Alright, so...I recently started keeping a journal on my own as a means to keep my writing skills sharp and to just vent about the actions of the day, document something that happened, or just write down some ideas that I had at the time.

I was wondering, would anyone be interested in keeping a very free-write type of journal here in the RP and Lit forum? I think it would be a sweet idea. No obligation, if something has happened to you recently and you'd just like to get it off your chest, maybe share it with your fellow villagers, you could come in and do it here. If you're having some sort of random idea, something that might not warrant a whole topic in General Discussion but you'd like to write it down, this would be the place. There would be no judgment, no flaming, just a place to freewrite.

Here are some examples of stuff from my personal journal:



And of course, it doesn't have to be the "dear journal" type of thing:



It can just be an idea you were thinking about and might want to explore further in writing.

(That bathroom etiquette story best not get edited. I cleaned it up *A LOT* and we're all more or less young adults here.)

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This is a brilliant idea. It's always good to have a record of your memories and be able to look back on what you were five years ago or even more. I don't have a specific journal, I just write how the day has been on random sheets of paper and I keep them saved in my drawer.

Posting this stuff is pretty cool too, I wouldn't mind posting some of the stuff I already have written down either.

-Wolf

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I did this on my myspace during the school year. It's loads of fun. Nothing much has happened during the summer, so I'm out of practice, but I'm picking it up again when college starts next week.

So yeah, I'm totally down for this.

Ok, well, since a *few* people are interested I'll make a topic soon and hopefully new people will follow our example and post.

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Sounds interesting, but I'd run mine as more of a "news" journal based around online events.

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Tahu 1000 - Former Member

Apparently, sarcasm is a very dark humor. A woman and professor who said she would have liked to had a conversation with me due to my wit at the register at work today completely halted and turned around her attitude when I made one sarcastic joke. As she left, she mentioned I should try looking for the light.

Now, it's Sunday. It's the Lord's day to shine, nobody's tried to force anything on me (which is a first for working a Sunday), and around the time she came up, I have seven out of ten good laughs of people asking "Do you have a pen?" or "Where's the pen?" when the pen had a very visible sheet of paper stuck to it that said "PEN!!" and had arrows pointing to the pen. I was on a roll with making my bagger and a few customers laugh, and the fact that she made an absolute 180 in attitude because of my sense of humor was funny. But, honestly? How shallow can a person be about what they decide would make a good conversation or not? And how the hell is it dark enough humor to make a person evil in your eyes for saying "I think you have a couple buttons to hit." after you leave the pin pad hanging with, you guessed it, buttons to hit? Be as intellectual of a professor as you want to me, I'll stick with making people smile more times in a work shift than Dane Cook gets rounds of applause in any given youtube video. You can keep your "light"; I'm sure it has worse shadows than my sense of humor.

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Goten is dead!

Thanks for the entry, kikori!

Yeah, what the hell, we'll just use this thread. That way all the info is in one place.

Today, I played paintball from 10am until 4pm. You could say it was the best day I've had in awhile. We drove from Marquette to Wallace, Michigan, which is like a 2 hour drive. It was worth it, though. We played about 2 dozen rounds of speedball, and I played the back pop can for all the matches. I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing wrong, but I got hit off the break quite a few times, it seems. Anyway, I worked on trying to get comfortable with the specific position as well as technical thins like calling and snap shooting. It was a learning experience. I got a few kills on the day, but it's really tough to follow speedball because if you have a shot on someone, it's likely someone else does as well.

My new mask and hopper worked out really well for me...I've come to the conclusion that no matter what, your mask is eventually going to fog up. Anyway, I'm kind of distressed over the slow speed of my gun but then again, I was never really walking the trigger.

Anyway...I was talking to my friend Tyler during the ride there and I remembered something I had talked to my girlfriend about a few days ago. I had been saying that *generally*, I hate college kids. they have a god damn opinion about EVERYTHING, yet it seems to me that they don't actually know ANYTHING about ANYTHING. And I pointed this out to her, and she got mad at me and said that I was generalizing college students and that they weren't naive. I used the example of the Vietnam war, where college students back home were RIOTING over the way when they had no idea the horrors our troops were facing over there. I asked her if it was right for oblivious college kids to mob around airplanes bringing soldiers home and throw things, spit on them, and call them babykillers.

She shrugged her shoulders, and said that she hadn't been there so she couldn't say.

Remember, this thread is for writing about anything that's on your mind, anything you want. I won't discourage comments about other people's posts, but the focus should be to stretch your writing arms.

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Last week was my first session with my new writing tutor. The day started out rushed and unplanned, rather, I had planned the day out but it didn't go according to my original plans.
Needless to say, I was in a grumpy mood when I met my writing tutor at the local library. She's in her thirties, unmarried, has gone to Harvard, is a shining example of what a grade "A" student is and "knows her stuff" when it comes to history and writing.
To sum her up in a nut-shell? She's "that type of person", the person you just can't STAND to learn from, especially when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed to a bad hair day.

It all started with a simple, cheerful, "Hello, you must be Andrew."

No, I'm just the only 15 year old in the library's lobby where we're supposed to meet. By the way, you're late.

"Yeah." I mumbled. We proceeded to walk over to a table by a row of large windows. I set my bag down on the table and we both sat down. I had all the materials for what was required: Textbooks, Notebooks and similar items. She says to me, "May I see your bag?" I comply with an inaudible grunt when she starts to rummage through my books. Now just to straighten things out. If I had the materials for the session and ONLY those materials, then I wouldn't mind, but she had to pull out all of the contents of my bag which included my biology textbook which she promptly commented upon retrieval, "Biology! What fun!" Now that most of the contents of my bag are spread across the table, she puts the writing books in a stack and begins to explain the use for each one and why she picked them for me.
At this point, I was filled with rage comparable to a man who has just seen his most prized possession torn to pieces. She handed me a paper which stated that I needed to write up a quick paper, ten minutes, no less. And the paper was to be about my opinion on the school district's schedule and how they educate kids and "what is 'education'"?
You have to understand that she's asking this of a 15 year old homeschooler who knows nothing of the local school district or how they teach their students. I was already raging inside my heart and didn't even want to be there anymore. So instead of writing up an opinion about the school district, I wrote up a rant that took me only 5 minutes to write.
The following rant is in the spoiler below, as the main focus of this post is a journal and not my rants.

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She read it through and started to write ON my paper as if it were something she was completely above and could do whatever the hell she wanted with it. First of all, she wrote on my paper without my permission. Second, she tried to find a "main subject" and three "sub-subjects". She spent a good ten minutes trying to analyze my rant. A rant, mind you, that came from the heart, not the mind. I was enraged and so was my heart. I know that most of the ideals in that rant are completely untrue, but again, it was a rant.
Even if it was a rant, it was still something I created, something I formed from my heart, like one of my own children and she was tearing it apart before my very eyes. I deal well with criticism when I am informed my work is about to be criticized. And if someone is going to criticize my work, God help me if they tamper with the original.

The entire session I had a "tone of superiority" and "disrespect", which was untrue. Until the philosophical conversation started. Whenever I have a philosophical conversation with someone, I *always* have a tone of equality, not respect, for the person or persons I am talking to. This conversation started with her asking about Independent Education and just kinda snowballed from there. She became fed up with me and kicked me out of the session an hour before it was supposed to end, which was fine with me, because the library we were in was plentiful in comics and mangas alike.

Tomorrow is our next session and I am being forced to write an apology letter to her because of the way I "disrespected" her. Someone shoot me, because I don't have the guts to do so on my own.

-Wolf

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This is normal in public school fyi.

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Write an entry, Noob.

Also, feel free to rant. It's obviously going to be part of your journal, a journal is one of the healthiest ways to deal with anger. I will from time to time, look at my last post about the Vietnam War.

Keep em coming!

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56.
22.
40.
36. The importance of these numbers will be explained below.

When I went into work today, I didn't expect to be put on the worst possible register in all of the store.
The express lane. Register five.
Friends, allow me to introduce you to the two main reasons being the cashier behind the express lane sucks.
1.) People can't read. This includes signs and rules.
2.) People can't count.
So, as I take out a slip of paper and prepare to keep a log of how many people prove this point, little did I know Kroger's was starting up their "Let's print off a little ad EVERY SINGLE ORDER to let people know we're giving out flu shots for $25!" bit again. What did this mean for me? Lots of paper. Lots of people who are stupid. And lots of annoying out-of-paper or out-of-ink sounds.

So, thirty seconds into my work shift, I get to find out just how MUCH it's gonna suck. About ten customers in a row and people either couldn't count (had over the 15-item limit), couldn't read (the signs that said "15 items or less"), or were just plain rude (silent, contemptuous, unwilling to even say hello or acknowledge a thank you or joke). About two minutes after my first DECENT customer comes two girls who had seventy-four items.
Seventy four. 74. 74 =/= 15, 74 > 15.
New personal record for what to deal with in terms of somebody putting WAY too many groceries out on the belt. Unlike a normal register, I have NO room for excess groceries. Thankfully the girls were willing to help lighten that load, but... seriously, come on! There's an enormous sign that will smack you in the head if you don't duck saying "EXPRESS LANE" with the limits.
*Foreheadpalm*

So, about four hours into the work, I've built up a pretty enormous collection of advertisements. About four hours really means about three and a half, and that's not including ~30 ads that were actually handed out or thrown away. So, at the end of four sickly, slow hours, I wind up having... *Totals it up* 154 advertisements printed off that read "$24.95 Flu Shots Now Available". Remember the numbers at the start of my post? This is where they lead up to.
We have advertisements taped to the sliding doors. You can't miss 'em; they're old enough to make sound due to their peeling off enough to rub against the glass.
We have advertisements placed in the stands around the store.
We sure as hell have the advertisements out around the pharmacy.
I'm pretty sure our bulletin board has the same ads.
And yet somehow, SOMEHOW, I get to have just under 200 advertisements printed off for Flu shots that people probably won't even get. This is within six hours today, NOT counting the first couple of times this has happened.
So, not counting that I now have the materials for 77 more shuriken to fold, there were the people. Oh, yes, the people.
First off, splitting payments is NOT fast. But, about eight cases of doing so aside, one particularly idiotic customer decided to pay for a $13 dollar order. $10 with a card, and the remaining $3 with a $20 dollar bill. ... ... Seriously. There is only one conclusion that could have come out of this; he wanted to break a 20. In the event that he wanted to break a 20, JUST BUY A PACK OF GUM! People do that all the time and either clear me out of $100 or just under that due to breaking a freshly laundered bill of said value. If he wanted instead to simply pay for a lot of groceries, why the heck would he involve the change and waste time splitting a payment? If you can afford to split it and pay that way, you can damn sure afford to just charge it all and ask for change seperately. But no, I get to sit and watch you count pennies. ... *Sigh*
And then there's the people who are a self-fulfilling prophecy of feeling like they know the terminology and set themselves up to be knocked down, but stay set up because I'm not allowed to point out their stupidity.
Woman: *Slides card* "It's a debit card, but I ran it as a credit."
Me: (No, stupid ass, you slid the card and acted like it'll sort itself out.) "Credit's the green button."
Monitor: Input pin for DEBIT or press ENTER for CREDIT
Speaking of that monitor message, nobody reads it. "Press ENTER for CREDIT" does NOT mean press the big, shiny red "CANCEL" button with an "X" on it. When I tell you cash back only works with Debit (except in the case of Discover cards, but it's a moot point), that does NOT mean you immedately hit the green button for CREDIT.

... And some people may wonder why I had to become as sarcastic as I am now.

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Goten is dead!

I totally understand you, Kik. I've never worked at a cash register before but I have had to work with idiot customers that's don't know left from right.

There's something that's really bothering me so expect it to be dumped like the trash it is in here soon. <3

-Wolf

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Yesterday I swear to whatever god is listening that I saw, with my own two eyes, a demonstration of the age-old stereotype that nice, good looking girls like to date jerks.

I was walking from Native American Art and Architecture class back toward my dorm, possibly in search of some lunch. I noticed that there was this huge guy in front of me, and he had someone in a headlock and was literally walking them along while choking them. This dude was 6'4"ish, and 200ish pounds. I thought "whatever", it was a couple of college guys messing around. Then I hear a very feminine voice say "you're hurting me", he lets go of the person, and it's a tiny blonde girl, no bigger than 5'4" and 110 pounds...

He lets her go, and she tries to hold his hand but he pulls away from her, she tries to hold him around the waist and he pushes her away. Mind you, this girl seemed totally nice, had one of those nice, cute, shy voices and was generally a pleasant young lady. This guy was the big, frat type you would see at a party, drunk off his ass from 3 beers with his shirt off trying to fight everyone.

What's even more weird is that I remember reading somewhere that women (or some women) do indeed respond to negative treatment...which is really bizarre. It pisses me off...I have a girlfriend as it is but she's a handful, and I see this jerk with this cute blonde and I'm like "what the hell is your problem? I'd treat you like a princess".

He must be great in bed, or rich, or both.

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So, Friday is fun at work. We're the bank.
No, seriously. Nobody touches the ATM. Everyone comes through a cashier's line and gets more cash back than we have money. I take a slip of paper and log just how much cash I give out, both from people getting extra with cards / checks, and people giving $100 for small orders. Friday, here's what I came up with.
Any number marked with a * was paid with a $100 bill.
Hour 1 to 2: 40, 20, 40, 88*, 18, 20. In the first hour of working, I gave away $226.
Hours 2 to 5: 33*, 35, 40, 20, 10, 40, 20
*Insert supervisor pulling a 'drop' on my till to take away almost any excess money. A.K.A. fresh till, no cash to hand out*
Hours 5 to shift's end: 20 (first order), 20 (second ordeR), 61* (seventh order), 41*, 40, 40, 36*, 94*, 20
In six hours of being a cashier, I handed back $799.
I'm fairly certain I didn't MAKE that much in cash to start with.

Sunday, today, is a day of pure lulz. We can't sell a drop of beer before 12:01 by our computer's clocks, and after church gets out, the crowd is ridiculous. So I decided to keep track of what all happened today that would be fun to make fun of. Here's what I got.

1.) Normally, people ask for amounts of cash back that I don't have in bills over $10. So I have had to pay $20 or greater MANY times with only $5 bills. For once, I started off with some money. Despite that, I still had to make change for $20 bills five (count it, 5) times because people SPECIFIED that they didn't want a $20.
... What the hell. ;-;

2.) A lady comes up with a few items and, with a tone suited to match talking to a five year old, told me after everything was over with "I want a fifty. Dollar. Kroger. Gift. Card."
Now, at each register, there are gift cards hanging above the gum. They vary by each register. Also, not ten steps from the registers, there's an enormous, colorful rack full of gift cards. I tell the lady that the card she's after is there, and she tells me to stay while she goes to get one. Thirty seconds later, I see she walked PAST the colorful rack of cards that say GIFT CARD STATION in large, white letters, and gone up the aisle (which is full of cleaning supples). Even as I pulled off a Kroger gift card, she didn't see; she told me none of them said Kroger's.

3.) Mickey, a bagger who's more often than not pushing in rows of shopping carts for his work shift, was bagging for me. The bag racks were loaded with bags already. I'm talking about enough to last maybe six hours. He pulls out two more sets of bags for each rack and loads it to the point that the mini-platform to stand groceries on is half full of bags. Basically? Nothing could fit.

4.) In the exact same time frame, a woman comes up with two orders. For some reason, she pulls a gallon of milk from the SECOND order out first, and keeps trying to shove it back to make room for the first order's items. People seem to think that placing a divider on the belt makes things magically stop and work themselves out.
About six shoves into it, I finally got the milk out of the way.

5.) Same lady. Upon unloading her second order, this group comes in behind her and starts tossing their things on the belt before lady #1 is done, not minding that the orders nearly merged. People seem to think that placing a divider on the belt makes things magically stop and work themselves out.

6.) Someone not long after came up with six 6-packs of cokes in the buggy. The kind that have bar codes in the middle of the bottle, hidden from the eyes, and basically impossible to get to without pulling the cokes out seperately.
I'm finished with what's on the belt, and the old guy asks "Did you get the cokes?"
Inner me: "No, you moron. The cokes can't be scanned until they're up on the belt. It's called a bar code."
Me: "No, but I need one of each flavor up here."

7.) Another case of order invasion. A guy is unloading a good sized order, and this asian couple comes in behind him. Not even 1/3 into the first order, the groceries wind up mixed.

Two seconds later, I've unmixed them and place the divider over the laser to stop the belt. Guy #1 pulls the divider from my hand to push it in front of the second order. The second order slides up again in his way. I put my hand on the belt to stop it again and put the divider back in place.
People seem to think that placing a divider on the belt makes things magically stop and work themselves out.
... Lolwut.

*Flips the paper over*

8.) At Kroger's, we have a system that if you use your shopper's card, every dollar spent (minus some items and tax) earns a 'gas point' for the month. 100 gas points, and you can trade 'em for $.10 off the gallon of gas from us.
A guy comes up with nothing on sale, but asks if he should use his card. As he looks at the screen, I punch in the numbers on how much cash he's handed me. I pause as he asks.
Me: "Only if you want the gas points. Want 'em?" (One... two... three seconds of silence. No response.) *Pushes the payment button and starts getting the change out*
Him: "Sure." *Hands out his card*
Me: (... TOO LATE, .) [insert explenation of the gas point system to him, since he didn't know about it.]

9.) A woman comes up, and in her order, she took out one of the boxes we use to hold Clif bars ( We keep empty boxes in place as placeholders...), and a large assorment inside. My only mistake here is to toss the bars down the belt as they're scanned for the first three bars while she's scrambling to get them back to the box. She "doesn't want them crushed."
... Understandalbe. They're not exactly hard. So I start setting the ones scanned with her group and, when I'm done scanning, start placing them back in the box.
Once I get them in, she snatches the box out of my hand and jumbles them up roughly in her own way. ...

10.) A lady with many "organic" items has a cucumber in the list.
Me: *Pushes 94062 and "Enter" to ring up an organic cucumber*
Computer: NOT FOR SALE
... Wait, what? Beer may not be allowed 'til 12:01 for Church purposes, but organic cucumbers are just plain not allowed?
My first thought is recall. Why would something properly home grown, no injections or pesticides or anything, have to be recalled? I guess Organic got busted.
The woman walked away with a look of "...Am I wasting time and money on this?"

Kroger's can be quite lulzy at times. X3

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