Pretty New Camera

I got this gorgeous new camera.  It's a Nikon Coolpix S8200.  It has many amazing features, my favorite one being that it actually works!   I'm going to show you a ton of pictures. Woohoo!

obviously taken with my old awful camera,
my new Nikon Coolpix S8200

the built-in selective color feature is one of my favorites too

more selective color fun

it takes full-color pictures too, though I edited this one poorly

all this prettiness resides on top of my half of the dresser;
the rings are for a bracelet I'm making for myself

Sunny with a Chance of Showers

Yesterday the weather was beautiful, blue skies and not a cloud in sight.  G took me to the beach, which I was surprised to learn in only 20 minutes from my house by car.  It was a ton of fun.  We collected lots of pretty rocks and shells to put in an empty vase he has.  We took a long walk on the beach. (It's a cliche for a reason, because it's really enjoyable.) 

After that, G took me to Best Buy to pick up my new camera which I haven't used yet. I need to put some AAA batteries in it; then I'll photograph at least some of the jewelry I've made to put on Etsy.  After Best Buy, G took me to an early lunch at Red Robin, to celebrate the fact that he got his master's degree and I got a job.  Over lunch, I told him that my boss has been sexually harassing me.  Nothing as bad as rape, but what the law would describe as "unwelcome touches".  My boss has rubbed my upper thighs both front and back, given me back massages where his hands end up going under my shirt, and patted me on the butt, all on more than one occasion.  In fact, it's been happening every day for two weeks now.  The first week of work, he didn't do anything like that but as soon as the second week started, so did the unwelcome touches.  At first, I tried to rationalize it, like maybe he doesn't realize what he's doing.  I would get up and walk away to work intently on some project.  I didn't even write about it on here, because I guess I was sort of in denial.  If I don't tell people about it, I can pretend it's not happening.  I don't know if I actually had the flu last Friday or if the thought of going back to work just made me sick to my stomach, but I puked at least 10 times before I was able to call in sick, then more after I called in sick.  I thought I was finally better when I was about to go to bed for the night, but then I puked some more, and had to stay up a couple more hours.  When I get sick, I get thoughtful, and that's when I decided that minimum wage is not worth feeling so uncomfortable that I feel sick to my stomach, as I had every day before going to work since the touching started.  After I told G what had been going on he told me I'm not going back to work, and I told him I wasn't going to, and that I was quitting.  G wanted to go threaten my (now-ex) boss that G would cut off Bob's testicles if he ever touched me again, but Bob isn't in the shop on weekends.  G later decided not to threaten him, because that will only end in G getting in trouble.  I sent my boss an email that I got a new job and I'm moving to Portland.  I don't want to tell him the real reason why I quit, because then he'll know he had power over me and I am not going to give him that satisfaction.  I didn't even get a good night's sleep last night because I was kept awake thinking about all the things I have to do now that I had to quit my job.  So now I have to find a new job, and either two new roommates or a new place to live, because my roommate informed me that she's moving out at the end of the month.  And now I have to call my mom and tell her what happened.  It sort of feels good though, that I've taken away Bob's power and now I'm safe.  G thinks Bob chose me as a victim because I look young and because I'm shy and quiet around people until I get to know them.  An easy target.  I Facebook messaged one of Bob's former employees to see if Bob had ever done anything like that to her and she said he hadn't but she's sorry that happened to me.  I just feel sorry for the next girl Bob inevitably hires and I hope that she doesn't have to go through what I did. And I'm very lucky that it didn't escalate, because it could have been a lot worse.  And I'm also lucky that G loves me so much. He even bought me muffins that evening, because I had been craving them but didn't feel like baking.  We also watched another Lakers playoff victory last night.  And I made a delicious, if not sort of disjointed, meal of broccoli and salmon and nachos.  G comes up with meal ideas and sometimes chops stuff up and then I actually cook them.  He loved the salmon, which is something that I have never cooked before and he raved over how perfect the texture was, which made me feel good about myself.  I have a busy day/while ahead of me, so that's all for now.

Graduation Speeches

Why are graduation speeches even a thing? I had to give one and I completely dreaded it. I was a member of the class of 2009. My class had just 50 kids in it. And yet I hate public speaking, especially in front of about 400 people.  So I just want to know, is it supposed to be a reward? You did so well in school that you get to force people to listen to whatever you feel like talking about for as long as you feel like talking about it.  Some people would probably love that but not me.  For me, it was more of a punishment, like you did so well in school that we're forcing you to say things to people who for the majority don't even care that you exist. Fantastic.  So for my speech I just read a poem I wrote earlier on in high school and ended it with congrats to the class of 2009. Short and sweet.  And then during the grad night party, one of the popular guys had the audacity to say he would have done a better speech and I wasted my opportunity.  I told him I would have gladly let him speak instead of me if that was allowed and I hate public speaking.  Not to mention that when you graduate you have to wear some of the ugliest clothes known to man.  And my hair was being ridiculous that day too.  So I was really just glad to get it over with.

Here's another fun story about graduating from high school.  The day of graduation, I went to put on my pretty "new" thrift store dress and it didn't fit.  Because my biceps were too big, of all things.  In the last part of my senior year, to avoid some hardcore senioritis, I took two PE classes a day out of my five daily classes.  One of them was tumbling, for a second time, because I had a goal to learn how to cartwheel (which I did) and because the first time I took it, I had an appendectomy and had to sit out for about three months while I healed.  Pretty much everything in tumbling involved upper body strength, from handstands to cartwheels and roundoffs.  So I got pretty big arm muscles over the course of that class and consequently my dress no longer fit.  And I was just finding out the day of.  When I was already sick to my stomach with nervousness.  Awesome.  I called my best friend, and between her younger sister and her, they had a really pretty dress that fit me perfectly and they let me borrow it.  So that got taken care of about an hour before graduation. Eep. Talk about a close call.

yuck

Q and A: How Can I Get My Luck Back?

So I was looking through the keywords that led people to my blog today, like I do everyday, and saw the question, "How do I get my luck back?" I thought it was my duty to answer whoever searched that, because the closest thing to that I have here is about me getting my luck back. But I didn't say how.

Disclaimer: Don't take anything I say here seriously.

Step One: Always eat Lucky Charms for breakfast, every single day. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so make sure yours is lucky!

Step Two: Carry as many good luck charms as possible with you. If you're really serious about being lucky, you can even construct a good luck suit.  Use items like four leaf clovers, right side up horseshoes, and lucky pennies. Avoid rabbit's feet because they aren't nice. All these rabbits have to hop-limp around with three or less feet because everyone is stealing their feet for luck.

Step Three: Do every lucky thing possible. Always wish on shooting stars.  And always pick up every penny you find, unless they're in the middle of a really busy intersection. That would be a risky move until you are absolutely sure that your luck is fully functioning.

Step Four: Never do anything unlucky. This means don't walk under ladders, don't let black cats cross your path, and definitely don't break any mirrors.  If you do any of these things, you will need to counteract the bad luck by doing the following. If you walk under a ladder, you will need to then climb to the top of the ladder and back down 7 times, because the number 7 is good luck.  If a black cat crosses your path you have to hop on one foot backwards past it and videotape yourself doing so and upload it to Youtube, because hopping and Youtube are both good luck.  If you break a mirror, you have to make 7 new mirrors, just like how you have to replant trees if you cut them down. Don't ask me how either. It's complicated.

Do all of those things and you should be winning all of the lotteries on a weekly basis.