen. I've been talking to my school nurse about it some (so don't complain about me not trying to take care of it at all!) and she initially suggested it was just deep bruising. After I showed her the big lump, she said it might be a fracture that's just showing up now. Luckily she didn't suggest going to the doctor (I don't want my mom to know about this =\) and instead just suggesting I exercise it with stretches a lot so that when it does heal the joint won't be tight and less functional. I agreed that made sense and I've been stretching it lots, but not so much to follow her suggestion. It's more so that I can test the limits of it and find out where the pain begins and ends. Masochistic? Sure, but this time with a purpose! Well, one thing my injured knuckle HAS given me is an easy way to gross out and scare my friends (and anyone else that notices.) I enjoy scaring people to some extent, and the "freakiness" of my knuckle does just the trick =D. (I'm not so sure that's a good exchange for the pain I some times get while writing or typing or touching things.) School My classes: The long wait I'm going for catchy titles, I guess. Really, it just means the long wait that didn't really end. On the first day of school, I was to ride the bus to school. The sheet I got said but 133, arrives at the usual stop at 6:42 AM. It also warns that one should always be at their stop ten minutes before the bus arrives. So, although I was certain that the bus would not arrive at 6.42 on the dot the first day of school, my mum insisted I be out there at 6.32. And I was. The other girl at my stop (I'm not sure how to spell her name, so I'm not going to) was already there and, as I found out later, had been for a little over five minutes. That assured me that the bus didn't come fifteen minutes early for some ridiculous reason. Well, waiting. Elsik and Hastings busses came and went. Taylor/Kerr bus never showed. We were waiting and at 7.15 got extremely paranoid since school was to officially begin in only 15 minutes. New paragraph so it's not so long. I called my school at some point in there to see if they knew anything. They said the person that I could call transportation, but right then (at 7.18 or so) I saw a bus come along and told her nevermind and got off the phone. All the little elementary kids got on that bus. -_-; By that point I wanted an answer so I ran over to the Hearne bus and asked if she could find out where 133, the "Taylor" bus, was. (Taylor because very few bus drivers seem to recognize the name Kerr, so I just pretend I go to Taylor and get off at Kerr.) She didn't get a response on the radio, but told the girl at my stop and me to get on and she'd take us. It's now 7.20 and my hope for getting to school on time is gone. I called my mom about 100 times while on the bus trying to get her to call the school and assure them I was at the stop at exactly 6.32 waiting for a bus that never showed. She didn't answer, so I decided I'd have to fight my own battle. The Hearne bus driver was a life saver. She took me and my friend to each of our schools as well as picking up two Miller girls that rode into Hearne accidentally. I'm so happy she was willing to pick us up and take us. Needless to say, I didn't get to school until 7.50 (when, on a normal day, advisory has ended and the tardy bell for first period has just rung.) I went into the registrar's office to get signed in and find out how this ordeal would count against me. Luckily ... stopping so Bin can read what I have =) August 11, 2006 How do I say no to someone that I know needs my help when the no is for personal reasons? How can I do that without feeling greedy and/or selfish? What do I do? Do I sacrifice myself and my time and my wants/needs/wishes in order to come through for people that I care about that need me? I've been working at my parents' company, The Aldridge Company, all summer. I agreed in the beginning that I would work all summer, minus one day a week, except for a whole first and last week. That means that the week of August 7-11, I was not supposed to work because school starts the 16th. I've worked from August 9-11. Erg. This summer the company has been in the process of expanding. We have six employees, myself currently included, and we're all struggling to finish any work within our 8hr day (9-5). We all have a full agenda every day of the work week and even weekends. Everyone's been stressed and frequently irritable and unhappy because we don't have any breathing room. The second one project is finished, there are still 10 projects to begin, continue, finish, or look into. I, as the summer "intern," have still been faced with this problem. Many times this summer I had so many things on my list that I had to sit down, breathe, and figure out my priorities in order to start working down the list and to prevent a nervous break down. I cried at least once a week during my first month in the the office because I was so stressed or upset by something. Things have improved since then. I think it's because I've just begun to live with a higher level of stress and my co-workers have finally realized I know what to do and I'm doing it, so back off: I'm busy. Also, to explain some more about the situation there and with job roles, since we have six employees and so much work to do all the time, one person's job description includes anything else they're capable of doing. I'm the summer intern and in-house webmaster. That job description makes it sound like I make coffee, file, go to the vending machine for people, carry packages up/downstairs, copy, answer phones, (etc. with the basic office jobs) and do simple website changes. I do all that, but I also do tech support when I know how, change things on the servers (I have root access to four major production servers in the office.) I set up emails, delete emails, forward emails, change passwords, change website permissions, set up dial-up accounts, and check information on websites and emails through the servers (plus more less common tasks). I have to be the "sweet daughter" to try and cheer up the big boss, my dad, on grumpy days; I've made deposits since I filled in as accountant last summer when the old accountant quit; I've done anything anyone tells me to do or teaches me how to do. When my mom went out of town, I facilitated conversations between two of our webdesigners and the clients to make and design their site before it goes live. I did that for a week. If that gives you some idea of how the job description doesn't match up with the job's tasks, then you'll better understand how our accountant/secretary does much more than just schedule appointments and send invoices. Any way, she, Rachel, decided to quit and move back home to Maryland at the end of July. Her last day was supposed to be August 15th, but now she's trying to leave earlier and earlier. As I said, the company's expanding and we're all buried well over our heads in work. To lose an employee now is very detrimental to the company and to lose two (me and Rachel) at the same time has made the office almost lose function in many ways. Because Rachel's leaving, we're all stressed out trying to find someone to take over her job. My sister is coming in part-time soon after her two-week notice at her current job goes through. She's taking over some of the accounting stuff and some of the tech support stuff and some of the who-knows-what stuff, but she's not replacing Rachel. Until she gets a job, Brenna, Patrick's sister, is also coming in to answer phones and do things that Rachel has trained her to do from Wednesday-Friday of this week. Today is going to be Rachel's last day as opposed to Tuesday. Today was supposed to be my second last day. Brenna is supposed to take Monday and Tuesday off. My sister isn't supposed to start working until Wednesday. That leaves four people in the office on Monday and Tuesday. Three of those four are techs that are constantly busy. Two of those three aren't very personable and won't answer the phone unless commanded to. The other one is out of the office 80+% of the day. So, they need a phone answerer. They need someone to do some work around the office. They're trying to make that someone me. Back to my original questions with the elusive values filled in... How do I tell my parents "no" when I know that they need me there? Luis is leaving for college next Saturday and since I'm starting school on Wednesday, I want to spend every second before I start school with him. That's my personal reason (in addition to wanting relaxation days between work and school) to not work. How do I not feel guilty and selfish for wanting personal time when my help is really needed? I've finally begun to realize you can't help anyone else if you don't help yourself first, so I understand my own personal need to not work next week. However, that still doesn't overcome my sympathy for this office (meaning my family and friends there.) It also doesn't fight my negative emotions towards myself if I were to say no to them. What do I do? If I say okay, how do I overcome my stress AND make up that time to be with Luis? If I say no, how do I overcome my guilt? What do I do? Make-up birthday wishes... July 13th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEDRICK July 15th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDGAR July 17th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY HOT AND WONDERFUL GIRLFRIEND, JESSICA!! July 23rd: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAN and NEVETS! August 4th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH (the fat loser..... I doubt he reads this any way, so it doesn't matter =D) August 9th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BEAUTIFUL FARIHAH! And early birthday wishes... August 14th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAV PEID! =P and NICK August 17th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY August 26th: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREUV If I've forgotten someone, please let me know so I can remember them for next year =) Oh yeah Sorry for not updating really at all any more. I've been busy and/or too lazy to work on this. I'm trying to get back into the hang of it for the school year, though. Also, if anyone can tell me how to fix my CSS in FireFox, I'd be extremely grateful and thus love you forever =) That's all for now. If you wanna give me advice on what to do for my office, I'd be happy. Toodles. (started) May 28, 2006 (finished) July 6, 2006 Finding Faith I am a Quaker. I was born into the meeting (our word for church) and I attended it with my mom and sister for many years until I was about 8-10. At that age, I took a couple years off and spent every Sunday either playing golf or riding on the motorcycle with my dad. Meeting never meant that much to me; it was just something I did and a place where I had a bunch of friends. Spiritual sanctuary, second home, comforting haven? Nah, none of those. In eighth grade, I believe it was, I agreed to join the Oddessey of the Mind team that someone at meeting wanted to host. Well, getting into that meant I had to go to meeting to meet with the OM team afterwards. I participated in OM for two years and went to meeting for that time because of it. Some where between the Sunday bike rides and the necessity of meeting due to OM, I talked to a friend of mine, Andreuv. I was telling him about Quakerism because he didn't know much and when I explained the way our meetings work (we sit in silence and wait for a message from the Light. If we get it, we stand up, speak, and sit down. No one responds verbally during the meeting.) Well, he thought it seemed cool and intriguing. Though I don't remember the exact words, he said something about how it must be nice to be in a room of so many people (40 this week, which is very few compared to normal of 60 or so) without anyone fighting for control of the volume. Meaning no one's trying to speak over one another, no one is fighting to talk next, no one even tries to talk after another one has. That was a slight revelation for me. I hadn't thought of meeting that way, and I gained more respect for it at that point. After two years of somewhat forced attendance, I decided that I really did enjoy the community meeting provided. I still don't really label it as any of those vivid words I used for it in my last paragraph, but I do love it. I still attend as regularly as my mom's and my own schedule allow (which is some times getting down to once a month, but other times is every week) and I am continuously finding more to like from it. I am very proud of my religion. It's more open and accepting than almost all others I have learned much about, and it has very good principles about life. Our five testimonies are SPICE:
Those are the main things the religion is based around. Interpretations of faith in God and Christ and the Bible and all other things like that are widely varied. Some don't follow the typical Christian Protestant take on Jesus and all other "Christian" things, but others strongly live their life according to the Bible and related subjects. I myself have always questioned this. I will admit I have not read the Bible. I've read parts and I know more stories than I've read, but I have yet to sit down and read it for myself (which I wholly intend to do some day... Along with the Qur'an/Koran/Quran, etc. and the Torah, and possibly more.) As far as I can tell, though, a lot of the stories from the Bible seem unbelievable. They sound like legends more than actual events... That or twisted versions after many poor translations. I don't know the truth, I don't really think I'll ever know what I consider to be the truth, but I would like to know more about it all. -sigh- I've been trying to write this friggin' entry for almost two months now. Actually, it's probably been two months. I give up. Maybe I'll start updating this again? Oh, yeah, work is sucking. I'm trying hard and I'm doing a lot of crap that no one else wants to do, I'm learning a lot, I have root access on three production servers, and I'm getting along with my dad, but I've cried at least five times in the last month or so because it's either been too much stress or someone's said/done something that upset me. I've have FIVE co-workers. There aren't that many people that can say things to upset me, but they manage to. I guess I just don't like people saying I lie or criticizing my work ethics. Or bothering me about doing something that's not a top priority only because they don't want to do it. I also get paid less than someone that's helping out, but they'd rather have him do some busy work instead of me... Wouldn't it be a better use of money to make someone paid less do a menial task for ten minutes than someone that's being paid more? Ugh. That's just proof that they're ripping me off. Proof that my time is worth more than I'm being paid for it. Dammit. That's all for now. I'm going to go back to figuring out why my CSS doesn't work in Firefox. Grr. May 15, 2006 Wow. Long time. One reason is I started an entry and had a fair amount written, but didn't save it, and my comp rebooted on its own... Whenever that happens, I get a nasty feeling about doing stuff and just kinda put it off for a long time... So, when I lost my whole thing, I stopped caring and didn't start again until now. My entry was about Quakerism and how happy and proud I am to be a Quaker, etc. Then I was going to continue onto talk about SCYM (South Central Yearly Meeting) and how that's what sparked my desire to write about my religion. However, I lost it and the will escaped me, so I guess I'm not going to bother rewriting it yet if ever. However since then quite a few things have happened. SCYM, to start off, was fantastic. That's all I'll say for now. StuCo Banquet was nice, I have a couple of pics some where in some folder... I think... If I find them, I'll let you know. Fine Arts Banquet was on Friday the 12th; fun, but I didn't get many pics at all. What I do have are mostly my mom going picture crazy with me before leaving. Any way, they're here. Luis's prom was the next day and it was a lot of fun even if it ended with the fire alarm being pulled... Haha -_-;. Afterwards we went to Nirav's house for a little while and then to Walmart to buy a Mother's Day present. He assembled it after we got to his house and then we got to bed around 5.15. He apparently didn't sleep much because "I'm so [insert random babyish sounds here] cute" while I'm asleep, so he had to watch me. --_--; I fell asleep fast, though. We woke up around 6.45 or so, but I didn't look at the time so I can't be certain. We just sat around talking and what not and I finally got home on the dot of my curfew for the event at 9am. I went to sleep again around 11, woke up at about 2.15pm and tried to celebrate Mother's Day some by watching a movie and hanging out with my sis and mum. Then the whole family went to dinner and yadda yadda, I got to sleep at 1.15 =P So yea, my sleeping is all screwed up and outta whack. -shrug-. I didn't get many prom pictures either, but most of what I have can be found here. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the two events. (Click to enlarge.) 
 He fed me cake =) =P  Maria, Nirav, Luis, and me. I like the pic a lot =) Those are my favorites. As I said, I have very few... Like 15 or less --_--; Oh well! That's all for now. April 9, 2006     'Nuff said.
Wow, I had my first real debate about my C.O. (Conscientious Objector) / Pacifist standing on war today. I've told people why I don't agree with a specific war and I've told them that I would never support a war, but I've never had anyone actually try to contest such beliefs in a general matter. Thank you, Jake. I was finally able to see how strongly I do support my C.O. status and how willing I am to defend it. I've always been paranoid that (huge IF here) if there were to be a draft and I was called to declare my C.O. status in court, I wouldn't be able to support my views strongly enough to definitely stay out of the fight. I now know I am. I am so fundamentally against violence that I don't believe there's ever a situation in which I would ever even consider war to be the answer. Jake kept throwing out things and my answer was consistently against killing others. There is no justification for taking another's life and I will never think there is. So, I started this all pumped up about it. Since I started writing it I've had another discussion about it with Jeska's friend, Dat, who's entering the Marines soon. At the Kerr Karnival we talked about it and found respect for each other when he realized I don't disrespect the soldiers for what their doing. I'm against war, but I don't blame the troops. They deserve equal respect to everyone else in my eyes. Any way, my enthusiasm for posting this has since worn down as if often does, so I'm stopping it there. 10 MORE DAYS!!!! Yup... Ten days left to SCYM. I'm looking forward to it soooooooo much. I've never actually anticipated it as much as I am this year. Last year I think I was excited, but I was too friggin' nervous 'cause it was my first year as co-clerk (meaning I ran the class. --_--') I'm just incredibly excited and I don't really care who taunts me for being Quaker and what not. I'm proud of my religion and I don't care if it's not the most common one and therefore you choose to make fun of it. Btw, though I doubt it, if any SCYMYFs actually read this journal, I'm willing to go for (co-)clerk again, but I'm not really gonna advertise that unless people ask me to do it. I think I preferred knowing what was going on more than not, and I really did enjoy most of the experience. (Except when people ignored me and/or slept during business meetings... NOT COOL! >=O) |
