God, I can't stand my English teacher...
That Romeo and Juliet flash is the funniest thing ever...

My English Teacher is such a bitch. She is obsessed with proving her superiority over us. She doesn't allow opinions. To her, we are uneducated non-people who are not entitled to opinions. Not until we have PHDs are we considered to have valid opinions. She also enjoys humiliating people in front of the class. She will make your errors known and treats us like garbage, and that we should but never will be on her level of perfectness anytime soon.

One example was awhile ago, I asked her what the word "syntactical" meant. She just glared at me. "It means grammar, Joey. You should know things like that. I don't know how you made it through 12 years of school if you can't figure out simple words like that." The hell? Screw you, bitch! Not many people know that, I would think. She says that same line to my friend next to me quite often.

I also mention that she spelled a word wrong in a handout she gave us. She glares at me again, and says that she didn't. The word was "Skillful" spelt "Skilful". She sternly tells me that it can be spelled both ways, and leaves. I grumble to myself, but she comes back a few minutes later, with a bloody DICTIONARY. She ponits out how wrong I am, by proving that it can be spelt both ways. Then points out syntactical in the dictionary and says to look it up rather than ask, reiterating how foolish I am. YOU'RE THE DAMN ENGLISH TEACHER! TEACH IT!

Then, she says to me that she has worked hard to get to where she is, and not to diss her spelling as she takes great pride in it (oh, but apparently, it's okay to diss my vocabulary) and that I am a mere student, and am not in the position to tell her anything, and I quote "Come back in ten years with a PHD, then I will shake your hand". Yeah, I'll slap you in the head with it, you dumb bitch!

Finally, she annoucnes to the class the importance of knowing certain words and that you should know them by now. I simply remark "I just wanted to know what the word meant..." She is cocky and snarky beyond belief. She actually scolded my friend for not putting down some chairs, and said it would have been a mere favor to her, to return the favor to him which she could have easily refused to do. What favor? He said she marked him absent, when he wasn't. THAT'S NOT A FAVOR! YOU MADE A MISTAKE! He wasn't absent, so fix it! He's entitled to it!

Lastly, in my rant about this terrible teacher, she even points out the most trivial mistakes. I was doing a presentation for a project, in which I said " We did our project on-" And she pipes up" No no no! I'm sorry, you didn't already do you project. You are DOING your project. This is the presentation right now, you can't say you did it on something already. Shut the hell up! God, what's her problem...

*twitch*
Well, that ends one of the most dramatic days I"ve ever had...

I knew I was going to have a tense day, but I never would have expected this. I wait for my mom to take me to my driving test just before lunch. My friends act like assholes, taking advantage of my tenseness. Finally, I go outside to see my mom has arrived. We drive to the McDonalds I work at because I wanted to get my pay stub. However, it's busy and will take a few minutes, which I don't have. I only have about 40 minutes, and I have to practise reverse parking, which I am not 100% confident with.

I try backing into spaces with very little luck. I got very frustrated, trying numerous times. Finaly, there was about 20 minutes left and we decided to leave. We got to the mall where I was supposed to meet the tester. But, we had no idea where to go. We couldn't find an entrance, and the interior was off limits because of renovations. So we go behind the mall, but there's nothing there. I ask some guys where it is, they say it's not here. That there's only one in the city, and the one here has been torn down.

Okay, what the hell? Time's running out. 10 minutes until my appointment, and being late could get it cancelled. We drive over to the gas station next door so I can ask if anyone knows there, while my mom calls the main DMV to see if she can figure it out. We're at 5 minutes now, and things are really tense. My mom is getting seriously frustrated, and I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. The people at the gas station don't know either. I run out to se my mom on the phone. She yells "Walmart!" which is just down the road. I run into the car. One minute left.

If I don't get there in time, I'll lose my appointment and I'll need to renew my beginners lisence before I'll get another chance. We go down the road and desperately wait for some slow drivers to pass, and then pull down, looking for a place next to a doctor's office and a tailor's shop. I see a big alcove where there are a couple offices. I get out there and run across the street and find "Registry of Motor Vehicles" on one door. I burst in and run into a man, who immediatly asks "Are you the 1:30 appointment?" "Yes" "Okay, I just need to go to my car. I'll be right with you."
Holy crap...

He comes back and I get in the car. Now I"m very nervous. He gets in and we take off. Suddenly, all the advice I heard in the past from friends rush through my head. I remember a girl who mentioned she failed her test for not yeilding to a pedestrian. I then notice a person trying to cross. I stop and let her through. Phew...

I drive as cautiously as I ever have. I'm desperate to keep the speed under 50 kilometers (the limit) I drive around, make lane changes when I realize that I need to (like if I need to make a left turn in the right lane) early into the test, as a friend mentioned I would. I check everywhere, constantly worrying if the last action I made was correct. I notice my instructor isn't even looking at me. He's just fixed on the road ahead. I make a curb park and do it as good as I think I can, and turn the wheel the right way. He tells me to keep going, and I leave, but realized I didn't signal.

I end up going back to the Walmart parking lot, almost going into the painted island while checking my blind spot. Now the dreaded reverse park. I start reversing, and realize I'm going to hit the car next to me. I pull ahead a bit, and ease my way in. I'm actually making it, then he says that's good, and to stop. Here we go, moment of truth.

He tells me that I should remember to signal when I do my parking, and not to go into the left lane. He seems cheerful. He then says I'm qualified and I get my lisense. I felt like the winner of American Idol. I had a hard time picturing I would pass, but I did. I thanked him greatly, and searched for my mom who was coming out of Walmart. Apparently, she was more nervous than me, and couldn't believe I made it. We went back into Walmart, and I bought a new shirt and the Matrix Reloaded.

Afterwards, though, I was emotionally drained. I just didn't care about anything anymore. Even at the dance, I never danced with anyone, I just didn't seem to have the nerve to ask anyone, not to mention it was quite difficult to do so that night. But then, I still didn't care. It was boring as hell, and only one friend of mine was there, making it really hard to have any fun after the first hour or so.

But yeah, I'm fine now, and just glad to shut up all those dumbasses who told me I'd fail.

I hate wind.
Dear god, another storm? It's raining a bit here with some wind gusts, but nothing we haven't seen before. With any luck, we'll keep our power. It's exected to be about ? as powerful as Juan, and since the trees are clear, maybe we'll be okay. It won't do as much damage, it shouldn't take as long to restore any power, and hopefully at least my uncle will maintain power, allowing us to use the generator. I do know some parts where my friends live have no power, and my school still has power. The long strip of road that had power the morning of the hurricane, where I work, amazingly has no power.

Anyway, my drivers test is tommorow. It damn well better be, anyway. My only concern is reverse parking, which I hate. I just need to get a better estimate of how far I must go till I should start backing up. Other than that, I've conquered all other aspects of it. I'm really not nervous about it at all, surprisingly. After my 1:30 appointment, I get to go home for the rest of the day, and get the Matrix Reloaded DVD, and my pay cheque, and then the school dance.

So if the weather holds out, it'll be quite a day tommorow...

Fire.
Yeah.

On Thursday, I was getting really fed up that we STILL had no power. Worse, I had to endure it because I soon discovered I wasn't going to be called into work. So, I had to ride the whole thing out. Well, at least till the afternoon when my dad brought the generator over for the day, at least giving me a nice dose of TV.

Still, I had to do whatever I could to keep busy. Biked around the block a few times, played solitaire (I am damn good at that game) and continue to listen for updates on my radio. I went in my backyard and down into the wooded area. I used to hang out there with my cousins, there's this neat fort thing which is a bunch of trees and wood and crap forming a circle that we used to hang out at. I have no idea who built it, but it was neat, and had a trail behind it leading to the lake. Not anymore. I don't recognize it anymore. There were more trees down than I could imagine, forming a maze of branches and huge roots sticking out of the ground. I tried to find that clearing with the fort, but couldn't. I hit a dead end, there was simply a wall of trees. It was quite the obstacle course, but keep in mind this is very thick woods, and I couldn't go around without risking getting lost.

That night, some cherry pickers came down the street. I felt like an Iraqi first seeing the U.S forces fight back Saddam's regime, well, at least without getting a bomb dropped on my house. They started clearing trees that were leaning against power lines. They weren't power trucks, but still, after a week of nothing, this was an encouraging development. The power company is now clear to come in and fix things, whenever that may be.

Later, my uncle came to pick up the generator. He said he noticed that just up the street has power now. Yeah, that sucks, but hey, his next door neighbor has power and he doesn't. So do the people across the street. There are only 5 houses including him on his street with no power. Needless to say, he was extremely pissed. He's got a nasty temper. If either of us got power, we'd be happy. The other could keep the generator full time, which would have been enough. He also said he noticed sparks coming from a power line up the street.

we unhooked the generator just as he left, and my dad decided to turn on the breaker, just in case they restore power later on. Wouldn't you know it, the lights flickered on! We had POWER! As it would turn out, the whole community had it, but our neighbors don't because their service lines are down. Go figure.

So, we are pretty estatic, and hop in the car to happily return the generator, which they now have as long as they want. At my cousin's house, he shows me around how the street has no power. He's pretty pissed that my out of the way home has power and he doesn't. Later, my uncle is about to call the power company and take a scraping off them, when the phone rings. My uncle answers, and says something to my dad in french. My dad gets up and says we're leaving. He said there's something happened back home, and the fire department was there.

My dad races home, and my uncle follows. I feel sick wondering what's happening. After all this, now there's a fire problem at my house. We arrive to see the power company and a fire truck outside. Power crews and firemen are checking out the house. My mom and sister are out by the driveway, holding the puppy with a very shaken look on their faces. My house, however, looks fine. We pull up to a fireman who explains the line to the telephone pole frayed and caught fire, causing a small fire to the siding. The power company put it out and the fire department, who was up the street responding to a similar call (Remember what my cousin said?) is inspecting the house. My dad starts cursing and losing his temper, and my mom is starting to cry also. No one was hurt, but it shook us up alot. They let us back in, and say they'll restore our power as soon as they find the problem. Disappointed, I was going to go to bed when I noticed the power company came back to our pole to work on it again. A few mniutes later, the power came back. Everyone calmed down, and things were back to normal.

Well, sort of. The surge melted our cable lines, meaning no cable and no internet. We still had satellite, but my TV seems to be damaged by the surge. I'm not sure if I can fix it or not. For the next week or so, we must serve as a bed and breakfast for our neighbors. We lend my uncle's generator to one, and we let them use our showers and sleep in our heated house. They had to wait 12 days before power was restored.

So, I go back to school after missing an entire week. A fair amount of people didn't have power for awhile. A nearby school had it's gym roof collapse and it's brand new floor ruined. Well, now I have to look forward to this week, where I have a dance and a driving test on the same day. Hmm...

Hurricane Part 2
Now, we come to Tuesday... last week, mind you.

I hang around for a couple hours, trying to stave off boredom. I make one of my bike runs around the block which I end up doing numerous times to see if there's any power trucks in the area. I then get ready to work at the only McDonalds that's open in the metro area.

I arrive to see the drivethru already backed up to the street. My mom drops me off in the middle of the road, unable to get in the driveway. You see where this is going. I go inside and see the line is backed to the rear entrance. I enter the kitchen and join the madness.

There are people from nearby towns assisting us becuase their McDonalds still has no power. Yesterday the store came to the brink of closing due to lack of food, and there was a lack of change until I showed up, so the store would now have no trouble functioning. So, I join the chaotic scramble, reminiscent to the hospital scenes in the Pearl Harbor movie. We can barely move around, and the store is a busy as posible for a few hours.

Amazingly, things actually died down in the afternoon. At that point, the manager gave me some fresh air constantly sending me outside to change the 20 freaking garbages outside. You wouldn't believe the things people put in there. Bags of recyclables, empty potato sacks, other household garbages, it's like someone got their garbage service cut off and drives around at midnight looking for places to ditch their garbage.

I learn that school is cancelled again tommorow, and even though I was scheduled for that day, I volunteered to come in 5 hours earlier, noon, to help out. I go home to generator power and get a quick fix of TV before my dad has to return it. I join him to my cousin's house, and by the time I get home, I can go to bed.

WEDNESDAY: Did I mention this is my 17th birthday? Yep, spent it working all day. I was supposed to have my driving exam, which was still scheduled to happen, but I had to change it. It's now on the 16th, in the afternoon, the day of the school dance.

Things were crazy at first, but died down totally by ther afternoon. Still alot of people with no power, it surprised me no one was coming here as lately people have been looking for provisions or at least a meal that isn't soup cooked over a barbecue. Areas around my work are starting to regain power. On my break, I went downstairs with a friend of mine who works there. Suddenly, the power goes out. It's pitch black in the staff room, but comes back on in a few minutes. I think I put salt in my drink.

Tommorow, I guess I'll tell you the shocking conclusion to the power outage. Things did get quite crazy the next day...

*crawls out of hole*
I just got my internet back after losing it for 2 weeks to Hurricane Juan. Now, you get to hear the story! Well, just the power outage. I've had power for a week now.

SUNDAY: Word is spreading of hurricane Juan. No one takes it seriously, but we are semi-concerned about it. That night, I wake up around 11:30 to hear raging winds unlike anything I've seen here before. Then the power goes out. Figures. I try to sleep, but can't. Power comes on for 5 minutes, then goes out again. It makes no sense why it would suddenly come on, but oh well. This time, it stays off. I start to worry increasingly about my cat, who is outside. As the night goes on, I get more and more distraught. I mention this to my mom when I go to the bathroom, who is worried too. Winds are blowing at 145 kilometers an hour. I fall asleep, wake at 6. I decide to get up. I see my mom, who tells me the cat came back safely. I breathe a huge sigh of relief, in disbelief my cat actually survived that. I still have no idea how she made it.

MONDAY: Err... yeah, after that I look outside. I see trees down everywhere, snapped like toothpicks in my neighbor's woods. I see some very large ones gone in my backyard as well. We drive around the community, to see alot more destruction. Streets are a mess, service lines are down across driveways, trees lean against power lines and a couple are on the road. No real damage to any houses, although a couple cars had trees fall on them, but seemed undamaged.

We get a report on the radio about the damage. Two people are dead, and alot of damage has been done to Halifax. I go back home and check My backyard. The woods area, which is nothing but thick trees with a path to a clearing and to the lake, gone. I don't recognize it anymore. The path is gone, nothing but walls of trees and obstacles. It's quite the struggle, clmbing over everything, trying to find a way. Pretty fun actually. However, I soon hit a dead end. I simply couldn't get past this wall of trees. That place was full of dead trees, so naturally many fell. There are huge roots pulled up everywhere, some of them 10 feet tall.

Now that I've seen everything, I must now deal with liing with no power. My only contact with the outside comes from a small radio shaped like a cell phone my grandmother got me for Christmas. I thought I'd never use it, but was I ever glad to have it now. It was the only thing keeping me sane. We tried to go to Tim Hortons, but there was only one in the city that was opened, with crowds backing up around the whole resturant, and cars coming from down the street. We see more destruction and some damaged houses as well. We attemt to drive to at least get some much needed gas, but each attempt failed. There were hour long line ups, some ran out of gas.

My phone died around 9am. Later, my dad brought my uncle's generator over to get the toilets and fauets working, then took it away. I coped for a few hours, taking bike rides to look for power trucks. I saw a power van when I went driving that morning, but nothing else.

My dad brought the generator again that evening, giving us some lights and TV, which I didn't watch. My cousin came to pick it up, and discovered our phone was back online. He also mentioned the McDonalds I work at is still open, and is packed. I figure they probably did call me to come work, and sure enough, they did. I eagerly called them to see if I could work and get the hell out of my house tommorow, and said they'd love to have me for 11am-7pm. School is cancelled, and I need to get out of the house. I was feeling pretty insane at this point, my mind was just melted from boredom. I go take the generator back and am excited for the next morning that I finally get to go to a place with power, and escape this dark hellhole. Tommorow, I'll tell you about working at the ONLY MCDONALDS IN THE CITY. What fun!

Buster, shut up.
And stop biting me. God, I can't wait for my mom to get home and take care of that dog.

Well, I got that Friday shift over with. Long? Yes. I got my probation review that night, meaning they now need a good reason to fire me. I also get the discount card, and possibly a raise. My review was good, I'm pretty well set in now. We were also expecting about 500 people from a church group. 3000 people were coming into Sackville, and spread out around the fast food restuants in the area, I guess. However, nothing happened. We had a few scores of people, but it was quiet. I even got to leave 15 minutes early.

Today, however, was brutal. I got up 6 hours later. Apparently they called to see if they could have me in at 6. Hell no. Glad my dad didn't bother to wake me up to ask. It was pretty busy, people yelling, especially for fries. Dammit, man! They're cooking! Give me a break!

Hell, one lady told me not to say the word "shoot". I dropped something, and said "shoot, I'll pick that up". She said "Don't use that word. That's the 5th time today I've heard it. You shouldn't say "shoot" in front of kids." (she had a toddler with her) I thought she must have been joking. I mean, shoot? She must have been sarcastic. So I said "Well, it helps me not say words that I'd rather say but can't". Then she gets angry and says "Well, if you don't like your job, don't work here!" Jeez, why didn't I think of that? I'll just quit my job and do what I've always dreamed of! Hey, it must be great never having a bad day. Not too many people can not have bad days, especially when they have kids. God, I wanted to flip out at her. Hey, why don't you try working, bitch? I'm a student, you think I can work wherever I want? God, my mind was just boiling...

Well, I've been counting down the days, now. Only 4 more days till my 17th birthday, and I'm getting my lisence on the same day. So... yeah. We'll see what happens.

Dane Cook is funny.
Well, for starters, I just realized who has been leaving the comments here under the name "Christina" ... Christina. Yeah. I didn't know anyone was actually going to my website, let alone clicking on that link. Thanks alot... I'd show you all the website, but it's only on the school server, all made with HTML on notepad. Pretty sweet. Yeah.

So, I didn't have to go to school today. Sick? No, better than that, my sister is sick. So, I have to babysit her. I've done this on numerous occasions, this time I was just putting on my sneakers to leave when I could hear from upstairs "Would you rather Joey stay here?" Hell yes. And of course, she barely needs any looking after. I just treat today like another day off.

I went to work last night. I ended up taking a shift for Friday, which kinda sucks, but I couldn't say no. Well, I could, but I just didn't think I should. The guy now owes me a favor like taking a shift or something. It's 5pm-1am, so it's only about an hour of backshift work, then I leave. And I have to get up 8 hours later to work again.I was looking forward to a Friday off, but, well... I do kinda owe the guy for all the crap I put him through on my final backshift.

Hey Tubbs! I just lost my jengajams!
Ah, Homsar. Where did you go wrong?

Anyway, about that last shift I did. You wouldn't believe the amount of stress a McDonald's drivethru can give you. I was put on it quickly, and for some reason, it was busy. Very busy. Cars were backed up, and for some reason, the other guy there would not take me off drivethru. He's far more experienced than me, and while I got alot of training in, then was hardly the time for training. It was causing serious backups, and people were impatient. You'd want a training doctor giving you a checkup, not doing brain surgery.

One car was full of very stoned and drunk teenagers fresh from a bar. For the first 10 minutes I was struggling to understand what they wanted, they just kept shouting random things, acting like total morons. I finally had no choice but to send them up and complete their order at the window so I could free up more cars. At the window, they were even more idiotic and pretty much threw change at me. I just couldn't take it anymore and just took what they gave me (about a few dollars short) and stuffed it in the till, got their food and got them the hell out. They screwed things up alot, holding me back about 20 minutes for them alone.

Things piled up quickly and I got very overwhelmed. This happened on and off till about 4am, when things finally died down. This time I felt okay, I wasn't sick and I wasn't even all that tired. But man, you have no idea how glad I am to be rid of that. I had a shift a couple days later that was 8 hours long, my longest yet. Amazingly, time flew. I was a presenter for drivethru, meaning I just give them food and pour drinks in my little alcove. I even have all the drinks I want for free available to me. Pretty cool.

Anyway, today at school we had a motivational speaker/knife juggler at an assembly. Notbad, although the unicycle stunt he pulled was obvioudly staged, since his "random audience volunteer" happened to be a die hard biker, so I get the feeling it was planned. After almost suffocating from the heat, I left and just hung ou twith people during a free, including a girl who thought I looked like my name was Tyler. Yeah.

PWNED!
My friends keep saying that word for some sad, unknown reason...

Well, work has been alright recently. However, in my absence, I have battled with a new enemy: Graveyard shifts. Why I agreed to do them I don't know, but I did my first one two weeks ago. I was nervous about the idea, not sure how I'd take it. The last time I stayed up all night was a year ago for a school trip, and didn't sleep in the morning either. I never can, I hate sleeping in the light.

So I went. I was put on drivethru, which I have yet to do. It took me awhile to understand it, but it wasn't too bad, I just didn't liek the system. At night, McDonalds only uses one of the two windows, meaning I have to do pretty much all the drivethru work with taking orders and money. It was full of stoners, and there were only 3 other people in the resturant. It was a quiet and long night.

However, my body didn't like it. Arriving at 11pm I felt tired on the drive there. Soon, I was starting to feel uncomfortable. At 5pm or so, I was sitting down on a break reading a newspaper, when I started to feel dizzy. I had been feeling uncomfortable most of the night, not eating anything during my breaks. I think the newspaper made me dizzy after being up and running around so much, similar to the way I always feel sick if I read while in a car.

I held on for about 45 minutes, then couldn't take it anymore. I only had 15 mniutes left, so they let me clock out early and wait in the staff room, my stomach hurting and I felt pretty sick. My dad showed up soon and I went home. Contrary to what I said about sleeping in the mornings, as soon as I got home I passed out on my bed. Almost instantly. I vowed I'd get rid of those shifts as soon as possible, but my name was already down for another just last Friday. Well, I spoke with a manager on my next shift and got it taken care of, but I still had to do my last one. Stay tuned tommorow (hopefully) to see what happened... or something.