Minute Details

• Just a slight update on my anime auditing: as of this entry, I have spent approximately $2,035.70 on anime, with a total retail value of roughly $3,795.99.
  
  These facts bring up two things. First, I am very grateful for purchasing stuff from online sellers, because they have really helped me save a lot of cash (DVDPriceSearch.com is very useful for saving money on DVD purchases). Second, this means that, had I not bought any anime DVDs, I would have $2,035.70 more money in my bank account to do whatever I wanted with it; however, this is a case where I would say that money buys happiness.
• As I look back over past entries and read them, I notice a change in writing style. Lately, I seem to be using a single-sentence paragraph as opposed to just long paragraphs with four to six sentences. I believe I adopted this style from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The weird thing about this "adoption" of writing style is that I have not read or seen Fight Club (For those who do not know, there is a book and a movie, and both are quite good) in well over a year, so it is a bit odd that I would suddenly "adopt" this style from clear out of the blue.
  
  Anyways, I think I like using the single-sentence paragraph style because it separates specific thoughts and ideas from everything else that is going on. Like in my previous entry, I talk about Erin in large paragraphs, but I always keep Brandon mentioned in between paragraphs so that he does not completely disappear from the "picture."
• Both Hershey and Pittsburgh differ in their amounts of African-Americans (Hershey is practically all Caucasian while Pittsburgh is a nice mix of ethnic groups), but there is something consistent: African-Americans are almost always given the "low" jobs.
  
  In Pittsburgh, I spend most of my time at the University, and you just notice things very quickly. Almost all of the kitchen staffs, janitors, and door watchers (I am not really sure what else to call them, but they are the people who buzz you into a building when you swipe your Pitt ID card) are African-American. For the most part, the bosses of these people are Caucasian. Professors, police officers, and teacher's assistants are almost all Caucasian. The thing that confuses me is why it is like that. I mean, I have walked through offices at Pitt and found more Indian and Asian professors than African-American professors; actually, I have rarely seen an African-American professor, and I have not even had one yet in all of my classes. Pittsburgh itself has a healthily diverse city, but when it comes to jobs, it seems as if African-Americans are made slaves of their jobs once again.
  
  In Hershey, I am all over the place, but it is entirely different from Pittsburgh. There may be a total of a dozen African-American families in Hershey (Excluding Milton Hershey School), but even then, I notice that African-Americans are given the "low" jobs. At Hersheypark, the only African-American employees work in the Employee Cafeteria as cooks. Basically, employees serving other employees is the lowest of the low in Hersheypark; not even the garbage or hose crew is that low.
  
  I am still confused as to why employment positions are divided by skin color.
• I begin to wonder if I am sexist when I actively notice that a group of people may be all women but I do not actively notice that a group of people may be all men. When I recently saw X-Men 2, I noticed that the pilot of an F-16 Falcon in one scene was a woman, but I know that if the pilot had been a man, my thoughts would not have pondered "The pilot is a man." Even in the Anime Academy Lounge a few months ago, I took notice that three women posted in the same thread in a row, but I do not notice when ten men post in the same thread in a row.
  
  I wonder if other people have this same "problem."
• Yes, another small commentary on Erin.
  
  I cannot help but compare Erin to Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket, and I find many similarities. Both women are young, full of life, vibrant, very friendly, and not extremely intelligent. Now, the last characteristic that I mentioned may sound harsh, but it is the truth. I know that if I ever tried to have a conversation with Erin about politics, she would probably get lost very easily and not understand everything that I was saying. By no means is Erin stupid, but I would have a hard time calling her a genius. This may be the case...
  
  ... but that will not stop me from loving her.
• I seem to be watching anime in short spurts these days. With summer here, I no longer have to worry about classes, tests, and homework, but mostly work and friends gobble up a large portion of my time. Whenever I do sit down to watch anime, it seems to just happen all at once, but it is never dragged out. For example, I had no work on last Monday and Tuesday (May 12 and 13, 2003), and during the daytime, my friends usually could not do anything, so I watched 20 episodes of Arc the Lad in those two days (All on the last four DVDs). I started watching Princess Nine, and because of time constraints, I could only watch three episodes. Since that Tuesday, I have not watched the series at all, and I will probably pick it back up on this Monday and Tuesday (May 19 and 20, 2003) in an effort to finish it off. However, I will not be having any regularly scheduled days off afterwards because Hersheypark becomes full-time starting May 22, 2003 (I am not positive about this date, but it is sometime around then).
  
  Anime will be on the "backburner" most of this summer.
• Yesterday, I had a momentary lapse of memory, and as I walked into my room, four things seemed overwhelming in my room: books, my computer, anime, and boxes. I quickly remembered that it was my room and everything felt normal again, but it felt like I was looking at my room through someone else's eyes for a moment. This seems to happen to me every once in a while. I may be driving down a road that I have driven down a thousand times, but I may suddenly have a lapse of memory; while I will not know where I am going, everything looks as if I have never seen it before, and consequently, I am given another perspective on the "same old, same old."
• I openly admit/brag about the fact that I can swipe/steal 16 pound boxes of Ben and Jerry's ice cream from Hersheypark without getting caught. Just the other day, I swiped/stole a box of New York Super Fudge Chunk and brought it home for my family ("The Professor" abhors it because it has "icky" nuts). Only a day after the fact, I told Steve about it and he could not decide on whether I should get him Vanilla or Sweet Cream with Cookies (I cannot find the webpage for the flavor). I will probably get him a box of either flavor this weekend, unless one of my bosses who cares (Jerri, Richard, or Carl) catches me in the act, which then I would be completely fucked.
• Here is a link to Steve's webpage at Pitt. I am a bit lazy and do not feel like linking his name in every entry that I mentioned, so this is a one-time deal (Also, the fact that a lot of my entries are only a few characters away from the 10,000 character limit is another good reason). Here is a page made by Steve that has multiple pictures of him and Allison (They may not be engaged, but they already are in my eyes, and every picture is worth a thousand words).
  
  And while I am at it, here is my little About Me page. Yes, I do not know HTML or Java, but the page fills in those extra minute details about who I am.
• And yet another Erin commentary.
  
  Tonight (May 17, 2003), I drove Erin home from Steve's house. It was just so much fun talking to her about anything and everything for a good 20 minutes, and as I checked my cell phone while driving her, I noticed that I had not really stuttered. I spoke in a calm and clear manner, and I "maintained fluency" (As per what my speech therapists would always call it). I have noticed that this only happens around people I know relatively well and feel comfortable around; there is zero nervousness and it is independent of the atmosphere. Being conscious of the fact that I could speak clearly around Erin was reassuring, like knowing that your paper that you wrote in ten minutes will actually get a passing grade.
  
  Now, I just have to get Erin a box of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. Steve already got his box of Sweet Cream with Cookies today, so Erin is next on the list at this point.