Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

New website; School; Work

Tuesday, February 8th, 2005

Well, this is why I gave myself a deadline of March 1st. A new design! I got an email Tuesday morning saying that amipow.com was going to expire later that day, and luckily, I had enough money to pay for it. (I just hope I have enough to pay the rest of my bills.) Speaking of bills… I really don’t like them. I got my first phone/internet bill today, and it was much more than I was hoping for. I think I make enough to cover my bills (I don’t quite know yet because my bills are still including deposits, new account fees, etc.). In short, I don’t like bills, and I’m sure everyone else agrees.

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Not a whole lot is going on in my life right now. My average day involves working from 9:30 until 3:00, and class the rest of the day until 8:30. I don’t have class Fridays but I usually work from 1:00 to 9:30. Saturday is the same as Friday, just spelled differently. :) I usually have two days off each week, Sunday and some other weekday. So, I go to class for 15 hours a week, and I work about 20 to 30 hours a week. Assuming I sleep 8 hours a night, I only have about 72 hours a week to do homework, eat, or any other thing I may want to do. This is going to wear me out eventually. I’m not whining, just informing everyone what I’m doing now. I’m now the Receiving Clerk at the bookstore, which means that any shipment that comes into the store, and anything that goes out, has to go through me first. There wasn’t a raise, but I am working more hours. Hopefully, I’ll get a promotion soon that has a larger paycheck attached to it.

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I’m really enjoying my classes this semester. I have Psychology, Sociology, Criminal Justice, Criminology, and History. In March I pick up a one hour class: Walking. History and Walking don’t have anything to do with my major, but I have to take them anyway. My History teacher is a lawyer by trade, but teaches because he loves it. That makes it so much more interesting and enjoyable. My Criminal Justice teacher is a Major for the Dekalb County Police Department (Atlanta is in Dekalb for you non-Georgians) and teaches at the police academy. My Sociology teacher, however, is only here because he is working on his doctorate so he can go on and do other things. He can’t spell or pronounce anything, and just asks us questions and writes on the board what we say. But for the most part, I enjoy my classes. I like having evening classes. Everyone else is working like me, and they are generally older than me; which is good, because for the most part I don’t get along with people my age.

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It’s really nice to have an internet connection again. I really got out of the loop on everything. I need to go back and read everyone’s blogs for the past four months to see what’s been happening.

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I’m reading two books right now, both biographies. One is a class assignment, “John Adams” by David McCullough. President Adams’ life makes for a very interesting read. (Bill Clinton said the same thing about his book, “My Life”) If anybody enjoys a good nonfiction read, pick up this book. I’m also reading “Our Brother’s Keeper” by Jedwin Smith. Jedwin works with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice, and was a finalist the second time. His book doesn’t come out until March (one of the perks of working at a bookstore) and is amazing. It’s the story of his life, but mainly focusing on the affect of his younger brother’s death in Vietnam. His brother’s death caused the parents to divorce (his mother blamed the father for the death of their son because the father was a Marine, and therefore it was his fault), and most everyone in their large Catholic family turned to alcohol as an answer. Jedwin swore that one day he would track down and kill the man that fired the rocket that killed his brother. He went to Vietnam, but I won’t tell you want happens. You’ll have to read the book.

Work, Car’s Fixed, Angie Aparo

Thursday, October 7th, 2004

I wish things were more interesting in my life. It’s just the same thing every day. Wake up, go to school, go home for lunch, go back to school, and either go home for the night or go to work. There’s only one ‘or’ in that sentence, meaning that there’s only two different scenarios of my day. That’s pretty boring.

Luckily my job is interesting. I’ve learned so much since I started working there last week. It’s a great relief in my otherwise boring day to go to work. My boss, George, is an interesting character. Not only has he read nearly every book in the store, but he knows almost all of the authors on a first name basis. George was telling me about one of his favorite books, about the author going to Vietnam during the war to find out what had happened to his brother. He got very emotional while he was telling me the story, and then he said, “That reminds me, I need to give him a call.”

So he picked up the phone and called the author, “Hey, it’s George Scott. I’m doing great, how about you? I was wondering if you’d like to come to the bookstore sometime soon to do a book signing? Ok, we’ll I’ll talk to you later.” He’s a very interesting guy.

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My car is finally fixed, and hopefully this will be the last time in a long time that it’ll have to have any work done to it. I don’t really know what they had to do the second time, but it’s running better now than it ever has.

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I’m going to yet another Angie Aparo concert tonight. I need a little change in my daily routine. This one’s at the 40 Watt again. I’m really excited to go, because it’s such a personal environment, and I’m looking forward to talking with Angie again. Before I moved to Atlanta I talked with his parents for a while at the coffeeshop and they said they’d try to get me something from him (i.e. an autograph, unreleased song, etc.). But unfortunately I moved before I saw them again. I’ve read on a couple of fan sites that they’ve been handing out his new single at some of the concerts, so maybe I’ll get something anyway.