Well, still here, still busy with college. I'm now back at a proper university, Texas A&M Kingsville, a branch school of A&M where I was at back in '05. I'm now dual majoring in geology and geosciences and minoring in geography and English/writing. I'm working at HEB Grocery these days, which is a sweeter deal than the Pizza Hut management job. Get to work a forklift too and seclude myself away in the dairy walk in two or three days a week, and best of all, more money, which is sorta cool. But anyway, no worries, just busy. I need to start drawing stuff again other than what's scribbled in the margins of my notes, but I'm getting to the point of having to pressure myself if I want to get anything done. Throw some ideas my way if you think it would help...nudge me along.

And yes, I know I've not updated this thing in almost two years. XD

So I've not updated this thing in...close to five months. I've been busy. Last you heard I finally landed a job, and the semester was starting again. Things have been moving right along since then. School, work, breakup, school, work...uh, wait, did I have a life these past five months?

Anyway, had to drop a class because of scheduling conflicts with my job, earned a pay-raise, now getting promoted to one of three shift supervisors with another full $1/hr pay raise on top of my current $6/hr pay rate. I'm actually doing surprisingly well in school this semester carrying a high B average. Finals are this week, and hen off for the holidays. Won't need to be back until January 16th too! ^_^

Bit of good news too: my financial aid will fully cover tuition and textbooks, so I only have food, gas money, and miscellania to worry about this go around. Hopefully that holds true. This semester I ended up having to drop down about $300 of my own money on books and tuition. Nothing compared to my first semester at Texas A&M College Station, but still a hardship when that was almost a month's pay when I first started out at Pizza Hut as the lowest rung on the ladder.

Also, I'm getting my AA (Associates of Arts) degree from the community college this summer, right after the first month-long summer session. Bad thing is, I have to take a couple real dinky classes to get it. Foundations of music anyone? I have to play a recorder and "learn" trebble cleff and basic theory all over again. You'd think after playing clarinet in band for ten years (and going, mind you), I could test out of it or something. lol Guess not.

So sorry I've not had time to draw anything actually worthwhile this whole semester, hell, the whole year really. I need to. Need to get back to my roots and do more Star Wars, Trek, and Sonic artwork. Maybe even try my hand at doing some Transformers stuff, now that one of my coworkers lended me out the entire first season on DVD (but you didn't hear it from me, if that clues you in). Can't wait to see the movie this July 4th too! Anyway, that's my life in a nutshell. I'm single again too, by the way if anyone's interested. XD

First point to make is that ZOMG, Stroup finally got a job! I can't believe it's taken me three months of job-hunting to finally get called in for SOMETHING, but at least it's happened. I feel a little bad that the only reason I got the job is because one of my best friends from band is going to be my immediate boss and the store manager is his cousin, but at least I got a break. Anyway, I'll be starting at Pizza Hut tomorrow at 3 PM answering phones, washing some dishes, and learning how to wait in-store customers. I have two weeks to get my first round of training and then take a competency exam so I can be considered a regular employee and garner a 25¢/hour raise, bringing my regular wages to $5.75/hr, which is really good money to start out with for somebody who's down to his last $42.

This past week has been busy for me. We went back to College Station as a group to go and get my last student fees with A&M taken care of, talked things over with my academic counselor and withdrew from the Texas A&M School of Engineering. I'll be g-stud (general studies) now until I'm an upperclassman. I didn't withdraw from the University fully. I'm just going back to Victoria (community) College, thirty-eight miles from home, for the next year so I can get my dinky little Mickey-Mouse classes out of the way under the condition I maintain a 3.0 B average and take no fewer than 12 semester hours each semester I'm there so I don't lose my financial aid status with A&M when I go back as early as spring '07. Maybe I'll get to upgrade to Class of '08. Wow that was a long almost run-on sentence. And me here about to come out with enough hours to be an English minor real easy. Scary stuff.

Well, now that I'm working, I can afford school again since I should be taking home about $500 a month after witholding (taxes). My first month's pay is going to go to school and books, but now I'll have some money to spend on myself this time. I'm gonna be carpooling with a friend this semester too, so that takes a $730 crunch of fuel costs off my hands. Something less to stress over. I'll probably buy him lunch every so often though just to show I at least appreciate him. I understand fully how expesive gas is getting now. Irony is, I'm gonna be 19 in less than three weeks and I still don't have my license. I can fully blame my mother for that.

Lastly, I've now fully discovered eBay.com. Same friend who's gonna be driving me to school is letting me buy things through his sister's purchase account since I'm paying them in cash upfront. It's amazing, like a surplus store crossed with a Walmart. I just bought $130 worth of military load-bearing gear for $46 and it's all good quality. I'm extremely satisfied, and I'm also planning on putting some money aside for a replacement battery for my laptop, a few now rare games I wanted but can't find anywhere, and I've got my eyes set on that SatAM DVD set. Can't let myself go here, but at least this year I'll give myself Christmas again like I did with the airsoft rifle and boots last year. Beyond anything, I've got my life back under control and now I have hope.

So, about a week ago I went to the doctor because I was sick. Pretty routine and all, but then I asked about a nodule in my neck I found that's been giving me discomfort since my senior year. I had asked about it before, and it was assumed it was just a swollen lymph, so he prescribed me antibiotics the first time and it went away.

Now that it was back, fifteen months later, he suggested a biopsy. And, well, next to your mouth and your genitals (regardless of sex), the neck seems to be a pretty sensitive place on the body, so I wasn't exactly looking forward to a little snip and a poke.

Anyway, Monday I went to an ear, nose, throat specialist and got checked out. Thankfully, she decided the biopsy wasn't necessary. But what I got instead wasn't much more comfortable. That's right, here's where the probing comes in. She sat me in a chair, told me to lean forward, and with a special instrument, I had an at least foot long camera-tipped fiber-optic cable snaked through my nostril and down my throat to check for obstructions. It wasn't in the least bit comfortable. Before she even got anywhere, all my sinuses started to drain and my tear ducts just gave way. So yeah, I dun got probed, bitch!

So in conclusion, apparently like everything else that's ailed me recently, save my leg injury, it appears this latest bump in the road again stems from my allergies. Texas' climate just hasn't been kind to this Arizona boy. I have to go in again Thursday to get an ultrasound test done on my thyroid to check for cysts and also get a CT scan done on my sinuses. With the new allergy prescriptions included, I'm just damn glad I'm on state subsidized health insurance, because this stuff even FEELS expensive. Worst part of it all, a day later it still burned and where I couldn't scratch either. >_<

Last entry was September 22nd, a good four months and a week ago. So I've finished the semester at A&M, got booted out because my financial aid wasn't sufficient (and I now owe them $1000 too, yay ), and I'm doing the community college thing again.

Can't believe how inexpensive it is. I'm taking 14 hours there, mostly classes I couldn't take at Aggieland on account of them being full, and it's only $896 for the semester's tuition, all but $275 of it being covered by financial aid. *dances* Compare that to the $8500 a semester at A&M. I paid more for my semester mealplan than this semester's tuition. =0 My books were covered too, a first. ¬¬

Still workin' on shiz for the Mech Brigade and Iron Cobra. Storm and I decided we're doing a little shortline railroad for it too, hence the new art. I'm loving this new RP Profile Wiki a couple guys at SoaH started. Gives me an excuse to be creative again. =3

Here's the article I wrote on the base, as much as I could from memory (since nothing's ever been written down before):

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Also got twenty-six random Star Trek Voyager eps from one of my friends who's a senior in high school now. First time I've seen ANY of the series since just before I left Arizona in the summer of 2000. God, it's been so long. I'm so happy he did that for me too.

Been doing more airsoft stuff. Finally replaced my cheap Chinese-made pistol belt with a real one and got a whole bunch of proper ALICE pouches for my loadout for about $20 at a surplus store that was literally only a short walk away from my dorm at A&M. Also got a new rifle too, an AEG! Finally, I have a proper M16A3. David still won't shut up about how much better the M4s are when they're really the exact same receivers as the A3. They're actually inferior becuase of the shorter barrel and the inherent decreased range and accuracy, but it's all about the CQB and special forces for him.

Here's a few pictures of the new shiz...

Desert Environment:

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Woodland/Temperate Environment:

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I'm gonna try looking for a job again. Hopefully the theather is hiring again, or the hospital (non-medical jobs, anyway), and I'm also gonna get qualified for substitute teaching this summer. Here's hoping to keepin' busy.

~Stroup