Happiness Can Exist?

Apparently.

I've been so down this whole week so far, I didn't realize how awful I felt until today. I was actually in a good mood and I didn't have to force a smile on my face whenever people got that look ... that they knew something was wrong, and maybe they'd comment on it, but they didn't know how to help. I don't cover my emotions the way I used to. That went away when my emotional rock disappeared.

Now that I'm well again, I'm not sure I want that to be a rock. Though stability would be wonderful. When have I ever been stable?

So, the day started off nice. I went to bed early last night, and I woke up a few minutes before my alarm. I still tried to cheat getting up for a couple minutes, but I didn't grumble and complain. I did, however, forget to feed Puddin. I didn't realize that until I got to school.

Once again, I'm changing things up. I brought the super premium food into the house (my room, specifically) for Puddin, since she's my show rabbit. I still feed J, Cashmere, Isis, and Jill once a day with the premium food, but because Puddin is inside with me, she gets the super premium food once in the morning and once in the ... night. The other four get a third cup while Puddin gets a half cup overall. She's a special brat, I guess.

I went to school, hardly paid attention to lecture. I started writing another story that will never touch the eyes of anyone else. It's a little too personal for that. Maybe, on a late night, I may show it to Olivia, but that's it. This isn't going online, this isn't going anywhere. This is just a story for me to vent my feelings, really. They're not overly accepted feelings, either. Nothing bad, I assure you. Later me? But, no. This is going nowhere.

I'm glad I halfway paid attention to lecture, at least. Since I didn't want to stress about the Chemistry test over the weekend, and I'm still not 100% sure that I'll attend my Calculus lecture on Monday, I took the test today after class. Eric and I talked a bit, mostly about work. Dumb Jon specifically. And the fact that I'm training to be manager. I think I mentioned Nate, Matt, Jake, and New John. Even though I don't want Eric a part of my life anymore, I don't really want him to know about Nate. And how Nate's fucked up my emotions. I dunno.

The test was relatively easy. Most of it was enthalpy, energy equations (including Hess's Law), the gas laws (PV=nrT is really the only thing to remember there), and what we just learned in lecture. I kind of regretted not fully paying attention to the end of lecture, and a couple of the multiple choice questions over bonding confused the hell out of me, but I still feel like I did well. I was actually prepared. Y'know, one of the questions asked about the most prominent bonding forces in propane (C4H10). I don't think carbon-carbon bonds are the intermolecular forces they're asking for. I think I ended up selecting London Disperson as the most prominent bonding force. I didn't really pay attention to most of those lectures, either. Ah well. As long as I do well. I really, really want an A in this class. I'm at an 86.17% now, I think.

I just know Nate's going to ask how I finally did in that class, and I can't afford him mocking me. Not again. not anymore. Although, I suppose, I could flip the situation unto him. Hmm. I don't doubt he's a smart guy, but he's a lot like me. He doesn't apply himself. He just takes it a step further and is taking easy classes right now. XD

Good golly, why do I know all this?

You know, I realized today that I've had this crush on him for I think over three months. It's really only gotten bad recently in the past couple weeks, but these feelings have been around for a long time now. And, once again, the situation between me and him is completely different than the ones with the two Tylers. No one can help me, either. Olivia doesn't even know how to help, and this is her area of expertise. Abbi can't help me, and she knows both of us and how we interact. Although Nate and I have our best conversations when it's just me and him (and maybe with Wes or Erich around, too).

So, when I left school, I was in a good mood. I felt accomplished for getting the test done and not procrastinating on it like I usually do. And I was done with time to spare. My plan was to go home and watch an episode of Doctor Who before I was off to work. Which I did, along with taking care of the rabbits and making a couple tacos for myself.

I think I kind of bragged about those tacos at work today.

Ah, work. I do love my job. There are times I get annoyed, but then there are days like today.

As I got out of my car, I already started a conversation with Matt. He was outside for some reason, and I totally forget what we chatted about for those couple seconds before I walked in the door, but whatever. When I got inside, Wes turned to me and told me I was cut table and my prep was bread sticks. I was overjoyed. Cut table? I got to do cut table?! It was great.

We weren't really that busy, either. I helped Jazmin on the phones and took a few orders, but the pizzas were very slow in coming out of the oven. I did a lot of talking. Way too much talking. Jake and I had a brief conversation, though I was all sass tonight. I talked with Zach and kept bashing him because he's leaving us. But mostly, I talked with Galya about the most random things. I don't even remember what anymore, but I do remember Wes yelling at us to stop talking about whatever we were talking about because no one wanted to hear it. It wasn't anything bad, I don't think. Oh yeah, it was camis. We were talking about camisoles. He wouldn't listen to me when I argued it wasn't lingerie.

I kept skipping, too. I skipped up and down the hallway between the front part of the store and the back part of the store. Wes yelled at me, telling me that I was scaring him, so I decided to skip even more instead. I actually skipped circles around the cut table. Wes wasn't around to see me, but I think I scared Zach a little in his stead. He kind of stared me down for a lap and awkwardly laughed. I did a lot of skipping today.

A little before seven, I asked Wes if I couldn't start with my bread sticks. It was extremely slow, so he let me go. I skipped over to the stuff I need, skipped to the back room, and set up my shit. When I got back there with my ruler and cutter, I just stopped right before the table and looked between the garbage can lid on my table and Zach. Eventually, he laughed once he figured out what I was nonverbally telling him, and just flung the lid off the table. "Better?" he asked me.

We had the best conversations tonight. Tonight, Zach, Matt, and I made it our goal to best educate Jake on the most random things. Zach pretty much took care of history, geography, and zoology; I pitched in with everything, though I concentrated on chemistry; Matt talked greatly about biology. Jake's expression throughout the night was priceless. Half the time I could tell that he was drinking everything in and was just in awe. Other times, he looked confused or had a semi-blank look on his face. But he stared at whoever was lecturing at the moment, kind of slack-jawed, and he was greatly enjoying all of the information we were feeding him. We talked about how Alaska was over half the size of continental US. We talked about how big Africa was, and Zach told us all about prices of safaris and how much it costs to shoot specific animals. That's when Matt and Zach explained to Jake about ivory. We progressed onwards, explaining to Jake how mutations exist and why we hard doing an injustice to our population by cheating natural selection. That's where I got into my chemistry and genetics, though Matt took good care of explaining genetics and how DNA is mutated. Jake was struggling to understand, but some of the questions he asked were hilarious. Whenever Matt was explaining something, I could just look over to Zach, and he was dying. He was laughing so hard, but so silently so that Jake didn't get pissed off. I don't think Jake could have gotten pissed off that night.

You know what we all started talking about, though? Matt and Wes got into a battle of the dirtiest, racist jokes they could come up with. Zach and I just stood in the doorway in the back room, listening in and not doing anything. Once their stories were done, Zach and I told each other blonde jokes and the like. A lot easier on the offensive scale. Eventually, Jake ended up in the back with us to do slicing, and he one again went off on how girls were liars and bitches and every one of us were crazy. I kept giving him warning words throughout his rant until finally I told him that if he didn't stop, I'd have to kill him. There's a reason I can't fully trust him the way I did. I think Zach was pretty astounded by how serious I sounded against Jake's words. I don't think he's been there when Jake and I touch that area. Um, figuratively speaking.

Later, after Jake got back from a delivery, and after all this education talk, it was just me in the back doing my bread sticks. He walked awkwardly up to me and he obviously had something on his mind. He grabbed my attention by calling my name, but he couldn't get anything else out for a while. He sat on our bin of flour. I stopped rolling and looked at him, trying to figure out what he was going to ask me. He asked me if I could teach him. He asked me if I'd teach him how to do proportions. Jake has never asked for my help before. But I told him that I'd do it. I couldn't guarantee I'd be the best teacher, but I'd try and teach him to the best of my ability. Jake doesn't ask for help like that, though.

That's when we all got into the talk about genetics, mutations, and lactic acid of all things. Jake asked that if two people had a kid and if they were idiots, if the kid would not be stupid, too. I explained to him that it depends somewhat on genetics, but greatly on environment. And, sadly, I could use a lot of my family as examples. Jake, even, was astounded by how inept a few of my cousins are. That's a problem. Then he got to talking about how his education was probably retarded (I'm using the scientific sense of this word, thank you) because of him getting shot in the head in fourth grade. I asked him where exactly the BB went. He explained the general area, which was the frontal lobe. I told him that's mostly connected to behavior, and Jake had a good laugh about that. But then he rubbed his fingers along his skull to show me exactly where the BB went in his head. Then he told me to feel. He grabbed my hand and showed me exactly where he had a hole in his head.

It was a great night. It was full of science, teaching, and everyone was on the same level. Even Jake was keeping up with us, and he wasn't adding a lot of input. Because he really doesn't know a lot. He's not dumb, but he's not educated.

Once everyone was getting over with their preps, though, I was in the back alone. I got to hug Zach at 7:10, and I did go up to the front for some heat to my fingers every now and again, but no one was really in the back with me. Galya came back and chatted with me for a bit. I explained a bit of the recent things that have happened between me and Nate. She said that Jake was hugging her a lot. She can't be that oblivious, can she? I told her he really is a nice guy, he's just really sexist. She denied it.

Y'know, Wes asked me tonight how my first date with Jeff went. I told him that the date went fine, but Jeff only sees me platonically. That's when Wes launched into a whole story about his ex-wife and then we were all talking about dogs. Well, him, me, and Zach mostly.

When we were leaving the shop, Matt said Wes can hardly spell, but he's one of the nicest people he knows. I countered saying that may be true, as long as you're alone with him, otherwise he's just a dick. It's true, though. I do like Wes, but when there's more than just you and him, you have to play just as dirty as him and don't let the things he says get to you.

After Galya left, it was just me, Wes, and Matt. Wes had me do the opening till, but after that we were waiting for Matt to come back on his last delivery. While I waited, I  broke down the front and made the table all shiny. Wes was real patient with me as I learned. I asked him a plethora of questions, a lot of them probably mostly unrelated, and he answered them all. Sometimes I was just throwing stupid things out there, and I did get a couple laughs out of him. Overall, it wasn't too bad. We ended up $100 short the first time we counted money, but that's just because Wes threw the wrong number at me while I was adding twenties. Once we fixed that mistake, we were $9 over. Wes was disgruntled about it for a moment, and then exclaimed that he'd rather be ten dollars over rather than under. So that matter was settled. Then I ran through the check list, found out the store has a lot more switches than I'd ever imagined, and Wes closed the store down as the last step. Matt and I pulled out of the parking lot at the same time.

Instead of going home, I drove around. I took Waterloo road until I reached Jackson County and took a few side country roads until I made my way back home. Somehow I ended up on North Territorial, then I quickly turned onto a part of Island Lake I've never seen before, and then I was back on North Territorial. I think maybe I read one of the signs wrong, because I don't get how that happened. It was real pretty out there, though. It's been a while since I just drove around.

... was the last time I did that the Monday I told Nate I liked him?

Oh good golly, I don't think so. No. I took Fletcher out one direction once. I think that was after that Monday.

When I came home, I chatted with my dad a bit, and I've been trying to figure out my grades since.

I have no idea what I have in my Calculus class. I got a C average on my major tests, and those count for 70% of the grade, but I know I did really well in everything else. It's only because I failed that one test that I did so poorly on the average. I better get above a C in that class. Although, now that I think of it, I got a C average in AP Calc, and only got a 5 on the AP Exam. Which is the best score you can get. I was ecstatic upon learning that.

I have a B+ in Chemistry right now, but I'm dearly hoping I can do extremely well on the final exam and get an A. I dunno if that's possible, though.

I know for absolute certainty that I'll get an A in Composition. I got 86 on one essay, missed one assignment, and one Writing Center assignment. But, I got 20 points extra credit in class yesterday. So I didn't lose a lot of points in that class at all.

I just looked up my Psychology grade, and I have an 88% in that class right now. I still haven't taken the last essay exam or the final exam, and she has yet to drop the lowest grades in each section of the grading. So I think I'll cry if I don't get an A in that class.

So, really, I'm doing well. College is a lot nicer to me than high school. I'm getting mostly As right now, according to my calculations, or something extremely close to an A. That hasn't been the case academically in years. I averaged a B+ in high school. 3.33 GPA. I'm not really even trying, either.

I don't know what it was, but today was a good day overall. Everything about it was nice. Well, Puddin woke me up this morning, but whatever. I hope this good mood lasts, though. I hope I can help Abbi into a good mood, too.

Did I mention I have a date with Wes (not my boss Wes) next Tuesday after lecture? I'm looking forward to that.

SONG OF THE DAY: Pain ~ Hollywood Undead