Visa Gift Cards

This goes out to the parents of working University students. Mostly girls.  Just because they like to shop a lot more than boys (I believe).  For birthdays and Christmas gifts, it is understandable that you probably don't know what to get your grown children, but lets be honest gift cards or money as a gift is pretty awesome.  You can never have to much.  However.  If your kid loves to shop occasionally and is very specific about her money spending and is working their way through University and doesn't want to have a Student Loan coming out of her ass when she is 40, and pays all her bills as soon as she can, a maxed out credit card even with regular payments and never has any money in the bank account, (you can tell I have experience in this can't you) then listen to what I am about to say.  If you want to give your daughter an "actual" gift through gift card. Do not. I repeat.  Do NOT buy them a VISA gift card.  Because they most likely will NOT spend it at the mall, but rather on groceries.

These are two very different things, these WANTS vs. NEEDS.  However put in hard situations, a rational University student who has just had a birthday will probably take the VISA gift card and go buy some groceries.  I mean if it was a Mall gift card, they probably would go out and buy some new clothing and some CDs or something.  If it was from a specific store (like their favourite store) they would probably buy a lot of whatever it is that store sells.  But a visa is like cash.  They can spend it anywhere.  And sometimes the needs is much more apparent then the wants, even at birthday or christmas.  "Go out and buy something you would like" in a University students mind is "Go out and buy some food".  What's even worse is you could be helping your child buy alcohol, not that that's a bad thing for poor students, it's just that you don't want your baby to waste your "gift" by it throwing it in the drain (haha get it?? it's a joke).  For those students who actually have the leeway to go and take that gift card to the mall and spend it on clothing and all that jazz, good for you.  I can't.  I'm screwed this semester and hope that my manager can give me some more hours so I can pay off my bills.  Here are a few reasons why I'm screwed:

1. I decided to "treat myself" to two winter jackets in October...It didn't snow until January
2. I was SUPPOSE to get a Money Back Cold Weather Guarantee back from SEARS, except they decided to change the rules so it ended up falling through
3. Cable bills + electricity bills + phone bills = More then my paycheck can handle

My advice, don't get a Visa card.  Even as a student.  They give you the student limit on the card, which is like $500, but they can max that out without realizing it and then have trouble paying it back.  I'm still working on getting it back to zero.  I'll be honest, it has been a hard couple of months with school stress, and work stress, and money stress.  I'm surprised that I still sleep at night.  And as I write this I realize that it is around 1:00 in the morning.  Hypocrite right?

Another point that I have to say about gift cards, but this point is about how they actually can save your child some money.  Whenever I go shopping by my self, or with my friends planning on using my money, I don't really check the prices of items until I really want it and will get it whether or not the price is in my range.  This means spending a lot money that I don't have.  But when I get a $100 gift card, I stick to it.  I mean I went to Walmart today and bought groceries and ended up at $104.14.  Four dollars and fourteen cents over.  I mean when I go grocery shopping with my debit card I usually plan for like $50 or something, and end up at $70 which is ri-DONK-ulous.  I kinda enjoy gift cards.  Sometimes you end up with money that you weren't expecting and are totally stoaked.  Just like when you are looking through a pair of jeans you haven't worn in a while or a jacket and you find like $20.  It makes you soo happy.  I love that feeling.  I can't describe it because I'm tired, but I think that it is fantastic.

Gum-my Bears

On my first day in Grade 12 I sat in gum.  I wasn't even sitting in gum, it was more due to the fact that the gum was on the bottom of my chair and I wrapped my legs down underneath it.  It was frustrating.  I was in a brand new class and had no idea who any of these people were (I knew some, but we weren't on talking terms).  I had sat next to two people who I didn't know and that was how we bonded.  It's actually quite funny because for those who know me, I am a gum addict.  I'm addicted to a lot of things, what can I say? Random people would come up to me at school and scare the shit out of me and ask for a piece of gum.  Some guy tried to ask me out that way.  It didn't work.

The reason why I am telling you the story of my first day of high school is because I find it highly disturbing when I find gum underneath a desk or chair in University.  I have no idea why people feel that they need to shove their gum underneath the desk instead of simply walking two steps and throwing it out.  I mean I can understand why people in high school would do it....actually I can't because I was never one of them, but it is just quite disturbing.  And I feel that it should stay in high school. And you know what. It did.  Until this semester.  I found gum underneath my chair.  I honestly have no idea why people put gum under desks.  Like my face was seriously in the expression of WTF.  I couldn't even concentrate.  I honestly want to take a DNA test of this gum, find the person and personally punch them in the face thousands of times for every single student at the UofL.  Grow up.  You are no longer in high school and will not get in trouble walking to a fucking trash can 3 feet away in the middle of the lecture.  Holy shit people get that through your head.  If you are in University, about to start University, about to fricken APPLY to University, or even still in highschool.  Don't put your gum under a chair or desk or wherever else you were thinking.  The next person that sits there is going to think you are a total tool and will probably murder you if they find out it is you.

An a tangent from this gum blog.  I started writing this and I got the "I'm so happy that I'm a gummy bear, GUMMY BEAR!" from Robot Chicken stuck in my head.  I'm going to post a link so that all of you can enjoy this little video, because it will make my day even if I sat in gum.  Some times the best remedy to others stupidity can simply be watching a YouTube video.  (By the way, who else hates the new YouTube layout. I'm so confused with it!)

I think if I was a gummy bear I would eat my own leg in order to get out of a trap.  I would. Mind you, I think it would be a lot easier for them due to the fact they don't have bones. Smart right? I love gummy bears. And gummy worms.  Everything else sucks.  I can't eat anything chewy or else I will spit it out.  My friend made me try a berry-something and I was working at the time and I had to spit it out into her hand.  It was terrible.  I can't eat licorise either.  I can eat like half of a strand before I get nauseaus.  I know that its all due to the fact that as a child I went to a friends birthday party and I ate an entire bag of nibbs (come on I was like seven, or even younger) and then had to get my mom to come and pick me up because I was throwing up.  Gross right?  I couldn't even get through a full drive home (we lived five minutes away) before I had to get my mom to pull over to let me throw up. Oh the days of child-hood.  How I miss thee.

Plants vs. Zombies

It has come to my attention that I may be slightly addicted to Plants vs. Zombies on my iPad.  I just find it fascinating.  A simple game about plants shooting against an mass attack of zombies.  How could it get better?  The way I write this makes it sound as though I have only recently found this game, however quite the opposite is the truth.  My mom originally had it on her iPad when she first got it and whenever I went home it was just something to waste the time with.  Now that I have my own iPad, I find that it is getting harder and harder to get away from the game.  I have tried not to bring it to school because I will be the crazy person in the corner cheering herself on after beating a very hard level.

For those of you who have yet to try PvZ I suggest that you get it now! I mean if you thought Angry birds was fantastic you need to try this one.  It's kinda a mixture of that arcade game at the movie theater... similar to 28 days or 28 weeks later... I can't remember that game.  All I know is that you shoot at Zombies.  It's like that, but this one makes you feel as though you are safely rested in your house not actually about to die.  Plus the Zombie seem to enjoy taking their time to eat the plants, so it's kinda creepy to think that when they finally do break in that they will eat your brain calmly.  Another aspect that makes me giggle in this game is when you get the notes from the Zombies, saying "We heard you were having a pool party" etc., etc. It is just cute until you get to the next level and are like "Holy shit I don't have enough sunshine to buy a pea-pod".  Random factoid.  In grade ten I went to a new school, and I was placed into a "Pod" that was gold colored.  For some reason we established that it smelled like piss so we decided to rename Gold Pod into Pee-Pod.  Yes I know that was really random and had nothing to do with PvZ, but I just thought of it and thought "Meh, they are reading my blog why not tell them random things that come to mind".  And come on.  You have to give me that one.  You are reading this at the moment.

Lols.  I am currently watching my friend Makrina play PvZ because I said that she would love this game and it is hilarious.  I'm glad I don't play this game in public or people will be thinking I'm alot like Crazy Dave (play the game, you'll get it).  By the way, I just noticed that I started this paragraph with Lols.  I should let you know that I do like saying that a lot.  It's mostly in text messaging, but I have found myself sometimes saying it in person.  I don't usually use texting slang in most sentences, but sometimes you just need to get your point across of how funny you really think something is.

Talking about Zombies, I love zombie movies.  I'm actually thrilled to know that World War Z is becoming a movie.  I am slightly saddened by the fact that Brad Pitt is in it.  He is no longer in his prime people, lets let the younger generation take over and show off their hot bods.  I mean I watched Knight vs Day with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise and I'll be honest I don't think much of them anyways, but OMG!!! Don't ever take your shirt off again.  That was the movie that I finally realized how old they actually were getting! Like come on people, that was suppose to be a rom-com and I felt as though it should have been a horror movie.  Geez!

I feel like this blog keeps going in a different direction.  I am going to try to talk about Zombies, but I know somewhere down the line that I will probably write about it more often so I am planning on not stating what some of my favourite Zombie movies are.  So now I need to figure out what I want to write about.  And I have nothing.  Oh I know.

So last blog I said something along the lines of my friend Makrina being picky about her shoe choices, and I got in trouble. So I thought that I would clarify what we were doing Monday.  Makrina has cerebral palsy (go to this for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy).  In general for her it just means picking shoes is difficult.  She wears braces in her shoes so she needs to go a couple sizes up, and make sure that the heel will actually fit into the shoe.  Needless to say it takes some time.  Hence why we were getting the lady to grab a bunch of shoes.  Anyways.

I decided to write this blog now, because I have a movie night with my friend Chelsea planned tonight after my Health Science Class but I really wanted to write a blog for the day.  But as I am writing it (on Makrinas' computer no doubt) we put her iTunes on random and have found that it is making a fantastic playlist.  It kinda sucks that sometimes it will take a person days to get a playlist made that they think is awesome, and will love it and all it takes for iTunes is legit ten seconds to pick a random order of songs and make a new playlist that puts your individualized playlist to shame.  Sometimes though iTunes can make the suckiest (its a word people) playlist ever and you just keep skipping songs over and over.  Sometimes that happens on my iPod because my friend downloaded a bunch of country music (500 songs or so) and I just put them on my iPod because I have room, and so when I put my iPod on shuffle it keeps playing some songs that make you depressed and you try skipping but it doesn't work, and ugh.  Frustrating to say the least.  Get PvZ.  That's all for today.

Neuroblah-blah and Slow Shoe Service

I regret taking Neurobiology.  It took me 3 hours to read 3 chapters.  The chapters are 20 pages long at most. How does that happen? I'm a fast reader. I can read an entire Harry Potter novel in a day.  And what I mean is after the midnight sale of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from midnight till ten in the morning straight and I had it done.  Averaging it out on this neuro textbook, it took me an hour for each chapter.  And I had turned off my phone, went to the University, sat in my best studying area, and it STILL took me 3 hours. I was planning on reading my Developmental Psychology chapters as well after neuro, but I looked at how many pages and for 3 chapters it was 110 pages! And after my whole 3 hours reading 60 pages I thought I might want to go home and eat something, or write a blog (hence why we are here) or do something unproductive.

To make you all enjoy the new knowledge that I learned from those 3 chapters, I thought I would summarize so we can all feel my pain.  I learned about the Nervous System, the Electrical signals of nerve cells, voltage-dependent membrane permeability, and ion channels and transmission.  We also got to learn about the Nernst equation, Ohm's Law, Resting Membrane Potential, The Space Constant, The Time Constant, and more fun stuff! I honestly don't know how I sit through that class. Not because I think it's boring, because I find this fancinating (I really do), it's just the first lecture we had an intro to Physics class, where he basically taught us all that we should have learned from Physics 30 in an hour.  Mind Blown.  Today's class I was doing really good with notes, and then at one point I just had to stop because I honestly starting getting lost in what we were learning about.  Looking around, most of the class had stopped taking notes and were legit just staring trying to figure it all out.  Maybe this is an opportunity to set up a study group with everyone.  I could send out an email. We do have a test next Friday, so it would be beneficial.  Just to go over the hard concepts and figure out the formulas a little bit better.  I should do that.

Moving on.  It's going to be a hard class and I mean I knew that when I decided to take it.  But I didn't think it would have as much math in it as it does.  I mean I got an A in the prerequisite course that was required to take this one and it is completely different.  It's not just the profs though either, it is like... how to describe.... Okay. The current class I am in is the "Neuroscience for Doctors" prep course, and the prerequisite is "The Dummies guide to Neuroscience" (not even, its lower if that is possible).  That's the best analogy I can think of.  Would you like to describe the water analogy of a circuit?  I didn't think so. My prof constantly goes back to that one.

Anyways.  My second point behind this blog is customer service.  And when you think that I am being rude about how these people treat customers in the store, let me tell you this.  I have worked in retail since Gr.10 until now (about 6 years), and so I have the right to say when a employee is "hardly" working.  However, this isn't really the time and place to rant about my experiences as the employee so I am going to stick with the story of what happened today at Sports Mart.  My friend Makrina needed some new shoes, because she had worn out the sole on her shoes.  So we go in and a guy greets us, so we were obviously noticed entering.  We walked straight to the shoe section and look around at the shoes and find some that would work, we just needed some sizes.  So we wait.  Look around, and see no one is working.  At this point you don't really know what to do.  We were the only customers in the store, and yet no one was helping us.  So when the girl finally comes around to ask if we were okay, or if we needed anything I was sorta frustrated and said I'm fine but she wants to try on some shoes.  I think the girl thought that we were just trying on shoes for shits and giggles and weren't going to buy anything, because Mak had picked out a lot of shoes (she's really picky).  So she goes and tries to find them all and we wait.  Meanwhile, another customer comes in and starts looking at the shoes beside us.  And because Mak has so many shoes the girl still needs to get, the lady just kinda sits there until the employee that was helping us noticed her just trying on the shoes from the wall, and gets another employee to come and help her find the right size. When the girl realized that we were going to be buying a bunch of shoes, she became noticably nicer and even tried to make herself look better by telling us about SportCheck and how all the employees sat in the back even when there were customers in the store.  We held our tongue I'll tell you.  The funny thing is, right before she came and asked us if we needed help with anything, I had been complaining to Makrina about the lack of customer service that the store had to offer us. Oh what a day.

I understand if the store is busy that employees aren't going to drop everything and help, that's what happens at my store.  But the fact that we were the only ones in the store, and it was 1:00 in the afternoon in January, there should be no reason why there aren't employees helping customers.  Maybe its a pet peeve of mine that employees actually help customers who want help.  I mean sometimes its annoying when you go into Future Shop or somewhere where you notice right away that the employees are getting paid by commission. All because they are all over you trying to help you when you really just want to be like "Yeah, fuck off I'm not buying anything, I just want to ruin your conversion", but I feel like that would be rude.  Why is it the places that I shop have shitty customer service, leaving you to fend for yourself, where as the places that you avoid to shop are mainly the places where they get commission? Frick.  You know, if I got commission at my job I would be rich.  I mean I can get a person to spend $200-$600 in a transaction if I really wanted to.  It's true.  I have had "Recognition Awards" given to me because of it.  I'm a pro at up-selling.  I really need to change jobs.

This couple thing, that swing...

This will be short. I am writing from my iPhone at 3 in the morning. I've established that it is not only me who has issues living with couples. My old roommate Amber currently is living with a couple and has plans to leave ASAP. All because they feel that they are the power couple and own the entire house. The thing is all of them are on the lease and they can't really be treating their roommates like crap. They make random rules up and break them themselves but get away with it because they feel like they have the right to do anything they want to all the time. I mean one of them is away in Edmonton for her practicum and her boyfriend has two vehicles in the garage when there are two other people who could use the shelter for their own vehicle. I mean that would get frustrating.

Anyways. Tonight I went out with Derrick, Dan, katelyn, and Kate-Anne for the UofL orchestra silent auction. It was fantastic! They had a live band that was playing swing and all fantastic music that you actually had to dance to and not grind on the dance floor. My kind of dancing music. There were alot of people who were dancing most of the night which was pretty cool considering that most of the people at the silent auction were younger people from the orchestra itself. I only danced with Dan and Derrick which was fine by me. Derrick and I actually ended up entering into a dance competition for jive. We got 5th.... There were also only 8 teams. But you know what, I was pretty proud that we entered. And that we didn't get kicked out first. Some of the dancers were crazy. I mean lifting and swinging and everything. It was awesome. I haven't danced that much since high school. I also knew that gym class was useful.

It was nice just hanging out with Dan. I mean he was really drunk and he did start becoming an asshole to me at one point but other then that we had a really good conversation abut reasons we went to university and why we choose this one and blah blah. It was nice to know that someone else didn't really know what they wanted to do when they graduated high school. Honestly I have had a complete career change based on going to school and finding out what actually interests me. People should have a mandatory year of general studies before they have to declare a major or anything.

I picked up two extra shifts this week. So happy about that. It was really frustrating looking at the schedule and seeing only 4 hours for the entire week. So I picked up a 3 hour shift on Friday and then I get a shift tomorrow for four hours. Or is it today? Yes I know I am posting this late but I just got in and am trying to get some sleep before I actually have to get up. Next week is pretty shitty though too. I only got a 3 hour shift all week. I need to start looking for a new job.

I heard that grey stokes would be good for me. It's a place here where you work with people with autism (I believe or just general mental illnesses) which would be perfect for me and my applications for graduate programs. But who knows if they are hiring. It's worth a shot though. You never know until you try.

Don't be rash

So.  I feel as though my last post was rash.  Talking to my friends I feel as though I should man up and talk to her about my issues regarding this living situation.  And I will, as soon as she is alone for more than five seconds without her boyfriend.  

Maybe I'm just a bitch, and many will probably say that I am.  But I feel as though you have to be in this situation to understand what I am going through.  I mean I have lived with many-a-types of people during my 3 years here, but never one who I did not agree with.  

In other news I decided that this post would be a little bit more about me and my likes and all that jazz.  I am a Psychology Major at the University of Lethbridge, planning to graduate in December 2013 if all goes well.  After that I want to travel starting in January in South America with my friend Aurora (who wants to do something with animals).  Go all the way around and down till we can take a cruise down to Antartica.  Then I will go to the Easter Islands before heading over to Australia where my best friend Varun is currently at.  Hopefully I can plan out a good trip that he will come with me to New Zealand, North Pacific Islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, China, Russia and more.  Then if I can get my other friend Ariel to agree, then I will plan a trip from Israel down to South Africa (some of the few places that she has yet to be).  After that, my sister will have hopefully have graduated from Education so she can come with me to the United Kingdom and travel from Finland around all the way down to Italy or I can invite my other best friend Lulu.  I really just want to travel and see the whole world and say that I have been to every continent and experienced all types of life.

After that I plan on going back to graduate school to get my Masters degree in School Counselling.  I have a couple schools that look interesting to me, but one that I keep thinking about is down in Las Vegas, Nevada.  The only reason I keep thinking back to it is because my parents own a condo down in Las Vegas, so I could have a place all to myself already.  The thing is because I am an international student it would cost me $7000 more dollars then a resident of the US.  I looked and I only have to spend 6 months prior before I am considered a resident, and really... lets be honest.  Who wouldn't want to live in a sunny city all that time?  I mean currently with the wind chill, it is -39 degrees celsius.  And later tonight it will hopefully reach -55 degrees celsius.  Yay! Who can tell I am being sarcastic!

Anyways.  The thing is with most graduate programs for psychology they look for the amount of experience that you have.  And want more than a year or so of work experience in the field that you want to take or in a field that relates to psychology.  Currently looking at my resume I am lacking greatly.  I was talking to a girl last semester who was working at a womens walk-in shelter as an crisis counsellor.  The sucky thing is that it is night shifts.  And I don't get enough sleep any ways to even want to try working a night shift, and then going to class.  I was thinking that I could possibly try to get a job at the hospital as some sort of helper for the psychologists, but I'm not really sure that would be amazing.  If I did want to get the year out of the way after I graduated from UofL, maybe I should consider postponing my trip until I get all that I need.  Then again, I could go afterwords, but then I wouldn't remember as well.  It's a big decision.  

Anyways.  The schools that I am looking at right now are:

1. University of Las Vegas-Nevada for a Masters of Education in School Counselling.
2. Memorial University for a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology
3. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education for a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology

So far that is the three that have caught my eye.  However there are more in Alberta that would also be interesting to look at.  The sucky thing about Lethbridges Psychology is that it is mainly based on research, and I don't really want to live in a lab for the rest of my life.  I mean I really didn't enjoy dissecting a frog and a cows eye during highschool.

Another option that I was thinking about earlier this school year, was instead of going in to get my masters degree in psychology, I could possibly get my After Degree in Nursing.  However I do need more biology, so that could suck.  If they offered some courses of biology during the summer then I definitely will take them. I also want to take some art classes.  They offered a Photography as a form of therapy course a couple years back in the summer, so that should show itself up this summer so I am excited about that.

The courses that I am currently in during this semester are:

1. Neuroscience 3600 (Neurobiology)
2. Psychology 2320 (Cognition and Perception)
3. Health Science/Psychology 3450 (Applied Statistics)
4. Psychology 3130 (Developmental Psychology)

I only take four a semester because I try to work 20 hours a week.  Lately I have not been getting fantastic hours (I legit got four this week) so I may need to start looking for a new job!  Also having a social life is hard when you barely see your friends.  I feel like I rambled alot today.  My apologies.

Roommates Suck

So.  I officially hate my roommate.  And my roommates boyfriend.  I just don't understand how someone can have an apartment and NEVER go to it.  It's frustrating that I have to live with two people when I only signed up to live with one.  Thank God she has to move out in 227 days and some odd hours (sad that I am counting down isn't it?), then I can live with whoever I want to. Which I already have figured out because she would have been living with me this year if she could have gotten out of her current lease.

Many will probably question my hatred towards my roommate.  We had met at work and didn't really chat, until during the summer I found her number that we had exchanged 4 months prior and we started too.  I found out she was looking for a room and I said that I was looking for a roommate.  Blah blah blah.  Needless to say during that conversation at some point she said that I would never see her because the previous year she was always at her boyfriends house.  Well this year she got a new boyfriend.  Who has a DUI (good life choice there....) so he can't drive, and , best part right here, simply thought that he was going to get a slap on the wrist, and that when he goes to get it, all would be good.  Then he found out he has to retake his test, get a thing installed in his car to blow in while he is driving, etc., etc.  So he doesn't have a car.  But he has an apartment.  So my question is, why do you never go there?

Maybe it is just me.  Living with roommates is hard, but it is frustrating because he is here all the time.  Every night this semester so far, and it makes me uncomfortable to go out into my living room and eat.  I try to plan my eating habits around the times that they are not home, because it gets uncomfortable sitting at a table making small talk with two people you hate, and yet when I go to my room to eat I feel as though I am being made fun of behind my back.  Thank god my name is on the real lease.  On July 15, 2012 when I renew my lease with my landlord, my roommate will have to sign a sublease stating that her move out date is August 31, 2012.  See another issue that I have is the fact that I gave her a sublease to sign in September and she has YET to sign it.  I could kick her out tomorrow if I wanted to because there is no documentation that she actually has a right to live here.

I am just so done trying to be nice to both of them that I am debating planning my day around their schedule so that I can never be home when they are, unless they are sleeping or leaving for a class or to workout.  But then again this is my apartment.  Maybe I should talk to her? However I did read some website forums about the awkward roommate-boyfriend situation and many say that the lone roommate is just jealous of the couple.  Let me be honest.  I AM NOT JEALOUS! They are not even defining their relationship because when they do they argue to the point where she breaks up with him and HE cries and begs to get back together.  It is weird unintentionally listening in to someones argument and then one person leaving and the other going into the shower to cry, when they don't realize that the shower is NOT covering up any noise, it is actually making your sobs worse.  I am happily single, trying to graduate and then go travelling before I settle down with some guy and have children or go back to graduate school.  I work at a children's clothing store and I know I want children, so I know that as soon as I date "Mr. Right" that I will want to settle down right after I graduate.  But I know enough to know that my previous boyfriends have not been right for me, and that I barely know what I am looking for. I haven't been all around the World, let alone Canada.  So how am I suppose to think I know what I am looking for when all I know is just by-products of what is perceived to be ideal by our neighbors the US.

If I do confront her over the situation, then it just opens up the "lets talk about what we don't like about the other person as a roommate" discussion and I don't really want to hear how I am being anti-social because I hang out in my room whenever I am home.  I'm sorry I just don't feel like watching the sports network with your boyfriend while he spreads his disgusting feet all over my coffee table and doesn't ever clean it up.  All of my problems consist of the two of them.  As of right now, I have 227 days, 3 hours, 3 mins, and 20 seconds to continue living with these people. FML.