this one's gonna be a long one...

i told my current boss i was leaving friday. it was kind of sad but i think he understood. and (dramatic pause) i was READY. no more crappy commute, no more 30,000 miles a year (or more) on my car, no more spending $300 per month on gas. and i get to design entire structures now (i think i'll be starting with cell phone towers, but hey, we all have to start somewhere right?) also, i might get to CLIMB cell phone towers. that was mentioned offhand in the interview (as in i probably wouldn't be interested but one guy who is an engineer does it sometimes) and i was all, well i just went skydiving so that sounds cool. ha ha. don't think he expected that. he (the engineer who interviewed me and i think will be my boss) seems cool. as in, someone i might actually have chosen for a friend were he not my future boss. know what i mean? (yet another reason i am super excited about this new job). i'm going to tour the place and meet my co-workers on friday.

i just need (NEED) to say something about the whole teens in malls issue. well, some things.
-some places THAT SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS, the mall is the only thing to do on weekends. so when you eliminate the possibility for teens WHO ARE OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE THEMSELVES AROUND to go to the mall, you increase teen pregnancy and the usage of dirt roads and backseats, or the incidence of "field parties," or "cruising."
-i think that punishing EVERYONE for the actions of a few breeds resentment and hostility from the teens who are decent. as one of the "good kids" throughout school, the easiest way to make me dislike/disrespect (at least in my head)/get angry at/become enraged at an authority figure was for that person to punish the entire class for the actions of a few. way to go, now ALL teens hate you (mall rule-makers, adults in general), not just the shitty ones.
-that said, i can't say i really blame any of the mall security people or the rule makers for this. the parents of the shitty teens are the ones who are to blame, because they want the mall to babysit their shitty kids. i still think they could've come up with a better solution though. (like, if you want to annoy/harrass people at the mall on friday and saturday nights, you can just get "arrested" by the mall security people and be forced to scrape gum off the bottoms of food court tables NEXT friday and saturday nights. no?)

i procrastinate a lot. and i don't like that about myself, and i KNOW it only creates more stress later (and now, cause i stress about procrastinating stuff i shouldn't) but i can't seem to stop. the only times i have been moderately successful at not procrastinating were when i had so freaking much to do that i had NO spare time and had to plan every task and fill every moment or something wouldn't get done. but no matter how bad it is for me and how much my rational brain KNOWS it's bad, i don't stop procrastinating. sigh.

also, i thought about clothing. in a somewhat deeper than normal context, if you will. (ha ha. you can go ahead and laugh). i thought about all the pieces of clothing that i bought that i LOVE. then i thought about all the other pieces of clothing that i have bought that i "settled" on, usually because i "needed" something THAT DAY and when i didn't find anything i loved i got something anyway. applying that to life, i though about the things i do that i LOVE (autocross, simplicity, trivia, see my family/friends) and the things i do to fill up time or that i feel are necessary but usually don't end up enjoying. granted these time-fillers are much fewer and farther between now, what with being forced to think about stuff in the context of simplicity and not being stressed and spread too thin. however, the two biggest (right now) are school and work. i don't know if i hate engineering, or if i just hate jumping through hoops and useless repetition. right now i'm leaning toward hating hoops/repetition, because there is something very fundamentally satisfying about getting a design right, or getting a homework problem right (if it's something you've never done before. but after the 2564987201146776685236232006th one, i'm so over that shit. and mad because repeating it that many times taught me NOTHING). anyway. the point of this whole thing is i'm going to think, longer and harder, about things that i add to my life from now on, whether it's purchases or activities or responsibilities. do they really add (=enrich), or am i using it as a substitute for something else? my goal, in clothing analogy, is to own only clothing that i feel GREAT in. whether it's super-comfortable or super-career-intimidating-business or just super-cute-and-casual. i will only own it/participate in it/do it if i LOVE it. (this excludes paying bills and working and stuff because i realize they are a necessary part of life. i will not, however, use the excuse of "i have to live SOMEWHERE" to rent the super expensive apartment when the cheap one is just fine).

to this end, i am considering cancelling cable and just having internet. however, i might like my TLC shows and 24 and the office and scrubs and my name is earl too much to make that plunge right now. i have also decided i will most likely live at my current apartment for longer than the one year i initially gave myself. it's super cheap, safe, and i can't beat the location for that price. it's about as cheap as having my own apartment in carrollton would be. that. is. insane.

financially, i'm ok. i'm working on two weeks of not eating out. however, i realized that due to my current job's dress code (or distinct lack thereof) i do not have enough pants that are not jeans to get through two weeks of (new) work. so instead of going to the mall and spending a shit ton of money on overpriced sweat shop clothing, i found two pairs of pants on ebay. however, after winning them i realized that with shipping they were only about 2/3 the cost of regular clothes at a store as opposed to the 1/2 or less they would have been if shipping were less costly. i think i need to go to thrift stores from now on. and i feel guilty about buying them even though they were actually a need. sigh. and i could still use more pants.