Shadows of a Butterfly

ok not just some people, currently one in particular.

this is a vent that is school/work related, possibly only interesting to myself as i have nowhere else to vent.

my life has been invaded by a guy named jacob, whom i don't particularly like.

our story started when the semester started and i was all geeked about tech school. one day, i walk into work and am told a classmate of mine is doing some shadowing that day. i honestly had no clue who he was, but apparently i had already made myself known, so i pretended i remembered him. fantastic.

now he finds me on facebook and proceeds to talk to me about all things work/school related.

he decides to move from the front row to right next to me for our lecture, and begins discussing applying at my work. he is married and this really has nothing to do with me personally.

sara (my co-worker who is also in my class) and i proceed to tell them not to hire him. he is an arrogant person that thinks he knows it all. i don't work well with people like that, they make me crazy.

my work hires him. for my department. even though i had to fight tooth and nail for my hours, we miraculously have an opening for someone with my exact availability with absolutely NO technical skills whatsoever.

they had him training on first shift, but he's managed to annoy most of them, and they want him to work with debbie...thats my shift...with me.

he sits by me at school, follows my facebook, and is working more and more hours when i'll be at work. and i like him about 1/5 of the time. i vent about school at work, and about work on facebook or at work. i can't do any of this because i don't really trust people i don't like, and he has this condescending attitude towards me at times that makes me want to claw his eyeballs out.

example: i write my notes several times to memorize them. i do this for every single test, we have had 4. he comments on it EVERY time, whether i be doing it at work or at school. "writing your notes again? heh heh" all smug like he's too good to study and to do such things is beneath him. he did it today just after i told sara he was making me nuts by saying it...so she told him to knock it off since i've been doing it for the last 3 tests. grrrr...

i honestly think my work is going to chew him up and spit him out, and that will make school very awkward.... if i could just move him on over to mars, i'd be golden

yup...still trying to fight off this awful sickness.

had exam number 2, not as prepared as exam 1 but pretty sure i didn't completely bomb it.

sleep is my goal for the next 3 days.

working hard.

loving conor.

had a doctor at my work die about 10 days ago...very very sad. she was 49 and anorexic. 2 techs (friends of mine) from work found her in her apartment when she didn't show up for work and no one could get a hold of her. she had a good soul and will be missed by many.

pretty much just surviving at the moment, no real time to have fun, but i'm squeezing it in when i can. tomorrow we may hit up the cider mill for some hot cider..mmmmm.

i always get sick right when i need to be bringing my a game!

school is going well. on mondays i have school related stuff from 8am until 9pm. Then on wednesdays i have class from 6pm to 9pm. i have somewhere around a 97% for my grade. good stuff.

work sorted out my schedule finally. unfortunately for me, it totally sucks because i have so little time to myself. i work every friday and sunday and then alternated every 2 weeks having to work tuesdays and thursdays or saturdays. it sounds more confusing than it is.

i had been nursing a sore throat for a bit, then lost my voice completely last week and now have a yummy cough that produces fantastic goodies. my doctor doesn't want to see me and is calling in medications to my pharmacy...soon i shall have my robutussin with codeine in it very soon...yay.

life is pretty good overall. :)

there needs to be a cure for depression or a cure for my bad luck.

its been over 5 years since i've been destructive towards myself, and i have no urge to anymore, but the sadness still takes over my mood when too much happens at the same time. i'm an overachiever who never achieved anything..blah. the weather matches my mood.

maybe this is why i'm so drawn to animals. they need someone to take care of them, but are never to say exactly what they need or want. i hate feeling like this...back to singing along with evanescence to shake this off.

today i am treating myself to a haircut :) its been 6 months since i've had it cut and a year since i've been to my girl angie, whom i love.

we are moving on monday if all goes well. i have recruited a few hands for loading the easy stuff monday morning before i go to work, and then conor and his crew will take over in the afternoon when he gets home from work and load the big stuff and move it all over to the new place. god also decided it was a good day to move because in a 10 day forecast it is supposed to thunderstorm every single day except monday. i know its michigan and it will probably change, but all signs point to that being the perfect day!

i have been really sleepy lately and potentially catching a cold...hopefully i can keep it away!

i am headed out for a drink to mourn a dog. her name was jelly and i really liked her. she was a cute, sweet, full of personality english bulldog that ended up with some pneumonia following a foreign body removal surgery. she came in on friday and looked fantastic by sunday night. we played and cuddled and watched her look her cutest.

monday she went back on oxygen in the morning because they found some more fluid, and in the midst of a crazy night, she spiked a fever of 107.0 at 2am. despite best efforts, she went into respiratory arrest about 5 hours later. they somehow got her back, but it proved too much for her little body and she arrested again and was gone by 9am.

i found out when i arrived at work at 3pm. its the hardest part of my job, giving your best and doing every thing you can and having them leave so suddenly. i worked every day she was here, 10 hours friday, 10 hours saturday, 16 hours sunday and 12 hours monday.

now i'm off to have a drink since my shift is finally over and i can let myself feel the sadness of her passing because i don't have to talk to the public.

life was feeling a little too good :) i was just waiting for the bad thing.

last night i had to take zeus into work because he was extremely lethargic. once there we discovered he had a fever and starting vomiting. i have no clue what could have happened at all so we had to do a bit of diagnostics which told us nothing. so at 1am i left work with him staying there hospitalized with iv fluids.

today he is better and gets to come home when my shift ends at 1am. still no clue what happened, but they started him on antibiotics this morning. i managed not to freak out like i usually do when something is wrong with one of my kitties, which is a big improvement on how i normally react :).

he'll be a year old next month and i can't wait to bring his spunky little butt back home.

i have been on cloud 9 lately because conor and i have been getting along and melanie doesn't speak to either of us, so we move along in peace. still can't wait to move (3 weeks at the MOST) but at least the drama seems to have stopped for now.

it somehow gets better.

after years of talking about it, i am officially a vet tech student!!! :) i got my acceptance letter yesterday and start classes august 19. i made april go raid my parents mail since they were out of town and i was at work and absolutely could not wait to find out.

life will be a little busy, but good come august :)

i cannot wait to go back to my drama free existence...there is a reason i was never a drama queen!!!

the good news: we have a lease on a condo 2 blocks from lake saint clair and the park at 11 mile and jefferson...feel free to visit :) its all custom redone inside and is fantastic.

the bad news: we're stuck here a few more weeks until the last week of july. but we're stronger than ever so i think we'll survive.

the drama: the roommate has told people that she and conor have been cheating behind my back for a while now. completely untrue but annoys me just the same. conor and i had a good laugh about that one since she's not his type and it was before she even told him she likes him. in talking with the person who told me i have found out more about my roommate and its looking like she is a bit psycho and a complete pathological liar. conor is under strict instructions NOT to tell her where we are moving to, and i don't talk to her anyway.

much love to my friends who make me smile and i know won't go all postal behind my back :). if anyone feels like helping us truck all our still packed belongings to st. clair shores, i'll keep ya posted on the moving date.

*hugs* to all my real friends, whether we have keep in constant contact or not...i really do appreciate you more than ever!!!!

as per usual, when i plan a fun vacation, something goes terribly wrong. last time it was brimstone falling out the window. tomorrow conor and i are going camping...my first time ever. of course, when i get home last night, i spend almost an hour searching for zeus, can't find him, then i noticed dirty limping.

just so we're clear, zeus gets outside on a daily basis and usually greets me in the driveway when i get home from work. i now know this is because he sneaks out with the dogs or past a person, but no one bothers to bring him inside but me.

back to dirty limping... i notice his right hind paw is at least double the size it should be, pick him up and go back to work. its a bite wound that has abscessed. with a fever of 104.5. he is currently boarding at my work because lancing an abscess makes a huge open wound and that would never stay clean here. He's fine, just stuck in a cage for the weekend and NEVER going outside again.

then today i wake up and zeus is outside AGAIN...in the sweltering 95 degree day, while the lawn service is cutting the lawn. I have since figured out his favortie places to run around, so i wandered over to the far side of the house by the neighbors yard, and sure enough, there he is...i'm really getting tired of doing this though.

life has been kinda rough the past few weeks. the day after we moved, i got pretty sick with bronchitis topped off with some sinus thingy...all of which is now fading 2 1/2 weeks later. i shelled out another $500 for the car...making that total around $1100 for the last month (4 new tires included). conor and i have been bickering constantly, and its to the point for me where i'm glad i don't have a ring because i'm not real sure about wanting to get married at this point. i know every relationship goes through tough stuff, but saying i'm lazy and refusing to do things for me when i'm having coughing fits and sleeping every chance i get because "i'm always sick" frustrates me. then telling me i've been acting like a bitch because i'm frustrated makes it even better. i've tried to instigate a date or two...but fishing without me has taken precedence over all else. and telling me that i'm never at work when i work 4 10 hour shifts a week as well as getting called in in the middle of the night to work until 5am for barely more than $10 an hour...to watch him sit on his ass and play video games, go fishing, go on an 8 day vacation to florida, but doing the laundry is a major inconvenience on his 4 1/2 months of NOT working....all of that truly inspires a lot of love on my part, and DEFINITELY makes me want to have sex..seriously.

i started working out, dyed my hair, and am going tanning again. girl stuffs makes me feel better. i seriously need more friends.

we start moving at 10am...and i'm currently still at work, leaving in 10 minutes to head home. what could possibly prompt a post from work???

for all the times i've helped with cpr, bring the dead back has never happened.

today i did chest compressions for the first time on a big dog...up on top of the treatment table using every muscle i have in my body, and then...

her heart was beating on its own, and then she started breathing....within 10 minutes, she had her eyes open and now, 1 hour later is sitting up looking around. i just want to say i LOVE my job. this person's dog was dead on arrival and is now alive...absolutely amazing.

sorry kids, just need to vent a little about work and current issues and there isn't anyone awake right now..grrrrr...

so apparently the fact that i pay attention during meetings is working against me since i'm the only one remembering what was said and every time i do something that we talked about, procedure changes, i'm told i'm wrong and it was never said that way. seriously, if they don't want people to do it...why even have the damn meetings...ugh. makes me feel very stupid when the freaking person i'm quoting doesn't remember it and says i'm wrong because someone else tells them why we're doing it the old way.

other monstrous issue is scheduling. why the fuck am i the schedule bitch? i will always be the new kid to the game since no one there will ever leave and they've been there forever, but this is getting ridiculous. i work a few different shifts. it is either 1 of 3 different 1st shift times: 5am-3pm, 6am-4pm or 7am-5pm OR 1 of 2 2nd shift times: 2pm-12am or 3pm-1am. this already wreaks havoc on my system and sleep patterns, but no, we have to push it farther. i volunteered to work 3 weekends a month instead of 2 because of my school schedule, but i dropped the one class i had to actually attend class in, and said to still go ahead with the more weekends. i asked for 2 days off because i had 2 exams and a paper due in the same week, i'm told i can only have one of those days. then i asked for the last 2 days of march and the 1st day of april (monday through wednesday) off so that i could MOVE OUT. Well, apparently that was also too much to ask because i could only have tuesday and wednesday...leaving me ONE day to actually move stuff and that would be the last day we have to get out, the 1st was going to be for unpacking.

now the scheduling kicker...THREE times i am scheduled to get off at either midnight or 1am and be back in the morning at 5am.......we'll see if they make the effort to fix it since they already sent the schedule out to everyone or if they'll fuck me up the scheduling ass farther.

thanks, i feel a bit better now.

on april 1st conor, myself and our 5 felines will be moving in with melanie and her 2 beasts :)

she bought a huge house 15 minutes from my work and needs a roommate. the bedrooms are on opposite sides of the house and each has a full bathroom on its side (our room will actually have it attached)

with this comes the ability to save for our own down payment.

she lives in beverly hills...heh.

classes have started back up, and let me tell you i have my work cut out for me. my 2 online courses are more intensive than any i've taken yet and microbiology is going to be interesting twice a week.

i can do this, and i'm determined to at least keep the 3.5 gpa i have now or improve it!

too bad i feel like crap today...but i've still made it through 2 chapters of macroeconomics!

so for anyone who wants to come on out...

next friday, the 16th, we will be celebrating my 28th birthday at the cadieux cafe, a bar on the east side of detroit. its a cool and popular bar that has a really fun game called feather bowling. i have reserved the lanes from 10-midnight and we will probably be getting there between 8 and 9pm.

hope to see some friendly faces there!!

zeus!! (the newest addition at 5 months old)




brimstone...aka muffin, the 2 year old




d-town, my silly black cat, 3-4 years old now




the famous cheeba monkey...7 1/2 years old now!




dirty - the old man of the group, 8 years old next month

santarchy was interesting...






seeing the old crew that i miss dearly when they snuck into detroit for the motor city bowl!



then the monster road-trip. we left saturday morning and headed through canada to buffalo, new york. then sunday morning we left buffalo for washington dc. then we got in the car one more time at 1pm on monday to drive back to detroit.








this last one is harrisburg, pennsylvania. i didn't adjust any of the color, the sunset made the water pink!



and finally, the reason for the whole trip...my nephew, benjamin!

not mine, but my shiny new nephew!!! my sister had her baby on the 15th, 11lb 7oz(!), 21 inches and his name is benjamin james. i have pictures on both myspace and facebook. he's super cute and has reddish-blonde hair.

my window got smashed on my car last week. currently about to have it plastic and duct taped until i can buy a replacement. all i need is someone car savvy because i found a cheap window AND a cheap whole new door for the other dented side in the exact same color. i love craigslist!!

i brought a kitten home. this makes 5 cats, and an annoyed conor, but i just couldn't pass him by. he's grey and black tiger striped, ridiculously soft, white paws and chest with a white stripe down the middle of his nose. he likes water and is really playful, cuddly...an all around awesome cat. so far they are all adjusting well, so hopefully he gets to stay and they will all love each other.

work is slow right now, so no more tons of hours a week for me, but i'm still working hard. finished my first semester back to school...4.0 in one class, 3.0 in the other...it would have been a 3.5 if wcccd actually gave those.