Looking back at 2009
So I just went through all the entries of 2009. It took me hours. I can only imagine if I decide to do a recap of the last decade like Kerensa did. Take a few weeks, eh? Maybe I won't be that busy next week.
I am surprised of all the things that happened that I forgot about, and everything I did, and what happened to me. Like that Female-to-male tranny I thought was rather sexy (as a woman, sadly enough). The time I spent with Jenni doing anime cons and Karaoke, and even dealing with her breakup with Jaymie and meeting her new girlfriend Emma. My grandfather's death, my mom's stroke, my job (which I bitched about a LOT in my journal!), my diabetes. Returning to school. It's been a wild year.
Last year's recap was done in a "The Good and the Bad" list, this year I'll do it chronologically.
January:
- One of the major things I did this year was go back into college. I had been out of college for a while, after spending a semester at another college and then having to leave there. I had worked and been lazy most of that time. But I decided to come back and try again. A counselor had told me that I could finish a computer degree in a semester or two, and it encouraged me to try to graduate again.
Unfortunatly, I couldn't take any computer classes at that time, and ended up trying some automotive classes. Now, I was supposed to have finished that automotive degree by now, but I was missing 4 credits, and I am now in those classes to finish that degree. And hopefully, I can get the computer degree done too.
I noticed a lot of my rants last year were about financial aid, and it seems that has been the big thorn in my side, as well as my financial troubles.
- Speaking of financial problems, I actually got a job in January of 09. I was excited, it was a bussing job, and my first week of training I worked about 15 hours. But apparently I wasn't a good enough worker for them, and I found myself working 1-2 days a week. So for a while, until I got more financial aid, I found myself collecting unemployment. The crazy thing was, I'm still in that stupid job, and coming up to my 1 year anniversary. I really need to find something better.
- Obama got elected to office, which was a pretty cool thing considering I voted for him. And in the first week of office he cleaned up and reversed a lot of the shit that Bush had done.
- My car broke down, due to the ignition failing. I spent several hours stuck at an auto parts store having them test a bunch of things, even though they had no idea how to test shit. I did learn a trick to test the battery and starter. Also, I had to replace the idle regulating valve on my car. So a few car problems this month.
February:
- My next door neighbor in the apartment become wildly drunk/high, and started acting so crazy he had to be arrested.
- Also, between February and March I was rather depressed and lonely and cynical. I won't post the entries but let's just say I need to smoke or something, or take happy pills.
March:
- I went to the Detroit Science Center with my late grandfather and my aunt, both Star Trek fans, to the Star Trek Exhibit they were having. Although it was too expensive, I enjoyed myself.
- Octomom. People need to stop breeding so much. Children are NOT toys/cute dolls. That is all.
- AIG bonuses. As if rich corrupt bankers need more money.
April:
- My grandfather had promised to buy me shoes for Christmas. When I finally got around to look for them, I went looking for Anti-Pronation shoes, and ended up spending much more time looking for shoes than I ever have before, due to my feet being asymmetrical and one arch being shallower than the other. Add to the fact that one place I bought shoes that were uncomfortable refused to take them back, and then lost the gift card they gave me. It took months to get a new gift card. Eventually (in June/july), I bought some for $25, put in some nice fancy insoles, and have had no problems since.
- I finally got an instructor to take a look at my car, and the news was not good: The transmission was dying. It would eventually kill itself in September.
- My sugar daddy Obama sent me $1500 in my tax refund. Horray for stimulus money!
May:
- I went on a walk with my (non-dead) Step-Grandfather over 10 miles of rolling, hilly nature trails. It was a nice journey but this guy from Publishers Clearinghouse interrupted our walk and acted like a dick.
- I went to Charleston to see a great-grandmother I had not seen for 20-odd years. It was hell getting the time off from work because the trip was on Memorial Day and my job NEEDED me to work that day. But I was able to go, and although I didn't do everything I wanted (like tour the giant aircraft carrier!!!) we enjoyed ourselves.
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Leaving, Photos
June:
- I got hit on by this 18 year old girl who obviously wanted to make kittens with me. Oddly enough, I've been friends with her since then, but now that she has a boyfriend, she's given me the cold sholder. Oh, am I not good enough for you now that you have a new man?
- My brother graduated from High School. Now let's see if he can stop playing WoW long enough to go to college!
- I had trouble in the welding class, So much so that I had to spend most of my day in lab practicing. Who knew welding was so hard?
- I also had trouble in machining class, after the metal magnifying lens holder I was making broke. I was devastated, but remembered I was in welding as well, and was able to weld my item back to perfection.
- Hee hee! *grabs crotch* OOOWWW!!! Michael Jackson dies.
- Me and Jenni and Jaymie (Jenni's ex that she'd rather forget, sorry Jenn) went to a free Anime convention in Western Michigan. And we had a great time. I hope we can do it this year. And photos!
July:
- Despite all the trouble I had, or maybe because of all my hard work, I pass both the welding and machining classes.
- My friend since Elementary school was married on the 4th.
- My apartment manager, either drunk, high, or just crazy with rage, blames me for a mess in an upstairs common area and barges into my apartment looking for a fight. I had to call the cops on him, but decided not to press charges. He's been nice to me since then, though.
- A week later, I heard gunshots a block away from my apartment. As if life wasn't interesting enough. Never saw anything in the paper, but rumor has it, either it was over drugs, or a drunk guy angry he was kicked out of a bar. No one was injured.
- But due to the gunshots, I wrote a long entry about my fear of no afterlife.
August:
- Me and Jenni started going to Karaoke, which I had a lot of fun doing and wish we would start doing again.
- My car started acting up again. This time I had a nearly-bald tire, and then another tire had to go flat after hitting a pothole, and the rim was bent, so I ended up buying two tires and a rim (the speakers I took back for the second tire).
- I found out my grandfather had pancreatic cancer. (my mother said Liver cancer, but it seems that pancreatic cancer can also cause damage to the liver).
September:
- ... And then my transmission died, right after getting the second tire. This was the death knell for my old Escort.
- Governer Granholm announced that she'd be cutting funding to the State Fair. I DID go to the state fair, but didn't find an entry for it. The sad thing is, the state fair costs less than a million a year, and yet Granholm cut 100 million from education in Michigan. I wouldn't vote for her if she was running this year. Here's my rather angry rant about the whole thing. It seems there will be no state fair next year so I'm glad I got to the last one.
- I got a pair of free tickets to a Tigers game, but no one wanted to drive me there. So the tickets were for naught. I was pretty damn depressed that day.
- My bike had not one but two tires go flat after putting sealant goo in them, and since I relied on it to get to work I was pretty annoyed. But I ended up getting two tubes for $5 each and a spare for a buck, as well as puncture resistant lining for $12. And then I needed a new tire to replace a tire that was only 2 years old, and that cost $20.
- I went to see the Phantom of the Opera with my mother.
- I got a parking ticket because of my dead car. In January, I got it reduced in half.
October:
- I went to the Renaissance Festival with Jenni and Emma, with a complete costume for the first time. I don't think I made an entry for that either. We had fun, but it rained half the time.
- I joined LJ Idol for the 6th season. But I was booted off rather quickly. So was all my friends. :(
- I tried a bike ride that was 22 miles, 11 miles each way, with a long break in the middle. I figured I could keep up, that 11 miles wasn't so bad, but the guys I was riding with were experts and I couldn't keep up.
- My grandfather was put in a hospice after he passed out being driven to church to play the organ. He then elected to be taken care of at home by a full staff. The last time I saw him alive, he was a skeleton. And then he passed away, right before Halloween.
- My Halloween was fun, but I was unable to go to Youmacon this year due to work. :(
November:
- I went to both of my grandfather's funerals, and then we flew him to St. Louis to bury him. I felt strange because I wasn't really sad about him dying.
- I met an guy I once knew and he tried to lure me behind a gas station for some reason. The whole thing creeped me out so I ended up going back into the gas station.
- I finally finished the new Battlestar Galactica, the most epic SciFi show ever, watching the finale during Thanksgiving.
December:
- The last city bus from school would leave early all the time, until I complained about it and they finally started leaving on time.
- My mother developed a small blockage in her Carotid artery giving her a small stroke, which caused her to spend Christmas Day in the hospital. Her family celebrated Christmas the weekend after New Years, though, and I got a lot of presents. :3 She's doing better now.
- Some stupid idiot tried to blow up a plane above the Detroit Suburbs, and is now in a nice federal prison about 10 miles from here.
- I ended up going to a Christmas Dinner with Jenni, Emma, and Jenni's uncle Bo, at his house. I also went to New Years with Jenni, Emma, and Jenni's friend, who's a little too energetic even at 2:30am.
Man that took like 5 hours to do! And long list is long! Well, 2009 was interesting, and that was just my life. I forget everything that happened in the rest of the world, like Obama's first year, Michael Jackson (and Farah Fawcett), the health care bill which I strangely didn't rant about, stuff, more stuff....
Anyhoo, here's to the next year and next decade.
I am surprised of all the things that happened that I forgot about, and everything I did, and what happened to me. Like that Female-to-male tranny I thought was rather sexy (as a woman, sadly enough). The time I spent with Jenni doing anime cons and Karaoke, and even dealing with her breakup with Jaymie and meeting her new girlfriend Emma. My grandfather's death, my mom's stroke, my job (which I bitched about a LOT in my journal!), my diabetes. Returning to school. It's been a wild year.
Last year's recap was done in a "The Good and the Bad" list, this year I'll do it chronologically.
January:
- One of the major things I did this year was go back into college. I had been out of college for a while, after spending a semester at another college and then having to leave there. I had worked and been lazy most of that time. But I decided to come back and try again. A counselor had told me that I could finish a computer degree in a semester or two, and it encouraged me to try to graduate again.
Unfortunatly, I couldn't take any computer classes at that time, and ended up trying some automotive classes. Now, I was supposed to have finished that automotive degree by now, but I was missing 4 credits, and I am now in those classes to finish that degree. And hopefully, I can get the computer degree done too.
I noticed a lot of my rants last year were about financial aid, and it seems that has been the big thorn in my side, as well as my financial troubles.
- Speaking of financial problems, I actually got a job in January of 09. I was excited, it was a bussing job, and my first week of training I worked about 15 hours. But apparently I wasn't a good enough worker for them, and I found myself working 1-2 days a week. So for a while, until I got more financial aid, I found myself collecting unemployment. The crazy thing was, I'm still in that stupid job, and coming up to my 1 year anniversary. I really need to find something better.
- Obama got elected to office, which was a pretty cool thing considering I voted for him. And in the first week of office he cleaned up and reversed a lot of the shit that Bush had done.
- My car broke down, due to the ignition failing. I spent several hours stuck at an auto parts store having them test a bunch of things, even though they had no idea how to test shit. I did learn a trick to test the battery and starter. Also, I had to replace the idle regulating valve on my car. So a few car problems this month.
February:
- My next door neighbor in the apartment become wildly drunk/high, and started acting so crazy he had to be arrested.
- Also, between February and March I was rather depressed and lonely and cynical. I won't post the entries but let's just say I need to smoke or something, or take happy pills.
March:
- I went to the Detroit Science Center with my late grandfather and my aunt, both Star Trek fans, to the Star Trek Exhibit they were having. Although it was too expensive, I enjoyed myself.
- Octomom. People need to stop breeding so much. Children are NOT toys/cute dolls. That is all.
- AIG bonuses. As if rich corrupt bankers need more money.
April:
- My grandfather had promised to buy me shoes for Christmas. When I finally got around to look for them, I went looking for Anti-Pronation shoes, and ended up spending much more time looking for shoes than I ever have before, due to my feet being asymmetrical and one arch being shallower than the other. Add to the fact that one place I bought shoes that were uncomfortable refused to take them back, and then lost the gift card they gave me. It took months to get a new gift card. Eventually (in June/july), I bought some for $25, put in some nice fancy insoles, and have had no problems since.
- I finally got an instructor to take a look at my car, and the news was not good: The transmission was dying. It would eventually kill itself in September.
- My sugar daddy Obama sent me $1500 in my tax refund. Horray for stimulus money!
May:
- I went on a walk with my (non-dead) Step-Grandfather over 10 miles of rolling, hilly nature trails. It was a nice journey but this guy from Publishers Clearinghouse interrupted our walk and acted like a dick.
- I went to Charleston to see a great-grandmother I had not seen for 20-odd years. It was hell getting the time off from work because the trip was on Memorial Day and my job NEEDED me to work that day. But I was able to go, and although I didn't do everything I wanted (like tour the giant aircraft carrier!!!) we enjoyed ourselves.
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Leaving, Photos
June:
- I got hit on by this 18 year old girl who obviously wanted to make kittens with me. Oddly enough, I've been friends with her since then, but now that she has a boyfriend, she's given me the cold sholder. Oh, am I not good enough for you now that you have a new man?
- My brother graduated from High School. Now let's see if he can stop playing WoW long enough to go to college!
- I had trouble in the welding class, So much so that I had to spend most of my day in lab practicing. Who knew welding was so hard?
- I also had trouble in machining class, after the metal magnifying lens holder I was making broke. I was devastated, but remembered I was in welding as well, and was able to weld my item back to perfection.
- Hee hee! *grabs crotch* OOOWWW!!! Michael Jackson dies.
- Me and Jenni and Jaymie (Jenni's ex that she'd rather forget, sorry Jenn) went to a free Anime convention in Western Michigan. And we had a great time. I hope we can do it this year. And photos!
July:
- Despite all the trouble I had, or maybe because of all my hard work, I pass both the welding and machining classes.
- My friend since Elementary school was married on the 4th.
- My apartment manager, either drunk, high, or just crazy with rage, blames me for a mess in an upstairs common area and barges into my apartment looking for a fight. I had to call the cops on him, but decided not to press charges. He's been nice to me since then, though.
- A week later, I heard gunshots a block away from my apartment. As if life wasn't interesting enough. Never saw anything in the paper, but rumor has it, either it was over drugs, or a drunk guy angry he was kicked out of a bar. No one was injured.
- But due to the gunshots, I wrote a long entry about my fear of no afterlife.
August:
- Me and Jenni started going to Karaoke, which I had a lot of fun doing and wish we would start doing again.
- My car started acting up again. This time I had a nearly-bald tire, and then another tire had to go flat after hitting a pothole, and the rim was bent, so I ended up buying two tires and a rim (the speakers I took back for the second tire).
- I found out my grandfather had pancreatic cancer. (my mother said Liver cancer, but it seems that pancreatic cancer can also cause damage to the liver).
September:
- ... And then my transmission died, right after getting the second tire. This was the death knell for my old Escort.
- Governer Granholm announced that she'd be cutting funding to the State Fair. I DID go to the state fair, but didn't find an entry for it. The sad thing is, the state fair costs less than a million a year, and yet Granholm cut 100 million from education in Michigan. I wouldn't vote for her if she was running this year. Here's my rather angry rant about the whole thing. It seems there will be no state fair next year so I'm glad I got to the last one.
- I got a pair of free tickets to a Tigers game, but no one wanted to drive me there. So the tickets were for naught. I was pretty damn depressed that day.
- My bike had not one but two tires go flat after putting sealant goo in them, and since I relied on it to get to work I was pretty annoyed. But I ended up getting two tubes for $5 each and a spare for a buck, as well as puncture resistant lining for $12. And then I needed a new tire to replace a tire that was only 2 years old, and that cost $20.
- I went to see the Phantom of the Opera with my mother.
- I got a parking ticket because of my dead car. In January, I got it reduced in half.
October:
- I went to the Renaissance Festival with Jenni and Emma, with a complete costume for the first time. I don't think I made an entry for that either. We had fun, but it rained half the time.
- I joined LJ Idol for the 6th season. But I was booted off rather quickly. So was all my friends. :(
- I tried a bike ride that was 22 miles, 11 miles each way, with a long break in the middle. I figured I could keep up, that 11 miles wasn't so bad, but the guys I was riding with were experts and I couldn't keep up.
- My grandfather was put in a hospice after he passed out being driven to church to play the organ. He then elected to be taken care of at home by a full staff. The last time I saw him alive, he was a skeleton. And then he passed away, right before Halloween.
- My Halloween was fun, but I was unable to go to Youmacon this year due to work. :(
November:
- I went to both of my grandfather's funerals, and then we flew him to St. Louis to bury him. I felt strange because I wasn't really sad about him dying.
- I met an guy I once knew and he tried to lure me behind a gas station for some reason. The whole thing creeped me out so I ended up going back into the gas station.
- I finally finished the new Battlestar Galactica, the most epic SciFi show ever, watching the finale during Thanksgiving.
December:
- The last city bus from school would leave early all the time, until I complained about it and they finally started leaving on time.
- My mother developed a small blockage in her Carotid artery giving her a small stroke, which caused her to spend Christmas Day in the hospital. Her family celebrated Christmas the weekend after New Years, though, and I got a lot of presents. :3 She's doing better now.
- Some stupid idiot tried to blow up a plane above the Detroit Suburbs, and is now in a nice federal prison about 10 miles from here.
- I ended up going to a Christmas Dinner with Jenni, Emma, and Jenni's uncle Bo, at his house. I also went to New Years with Jenni, Emma, and Jenni's friend, who's a little too energetic even at 2:30am.
Man that took like 5 hours to do! And long list is long! Well, 2009 was interesting, and that was just my life. I forget everything that happened in the rest of the world, like Obama's first year, Michael Jackson (and Farah Fawcett), the health care bill which I strangely didn't rant about, stuff, more stuff....
Anyhoo, here's to the next year and next decade.