Goose's Spontaneous Blabs

I think I must retract my post last week. I think this week is “Hell Week”. I must retract it because of what is going on in Southern California. There is no doubt that I love Northern California; however, this week I must dedicate my time in telling you why this week is what I consider “Hell Week”. Sunday was where it all began.

I went to work like any normal day; however, when I got there it was a totally different story. On a regular day I would come in to work and find that there are batches of items to be taken out of their locations in the backroom to replenish the store. But this day was different because it turned out that none of my co-workers in the backroom showed up to work, this meant that I had to work four times as hard as I usually do. To get items out of their locations within two hours is a hard task, but on this day, it was quadruple the size. This led to my grumpiness throughout the day of work. A few hours later, I find out that my supervisor is working; however, he did not help me at all. When I asked him if he could help me, he told me that he was busy doing something else and that he did not have time to do so, this infuriated me even more. I was ready to throw my equipment at him and tell him, “I quit A**hole!” but I stopped myself from doing so. In the end, I worked by myself finishing all that was needed to be done and then going home very tired. As I came home, I remembered that I had to write a paper for my Local Government class, after realizing this, it was time for me to stay awake for another five hours to read the chapters and write my essay based on what I read and the volunteer work I did for a campaign in Palo Alto.

The morning of Monday came and I was still writing my paper for Local Government. It became obvious that I was going to need to finish the essay later that day because I wasn’t close to being finished. Around eight o’clock in the morning I drove off to school hoping this day would only get better. Around 10 A.M. I got a call from my sister, “Hey Jars, I want you to know that I am safe and that school has been cancelled. I am going to go to work and stay there until 4:30 PM and then I will try to go home and pack some things.” I was stunned to hear what she was saying because I was unaware of the situation. It turns out that my sister, Jazzie, was calling me in regards to the wildfires occurring in San Diego County. After hearing Jazzie’s call, I was worried. I finally went to class by 1:30 PM; however, I was still worried because I had other relatives that live in San Diego. As soon as I got out of class I went to the Student Union plugged my laptop and tuned into the newscast, via a live feed, from San Diego. I then called my relatives in the other parts of San Diego, once I got a hold of my relative, they told me that they were alright and nothing has happened in their part of town. At the same time I was watching the news, I had to write the rest of my paper for Local Government. I finally finished writing the paper. I called my sister to tell her to keep me posted on anything that happens. I finally head off to class after talking to my sister and printing out my paper.

My Local Government class is scheduled at 6 PM to 8:45 PM; however, the class was cancelled last week. I expected that the professor to be there because the class is only taught on Mondays, but it turns out that class is cancelled once again. I was disappointed that I was not going to be able to turn in my paper even after I worked on it for so long. I drove back home and tuned into the news once again to catch up on new developments. It was probably 11:30 PM and I had not started my homework, when I got a call from Jazzie once again, she told me that the area that she lived in was not affected by anything but at the same time she had packed up some of her things, in case she needed to be evacuated. I felt a little better about the situation until I got another call from my cousin, Frances, saying “Hey Ja, it is Ate Frances, we are packing our things right now and we are leaving the house, there is a wildfire getting closer to our house and we are being evacuated.”

The call from my cousin was the beginning of a long Tuesday. I was beginning to do my homework at that time the call came in because I usually do homework around midnight. My Tuesday was just starting and I was panicking. As I did with Jazzie, I turned on the news and watched for new developments. Because the fire was so close my cousin’s house, I needed to listen closely to what was going on. Around 2AM, she called me once again to tell me that her family had packed up their stuff and was about to take off. At one point she said “Hey Ja, give me once second, I just have to take a picture of the fire.” I surprised by her comment, so I said, “the area is burning and you want to take a picture of the fire? What are you doing? Get out of there.” After that I was just watching the news till about 5 AM and by then I was just so caught up in what was going on, I never got to do my homework. The only piece of homework I finished was the one page that I turned in for this class. I was just so frightened for my cousin and her family. Finally, the morning came and it was time to go to school.

I began my school day by going to P.E. and then to my boring Asian Philosophy class. I was still worried about my cousin; I decided to watch the news again. The newscasters did not even mention anything about the area my cousin lived in. After my Asian Philosophy class I called them once again to find out if there was anything going on in their area. Frances said “We are good right now; we decided to go back to the house.” I shook my head in disbelief because the area is burning and they wanted to go back to the house. Around 4:30PM I left school to go home, by then the area where my cousin lived was cleared and they were allowed to go back to their homes. When I got home, I was extremely hungry, but it turns out that nobody had cooked yet. This meant that I had to cook dinner for my family. Even though I was tired from a long night and a very tiring day at school, I still cooked for my family.

It was Wednesday and there wasn’t anything different, I was still worried for Frances and Jazzie. By this time the wildfires were being contained especially in their areas. The day was normal and I went to and came home from school like any normal day, but when I got home it was the same story as the day before. My family decided that they were going to wait for me to cook dinner, so I cooked dinner for them. Even though I had so much homework to work on, my family still made me cook dinner.

Thursday, my mind was still going crazy because of all the homework that I had to stay awake for. I stayed up till 4AM to finish the rest of my homework. Exactly like Wednesday the day was normal until I went to my job. When I went to my job, I found out that the ones that worked earlier in the day decided that they were going to do a half-a** job. This meant that they were going to leave most of the work for the closing shift. The closing shift for Thursdays is one other person and I, meaning it was going to be a hard day at work already. Upon learning of the half-a** job that my co-workers did, I also learned that the other closing team member had called in sick too. This became another bad day at work; however, this time my supervisor wasn’t there for me to want to be pissed off at him.

This is how my week has been so far. There is more to come today and tomorrow.

Photo Credits:
Pictures of Wildfires: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-24/61137.html
Picture of Chefs: http://www.fotosearch.com/PHC007/73258993/

How much time does a student really have? I must say that a student does not have enough time to do much of anything. Most student have the time to do their homework, essays, projects, and studying among other things that school requires him/her to do. But if you had the time, what would you do with it? I asked this question to many of my friends and I got many of the same answers. The consensus was that most of my friends would like to go out to the mall or hang out with other friends. Another answer that many agreed to was to go drinking. Well, after asking some of my friends I felt that I was not getting anywhere with the question that I asked them. However, after more answered the same way, I finally got something new. This person will be remain nameless, however, his response was last semester when he had very little time away from school he made a wallet. I was impressed with this new answer. So I said, "I see, you made a wallet." Then I turned around and walked away because I thought he was joking with me.



Later on, he goes to pay for his share of lunch and I see that his wallet is covered in duct tape. So, I said, "Ey bro now I can tell you made your wallet, because its almost torn apart that you had to duct tape it together." All my friends started laughing because of what I had said. He calmly responded, "Dude, I made this wallet. It is the new thing! It is called a duct tape wallet. Look." So I took his wallet and surprisingly it did not have a wallet inside rather cardboard that was measured to make a wallet.



After seeing and feeling this wallet, I asked him where did he got the idea for it. He said, "he saw it online at a store and it was selling for an expensive price. So I decided that why spend that much when I could spend less and make it myself."



This is what it looks like.







So I did a little bit of research on what he was talking about. On eBay duct tape wallets sell for 10 dollars and up to 8 dollars in shipping.



To my knowledge duct tape cost 8 dollars already for a roll. And cardboard could be found at home along with scissors. So how much should one really pay for this wallet?




This is ingenious, how they make wallets out of duct tape and cardboard. But I have found more items that one could make with duct tape: skirts, roses, check books, hand bags among other things. Practically this means anything can be made as long as duct tape and cardboard are capable of shaping that way.

Photo Credit: http://www.ducttapefashion.com/

Well, it is about that time again in the semester. You know that time where you cram and cram all day long for a whole week just so that you could pass your midterms. Yeah it is that time of the semester. For the past two semesters I have been at San Jose State I have had the luxury of my professors spreading out the midterms and essays through out the the semester. Each semester I could handle the loads of homework, essays, midterms, and projects that have been given to me (Except for that one professor who shall not be named, No it is not Professor Wood). However, this semester has been different, with my two week long leave away from school I had to play catch up especially because the semester was only beginning. Also, in part that this year, the professors that I chose designated theirs midterms, papers, and quizzes all around the same time. It is not that I am complaining, it is just in part that I wanted to say that next semester I need to plan my schedule better than I did this semester.



So in light of all this midterm, essays, projects, quizzes, and projects I found something very funny. I don't know about anyone else but in order for me to really stay awake I have to drink energy drink. Yes, I know that they are bad for you; however, I need it. I do want to pass my classes and graduate at the end of the school year. So back to energy drink. What is the purpose of an energy drink.



"Energy drinks are beverages like Red Bull, Venom, Adrenaline Rush, 180, ISO Sprint, and Whoopass, which contain large doses of caffeine and other legal stimulants like ephedrine, guarana, and ginseng. Energy drinks may contain as much as 80 mg of caffeine, the equivalent of a cup of coffee. Compared to the 37 mg. of caffeine in a Mountain Dew, or the 23 mg. in a Coca-Cola Classic, that's a big punch. These drinks are marketed to people under 30, especially to college students, and are widely available both on and off campus" (Health Department of Brown University).



Well that only means that energy drinks will make you stay awake for long periods of time. Okay, fine let's get to the funny part. I am at the library on Wednesday doing some reading drinking my energy drink because the day before I hardly got any sleep from doing all the other reading I had to do for other classes. So in the midst of my reading another student walks by and I look up. I don't know who it is but I notice that he was holding a Monster Energy Drink. So I think, he must be doing some reading and catching up too. So I go back to my reading minding my own business. 5 minutes later, I hear this loud snore, so I look up. I was thinking who could that be. After looking up I see that same guy that had the energy drink in his hand with his head down on his back pack and the Monster in his right hand snoring so loud. I said wow that energy drink worked out really well for him. Yeah, I thought energy drinks were suppose to keep you awake for a long time at least enough that you could do some reading not sit down for 5 minutes and pass out.


Quote: http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/atod/energydrinks.htm

As I signed up for classes over the summer, I had many options. So I signed up for all the classes I wanted. Nevertheless, I got into all of them. In my search for books at the beginning of the year, I ended up finding out that my friends had some of the books that I was going to need for the upcoming semester. The books that I borrowed from some friends were, The Grouchy Grammarian, Local Politics, and The Brief Penguin Handbook, or so I thought I was going to be able to borrow them. This is not where the frustration begins. Out of the three books that I was going to borrow from my friends I got two of them, The Grouchy Grammarian and Local Politics. I was happy I got two out of the three. I asked another friend if "the Brief Penguin Handbook" was needed. His/her answer was that I was not going to need that book. My friend that I would have borrowed the book from said that he/she needed to go look for it. A few days later, I was told that my friend forgot that he/she had sold it back. So I decided that it wasn't in my financial interest to buy the book, especially if I was not going to need it. I am not at all frustrated yet.

As class progressed, it became obvious to me that I was going to need that book after all. Still grasping the fact that I was informed that I was not going to need the book, I still did not buy it. Then last Thursday, I must admit, I was blind sided by the fact that I did not read the Green Sheet and notice that there would be a quiz on Tuesday. By this time I should be frustrated at myself, but I am not. Monday rolls along well; however, I remember there is a quiz tomorrow. This is my train of thought, "Shit, I got to get that book!" I walk over to the "trusty" Spartan Bookstore, and to my dismay the book is not there. I think, "Oh shit, I am so busted for tomorrow." This is where my frustration started. I call up some fellow classmates to see if, by any chance they has read the book yet and if so, were they willing to let me borrow the book so I could study. The first call I made the answer I got was, "Dude, I have not even touched that book yet, Sorry bro." The second call, "Yeah, I have the book, but I just bought it today. So I don't think I can let you borrow it. I got it at Robert's Bookstore." Frustrated that I had to walk to Robert's Bookstore now.

Eagerly trying to get the book, I speed walk to Robert's Bookstore, and find out that there is only one copy left. So I grabbed it because it was the last one and it was BRAND NEW. Did not care how much it was going to cost me. Paid the cashier and walked on over to my 6 o'clock class. By 9 o'clock I got to my house and got started on my homework. Still putting off the other readings, I finished other homework. Finally around 11:45 P.M. I was ready to read The Brief Penguin Handbook. Looking for the chapters I was suppose to read, I noticed some of the pages were falling out, so I turned to those pages. This is where I really get frustrated. I found out that some of the pages were bound incorrectly and backwards. You would think that because it was a BRAND NEW book, the pages would at least be right side up and bound in the order it should have been bound. But, NO it was not and I had to take apart the book that I JUST BOUGHT and put the pages in the right order.