04/06/2005: "Update (yes, I live)!"

Current Sounds: Lunar Silver Star Story Complete - Luna's Boat Song
Currently Feeling: Watashi wa(ha) neru(n) ga ichiban suki desu.

First off, yes.. I'm alive. I'm also updating. I'm also horribly tired, so I really need to cut this short. Slept 3 hours last night and have been on my feet and moving (classes and tests, mostly) since 11A. Second, in case you're ever curious.. I hardly ever write anything important in Japanese (mostly because I can't express myself well at all in Japanese), so not much is missed by what I write (under "Currently feeling", it basically says that my favorite thing to do is sleeping).

So, now onto the actual update on what's up in my little corner of the world:

Worked Monday. Was absolutely horrid. The person in charge is completely and utterly incompetent. They have no leadership skills, cannot express themselves, and don't explain anything. Got home, slept for about 3 hours, and went out to school for classes and my Japanese test (besides the fact that I couldn't really make much sense in English, much less Japanese, I think I did okay). Got home, ate dinner, and had to run back out to work again.

Went in to work and went straight to moving overly large, heavy objects around while debating philosophical points and other worthless things (like trying to graphically design a new project). For this next part to make some sense, I should provide some background. This completely incompetent leader figure (whom we'll call "Umberto", because I honestly don't know his name) had something against me and my older sibling working together. Naturally, being related, we work together really well. He would go out of his way to find some worthless job for me to do (like sweeping) just to ensure we weren't working together, no matter how important the project. He also spent some time antagonizing my older sibling throughout the evening. Anyway, today we were working on moving some things, which is a two person job. One person cannot do it alone (physically). Umberto suddenly comes along and demands I go do something else. When asked why, he has no explanation. When we explain what we're doing, he refuses to look and insists I go stand around elsewhere. I continue to try to explain what we're doing (and how it's what needs to be done) and he says that he's tired of the way we're acting, and that we might as well leave.

So, here I am, at "The Home Depot" at 9PM, 90 minutes into the job, with some guy telling me I have an attitude when I hadn't spoken to him more than once. Previously mentioned older sibling is now shaking and crying from everything. I tried again to be reasonable, but he continued to walk away rambling on about how he doesn't want me there. So, we walked away for a bit. Got some water. Tried to cool down. Really, he didn't want us to leave. He was just saying it to force submission through fear of being let go. I explained the situation to some other people, talked it over, looked at everything. The next time "Umberto" came around, I let him know that we were leaving.. along with two other people. The details get boring and bogged down from there, but he proceeded to call his boss (who isn't my boss, so I don't care), told me how ruined we were now, and I let him know what I thought of him and his leadership skills. I was out by 9:15PM, no longer have to work the rest of this week, get to actually sleep tonight (for about.. 6 hours. But, better than 3), and made a whole $18!

Assuming the people want me back, I'll come back if they replace the guy. Otherwise.. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I kinda needed the money, with the whole trip to Japan coming up. I'll try to find some other way to make it work, though. Sometimes, there really are more important things than having an easy, certain answer. Being denied dignity, being antagonized, and pushing someone I'm related to and care about to the point of crying were good enough reasons, though.

Have another test today.. need to go lay down.

Sum of two squares (a²+b²)[prime]
Difference of two squares (a²-b²)[(a+b)(a-b)]
Sum of two cubes (a³+b³)[(a+b)(a²-ab+b²)]
Difference of two cubes (a³-b³)[(a-b)(a²+ab+b²)]
Perfect square trinomial (a²+2ab+b²)[(a+b)²]
Or: (a²-2ab+b²)[(a-b)²].

Why was I told to memorize this pointless thing? Who knows. But it's stuck in my head. Enjoy!
Jason