A Time for Complaining

I'm not going to lie - I'm surprised that this blog still gets daily views, despite the fact that I haven't posted anything here in over a month (so much for that "goal" of posting more often eh?).

The hunt for a second job continues.  I actually got a second job back in January, but in order to take it, I had to leave the daycare because the hours I was promised at the new job conflicted with the hours at the daycare.  Since the new job would be giving me more hours, I made what I thought was the right decision, and started there.  Over a month later, I've pretty much only been getting weekends.  Honestly it's disappointing because if I had known that was what it was going to be, I would have been able to do both... but that's not the way it worked out.  I haven't yet been late on a student loan payment, but with what I'm working, I'm not making any money to save.  I can make my loan payments, but absolutely nothing else.  I can't go out to eat.  I can't treat myself to frozen yogurt at the TCBY that just opened around here.  I can't buy new clothes for when the warm weather finally decides to make an appearance.  I spent about $10 on a present (a kite and a Frozen book) and birthday card for my friend's daughter, and even spending just that was probably not the wisest decision.  And I can't keep up like this.

I've applied to so many different places, but either haven't heard back or, from the (very) few places I actually did here back from, it was a no.  I'm so frustrated with this whole thing.  I wish I had never had that first student teaching placement.  If that teacher hadn't been so mean to me, if that experience hadn't been so awful, if I had never heard the absolutely soul-crushing words of "some people aren't meant to do this.  You're one of them."... if, if, if, I might still want to be a teacher.  I might still want to be in the classroom.  I hate it because I absolutely loved my time with the fourth graders... but how much I loved that doesn't outweigh how miserable I was with the second graders.  I can't picture myself being in a classroom again, not even for subbing or as an aide or anything.

I have honestly no idea what I want to do with my life, and I feel like I'm supposed to.

And another thing!  So sorry, this is winding up being more about me complaining than anything else, but I just need to vent and I haven't hung out with my friends in... probably about a month.  This is probably the dumbest thing to say, but so many people I'm facebook friends with from high school either have kids or are going to have kids, and I want that.  God, I don't even have my own life together, and I want a kid so much.  My coworkers are (for the most part) high school kids (one is going to be 17 next month. Make me feel even older why don't you!), and say that working with kids is the best form of birth control, but for me... it makes me want one even more.  How can I think like that?  I know I'm not at a point in my life where having a kid would be a good idea, but I just... want to.  Being gay, at least I'll be sure that when I have a kid (whether by birth or adoption or some other way(?)), it'll be planned and wanted.  It won't be an accident, like it seems to be for some of the people I went to high school with.

On the lines of complaining, I started reading the Maze Runner series, and it's honestly one of the worst book series I've ever read in my life - and I read the Twilight series!  I love young adult fiction.  I just do.  I love the Harry Potter series, the Maximum Ride books (that really should have ended after the third book), the Hunger Games trilogy.  I read, and really enjoyed, the Darkest Minds trilogy.  I loved the first two books in the Asylum trilogy (by Madeleine Roux), and when the third comes out in September, I'm definitely going to read it.  When I can afford to buy the books, I'd love to read the Divergent series, as well as the third (and final?) book in The Hybrid Chronicles.  But, The Maze Runner.  I'd heard such great things about it, and I wanted to enjoy it, but I found I couldn't get into it.  I know, judging by the Amazon reviews, that I'm in the minority with my opinion.

I feel like The Maze Runner could have been good.  It's a good idea.  But it's just so poorly written that at times, it's just downright painful to get through.  The author writes as if the story was a creative writing project for a middle school English class, and if he was a seventh grader, the book would be worthy of praise.  But the fact is, he isn't.  And it isn't.  With the first book, the are more questions than answers.  It's so slow-paced - literally nothing at all happens for the first sixteen chapters of the book!... and then it ends on a cliff-hanger.  Because of the cliff-hanger, I had to read the second one, which was only slightly better than the first.  I'm about 50 pages into the third so far, and I'm not eager to get back to it.  There's one more after the third, but I don't know that I'm going to be able to force myself into that one.

Let's take a break and look at pictures I took!

The frost on the window (back in January!) was really pretty, and using the manual focus on my camera, I took these two pictures.  They're not half bad, if I do say so myself.  Which I do.

The sleeping ball of fluff above is my best friend.  And I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm his best friend too... or at least, his favorite human.  Although, a few mornings ago, I woke up to him chewing on my arm.  Google says it's because he loves me.  I think it might be because he's plotting to kill me.

I'm still keeping up with the 52 Week Money challenge that I started at the beginning of the year.  I haven't been able to put in the "right" amounts of money each week because of the current job situation, but I'm still putting in small amounts.  At this point, I feel like it would have been better to do it where the dollar amount increased each week instead of decreasing each week.  But I know what I'm saving for!  My original plan was that I wanted my best friend and I to get our sisters cruise tickets for Christmas, and the four of us would go on a cruise together.  I didn't want to say anything to anyone because I didn't want to disappoint anybody if it didn't end up happening.  But now, I've recently found out that my grandparents want the entire family to go on a cruise together in Summer 2016.  I know that my sister isn't worried about starting to save money for that yet, but I'm trying to think ahead and I want to know that I have the money for my ticket (and, let's face it, part of my sister's as well...).  I figure, my best friend and I have been best friends since second grade and she is practically family.  I mean, she calls my mom "mom" and my grandma "grandma."  And there's no rules as to who can/can't go on a cruise (actually, maybe there are. I don't know.), but when I go to Florida in October, I'll bring up the idea to her that maybe she and her sister could come with us.  I love my family, but I can't hang out with just them for a week.

Florida!  I'm so, so, so excited for October, when I go to Florida to see my best friend.  It's going to be the absolute best trip ever!  We're going to see Taylor Swift in concert and we're going to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  We'll probably go to the beach too.  Depending on how long I'm there for, we might celebrate her birthday together.  I'm just so excited about this trip!