December 29, 2009

Not too much has happened lately really, and that's the main reason I haven't posted in a few days. I think the biggest thing to happen in the last few days was working with my ex-girlfriend Heather on the 28th. It wasn't too bad really, but as per the earlier post I caught a lot of shit for not saying anything. Well, I still felt it wasn't my place to initiate conversation, so I didn't and she wouldn't either, pretty much avoiding me, so I just stood there for several minutes til the other co-workers arrived. Later on, when dealing with customers she was kinda bitchy, which I am assuming was because I was talking to everyone else but her. She goes on the ice, and this guy I just met, Zack, who happens to go to the U of I as well, skated with her. He told me she would not stop talking to him about everything including how she dated me and how "he thinks I cheated on him". He asked her if she did and he got the same no answer, but I'm positive it happened. Anyway, needless to say the awkwardness was around all day, and it was all her fault, since she started the whole not talking problem in the first place. Towards the end of the shift we had to clean, so me and Caitlin were checking garbage cans. At that point Heather was following us around like a damn puppy, which is ironic because we make fun of her for the "PUPPIES!!" crap, any questions about that, just ask. Then she walked away for awhile, did no work, which pissed me off, cause I hate lazy workers. Finally, when I was almost done Caitlin came to ask if anymore bags needed changing, at this time Heather walks up to say goodbye to Caitlin, which took a shitload of time as usual, then lingered as if to ask me to say goodbye, I walked away. That's pretty much the extent of what's gone on, I came home, just been hanging out since and not much else.

December 26, 2009

So I know it's been awhile, but nothing has been going on really and I figured I'd save you the agony of having to read something boring as hell. Even though Christmas was yesterday I still don't have a whole lot to talk about. I guess the main topic of this post would be gift giving, in a way. You see, my family is in a financial situation in which I wouldn't get a lot of gifts. I knew this months before Christmas so never expected much, but even as a child I learned I wouldn't be getting a whole lot for Christmas later on. And you know, I'm not going to complain about it, why, because I'd much rather my family just be happy we're together. I don't need material goods to know that my family loves me, they show it in other ways.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to receive gifts as much as the next guy, and I did get some good ones from my grandparents and great aunt and uncle, and my second cousin, all of which I'll be able to put to good use. But I enjoy the times we have when we get together, it's one of those joking around let's give each other crap things and it ends up being hilarious almost every year.
As far as the ex girlfriend situation goes, there really isn't a situation, I took the high road and ignored it. I work with her in two days, I'll see if she's still being a bitch about things, if she is, I'll ignore her. If I see a need to talk about it that will be done after work, it would be the more responsible thing to do in the first place. Regardless I would much rather nothing happened anyway, in fact that's what should have happened from the beginning but it didn't for reasons I cannot know. Maybe it's just a woman thing.
Anyway, that's all I got for you, I hope you had a Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, or good whatever you celebrate. May you find joy more being with family then receiving their gifts.

December 22, 2009

So as far as the last few days have gone I really haven't done much that's real exciting. I've been working just about every day really. I work as a skate guard at the local rink. Actually, that's where my latest mishap, or misfortune, occurred.
We had a Christmas party this afternoon with pizza and deserts and snacks. It was pretty nice, everyone was chattin' and having a good time. I see someone walk through the door and it just happens to be my ex girlfriend who I am not too happy with. Now, I knew we had to work together on the 28th, but I had no idea why she was in today, and I was seriously hoping we weren't working with her. Anyway, immediately after I spotted her I sighed, "Ooooh Fuck". My younger brother Jake was standing next to me, looked over and said the same thing. So we stay in our spots for a bit, then I go over to talk to a fellow guard and realized it was time to clock-in. I headed for the time cards and clock, having to pass my ex along the way. At the moment I was talking to somebody, so I just kept to the conversation and headed behind the counter. At some moment in that small time frame she was questioning about the Christmas party and being "surprised". Then she left, thank god, I was really hoping she wasn't working.
A few minutes after she leaves I get a text message, which I thought was odd since my mom was working and my brother was with me and it was still somewhat early. So I check it, guess who it is, yea, my ex. Long story short she wanted to know why I didn't talk to her, and she was more upset about it than anything. Why didn't I talk to her? Well, it was a combination of shitting reasons for us breaking up, even though I was way past ready to do it, and the fact that I found out she cheated on me with some other dude when she said they were really good friends and she wouldn't do that to me. Needless to say I wasn't too happy when I got that first text and got more and more angry as she kept replying, as I saw no need for this questioning, she was there for a few minutes, and there was no need to strike up a conversation. I was also ticked because she was texting me while I was busy, therefore just being even more of an inconvenience. That's about all really.
Although, in some of those texts she brought up me thinking she cheated on me, which she still denies, although I doubt she knows how many people saw it, considering it happened at the public pool. The fact that she brought it up without any reason to pretty much justified my questioning and became an admission of guilt.
Regardless, that relationship is over, I'll learn from it, and move on. I have moved on, it seems as though she hasn't though, even though she has had two boyfriend's in the last three months since we've split. It's her choice though, she can go on doing what she wants, I'm busy making myself a better person. As far as working with her on the 28th, yea, it'll be awkward, but only because she has made it that way.
On the other hand, I just realized I had one more thing to say. I have been working on getting more followers on Twitter recently, and in the last three days I've gone from 35 to 47 followers, so it's starting to work. But, that's about all the news I have for now, so keep on truckin' through life, it's gonna throw those speed bumps at you, but all you gotta do is slow down a little and make sure you don't mess things up.

December 19, 2009

This one's gonna be a not so happy one, I apologize, but I need to put this in. I think I'll start off with the better one first. In an earlier post I mentioned going to a Christmas party and getting pretty hammered. Well, when I got home I had ended up blackout messaging some people on Facebook, again. One happens to be a girl in my class, that, admittedly I have a crush on, it's silly high school shit, I know. Anyway, I typed out this message saying if I didn't send it now I wouldn't do it cause I'm a puss when sober. And sadly enough my drunk self was right. But I found that message on Friday, yesterday, after my friend Kayla informed me I had written it. So, naturally, well, for me, I apologized. She replied and said there was no need for apology, to have a good break, and we would see each other when we got back. So, needless to say I'm already looking forward to going back to school. But there is another reason behind that.
I came home Friday night, got home, and as usual my father was drunk. Lately it's difficult to tell when he's sober or drunk, he has a problem, but he's been confronted several times. Anyway, he gets pretty irate when drunk, over nothing usually. Not the I beat my kids irate, he's never hit me or my brother thankfully, but the yelling at the T.V. and whoever argues with him. Tonight, the first night I'm home for break, was no different. First it started with the damn Blackhawks game that was on. Normally he's not that big of a fan, but all of a sudden he's rooting hard core for them, and when they screw up he gets pissed, so every two minutes it's "They're gonna fuck it up", "They're gonna blow it", this and that and the other. No, it's not traumatizing, but it is annoying, and upsetting, because I don't know my real father, only the one who's got a couple beers in him. After that it switched to music, which I tend to get pretty heated over sometimes. This time was no different, talking about how Hip Hop artists don't write their own music they just use others. Admittedly they do use a lot of samples, but by their own right it is THEIR music. So I'm giving him examples of rock bands and artists that have done it, but as usual I'm never right, so this argument extended for awhile until I gave up out of frustration.
At this point it all kind of culminated into one big realization. One being that I won't get very far with the girl, and two being my Christmas break has started off pretty shitty so far. So, when I told her I would work on having a good break, I wasn't lying, I'm gonna have to work for it. So because of this I've already got my first New Year's resolution: Man up, zip up the man suit, be more outgoing, especially towards certain women, and when shit doesn't go my way, don't pout, just say, "Fuck It" and deal with it.
And if by chance she happens to read this, which she won't, now you know, if you haven't already, deal with it accordingly.

December 17, 2009

O Dear God, what a night last night. The Landscape Architecture Seniors had a Christmas party at their house last night. It was a good time, I paid $5 for unlimited drinks all night, which was from about 10:30 p.m. til about 3 a.m. or so, I can't really remember what time we left.
Overall I'd say everyone had a pretty good time, the girls from my studio were looking damn good as usual, and festive, I just showed up in clothes. We pregamed at one of our friends frats before heading to the party, and I got somewhat buzzed at that point, but others were pretty drunk already. Needless to say it was a fun ass walk to the party, a lot of stupid things going on all at once.
It took a bit to find the house, mainly because it looked like there wasn't anyone in the house at all, but we knocked on the door and it turned out everyone was in the basement. Throughout the night we were everywhere in the house, either dancing, playing drinking games, or just plain drinkin'. It was a good time for sure.
About halfway through the night a group from our studio decided they wanted to go to a campus bar, Kam's, and hang out there. I almost went but was then convinced by a certain someone to stay at the party, which in retrospect was a great idea cause I saved five bucks and could continue to drink. For the rest of that night I gained drunken courage to talk to that certain someone, but that happened before the Kam's thing. And throughout the night we chatted it up, along with some other people, some seniors, some I hadn't talked to much from studio. It turned out to be pretty cool, met someone that is from Morton, and learned a lot about another person.
Once 3 a.m. rolled about I was pretty drunk from what I can remember, since I can't remember most of going home or being home til I woke up naked in my bed around 11 a.m. I do remember offering that certain someone to walk them home, which ended up not happening because someone else did, which kinda upset me, but then again, I was drunk. I still don't know what I did on facebook last night other than the message I sent Danielle, and I only saw that cause she had replied. She had asked over chat why we were still up at 4 a.m. and when I went to reply facebook was being retarded so I had to send her a message which said, "I know I'm up cause I'm drunk as balls lol." Yea, I was, so I saw that in the morning. I have yet to find out what else I had done...
I woke up again around 2 p.m. today and got online, that's when I saw some of the stuff, found out a friends dad had passed away last night, and decided what I was gonna do for the day. First thing I wanted to do was play xbox, so I was getting that ready when I heard my neighbor fucking his girl, so I turned the T.V. up to drown that out when all of a sudden I hear a persistent banging of the desk against our shared wall. So I dealt with that for like a half an hour and kept playing xbox. I later grabbed dinner with Greg around 5 p.m. at food, felt better, cause I was starving, then came back and played more xbox. And now I'm writing this, so that's about all thats happened.

Landscape Architecture

Well, I figured since I mention Landscape Architecture so much in my profile, and I really enjoy what it is about and doing the work that comes with it I would post some pictures of my projects from last semester, so, here it goes.

This is my first project, it is a design for a contest in France, the Chamount Sur Lois Garden Festival, I believe spelling is off.


This is a close up


This is another close up


I don't have any pictures of my second project at the moment. Whoops.

This is my third project, by far my best and favorite, our professor told us we would develop skills quickly in the class, and he was right, making him one of my favorite professors.


This is the other sheet.


And the last sheet.


And me presenting my work.


Mad props to Luna Pierson for that last picture, very artsy looking. Overall I really enjoyed this class though. It was fun, the professor was very knowledgeable on the subject, something I can't say for some other classes, and he really helped me to be better at what I'm doing. I look forward to what's to come and can not wait to do some more drawings, over break I'll probably work on my yard and other places to see what I can come up with.

As I'm sure you can tell I really do love Landscape Architecture now. I'm not too sure what I want to do with my degree yet, but the time will come when I figure that out. Leave some comments on what you think, all criticism is welcome, especially if you know the subject.

Thanks for reading.

What's Up With The Blog Title?

So, I figured I'd explain to most of you what the title of my blog means, since obviously it just looks like gibberish. First off I'll start with the puppies. My last girlfriend (now ex) loved dogs, but every time we saw one, no matter size or age, she would say, "Awww puppieeeesss!" Eventually this got to me, so I would just start saying, "Yea, that's a dog...". Then once I told others about this we started making fun by yelling "PUPPIES!" to just about anything we thought cool. We even made a group on facebook, heres the link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/PUPPIES/117389533970. Needless to say that's one of the many reasons we are not together anymore.
Sea monsters has to do with my first Landscape Architecture project. Within the garden I designed I had the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, in the back corner. It started as a joke but then grew to be part of the overall design.
The other wonderful things is just a broad spectrum of things me and my friends talk about on a daily basis. Mainly idiotic things, well, to some people I guess, not to us, they're just funny as hell to us. Like Dinosaucers, it's an 80s cartoon.
The last one, poon, is an inside joke with me and another friend, Kayla. We joke that I'm a "poon hound" when I'm drunk. This mainly started with me ranting to her over AIM about going out and looking for poon one night while drunk. Now for those of you who don't know what poon is, it's vagina, pussy, whatever you may call it, I said it when I was drunk and only say it to joke, but, it's a pretty funny word nonetheless.
So there you go, the explanation of my title. Why are they all together? It's mainly because it's all of the things Kayla and I talk about, all the time, that and life's problems, but that's not fun for online is it? So yea, Kayla's pretty much the only one to see this usually, but this should help to explain if you happen upon my blog.

December 15, 2009

Well, once again, not much has happened lately, that's partly because of my lack of funds and I was home for 4 days. When I'm home not much goes on really other than hanging out with friends and whatnot. Although on Sunday or Monday night, can't remember which, me and Kayla, a good friend of mine who will talk to me about anything, and is probably the only one reading this blog right now, went to Steak n' Shake for a little late night get together around one in the morning. Needless to say we chatted about just about anything and everything until almost 5 in the morning, that's four hours in a booth in Steak n' Shake for those of you who can't add. Anyways, that was a good time, and the waitress just kept bringing waters making it even better. We drew pictures, made paper planes, and were very loud, but it was alright cause we were the only ones there most of the time.
Other than that though not much really happened, my lazy ass Dad still hasn't found another job even though he was fired almost a month ago, in fact, I'm not even sure he's looking. My Mom is working though, and I'm so happy she's my mother. It was a little upsetting to tell her her credit was denied for one of my loans though. Her eyes welled up with tears and her voice got a little crackly. I'm gonna be real here and tell you that it tears me apart when my Mom cries. I love the woman, she gave birth to me, and yea, she does some less than desirable things sometimes, but she's still there for me when I need her. So yea, I felt like a dick when I had to break that news.
So, to end this post I am back at school now until sometime Friday, that's my last and only final. I'll be home for a month afterwards, and that's gonna be a month in which I need to get a lot done. I need to work, make some cash, buy some school stuff, and register for classes seeing as how the financial department has put a hold on my account, but I'm gonna spare you that one because I'll just get pissed off by the end of the story. So, until next post, have a good day/night/whatever and don't let the man get you down. :)

December 13, 2009

I'm really doing a horrible job of posting every day, oh well, not that big of a deal. It doesn't much matter anyway because nothing has really been going on. I came home Friday night, I'm not sure how long I'll be home, might go back Sunday night or maybe Tuesday night, then I have a final on the 18th which is Friday. Then I'll be home for a month for Christmas break. As far as the past couple days have gone, I came home, went to Schooner's to get a Schooner burger, which was delicious, and since then I've just been sitting at home. Much of this time I've been thinking whether or not I want to ask a girl in my class if she would like to go skating on Wednesday. A few reasons I haven't done it yet: 1) I hate asking people I don't know that well if they want to go do something over Facebook, or the internet, at all, mainly because it's so impersonal. 2) I'm not too sure if she even digs me that much, I mean yea, we may make eye contact sometimes, but that doesn't really mean a whole lot. I'm horrible when it comes to reading other peoples feelings or thoughts. 3) We're in the same class, which means, if something bad happens it's going to carry over no doubt. And I'm not sure if I want to risk that. But, I don't know, maybe I'll just continue to think about it until Wednesday rolls around, and if I see her in person I'll see if she wants to go.

Me & Drinking

I started thinking about my last post and the fact that I was talking about the barcrawl. I'm not necessarily clearing up my stance on drinking, but I would like to clarify that I'm nowhere close to being a heavy drinker. In fact I'd say I'm somewhat building my tolerance back up. I go through periods of drinking and not drinking, but when I do I just try to have fun as much as possible. Like going on barcrawls. In fact, this is my first time going to the bars this year, and I'm a sophomore, it makes me feel like a loser, but then again, no one knows that til I tell them. I do enjoy going out tho, just wish I had more money, and would act a little like I do when I'm drunk, more outgoing. Either way that's pretty much what I do. Can't forget to mention that I've switched from hard liquor to beer tho, liquor fucks up my stomach too bad. So yea, that's about it really.

December 10, 2009

Well, once again I'm writing this for the day before because its 1:30 a.m. and I just never got around to it, but quite a bit has happened in the last couple days. First thing I want to start with is Wednesday though. I woke up 15 min. before class, get to the room, and find out that class is canceled, I didn't check my email, I hardly ever do before class, but it wasn't that big of a deal because I still needed to clean up a bit. When I walked into the room I noticed my drawing table and someone elses had been saran wrapped. At first I was a little ticked, but then it grew on me, I thought it was pretty funny, and eventually so did the professor, I still have yet to clean it off.
Wednesday was also the last day of presentations for our foundation design studio. I had presented on Monday so all I did was help set up and watch everyone present. Needless to say it was pretty tight. Props to my man Chase Morgan for getting a hell of a lot of comments on his coloring and graphics. After that they had some kind of Christmas party for the Landscape Architecture Department, that was pretty nice, but I didn't feel that great and I needed to start feelin' better for the barcrawl later.
Needless to say it only got a little better but I headed for the barcrawl anyways. We pregamed for awhile, I only had a couple beers and shots, so I didn't get real buzzed at all, and it didn't help that the walk to the first bar was long and cold. By the time we got there I already needed another drink, so I got that then started having a good time. We were just dancin' and chattin' and happy to be pretty much done with the semester. Throughout the night I got more and more drunk, therefore making me more and more outgoing as well. I ended up dancing with just about everyone in studio on just about every dance floor, it was fun as hell. But most of all I enjoyed dancing with a couple people a little more ;). At some point I hit this threshold of drunkenness where I become very touchy and just give everyone hugs. That was pretty awesome as well, cause that led to more hugs and a couple people were talkin' to me about being more open when not drunk. I'll work on that. Anyway, Chase, the guy I was talking about earlier, well, he got pretty drunk, and according to him was a "hot mess". To put that in context he is gay, but one of the coolest guys I know. Anyway, at some point while we were at the third bar he started crying and one of the guys I would have never expected this from started tellin' him how much we cared for him and he's glad they met and all that jazz, and it was pretty awesome. At that point I realized it was because Chase was happy to be accepted for once, well, not necessarily at that point, but I did see that it was a happy cry, not a sad one. Then the rest of the night we danced and drank some more, it was a merry time. Around 1:30 Chase hit that point where it was time to go home, and me being the only one that lived near him I told everyone that asked I would take him back. I guess everyone else left after that, but I still wanted to go out, oh well, no need to spend more money. On the way back we were talking about what was going on, and that's when he told me he had never felt that way before, like no one would care for him or something. So, it makes me proud to say he's my friend, that's not something anyone should have to go through. Then for the rest of the walk we laughed about god knows what.
I woke up around 1 or 2 p.m. the next day I believe. Not too sure. But I needed to get my apartment application done and ready to go, so, finally got that done, then me and Greg, a good friend and my roomie next year, headed out to go turn em in. We went so he could get cash and again the ATM was broken, so we needed to go to another one that was much further out of the way. So while he did that I went and got my coat that I had left in the studio. We met back up and headed to the apartment place. After we got that taken care of we headed to a gas station so Greg could air up his flat tire, then to Wendy's for some delicious dinner. After we finished eating we came back, both to respective rooms. I ended up playing Assassin's Creed on Xbox 360 up until just a little bit ago. Then I decided I needed a break from that, and ended up typing this up. So yea, that's how the past couple days went. And as a final remark I will quote the back of our studio shirts:

Welcome To Studio.... BITCH.

Day One: Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Well, I guess for the intro the name's Erik, and I plan on coming back here every day to write down whats been going on in my life, we'll see how well that works out. Anyway I guess I'll just start with what has happened the past couple days, mainly because not much really happened today.

On Monday I gave my final presentation for my design class in Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois. It went pretty awesome, I didn't really mess up too bad, and the jury that criticized my project didn't have too many bad comments either. Needless to say I felt pretty damn good afterwords. One because it was like a mini success, two because I was done, with pretty much every class. As far as the rest of that day went I didn't do much but eat and sit around, then went back and worked on a shitty ass paper for another LA class.

As far as today went, Tuesday that is, since its almost 2 A.M., well, for one we turned in the rough drafts for those papers. But, before that I went to Busey Woods in Urbana, Il. with a classmate to get some pictures, it wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't for the cold, wind, and slight rain, but other than that it was a fairly good time. We went back to our respective places, and then I headed for class around 1:30 P.M., got soaked on the way there, went to the wrong building and finally got to my final destination. Class went pretty well, except for having to present to the class our ideas on this project, but that's over as well, and that class is finished. The one thing that did happen during class that kinda really pissed me off was this girl in my class called out one of the groups on saying, "and man cut down the forest around the 1800s", in any case man refers to mankind. Well, apparently this girl is a feminist, got offended, and asked that we not refer to the general population in that way. She also happens to be anti Chief Illiniwek, which just pisses me off further, but that's another story I'm not going to get into. After class I headed back to my room, hung out, changed into dry clothes, then went to dinner with some friends. That was a much better time because we just spent most of the time fucking around. After I got back I play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin's Creed for awhile, pretty much up until the point where I started writing this.

As a warning, although I'm pretty sure I have no followers yet, some of this can get dry and boring, but it's my life, and I don't think I'd want it any other way.