Friday, October 5, 2007

All the Trouble and the Strife

Hello world.

I know, I know, I'm late for my post! Hey! I don't need you to yell at me! Can't you see I'm sorry? Come on, you know this is my busy time of year. Now don't you cry like that! I'll make it up to you, darling. In fact, I'll do it right now! I'll whip out two glasses of the good font, and we'll have our post right now just like we always do. No! Better than we always do. It'll be a magical evening, just like when we were dating, and we can rest under the stars together. . .

Let's never fight again, world!

Part I: The Strife

Where did I last leave you in the - hopefully- many versed ballad of my life? Ah, yes. I had just started school, and everything was going fine. But, just as the car going down the road at 310 km/h you'll feel like you’re on top of the world. Somewhere down the road, however, you will begin to swerve very slightly, and bam! You're rolling over the highway, almost instantly disintegrating whatever crazy-ass vehicle you used to get going that fast in the first place.


Well, the whole E situation kind of blew up in my face, as I sort of figured it would. What I didn't know is that E had broken up with her previous boyfriend while I was on vacation in the Rocky Mountains. I.S., (who I'll refer to as Tank: the son of a popular Science teacher.) was there to comfort her, as friends do. I had been hanging out with Tank and E for most of the summer, and had grown used to the fact that they would probably end up locking lips eventually, and I would remain a mutual friend of both of them in the meantime. However, I also expected them to maybe tell me when they started going out, or when a significant event happened in their social lives. Like breaking up with a boyfriend.
After I returned from The Rocks I got together with the two of them for a few hours, playing some Tekken, and Guitar Hero, and then finally going on my way. No one had informed me of that anything was going on, but I noticed that they had began to talk amongst each other is hushed voices. I tried to make it seem as though I didn't really care, but I knew I was being left out of something, and due to minor paranoia, kind of figured they were saying bad things about me.

A week goes by, and I get no word from them.

School has started, and I return to my friends from the Grand Table of Lunch. We're all conversing, and having a merry time. Things quickly get back in-swing, and it's the good old days all over again. I get the chance to talk to Tank and E during Physics, but they seem a little pissed off at me. This only further added to my suspicions of them bad-mouthing me. As one particular day, a couple weeks in, comes to a close, I catch up with Tank at his locker. I talk to him about getting together on Friday with E, since it had been so long since I had gotten to spend time with either of them. Having worked several nights a week, school, homework, and other things to worry about, I hadn't gotten a chance to really talk with them in quite sometime. So Tank finally lets me in on the situation, and apparently I'm an asshole for having a goddamn life outside of them!
They seemed to think that I was ignoring them, and just reverting back to my old friends, and that sort of Jazz. Due to having to work about 22 hours a week on top of my homework, and other things I had not been able to do anything with E and Tank since that last day in the summer." Well, shit," I said "I'm asking if you guys want to do something now, aren't I?" The two of them agreed to it, and we planned the Friday as the time.

Of course, this gets into a very long story, but I'll just tell you the ending, to spare the reader of minor, uninteresting, and equally unimportant details.

We had come into my house, to out of the rain. We all dropped into a chair in the Den, and I thought it would be a good idea to change my soaking shirt, as well as grab the two of them some towels to help the wet situation. I got back downstairs, and offered to pull E and Tanks bikes out of the rain, and into the garage. Unfortunately for me, as I came back from putting the storing the bikes I heard an awful sound coming from the den. Sort of like the sound of pulling a nerf dart off the wall. The smack-pop shook my head as a dozen emotions went through me at the same time. The loudest one was probably anger. I was right pissed off. I was pissed off the whole night, but I tried to hide it. When we went out for Pizza, (Tank had to leave for work) E seemed to catch on to my pissed-off mood. I threw up a smile, and went on with the rest of the night. The fact that they were making out didn't bother me as much as the fact that they didn't tell me, and still haven't (however by now it is painfully obvious).

And in my own house! That's the worst part of all! I had to find out by walking in on them in my own goddamn house. That is betrayal at the highest level! And the two of them going at it seems to leave me with the position of Third Wheel, which has left me out of doing anything with them since the Friday of crap.

Part II: The Trouble

Despite my awkward, and frustrating social situation my quest for higher education presses on relentlessly. After an awesome showing of cardboard boatery, my group placing fist out of a combined class of 60, my marks for Physics seems hopeful. However my Math marks seem to be in peril, with a test approaching quickly, and my understanding of the lessons is slipping slowly. However, I have struck speaking grounds with an incredibly bright, and pretty I might add, young lass who has moved to the desk right in front of me since the beginning of the school year. She may be able to help me with my math problems, and save my marks from drooping further.
Guitar has easily become my most enjoyable, and perhaps my most challenging class. New techniques are difficult to master, and note-reading has never been a strength of mine. However, because I love the class, so much I have put a boat-load of effort to keep up, and I think I'm starting to close the gap between the rest of the class. Putting a hell of a lot towards finger-picking and bare chords, I've yet to become Music Literate. However, I've decided to put way more of my time towards practicing Guitar, and less time towards uselessly sitting on the computer. With time, and only time, will I get any better with my instrument. The difficulty of senior guitar is made much better by the attitude Mr. C has towards teaching it. As long as you are making a serious effort towards any sort of improvement he'll give you respect for it.
My math and Guitar will come together someday, and to quote the poster above the chalkboard - a poster I look at every single day - "Just because you can't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Only that you should try harder."

Part III: Do the Walk of Life

To tell you that things have not gone a tad askew in the past month would a complete lie. I'm slipping up in my school work in the most important year to date, and a friendship seems to have blown up in mid air, with an unknown casualty count. Things are reverting back to normal slowly.
In honor of Kyle's 16th birthday five of us went Paintballing on the past Wednesday. This event shall get a post all of its own. A.K., (taking a page out of Liam's book shall receive the nick-name Kalashnikov to avoid future embarrassment.) the unbelievably pretty girl from Math, is willing to help me out with my math issues during lunches. This can only end up being a win-win situation, and other positive things to be posted about in the very near future. No matter how bad you wreck your rocket-car, so long as you’re alive: you can always salvage the pieces and have the long walk back home.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Woohoo!

Good to have things end on a positive note :)

(Also, I thought the intro was pretty funny).

You know, if you've got to cut back on something... probably the job should be the first to go. I was employed in a way that could barely be called "sporadically" while I was in highschool.

Frankly, there's only ONE person I know who made some really decent cash in highschool, and she was a waitress (and probably averaging $15 an hour, when you include wage and tips...).

Most everyone else seems to put in a lot of time... for not all that much gain. You'll make more in 4 months with a full time job, then you will in 10 months at a crappy part-time gig.

Probably summer before last was my worst summer out of the last 4-5, when I was at Coalition Drive (codewords my boy, code words...) and Zellers (No code there, really...). I was making minimum wage at both jobs - but I was working 45-50 hours a week (35 h/w at Unified Path, and usually 5-15 at Zellers). So, over four months, I was working twice as much every week as you do now - so over your entire school year, you'll probably do just as well as I did on my worst summer job(s) ever.

I did have a part time job for 2-3 months or so while I was in highschool - it paid absolutely miserably, and had hours such that homework didn't get done, and I tended to feel miserable.


I mean, sure, if you can swing a job and school, wonderful - but don't feel pressured to accept the hours they put up on the wall; since you probably need them a whole lot less then you think.

JGrant said...

If you're actually putting the money away to help pay for school, and you're getting a decent take, I would suggest keeping up with it if you can manage.

I know that I wish I had worked more in high school so that paying for university would be a bit easier.

However, I often wonder about how my marks would have suffered if I had taken that route. Would I have even been accepted at the school I'm at?

Kinda of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. You should maybe cut back to weekends and mondays or something (I say mondays because you aren't likely to have any homework then, and you continue the pace of your working mentality from the weekend). This way, you have Friday for your social life, and the rest of the week to squeeze in homework.

Of course, all of this advice is meaningless. No teenager, anywhere, ever, has ever been a pro at time management. There will always be the moment where you scramble to get an assignment done, or realize you're too tired after work to finish studying, or you want to go out with your friends and miss out on some readings.

It happens...just make sure you're not leaning too far in one direction at any given time.

Maranatha said...

HAHA!

I didn't know you had a blog!

Also, I'm glad that I happened to meet E and Tank last night, so that I could just jump into this little post and actually know what you're talking about.

Man... I feel somewhat unmanned by the massive size of the other comments in this post, but I don't have too much else to say.

For work, I'll tell you right now that I only put in one night a week while I was in high-school. That had as much to do with my massive extra-curricular involvement as anything else, but it did give me lots and lots of time to devote to things which were actually important.

You can always get a loan to go to school. If you're ineligible for OSAP, then it means your parents make OK money and you shouldn't have any trouble getting a "student loan" from a bank. Wolfgang is the only person I know who's going to graduate uni debt-free and that's largely to do with the fact that he spent the 8 months leading up to his first year working the night shift full-time at CAMI in Ingersoll. And he got that job because his dad works there.

He was seriously making between 25$ and 30$ per hour. Plus time-and-a-half on weekends and double-time on holidays. You cannot hope to match that at your job, so don't discourage yourself by trying.

Oh, one more thing:

"Of course, this gets into a very long story, but I'll just tell you the ending, to spare the reader of minor, uninteresting, and equally unimportant details."

Have you ever read my blog? I'm actually going to take that as a personal insult.

Actually... since you've never commented, there's a small chance you haven't read it. Or at least the new one.

mansmansworld.blogspot.com

Dig it. Not Digg. Just dig.

PS, seriously you and the young Mr. H and I should jam on Sultans of Swing sometime.

Stu said...

""Of course, this gets into a very long story, but I'll just tell you the ending, to spare the reader of minor, uninteresting, and equally unimportant details."

Have you ever read my blog? I'm actually going to take that as a personal insult."

Ah, Mr. Liam, I do read your blog, and enjoy it very much so. Actually, I probably enjoy it due to the fact that you do not skimp on the details at all. However, the details that were in left out of my tale would have been business as usual, and nothing really note worthy. At any rate, I was not rushing towards the details that I was getting to.

And, yeah, I was thinking about just asking for a cut back on the work schedule. My marks need to get on track, and work, at 8.65 an hour, really isn't that important.

Jamming Sultans would be bad ass all over the place. I'm starting to practice that song more than anything ever. Ever.

JGrant said...

Mark Knopfler. You've touched so many lives.

Stu said...

And not in bad old the Michael Jackson way!

No? It seemed good at the time.