Big Brother is out there, and it’s not the government, like everyone feared.
I’d get rid of my Facebook if not for two reasons:
Laugh if you will: I think it’s spooky.
I’m sitting watching Paranormal State on A&E and scaring the shit out of myself, even with all of the lights on and everyone awake in the house. I’m not sure why this show scares the shit out of me so bad, but it does. I’ve read negative criticism that the show doesn’t seem real enough because the characters are too “herky-jerky” and seem to be “not camera-professional”. And perhaps that’s what makes me think that it’s real: because these kids are just doing something of great interest to them, something that they really believe in, and aren’t trained actors, so they won’t seem very professional on cameras. I don’t believe it implicitly, but like all of the “paranormal” and such: I truly believe that people are experiencing what they are experiencing, but whether or not it’s “real” – time can only tell.
But that’s just me. I like Paranormal State; The Boy just rolls his eyes and lets me believe it for myself.
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Anyway, I did open my online savings account, according to my 101, with ING Direct, using some gift cards that I sold back through Gift Card Buy Back. [As a note about GCBB: I like the fact that I can unload gift cards that I’m not going to use, and get “free cash” I didn’t have before, but I don’t like the fact that they take a huge chunk out of the value of the card, and that amount is based on how in-demand the cards are. Apparently, the cards I had were lame.]
Looking back, I could have saved up some of my start-up money in my credit union savings account, and gotten a $25 signing bonus, but I was impatient to start saving. I could have had a little more self-control, but I think the fact that I am excited to start saving is unimpeachable.
My plan currently is to put 1% of my gross paycheck into the account, regardless of what’s happening with my finances: it’s just another place where my money is being distributed. The Boy likes the idea of saving 1% of the gross salary, because it’s a realistic amount: it’s not a huge sum of money that you’re likely to cut off because you can justify spending it elsewhere.
In addition, a $50/pay period loan that I’ve been paying back to my mother for the last six months has finally been paid off; so instead of writing the check to my mother for $50 per pay period to my mother, I’m going to essentially “write the check” to my savings account, thus saving more money.
None too soon: I was involved in a fender-bender about two weeks ago, and even though I wasn’t cited and my insurance won’t go up, I still have to pay $500 deductible, unless my body man can “bury” it for me. Keep your fingers crossed.
Somehow, my mother and I got into a heated something, in which I became frustrated because I have two people trying to talk to me at once, which I can’t handle. At one point, I rolled my eyes; and my mother gets the narrow eyes, finger in my face, and says in a threatening hiss:
I deserve respect, I’m the adult here!
I’m going to turn 24 in March. I have been engaged for over a year. I have a full-time job with benefits.
Thank God, Medina in August.
It’s not often that I laugh out loud so hard that I snorted and choked on the spit in my mouth. It’s in regards to Sandra Lee who has the Semi-Homemade show on HGTV, which, as far as I’m concerned, it really hit-or-miss. I found it on Oh No They Didn’t:
She is an abomination. Everything she touches turns to Velveeta. Source
I’m still laughing.
I think, just now, I realized something, in regards to the 101.
The biggest incentive for creating this list was because I want to feel as though my life has meaning, that I am doing something of substance with my life. Even though I though I did all of the things that I thought I needed to do to be happy (got an adult-person job, became engaged to my best friend, made better money, gained more responsibility), I’m still not. I’m not as profoundly depressed as I was given a single year ago, granted, but I still feel as though there is something huge missing in my life. I wonder if part of that is simply that right now, I’m doing the things in life I feel like I’m supposed to be doing, rather than the things that I want to be doing.
One of my sincere hopes is that this list is not only a balm, but a treatment. I’m hoping that this list is an avenue to not only accomplishing goals, but finding myself: my voice, my spirit, my center. I want to give every action and thought meaning. Some of the sagest words that I ever gave in advice struck me very deeply as well: if there is any meaning to this, outside of reaching God, outside of making it through to the next plane of existence, outside of just making it day-to-day, it is that we must leave this place better than when we got here.
I was looking through Facebook today, and saw that my future brother-in-law had posted pictures of his New Year’s Eve, and I felt a deep longing tug at my viscera, deep within me. And I realized the reason why I am doing these tasks so publicly: life is a shared experience, and this shared experience is one of the parts of my life that I am missing. For being here on this earth for 23 years, I feel as though I don’t have enough to show for it, at least in regards to the shared experience part.
So, one of the things that I am going to make a point of being very mindful of until September 2010, is that the journey will be almost more important than just accomplishing the goals. My greatest joy will be on September 28 of 2010 to say, “I grew. I became better than I was before.”
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman
The Blog of JulZ 