"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

Three things
December 18, 2009 - 4:57 pm

I took the Series 6 test yesterday. You get, if I recall right, like 1.5 hours answer 105 questions. 100 questions count and 5 are 'test' questions they are evaluating. It's all multiple guess. You sit in a room that's full of one-person little cubes.. sort of like study carousels at a library. No talking.. save for then the lady brings in someone new and she whispers some direction or other to the new person. All sorts of tests are done at this place, so all sorts of people.

I took, I think about thirty minutes to take the test. More than once a question came up and I said.. "Wtf is this? That fucking study guide sucked." More than once I said to myself, "Why did the study tests ask me about this/that, but this test isn't?"

I sat after I hit done and waited the 10ish seconds the system takes to score my test. I blinked, rather surprised at my score. Yes, I passed.. and did much better than I thought.

I walked out of the test area and the lady said, "What's wrong?"

"I'm done... so I came out."

"Oh, that was quick."

"It's multiple guess..." not really sure why I was feeling the need to defend my test taking speed.

"But you want to be sure you do well."

I blinked and said, "I passed and did rather well."

She gave me my papers and off I went to the office.

I'm more or less officially now. I need to go in next week and sign some papers so I can start getting paid.. and I need to study for the Series 63 test. Lots of meaningful things to start studying as well. I didn't do anything today.

Yesterday.. I also went to the shelter to look at cats. The Meriden shelter is a big ass room with all the cats roaming around, well.. 90% of them roaming around. I walked in at about 1pm.. I was the only person there. The helper lady had to turn on the lights. All the cats were sleeping. Probably... sixty cats. All sleeping. It was pretty weird to see. Scattered all over the place.

I didn't like any of them. So, after a while, I left.

On the way home I stopped at the Newington shelter. It's the completer opposite of the Meriden one. Meriden is old, simple. Newington is new, fancy. Well, as fancy as an animal shelter can be. Newington has each cat its own little box thing. A little cage with a glass wall for people to tap on to annoy the cats trapped inside.

I can't decide which system I like better. Probably Meriden.. the cats are free to roam about, but you have no idea of the details of each cat. At Newington, there's a little blurb about each.

Anyway. It was terribly slow there. Maddeningly slow. There was a siamese mix there that I really liked. Someone was on the list before me and took her. I was sad about that. The helper lady pressed me if there was any other cat I wanted to see and I said no. I'm just quirky about seeing cats I guess. She asked what I wanted and said "short hair, basically all white..." she said she'd look in the back to see if there was on there.

It seems Newington only shows some of the cats at one time.. they just don't have the room to show them all -- not enough little boxes. Another plus for Meriden... besides the big ass cat room, they line just about any walkway with a cage with a cat in it.

She came back and said there was a calico, but mostly white cat... I said sure, why not? Too bad there wasn't another siamese. I do like them.

Of course, since I'm typing all this out.. I adopted her. Totally different from Loca. I'm changing her name from Venus (wtf?) to Kali - both for the Hindu goddess and a play on Calico. Yeah, a bad play.. whatever.

She's about 100% the reverse from Loca. Low-key. Wants to sit on my lap. I have no worry of being bitten while petting. She's less curious and, so it seems, less dexterous.

Loca.. is not happy with her new sister. Not happy at all. Like... growling and hissing.. and stalking. To be expected I know, but still. Not happy. I am keeping them mostly separated, but they've met a few times.. no bloodshed so far, just growling.

I rather like the sound of the growling to be honest. Loca's never made such a noise before. Kali will growl back too, so it's not all onesided, but I think... Kali doesn't really care. She's happy to plod about and explore. Loca's all about "GET THE FUCK OUT!"

Soon enough.. I know.. they shall be my asexual lesbian lover condo-mates.

I feel.. happy to have her and confused that I got her. So much is unclear in my life, why get another cat?

The third think of this already monster long entry.. is I have this cousin. She baffles me. I met her for the first time in years and years last August and she's all about the whole "family" thing. I've just never known that. I've no doubt I could call her up and say, "I know we havent traded any sort of message in like six months, but I need $1,000." and if she had the money, she'd give it because I'm family.

So.. for work, I'm trying to collect as many names/addresses to send out an intro letter. They push, don't be scared to ask family... so I decide to ask her if I could put her on the list. She readily agrees and, while saying thanks, I say.. if you know anyone else... who might be interested, let me know!

Fuck should I care who gets the letter? I don't expect many of these letters to turn into anything.. just need to jump through the hoop. I've really no idea how I'm going to make a living given my small social circle. I need creative ideas for that and I'm working on it.

My point is... she takes my email and send it on to a bunch of other people in the family. People I talk to far less often than here.. which is to say never. And, while I've not opened the emails, people are replying.

This.. whole family thing creeps me out. I don't get it. My nuclear family is strangers with blood. But my extended family... is... well, scary.