Journal 6

Today was a fantastic day off, and couldn't have been more relaxing. I started off this morning going to church with my girlfriend, which I hardly ever get a chance to do because of my work schedule. After this we picked up some coffee and met up with some friends at their house for lunch, and relaxed at their place for the entire afternoon, doing what I never get enough time to do, which is simply sitting around talking till about five. After we headed out of there we went to bull moose in Bangor to check out some sale they were having, picked up some stuff to add to our movie collection that is almost getting too big, and came home. We had some great leftover pasta that she cooked up last night and watched a movie while I finished all the last of the writing I had to do for this week. That took some time, and I feel like a went a bit off topic from the prompts, but I think it all came out alright so I’m pretty content with it. Now that I’m done with all this stuff I’m probably gonna go flip on the Xbox for a little bit and enjoy the rest of a good day.

Prompts Week 1

Prompt 1 - Alone in a quiet room. Listen. What do you hear?

The idea of listening to a quiet room brings to mind the trouble I always have with sleeping. For as long as I can remember, I have never been good at falling asleep, even when I've tried stuff like melatonin or white noise machines that supposedly helps you fall asleep. I've never had a problem getting enough sleep, because once I do pass out there’s pretty much no way to wake me up. But, this problem does force me to lie awake at night trying to get some sleep, usually for hours. Even now that I’m not sleeping alone at night it’s a similar situation, as my girlfriend is one of those lucky people that falls asleep the instant her head hits the pillow. Lying in bed trying to force my eyes shut leaves me to simply listen to what’s around me every night. I live way out in the woods and right next to a lake, which gives me an awesome soundtrack to listen to while I try to rest. In the summer, I listen to crickets in the early parts of the nights, followed by some sweet loons and some noisy frogs from about ten o’clock on, and if I have some real trouble getting to sleep, which happens way too often, I can hear the birds that start singing around four in the morning. I've listened to it enough times that I could almost tell you what time it is by my house simply by listening to animals. The soundtrack gets less interesting as the days get colder, which works out fine because I start closing the windows anyway.

Prompt 2 - Alone in a quiet room. What do you see?

This one instantly makes me think of what could easily the most boring part of my job, counting money. I've been doing it a little less this summer as we've trained a few new managers recently who have been taking it over, but for about two years I spent quite a bit of time locked in a small office with no interruptions while I counted money. I’m fairly good with numbers and such, and was even majoring in math until I decided I couldn't afford that fancy of an education, so I’m pretty quick at counting cash and ended up being the one to do it almost everyday for a long time. When you count cash at my work, the number one rule is that no one else should be in the room with you, unless you've run into a problem, in which case someone can come help you figure out the problem. It usually takes about an hour to do cash but can sometime take longer, especially if money is misplaced or missing and you have to figure out when it went. When problems come up, it can sometimes take a few hours to do the cash-out. So, what I see when I’m alone in a quiet room I see a safe full of tills that I’m dreading counting, knowing that there could be some potential issues sitting in that safe that could quickly turn into a pretty big headache. The cash count can get pretty ugly when you run into big issues, like once when I hit the mother of all problems, having all the computer systems break down. The first time I faced this problem was by far the longest day ever, and since I’m basically the most computer literate at my work, I ended up having to handle the whole thing, from manually recording all the cash over the phone, and then eventually manually closing the store, which a tedious process of recording tons of information which is normally all done via computers. This all happened at the end of a regular 8 hour day which then stretched into a 23 hour day, almost entirely locked in a tiny room with our safe. Memories like dealing with this, and endlessly counting money are what I think of when when I picture being alone in a room.

Prompt 3 - Alone in a quiet room. How did you get here?

During my first year of college, I was working almost entirely closes at my work. The closing shifts runs till about one or two at night, depending on how things are going, and ended with me getting home to a dead silent house. But instead of simply taking the twenty minute or less ride home straight from work, I would generally try to fit in something resembling a social life in a few hours after work. A good friend of mine as some serious sleep disorders, so he was almost guaranteed to be up at the same time, so after I got out of work we would either hop in his car or mine and cruise around on the empty roads in the middle of the night. We would spend the night listening to comedy central radio and throwing tons of miles on my car, sometimes driving up to Bangor or down to Bar Harbor for no reason at all, always taking back roads when possible. To me, the journey to this quiet room is a late night joy rides either listening to stand up comedy or blaring music, which led me to put over sixty thousand miles on my first car in the first year I had it, more than the previous owner had put on it in the eleven years they were driving.

Writer's Autobiography

First Person:

I've never had a very strong interest in writing, and throughout grade school I always enjoyed math and science more. I would often struggle with writing papers in high school, partially because of a habit of procrastinating, partially because I was terrible when it came to focusing on any topic I wasn't already interested in. I remember disliking writing papers so much in high school that I would usually figure out how many papers I could skip during a class and still pass during the first day. In college, I' found writing to be a much easier task. I've come to enjoy writing much more than I did before, and never have problems completing assignments. Now that I've found a little more motivation in school, I have no trouble getting started on an assignment, and I've found that I really like writing, even when it comes to subjects that I hate. I prefer to write factual papers and essays when I write, and I find my writing comes out best when I write without having to use fluff or stretch out a paper.

Second Person:

You sit down to type up your up and coming assignment for class, quickly bust out a few sentences, and then turn on the t.v. After you decide what to watch, you relax for a few minutes and set your laptop aside. You run to the kitchen to get some water, then go back to watching your show. You try to think of what to write next for your paper, but decide that since you have four more days to work on it you can just take care of it later, since getting started is the hardest part anyway. Three days later, are just about to go to bed when you remember you have a paper due the next day, so you quickly make up some crap to put on paper, and google your topic when you’re done so have you have some sources to put at the end. You do this for just about your whole high school career and somehow skate by with it, and you even get halfway decent grades on half your assignments. After high school you start college and decide that it’s time to turn over a new leaf, and that you need to focus and and put a little effort this time around. It works a lot better than your old writing methods.

Third Person

He seems to be an okay writer, but it’s hard to tell from the amount of assignments he turns in. He tends to skip papers, especially the longer ones, but the stuff he does do usually deserves a good grade. He improved at turning in assignments throughout high school, but seems to write at about the same level he always has. The only time he really goes above and beyond with his writing is when it happens to be on a topic he’s already interested in, only putting in effort when he’s writing about computers or physics or something nerdy like that. But when he does, he does manage to turn out some really good stuff. In one of the classes he liked his freshman year, he turned a year length project that had a 25 page minimum into a 100+ page paper that scored a great grade, but in the same year blew completely blew off a 20 page paper in a different class.

Journal #5

Today has been a busy day but has gone pretty well. I went in to work at ten, and the place was packed pretty much all day. We were down a few people on the morning side so it was a little hectic, but by the afternoon we had enough staff and were doing fine. On my break today I got approved for my first credit card, which was the highlight of my day because I really need to start building some credit. The last of my day was pretty boring, it stayed busy for the whole afternoon and right until I left at eight, but it was still at a much better pace than the morning had been. I stopped to buy some food on the way home, then came straight here and I’m going to try to complete all of this weeks work for this class other than my journals before I go to bed, so I can have some free time on my day off tomorrow, which I’ve been looking forward to for what feels like forever.

Journal Entry 4

Today I worked from nine thirty till around seven thirty, and had a little protest outside the store. It was only ended up being about seven or eight people that protested for about two hours, but there were plenty of news crews around to make a big deal out of it. On the plus side of this, a high up lady  from corporate stopped in because of the protest and said I did a fantastic job running the store, which is always a good thing to hear. After all that was over, it turned into a pretty normal day. I got home around eight watched some t.v. while I worked on my writers autobiography, and completed just about all of it. I had some leftover pasta for dinner and I’m now typing up this journal entry before I head to bed.

Journal Day Three

Today was a fairly interesting day. I slept in pretty late, after having such a long day yesterday, and went to work at one. At work today we were making plans for a protest that’s happening against us tomorrow against low wages. We’re having all our employees arrive before the protest starts and scheduling nobody in until it ends so that none of them get harassed. People protesting my work for wages seems funny to me, since our owner actually pays well. Most people don’t think about the fact that fast food places are independently owned, so the differ a lot between each other. At the place I work at I make more than anyone I can think of that doesn't have a degree or tons of work experience, so I’m pretty content with it. Beyond this, it was a pretty average day. I left work a little after ten and got home at the same time as my girlfriend, and I’m now writing this while she watches some t.v. show that has the girl that plays April from parks and rec in it.

Journal Entry Two

Today was a pretty swell day. I started my morning early, starting work at seven and finished a little after four. I spent my shift working mostly planning for a big fireman’s convention in Ellsworth that we’re expecting to be a hugely busy weekend, working some administrative junk, and finished my day with counting down some drawers before I went home. After work I had my first night class of the semester at six, so I had to zip up to Bangor to make it in time. It was worth it though because I really enjoyed the class. It’s an intro to psychology course, which combined with this class is all I need to complete my degree. The teacher seems good, and the subject is something that definitely interests me. We started off the first day talking mostly about mental illnesses, which is a subject that hits somewhat close to home for me, so I really enjoyed learning some of the science behind it. After the class ended around eight thirty I stopped by the Tim Horton's my girlfriend works at to see her, headed home, and I’m now watching top gear and writing this journal while I wait for her to get home.

First Journal Entry

Today was the last day of my summer break from school, and was a pretty average day in just about every way imaginable. I woke up around seven this morning to work on my writers autobiography for this class for a few minutes before I had to get ready for work, and managed to get the first person point of view finished. I went to work at eleven and worked till about seven thirty. I’m a manager at a fast food restaurant, which isn’t really the coolest job on earth, but it pays pretty well, provides a scholarship for me, and is something I actually enjoy doing. It’s fast paced, and when you get into management always has new things to learn. Today was a relatively slow day, but went by in a blur like any other. After work I came straight home, took a shower then sat down to write this paper. I have to head to work early tomorrow morning, so I mentally planned out my journal entry about twenty minutes ago and I’m typing it quickly so I can head to bed.