Oh, what the hell...
I have nothing better to do, might as well give you the second update now.

I went to the first dance on the year last Thursday. I've been worried as hell that I would miss it due to work, but I didn't. Plus, even if I had to work, I am allowed to get someone to take my shift for any reason I want. So, that's no longer a worry. Me and my friends love to go to dances. Actually, just me and one of my friends. Usually, I have to hang out with just him unless a few others show up, which they usually don't.

Anyway, it was crowded as hell. The grade nines have completely infested the school. When the first slow song came on, something very unexpected happened. I was walking around, looking for someone to ask, when someone grabs my arm and asks me to dance. Odd enough, since girls asking guys has been rather uncommon lately. Even more odd, this was a girl in my grade, and I know most of them. I don't often dance with girls I know. Finally, to top the whole thing off, I go to class with this girl. She doesn't talk to me but knows who I am. She's one of the last people I'd expect to do that.

Did I mention she has a kid? Yep, she was pregnant last year. Man, she sure got her figure back awfully quick, having given birth 3 months ago. I ask "So, uh... you were in my class last year?" "Yep" Well, that confirms it. She was in my class last year. The song ends two seconds later, and says "Oh, well, I'll find you later, then" and leaves. Now I'm just freaked. Since when did she like me? She's got a pretty ugly face, I should add. Anyway, that fizzled out. She never bothered, despite running past me several times. I still have no idea why she asked me, but, oh well. A mystery, I guess, but I don't really want to know anyway. My conclusion? Stoned. Very stoned. It happens, some girls I know can act perfectly normal while high.

Also that night, this freaky girl I know told me and my friend to ask to save a dance for her. Yeah, okay, whatever, if I find you, I'll do it, but I didn't take it too seriously. Hell, she's usually too busy helping her firends who seem to have constant issues. My friend, however, took it seriously. He waited a couple times, but finally gave up, but he never got a chance to dance with anyone. He was furious, but is okay now. I had a couple other dances that night too, and the rest of the night was pretty good, althoughI felt really bad for my friend.

The next one is on the 16th of October. Can't wait, something werid ALWAYS happens at dances. I discovered this last year, I expect the unexpected, and boy, does it happen. Maybe I'll tell you one of the strange happenings from last year. Meh, later.

Oh yeah, that interview? Went okay. Probably won't get it, and I'd be fine if I didn't. I like where I am now, it fits well for me, and I'm working in the town I used to live in that I long to return to, so I'm happy. I won't know if I was declined till October anyway, when they'll be doing more interviews.

*puff* I'M BACK! I'M BACK!!!
Sorry, I'm still here! Kinda didn't feel like updating lately. Yes, some stuff has happened. I won't post it all now, since you don't want to read a huge post, so I'll just tell you some more stuff later.

Anyway, I can now give you some solid ideas about this year. Firstly, I don't like my English teacher. She's a strict, no nonsense bitch who says we can't have opinions in this class because they are unimportant and waste class time. We're also numbers, not names. We're really not on the same level as her. Yet, most long time students of her say she's really good. Apparently, she gives out bonuses every now and then that make people like her. Once she had a movie class and even ordered pizza. Us, she gave us 5 points on the term for doing an easy assignment that she said was to her satisfication. Uh huh...

Global History's not so bad. I'm in a better group now, I guess it's okay. I'm meeting new people in it, so it's all good.

Free class is still relaxing, and I have it with plenty of friends. However, there is one day when my friend who I usually spend those periods with isn't there (which is tommorow, actually) so, while I may be stuck by myself, it gives me a chance to do other things and talk to other people. With him, I'm usually just in the cafeteria playing cards with some other people. So I guess it's a plus.

Computer Related Studies is pretty cool. Nice people, funny teacher, and they teach us some interesting stuff.

I also got my second semester schedule. Biology, Math, Free and Sociology in that order. So far, no one I know on any of those. I haven't really checked much, though. I won't have any regulars on my free next semester either, so what happens then will be interesting.

Lunch time is always good since we have a friend with a car now, it's such a relief not to have to walk every day (except on those days when he goes home, as I mentioned earlier). speaking of which, I finally got my full lisence test scheduled. October 1st, my 17th birthday. I've had my doubts about it, but I know my instructor said I do handle a car well, and my mom is usually impressed with my driving. She says I may accelerate too much, but since I'll only be driving about 45 kilometers an hour, (5 below the limit in the testing area) I don't think I'll have a problem.

First day back...
Today was the first day of school. Actually, I should mention first I had my interview on Tuesday (it had to be rescheduled) and it went quite well. Yeah.

Now, I get to the busstop to see it has now pretty much doubled with new grade nines. I arrive at school, get my schedule, and reunite with my friends. I am pleased to see that a couple friends of mine have returned, and after comparing schedules, it appears this will be quite the year.

First was English. My teacher seems to have some mental problems (no joke) and I don't know why she teaches. But, it's not a bad class.

Then my free. Yay. Best of all, my friends from last year's free class are on my free again. My other friend has a free with me, and the class before it. He was going to get that changed so he'll be able to have one both semesters (you only get two) but decided 2-3 hours of classtime a day sounded pretty sweet, and decided to leave it as is.

Then lunch. It's been a routine to walk down to McDonald's or the local grocery store to buy lunch. We hate hanging around at school and this kills all the time. The walk is about 12 mniutes both ways. Usually a leisurely stroll during the warm months, but it's a death walk during winter, even though it's still worth it. However, now, my other friend has a car. It's awesome. A drive to McDonalds every day, you can't imagine how much easier that makes things, especially for winter.

After lunch, I had Global History. This course I'm not sure about. The teacher is good, I've had her before, and I like history, but I don't know anyone in that class. I'm also in an awkward seating position. Not much potential to meeet new people. I left my bookbag in an empty row and figured I'd see who I'd end up sitting with. Well, it's a close knit group of girls who moved my bookbag to the end of the row. Just great. Oh well, I'm just fine for my other classes.

Then my last period is Computer Related Studies, or CRS. The teacher is cool and I have alot of friends in this class. Basically, this class teaches programming, which I probably won't pursue later in life, but will be interesting.

So, this was a brief description of a pretty cool and exciting day. Now, I have a new goal. My last goal of getting a job is done. This year, I plan on getting a girlfriend. Not sure where to start, I'm not in the best position to meet new people now (but it's still early. Who knows) however, On Friday my friend that I hang out with during my free is going home by the time my free starts, since he has his non free classes first, and then free the rest of the day. I'll take that opprotunity to wander around and see if there's anyone else on my free Ican hang out with.

In case you didn't know, a free is a class where you do whatever you want. Hang around the school, cafeteria, it's just like skipping. You don't exist. Anyway, if things don't work out, there's always next semester, where I can start off fresh.

w00ty...
Today was quite the day. I actually had a GOOD day at work. Nothing screwed up majorly. Things were pretty smooth, I got another free meal at break, 3rd time in a row. I also got paid, finally, a decent amount of money, $146, not too bad. Also, the power went out for about 5 seconds. Yeah.

I thought since there's only a week left of summer, the excitement is over. I'll probably have a quiet week like the last summer, and then back to school, where things pick up again. Well, no, looks like things aren't stopping. Before I left, I used the phone there to call Wendy's. I was told to call there because I had to talk to the store manager to see if she had looked at my resume, and she decided to book an interview right away, for Monday at 3pm. So we're back in business now, hopefully I can ditch McDonalds for a better job.

I have nothing that I know of to do Sunday, Monday is my interview and Tuesday I have to work, and Wednesday is back to school. Looks like things won't be too quiet after all...

Puppy
Well, situation defused. My mom and sister picked up the puppy. My mom talked to him last nigfht about it, but still didn't mention it was coming today. They left and brought it home, and I was relieved to know my mom stopped in at my dad's workshop to show it to him. He's home now, and not keen about it, but at least he's not really angry.

The puppy's name is Buster. They named him in the car, and he's a Shipoo, or however you spell it. Here's small, quite furry with a borwn and white face and a black and white body. Very cute, it's a nice dog. My sister takes care of it, but it still cries and whines.

Anyway, I went to get my haircut today, and after that, my mom had to pick up a sub for my dad. I noticed that a local meat shop was hiring, so I decided to see if I was eligable to be hired. They said I was fine and would only need a resume, but suggested I come in tommorow to give the resume to the store manager personally, as she perfers that. I'm also getting my road test reciept, finally.

Well, I'll have a whole new thing to talk about soon, rather than just jobs. Grade 12 begins in a week...

Nervous
I feat the shit is going to hit the fan here. We're getting a puppy. Since my neighbors got one, my mom has wanted one. Now she wants one. But guess what?

My dad doesn't. Oh no. We have a cat, which my dad is fairly calm with now. He doesn't mind her, but he's shown great protest against a dog. He says it's too much of a mess. He doesn't like animals that much, and says he's not willing to clean up the shit and all the other stuff involved. Now, me, my mom and sister are willing to make sure he doesn't have to lift a finger for this dog, but he refuses to believe it.

My dad knows the dog is coming, since my mom ordered it two months ago. What he doesn't know is it's coming Thursday. She has to drive about 2 hours to pick it up. Now I'm worried. If there's one thing I hate it's seeing my dad throw a fit, and he has an explosive temper. I'm just scared to see how he'll react.

I really don't care about the dog. if it were up to me, I wouldn't get it. I really have no use for one. My cat is enough. I'm just praying he'll react calmly to it. That's not likely, but all I can do is pray...

Holy crap...
Are you guys actually READING this?

I tried to go to this page and got a bandwith exceeded error. I checked my bandwith details for the first time in months and saw it was booming. Not nessecarily over, but I checked the hourly usage, and saw bandwith consumption in very nice amounts, not to mention totally different. Back when I was working on my RPG game, I could tell if someone visited or downloaded something. If it was my first game, I would see there was a 12.3MB consumption, or a 700 something KB consumption for my other one. Usually, it was sparce and would be in those intervals. Now, according to my bandwidth, I'm getting people on the hour several times... just when I thought Bart was the only one reading this...

My stomach hurts...
Today I did my first breakfast shift. Thing is, I was never formally trained on how to do it. I had no knowledge of any of the special deals, how to do different breakfast things, nor did I even know what most things were. I don't eat McDonald's breakfasts.

Sure enough, it was busy as hell. I had a runner for a bit (runner=person who assembles your orders while you take the orders of the massive crowd) So that was no problem, I don't mind doing the cash register. However, I found myself in some problematic situations. I found myself with a few orders at once. Getting coffee ready is tough enough for me; I don't do coffee. My family doesn't drink it. It's also very awkward there.

Customers got impatient, one demanded her money back, but I was able to give her order just as she did. Another commented that this place needs to speed up. I felt like a total screwup, and responcible for ruining the entire morning there. However, I realized it wasn't really my fault. I made screwups now and then, but the big delays were the grill workers. I assmembled my shar of the orders, drinks, but when I went to grab the sandwiches or whatever from the grill, they just weren't there. The manager commented that there weren't enough people back there, and it shows. My items weren't ready when I needed them, and took a long time to make. That's the thing about servering: You get the easy work, but everything is blamed on you.

Things calmed down, and I okay. My manager said I could go on break, and I rung in my order. He was going to discount it, but he was busy, and just said "Just go ahead Joey. I got it. You've had a miserable day." and I got my meal for free. That happens sometimes, apparently. That was a nice gesture from one seriously stressed manager, who's living out the great North American nightmare: Working at McDonalds for 30 years.

When my shift ended, I was further frustated by the fact I'm only working tommorow and next Saturday, a total of 11 hours. I went outside to find my mom waiting in my dad's truck. I asked why she took it, and she said my dad had taken the car. Where? To Cape Breton. That's a good 3 hours away. Cape Breton? Why did he just go to Cape Breton? Apparently, my grandfather got really sick from probable food poisoning, but he'll be alright.

That helps... sorta.
Well, I went to work yesterday. It started out stressful, everything went wrong. I noticed a fly in the fridge, so I opened it only to have a small ilk carton have been sitting right in front of it, spilling. You see, this is the kinda thing that happens to me alot. Then, after it was mopped up, someone slipped on it. Thank God they weren't hurt. Then, I had to make a fresh batch of coffee, but not knowing how to make coffee, it overflowed everywhere. It turned out not to be my fault, a girl helped me tinker with it before turning it on, and that's where the mistake was. Either way.

However, after things quieted down, I was fine. No problems for the rest of the shift. One girl was asking if anyone could take a shift for her on Thursday, and I gladly accepted. However, she came back to say the manager wouldn't allow it; I don't work the drivethru yet. Dammit.

Then I checked the shedule. As it turns out, I'm working 6 hours on Saturday, not 4. That's more like it. And I'm working 5 hours on Sunday as well. That's good and all, but I'd be getting real full time hours at the Chickenburger, working most days, being out of the house and making a hell of alot of money. I really got screwed out of this summer.

After work, I went with a friend to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Excellent movie, I saw a few friends there, as well as some extremely giddy girls giggling before the movie started, and apologizing to the whole crowd, promising to shut up. I simply remarked "wow... I picked a great spot to sit..."

I also found a great job bank site. It's like having two sets of newspaper ads, and it's updated daily, unlike the one on the radio with the annoying commercials. Amazing results my ass...

I need another job...
Well, today was quite the day. I had a four hour shift today, and can you say "Nine buses of cadets"? Yep, nine bus loads, non stop insantiy for about an hour, I was busy preparing the orders while a seriously stressed out manager handled the register. Then it calmed down to a very quiet night.

However, the few hours I was previously worried about has become a serious problem. I checked the schedule, only 8 HOURS NEXT WEEK! That's it! That's terrible even for a weekend employment, I've worked more in a day than I am in a week. I am definetly in need of a second job, which balancing both shouldn't be difficult with such few hours. This is serious, my paychecks aren't even going to reach 100 dollars.

I dropped off a resume at Wendy's (for the 3rd time) since I found what appears to be a new sign saying they're hiring. God I hope I hear from them this time, I was promised an interview once the store manager returned, but that never happened.