Thursday, December 11, 2008

How far is too far?

I'm asking only because I have this neat little certificate thinger that the Dean at ITT gave to me. I made the Honors List this last quarter because of my grades. Not many of us made that, FYI. Knowing I passed my classes and knowing I got a great GPA is one thing, having physical proof that my teachers noticed, that the DEAN noticed... I want to frame that cute certificate in a pretty frame, admire it for a moment and then mash my dad's face in it. Not litterally. Well... kinda... but more like figuratively. I'd like to see him at our families Christmas get together, whenever that is, and have that certificate handy so I can pull it out and say "Oh boy! Whatever could this be? Honors?! ME?!" and then look pointedly at my dad and wait for that millisecond when his face drops in shocked disbelief and hopefully get a picture of it. Who was it who told me I couldn't pull off 'Sariah grades'? Who was it who sat in front of a complete stranger and asked me why I was even bothering with college? Who was it who has never really expected me to make anything of myself? Oh yeah, that'd be dad. I don't want to completely break him with this one yet though. My goal is to continue to stay on the Honors list and hopefully, by the end of my schooling, when I graduate and get that pretty little certificate that says I WIN, all of those good grades will have completely broken every misconception he ever had of me. He won't know what to think of me then, then he'll be FORCED to actually look at me and see me for who and what I am. He wont be able to brush me aside and tell me I'll never go anywhere because I'll have made it further than him by then. Because with that last super sweet certificate I have so many more doors open for me than he ever hoped to see open for him. He can't ignor me then.

That makes it sound like I'm doing this to get even with him or something like that, but that's not it at all. That's just a super awesome bonus for me. No, this schooling, all of this hard work, every penny I'm putting into this? This is for me. This is for every opporotunity I never got to take when I was younger cause I didn't focus on me. This is for every dream I abandoned to take care of what needed to be taken care of. This is for me and no one else. I want this and I'm going to get it, one way or another. I don't need him to believe in me, I never have. Would it have been nice? Yeah. Would it have helped? Probably. Do I absolutely need it? No, and I never will. My mom is proud of me, and really truely and honestly, that's all I ever wanted or needed.

Perhaps before I frame that certificate I'll let it sit on the fridge for a bit so I can look at it every morning and smile. This whole being proud of me thing? I'm kinda liking it. Go me go!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Ew, Cooties!

Mkay, so, going into my field of study I kind of figured that I would be a major minority and I was prepared for that. I don't think my teachers were though. I've got one teacher whom I had last quarter, she seems to handle me being the only girl in my class just fine. My math class has a few other girls, so that seems to go over well. Today was my networking class though. I don't think I could have stuck out like more of a sore thumb. I heard the giggles and felt the stares as I walked into the class before it had officially started, I took my seat two rows back from the front of the room and settled in quietly, I signed myself in when the attendance sheet came around and listened politely while the other boys introduced themselves and told the class what quarter they were in, why they were there and what they hoped to accomplish. When it came my turn, however, I think my teachers eyes bugged out a bit. He was at least polite enough to let me finish what I had to say before begging forgiveness for whatever future infraction he may commit as a result of "being a guy and saying guy things". The fact that I work in a warehouse with a bunch of vulgar men already barely phased the man. In his lecture he kept coming up short when he'd say "you guys got it? Oh! and gals? Sorry Maranda". It was cute at first, made me giggle, but after a while I got annoyed with it. He just kept going back to that one little fact. The other guys in the class seemed to make an extra effort to interject as many women jokes as they could into the teachers lecture, or at least hint at something like it. I can't say I was sad to leave that class room. The teacher is super nice otherwise, but that little thing is going to really grind my nerves if it keeps up. It's bad enough that I have to sit through five hours of class after being up at three in the morning for work, just let me be and do your thing please.

Last quarters results are in, by the way. I passed my math class with a B+ which put me at a 3.83 GPA, but I can recover this quarter. That number does not displease me though. I'm actually quite proud of myself. That's the highest GPA I've earned since... fifth grade? Something like that. And I worked my butt off for it. If I were a bit more proud of it I might have even printed it off and put it up on the fridge. Go Maranda! Woo!

Outside of school all is well I suppose. Work is work, but I have to say this; I miss living in the sticks. Oh how I miss it! Why? Why would I miss living where neighbors are few and far between, where cats run wild with the dogs, leash laws aren't enforced because there's no sidewalks to muddy, where snow can get up to your butt before the sun peeks over the mountains? Because those are the things I miss the most, especially the neighbor thing. Wednesday night/Thursday morning I almost had to call the cops. That does not please me. Why? Because at 2:30 in the morning I woke up. I didn't know why I woke up at first, but it soon became apparent. The lovely people who live in the upstairs apartment of our duplex decided that 2:30a.m. would be a SPLENDID time to have a big fat raging fight in which she ended up outside my bedroom window screaming, crying and yelling, he was inside slamming doors, stomping around and yelling back. My dogs were barking, their dog was barking, the next door neighbors dogs were barking, the dog across the street was barking, as were the dogs behind our duplex and the dogs down the side street. I was not happy. Not in the least. The only thing that stopped me calling the cops was the knowledge that if I did they would have made me stay and give a statement and tell them everything, and I can't exactly afford to be missing work because some people have no shame and no sense of decency. What in the world would make someone think it's OK to do something like that at 2:30 in the morning in a residential neighborhood? What would make someone think that was an OK thing to do ever? What good does yelling accomplish? How can that possibly fix anything? And the stomping and slamming of doors? Completely and utterly uncalled for. I wanted to open my window and yell at her to shut up and go to bed, but I was too tired and too upset.

Some peoples kids....

Aaaany way, happy holidays to all! I shall post more later. Ta!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Please Pass Go

Yargh!

All of this worry over math for nothing. That last test I had to make up, well... it didn't go so well, BUT! Fear not my people! I am pulling a strong 94% in that class still! And, to make it even better, our final is the biggest part of our grade. I have complete faith that my final project will go off without a hitch. Why? Because the super awesome computer nerdface genius (me!) has been overseeing it. The boys have helped gather the information, but they know their powers over Power Point are nothing compared to the awesome creativeness I wield within my mind and fingers. Rawr! My other classes are still going well too, all three of the finals for them are creeping up here fast. I'm not worried though, I've got this in the bag baby. My belt manager at work commented the other day that I seem much happier now that I'm back in school. Honestly, I would have to agree 100%. Having something to do with all this crap floating around in my noggen is super fun! Mom used to tell me that she didn't make stupid babies and I'd kinda roll my eyes at her and tell her my grades said different. I didn't apply myself though, not in all of my classes. The ones that came easier to me I did fine in, the others.... eh, I blew them off most of the time, didn't really see a point in them. All of the classes I take now I know I will be needing though and it's so much more fun for me to throw myself into them and push the limits I thought I had as far as my knowledge goes. It's exciting for me. I've always loved to learn, but I avoided the subjects I wasn't particularly good at. I can't avoid those any more though, and I think that's part of what makes it that much more fun for me. Having things come easy is nice, but when you really have to work at it and then you see how well you've finally mastered it.... it's a joy in it's own right, an achievement, something you can hold up and tell yourself every day "Look at this, you didn't think you could, but you did! Reach higher!" My only regret is that this realization came years after I left highschool. Oh well. I was more concerned about taking care of those around me then. I still worry about the people I love, but dang it! It's nice to worry about ME for a change, to be proud of ME, of who I am and who I'm becoming. I'm tooting my own horn here, I know, but again, this is something different for me, I'd just like to enjoy it for a moment.



Mkay, all better now. I have this devil cold that doesn't seem to want to go away. In an effort to thwart it's on-going rampage in my body I'm going to say farewell for now and curl up in a nice warm bed with my sweet hyper puppy. Yay for Abby!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Getting Cold

I think I need to put on some more weight, maybe that's all that saved me for so long there. Now it drops below 60 and I free my tooshie off! So not cool.

I know I should post more, I know I should call more, I know I should probably be doing a TON of stuff to keep my family in the loop that I'm not currently doing, and for that I appologize. I am trying though. This right here is an effort to better the lines of communication, as they stand, between myself and you lovelies who are out and about in the great wide world.

School has been going well, as you could guess from my last post. Math was a bit iffy there for a bit, we were getting into things I'd struggled with in highschool and was having trouble with again. It helps to have a super smart genius-like math nerd for a belt manager at work though. We sat down after work one day and went through my chapters together. I know I knew the material before, I had passed (barely) the same subjects in highschool, but I couldn't remember how. He was a bigger help than I think anyone could ever know. A fresh perspective and patience does WONDERS when trying to get something that comes easy to others through my thick stubborn head. We took a test on the material last week and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well. And in all honesty, the kind of math I will be using primarily with my chosen career isn't nearly as difficult for me to understand as some of the other stuff like geometry *cries* I pitty the people who have to play with that all day. My other classes have never really been challenges for me, but they are the required gen-ed programs everyone is supposed to take upon entry to the college. This next semester should be much more interesting, for me any way. My new friends I made at school, Max and Clint, are both pretty bummed that I'm not going to have any classes with them any more. We will be at the school at the same time, have the same breaks and such, but because they're CAD students and I'm CEET, we have found our fork in the road. Max is still determined that we will all stay great friends no matter, which is super cool. He's a fun guy to be around and probably one of the reasons I really put an effort into my math class. He's a great motivator. We will have the same math class, but on different days this semester, so we've decided that study sessions before tests will be a MUST. I'll be taking a DC Current class though and I'm so excited! I've been taking computers apart for as long as I've cared to, even learned all the technical terms for the stuff I've been taking apart, but I've been careful about messing with the power for those thus far. This time around I get to manipulate it though. This is almost as dangerous and leaving me in a warehouse full of explosives with a ligher in my pocket. Sure, I'll be careful while I look around and see whats there, but heaven help us if you let me actually PLAY with any of it. This is the stuff that's going to get me into all of my projects I'll be doing for the next few years. All of the fun wires and electrical boards they gave me in my toolkit on my first day? I'll have more to do with them besides using them on my own stuff at home! I can't really begin to explain how excited I am. To be very honest, I was worried for a while there that because of the math involved in my chosen career I wouldn't maintain my drive to suceed. The exact opposite has been happening though! The math comes easier now that I have something I love to do to apply it to and teachers in and out of school who can explain the things that I don't understand, and the logical way computers work, inside and out, just kinda clicks for me. I never thought I'd be one of the lucky ones to find something like that, never in a million years. It's all so exciting for me! Lance has had to stop me more than once when I've been studying for tests in my computer classes and decided hands-on learning definately beat using the book all of the time and wanted to take my computer apart. They can only handle so much of that when they're used as often and for so much as I use my own. I have to hold myself back, most definately, but I see so much more potential in them now than I used to.

I feel like the biggest nerdface in the world right now. I completely just geeked out. What is this world coming to?

To work with my nerdface I suppose. Work... le blah.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Four point WHAT?!?

That would be a big O there, yah... 4.0.... lets hear it now, who's da bomb diggity?

I suppose it doesn't really count yet since I'm still in my first quarter, but I'm still pretty dang proud of it. School this time around is SOOOOO much easier. Work is tiring, but I always have enough energy and time for my school and school work. It does help that I like most of the people in my classes too. I've made friends with a few of the guys there, they are a hoot. Not many girls to make friends with, unfortunately, and the few there are have such a busy schedual that talking for them is something you do on the go and on the phone. Not my kind of scene. The guys far out number us women, and the ones I've made friends with are pretty awesome. They help me out as much as the teachers do.

Work hasn't been all that bad with school either. I go late Monday nights, till ten, and early Saturday mornings so I have to take off early from work each Saturday. The first time I had to leave early my belt manager took over my trucks. I was told the following Tuesday by all four of my drivers that this was an unacceptable alternative, so I have been teaching others to take over. This las Saturday I had a girl who had only been with us for three days thus far and I was hesitant to leave her there alone. My belt manager assured me he'd be there to help her out. This morning I was told to leave her on my trucks and to go load my old trucks since the guy who should have been on them couldn't make it in, so I did. As soon as the drivers got to the terminal I had all four of mine down around my old trucks telling me that I needed to throw a fit and demand to be back on their trucks. They were disgruntled with the load they came in to yesterday (Monday) and weren't blaming it on the new girl, but they certainly were not going to train the new girl through peak and if I wasn't going to say something they were going to throw fits with whomever they could corner long enough to do so.

I am loved!

Hahaha! It was nice to hear that they wanted me back so badly. I may be on the bottom of the totem pole, but you know what the bottom does, right? We are the support, the foundation, the life blood of the rest of the totem. With out us the whole thing would fall apart. I am very much valued, if not by management at least by the drivers. We make or break their days, and they in turn can make or break a managers career. I hold waaaay more power than anyone gives me credit for, and I know how to use it if I need to. Muahahahahahaha...

That's all for now, my general update for everyone out there wondering how things are going. One of these days I'll actually figure out the whole picture thing here and upload all of the pictures of Abby and Lance. Abby has gotten so big! Our upstairs neighbors puppy will dwarf her soon though, hahaha! Poor girl doesn't stand a chance against him. Any way, I need to take a nap before my head explodes. Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

College Bound

Well, not so much college bound as already IN college. I had my first class on Monday evening. See guys, I'm doing better with this updating thing! Only a couple days out from then. Any way. As disappointing as it may be to those of you who were really hoping for that restaurant and discounted food, I'm afraid I've decided to leave my cooking and writing where they are, as wonderful pass times to put me in my happy place. Instead I have given in to the part of me that I've tried for so long to deny and suppress. I'm in a computer tech program at ITT. My schedule is rather simple for this quarter and I must confess, it's so nice to be back in a class room with an idea of what I want to make myself into. This whole going back to school business is exciting for me. For the most part any way.

I know my family is excited for me, at least the majority of them. There's one defector though, one who seems bent on ruining the whole experience for me, and it's nothing new either. Dear ol dad is baffled at why on earth I would want to go back to school for. Talking to my oldest sister I think she had the right of it when she said he's never expected anything of me. I'm not sure what would hurt more though, having him expect too much of me and falling short, or my present situation where he never really expected me to do anything with my life. I was just.... one of the seven. He actually had the audacity to sit in the Financial Aid Administrators office and ask me why I was bothering with this. The FA guy was kind enough to pretend like he hadn't heard, but it was hard to ignore his next few comments about how easy college was for him and how I should just go to the community college for something more simple and then began to boast about Annabelly's full ride scholarship to BYU-I. I will never begrudge my baby sister anything, I am more than proud of her for being able to still pull out stellar academic achievements amidst a sea of family drama, but it stung a bit that my own dad thought it appropriate to point that out while I was in the process of getting my own life on track. It's times like those that I wish I had found a guy to get married to already, to rid myself of any kind of obligation to that man.

I refuse to let him dampen my spirit, however. My instructors are very kind, the head of my program is very excited to have me there and I have many others around me who are happy to see me moving forward and have already offered helping hands. Who needs him, right? Not I, said the happy box thrower from the corner.

I bid you all adieu and will try to continue with the updates.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Buffalo Wings?

Don't ask about the title. Had to put something, so... ta da!

Just a general update, to keep the readers (however few of you there are) happy. Not much is really going on in my neck of the woods right now. Having Sariah up from BYU-I is super cool though, I don't think she realizes just how much I love and have missed her. Both of my little sisters. It's so wierd, even at 21, to not wake up and have them in the same house with me or have them be there when I get home to talk to. It's incredibly lonely actually. How the heck do those only children do this? Yikes, I can only imagine. Aside from having one of my two favoritest sisters in the whole entire world up here for a week or two more, the only good news is that we recieved a pay raise at my job. Woo! What does that mean for me? Pretty much jack since it's strictly a part time job still. There are those in the business who have been trying to get me to apply for better postitions in the company, but I've thought about that a lot and decided that FedEx is not something I want to do for life. I've been looking into going back to school, either for some kind of english major or culinary arts. I haven't decided yet. I know I'm made for more than throwing boxes though.

That's about as exciting as my life has been lately. Yay. I'll keep y'all updated. Later g-money.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cars and all that Jazz

Shows how much I know, hmm? Well, it was kind of one of the hoses on the car, but not quite waterpump related. What ended up happening was one of the hoses to my heater core had worn down so much that it had cracked. It was made of some kind of plastic though, so I'm not too entirely surprised that it happened. That and the heatercore itself wasn't sitting tight like it should have been, so that kinda helped the normal wear and tear. The boyfriend and I spent Saturday tearing it appart and trying to find the drain on my radiator. They don't make those engines easy to get apart :( We got all kinds of antifreeze all over us. It was delicious. It's fixed though, so... wee! As a celebration (and because we had planned to do this for her birthday anyway) we took the boyfriends mommy with us up to Silvermountain on Sunday to see The Nuge play. If it's a concert, I like it, add music I like and I'll have a freaking blast. Ted Nugent is a bit too political for some people, and very outspoken about it as well, and he was the same ol' Ted Nugent this time too, but I still enjoyed the concert very very much. A beautiful setting, we got to sit in the grass, ride the gondola up, all that nice stuff. I wouldn't have traded that for the world. The boyfriend and his mom are afraid of heights though, hehehe, so the gondola was interesting coming up and going down. Both times we got put into one with one or two other interesting people. The couple we were with on the way down had found a phone earlier and were trying to get ahold of someone on there to figure out who's phone it was. Too bad it was a CdA registerd Cricket phone, so instead they had me take a picture of them for her to see and then called someone on the recently called list to let him know where her phone could be picked up at. Made me giggle ferociously.

Oy- look at the time! More later folks! Ta ta!!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Puppy Problems

I heart my dogs, very very much, but sometimes I wish I could take a break from them for a little while. Abby, sweet little thing that she is, is quite attatched to me. She hates to be away from me, waits till I'm sitting down to lay down in her kennel to go to sleep at night and wraps herself around my feet at every turn. She's big enough to trip me now, but small enough to be just out of sight. George is kind of hard to miss, he just sits there, in the way, all the time. He's a big lump 'o' love, but very slow moving. And Abby looooves to be outside, but only if I'm out there with her, which is a problem. Even with George out there with her she barks and bays and generally causes a rucuss if I happen to go inside for a few minutes. Oh heavens no, if she can't see me, the world is ending. I've been reading up on how to break her of this, but so far nothing has worked. Any insights or suggestions are more than welcome. I would greatly appreciate anything. George has been having some issues lately so we have to take him back in to the vet to see what we can do about that. He's getting to be as bad as ME having to go to the doctor! We are a pair, George and I.

Aside from the dogs I've been having a wonderful time with my car. As busy a life as I seem to be leading at the moment, that car is invaluable to me. I got out of work this morning, getting ready to hop in my car and drive home when I realized at the same time three other people realized that there was some kind of fluid leaking and it was coming from my car. >.< Not what I need after waking up at three to get to work so I could work my buns off for practically nothing and having to go home and shower and get ready for everything else I have to get done today. Someone suggested that perhaps it was oil, and there was oil mixed in with it, but there had been another incident Monday with an oil spill with one of our drivers, so thank Heavens that wasn't my case. No, in my case it was antifreeze. My loverly car let it all out. Well, most of it any way. Now, I'm not stupid, I know my cars, I could see what the problem was, but the part about this whole thing that cracks me up is that the three women who work there, myself and a few of the QA ladies, were the only ones willing to get down to see if something was still leaking or not, check the oil, check the antifreeze, dig in and check tubes, all the while being watched by the MENdrivers and MEN managers who were asking what we thought it was. Anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Mmmkay, just making sure. So yeah, as far as I can tell it's either the water pump or one of my hoses, either way I didn't want to try to drive it home, so in the parking lot she sits, leaking antifreeze everywhere. I'm sure I'll hear all about it from the building manager tomorrow, wanting to know why I just left it there instead of taking it home, and from our splendid janitor who seems to think that any kind of mess in the parking lot is a smear upon his name and honor. It'll be great. At least I have some appreciative drivers now. Rather than catching crap everytime they show up it's a "hello Maranda!" or "my goodness, heavy day, hm?" and at the end "thank you Maranda, you did so well! Have a wonderful day!" Yeah, I like my drivers much better now. Not enough to want to stay for forever like they'd like, but I do like them. One of the ladies I used to load for actually stopped me today, asked how I was doing and expressed her deep regret at me being moved off of her trucks and then asked if I would ever be interested in driving for her. A big step up in the world for Maranda that would be, mmhm. We shall see where this all goes, but for now I'm off to do... whatever... I'll catch all you cool cats later.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

It's Fixed!

I'm not usually one to bug and badger, but I do find it a bit rediculous that it took like ten upset phonecalls and three house visits for Comcast to finally figure out what the problem was with our internet. The last few calls weren't as pleasant as the first few, for them anyway. I got very insistant and.... welll, borderline pissy with them till they finally listened to what I was saying and the guy who came out listened to everything I was telling him was going wrong. To you, last Comcast guy, I am sorry I was upset.

Anywhoo... So there haven't been any other near-misses with cars lately, nothing too terribly exciting going on here except that my sweet little Abby puppy is getting soooo big! She many not be human, but she's the next best thing to a baby I made. I absolutely love her. When we brought her home she was small enough to fit in the crook of my arm and now it makes me grunt when she jumps in my lap! I still love the little white tip on the end of her tail though, it only grows with her, never gets smaller. It's so freaking cute! She has a great time with my old doogie George. He's losing weight too. For those of you who don't know and actually happen upon this, George is the dog we had as a family dog for a very long time when we all finally left home. He stayed with dad for a while after we all left, but when he started gaining weight, losing hair and really just not being the dog we all knew and loved, I took him home with me instead. We still need to do a few tests to see what we can do about his hair loss, but he is losing weight finally. Instead of a torpedo on legs he's got a little bit of definition in his body. It took him a while to get used to Abby's rambunctious nature, but they get along so well now. It's absolutely adorable to watch them play together and then lay down flat on the floor, exhausted. One of these days I'll get a picture of the two of them sitting next to eachother. George likes to lick the top of her head some times. Cracks me up!

Hm, so I guess there is one more thing going on in the life of Me. I'm looking for a different job finally.

For those who are interested in why, you know how to reach me.

Until next time my sweets.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Grrargh!

Apparently no one has actually found their way to this new blog yet, which is OK, but I will say this one brief thing and then I must go.

Comcast SUCKS.

This is all. You may be on your way.

Friday, June 20, 2008

woops...

Ah, so... I kinda, sort of, a little bit, maybe, possibly forgot how to get into my old blog space... Stop laughing, it took me an hour to finally give up and just make this one instead.

I've been told off for not updating more, and I am truely sorry to those of you who have found my blog and were hoping for a chance to get to know me. Truth be told, I'm not all that interesting. I live in the valley with my boyfriend and dogs, work at FedEx, not in school, nothing of real interest to say besides tell you random stories, of which I have quite the variety. A good thing? I don't know, but they do amuse me ever so much.

Speaking of random stories, I've had quite the week this week with driving and apparently so have many other people. Now, don't get me wrong, I think the elderly have every right to get around in any way they can, I would, however, like to have some kind of law implemented that would require those over, say... 50?... to retake a drive test, written and practical. In my own limited experience and naieve oppinion I think this would greatly reduce the kinds of acccidents I narrowly escaped with my life this Wednesday afternoon. I, being the awesome person I am {snort}, was out with my friend helping him look at appartments all day and we were headed back to the place he was staying at. We were going down a major one way, I was in the far left lane and not particularly worried about the people in the lane next to me, chatting away with my friend, not a care in the world when all of a sudden he grabs my arm and screams my name. I almost laughed at first because he has a very girly scream when he's frightened, but I looked over just in time to see the elderly lady next to me TURNING INTO ME. Now, had it only been a slight turning I may not have slammed my gas peddal as hard as I did, but she was turning so hard that my friend only had to reach out his window to touch hers. I almost wet myself, to say the least. The best part is that she had the balls to honk at me and flip me off. Anyone else find that mildly amusing? No? I do.

Well, I'm off for now. I will do my darndest to update more, I promise.