Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in tenshikurai9's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, November 19th, 2009
7:41 pm	One More for the Statistics I don't know if my father ever went back to work after the surgery and now my mother has been laid-off. Great. (Comment on this)
7:40 pm	Reality Shows Come to Life Monday at the business meeting (think school assembly that I once heard described as a cult meeting by a student) we had part two of Dancing with Staff. Students have volunteered to be partnered with staff and show-off at the business meetings. During our next class, we vote for the best pairing and at the next business meeting, the pair with the least votes is disqualified. Then after Dancing with the Staff, our own version of The Biggest Loser was announced. Students can volunteer to match-off with a staff member to lose weight. Weigh-ins are going to be done by Health and Wellness and the announcements are going to be by biggest percentage loss. This seems a bit crude to adapt this reality show to life. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
11:47 pm	Buy, Buy Money, Off to MicroCenter You'll Go (previously posted in alt.gothic) Recently I've received a check from my former employer for the pension I had earned with them since I didn't have the proper kind of account for them to just roll it into. I've also earned over 10,000 merit points at my training program. (Earn merit points, "buy" items at the school store with them, you can special order some items. Easiest way to earn them is the good appearance award. Get one signature-a-day to say you were dressed according to the dress code till you have 20 signatures and turn in the sheet for 2,000 points.) Originally I was going to get a PS3, but thought better of it since it's not like I have the time to even play my XBox 360 that I bought-off of my room mate. So now I'm considering what to use my merit points and the cash from my recent check. Only change to the home machine's hardware since I bought it in 2004 has been a bigger hard drive (1 TB.) I've looked at the machine's manual and know I can have up to 4 GB of RAM instead of the current 2 sticks of 512 MB each. Maybe I will switch to a LCD monitor instead of the CRT I'm staring at, but then I have to deal with recycling the CRT and don't feel like taking the effort to go to the part-of-town to ditch it at when I don't drive. I know I want an external hard drive to back-up the home machine, Icarus (the HP mini 1035nr), Daedalus (not bought yet), and my personal hard drive in my class machine. Also, I'd like to get an external case for the personal hard drive in my class machine since I don't have anything to store it in when I take it back. Daedalus I want to be another netbook, but a model with a riduculously long battery-life of 12 hours or whatever they're up to by the time I buy him. to tracks I'll actually bother listening to for a second time or so. Using the camera feature on my Nintendo DSi has me wishing for a real digital camera, but I'm not sure how much I'll use it. As pretty as another student's camera with a phone (not a phone with a camera) is, I probably should not get that or a similiar model to avoid having a cell phone beyond my pre-paid Tracfone. My mind melted enough as it is when I was comparing Tracfone with AT&T GoPhone and the thought of getting an actual plan scares me. So anyone have any comments, suggestions, additional products to consider, etc.? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
7:13 pm	Thursday through Friday. . . my room mate got me worried. I know her work-based learning job at Yankee Candle (we still see no connection between making candles and the office administration training she sometimes does) doesn't get-off till 10 PM and she's returned by 10:45. So when I woke-up around 3:11 AM and couldn't tell the R.A. that was doing room checks at the same time where my room mate was, I was worried. After the training day I called her. BRO! Remember to call me and tell me you're taking a few days off instead of worrying me! Since you were showing me that you were spitting-up black the previous time I saw you, I was wondering if you had to go to the hospital or something. Thank-you. After getting to Newton, going to Chinatown for turnip cake with scrambled egg (don't love it, but something feels like comfort food), and Cosi in Kendall to use the restroom/get coffee, I got to go the MIT Anime Club for my first time with l33tminion. First anime was the beginning of Nyan Koi!. The premise is a high school student with an allergy to cats who lives with his cat fanatic mother, sister, and cat has a crush on a cat-loving girl from a dog-centric family finds himself with a curse to understand what cats are saying due to accidentally beheading a statue of a cat named Jinpei who saved the village from danger and if he doesn't do 100 good deeds for cats, he will turn into one. Funny as fuck. Second anime was the beginning of another comedy called Moyashimon (Tales of Agriculture) that had a premise of a first-year university student at an agricultural school in Tokyo who can see microbes without the aid of a microscope. Third anime was Darker Than Black and since the series was already in progress, I had to try to pick-up what was happening. I at least get the idea that there are these things called gates appearing around the world and that a new religious order has formed around them. Meanwhile other people see the religious order as a threat and there's an organization called the Syndicate attempting to take them down. BTW, the religious order has a separate kind of being/human called contractors that do have deadly powers. Afterwards I slept-over at The Haunted Grotto. (Comment on this)
3:17 am	BIONIC Believe It Or Not I Care It's a MTC (Management Training Corporation) slogan I sometimes see on signs or pins on staff members. I just think that it sounds like the kind of thing to say to someone you've already fucked-up with and have given them no reason to actually believe you (and still haven't given them any reason to actually believe you.) Meanwhile, I got to tour the Shriver Job Corps Center in Devens, MA on Wednesday. Amazing how much quieter the place felt with only 300+ instead of 500+ students and how the lunch food is something I can actually call food instead of a food-like substance. This is the place I had wanted to go to because I wanted to get my basic and advanced training done at the same center, but there was a waiting list and I wanted to be in Job Corps before I turned 25 so I wouldn't have to get an exemption to the upper-age limit on the basis of disability. Back at Westover, there's now a Zumba class on Tuesdays, but I wasn't able to go to the first class because I had signed-up for the movie trip. I got to enjoy "Where the Wild Things Are" instead. Wednesdays are now Jeet Kune Do days, fortunately at a later time than the semi-existent Gay-Straight Alliance. There's a reward system in place to try to get us to have incentive to do good and wear our uniforms during the training day according to policy. The idea is to earn merit points and then use them at the school store, The Eagle's Nest, to get items. Easiest way to earn merit points is the, Good Appearance Award. You get a paper from the CSIO office and get one signature each training day from a staff member to say you were in uniform. When you collect 20 signatures, you turn the paper into CSIO and get 2000 merit points. When I first came here, it was mentioned that sometimes you can special order items not already in the Eagles Nest. It wasn't until I was asking questions Wednesday afternoon that I found-out there's normally a limit that the item can't exceed $200 in value. We'll see if I can still get my netbook request or not. If not, I'm going to have see if I can American Express gift cards instead and then just get the netbook or not. I think it was Tuesday that I had a meeting with H.R. and I'm going to wait to make a separate entry to detail that. Current Mood: Couldn't fall to sleep. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
11:45 pm	Dear Somerville, While walking from the Porter Square, Cambridge subway stop and over the town border into the outskirts of Somerville, I got to notice the lack of street signage.  Sure, I could at least be sure I was on Somerville Av., even if I hadn't repeatedly traipsed it to get to the storage locker, but it would have been nice to know what side streets I was going-by.  Though to be fair, the street sign for the side I needed to get to a friend's party was still on top of the pole.  It was just that the metal pole and the concrete that was supposed to be buried in the ground was lying-down on the ground.  You might also say this letter you'll never see is a bit passive-aggressive, but it's so dull to just say I was later to a friend's party than I wanted because the street sign was down.  So just consider yourself lucky to at least be able to be an amusing story instead of some serious incident being recorded for all of LJ to see--at least to my friends list and a few wandering strangers.  Signed, TenshiKurai9 (Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
10:05 pm	Non-Existent Club Nights Anyone else wonder what it would be like if there was a regular Goth/Reggaeton night in existence?  Current Mood: punchy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
11:22 am	King Hall Yesterday the R.A. asked me if I would move to King Hall if my room mate was also moved to King Hall and asked would I move if my room mate didn't. Told her I would have to think about it if the room mate didn't.   So when the room mate got back from her work-based learning job (not that either of us knows what making candles for Yankee Candles has to do with Office Administration) I told her to go talk to the R.A. She gets back and tells me that the guy from “Not So Restful Night” suggested this move. There was a student within earshot of the R.A./room mate conversation who asked what it takes to move to King Hall. The R.A. told the student no class cuts, high room scores, and an application. My room mate has class cuts that haven't been cleared-up and describes her room scores as average. A final twist, the room mate asks if we would be put in the same room if we moved and the R.A. said I don't know.   The room mate is wondering if she would get kicked-out of King Hall and me left behind. She's also pointed-out that it hasn't been long since the last time they were trying to separate us. Something weird is going-on. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
3:31 am	Delete Cruft Bookmarks Project-End Session 1 The microwave says 4:31.  The computer says 3:32.  I'm not halfway done with the culling yet.  I REALLY should never let this pile-up again.  (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
10:33 pm	Delete Cruft Bookmarks Project-Begin Session 10:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time and starting the, delete cruft bookmarks project, now.  (Comment on this)
11:24 am	Planning through Winter Break and a Bit Beyond Monday I allowed my room mate to borrow my netbook (Icarus) to go online via the unofficial wi-fi spot. She didn't sign-off from LJ and I didn't notice so if you received a comment from heyuwithaface, that was me. Please comment if you responded to a comment this week from that screen name.   Meanwhile, I've completed the labs up to chapter 23 inclusive out of 24. The room mate asked if this means I'm going to be completing soon and going to advanced training. I still have the tests for chapters 9-24, the labs for chapter 24, a second TAR (training achievement record-list of items we need to master for our shop before we can complete) to complete before I can take the A+ test, work-based learning, and hopefully the teacher will get his Network+ soon so he can turn around and teach us. There's also studying other subjects independently so I have ways to not have to move anywhere else soon.   In the high school diploma room, there's a row of computers devoted to Plato. It's and electronic program Job Corps is subscribed to and it's computer-aided self-study in a variety of topics. Any person involved in the Pre College Class is told about Plato. I know the math lessons goes to at least Trigonometry and I didn't learn my Algebra II well enough in high school to remember everything the next summer, let alone now. So after the training day, I can be found working on my Algebra. Current plans are to work through all the math lessons possible and find-out what other subjects are available. Maybe I can get arrangements to spend one period-a-day on Plato or even be put on an A-B schedule (academics one week, shop the next) even though that's normally only done with people who still need their high school diploma or GED.   BTW, I have vacation from December 17 to January 3rd (IIRC.) Current plans are to finish inventorying the storage locker, clean the home computer since it's never seen a can of compressed air even though it's been living in a dusty house since 2004, upgrade my machine, go see a friend in CT since I haven't seen her for half-a-year and don't call frequently (and won't be half-a-country-away from her in NE till maybe summer break), delete all cruft bookmarks from the home machine while trimming the .mp3 collection, and then fuck-off to cafes with free wi-fi to clean my inbox cruft with my Slingshot organizers in-hand to figure-out what's going-on and take lots of reference photos with the Dsi to draw the room mates book cover. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
11:20 am	Walked into lunch Monday and saw a sign.   TO ALL STUDENTS & STAFF EFFECTIVE 10/26/09   The Food Service Department would like to take this opportunity to inform you of the new ways we will be serving your meal. The Meals will consist of 1 protein(example: chicken, beef, pork, fish, etc...), 1 starch(example: potato, rice, pasta, bread, etc....), 1 vegetable(example: broccoli, carrots, mixed vegetables, etc....).   You will still have plenty of choices to choose from but you will be served 1 meal with the correct portions sizes using Mypyramid.Gov. If you are still hungry you are more than welcome to come up for seconds. There will be no more standing in line asking for everything we have.   EXAMPLE: Grinder, Chicken Patty, Hot Dog, Rice, French Fries, Vegetable and a dozen Cookies.   The Menus will be changing in the next couple of weeks to enchance Healthy Choice Options. -- Then I looked at the green writing with red circled numbers (the last sentence was in red writing) and this is what it said on the white board by the line that serves deli.   Lunch   1 Chicken ala King Served Over White Rice, w/Vegetable 2 Corn Dog w/Fries and Vegetable 3 Deli Sandwich served w/French Fries   You get one choice of Entree's -- I thought to myself, but what if I really love corn dogs and want rice, but hate fries and chicken?   When I asked for Chicken ala King over Rice, the student thanked me for making my order easy on her. I'm wondering if she got told by staff to serve the meals only in the pre-matched, protein, starch, and vegetable sets and then dealt with students who wanted a different set or if students tried to get her to serve them everything at once. -- Later at supper that night, when I choose mashed potatoes, the student warned me that I couldn't get the mac 'n cheese if I got the potatoes. -- They're now using a system where the two cafeteria lines actually do have two separate offerings (at supper) and each set has just one protein and one starch. There might be two vegetables. (Lunch lines might still have identical offerings.)  This is easier to put in practice than the initial meal set-up. Let's see if everyone stops over-weighing their plate down (myself included) and if the amount of food thrown-away decreases. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
11:19 am	Recreation Hall Shortly after the staff lay-off at the rec center, I was in the building and saw people that I previously only saw when they drive the bus to Wal-Mart or the movies. There's now new people. I had heard a few students say the lay-off was because there were staff stealing. Except that doesn't seem right when at least one staff member was reassigned to work with CPP. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
7:48 pm	Accountability About Cell Phones Everyday at 4:30 we have to meet with the R.A. on our floor as a group for accountability to make sure we're not out in the world causing trouble.  So yesterday the R.A. reads to us about cell phones.  I borrowed the paper from her to make notes and show you what it said, with spelling errors and such intact.  Hopefully I got the numbering right, but otherwise this is what it said.  === 1. Restriction of usage for cell phone is becoming more restricted.   2. Cell phone is not to be used in the dorm, after lights out.   3. This mean at 11:00 P.M. Form Sunday to Thursday night cell phone should be turn off.   4. You owe it to yourself to be well rested for the class day.   5. Several employers are now limiting the usage of cell phone by their employee.   6. Bus Drivers, Train Engineers or people working in mass transit are not allowed to use their telephone during work hours.   7. Construction workers are not allowed to use their cell phone during the work day.   8. Correction officers in correction institutions are not allow using their cell phone during their work day.   9. Please note, that all workers paid for their phone, but their employers have forbidden them to use their phone during their work day.   10. You may want to wish to thank DOL for Minimum Standards. You are allowed to learn the rules without losing your job. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
7:17 pm	Federal Facilities Got More Prison-like So word has it that 4 recreation staff have been laid-off from the recreation center.  At least one has become part of the CPP staff (Career Preparation Period) (your first 5 weeks here) (he stopped by my class today and told our teacher.)  Except we're left with one staff member dedicated to the recreation center.  I swear they are trying to encourage us to take to the streets and cause shit since there isn't much to do around here.  I am going to have to find a way to get my hands on any laws and regulations that govern Job Corps and find-out what is or isn't legal and figure-out who to complain to when something illegal/against regulations goes-on.  (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
7:51 pm	Oscar and Felix: The Remake IOW, they're threatening to separate my room mate and myself based on room scores again and think I've been going-down with the room mate.  Supposedly the worst room on the dorm floor.  Except we're probably also the most drama-free room, but that doesn't matter when there's objects on your dressers during the training day.  Oh so horrible of us.  (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
4:12 pm	Reading List Graphic Novel: My Dead Girlfriend by Eric Wight (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
7:25 pm	6 Months As of today, I have been in Job Corps for 6 months.  (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
11:27 pm	Program Life Tuesday I went to the movie trip.  This time we went to the theater where they let us choose our own film.  I thought Jennifer's Body was the film with the soroity girls, but was wrong.  I also partially went because it had the most people going.  At 7:10, the film rolled and I texted hellsop a little bit later Fuck.  Twilight: New Moon is coming-out 11.20.  Later I text him again that I was watching Jennifer's Body without knowing the plot ahead of time.  Beware the emo band for they are why Jennifer is a vampire.  Beware spending any money on watching this film.  Wednesday night there was a blackout.  So of course people used it as an excuse to yell into the night.  The room mate and myself stayed in our rooms.  A friend of hers called and told her his dorm was outside since a fire alarm went-off.  At some point in time, our alarm went-off, but the R.A. told us that it was student-pulled and ignore the false alarm.  The next morning, Totodile in conversation with myself and another told us that every phone on center was working, but that the security office's phone was off the hook and there was a delay in calling the cops.  Her mother was going to have her withdraw from Job Corps.  There was a list of names read-off at the beginning of class with times that some people would have to meet with CSIO (Center Standards and Incentives Office; it's involved in some student discipline.)  The Computer Service Repair teacher had a conversation with another staff member in which he said he heard it described as being like a prison riot.  Thursday we had a student exploring our shop who's been living in Boston for a year and is originally from Cleveland.  Apparently she thinks there's nothing to do in Boston and that there aren't any good restaurants to eat at since the nearest Red Lobster is in Springfield.  When I brought-up Chinatown, she complained that you have to go to the outskirts of the city to find anywhere.  She also brought-up that the Golden Coral has only recently come to MA (in the Springfield-area.)  (The outskirts of the city is still closer than a fucking Red Lobster and I'm pretty sure she's been walking around with her eyes closed since it doesn't take that much effort to find a place to eat at.)  Oh yeah, I told her the two people I know from Cleveland find more to do in Boston so she's guessing they maybe from the suburbs.  (I doubt she's taking much effort to explore her new city, letting herself be that open to new experiences, or even just picking-up our various free periodicals to see what's going-on.)  Before going on the Wal-mart shopping trip, Totodile got to say that she's staying after all, but if another thing like the black-out happens again, her parents will withdraw her.  Friday, got into a conversation with one of the culinary students who was doing cafeteria duty, but was taking his break early and outside at the beginning of my lunch.  (Who apparently is part of the camp that thinks the instructor is an ok guy instead of objecting to the short-temperedness, the braggadocio, the crudeness of the stories he tells at the end of the day. . .)  Somehow we got into a conversation about the word respect.  I'm bringing-up that since respect has a meaning of adoration (esteem, etc.) I find the use of word respect around here to be a bit shallow.  How am I supposed to admire someone for merely existing?  It's not the same as being merely nice to someone that you may hate.  It's something to be earned.  He thinks that you can have respect for someone that you don't like and that most people around here don't know the what the word respect means.  We parted ways since he was going back to the cafeteria.  I just let the conversation be, but I definitely see we are not using the term the same way and I still find it shallow to use the word respect for being nice instead of a deeper feeling.  At the lunch line, the last student handling my plate tried to hand it to me.  I asked her to put it down and she didn't.  I told her I needed to see what else was down the line.  She told me that she had handed me everything (from the hot foods section and not the deli section, because she's not the deli section.)  I told her I needed to see if the deli section had pepperjack cheese.  She said that she (another student further-down) would put it on a separate plate.  I decided to leave this alone instead of voicing my thoughts in either the edited or unedited version.  The unedited version is, bitch, sometimes when I get pepperjack, I just want two slices and ask them to put it on top of my plate instead of a separate plate.  I bet she's one of the people that failed their week of customer service in CPP.  (Career Preparation Period-your first five weeks in the program that concentrates on paperwork, program rules, some general "life" skills (like re-writing what you think the quotes in the inspiration book means), exploring 3 vocations, and topped-off by a week of cafeteria or maintainance work.  Oh.  And the ASVAB test.  Apparently I scored a 94 or so.)  (You do this with the people who came on the same day as you.)  During our post-lunch, 10-minute break, Totodile was saying that her friends that encouraged her to stay are accusing her of being mad and what-not just for pointing-out that they'll break-off from her to go to other people without even saying good-bye.  Then when she wants to be in her room, everyone is like, where's Totodile?  It's having a dispiriting effect on her.  BTW, the title Program Life, reminds me of a comment said by the aforementioned culinary student during a previous week.  He feels like he's in a group home sometimes (rather than a training program) which he is finding very dispiriting.  (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 26th, 2009
12:53 am	Reading List Blindspot by Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore The next two I should have listed more than a month ago.  Psychology in Modules, 8th edition, by David Meyers CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, 6th edition, by Mike Meyers Comic Books: My Brain Hurts, Volume 2, by Liz Baillie (Comment on this)