Applekidjosh's WWYD Journal

This is Applekidjosh's Journal written for Ed Bellis's What Would You Do. It chronicles a week in the like of Josh in March of 2008.

March 15, 2008
So the rules say I shouldn't mention what happened on days other than today, but a little background is needed. This weekend, from thursday to saturday, I was judging the Illinois High School State Debate tournament. It's actually a fair honor to even be invited to judge, so of course I was fairly obligated to go. Not that it's a bad thing, since I really love the other guys I judge with - we debated together in high school and we've been friends ever since.

So this morning we get up at about 6:30 to leave the hotel room and go to the last day of the tournament. Of course we have to pack up and all that stuff. I don't think anybody in my room had it in them to take a shower that early, oh well. We pack up and Kenny and I get down to the breakfast area around 7:30. We try to scarf down breakfast really quick cause the first round of the day would start at 8:00. Josh and Fulton, the other two judges, had been waiting since 7:00 so they were getting pissy that we were going to make them late.

Anyway, we took off and ended up getting lost a bit. Took a few wrong turns. Let me just say that Springfield is a terrible city, at least in design. Only in America can you find cities that sprawl miles and miles across, but much of it is freaking farmland and country roads. We eventually made it to the first round with no time to spare, and for the first time in this tournament I had a round off!

So I got to sit around and play Disgaea PSP (Josh brings it for me, <3 him) and wait 2 hours until the next round's schematics would be posted. I hang out with some of the debaters that weren't in rounds, have some good chats.

An interesting question/idea was raised around this time. Think about the top 5 smartest men in history. Just think about it, right now.

Who did you come up with? Most people we asked gave names like Einstein, Hawking, Copernicus, Da Vinci, Galileo.

Now, think of the top 5 smartest women in history that aren't Marie Curie.

...stumped? We were too. How terrible/weird is that?

So rounds continue, I judge two flights of Octafinals Public Forum and had to vote down these two girls that I really enjoyed. They lost the round (3-0, at that) but they were really good and the best speakers I've seen in a long time.

I sit around and wait for quarterfinal schems to be posted. When it happens I do have to judge, at this point I'm freaking exhausted. I judged more rounds at this tournament (14) than I have at any tournament in a long, long time. Definitely the most this year.

After that I pretty much sat around, played Disgaea, and waited. Josh and Kenny were judging Lincoln Douglas and their schedule was running differently so we weren't sure how long we'd have to stay. As it happened, our team's coach ended up leaving with the team... leaving us at the tournament to keep judging. It was totally a dick move and we were really freaking pissed. Team unity? Us going out with the team for dinner, with these senior's last tournament? Yeah, it was really sucky.

And sure enough, Josh had to judge the finals of LD. And it was really disappointing. It was just a terrible round. I know Ian Reynolds, one of the guys, is a much better debater than he was in this round. It was just not a good Lincoln Douglas debate.

On the plus side, during the final round I was sitting in the back playing Disgaea and I did end up beating it! Laharl level 87, 28 hours on the game (much of them idle though). I started Etna mode and it seemed pretty cute, but I'll give it a try later. Yay PSP data being transferable between memory sticks - once I can afford a PSP I can pick right up in Disgaea where I left off - trying to get enough gladiators on Laharl's sword to beat CoO3!

Anyway, drive home was pretty bad. Everyone was mad in general, we were packed 4 people into a tiny camaro. It got better toward the end of the drive, and we did eat at Red Robin once we got back into town so that was good (5 alarm burger, btw). But overall I'm just completely exhausted from the weekend. It's one thing to be physically exhausted, but it's a different thing entirely to be mentally exhausted. This is what happens when you are personally responsible for hearing 56 kids debating at each other over the course of a weekend, listening to what they say, evaluating their points and refutations, and making a decision that will disappoint one of the teams to no end. I just need to veg out and play Brawl tonight, I think.

So, bye! See ya tomorrow.

March 16, 2008
Basic news is I went to work, nothing special there. Except the boss and one other worker were out for a smoke, so it was just me and the two 16 year olds in the store. They're both terrible workers so basically I was doing 3 jobs at once. A huge rush comes in so I'm dashing around making sandwiches, one of the girls is on register, and the other is... filling the chips? At a time like this? I don't say anything cause I'm pretty sure I can do the bread and meat parts faster than she could do one of them to "help" me. Then the phone rings and chip girl answers it.

"Customers come first. Stop filling the chips."

That's all he said. She was so creeped out. Turns out the owner was watching from his house on the cameras. Creepy! But yeah, he didn't say who he was or anything. We think it makes him feel more powerful and important to be scary like that.

After work I visited my dad cause it was his birthday yesterday. Man, he's in worse shape every time I see him. This time I find out he's been out of work for 2 months, with at least 3 more months before he can work again. He's still passing out when he coughs too hard. And now he has to wear a heart monitor. He's taking 8 medications per day, yet he's still smoking. "The doctor told me to quit smoking," he says. Well yeah, they've been saying that since he first started getting sick 5 years ago, and he's "quit" a thousand times since then. At least he doesn't fake it and do it in secret anymore, that was the worst. I don't see my dad very often and it's kind of sad, cause he's a nice guy, he's just not a very good dad. My brother wants to go by there again tomorrow so I guess I will, and maybe try to fix his computer while I'm over there. I'm sure he just overran it with spyware cause of his non-internet savvy porn surfing. Maybe I'll add certain XXXtube sites to his bookmarks while I'm there >_>

Then there was waiting for 2 hours for a tow truck to come and get Amanda's car. Her tire was completely flat, you could step on it and hear the air whoosh out. Apparently her dad has a friend that has a shop so they towed it there. It's always nice to have connections, and Amanda's dad seems to know everyone. Maybe it has to do with him being a hippie?

The most important thing that happened today was Amanda getting me back on track for the things I need to be doing in my life. We made a list together so I can start checking them off as I do them. Those of you who haven't experienced depression/anxiety don't know what it's like to want to do something so very much, but still not be able to because of a mental block or lack of motivation or whatever. Think of it as laziness, but without the ability to turn it off. It's terrible.

1) Taxes, 2) Fafsa, 3) clean my room, 4) last semester's financial aid, 5) last year's taxes, 6) put up my laundry, 7) housing paperwork, 8) $300 for bursar by March 28, 9) start saving my paychecks in an envelope for number 8, 10) call and renew my prescription (doing that tonight!), 11) start using a scheduler, 12) make an appointment with my psychiatrist, Dr. Vander Kooi, 13) email Dr. Thomason so I can sign up for classes for summer/fall, 14) Register for those classes, 15) start working out again, 16) Make appointment with a counselor so i can start seeing someone again.

Some of those are things I've needed to do or been in the process of doing for about 8 months. That, my friends, is depression in action.

After all is said and done I did get about half an hour of Brawl in with Amanda and my brother. It's still really fun. My brother is all "we need to turn off this stage or that" and I think that's dumb at this point. It's too early to decide certain stages or items are stupid. Play the game to its fullest before you start cutting stuff out to enhance the replayability!

March 17, 2008
Woke up too late again today, and my stepdad took the car so I needed to take the bus. Took a shower and shaved and by that time I'd missed my bus. So I got to make the wonderful phone call "I missed my bus and I'll be an hour late to work." Ouch. (Actually found out later I almost got fired for this - first offense! Lame!)

In my extra hour while waiting for the bus I did two things on yesterday's list though! I renewed my prescription and mailed my 2006 taxes. That really improved my mood.

It's super rainy today though, storms off and on. I always hate waiting for the bus in the rain because the part of the park that I wait at is all mud.

When I finally get to work I jump right in and start helping, it's apparently one of the most busy days ever so my help was desperately needed. I'm doing good, keeping things moving fast... and then...

In a brief lull I went to scoop up all the used deli paper (that the meat is on until we take the meat off for sandwiches) and under all the paper happened to be one of the knives. I slit my finger all the way along the blade before I knew what happened. Blood was gushing out into my vinyl glove. My reaction was "uh Hillary you need to grab someone else to help with sandwiches" and I sort of stumbled to the back room.

People get injured fairly often at Jimmy Johns, and some people have lost parts of their fingers on our slicer, so I guess I was lucky. The cut was about half an inch long but it must have been pretty damn deep, right on the tip of my finger, because it would just not stop bleeding. After a few blood soaked paper towels I used some Bactine spray and that helped the pain, then gauzed it up. We didn't have any gauze tape in our first aid kit, totally lame, so I had to use masking tape and that just doesn't stick to gauze. Oh well.

After about 15 minutes of recovery I went back to work, though I wasn't going to do anything near the knives or things that involved getting my hands wet. So I answered the phones, wrapped sandwiches, and got the register. Once the lunch rush was over I did the cleaning that I could do. I did as much as I could, really, and everyone was pretty nice to me about it. After 2:00 when several people leave it was just me, the manager, and a new friend of mine that works there. Because of that, I had to get back on the line. I tried to pick up the knife and cut the bread and my hand was shaking too much to line it up. It's sort of embarassing, but I had to ask my friend Carrie to do it for me. After awhile more I could cut bread again, but my hands, or more specifically the finger that was injured, were shaking or twitching for a long time.

Finally got off work and had the balls to try a Gargantuan. If you haven't tried it, it's every meat we have, plus cheese, mayo/tomato/onion/lettuce/oil/vinegar/oregano. It was... well actually pretty damn good! The onions were overpowering but sometimes you just get strong onions. I wouldn't eat it often, cause it was a crapload of food, but I was in just the right mood for it today.

Once I finally got back into town I was delighted to see Amanda was still at my house. The best part of her student teaching is she's doing it really close to my home, so I get to see her one day during the week! So we snuggled and napped and ate dinner and played brawl. All together a good evening. My technical prowess at Brawl shows when my family all struggles on getting a certain objective (for instance, beat target smash level 5 in :30) and I do it in just a few tries. I actually beat it with a few seconds to spare with my darling Jiggly!

I just took her home and listened to an hour of Love Line, now I'm eating ice cream and writing about my day! Probably gonna go play some more brawl now.

Oh and hey, I put $20 in the tank and jesus that's not a lot of gas these days. It barely filled it to half way. I can't afford $40/week in gas ;_;

March 18, 2008
So today I got to go to work at 10 instead of 11, to help get ready to open. Because of that I was there for an epic "rush" at like 10:40 - we got a fax saying this place needed 18 box lunches by 11:15. My manager is like "no way we can do that" and I'm like "we must try!" So even though it was her, me, and this guy named Franco that's been there for several months longer than me, the manager is like "Franco let Josh take bread he's much faster than you."

aww yeah I got the hard job

So we quickly made all 18 sandwiches, and got the box lunches set up, and finished it completely by 11:05. Hell yeah. I did the impossible. I am the best.

Then the weirdest thing happened, but people started calling off sick or whatever, saying they needed days off. This one girl, Trista, called and was like "I need a day off this weekend" and my general manager says "Yeah, you've got it. Don't bother coming in next week either, you're not on the schedule." and he hangs up on her. Epic firing! She had it coming, she didn't really work very hard so she was dead weight.

Speaking of dead weight, lol getting out of climbing the ladder for dusting by being above the maximum recommended weight. I'd have to come up with some other excuse if I was skinnier I guess, but no way do I climb a ladder like that with my fear of heights!

Daily readers will recall I recently sliced open my finger. Well let me tell you, typing S, W, and X hurts like a mother. Sucks cause S is a pretty frequent letter!

Uh, aside from that I drove my mom to the doctor in the rain, and while I was there I made an appointment with my psychiatrist, Dr. Vander Kooi. Strike another thing off my list! That's 3 of 16 done. After that we went to visit my sister while we waited for rush hour traffic to die down. She has a neat little apartment in st. louis, she's living alone while she's separated from her husband. I sat around awhile and relaxed and played with her dog Soldier.

Drove home, and the drive home was an epic struggle against my intestines. I felt like I was going to EXPLODE. Cramps and bloating oh god it was like a terrible period. We finally get to walmart to pick up mine and my mom's prescriptions and I run straight to the toilet and it's like a freaking explosion of crap in every direction into the toilet. I almost propelled myself upward, Wario style. Once I got that taken care of, I felt much better. But it's weird that it hit me so hard, so suddenly.

Once home I've been going back and forth between Brawl and B8 (to get more numbers for brawl >_>) all night. Played some really good matches, it's annoying that freac plays as Wario every time while everyone else I've played with switches it up a lot for fun. I mean I can understand playing as your "main" in a 1v1 important match but just when playing for fun? That'd get really boring to me. I'm finding my Pikachu and Toon Link, as well as Olimar, tend to get me the most success. I suppose I'll work on them! I still enjoy using Samus, I'm just not that good with her... and I'm even worse with ZSS so I sorta have to avoid the smash balls.

Last thing of note is the B8 Debate League that might be starting up. I seem to be a bit of an authority on NFL rules and stuff so it seems I'll be judging! That's pretty awesome. I wish I got paid as much as I do to judge real tournaments, but what can ya do...

Oh and on the note of topics, I started a new contest for "which superpower is better." It's got a pretty good following so far, day 2 has almost 50 posts. That's way more than ANY of my best vg couple topics got! I'm going to go through all the "regular" superpowers, like flight and super speed and stuff you see in the justice league... then I'm going to hit more obscure ones like animorph style morphing power and summoning familiars! Should be a blast.

Oh crap, forgot the most important thing (contest-wise)! Bellis gave me the okay, so this topic does count and I'm not gonna get eliminated! Unless something else happens to me in a day or two! Course, I don't think I can be expecting much sympathy from Bellis in this contest any time soon, I think I've played my extenuating circumstance card to death.

March 19, 2008
Today was fairly uneventful! Not sure what I'm going to talk about, but I'll start from the beginning I suppose!

I was running a bit late to work, and I had to get gas, so blah. I had my brother with me cause while I was at work he was going to drive around and look for a job. I respect that, cause he desperately needs an income. Not only does he have responsibilities, I'm just freakin sick of going to a restaurant and him saying "so how much can I spend?"

Oh right, so I'm driving and I'm doing about 45 in a 35, no biggie, but the light turns yellow and the truck in front of me SLAMS on his brakes for some reason, he was just about to go through the light but I guess he just didn't want to pass through on yellow? So I slam on my breaks and swerve into the next lane, I'm really damn lucky there was nobody there cause I didn't have time to check, I just had to move. So yeah, almost got in a wreck. And then the guy has the nerve to look over at me like I was doing something wrong? Ugh I hate people!

At work I actually got assigned to be on the register for the first time. If you can imagine, in a sandwich shop that values speed over everything in making sandwiches, working the register is pretty relaxing! I'm used to running credit cards now, and I only messed up one thing in my entire shift - and that was in ringing up an employee sub, so no biggie. The good thing about being on register is you really can't do much else cause you have to be ready to greet a customer as soon as they come in the door and take their order as soon as they're ready. So no answering phones or cleaning! The bad thing is the time passes unbearably slow when you're basically sitting around waiting for people to come in.

Later this old guy comes in with a bluetooth headset and we can tell right away he's gonna be a grumpy old guy. He complains the music is too loud, but he makes chitchat while we're making his sandwich so he doesn't seem too bad. Though making a crack about "so which of you is hilary and which is obama, cause I'm hearing a lot of empty promises!" (in regards to our Tuna not being caught in alaska or some ****) and the only other people in the store, besides me, were a woman and a black guy... >_>

So this guy is sitting down to eat and he yells at us to turn down the music, or he can't eat his meal. Now we're really not supposed to, Jimmy Johns atmosphere is part of its appeal - it was designed to be and remains a college person hangout. We play rock music, that's just what we do. So we turn it down a little, since he was nice enough so far. A few minutes later he yells over at us, "Are you going to turn that music down more or am I going to have to demand a refund for this sandwich?" We just look at each other in confusion and he continues "I'm here for a business lunch, and I can't hear my phone calls to do business!"

Yowza! We did turn the music down a little more because nobody wanted to deal with an irate old man (I've seen them, they can be scary! They have good forward-B!)

Uh the other reason my brother came was so we could go visit my dad after work, but apparently during one of Matthew's job application excursions he ripped a huge hole in his jeans, from the crotch all the way down to the knee of a leg. So uh, he wanted to go straight home and I couldn't really argue with that.

Not much happened after that. Notable things include walking my dog around the block and taking a nap. Chatting with Amanda on the phone. Playing Brawl for a few hours, got in like 10 good matches against Cokes. Oh, and new episode of South Park was awesome satire at its best.

I wanted to conclude my day by checking off something else on my list, the housing application, but apparently if you've ever lived in housing you have to call before you can apply now, since they have some kind of new system. So I'll have to do that in the morning.

For the record, this is the 2nd day in a row that my message was exactly 4138 characters. Weird.

March 20, 2008
So today was the 3rd day in a row I've had to put gas in the car, and let me tell you, that is not cheap. I'm getting really sick of it, and it's the #1 worst thing about having to commute to Jimmy Johns. My first hour there every day just pays for the trip, and it's not like I get a lot of hours.

Once there I found out how fun the day would be - the owner was in and would be all day. Also two new girls were training and they were both stupid as hell. I basically ran around doing whatever I could to keep busy, did some of the cleaning, and helped out the girls a little. Someone should have noticed I have experience in teaching new people how to work, and let me do that full time. I may have only been at JJ for a month and a half or so, but I practically managed my subway 5 years ago and I'm a student supervisor with training duties at the library. I know I'm a much better teacher than the owner, that was coddling them all day. I would not be surprised at all if they just never show up again.

The cool thing was after work. I stopped by SIUE and had a picnic outside with Amanda as she was getting off work! I brought her a sandwich and I also surprised her with new animal planet cereal with a panda on the front!. I told her I didn't know if it was made out of pandas, or if it was just panda food, but either way it was a sweet surprise for her ^_^. I have been making a conscious effort to do more sweet/romantic things lately because I know she was getting a little bored with our situation. We're "practically married," as the saying goes, but since we don't live together it's hard to stay close, and that leads to her just kinda being bored with the relationship. I will not have that! So since I realized this and started doing something about it I think we're doing a lot better.

Oh, and I asked her if she was going to be posting on B8 tonight and she said "prolly not" cause she said she's tired of it again. Apparently people don't pay attention to her topics and that bores her cause when she does stuff on Deviantart or Xanga at least people care. I can see her point, but in a message board community you really have to work to get to a status where your topics regularly get posted in. When I make a topic, 90% of the time they'll get some response. But it's been better, at the height of my "epopularity" I could make a topic and basically be guaranteed 10 posts no matter what the subject matter was. I probably cared too much about gamefaqs at that time so I'm glad I've backed off a little. You can tell, my AMP has gone from ~2000 down to ~350!

At home I did a bit of Brawlin, for about an hour I played with Cokes, "tyler" (?) and someone else. Cokes must've been more in his element in a 4 player match, or else he was just having a bad day yesterday, cause he really turned it up a notch. I only won matches when I was one of my good characters! Cokes also seems supernaturally good at getting those Smash Balls.

After that I took a nap, which I just woke up from. Some would call a nap at 10PM until 3AM "sleeping for the night" but I call it a nap because it wasn't very comfortable. Also because sleeping would disqualify me from this >_>

So what's up with the rest of the night for me? I'm probably going to get something to eat (oh god 4th meal what have you done to me taco bell) and watch some more Mai Otome. This series is a lot more interesting this time through, having watched My HiME now. You pick up on a lot of references and connections. They are connected in a similar was as FF10 and FF7! Mwuahahaha that's right I'm one of the 10/7 connection pushers!

One last thing. On the List front, I did email Prof. Thomason about my PIN. After posting this I'll check to see if I got a response. I tried to sign up for housing but apparently if you've ever lived on campus you have been assigned a username/password for a new system they're using, and I have to contact the office to get it. So this morning I called and they said the guy who does that is out, so email him. I did THAT, and so I've gotta check that email as well. So one thing off the list, and another thing working on.

Today was my Friday, I'm off work until MONDAY cause of Easter! Best part of Easter, personally? Seeing my adorable niece Ariel. I oughtta get a picture with her for Yoblazer...

March 21, 2008
Today I didn't have work. Woo! So I spent the early part of my day being lazy and posting on Board 8 and stuff. My little brother (11) made pancakes but did a terrible job, they weren't cooked all the way OR mixed all the way so one of the pancakes had two egg yolks in it >_>

Uh I did some stuff I've been meaning to do for my mom, like bleach the floor and stuff. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, my friend Zach shows up for the first time in 1.5 years. Or should I say Sgt. Zach Weidner, just home from Iraq? It was so great to see him, and man is he looking good. We just chatted a bit to catch up, and right when he was getting into some stories he had to go spend more time with his family. We'll see him again soon for more stories... and for drunkenness. Drunken stories! Perfect!

On the flip side, my other friend in the military found out he has Cancer today. It's just Hodgkin's Disease, so apparently it's the most curable type of cancer? But still, that's gotta suck some severe ass while you're in the middle of your service to find out you have cancer and can't even come home for treatment. He's going to see about getting transfered to Scott Air Force Base in St.Louis but who knows if that'll pan out. It's really scary to think about, y'know? A friend that you've had since you were kids has cancer, like, an adult problem. I've got friends with kids, friends with cancer, what's next? Friends with real jobs?!?!

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly a couple friends coming over for Smash Bros, especially since they brought Amanda in to town for the weekend. I really appreciate spending time with her recently, and as soon as I finish typing this I'm gonna go spend the night at her place (ooh la la!). So we played some brawl, I won like 5 of every 6 matches so it sorta got boring for them eventually. They have the game but they don't even have all the characters unlocked >_>.

Once Smash got boring we popped in a movie, something I've never seen but have wanted to see for so very long... Reservoir Dogs! Boy was that an interesting movie. The DVD was the Mr. Pink edition, and I'm glad, cause he was the best. Good old Steve Buscemi! I don't agree with the people that say it's Tarantino's best work... I like Pulp Fiction a good deal more, and I'd even put Kill Bill above Reservoir Dogs, but it was definitely an entertaining movie. What's up with not ever really getting to see Mr. Blue? Huh.

After that we had a few more matches of Brawl, I laid the smack down a bit more. My friend Weston was one of the people over, and we used to live together. Back then we played Melee fairly often and we were almost 100% equal skill with each other. We'd have epic matches that go back and forth the entire time... so it's really sad that I'm so much better at Brawl now! I know, or at least hope, that he'll get accustomed to the differences and be his old self, cause he was the best competition I had ready access to in real life!

Not that it matters too much now cause of Online Play!

Oh, and I got a phone call from a friend at work. Sorta weird! She just wanted to know if I was doing anything tonight, so I told her I had friends coming over. She seemed disappointed. Did she want to go hang out? Was she inviting me to her place? Or did she just want me to cover her shift...? I may never know!

Oh, list update - I got an email back from the Housing guy and he told me he set it up so I could register for the online housing application. Cool, right? So I go to do that and it says username/password incorrect. Well that's odd. So I go to the Recover password thing, and all it wants is an email... and it says my email is invalid! I tried all 3 emails I ever use, including my school email and my business email, and none of them worked. So apparently the system isn't as keen as the guy thinks it is. I'll have to call on Monday to get it straightened out.