27

At the moment I feel pretty useless. . . I guess this is a common problem for new Post-Grads. Spend all this time staving at the computer, pleasing the professors, doing everything possible to get your ass out of school. This thing we call “getting an education.” Once its all over the only thing I have to look forward to is being a barely employed 27 year old. Its funny how we spent years learning a new talent that we dream of using to give ourselves a feeling of self independence only to end up applying for a dead end retail job to just pay the bills.
I don’t know what its like for others, but I seem to have the worst time answering the damn assessment questions these retail applications have. If you Had’t had the fine privilege of filling out one of these online forms, I’ll briefly describe it to you. First you have to create an almost useless username and password in which you can use to return to the application process. They do this because your about to take a assessment test in which you’ll be asked 55 to 95 questions. Some of these test are just about as hard as my Senior year finals. (By the way, what the hell is an assements test? The only thing I can figure out is that its just a way to find out if you’re a complete jackass or thief. Either way the test is flawed because if you’re a thief you better be smart enough to lie on the questions anyways). Most of the questions asked in the workforce test are based on a Likert Scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. These questions kick my ass due to my dyslexia switching the Strongly’s to their exact opposites. Each application takes about 30 to 45 minutes just to fill out. This doesn't even include the time it takes to fill out the previous work experience.
Another thing that sucks about applying for work in this time and age, everything is non-interpersonal. Forget about the days when a man could walk into a store and talk to a manager about open positions. Today they tell ya just to drive home and fill out an online application. If you’re the lucky bastard on that right moment to submit an application at the 3AM time the manager actually checks the human resources email for new employee forms, you just might get the job. Most managers seem to be looking for friends or blood relatives to hire anyways.
Another new development for Chris G is that I moved to Provo, Utah after getting married. As an East Coast man, Happy Valley is very strange place for me. I feel completely out of my element. A literal Alien among my own countrymen. Living in Provo is like being the main character in my very own Twilight Zone esipode. Eyes constantly watching, religious leaders at the front door checking in on you. The feeling that you must simulate or you’ll be forsaken from the community. What makes it even stranger is that people didn’t even acknowledge that I lived here until I shared my beard. My neighborhood is also married couple only area. Maybe I’ll survive this Twilight experience. Only time will tell.
Being 27 is also a real bumber for me. I saw myself being more successful. I usually find myself lying in bed starring at my white ceiling questioning my vain existence as a man. About the only good thing about my bed is having my wife next to me, however sometimes that too can be a pain. Its not that I don’t like sharing my bed it just that my wife gets into these weird touching phases. In the early morning hours she’ll rub my tummy. This action always wakes me from the dead of sleep. She’ll go through these phases where she’ll pet me without realizing it. Maybe my lack of sleep is causing me to be more paranoid then usual. Frankly its hard to tell.

The End Days To Summer

(12 Aug. 2010) I’m feeling half past dead after spending all of yesterday in the sun. SimplyRight had a Utah Appreciation Day for all our customers. I was the one put in charge of watching and maintaining 8 wave-runners. I had one bottle of water and one plate of food to last me for ten hours of work. I miss the days when hangin’ at the beach was fun. Any open pieces of flesh were of course burned.

Working on the beach reminded me of my short trip to West Island. Where I had one day at the beach as well. A wondrous, glorious day! My only wish is that I had my scuba equipment. I find it very peaceful to float on the water and watch the sea life move along. I feel like some sort of deity. I’m so much larger than the sea creatures and the actions I make can drastically change their lives with the slightest move of my hand. Being on West Island is like being a little boy all over again. The only difference is everybody looks twice as old and my cousin Brian gets twice as dirty.

Cousin Brian, who I affectedly call Uncle Brian, is one of my favorite parts about going to West Island. Being around Brian is like hanging out with your favorite peeved high school buddy. However, Brian is not in high school, he’s 55 years old, has two kids and is divorced. When I went to “hang with Brian.” He took me to his union job at the T. He showed me his locker where he keeps pictures of his 40 plus year old girlfriends in bikinis and pre-worn panties. Brian made sure to snuff the panties before placing them back into his locker. He’s a good enough pal to offer me a hit before putting them back into their special place. (I respectfully declined).

(18 Aug. 2010) One of the employees at SimplyRight found them old photos of me. The pictures were taken before the mission. Back in the days when I was taking to make money a an extra in movies and television shows. Boy! Don’t I look young without any facial hair?

My cousin Summer Kilgore returned home from her mission last night at midnight. She looked the same as usual but thinner. One of the funniest facts I learned about Chinese people is that they HATE the sun. They hate it so much they’ve created socks that women can wear on their arms to protect themselves against the UV rays. Real funny looking clothing. Social customs of some people are just too unreal.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I quit my job at KWCR. Due to lack of time and I didn’t like how things were being managed, nor did I like how management was trying to turn a college radio station into a corporate station. I’m still in-charge of local music. So I’m still keeping it real.

TCB (That means Taking Care of Business)

For the last two months I was able to keep my laptop on my work desk. Doing this allowed me to watch movies on Netflix while I spent countless hours scanning documents. Now that era of white noise movie watching is over. Scanning all days makes me fall asleep. I don’t care who you are but you’d probably fall asleep too, if all your workload required was pushing sheets of paper through a tiny fujitsu machine.

In the past I would just listen to music, but my ears would get tired of the Pandora tunes. Listening to my iPod also gets old. I get tired of trying to figure out what artist I want to shuffle to next. Since my boss cut me off from my laptop I’ve been using my iPod to sneak in my movie watching. It’s kind of ingenious when you think about. I lay the iPod in front of my keyboard, that way I have complete control and large body covers the small device. Now don’t jump to any conclusions about me. It’s not like I just seat at my office desk and stare at my iPod screen like some sort of couch-potato. I really do my allotted work load. I just need something to help the time pass. It keeps me focused. I’m the same way when it comes to homework. I don’t know what it is about silence but it causes me to procrastinate.

Things pertaining to taking care of business is my desire to beat my video games. I usually don’t go crazy on purchasing video games but the Game Crazy near my apartment was closing so all their games were super cheap. I ended up buying 6 new videos games for the price of what it usually cost to purchase a new PS3 game. Now I face the dilemma of finishing the games I’ve already started or beginning the new games. I only seem to get maybe four hours of game play in per week so this is a big decision for me.