Oh, man, I was freaking out for a while there, but, I guess I'm not doing that anymore... A steady regimen of Marvin Gaye and Tiny Tim would calm anyone down...
The reason I'd been freaking out is schoolular. Er, scholastic, I suppose, scholarly, though the spell check has no problem with the word "schoolular" apparently. Except for that time that I wrote it just now. This inconsistency is interesting...
School, though. In that, it starts tomorrow. Which is Sunday, to be sure, with all the classes being held actually on weekdays, but tomorrow still marks the official beginning of the semester. Online classes and all.
Got all my courses signed up for, erm, mostly. My religion class I've been putting off till the last second to add, because hello obviously that's how scheduling works: the class that you can take whenever in your schedule, can be signed up for whenever in your schedule. Heh.
So yeah, I'm kind of on a waitlist for that...
That's settled, then. What's really a wacky circumstance is tuition. I already attended two semesters this year, fulfilling my Winter/Spring track and the 30 recommended credit hours this year, and have gobbled my Pell grant funding for this year all up with that. I need to take this semester for two of its classes, which act as prerequisites for classes only available Winter track... if I don't take these classes now, I'll have to wait for another whole swing 'round the sun till I can take those classes, and yeah. So I have to fall back on the money earned last summer.
Which is a problem of a difference of a couple hundred bucks, having on a whim already paid all of my rent this semester in one lump and spending, as I did, $787.84 in total on Zootopia miscellanies (if there seems a discrepancy there between that figure and the sum of the two numbers I already reported on ticket+concession total and merchandise cost, what happened was last week I discovered (and added to the spreadsheet) a receipt for a small Bellwether plush, after I'd already reported my "total" on merch spending.) I just realized, that is a hilariously grand amount of money. $787.84. More than 3/4th of a grand, sheesh. No regrets. It's just a couple hundred; I'll find some way around it. Especially with the idea that job opportunities have come up, which I am looking into...
Food is the only thing I regret purchasing. No, not the ice cream cones, either. Other foods. There's nothing in the world more unsatisfying than a poor fast food experience. Those are my regrets. Should've gotten chicken instead of beef at the Cafe Rio Taco Tuesday; shouldn't have ordered a whole 24'' fake Reuben at Gator Jack's (the bread was just white instead of rye, which makes sense I guess since rye isn't really something that lends itself well to super long loaves.) The concessions at Zootopia, like I said, I do not regret, nor very many concessions at all. I have decided that a bucket of popcorn and a cup of coke at the movie theater serve very much the same purpose that 3D does: to make the experience more enjoyable, to immerse you more fully into the experience. If you're using either as a gimmick, if they functions themselves as ends rather than means, you're doing it wrong.
Food is the only thing I consider non-essential, but eating, keeping us y'know alive, is the reason we have a "the economy" in the first place. If people didn't need to feed their families, there would be no need for keeping down jobs, well that and I guess that there's shiny stuff as well, scarcity existing on more planes than just the support of the ontological, but I'm trying to make a point about food, actually, so. Food is the stuff we spend money on that we consider, "the essentials." Maslow's hierarchy crap. My plasma donations keep me fed, and they can cover the expenses for my movie tickets (I went to the theater 4 times, week before last) but that's about all they do. Make sure I don't starve. Feed me better than ramen (I haven't eaten ramen but twice all year, and I actually kind of miss it dangit.) But like I said, I don't consider food part of, the essentials.
Society and culture, I've got this whole theory about, have this weird thing about what they consider the essentials. Spend money on food, you're essential-ing, good job. Spend money on a, I don't know, sock puppet monkey, you're luxury-ing, that's nice, good for you. Keep yourself alive physically, society says; beyond that you're just pampering yourself. Physical illness is considered a necessity, and we treat it (rightfully?) as Serious Business, but mental illness is something we write jokes about (reversed for injury, intriguingly enough.) We're so much easier on physical disorders, though, don't stigmatize those (unless we're being jerks?); mental disorders we sweep up under the rug, shut up in the bedroom closet... True you can take "luxury" spending too far, the same way you can eat yourself to fatness, but I argue that both expenses are equally important.
Does this mean that I magically can afford my obsessively extensive collection of Zootopia product? Yes. That's precisely what it means. (And by that I mean, no, that's not what I mean at all.)
Which brings me back to the job opportunities, and the third thing I was so anxious about earlier till the, Tiny Tim and Marvin Gaye and stuff. Next to the new Super Walmart, very nearby it, there's this place called Artco, which I guess does prints and stuff, not like the copy places in town but like industrial stuff and serigraphy, that kind of drill. Whole bunch of opportunities opened themselves up, apparently, a seasonal thing I guess, and...
Alright, I've said before how much I love serigraphy, and how I've been told that my portfolio strongly resembles silkscreen prints and that I'd be good at it/it'd be a good fit for me. There is indeed a screen printing machine operation position open, where I'd be able to get hands-on experience specifically with screen printing machines outside of just the printmaking course I'm taking this semester (which to my understanding focuses more on relief and intaglio processes,) but...
There are jobs they're offering, with students in mind, flexible hours and credit for internship, but this isn't one of them. This job, says the job description, has specific hours, and, I'm at class for half of those. But I think I may have a plan, and I'd like to see if they could accommodate it once I explain the situation. Only I have to wait till Monday when they're open again, to call.
If it doesn't work, there's the regular internships and all. But I'd love to get my hands on that screen print machine.
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