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BLOG HAS MOVED.

I'm finding I'm more and more tempted each day to move my blog to a different hosting website, one with a bit more traffic perhaps, or one that more friends are on.
My NEW blog is here:
http://phototunage.tumblr.com/

Check it out, bookmark it maybee :)

I'm still definitely going to be posting here however. I think I'll leave my more personal stuff here, because not that many people read it which is what I want for my personal stuff, but the people that do read it are the people I care about the most to be open with about such topics :)

Hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving, I have so much to be thankful for and try my best to wake up every day remembering that life could be MUCH worse, and that I should be thankful for the day ahead.
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Saturday

It's early Saturday morning, I barely slept last night. I went to bed at like 11, but was tossing & turning until like 1:30am, and then woke up every hour or so after then. Brutal. I was up at 7 and couldn't fall back asleep either. Ugh.

I have my driving test today. I'm excited, nervous, but confident. I feel I'll do excellent on it and walk away from it with a smile. I've wanted to get my license for a long time now, and I'm thrilled I'm doing my test. I've been putting it off because I wanted to be able to get a car around the same time.

Well, somebody has loaned me the money to get my first car. I'm even more excited about that. It's pretty cool too, because I can kinda pay a different amount each month, which is probably the best possible way to do it. With a bank I would mostly be set in with a fixed rate for 2 years, which kinda sucks. However, since this is family, which I'm ever so thankful and blessed with, I can pay perhaps $250 one month, then perhaps I work a few hours over time the next month I can do a bigger payment of $500 in that month. Very excited for this, I think I want a Honda Civic EX. (The fully loaded one) with some nice speakers inside. Then I can save up for nicer stuff. Cobra, which is a brand of police radar's is sold at race tech here, something I might ask for, for Christmas. I believe it's about $80, and they are fully legal (As they do nothing to effect the cop radaring.)
I've researched it, there are two types of radars. One, is illegal. This one actually jams the cop's speed gun! Meaning, when he points it at you, he doesn't receive a signal bounce back. For obvious reasons, these ones are illegal. However, there's another type, the cheaper one that just warn you. They beep when you're approaching a speed gun, the faster the beep, the closer it is. It also has all the speed traps from some GPS database, which warns you of an upcoming red light camera. Not that I plan on speeding around and need a warning device to let me know about police, it's just something I think would be super cool to have, especially in Calgary where they spend more money a year on the police, and less on fixing some of the brutal roads. They're everywhere, and majority will pick at anything to give you a ticket. (Practically everybody is this city has at least one ticket from something)

Anyways, I'm off later to practice a bit before my test, get to know the area I'll be testing in, and then take the test!! :)
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Sick Day

I'm home sick today, it really does suck, but whatever, I'm missing Psychology.
I finished all my homework anyways. I have a presentation due Friday so I've been working on it and am happy with it.

After I finished my homework I was bored. I really suck at sleeping during the day, it just doesn't work. Once I wake up, I'm up. I can never fall back asleep unless it's one of those very cold mornings during winter break where it's pitch black in your room, and if you don't look at the clock you still think it's 2am, then I can fall back asleep :) I love those mornings, I can't wait for them.

Anyways, here's something I just finished up. I want to start doing something on Sunday's. Normally we head out to somewhere nice, a waterfall, the zoo, etc. I absolutely love weekends, especially with them off from work, the weeks seem to fly by, and the weekends last forever.
So, I'm looking to do something to expand my horizons a bit on my weekends for the fall and heading into winter. I've been trying to sell some work recently, it's difficult. I had a small exhibition open house thing last weekend, it turned out great. But I find selling online is impossible. So, I've decided I'm going to start trying to head out to these gorgeous waterfalls we normally go to, except meet up with a family, a person, etc. and do a portrait session!

I feel pretty confident in moving into this new style of photography. I'm hoping it's successful. I am in love with the idea, and plus, it'll give me a little extra to put towards my car if it works out.




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Wise Words

Today, I sat in class, blowing my nose every 5 minutes, sniffling up a storm, and coughing my brains out. It was brutal, however, nothing was wrong.
It was a good day other than this head cold I have.

As I sat in class beside some friends, I remembered some wise words somebody told me this summer. Paul. Braden's dad, my best friend. They're practically family to me, honestly, I love them all, and their words mean just as much as my own families do. Family is always first, and today, I just remembered back when we were in NYC.

I remember Paul had told me never to let my dreams go. Never let a girl get in the way of the goals you want to achieve, and what you want to do and where you want to go in life.

Today I thought about that, and really liked it. It made me happy, and reassured me with everything I'm doing right now in life. I feel like I'm doing the right thing, going the right way. Working hard to achieve goals I want to achieve, working to be what I want to be. I like that, and nobody is going to stop me or change my dedication in what I do, how I do it, where I go, and why. It's me that I have to live for, well, most of the time. I need to think about me more and the ones who truly matter, and just continue striving to be the best that I can. I'm not saying that none of these people matter, hell, I talk to a ton of people daily, I think I'm trying to express that I need to stay truer to myself, and not stop for anything at achieving what I want.

Just something I thought about throughout my day.

A teacher approached me today, which was very neat. This particular teacher has come to me twice because I never wear the stupid ID around my neck. She's warned me if she has to ask me a third time about the ID there would be more to it. This time I had my ID, and I was simply standing at my locker. Of course the first thing that came to my mind was what did I do wrong?
"Are you Spencer Hogg?"
"Yeah." *Gulp*
"Oh wow. I've seen you before, I've been following you flickr for a while now, and I just have to say you are extremely talented, and are an amazing photographer."

It really made my day, and gave me goosebumps :)
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Sick

It's Sunday. I woke up sick. Well, I didn't even sleep last night. I was up every few hours or so, and then the remote fell off my bed onto the floor, which always wakes me up from the sound. Ugh. I should just leave it on the floor.

Been a crazy week. Went to bed at 5am Friday, was out hanging out with some friends and playing cards, was a fun night. But it was late, went to bed at 5am, woke up at 9am, drove home, showered and continued on with my exhibition. I was exhausted by the end of the night.

We had a lot of people over. The neighbor came over, which was cool. My neighborhood is pretty much all foreign. The one right beside us pretty much is the only ones that aren't. The guy is like a car idol, he drives a black Subaru STI with gold rims & red pads, with a huge exhaust. It's pretty wicked. I'm jealous every time I hear that car start next door. He went out to wash the car before they went out later that night, his girlfriend came over. She's really sweet. You know when you see someone, and have never talked to them, but you've seen them a billion times and just have an opinion on someone. It was kinda like that, and then when you talk to them you completely don't expect it? Yeah, she's a pretty cool neighbor, and even bought some of my work which was cool :) She told me her boyfriend was looking to do some photos of his card to submit to a import calender for next year. She said he was thinking about asking me after tonight, which is awesome! :) It was an overall very successful night, I had tons of fun, saw a lot of the ladies from JC which I haven't seen since before I left, so it was great, they're all like big sisters to me :)

I'm at about $600ish / $3000 for a car right now. I'm making about $220 a week working, which is great!! :) I just started thinking about it like that. It sounds better to me than $1000 a month, cause weeks come faster. I dunno. It's hard to explain, but yeah, I'm pushing towards this goal and have no thoughts of slowing down! I have been looking at a ton of cars, and each time my opinion changes. I'm still pretty set on the Prelude, but then again, if something is wrong, they don't make them anymore so it might be harder, more expensive and take longer to get parts of repairs. I'm looking again at a Honda Civic Hatch, or a VW Golf Hatch. As well as an Acura Integra, I saw a few on the street this past week with kits and they looked pretty sweet. So I'm pretty undecided still, I'm just happy making $220 a week and saving up and then get something, drive it around in the winter while I continue working and then dropping again on it for the kit, painting, rims, lights, audio system etc. :)

We're off to Elbow Falls today. It's in the low 20's or high teens, not sure. But it's nice out for once. Calgary is still dumb though. It's cloudy and shit out now, but then the sun just randomly comes out. It's kinda pissing me off, I wish this stupid ass city could just decide what it's going to be and stick with it.
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No Longer Retired..Employment Pt. 2

Alright, there we go. Done.

I got the job, well, my old job back. Hey, it might suck. But, there are tons of worse jobs out there, there are people who hate their jobs more than I ever will, and I can deal with it. Working sucks, no matter what job you do. Even if it's something you love, you still may feel at times that you would love to get paid for doing nothing. I guess that's not the way this world works though, so for now, I'm back to working.

We learned today in Psychology why we may not like work. It tires us, bores us, or, if we're lazy, makes us actually move around physically and DO SOMETHING. Honestly, the only one of the above that stands for me is the lazy part, and I should cut that habit right now. I'm not a lazy person, nor want to be seen as one. Also, like said before, I like the work for what I have, so, it only makes sense if I smarten up and get back to lifting boxes. PLUS, my biceps, I love them!!

So, here we go. I start tomorrow from 5-9. 4 hours. Monday - Thursday. PERFECT. Just what I wanted. I also wanted to work all day Sunday, but, they aren't open Sunday's. So, I took into consideration working every second Saturday. Guess what, they want me back so much they are giving me EVERY Saturday free. That means I get two days of the week to sleep in past 6am! Woohoo!! As well, it gives me weekends to have a life, instead of being consumed by work.
I'm pretty happy right now, going to enjoy my last night of not working, and then get back into things tomorrow.

My calculations however become a little wonky with that weekend day of work being taken out of the picture. That's about $200 less than I want a month. Which, isn't really a good sign, but I believe it's worth it, because I DO want to have a social life on top of working almost every day of the week in the evenings. This is good though. I used to work Monday/Tuesday nights. Those two nights went by FAST. Honestly, the fastest days of the week were those two, then it was already Wednesday and I was on home stretch to the end. NOW, I have Monday-Thursday...which, will completely FLY, which brings me to the end where I stop, a Friday. The END. So I will be whizzing through the weeks, stopping for a break at the END of each week, the fun time of the week. The time I have no work, & no school. This means...fly fly fly, party, fly fly fly, party, fly fly fly...I hope this kinda makes sense. Every 15th I will be getting paid, amazing. The 15th will come by so fast because the weeks will be going by faster than ever, and the weekends too. I will be rolling around town in my first car like I want to be in NO TIME.

Even if there's snow on the ground, I've talked to a lot of people, standard cars are much better in snow, easier to control, better on gas, AND more fun to drive ;) Haha, (The mall parking lots empty at 7am when I start school, summer tires + snow + ebrake??? lol)
Once the snow melts I can begin work on it, like most teenage boys, I want a nice ride.

So yup, it's a good day, good night, and starting tomorrow the fast forward button is going to be stuck, and I'll love every bit of it. I'm motivated.

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Employment.

I don't even really know what to put right now, but I want to express something, somehow.
I want to talk about working. I've been working since I was around 13 or 14. I worked in a restaurant for about a year, and eventually quit. Coming home from work smelling like grease was disgusting, and $9/hour wasn't worth it.

Next, I began work at Jenny Craig. Lol. You may laugh, hey, even I do. Everybody used to laugh when they asked where I worked and I told them that... I originally worked there because I wanted to save up for my own computer. I did, I remember, it was $600.00 and took me only a month to get. Once I got that, it kicked in. I can get whatever in I want in the world, as long as I work hard for it. Everyday I worked I had that computer on my mind. I achieved it, and it was one of the best feelings and realizations in the world. From that point onwards Jenny Craig provided me with whatever I wanted, as long as I worked for it. I have a lot of stuff, a blackberry, a custom build computer, heck I even spent $220 on headphones! Who the hell spends that much on headphones? I'd call anybody crazy to spend that much on headphones, but really, it was something I wanted, I listened to music every single day, and so I got them.

It's an amazing feeling though. A lot of kids parents buy them stuff, $2100 Louis Vuitton hand bags, Lexus's & BMW's. Me, I got my wants myself. Not that anything I've wanted and gotten can compare to a car or anything like that, but it's still the same thing in a way. When people ask how did you get all of the stuff you have? Did you parents buy you it? It feels good to say I worked for it myself. I mean, not that my parents don't buy me stuff, hell, they get me a ton of stuff. They provide me with everything! But no way in hell would I ask them to buy me $220 headphones, or spend $1000 on a computer when the one they use is only half that! So, it feels great to say I worked for it myself, and got it myself. I did all the research myself, and set it up & learned it myself. It's amazing.

So, now that Summer is over, I need to find a new job. A job that will do the same thing it did when I originally got one. This has proved to be an extremely difficult task. You would really think with the experience I have at my age it would be easier, but nope, it's becoming impossible and tedious. So tonight, I started thinking about Jenny Craig again. Should I go back simply for the reasons I started there in the first place? To provide my WANTS? I think so.
Now, before I was working about 3 days a week, even that tired me out. But right now, I'm probably carrying the easiest class schedule of the entire school, and spend my after schools doing nothing. I've gone out with people here the past few weekends, which has been fun. I've met a ton of new people, which is definitely becoming a good thing. So, do I want to go back? This time I am looking to work 4 evenings a week, and then a full day on the weekend. Perfect right? I could work Sundays, when most people are at church etc. WRONG. JC isn't open Sunday, so that doesn't work. That leaves Saturday, the busiest day of the weekend, because it's the only day. I would have to work Saturdays, which then, scratches off any plans of going out on Friday nights.

So, I believe I have come up with a plan. Monday - Thursday's 5-9. PERFECT. I don't work too late, which gives me time to do any homework I may have, and any I don't finish I have a spare block to work in the learning room on it the following day. That gives me Fridays off with friends. (JC closes when I get off school, so Friday's wouldn't even need discussion) That leaves that dreaded Saturday. Without it, I'm about $300 short of my expectations. But with it, I have absolutely zero social life. (I'm looking to work HARD until I get a car, then hopefully drop down a few of those week days) So, this would work here. Every second Saturday off. Becuase, I don't want to go out EVERY Saturday, that becomes tiring and repetitive. So, if I work every second Saturday, that brings me to my wanted amount of hours a month, and I would be making just over $1000 from work a month.
Hard work, I know. Can I do it? Certainly. Am I motivated? Definitely.

A really close friend of mine has been contemplating on switching to the applied math course down from the pure math course. It's caused her a ton of stress, pure math is HARD, and the final exam is worth 50%. It's HARD. She wanted to switch so badly. But after tonight, she realized she can do the pure, and get into the top university. She can do it. The hardest work possible. If she can do pure, then I can work 5 days a week. We can do it together, with each other pushing one another forward, to keep going, to remind them of their goal. In 3 months, once we've both achieved our goals, the feeling will be beyond explanation. We can look at each other, and say we did it. We made it. Just knowing that, that a friend so close to me will be there doing the same amount of work, pushing me to work hard too, while I'm doing the same thing for her, motivates me. That one key concept of being able to do anything you work towards motivates me more than anything, and therefor, I can do it, and I WILL do it.

Plus, my bicep has gone down increasingly. Not good, I'm weak now! Once I get back into lifting and throwing around those 40 pound boxes, sometimes more than one at a time, I'll have these killer bicepts back in no time! :)
(Plus have money to go to the gym to work on the abs too! woop woop!!)

So motivated. Look out cause' it's over. I'll fix that place up.
 
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