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As a way of keeping me positive, I wanted to create a list of life goals. My 8th grade English teacher first inspired me to do this, but I never kept it going. Things I want to do in my life: - Learn to ice skate -- And hence, play hockey - See the Eiffel Tower - Go to Australia --- Formula 1 race in Montreal!!! - Act again - Play WSOP? Not that interested, but it's an option. Tags: goals, life
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Here I am, back "home". I'm essentially, officially graduated college although there's a hold on my account so I can't see my grades--even if I wanted to. I got a big ass U-Haul truck and finally got all my stuff in it at 8am after spending all night packing away, and then getting back home. Twas a fun, a little sad experience. I almost cried on an on-ramp. Almost. Now I'm back home with all my stuff. I have to admit that being back home for Thanksgiving was a terrible experience. The only positive thing was seeing my professor from BCC at her house and having a really great chat with her about life. Other than that I would of felt better spending that whole week at Amherst, in my room. My grades might have been better off. But now that I'm back home with all my stuff, I feel a little tinsy bit better. I'm in the basement, which is filled with crap, the large portion of which is not mine. I've done some quick redecorating so at least I have a place to sleep. Still, this is not home. Home was my dorm room at college for me. I still don't really want to be here. And my family are not my friends. Whatever, I'm going to relax here for a few weeks, maybe study up on life and basically get things organized. Life would be a little better if I had kept my car, as it is almost impossible to do anything around here without a car, and my parents are being the biggest whiny pieces of shit (and yes, Mom, if you read that, that is what you are being and I don't care if you see that, this is why I'm moving far away soon) about not being able to drive their cars. I have a friend at college who's car I've borrowed more times than I can count right now... and she was always cool about it. Unconditional trust vs. very conditional love... which one would you take? Well, I had a great end to college. Went out with a really big blast with some of my best friends at Amherst. Grades... eh grades don't matter like I always say. I don't need to work on Wall Street, I had a good enough time at Amherst as it is. Now time to find out what is on the other side of my life. Tags: amherst, college, life, the future
Current Music: Kid Cudi
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Remember when I got into Amherst College? That got me thinking about a whole lot of things. Remember when I applied to Amherst? Remember when I had never kissed anyone? Remember when I kissed someone? Remember when I thought life was simple? Remember when I thought life was hard? Remember when I discovered what love was? Remember when I discovered what it was like to lose it? Remember when I met people who accepted me for who I was? Remember when I too scared to go to swing lessons? Remember all the times I've taught people how to dance swing afterwards? Remember when after two years I still couldn't dance? Remember when I got over it and just tried to dance? Life is great, you just have to go live it. Tags: life
Current Mood: positive
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I was trying to write a quick post on my netbook before going to bed. I failed before even getting to the livejournal page. Oh well. I'm getting rid of/selling my car, well, at some point. My registration and insurance runs out at the end of the month, and it all around comes at a good time. My car is relatively crap. It runs well, but it still has issues that need to be fixed in order to pass inspection. And as two cops have found out in the past two months, those issues haven't been fixed for two years. Basically, I think I'm done with cars. Oil prices will go back up; peak oil is an issue and while I'm uncertain about what will happen in the next few years--I know that gasoline prices will continue to be a problem. If I'm here at Amherst for one full year, I really do not need a car. I can get a Uhaul to move back into Amherst after my research internship at UMass is done, and then I wouldn't need to figure out what to do until next May. That will save me at least my $1000 insurance, not including the car problems, gas, etc. Money wise it's a no-brainer. Maybe it will turn out to be a mistake (like it was to throw out my rusty, old mountain bike after I realize bikes are expensive), but its something I need to do. Things are swell. Research is okay, but I'm not all gung-ho about computer science graduate school. Part of it is that I'm not a huge fan of the project I'm currently working on--I'd say power-saving computer architectures would be my ideal research field. Wireless networks are cool, but this project I'm looking at the data on just isn't mind-blowing enough for me. Note taken: proving obvious hypotheses are not my bag of tea. I definitely need to take some time off and work somewhere at something before making future decisions (and while paying attention to which way the world is falling apart at that time). But it would be cool to go to Montreal for graduate school. Ahhh... living it up in the slow and steady lane. Tags: amherst, career, future, graduate school, job, life
Current Location: UMass, North 205A, in bed
Current Mood:  swell
Current Music: hummmm of netbook fan
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It's almost December at Amherst, and while in some ways it has gone by really fast, in other ways it has gone by really slow. Academically, everything has gone by so fast and I can't believe there's only a week and a half of classes left after Friday. It feels like I had only just started the semester. The reason it feels like it's gone by so fast is probably because I haven't worked nearly as hard as I should have. While with the exception of my math class, my grades are shockingly decent even though my work ethic is the same as it always has been. My Linear Algebra class is, as my girlfriend would say, a disaster. I guess technically I'm failing right now, with a 64 and a 51 on two tests with 65% of my grade yet to be decided (test and a final, counting the 15% my lowest test will get). One of the primary reasons why I'm doing so bad is that I didn't do homework for over four weeks in a row, realizing every time I got to a problem with proofs that I had no idea what I was doing. For the most part I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I think there's hope for me somewhere. I think I did the math and the highest grade I can get if I ace everything is a B, but I doubt that will happen. I think I have to get at least an 80 to still get a C. It's possible, but I need to work a lot harder than I am now. Socially, have gone by slowly and that's a good thing. I feel like I've been here and around campus forever. I met lots of friends here and my roommate and I get along really well. I do a few different things on campus: crew, IT job, swing lessons, did MassPIRG for a little while. And I found the thing I've been looking for most of my life. A girlfriend. I wrote an entry two months ago about how much I just wanted to be with someone, lie in their arms for hours, sleep in their bed all day, and fall in love. And I have. And it's great. And she's amazing. And it's exactly what I've been looking for. Unfortunately, a social life is one of the reasons why my grades have fallen and has caused my work ethic to fall to new lows. It's hard to get things done when you usually work on things late at night and instead spend those nights in your girlfriend's bed (my bed isn't nearly as comfortable). But, it's been an awesome semester overall, as bad as I guess I'm doing here. In my other classes, I have a solid A more than likely in my Computer Science (java) class, probably a B in Logic, and I got a B+/A- on the first half of my Poli Sci term paper. Which really isn't that bad for my first semester at a real college. I don't know if I want to major in Math anymore, since I'm doing so bad in my current class when all I really want to do is teach it. But other than that, things are great. I still find it a little bit awkward, going to a school that has a little over 1600 students, when I see all kinds of familiar faces yet barely talk to anyone in my dorm except for the two girls across the hall (of which, are my girlfriend and her friend). I feel like I should get to know everyone here, since literally I'll probably see the face of everyone on campus by the end of my stay. It's that small. But I'm still somewhat shy and don't see that happening. And I still sometimes like eating alone, although I enjoy it more when a random acquaintence comes along and I have a friendly conversation with them. It's tricky but I guess that's half the joy of it. Tags: amherst, college, girls, life, s
Current Mood: happy
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I don't have much to say in a public post. Way too much stuff happens here that I don't want to write about in an open blog. In case someone finds that I've written too much. I'll probably write a friends-only post but I feel bad about not writing public posts occasionally. But I really like this song Then I'll Be Smiling. And I really like it here. I was able to play two of my intramural tennis matches and I won both(6-3, 6-4; 6-1, 6-1). I was better than both of them in the intermediate level, but I think my match tomorrow will be tough. Crew is crazy hard. And I almost wish I wasn't doing it, but I know I will get better and I know it's worth it. But practices most days from 5-7:30pm are crazy. Takes up a lot of time. We did a race prep on Friday and I did horrible. I got the oar stuck in the water twice and we had to stop and fix it. But it was also very tiresome having to row to the start and row back right away without a break (cause we were slow), and then it was only the second time I rowed the seat I was in and the first time with that group of guys. It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done having to keep rowing as a team. That's a good summary of what's new without any gory fun details. I have my first test in Linear Algebra on Wednesday, and homework due tomorrow that I haven't started and don't really know where to start from. I should get to that now. As a preview to the gory details : let's just say that Smith girls are interesting. :) Tags: amherst, college, crew, life, tennis
Current Location: AC Computer Lab
Current Mood:  trying to work hard
Current Music: Matt Nathanson - Then I'll Be Smiling (http://tinyurl.com/2erjel)
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Two pet peeves: 1) Someone calls my cell phone and I don't know who it is because it just lists as a number (everyone I know who would be calling me is in my phone book and the name pops up), and then when I don't pick up because I'm busy driving or tutoring and expect someone to leave a voice mail, they don't leave a voice mail. So I don't know who it was, or why they called. I expect most are just wrong numbers, but you never know. 2) When I'm walking (or driving) and I get beeped at or someone yells at me and I don't know why (is there something wrong with my car? do I know them or are they saying hi?). Like in today's case when I'm walking down Route 1 in South Attleboro and someone screams "Ryan!" out the window of a car and I don't know who it is. Hi person I didn't recognize from the Black Maxima going 35 mph! Good to hear your squee! I had a somewhat amusing and interesting day. Was supposed to do many things today, and did about half of them as I got up way too late. What I did do was go get an oil change, had the idea of trying to get a haircut while getting the oil change, and then realized there weren't any hair places anywhere near by (this is the Munro by BJ's in South Attleboro). I wandered down Route 1 and came across a Kid's Hair Cut place and just wandered in to see if they might actually do adult hair cuts. The place was completely dead, there wasn't even anyone out front by the register waiting for people to show up. A young woman came out front and I asked... Me : Do you guys do adult hair cuts too? Her : No, we only do kids. Me : Does a 21-year old count? Her : Hold on, let me check.*goes out back to talk whoever is in charge I imagine* Yeah sure, come on, sign your name on that list ... Do you want to play a game? That place was pretty neat, I wish I was still a kid, it was almost like the Dentist's office I used to go to, they had all kind of TVs at the different hair cut stations and PS2s everywhere. Anyway, it was pretty hilarious, I showed the hairdresser my license pic which has been my routine to get the right haircut as I jump from hair place to hair place. Me and the other women working had fun joking about stuff, the hairdresser thought I was going to cut my whole beard off so she started to trim my sideburns really short, and I now have a little patch of almost no hair on both sides. It was funny and enjoyable at the time for me, so I didn't mind (too much), although I kind of had to cut my beard a lot shorter to not look as stupid. Tags: life
Current Music: Pandora - www.savenetradio.org
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It's just so frustrating. An equally precocious friend of mine I met at BCC who was planning on applying to Amherst but didn't said to me at Awards Night some weeks ago that even his mom was excited about my acceptance to Amherst. I quipped that she was probably more excited about it then my parents were. I wasn't joking. Life is generally an uphill battle and there's roadblocks that need to be fought through, but I continue to just hit a roadblock time after time and it's mostly my parents fault. Yes, it's easy to blame my parents. So easy. But that's not why I do it. It's because they continue to be the roadblock to a promising future time after time. Besides posting that I got into Amherst, I haven't posted anything about it because there's been a quaint uneasiness about the details behind it. I never filled out the financial aid applications (FAFSA + PROFILE) back in February when they were supposed to be due. At the time there were quite a few problems. I hadn't done my taxes. My parents hadn't done their taxes. I hadn't been in touch with my father in almost a decade and the schools PROFILE wanted a non-custodial parent form. I was busy with schoolwork and tutoring. I didn't actually think I would get into Amherst.
And then I got in. The whole night I was panicing. I just got into one of the top liberal arts schools in the nation and now I may not be able to go because I didn't fill out any financial aid forms. I called them up the next day and they said I could get everything filled out soon and hand it in and still get the same amount of aid because they're rich and have a huge endowment and pay 100% of need anyway. But it was near finals so schoolwork and tutoring was getting crazy, and I still hadn't filled out my taxes. And I still haven't finished them. My FAFSA is done but the more complicated PROFILE still contains the uneasiness of contacting my aunt who handles my father's affairs and having her fill out a huge complicated financial form. But why do I have to do them anyway? Why do I have to pay my parents rent when I could have saved about $6000 by now for college. Why do I have to pay my own car insurance (another $4000)? Why did I have to pay for my first car, and pay off part of my parent's inept financial loaning to get my step-brother's old car on the road after mine died ($600+1000)? How come my mother doesn't have anything saved up for college costs, when my late grandmother on my mother's side wanted both my cousin and I to be able to pay for college? Why did she continue to get in the mail useless college savings plans with $100 in them? Why do I have to fill out financial aid forms most of other parents fill out for their children? Why do my parents not care? Why do they seem to not want me to go to college? When I finished the FAFSA, the expected family contribution was about $24,000. Even if everything worked right, I would probably still have to find $24,000 out of a third-party loan, and my mom probably still can't even cosign because her credit is so bad. Even if I wasn't going to Amherst, I still probably couldn't go to college. An EFC of $24,000 means that no matter what college I would go to, even if it's little State School at $15k or big university or liberal arts school at $25k or $40k, I would still have to shell out nearly all the costs to go there, unless I got a hold of some serious scholarship money (possible option if everything fails me). Who knows how I'm going to find money to pay for another semester BCC if everything else falls through with Amherst. My mom innocuously complained about me not having a job today when she left for work. Technically I'm tutoring (they know about that) and have a research work-study position (they may not know about that). This is all for crap pay, $7.50 hour. Technically I could still play poker and make more than that much online propping once I build my bankroll back up for paying for everything I shouldn't have to. And technically even I wanted a good job during the summer, it's not going to pay me enough to meet my goals. It's like my parents want me to leave the house at 7am, come home from work at 9pm and be frustrated and miserable while I then spent all my money on material goods. It's like they don't want me to have a future. I really want to go. The opportunity is amazing. Everyone other than my parents is excited. It's still possible. But it's frustrating me that I can't pass this parental roadblock. After my mom complained I complained about having to now take up a new car insurance plan on new car, and not being able to afford it, and how I'd like to be able to pay to go to one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation. And it's like she thinks I'm kidding. It's like my own mom doesn't think I'm worthy. I know she just doesn't get it. Doesn't get college, doesn't get me, doesn't get why I view work differently. But it's just so frustrating. Tags: amherst, college, future, life, money, parents, stupid me, thoughts
Current Mood:  see above
Current Music: none - I'm reflecting
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I forgot how easy it was to get carried away just randomly doing stuff online. I spent about 3 hours or so watching random live music videos on youtube, the Lostprophets, some Fall Out Boy acoustic I was actually impressed with. Read a bunch of stuff on Overheard in NYAll this and I actually have some stuff I have to have to do tomorrow for the first time in a while. Have an appointment to tutor tomorrow at 4. Seems silly internet diversions only come at times diversions are harmful. On the brightside, I got most of my taxes finished finally. Yes, over a month late, but it's not a big deal. If you have a refund coming, there is no penalty. I don't know if I'm screwed for MA taxes, cause that's the part I haven't finished. Also, declaring poker winnings may royally fuck me for financial aid, as gambling winnings boost my AGI up to around $32k, when I only got about $8k in wages last year and only really had about $9k in poker winnings. Even though I'm not paying any federal taxes thanks to education credits. Excellent. Tags: life, mioney, poker, procrastination
Current Mood: ironic
Current Music: Monty Python - Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
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I went to a tutoring conference up at UMass Lowell this Saturday. It was cool and well put together, although I think I expected to get more out of it than I did.
One of the presentations I went to was on tutor burn-out. I went to it because I am very very burnt out. One of the suggestions of combating burn out was to do journaling, and since I haven't posted in a while I've been inspired to post. But I don't have too much to say. Or time to say it.
When I first started tutoring I opened up basically all my non-class hours for appointments. I'm taking 16 credits, which includes a 2 hour physics lab, so essentially I have 17 hours of class. There's a mandated maximum of 20 hours per tutor, so I can't pass that, but I'm come quite close to it sometimes. I've been averaging around 15 hours a week I believe. If I end up getting a lot of no shows every in the week, they jam my schedule up later in the week with appointments. Last week I went from having 3 appointments on Thursday to having 7 or 8.
I'm basically overloaded, and I don't really know what I can do about it. I do enjoy tutoring, and get paid for it. I have a lot of tutees who count on me for help and I'd feel bad if I had to give certain ones up.
Unfortunately, it's basically the reason why I have no time for anything right now, and why some of my recent work has suffered. Granted, I got A's on both the writing assignments I did in a last minute furor, but then I got a 70 on my Differential Equations exam, and an 80 on that Physics quiz (could of been worse). The Diff EQs grade is baaad because I'd really like to get an A and that test is about 10% of my grade (should be 16% but my professor devalues the lowest grade). I have an honors seminar I haven't been doing the appropriate amount of reading on, and an honors component in my English course that I haven't done ANY work on. I have an Exam in English on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure tomorrow and other for in class readings and the movie I don't know anything. And there's a Physics take-home due Wednesday, another Diff EQs exam Friday, and especially for Diff EQs I haven't done any of the homework that the exam is on (which is why I got a 70 on the first exam).
This hasn't helped much, I still feel very tense.
Off me...
I've realized that I really enjoy partaking and listening to human conversation. I had a very intriguing discussion on the ride home from the tutoring conference with the two adult women/moms/students who me and my friend and fellow tutor were riding with. It touched on many different subjects, from professors and classes, to psychological theories, master programs, and parenting. I don't think I would have said this 5 years ago when I was 16 and a pathetic loner. There's a certain human knowledge element of conversations I find interesting. Even if I'm just listening and absorbing as much information as I can remember.
Also, I've "discovered" Pandora, a music matching program that plays streaming audio of the music it matches you with. It's pretty cool, but I don't know if it'll stick. It'd be nice if it'd play in a regular music program rather than the web. And sometimes it's nice to play your own stuff, like live recordings you have over forty gigabytes of.
Sigh. Still tense. I think I'm going to go dance like no one's watching to Maroon 5. Tags: bcc, college, life, stupid me, tutoring
Current Mood:  tense
Current Music: Matt Nathanson - Answering Machine (live)
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I'm back from Atlantic City, got back Saturday night after a long wait to get a bus due to the weather in the Northeast. I promise to write a real trip report and summary of everything that went down. It was awesome being there, and sort of bittersweet to be back. Right now I'm contemplating how much it sucked that I failed my Diff EQs test and my Physics quiz and how I didn't do any work over spring break. Oops. Highlights of the trip included - finishing 6th in the $50+10 with $50 addon morning tournament at the Borgata for ~$1445 - playing 3/6 Omaha H/L Stud H/L (OE or 2-Way as they call it) for a while at the Taj - straddling (no straddle in AC, so technically a blind raise) in my last hand in the Trop pink chip game and capping it, squeezing out 2 paint cards on the QTxx turn and finding KK during the showdown to take down a huge pot - my awesome room and setup at the Trop. Lowlights included - the chip leader denying a 6 way chop for $3.5k-ish and then me busting in a IMO must push situation with 87s on the button with about 8 big blinds left and the chip leader picking up JJ and missing my outs on a 7-high inside straight draw flop - going card dead in the $250+30 Friday morning tournament I decided to play at the Borgata because of the awesome structure and the wad in my pocket - losing over $350 in no-limit right before I left due to the buses being cancelled at a horrible (read: juicy) table, going finally broke when a guy called my $75 allin bet on an A564 board with 24 and cracked my AK - losing my KNK player of the year chip protector at the Trop after getting up when the pink chip game got bad (read: players who had my number), and the Trop not caring even after I talked to the floor people about it more than three times. Sooo back to the grind in real life and away from the poker table. It was fun being there but I'm glad to be back to normalcy, I think. Tags: atlantic city, life, poker
Current Mood:  tired
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It's good to be back in school. I have my first tutor appointment tommorrow in PSY 51 (General Psych), I'm really excited. It's good that it's a class I've actually taken, albeit two years ago, and one that I really enjoyed. Hopefully that makes it easy to tutor. I just hope that I don't suck. I still haven't really done the essays, but I know that I need to do them and I really want to do them. My plan tonight is to relax for a little bit when I get home after Physics Lab and then refresh my Psychology knowledge and work on putting some fingers to keys and put some 0s and 1s in a file. I may decide to stay up late to force myself to write something soon. Getting up early for Physics/school in generally doesn't totally suck as I expected it to, but it's still a bummer. Haven't looked into moving to Fall River other than thinking about it. I also don't know if I could financially swing it, especially after Neteller stopped accepting poker transactions, the easiest/quickest way of getting money I win into my bank account. I may have to start using credit cards in the evil debt collecting way soon so I can work my way out without being broke. It's not as bad as it sounds, I can still play poker and win enough and eventually get money out through various ways. I also started propping at a poker site where I can make about $20/hr per table playing 4/8. Propping is when a poker site pays you to start new games and keep games going, so it's a very nice deal with 150% rakeback at 4/8. That is a sick amount of money if I could actually get off my ass and play for a long period of time, but as I really want to get this Amherst stuff done I'm going to take a break for a little bit and hence why I really don't want to write too much about it. Otherwise, all my classes seem pretty good. I think this may be quite a hard semester though, with Physics and Diff EQs, the Sociology honors seminar, Philosophy, and the ENG12 Lit class. I'm pretty tired right now. Not sure if it's because of lack of sleep or because at this time yesterday I was working out really hard. The Fitness Center is cool. Also, I've always done this, I don't know if anyone else does, but I always end up imagining how people feel, what conversations with people might be like, guess what people might be doing or thinking. I seem to generally be wrong and conversations end up not how I would imagine them. I think I'm a little disturbed in this area, I'd like to blame it on being an INTJ or being very aware of other people's conciousness. Or maybe not. Regardless, the point I'm thinking about/making is that it seems like anytime I expect a certain response from someone (like, say I don't do something and except negative harsh criticism), I'm wrong about it or it's not exactly what I was imagining. In this way I think for some sick reason I underestimate the human nature of life, being so hermitly introverted. Just something I was thinking about based on a few recent encounters. Tags: bcc, life, poker, school, thoughts, tutoring
Current Location: computer lab
Current Mood:  contemplative
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Hi. I was just trying to think about the perfect word to describe where I am right now. Lost. It's that limbo between the end of one routine and the beginning of another. Between the end of last semester and the beginning of the next one. Waiting in limbo. But I'm also lost because I also don't know where to start with writing in here. I must admit that I think I stopped writing for a while because there were certain things I didn't want to admit to myself. For instance, I was going to start tutoring at the school, after meeting the professor and having a good conversation about things. He gave me some seemingly long winded application type paperwork to fill out, stuff for Human Services, and I put it off and put it off. I really was interested in tutoring for many different reasons, but after a few weeks the papers just sat there and then I felt like it was too late. It had been lingering over me for a while and bothering me. But I was too embarrassed to write about it because I realize how stupid it sounds. I got a call from one of the tutor center coordinators about the tutor application I never filled out and cleared everything up. It took me less than an hour in the computer lab filling out the application. Things like that have been happening for a while. My room is a kerfuffle. It's mainly left over school binders I have no place for, papers that don't belong anywhere, left over college paperwork from the past few years. The disorganization seems to cause further disorganization in the rest of my life, school, poker, anything you want to imagine. Right now, my crutch is the Amherst college application essays. I had some very grandiose ideas back when I wrote that last entry. Working on them immediately, doing many drafts, writing several different essays. I haven't started the three essays. Except for the assignment I had in my English class to write a college application essay. I used the Amherst prompt and got a B- because I didn't care since I knew it wasn't going to be the one I sent. It's bland and harsh. I said something about how I had a chance of getting into Amherst if the three essays were the three best essays I've ever written. I'm obviously behind the eight ball. But to use a poker analogy, I have outs. Application is due February 1st, and if I actually sit down and write something very soon (like tomorrow), I'll have some good footing to keep reediting and rewriting to write what I need to write. I won't go into my analysis about the different prompts like I was just planning on. Maybe I'll save that for a later post or I'll write something tomorrow. The prompts are in the application here, if anyone does care. It's basically the Common Application transfer essay which is why are you transferring etc, and two intriguing and thought provoking essay questions in the Amherst supplement (at the end). Those may take some creative writing and thought. Anyways, I didn't mean to go into my "OMG Ryan, WTF are you doing about essays mode", but truly it's whats bothering me right now. I've given recommendations to four of my professors to send out, who should all be writing me fairly good recommendations, and now for the most part it's up to me. Numerous times they've told me what a good opportunity I have to have the chance to go to this prestigious school and I spend my winter vacation jerking off instead of doing some work. Typical me. That wasn't all I wanted to write about it, but it's the main thing that's been bothering me. I've been thinking about the past year, seeing as it's now 2007, and what would sum up the last year. In a word : adultish. I've done a lot of adult things since turning 21 last year. I've gone to Foxwoods numerous times, and seeing as before than I've never really been out of state by myself all that much, it's certainly a change. I visited New York to see the U.S. Open and drank some beers with adult friends in a NY restaurant, went to Atlantic City in November and experienced the joy of Greyhound and. Went to see some concerts in Providence for the first time in a while. And I quit my minimum wage job to play poker for a living. In the first part of the year, I went to "college" full-time, met some cool acquaintances, and got close but whiffed. I suppose in the scheme of things, 2006 might just be the crossroads of my life. The gap between young Ryan and old Ryan. I don't like the phrase old Ryan one bit, but it's got a pint of truth to it. So, in terms of what I missed that I hadn't written about in a while, things got hectic at the end of the semester as all the work I hadn't done got piled on top of more work that had to be done. I got lucky in a lot of ways. My calculus professor let me hand in a few labs extra late for no points off, which the rest of the class felt was unfair and I felt kind of bad about it. I had a whole bunch of work I hadn't done in Chemistry, about 6 Labs, my whole lab notebook to write in, studying for stuff, etc. Actually, the Chemistry final is sort of worth a paragraph itself. The professor is really nice and almost too lenient, and the final was almost like an open book final. There were a few charts in the back we had to use as a reference on some answers, and she also said that we could flip through and find someone if we knew where it was. She didn't make it explicitly open book, i.e. look up whatever you need to, but it seemed like a few people in class were doing that. There was some stuff she didn't really cover at all in class on radioactivity and wavelength equation stuff that I basically thumbed through to figure out how to do, and a few answers where I knew where they were so I figured I might as well find them. So it took a while, but I test got done as I thumbed through the book carefully. And the day of the Chemistry final happened to contain the funniest moment of 2006 and the most I've probably laughed ever. This requires a bit of set up to explain it. See, my Chemistry professor has a sort of lisp. She'll explain something and use the phrase "to work with" a lot. It wasn't until about halfway through the class that I noticed this, because one of the girls in class was badmouthing the professor before lab and mentioning "Have you ever noticed how she says "to work with" all the time?". Like 5 minutes into lab, she says it about 2 or 3 times, and I start giggling a little bit, as does this other girl in class who heard the comment out in the hall. I couldn't help but notice it the rest of the semester, and it's strange. It's almost like a defense mechanism for her, because for instance there was one time I walked into one of the other classes' labs to talk to her, and she's talking to some students about something and ends the sentence with "to work with" for no reason. So fast forward to the last day of class, we're doing presentations of labs we were assigned to, and one of the groups is up there. The guy presenting and doing the talking I've done a few labs with an he's a cool guy, really nice and not the mean spirited type or anything. He's doing his presenting and talking about the experiment. "You do this with the ammonium chloride and put it into the container to work with", and I burst out laughing uncontrollably. I tried not to laugh loudly and control how hard I was laughing, keeping it to a giggle, but it was hard because the other girl I mentioned who had giggled back a few classes ago was laughing as well and we were both looking at each other like, "oh my god that was hilarious". I felt really bad because the professor was sitting right in front of me watching the presentation, and I was laughing pretty loudly. Apparently she didn't notice at all though. But I just kept laughing whenever I would look at the the other girl and I couldn't help it. Eventually I left the room and went to the bathroom to control myself because I just couldn't. I literally kept laughing for a few minutes. Even now whenever I'm thinking about it, I can't help but laugh a little. Most hilarious thing of the year ever. I know that story probably doesn't make any sense, it was one of those things you just had to be there for, but it was absolutely hilarious. To work with. Tehehe. But yeah, fun fun. There was also an English research essay that I did without even doing a rough draft. I kept putting that one off and off. Sociology final, etc. The Chemistry stuff was the biggest deal because it was stuff I should of had done long before. In the end I got all 4.0s except for English, where I got an A-. Still great. I remember when I was waiting for my grades online and looked at the first batch of grades from Calc and Tech and Society, where I got an A+ and A, and I was really excited, and then not nearly as excited to see that I got one A-. I really was hoping to get another full 4.0 to bring my whole GPA up and have a better shot at Amherst, but one A- isn't bad. I've got an A+ in both my math classes and an A+ in the SOC12 class, so that looks good I guess even if it's the same numerically. That's about it. Nice to get most of everything I've wanted to write off my chest. Good latenight. That's the other part I'm lost about, lately I've been going to bed near this late (this is the latest), and waking up at like 1 or 2pm. Not good. Oh well. Tags: amherst college, college, life, stupid me
Current Mood:  lost
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I'm in a weird funk right now. School started today, and it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be. For most of the summer I've been looking forward to school starting back up, but now for some reason I just wish I could keep being lazy. My first class of the day, my SOC 12 Social Problems class with Professor Wood from last semester was just totally dull. I can tell about half of the people in the class will have dropped it by the end of the semester. I'm hoping it's just a one time thing. I think this might be the semester where I realize BCC isn't all it's cracked up to be, it's kind of funny how I raved about the aesthetics of classrooms last semester and now the classroom we're in is the smallest little ugly room to take a class in. Just not very comfortable for learning. My English 11/CSS learning community course looks good, the professor is really funny and a cool guy, and all the people in the class are like I kind of expected, first time freshmen. I think there's only like 12 or 14 of us and it should be kind of cool. And then Calc III with my professor from last semester, I know the class is going to be easy, there's like 4 people who weren't here for last semester and about half who were in the last class, although no girls. Boo. I don't know, I guess it's too early for me to be bitter. Maybe it was the stupid Fall River traffic I had to get through before getting home. Must leave before 2 next time. I really want to get involved somehow on campus doing more stuff, but I don't know if I have the ambition to do so. I really wanted to get into the Honors Program but I never looked into it over the summer, I would mind becoming a Tutor for Math or some other courses, and I could definitely use the fitness center there. The Theatre group is having open auditions for the Fall play they're putting on on Friday but I don't know if I'd be up for doing that. I found that there's tennis courts at the school (I've started getting into tennis other than watching it), but I'd really need to find someone to hit with as there's no racquetball type court to practice swings. No Tiffany sighting. I passed the Music Theory class I kind of wanted to take and that class looked a little more upbeat than my other ones. Maybe I should of taken it. Tags: bcc, life
Current Mood: but I am not a snake
Current Music: but everybody needs a little forgiveness...
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I'm not sure I officially mentioned it here but I'm going down to Foxwoods for my 21st birthday and I'm planning on spending all day playing poker. I'm going down in the morning for the 10am $80+20 NL tournament, probably playing cash games or whatever else during the day and then playing the $80+20 Limit tournament at 7pm. I'm not expecting much at all from the tournaments. The structure looks absolutely craptacular, with the big blinds going 50-100-200 and the starting stack being 2000. If I bust really early in both I won't be surprised. I am however, looking forward to the cash games. I'm planning on mostly playing the 5/10 Limit games. They have a kill at 5/10 which I'm not too thrilled about. I'm not 100% sure how it works but I guess if a pot gets over $100 the stakes essentially become 10/20. I have a good bankroll for 5/10 but with a kill it could be interesting, a good amount of the pots may be at 10/20 if the game is as good as I've heard. I may try out $4/8 but I'm not really planning on playing $2/4. Looking at the rake that Foxwoods takes, I don't think the low-limits suck nearly as bad for rake as I've heard they do. Hopefully I have enough money though, I tried to take out $700 (I figure 50BBs + the two tournament entries should be a good amount to bring to a live game) out of my bank account and I could only get $400 out, I'll have to try again in the morning. I'm not sure I'll drink any, I guess there's free drinks at the cash tables but I don't really feel like ruining a good poker game with alcohol. I'm really excited though because I was originally a little nervous about driving down there with my car but I was driving my car to go to the ATM and I realized that the radiator fan was running and it wasn't stalling. I played around with a bunch of connections a few days ago and I guess one of those fixed it. It's really awesome, maybe I can keep driving my car for a while now. I'm so happy I fixed it though. Greg and George from the Friday game are going down there with me and playing the tournament, and I'm probably going Thursday morning to play as well with a few other guys from the game, so it should be fun. Hopefully I just don't get robbed and don't go broke. It's going to be kind of weird going to a place like Foxwoods by myself and being like a lost little kid. Should be a lot of fun though. Tags: car, life, poker
Current Mood: 21 years old
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I watched a movie for the first time in a while. I have this disdain for movies that goes back to when I was young, I think mainly it's that I can think of better things to do than to be engulfed in another life for an hour and a half. But anyways, I was browsing through the channels and the name Trainspotting sounded familiar, probably from Paul Phillips' blog, so I watched it, it was about a heroin addict trying to get out of his heroin addict life while getting sucked back in by his mates. The British mannerisms were pretty funny, but I'm generally a bad judge of movies, it was okay. A wise man once told me drugs are bad. C'est vrai. I also caught parts of Waking Life on IFC, they seem to show it on afternoons on Mondays I guess or something. I saw that and made me think for a bit before I realized thinking was bad. Now I finished watching this movie and I started thinking again. Oy vey. So I'm sure I've mentioned how there's stuff I want to write about, but never feel like writing or am too lazy to do so. Since I've started thinking I guess this is the time where I let it all out, unless I get bored of cathartic bullshit and stop prematurely. And in general, this livejournal is kind of like a written down discussion of my inner monologue. Most of this monologue has been going on and on for a while, it's just that I haven't written about it. I used to really like writing down all my thoughts on a daily basis, but now it's kind of eh. And then when something does come up, I'm so disenfranchised from this thing that I don't feel like writing. Big thoughts, I know. Anyway, starting backwards first, I mentioned Relay but didn't mention something tiny but really interesting that sort of didn't happen. I was walking the track with Ingrid and Karyl at night, doing Karaoke from Ingrid's iPod, and being really goofy. It was probably like 1 or 2am or something. It was really fun talking with them about school and just having fun and not caring about how stupid I looked or sounded trying to sing karaoke (and it was bad). So I turned around to start walking backwards for a bit, since my feet were hurting, and I looked up and saw somebody who looked familiar. That Julie Sullivan girl who I've had a crush on since North. I looked up and saw her face and then kind of turned around. "Wait, was that really her?", I kind of said to myself. I was in a daze for a little while thinking about it... should I turn around and recheck? Should I say hi? Should I confess I've been madly in love with her for years...should I ask if I ever had a chance? It was weird because I went from having lots of fun with Karyl and Ingrid to being self-concious about my stupid past. She eventually passed us and I could kind of hear her talking to the person she was walking with. I actual think she was walking with a classmate from North she was friends with back then, Tara Rose. I couldn't really hear what she was saying but it sounded like she was talking about a guy, and moving in with him or something. Or I guess that's what I'd like to imagine. For a while I wasn't sure it was her, but it sounded like her, looked like her, and seemed like her. So yes, I saw her, and I did nothing. I pondered walking up next to them and saying hi, but that's only something I'd do in my dreams apparently. After seeing them walking the track I didn't see them the rest of the time. I saw a few other people I knew from North too (including the three girls who came into Subway one night that I said hi too), but didn't say hi. In the same vein as that story, there was one day a while back that it hit me. I've been spending my life looking back at the past. Thinking about the past. Analyzing what I've done wrong and messed up. I really need to move on and up. I need to look at what I've done and do something better. The past is just that. I can't really sit here and fuck up any future I could have by repeating all my mistakes. Mainly this means to stop being a lonely bastard and try to be somebody. Intimacy rather than Isolation - Erik Erikson's stage of early adulthood. I need to look for something new rather than pretending I can love somebody I won't ever see again. Then, I went to work. This girl, Val Hastings came in, who I used to live next to, her dad was our landlord back when I lived in North Attleboro. Her sister used to take us to school freshman/sophomore year. She graduated valedictorian of the class I would of graduated at NAHS, and went to Harvard. I knew this from reading something in the paper about her. Anyway, she came in with this guy, and after a little while I realized I know who he was. It was this guy Steven who I sat behind in my freshman Algebra class or whatever, he was in my home room too I think, and I remember he being a kind of shady kid, which was really strange when I saw them together. I also thought he may have been this kid who I was friends with back in kindergarten but moved, but I'm not sure and was never sure even in school. But yeah, that was weird. Here I am, I told myself, fuck the past, it don't matter. And then I see someone from my past and it all comes back to me. I didn't really say much to her/them, it was kind of awkward. And then, the other thing I've been meaning to write about. The end of the semester was just kind of weird. I really liked Tiffany and it seemed like she liked me too. I don't have to go into everything that happened, I wrote most of it down. I just really loved talking to her outside of class and just having a conversation. It felt nice to talk to a girl sincerely and not feel like I'm an inferior man. I did say some goofy stuff sometimes, and I made some sarcastic Colbert-like comments about Bush that I'm not sure she got. Even now I can't really explain it, it just felt good. But I whiffed. I should of talked to her that Friday, gave her my number or something, and you never know. But now, I'm doing the same thing I've done about every other girl. Wishing I did something when I didn't, and pretending in my head what it would be like if I did, and thinking I still might have a chance. At least I might see her again, like I've said before, I'm holding out hope that if I go back to Fall River for next semester maybe I'll see her around campus. The strange thing about the end of the semester was I ended up talking to Stephanie outside of class a bit too. You know, the one I originally had a crush on until suddenly I was like, holy shit, this other girl is much cooler. We ended up talking after that other class with someone else about some politicky stuff like abortion, gay rights, stuff from the class, etc. It was kind of interesting and I learned some stuff about Stephanie that I would not have expected. You know, cause I originally expected to hear no stories about her being a naughty girl. I also ended up talking to her in the lab the day of my all-nighter. I ended up going to the computer lab to print out some stuff from my Child Psychology binder, and as I got out of my car I noticed she was parked a few cars down but didn't say anything. She ended up coming up to the lab later and I don't know how we started talking about stuff but I guess she was supposed to take a final for this math class with the Professor from my recitation. I guess she really sucks at math and was freaking out about the final and I was trying to reassure her and stuff but I guess she really does suck at math. I don't understand how someone sells back their book before they even finish their final. All that, and I feel like I'm so close yet so far. When I mentioned Erik Erikson, I'm serious and it feels like I'm struggling with the whole intimacy vs. isolation thing. I'm not really close to anyone in the friends sort of way. Granted, I never really have been my whole life. Isolation is good until you realize intimacy is awesome. And I kind of don't have much experience with intimacy. Now, when a lot of people see intimacy vs. isolation they think sexual intimacy, and for those who haven't read Erikson's eight stages eight different times, it doesn't just mean that sort of intimacy but mainly intimacy between other human beings, like as friends. I've just spent most of my life isolated. Back in middle school/high school, in my room, alone. Can you really have intimacy through an internet connection? Ask me that 6 - 7 years ago and I'd probably say yes. But now, I feel like I've experienced what intimacy is between people and I feel like I've lost it. I'm a pretty bad friend, I've always hated phone calls - they feel distant and weird to me. And yadda yadda yadda. I do have to say, poker helps, and I've gotten pretty close to Kurt from poker as a friend. He probably knows more about my life than my parents do. I don't really know where I'm going (actually I do, I just don't want to write about it). I want to be intimate with life, I want to get to know people and get to know myself through other people. This is one of the reasons I wish I went to a real college and all that, and got to meet more people. That and I should just ask out the next girl who seems to cool just to get practice on that whole girl thing. To finish off this long entry, I was just listening to a Matt Nathanson concert and he made this comment about Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl".. "Okay, so in this song he's saying, I want Jesse's girl, but I can't have her, and I'm just going to sit back here and for the rest of my life I'm going to wish that I could of had her." ... Kind of what I do. That, and I think I finally figured out the meaning of Everything Else. "Cause everything else doesn't matter/really cause that girl/that you want/she's never going away/and if you want her you can't have her". She's still in my mind...and I can't have her, and she's never going away. Woe is me. Tags: bcc, friends, future, girls, julie, life, nahs, t, the past
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Matt Nathanson
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$4000, $5000, $6000, and quicker than any of them, $7000. Here's the hand that put me over $7000 in poker bankroll.
Hand #355073740 at table: Table TH 740
Started: Tue Jul 04 04:12:37 2006
Clayto is at seat 3 with 514.39 MUFFTACO posts the large blind 5.00
Clayto posts the small blind 2.50
Clayto: Qh, Ah
Pre-flop:
Pietari: Call 5.00
saycheese5: Fold
river_7777: Fold
Brunno9: Fold
illogic: Fold
apatzi1969: Call 5.00
Clayto: Raise 10.00
MUFFTACO: Fold
Pietari: Raise 15.00
apatzi1969: Call 15.00
Clayto: Raise 20.00
Pietari: Call 20.00
apatzi1969: Call 20.00 Flop (Board: 9h, 2d, 2h): Clayto: Check
Pietari: Bet 5.00
apatzi1969: Raise 10.00
Clayto: Call 10.00
Pietari: Raise 15.00
apatzi1969: Call 15.00
Clayto: Raise 20.00
Pietari: Call 20.00
apatzi1969: Call 20.00 Turn (Board: 9h, 2d, 2h, 10s): Clayto: Check
Pietari: Check
apatzi1969: Bet 10.00
Clayto: Call 10.00
Pietari: Raise 20.00
apatzi1969: Call 20.00
Clayto: Call 20.00 River (Board: 9h, 2d, 2h, 10s, 3h): Clayto: Check
Pietari: Bet 10.00
apatzi1969: Raise 20.00
Clayto: Raise 30.00
Pietari: Call 30.00
apatzi1969: Call 30.00 Showdown: Clayto shows: Qh, Ah (ace high flush)
apatzi1969 shows: 8h, 7h (flush to the Nine) Mainpot:
Clayto wins the pot of 272.00 with ace high flush, Ace kicker. (3.00 rake were taken for this hand)
I'm sure it'll fluctuate around $7k, but this run just keeps getting better and better. I just hope it doesn't stop until I'm able to pay off school.
I'm really thinking about quitting Subway. As it is I am working 5 days next week and I really don't want to be. Tags: life, money, poker
Current Music: Matt Nathanson
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Work has recently really sucked. The usual opener and manager who does an awesome job is on a two week vacation (in rehab) and the place has been a mess because someone else from another store is opening and he doesn't do nearly as good a job. I continue to get out later and later. I used to be able to rush and get out around 10:15 - 10:30 if it wasn't too busy, then the Shell changed owners and I got lazy or whatever and I can't even get out before 10:45. It's been getting busier and I haven't had a dead night in a while and I keep getting out about an hour after I close. I don't think my boss likes this because he may be trying to short me on hours on the time sheet, I realized yesterday that I was short an hour on Wednesday and Sunday I wrote down I was there till 10:20 for a 10.25 hour shift and he only wrote down 10. For some fucked up reason I feel bad about getting out late and doing a shitty job (as I did Sunday and Monday because it was too busy to get anything done before I closed). He pays me $8/hr, I make him rich, and I feel bad. Capitalism is sick. On Sunday a guy came in while I was in the back washing dishes after I had been closed for 15 minutes complaining how he parked his tractor trailer here going around a bunch of streets just for Subway. He begged and for some unknown reason I made him a sandwich. I was pretty pissed for the rest of the night talking to myself wondering why the fuck am I working here, working a 10 hour shift without a break, making minimum wage when I could be playing poker and making money sitting at home on my ass instead of working my ass off not getting to sit down for 10 hours. It's really not going to get any better unless I just quit or change jobs. It's summer and school is out and it's usually busier at nights during the summer, and I don't see my boss adding more people and hours anytime soon. I'm not working that much as it is, and I'm happy about that. I have 4 days off straight Thursday-Sunday and my plan is to play a lot of poker during my 4 day vacation. I really do like my free time away from work and don't mind not getting very big paychecks, hell, I haven't even cashed the 4 on my desk yet (probably tomorrow). The manager at Shell was talking to me Monday and was saying he needed people and noticed how I look like a good worker and what not. It is tempting. Even the people who do a lot of work over there have a lot of down time, I have very little over at Subway. I heard they might start a little less than $8/hour, and I know their shifts kind of suck usually only scheduling for 6 hours like 6-12. I also could just work the overnight shift which would be kind of cool considering I'm a night owl anyway. I don't know, it'd be tough to leave Subway anyway. Sick, I know, it's just hard to vision leaving after getting so good. Just today I had a guy come in and say that he travels a lot and how a lot of people make good sandwiches but the sandwich I made him the previous night was awesome and he tipped me $5 dollars. That and the regulars are enjoyable even if the jerks aren't and I get put in a bad Zombie Subway worker mood often. But really, if I leave Subway I just kind of don't want to work at all. I'm getting closer and closer to seeing poker as an actual possibility, even if I am just temporarily running good. If I ended up at Shell I'd have to start all over again, even if I would like to try something new, but I might just quit really soon anyway if poker looks promising. Anyway, just some random blabbering about work stuff. Funny story from a while ago about a girl "hitting" on me at work, I'm reminded because she came in today again. These two girls have been coming for a while, they looked about 16-18ish and were pretty cute. They always smelled of chlorine when they came in, so one could guess that they had probably been swimming. I'm not going to explain to you why the smell of chlorine is kind of amusing. I'm a perv, you do the math. One night, one of the girls is really talkative, and starts asking different questions while I'm making their subs, she asks how long I've been working here, etc., she mentions how they've been swimming/at a swim meet, etc., and I'm like "Yeah, I can tell, you guys smell like chlorine! ..." She asks how old I think they are, and I think I started with 18. She's like...younger..., and I'm like, 16? "A little younger..." 14? 13? 12? .... She was 12 and her sister was 14 I guess. ... I am not a pedophile. The one who was talking really quick like she was really excited too, and her older sister was so embarassed. They've come in a few more times afterwards and the younger one came in today without her sister and talked a lot again. Actually, she kind of talks like me, that not be able to get the words out and talking faster than you can think. Tags: life, work
Current Music: Matt Nathanson is my lover.
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I now understand why many people just don't use LiveJournal anymore. Lately I've got to the point where I've been too busy to write a focused LJ entry, even if that busy is just trying to concentrate while winning $2k at poker in 20 days. At the same time not much has really been happening other than poker and work so there's not much to write about that is really that interesting. That and I kind of wish I could write one post about things happening, one post about things bothering me, and one post about poker rather than them all together. Few weekends ago I did Relay, it was pretty good although a tad damp. I ended up raising a little under $200 in tips from work. I really enjoyed getting to see everyone I hadn't seen in a while and walking the track at night doing karaoke with Karyl and Ingrid. I ended up doing 20 miles of walking and a tiny bit of running, with a margin of error of probably a mile or so. I kept losing track. I was very very sore afterward and that lasted until about Wednesday the next week. I ended up working 12-9 on Sunday, on my feet the whole time, and when I went to bend down to grab a 20lb box of bread in our freezer...oh man the pain. Like I said, other than that the only thing I've been doing is working and playing poker. I took first in the first tournament of the night at the last league night. I sucked out with KJ vs. AJ on a Jxx board early on for all my chips against Peter, a King came on the river and I was off to the races. I was getting cards and playing good. I don't remember too many important hands, when we got to short-handed at the final table I was playing the bully role really well and getting cards. Always a bad combination. At the final table I believe I knocked 2 people out who had already gone all-in short in chips with 99, which is a really strong hand in that case. On the final hand of heads-up I was up against Bill and he was so short that I moved in blind on him. As he was pondering whether to call or not, I looked at one card and it was a King of diamonds. I was like Ooooh.. that's a good card. I didn't look at the other card yet but I pushed it over towards Ron and X and others who were watching along the table if they wanted to look and after Bill called I looked at the other one and I was like "Holy shit!", It was another King! I moved in blind with Kings..lol. Needless to say unlike the last time I had Kings heads-up they held up against Bill's T5s. One funny hand was when I had Ax overcards to Kurt's 66 when we got it all-in (him all-in). I was running so good at that point that I started grabbing for the pot before we even saw the flop. I ended up flopping an Ace and had already begun to collect them until a 6 came on the river. It was pretty awesome and everyone got a kick out of me reaching for the chips before I had won the pot. Online poker wise, when I said I was busy winning $2k in 20 days, I wasn't kidding. I've been running better than I ever have before in cash games and playing higher than I've ever playing before, usually around 3/6, 4/8, and 5/10 US and Euro on Supreme Poker. A Euro is 1.17 more than a US dollar on that site, so 5/10 Euro is about 6/12, I've only played 5/10 Euro a bit though. Of my top 20 best all time sessions, 9 of them have been cash games during the past 20 days, starting 6/2 when I had that ridiculous run I mentioned a while back. Here's what my sessions graph looks like since 6/2. ( Graph )My bankroll ( graph) has gone from being between $3k and $4k for nearly a year to up $2k in 20 days. On 6/2 my bankroll was at $3257.69, today it's at $5362.54. I love running good. And yes, I realize I am simply running insanely good. I may post a bunch of hands that exemplify how good I've been running, but I've been certainly playing good as well. My biggest mistake is that I think I may call down too much and occasionally try to get value out a weak hand when I'm in a situation where top pair/top kicker is no good, while at the same time I sometimes don't bet/raise with a set on the end after heavy action, but I've been raising to get free cards in the right situations (and getting the card), flat taking people off pots several times, and getting all kinds of value against calling stations. And the players at the Boss Media sites are just very loose/poor at the 3/6 - 5/10 limits. I actually have switched to "Fortune Poker" as well. I googled rakeback and boss media and found a site, RakeBrain.com that has 30% rakeback at one of the skins of Boss Media. Supreme Poker was a site the douche doooook from the poker community advertised that had 10% rakeback but I never seemed to get it, I think the bonus that didn't seem to clear correctly as advertised didn't count, because I went back and noticed after I had cleared the Supreme bonus I had a random extra 2 cents in there, probably from rakeback I got after I cleared the bonus. But 30% is better than 10% anyway. With 30% rakeback and continued play at these tables, I may have to seriously consider quitting or working a lot less hours at the real job. While you can say, why don't I just do both, well, if I'm making more money sitting at home playing poker than working at Subway, why bother going to work? Anyway, I'm not going to think too seriously about it until I experience a 100BB downswing in an hour at 5/10. Then I'll realize it's a bad idea. Like I've said about 5 times, I realize I'm running good and I'm playing the highest I've ever played. I have a good bankroll for the higher limits now, but still it's really going to hurt when I have that huge downswing I don't expect. With rakeback though, if I played enough at enough tables I could easily make more per hour simply from rakeback than I would from working. So yeah, needless to say I feel really good after winning $2k in such a short time period. I mentioned it to my parents a few times, once to my mom after I spent an hour and 15 minutes at after I had closed to finish cleaning shit. Subway puts me on tilt right now. My step-dad mentioned how that would pay for a nice car.. yeah fuck that. Education. That's what I'm thinking about right now. If I can keep running good I can easily pay for BCC this fall. That's all for now, playing a side game at Kurt's/Greg's house tonight that's non-league, then probably playing more cash games on Saturday and dieing Sunday when I have to work. Tags: friends, life, poker, work
Current Music: Matt Nathanson live
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