I'm Just Slightly Upset

I know I've been mentioning my ex a lot these last few blog posts. Or at least it feels that way to me. It's difficult because half my brain absolutely despises her, and is so angry for everything that she's done to me, for all the emotional turmoil she's thrown me into. The other half keeps trying to stick up for her, rationalize some of her actions and words.

Well, I don't need to worry about this anymore. Because now, I absolutely loathe her.

Yes, yes I am.

She wanted to see me the other day for some reason. Quick breakfast or something. No biggie, I agreed. I knew something was up though, because you don't randomly call up your ex, especially during your own finals week.

Guess who has a new boyfriend.

Wow.

Just. Wow.

I guess I should be flattered that she decided to tell me in person. As opposed to me finding out from someone else. But here's the part that really irks me. Remember all things she said to me prior to our break-up? "I think I'm happier single", "I was too busy to commit to a relationship", "I'm not interested in a relationship right now", and who could forget "You'll probably be the best boyfriend I'll ever have".

Yes, which makes total sense. This is why you got a new boyfriend. Either you're lying to my face or you're a masochist who wants a worse boyfriend. I wonder which one it could be.

I assure you that I am cursing like a sailor as I type these words. Unfortunately, I cannot convey these words on my blog if I want to keep my SFW rating.

And scowling too. Lots of scowling.

Apparently they've been dating for a few weeks now, and after getting the green light from her various friends, decided to go with it. They started spending time together because they had so much spare time. 

Time that she rarely had for me.

I feel a bit betrayed. Maybe it's the hormones and the emotions but I can't tell if I'm being petty right now. Why does it matter to me who she's sleeping with? We're not a couple anymore, her personal life is none of my business.

Am I wrong for feeling anger for being lied to? Was I lied to? Her past attempts to comfort me can certainly be described as pathetic, and its only worsened the entire recovery process for me. I'm just glad they started dating recently, because now, I can just channel this energy into more anger. If this happened a few months ago I would have become morose.

Wow, I have a lot of angry reaction pictures.

I'm happy for her, that she managed to move on so quickly and find a fellow med student with similar interests with whom she can start a relationship with. But I certainly am NOT happy WITH her. Am I jealous that despite all this time I still can't find a significant other? Yes, yes I am.

Remember, when we broke up, we didn't make a huge debacle over it. Many people still believe we're dating. And I know that she'll be judged by her peers for her actions. How cliched is that? Dumping your old boyfriend after getting into medicine, and then almost immediately dating a fellow med student?

I'm going to sit back, and enjoy all and any fallout that comes from this. And I refuse to defend her actions any longer, I've put up with enough. Way more than enough. If anyone else wants my side of the story, they're going to get it in all its entirety. No more self-censorship.

For anyone curious, no, I do not contact her. I absolutely refuse to talk or communicate with her in any medium. If she ever wants to talk to me, she has to initiate something. And at the moment, I'm thinking of completely removing her from my life and just flat out ignoring her from now on.

I hope she's happy with her decisions, because I certainly am not. The best of luck to her with everything.

Preperations

Summer has only begun and already I'm sitting around trying to figure out things for after summer has come to an end. Can't afford to dawdle, because it's too easy to sit back, relax, and boom! All the time you suddenly had is gone. Also, it's also common for unexpected events to occur that suddenly eat up all your free time.

I wouldn't be surprised if my family decided to take another month long trip to Asia again. This time my Dad has been hinting at going to Korea. Most of us are fairly hesitant because of North Korea being absolutely crazy. But that might change and we'll head somewhere else, who knows.

In the meantime, one of the best motivational messages I've taken to heart as of late is the following:

And so I'll begin my work today. Starting with planning for my academic future. At the moment I have 3 options I'm considering: Graduate studies in Psychology, Speech Pathology, or something in Business.

Unfortunately if I want to continue doing Psychology, I'll have to abandon my province, probably head to Saskatchewan. As I've mentioned before the budget cuts have NOT been kind to anyone. Psychology has lost several support staff and I highly doubt they can afford another graduate student.

Though we fared better than Sociology and Anthropology which had to fuse together to stay afloat.

Speech Pathology is another one in which I'll probably have to abandon my province for as well and also to Saskatchewan. Again, the program in my city is extremely competitive and I doubt my GPA can withstand the scrutiny. Seriously, the only benefit I have is that I'm male, and maybe they'll let me in because of how saturated the field is with women.

Or maybe they're all sexist and that's why there are so few men.

Though I'm not sure Speech Pathology is such a good option. It would require me to take more Linguistics and while it wasn't that bad, my friend's girlfriend is a Linguistics major and she had only one piece of advice for me:

"Linguistics is terrible. Look at these notes, look at them. Don't subject yourself to this.".

Ok, so what about Business? An MBA (Master's in Business Administration) requires that I write not only the GMAT but also have 2 years of experience working full-time. Unfortunately as much as I'd like a well-paying full-time job, I haven't been that lucky. But who knows, maybe I'll run into something so good that I won't want to head back to class in the Fall.

In the meantime, a BCOM (Bachelor's in Commerce) while only a second undergraduate degree, only needs me to take Econ 101 and 102. It's only 2 years long. AND that opens me up to all the beautiful internships in the field. And from what I've seen, the Business students have no end of awesome internships.

Something that Psychology failed me on.

 This is relevant to my interests.

So I guess I'll be aiming at taking Econ 101, Econ 102, maybe a higher level Linguistics course? Maybe another Psychology course for interests sake? I don't want to take more than 3 courses, but we'll see what happens.

But the course registration site is always really iffy on the weekends so I'll have to wait until Monday to try and sign up. In the meantime, I have my projects to work on. I know that I'm vague on the works in progress but it's because I don't enjoy talking about things that aren't completed or unsuccessful. It's a pride thing.

I know I keep saying things look like they're about to work (Project Derp is especially notorious for this) and it's true. They show promise, but they all still need a lot work still before I would consider it a success. I think the best analogy I can come up with is finally being able to properly boil a pot of pasta. Good for you! But you still have a ways to go until this becomes acceptable spaghetti carbenera.

So I'll keep working on my projects, online profiles, job hunts, and my two part-time jobs. Especially my projects. I want to have an update where I have more to talk about as opposed to "STILL WORKING ON IT".

End of Term

It's over. Another term done and gone. All my exams were pretty much meh. I feel indifferent to all of them. Not to say that I think I did poorly, I thought they were alright. But considering how much effort I put into studying these last few days was abysmal. Either I'm getting more efficient at studying or these courses were abnormal easy.

Or I'm just being really, really cocky right now.

But I don't care because I'm done.

So now that my summer has begun, what does this mean I'll be doing? Usually I'd be spending the first few days goofing off, relaxing and taking it easy. Video games, sleeping in, lazing about on the internet until my brain has gone numb.

Not anymore. I just can't do it anymore, at least, not for the same extended periods of time that I used to.

I want to blame it on feeling guilty on not finding a job, or school options not looking so great and thus I'm demoralized. But I have a fairly good idea of why. But before I begin, I want to say that I am in no way blaming or using this to demonize her. See, one of the last few conversations that I had with my ex before we broke up 4 months ago resulted in her saying the following line:

"Oh Damian, you're not stupid, you're just unambitious,".

Unambitious.

Un.

Am.

Bitious.

I don't think I've ever been so insulted in my life. I don't even remember the context of that conversation, but that line has stuck with me.

When someone in your life leaves you, you tend to feel hollow. Like a part of you is missing. Some people fill that hole with other people, alcohol, or even just leave the hole there and stay miserable. But I did something different. At first I left mine empty, wallowed in my misery. But in the process of moving on, I began to fill that emptiness with something else.

That something else turn out to be anger and bitterness.

In the last few months I have become noticeably more abrasive and cold. My temper has shortened and strangely I've become more eloquent in my speech. An odd but possibly the only positive side effect. I don't understand it myself. But in the process I also became more self-motivated, a metaphorical fire has been sparked inside me, and all I have to do is remember one word.

Unambitious.

And now the urge to goof off is gone.

Do I hate my ex for saying that to me? No! Do I resent her for it? Not at all! In fact, I should be thanking her, because with this my productivity has increased, and will continue to increase until something fruitful has surfaced.

And by fruitful I'm referring to my various projects. I now have time to work on everything. Some projects actually managed to advance themselves without my work during finals month which was a welcome surprise. In fact, thanks to the hardware upgrade that CABAL (my computer formerly named EVA) received AND all the free time I'm about to get, I am now able to revive Project Pandering.

Wish me luck on this one. I'll give further details in a future post. But it's going to rely on me digging up old skills that I haven't used in years. Luckily, there are tutorials to help speed up the process.

In non-project related news. I still need to go for the various medical tests to figure out what's wrong with me. I have a ton of friends I need to meet up with (preferably with alcohol) and I need to keep hunting for jobs. I have a few leads and I need to type up a few things.

I do not intend to let these next 4 months go to waste. I'm far too disgruntled to let that happen. Am I holding a grudge? Am I being petty? Am I being motivated for the wrong reasons? Maybe. Do I care? Not particularly.

Let's do this.

Project Koi: The Bachelor (Part 2)

And now onto the conclusion of Project Koi. Part 1 is over there for those who haven't read it. Basically, I'm a lonely University student who has been dumped and am now trying online dating sites. While most people I tried to contact on said sites didn't respond, today we'll take a look at those who did.

Also on an interesting note, it's always funny to find someone you know in real life. I took the time to message said person but they never replied back to me.

I guess they were just embarrassed?

Only two sites had people within my preferences: OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish. Actually to be honest, only Plenty of Fish had a decent number of "matches" (aka, more than 5). I had roughly 3 conversations going out of the ~dozen people I contacted. 1 girl didn't seem all that interested in the entire online dating idea, never updated her profile, and took weeks to reply to my messages. I wrote her off fairly quickly.

On Plenty of Fish, there's a function called "Meet Me" in which you are given pictures of users and asked if you'd be willing to meet them in person. One woman said yes to my profile and so I started a conversation with her that quickly died. I don't know what I said wrong, maybe she thought I was too boring or asked too many questions. She was willing to meet me in person but not willing to talk to me? Weirdo.

The last and final person was my best hope. She was fairly attractive, quirky, and actually responded. Well, she responded when she had internet. Apparently she could only use the WiFi from her phone from work. Our conversations were enjoyable, at least it appeared that way from my end. Then suddenly her profile disappeared. I'd like to blame finals (she claims she's also a University student) but a small part of me feels like she deleted her account because she gave up on online dating.

0/3. I was ready to throw in the towel and call it quits.

And then, someone named Cheryl messaged me.

Hello, what is this?

Someone contacting me? This was an unexpected surprise and it seemed innocent enough. Two words "You're cute". Maybe I was still feeling lonely, disheartened by all the failure I was getting. And yet here, someone had found me physically attractive enough to send me a message. I was so flattered that I messaged her back thanking her.

The conversation initially started off fairly standard. Exchange of some basic personal information, etc. etc.. Turns out she lived in a small town several hours away from the city. That immediately eliminated any chance of a date. But that was alright, I was content to talk to someone who enjoyed my company. At least someone was interested in me after all these lonely months.

But before I continue, does anyone here watch Archer? It's a great show.

Funny how the crazy secretary is also named Cheryl.

If this were a book, this would be called "foreshadowing".

The signs were small at the beginning. Little quirks that you, didn't pay much attention to. For example, after the first conversation, she said she wanted to move in with me. Or if she came up to the city, she wanted me to move in with her. Not a big deal, i took it as a joke. I humoured her and then laughed it off.

Red flag #1.

After the second conversation, she told me she was having fantasies of us getting married.

Red flag #2.

Then she started messaging me fairly frequently, asking me why I wasn't online, why wasn't I responding to her, why was I so busy? She missed me and was lonely and wanted to talk. Then she would start getting mad and passive aggressive. Remember. This, was after 2 days of us coming into contact with me.

Red flag #3.

Because I insist on having my blog worksafe I can't mention some of Cheryl's other fantasies. Needless to say I was fairly disturbed and by that point you may as well have thrown me into a pool of red flags. I am very glad that she doesn't live nearby, and has no way of moving to city anytime soon.

ABORT. ABORT.

I am also very glad that I had minimal information about myself there. I used a fake name, my profile picture has my face partially obscured, dummy email, etc. etc.. I slowly stopped responding to Cheryl (much to her dismay and confusion) in hopes that she'll eventually give up and move onto another target.

And so, I think I have to end Project Koi. It was an uh, interesting experience but ultimately a failure. Looks like I'll have to find a new girlfriend with a different method.

Project Koi: The Bachelor (Part 1)

I've been single for nearly 4 months now. It's been an uncomfortable and fairly painful road to walk on but I think I came out mostly in one piece. But I still craved the companionship of a significant other, something that I couldn't get with normal friends. But my circle of friends had diminished, most of the single people had hooked up with someone already, and now I was all alone. I needed to expand my social spheres if I wanted a chance.

And so, I decided to try my luck, at online dating.

Hey there single ladies!

I knew the chances of success would be slim, and it became more apparent the further I looked into the entire process. They did a study once where men and women were asked what they looked for in potential partners and everyone said personality and all that good stuff. But, turns out the men rated women who are younger and attractive more highly and women rated men with money and power more highly. The study has been replicated many times and while this is a generalization, I would consider this to be an important detail to remember if any of you consider online dating.

But just because you're rated lower doesn't mean you still aren't going to get interested people vying for your attention. In fact, I think as long as you're a woman you will almost always will get messages and chat requests from interested guys. As a joke, people have created online dating profiles of the most unappealing and unattractive adult women they could conceive. We're talking pictures photoshopped to have them physically unattractive, shallow and vapid personalities, STDs, if you can think of an undesirable trait, they made a profile with it.

And all of them, ALL of those profiles received requests from interested men. One person I think even took a picture of a lamp, declared the profile gender as female, and put one line of text in the description. That profile still got messaged by multiple men who were interested.

Yes, men can get bombarded with messages like this too. But you're probably going to have to make it look like you're loaded. And like Joe said, do you really want a woman who only wants you for your wallet? Well, I guess being a sugar daddy is good enough for some guys.

Now, you might think that women have the advantage here. But in reality, it may not be all that much of an advantage. You see, most guys on these online dating profiles, are perverted creeps. So now, the woman has all the fun of sorting through all of these messages.

But at least the women are generally going to have people coming to them. There are normal, nice, and friendly guys on these sites too. But these men have to try their best to tailor his message to differentiate himself from the perverted creeps. It's not easy trying to come across as friendly, in the hopes of starting a conversation without being labelled as the complete opposite.

I don't bite, I promise.

Perhaps I'm too picky as well. Is it too much to ask for women who are my age who can spell properly and use proper grammar? I don't want to start a relationship with a person who has the mentality of a 12 year old.

I hoped around multiple sites and in the end only two sites had anybody with my preferences. I messaged close to a dozen different people, and barely any of them replied. One of them didn't even qualify as a conversation if you ask me. It was getting a bit depressing really.

But that's where things get interesting. This is also where things go bad for Damian. The more observant of you will notice that this is part 1, simply because this post would get way too long otherwise. Part 2 will take a look at the people who responded to my messages.

And the girl who messaged me first.

To Everyone Affected

I normally don't get the chance to talk about recent events because I try to make posts in advance. But today I think I'll change things up a little bit today. For those of you who haven't heard, there was a bombing at the Boston marathon today. Reports and what not have been going on all day and thanks to social media and sites like Reddit, we are able to get information and pictures as events unfold.

For better or for worse.

There are some very, very graphic images that I will not be sharing.

I know a lot of people are going to "lose faith" in humanity. Which is really stupid, one idiot decides to cause a lot of damage and suddenly we as a species has failed? If anything, this tragedy shows how many good people there are in the world. How fast ordinary citizens rushed to help the injured or reduce the chaos.

People like Carlos Arredondo who saved a man's life with his bare hands by literally preventing a man from bleeding to death. I have seen a lot of graphic images, I thought I was hardened to almost everything. But I still get queasy looking at that picture of Arredondo pinching a tourniquet as they pushed a victim away on a wheelchair.

And it's not because of the blood, or even the visible femur of the victim. Just seeing the tourniquet held shut by two fingers, and realizing that this is all that's preventing a man from dying. It's horrifying and humbling.

I still get a touch nauseous thinking about it.

This event is still fresh. Please take an extra second to double check if the information you've found is accurate. Both right and left-sided corporations are notorious for using tragedies to try and push for whatever political agenda they've been paid to promote. And they won't hesitate for a moment to skew or even falsify information.

And while we're on the topic of news networks, some of them have already begun fear mongering, spreading hate messages, and incorrect information. I want to be surprised, but I'm not. I mean, there was a shooting in a mall recently and the shooter posted all his information online prior to the attack. Luckily, no one was killed but the shooter proved his point. 

The news networks still failed to report his information correctly.

Last thing before I end this post. DO NOT donate to any Facebook charities. These are scammers trying to make a quick dollar off a tragedy. Donate instead to the Red Cross who will actually use your money to help the victims.

My thoughts go out to everyone in Boston. I have a few friends who are in the area and they are luckily unharmed. To any of my readers who may be in the area, stay safe, and I hope all your loved ones are safe as well.

End of Term

Today was the last day of classes. The winter term of 2013 has ended and I'm not sure how to feel. It's so odd to not have all this pressure and panic within the final week. Cramming to finish projects, assignments, or papers. It's surprisingly relaxing.

Even my exams are nicely spread apart and what not. Two next week, and the last one two weeks from now. I have plenty of time to study and be well rested for these things.

Yay.

I really don't have much to say. I have had more time to work on various projects with all this excess spare time and actually, I think Project Koi has reached it's time limit and I can safely call it a failure.

But we'll save that post for Monday. It's a mess, and with regards to parts of it, I'd like to quote Gob Bluth from Arrested Development:

Have a good weekend everyone.

Parental Disapproval

I think we all go through stages where our parents never seem to be happy with us or our decisions. And for whatever reason I've been recognizing noticeable increases in the amount of disapproval and nagging from my parents.

For example, I recall the final years of my undergraduate degree. Absolute mayhem. Non-stop papers, sleeping every other day, the stress, the panic, I hadn't felt like that in years. In fact, if you want you can backtrack into my posts and find me worrying about the aforementioned problems. I'm not going to go find them, those were dark days.

So because I'm not as young as I used to be (and because I'm just doing pre-requisite courses for other programs now) I wanted to take it easy for once and relax. To which my Mother believes is a "waste of a year". Yes Mother, preserving what precious little health and sanity I have is a waste. Taking 3 courses a term as opposed to 5 is a waste of a year.

And here's the kicker, my Mother takes one look at my sister and says "Don't you feel sorry for Bree? Look how much work she's doing. She falls asleep studying halfway studying." No I don't have sympathy for my sister, because I actually managed to power through and perform all-nighters to finish my papers and notes. Just because I don't collapse in the kitchen where everyone can see me doesn't mean I'm not working hard too. I prefer to pass out in my room where no one can see me.

(Also I'm a terrible brother, shhh...)

Alright, so I have a lax term. And with that I decide to work more hours at my part-time fastfood job. Might as well make more money. Nope, unacceptable as well. I should be focusing on my studies. Studying for courses that I'm breezing through. Again, I apologize to all my Linguist and Sociologist readers, but I find all this material very, very, soft.

Fine, fastfood job is apparently undignified. That's what Project Cold was for. It addressed EVERY issue my Mother had with my previous job. Improved pay, acquiring different work skills, I don't come home smelling like grease, I set my own hours, AND I'm running around getting exercise.

Nope. Looks like marketing is an undignified job too. She clearly disapproves. To which I respond:

Again, if I was studying something that was really hard (e.g. physics or the dreaded organic chemistry) I could understand and I wouldn't have grabbed a second job. Because I actually need that time to learn everything. I don't need a lot time to memorize facts about the human life course or how babies babble.

Maybe my Mother just wants me to stay home. I'm rarely at home these days because I'm usually working after classes on weekdays. What she doesn't know is that if I'm stuck at home, I'm working on my third job, Project Derp. Yes Mother, occasionally I give in to a moment of weakness and spend a few too many hours playing computer games, but I assure you, I'm not always goofing about.

And I have no intention of telling my Mother about Project Derp (or any project for that matter) until I have deemed it successful.

Stay out.

This is because of the second problem with my Mother is that (and it kills me to say this) I don't really trust her with information. Before you call me a bad son hear me out. You see, if I confide or tell you something, I expect you to not tell anyone else, use it against me in the future, or mock me in any form revolving said information. Fairly simple, fairly standard.

If I aggravate my Mother in any way, she can (and will) throw everything and anything at me, including information that I told in confidence. It can be as simple as deciding to sleep in, or a petty argument. It has happened before in the past, and honestly, I don't need to have her use in an argument "You're never going to succeed in X because of Y" at me again. She will apologize for it later on but that isn't going to make me want to share stuff with you in the future.

In all honesty, I tried to keep Project Cold a secret for as long as possible (because of the mentioned issues) and because I knew of the stigma and the potential for the disapproval would swiftly follow. Unfortunately, there's only so many excuses you can use for slipping out of the house before they start getting suspicious.

That, and my manager dropping off flyers and other marketing materials at my house may have tipped them off.

Nothing to see here, shoo.

My Mother is an amazing woman, don't get me wrong. She exhibits nearly none of the stereotypical Asian mom characteristics (e.g. she doesn't want grandkids, doesn't want her kids to become doctors) and has spoiled me over the years with her love and affection.

How many of your Moms beat Ocarina of Time on the N64 or are replaying it on the 3DS? How many of your Moms will call their coworkers butthurt? How many of your Moms tried to bribe you with a laptop NOT to go to a prestigious high school because she was worried about the stress?

I love my Mother, and everything she's done for me. I've looked at a lot of other kids and I snicker because I have a way better parent.

I just wish she wouldn't nag so much.

The Specialist's Diagnosis

I've discussed in previous posts how I might have Marfan's syndrome, a genetic disorder that I appear to have many of the symptoms of. A few months ago my doctor booked an appointment with a specialist to see if they could make a more conclusive diagnosis.

And remember, even if it turns out I have Marfan's, there is NOTHING they can do for me. There is no cure, and all they can do is manage the symptoms.

Kind of like how there's nothing they can do to make this cat look less ridiculous.

Let me begin by saying I hate the public transit in my city. The buses are rarely on time, the online trip planner is inaccurate, construction on the roads creates congestion and moves stops around, the people on the buses are usually really questionable.

Oh wait, I think I've described public transit in almost every city.

My point is, I hate busing. And I refuse to tell anyone in my family about these appointments because my Mother is just going to worry non-stop over something she has no control over so let's keep her out for now. But this means I can't get a ride to the specialist and I need to go at times where I can claim I'm on Campus or something.

And if I miss my appointment, it's going to be another few months until another opening pops up that I can take. I need to catch all the buses, at the right times, in the right order, etc. etc..

Or chase after the stupid thing.

Luckily, I somehow managed to get all the transfers correct on the first try and made it to my appointment with time to spare. The specialist examined me, asked a ton of questions, examined me some more and gave the following diagnosis:

"Inconclusive".

Turns out, the only way to definitively know if I have Marfan's is if I get a genetic test done. But only 2 people in my entire province can do it, they're heavily booked, and if they don't think you have a good enough case to perform the test, they'll just turn you down.

But here's where it gets a bit more interesting. Another reason why the specialist said things were inconclusive was because I might just have a disorder that's similar to Marfan's. There's a name for these class of disorders but I can't remember it.

But because I have such a range of symptoms that partially match up with various disorders there's only one thing they can do, more tests. He sent a letter of recommendation to see if they'll consider doing the genetic test on me. In the meantime I'm going for more x-rays and more blood tests.

Oh, and the funny thing, one of the possible disorders I have might be lupus.

House would be amused.

So, off to get more tests, wait for the results to get back, and we'll go from there. And I don't mind going for blood tests, I just hate nurses and doctors who suck at taking blood and need to stab me 50 times to get it done right.

Project's Update

It's that time of the month again. How productive have I been on my self-assigned projects? Let's find out:

Project Pitch:

My original proposal from January is still sitting in editorial. I can check the status of it in real time and I'm literally watching it get shuffled further and further into the back of the line, gathering dust on whatever virtual shelf it's sitting on.

So fine, maybe the editors are considering it for later, it's still there and they'll get to it, eventually, I hope. I decided to try and write up another proposal and send it in for editing. And I actually had something, all the ideas were there but I was just bored with the topic. And honestly, the ideas felt like loosely connected dots that I could barely spin in an interesting way.

Eventually I had to stop, enough was enough. It sucks to have several hours of work turn out fruitless. But the ideas are still sitting there, maybe I can re-use them in the future. In the meantime, I'm going to try and write something else up.

JUST GIVE ME FEEDBACK ALREADY.

Project Derp:

March was the best month I've seen so far for the second phase of Project Derp. Traffic improved, profits increased since I started, but it's still not enough. I'm not even halfway to the point to where I would consider it a success. I guess I still haven't fully optimized everything and I estimate that I'm going to need at least 50 hours more work on it.

Unless, unless I can figure a way to make something more efficient.

I'm not abandoning my previous work, far from it. But I'm going to try a project within a project I guess. There's a combination of apps and tools I'm trying to use to help me, including the automation tool I mentioned before. But not all of them are cooperating and it's getting a touch frustrating.

Project Cold:

I've previously talked about my relative success with Project Cold over here. Being a marketer for student painting is going well enough. I know I mentioned how I said I set my own hours for this job but in reality it's often better for me to tailor my hours for when people would be home. Meaning I generally make more money if I head out later and if I work on weekends.

Also, East Indian wives are kind of notorious for consulting their husbands for everything. I don't know how many houses I've gone to where I'll be greeted by the wife, it's clear she wants some painting done, BUT she has to get the approval of her husband first. Do their own opinions not matter or something?

It's like they're incapable of making decisions on their own.

Project Copy:

Uhhh... I've neglected this one for a long time. I have a massive backlog to catch up on and it's going to take me a long time to get back up to speed.

Oops.

Project Koi:

This was the new project that I started in March and I didn't have high hopes for it. If the statistics that I've found are correct, the average of success is about 10%. My experience with this project so far occasionally shows glimpses of something working, only to disappear quickly after. If I go an entire week without a valid reply I'm calling it quits and declaring it a failure.

Though, to be honest, I am impressed I got any responses at all but ultimately I think it'll be fruitless. At least I'll get a blog post and a good story out of it. I think I'll give it another try in the future but right now is probably not a good time.

I know when to call it quits.

Project Vegas:

This project is still on hiatus. I mentioned before how I found a loophole that I could exploit for my benefit. Unfortunately, it requires that I spend several hundred, if not thousands of dollars within a set time limit. Clearly, I cannot do it just yet, well, not without going further into debt and requiring my parents to bail me out.

Which is exactly why I am pushing so hard for Project Derp to succeed. I can kill two birds with one stone.

Phase 3 of Project Derp could not only allow me to spend and pay off that amount on my own, but also give me a sizable profit on the side. The amount of work is minimal but it requires all the knowledge and groundwork laid out by phase 2.

I've done the research, the math, studied the risks and individuals who have come before me to ensure that I'm not running towards some fool's errand. I see the potential, I just need a bit of luck and some more work.

And more sleepless nights fueled by caffeine.

Finals are approaching soon, and then summer. As much as I love all my projects I honestly would like an upgrade from my fast food job. Because if I can have my projects work AND do a 9-5 job it's like earning double the income. Additional budget cuts in the city mean things are going to be harder but a job fair in the coming weeks may have something of interest.

We'll see how things go.