Sorry for the extra journal entry this month, I normally try to keep it down to about 1 every month.

Anyhow, this journal will get a little crazy of me rambling, I mean it's not all bad, there's going some complaining, but not a lot. To start out, yes indeed my paycheck is short a few bucks this week, but there are a couple valid reasons for that. Okay, so I'm suppose to be making $10 an hour working for this lumber yard, building trusses. This would equate to roughly a $400 dollar check at the end of the week or one would think, but as turns out I get taxed. I lose about $86 bucks of my pay (roughly) each week (yes I do get paid weekly), that's more than a day's worth of pay or little more than a 1/5th of my paycheck, gone to taxes, social security, medicare, medicate, misc government expenses. It's almost like I didn't even show up for work for an entire day.

Now some of guys will probably come up to me and say, "That's life man, you're apart of the working world now. You are complaining about nothing."

Well yes and no. I do realize the 2 things that are going to happen to me in my lifetime regardless, death and taxes. Anyway the money that automatically disappears into blue smoke before my paycheck even arrives to my doorstep, has taught me a valuable lesson (or my case, has retaught me that valuable lesson), it is the value of the American Dollar, and how much I've grown to really appreciate it. Seriously there's nothing like coming home late at night (12:08 AM) all sweaty and tired, feeling like crap, and covered in filth leftover from your 8 hour shift, and there's nothing like looking forward to seeing your hard work paying off at the end of the week coming it to you through the mail, even if your check is as small and meager as mine. It has definitely given me a greater appreciation for money. I'll never take another $10 dollar bill for granted ever again, because hey guess what? That's an hour's worth of my time being slaved away for me (not including deductions for taxes).

Because of this check as well as another paycheck, and a couple of other things, I was finally able to pay off the rest of my car. I now officially own my car in full, which is good. That's one less cloud lifted off of my head. I also manged to pay off my next month's rent 1 week in advance. I plan to pay off at least 3 more months of rent in advance, so that I can live here without fear of not having enough money to make the month's rent if encase I end up losing my job. I was also able to start rebuilding my saving account back up a little at a time, I'm still a little ways go but, I've got $200+ back in the savings account again, which is also good. It certainly beats having a $1.15 left in savings. I've still got about $2000 in college debt to pay off, but I'll pay that off last since it's impossible to repossess a college education.

This last check that came in the mail wasn't as 'fat' as the previous one, I had to take a day off from work that week, because of my college graduation ceremony. I was happy when that check finally arrived in the mail, but that happiness soon disappeared as I ended up spending all but $4 of it on my expenses, such the rent (that I already told you about), $3.93 of it went into savings and the rest went into my gas tank. I guess that's how it goes, I guess I'm going to have to really 'bust my ass' before I get use any significant portion of that money for myself. Before I started working this job, I used to regularly donate plasma for money. The idea of me working this job is so that I don't have to depend on making money through that manner, but the way gas prices and regular expenses are going, I may have to fall back onto plasma donations again. Seriously about a month and a half ago, gas was at $3.12, I just got done spending $3.89 a gallon tonight alone, which is absolutely fucking ridiculous. The needle on my gas gauge barely even moved after what only $15 was able to afford me. I'm hoping that I'll have enough gas to get me through the rest of this week, because I don't want to have to start depending on my credit card.

So far my complaints are about the same as everyone else who works a full-time job.

Aside from this whole paycheck business, my life's update. I was going to say I had my graduation ceremony (already briefly mentioned) about 2 Fridays ago, and nice party all in the same weekend. I had a lot of 'thank yous' to write up afterwards, because I ended up with a couple hundred in graduation money. 1/3 of it I spent on myself, some of it went to finish paying off my car, and the rest went straight into savings. In other news, my younger sister has moved out of the house again and this time for good. She's left to join the Navy, she left on on Tuesday the 14th to go the boot camp/training center in Chicago, so she's been in basic training for about almost 2 weeks now. Her cat keeps rubbing on my legs and feet and keeps trying to buddy up with me as I type this message out to you all, I guess it's kind of a reminder to at least mention something about my younger sister's absents. Anyway my sister won't be out of basic training till mid July, so we won't have any contact with her for a while. What's sad is that it's been less than 2 weeks, and I think I'm already starting to miss her. I been having strange dreams where I'd end up having long conversations with her. I know that tend to talk quite a bit in my sleep.

Other than what I've already mentioned, nothing has changed. Still the same old same old. Oh yeah I'm almost at the 1 month mark with my job, so kudos to me.