Jon Furniss

It’s the end of the first month of January and I have accomplished nothing, besides not dying, so I’ve decided to officially implement monthly goals again.

Goal 1: Meditate for at least 15 minutes a day.

Goal 2: No fast food at all this month. (This went over pretty well with me last time, and I was actually able to accomplish it. I plan on having at least one goal to do with eating habits a month.)

Goal 3: Read something on paper at least 30 minutes a day. I was originally going to have this be just read at least 30 minutes a day, but I want to take out anything on the computer from it. Because reading books and anything from paper is much more relaxing, and less straining on the eyes.

Goal 4: Write for at least 15 minutes a day. This can be writing for myself, for this blog, for school, for anything. It can be complete jibberish, or, you know, whatever.

Goal 5: Cook dinner for my family at least once this month. This is something I’ve never done before, and I want more practice and experience cooking, so I’m going to make myself do it.

Goal 6: Write at least one letter a week to the people who wanted to be pen pals with me. (So far I’ve only written one letter, and received two, so I’m a slacker. But that’s going to stop!)

Goal 7: Turn 20. This is my last and easiest goal. So take that life.

And that’s it, feel free to bother my constantly to make sure that I’m keeping up with them, because there’s nothing I’d like more than to make them work.

Last night I had a dream involving Transformers, Power Rangers, and my co-workers at Best Buy as the cast. It was transformers because Optimus Prime was there (and he was in cartoon from the outside, but not from the inside), it was Power Rangers because instead of him actually being Optimus Prime he was a giant Power Rangers robot that we could get in. And I wasn’t in the dream, I was the omniscient third person, floating around, like in edit mode in Forge in Halo 3. I don’t know what the evil was that they were fighting, but I’m sure it was evil. It was a monster of sorts. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the Cloverfield monster. I will probably get sued for having this dream because of all the copyright infringement. But I welcome lawsuits, because even though I cannot afford it, it would mix up my life and make things interesting, and I’d have to get a lawyer, and I could go around saying, “I have a lawyer!” But he probably wouldn’t be a very good lawyer because I don’t have any money.

Did you know that I never proof read anything? Because I don’t. Sometimes I do, by accident when I’m scrolling back through things I’ve written and I’ll correct a typo from three years ago. Maybe if I proofread and revised and such people would give me money for words.

On that note, if anyone likes to pay people who like to string words together sometimes with a direction and sometimes without it, let me know.

I want to date a vegetarian. She probably has brown hair, but sometimes it can be red or blonde. She is also smarter than me, cares about the world, and will change my worldview at least a little bit. She will make me a vegetarian too and I will cook for her delicious foods that don’t involve dead animals. She also has a loft apartment somewhere and makes more money than me. We’ll have sleepovers and dance on her hardwood floor to music that I’ve never heard of before, but that is fantastic. We will also travel to at least one foreign country every six months.

I need to start making goals for myself again. After I failed them in the past I kind of just gave up on myself. But today I learned in one of my classes that motivation is from the inside, so I figure if I’m ever going to do anything I have to get myself to want to do that. Unfortunately I’m a very hard person to convince to do anything, so I could use any help I can get. So does anyone want to give me goals? I also want to schedule my life, so I know what I’m doing. I am constantly running out of time. If anyone wants to schedule my life, here are the things that I have scheduled right now, so let me know what to do:

Sunday morning - church

Monday - Leave for school at 7:20ish, get home at 12:20ish. Work from 2-10ish.

Tuesday - Nothing in the morning, although I have lots of stuff that I need to get done. Work from 2-10ish.

Wednesday - Same as Monday.

Thursay - Same as Tuesday.

Friday - Same as Monday and Wednesday.

Saturday - nothing

The things I need to get done: Make lots of phone calls for a business venture I am currently somewhat slightly involved in. Writing stuff that maybe I can eventually get published some day or something. Bettering myself as a human being (working out, reading, learning to cook).  Watching lots of TV and movies.

Last night I received you are a little bit happier than i am

I’m really tired and have to watch an episode of Scrubs before I go to bed, so I’m going to not post for real again tonight, although I promise an entry tomorrow.

But a couple of things, first Things I’ve Scanned clearly has not been nearly as interesting and fun as I hoped, but I’d like to think that that is because I have terrible handwriting and am a horrible doodler. So my idea is this, I’d like to make it open for many different contributors, so if you’d like to be involved in that, I’ll get together some guidelines, and I think that it will be a lot cooler on a larger scale basis.

And a story with a moral: The moral first, I will pretty much do anything for or listen to anything said by a pretty girl. Point in case, I’ve been contemplating getting a haircut lately, so Sunday, I asked my best friend’s sister if I should. And she said “No, grow it out really long” or something to that effect. So now I’m not going to get a haircut and I’m going to grow it out, because she’s prettier than me. Yeah, so the moral to the whole thing including the moral is that pretty girls can take advantage of me, and I don’t mind, well, because they’re pretty.

Bye.

Over the past week I have gotten four hits from someone typing in some search engine “How to hang out by yourself.” So I am going to oblige you crazy websearchers with a How-to on hanging out with yourself.

The first and most important thing about hanging out by yourself is making sure that no one else is around. Now, this may seem like common sense, but there have been many a night when I had planned on hanging out alone and then someone else shows up, or makes me come out and ruins the whole thing. So it is definitely an important first step. Things I recommend to help accomplish this are to lock all your doors and windows and close your blinds, turn off your phone, or at the very least don’t accept phone calls, text messages and AIM conversations are alright, but definitely not preferable for a night alone.

The second step is to decide why you’re going to hang out with yourself (This may actually be the first step, I’m not really sure, I haven’t thought this through as much as I should have). Is it because you are alone and no one loves you and wants to see you? Is it because you just want to sit at home and sulk about how terrible your life is? Is it because you’re just tired and need a chance to rest and relax? Is it because you have to get things done? Is it because you hate the human race and don’t want to see any of them ever again? These are all things to consider when you are deciding why you are hanging out alone. There may be a different reason than the ones listed, but don’t worry about that, let your brain run wild as you decide why you will be alone.

The third step is to decide what you are going to do with yourself. If you are a fun, exciting, and life-of-the-party type person (much unlike myself) that you will probably find it easy to decide what to do, but you will also probably not be at home alone hanging out with yourself. I always recommend watching a movie, because unless you get the wrong movie, you can’t go wrong with a movie. (This does not apply to those of you hanging out by yourself to get stuff done, stop procrastinating already!) If you’re sad and want to stay sad watch a sad movie. If you’re sad and want to become happy then watch a comedy and begrudingly laugh like you always did when people made you happy when you were sad no matter how miserable you wanted to prove to them that you could be. If you hate everyone and want to destroy everybody watch an apocolyptic type movie and enjoy the fact that 99.9% of the human race just got wiped out. If the main character is not as stupid as everyone else, you can put yourself in their place!

Another fun thing to do alone is to read. Many people do not agree with me and think that reading is outdated and boring. But I am definitely boring, and outdated by anyone who has been on more than two dates in the last 8 months. But seriously pick up a book, there’s lots of good ones out there, and lots of bad ones, and depending on your tastes you can really enjoy yourself. If you want to dream about the future, check out some science fiction. If you want to dream about stuff that could never possibly happen, then read fantasy. If you want to touch yourself, read a trashy romance novel. If you want to dream about real love, read some love poems. If you want to get depressed, read some history and watch how it repeats itself over and over again.

Another fun thing to do alone is drink. Nothing beats depression like a good glass of scotch. Once you’ve had enough you can entertain yourself by ordering multiple types of food to be delivered to your neighbors house and watch what all the delivery boys/girls and your neighbors do when they all get there. It’s not something I’ve ever tried, but that’s because I am a pansy. I also assume that this would be a lot of fun sober, so if you forgot the scotch, you can still keep yourself occupied for a bit.

Write. Writing is a great stress reliever, as long as you don’t have to do it. So if you don’t have any papers or anything like that due, then just write for a bit. Or more than a bit. If you don’t have any reason to write you won’t usually have writer’s block, so go for it. It also doesn’t matter what you write. Write for yourself, it can be complete nonsense. It can even be you just hitting the keys like an untrained monkey, that sometimes relieves more stress than punching stuff, but rarely.

Play with stuff. Whether it be with yourself, or video games, or toys. Sometimes when I’m bored, all alone, with nothing to do I play with myself. And by that, I mean that I take out my Legos and build something. A fun game I like to play is that I take out a handful of legos and just build whatever I can with it. I then make a city of little random things that can fit in my hands. Then I remember that I am almost 20 and completely enjoy destroying them (except for the really cool ones) and put them away.

There are countless more things you can do while hanging out by yourself, the possibilities are endless. But just remember that every once in a while outside human contact is necessary, and sometimes even enjoyable. So if anyone wants to go on a date with me, let me know.

**EDIT: In the nine or so hours since I posted this I’ve gotten three hits from “hanging yourself,” which seems to be more popular than hanging out by yourself. Seriously though, don’t kill yourself, watch a sad movie and deliver food to your neighbor’s house.**

ingredientx.com

I miss spooning.

I haven’t had a good spoon in months, and it’s pretty depressing. There’s not much that I like more than spooning… One of them probably being the events that can transpire in the pre-spooning time period.

Something else I’ve always wanted to do is spork. The way you do that is you both spike up your hair before getting in that comfortably curved position. I know that that doesn’t sound too interesting, but the feeling of lying down with gel in your hair is weird enough that I think adding a spooning environment would definitely make it pretty cool.

Now, some images that relate to spooning:

There are not very many good pictures of spooning on the internet.

I need someone to spoon with me and then we can photograph it nicely and save the world, and such.

In conclusion:

And in conclusion to the conclusion, I know they’re not spooning. But I heart xkcd so suck it.

Seriously.

Today I realized that I was  addicted to WordPress, constantly checking my stats, looking for comments and everything else.

It’s just like the beginning days of addiction on Myspace, Facebook, and Livejournal. I do hope that this time I won’t give up so quickly as I did on those.

Just the same, I don’t have a real post tonight.

Except that Chuck is awesome, and you should watch it.

So today was my first day back to school.

I slept through my alarm clock and woke up right when I had intended to leave. This forced my daily hygene ritual to be reduced to deodorant, toothbrushing, and getting dressed. I am pretty positive that I looked even more like a scrub than usual today. So an overview of the classes that I gave you an overview of last night.

First, Mathematical Modelling in Human Affairs: It turns out that this class is about mathematical modelling in human affairs. It’s also an introductory level class and should most definitely be an easy A. The professor is old, but a cool kind of old. He’s not quite as funny as he thinks he is, but he made me laugh a couple times. There was also a cute girl who came and sat next to me, so that was cool. I was too shy to introduce myself, but she told God to bless me when I sneezed, so that was cool too. Another very cool thing about this class: neither attendance or homework count, and those are the number two things I hate about school.

Next was Introduction to Computers and their Applications. I think that this class is going to be a lot of fun and really easy, I probably won’t learn too much, but I’ll be able to review all the old tricks from Microsoft Office that I had forgotten about, and also get to brush up on my HTML. The professor is young, probably late 20’s I’d say, he also seems to be really cool. He was another who the class didn’t seem to think was as funny as he thinks he is, but I think he is and that it was just the 9 o’clock in the morning dragging everybody down. But yeah, that should be cool.

Organizational Behavior was cancelled by my professor. On the first day of classes. Why? I do not know… There was just a sign on the door which said class was cancelled today. Awesome. So I went to the commuter lounge at school to hang out, and the cute girl was there! And I sat opposite to her, and we exchanged a bunch of awkward glances over the next hour or so, and then I never went and said hi to her. Sometimes I’m tempted to give up on myself… other times I think I already have.

Fourthly was International Trade. The professor was just as boring as ever and I manage to fall asleep on the first day of class. I need to remember to bring my laptop next class, so I’ll have something to do. This class might be a bit more difficult than I expected, but it should still be alright. The only really disappointing thing about it is that now after six absences he is going to start decreasing my grade. Which sucks, because I was absent at least ten to twelve times last semester with no ramifications. But oh well.

That’s about all I really have today, except for this: Things I’ve Scanned. Things I’ve Scanned is my brand new blog of things I’ve scanned. I just started it today and plan to update it at least every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week, and hopefully more. Right now there’s only one thing that I’ve scanned, but more stuff will keep coming up the more I scan stuff. So make sure to check it out.

So tomorrow morning is the big day… back to school. Hooray. I have to wake up tomorrow at approximately 6:30 am, as I’ll have to leave at about 7:15 to make it to school for my first class at 8:00. This semester I’m taking it a bit easier than last, only four classes as opposed to six, and only twelve credits as opposed to eighteen. The classes I am taking are:

First, Mathematical Modelling In Human Affairs. I don’t really know what this class is about at all, but due to my inability to hit the submit button on time, I got locked out of classes I needed and had intended to take, so now I took this class because I need some more credits and I wanted a class at this time.

Second, Introduction to Computers and Their Applications. This class should be fairly fun and easy. I am already slightly fairly knowledgable about computers, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do little to no work in this class for an A.

Thirdly, Organizational Behavior. I’m guessing this class is about… well, organizational behavior, hopefully that will help to organize my behavior and behave organized. This is also the only class actually required by my major that I’m taking this semester, I believe.

Fourth, and lastly is International Trade. I had this professor last semester, and he is a terrible professor. He’s boring, and is not that good of a teacher. On that note, he is also extremely intelligent and awkward (something I can relate to, but probably minus the extremely in front of the intelligent), and he does not count attendance, but teaches everything that is on the midterm and final right before they occur.  I got a B+ in his class last semester, and that was only going about half the time and staying awake about a quarter of the half that I was actually there. This semester (like always at the beginning of semesters) I plan to actually go to class, so that should work out better for me.

I have this slightly naive hope that I’ll get straight A’s this semester, I am taking all seemingly straight forward classes, and I intend to do all the work for them. On that note, at the beginning of every semester/school year since I started going to school and I knew what grades were and how to slack off, I have been saying I’ll be productive, and then started slacking off. So in all honesty, I’m not planning to do all my work to the best of my ability, I’m just hoping that all my classes will be easy enough to get away with not doing that much.

So goals this semester:

Get a 4.0 GPA.
Get a girlfriend. (and for all the curious, I do not really have anyone specific in mind for this)
Get a promotion.
Make some new friends.
Start going to the gym again.
Start making more money.
Perhaps budget myself, or else only buy stuff that I don’t need when I have enough fall back cash in my bank account, instead of filling up my credit cards and living on my next pay check each week, like I’m doing right now.

I don’t really have any other goals than that, except maybe to get some pen pals, I already have one person who responded, is anyone else up to the challenge? Even if you don’t want to write back, I will send you at least one letter a week! And who doesn’t like free letters?

And the thing that inspired me to get a pen pal is this: Hikikomori by Ellen Kennedy and Tao Lin. It made me laugh, and frown, and smile, and feel depressed, and want to lock myself in room for a couple years. Check it out, if anything it’s interesting, and if anything else it will make you feel. What it will make you feel I cannot say, but it will definitely make you feel.

Hikikomori is a Japanese word for people who have completely withdrawn from any real social contact. The term is both a noun for the people who are withdrawn, and to describe them. It’s a really crazy thing, where one day someone will just lock themselves in their room and will not come out or talk to anyone, or do anything but eat, and sleep, and such. Check it out, it’s interesting, and sad, and emotion evoking.

I want a pen pal.

You’ll write to me, then I’ll write to you, and so on and so forth.

But here’s the trick, it will be in real life handwriting on real life paper.

Let me know if you’re interested, and I will gladly take more than one pen pal.

It also doesn’t matter if you live in the same town as me or the same country, anything will do.

My address is:

Jon Furniss
35 Chimney Lane
Levittown NY, 11756

Mail me something, or if you want me to mail you first, I will.

Thanks in advance.