So I realize I ended my last post with “I’m just gonna take this one day at a time blah blah etc etc,” but oh my god, OH MY GOD, everything is annoying, and nothing is working. It has taken me days…DAYS…to figure out how to scratch the surface of WordPress. I just assumed that, because I have an iPhone that I can navigate with ease, and my parents (who are well into their seventies), call me for all of their technological needs (unplug it and plug it back in, you have to look into the camera for facetime, not put it up to your ear etc), that I had above average intelligence in the IT department. Well, I have been humbled, once again. Although, I’m not sure if it could actually be labeled humility, since it made me want to break something.

Skip ahead, and now I’ve gotten down the basic two steps–how to write a post, and how to publish it. So now I can play catch up on the many days I’ve missed banging my head against the keyboard. And maybe, if I can persevere through the gauntlet relay course that is WordPress, I’ll even learn how to edit these posts. This is kind of like when I was 9, and was a self proclaimed master at Super Mario World, but in reality, I couldn’t make it past the Vanilla Dome, and I was happy to just live on Yoshi’s Island, flying around with my cape, collecting coins. That is where I live now. That is not, however, how I plan to approach the resuscitation of my trading career.

Over the last few days, I have been making a list of the *many* terms I’ve come across that I am unfamiliar with, and I intend to learn everything I can about them, and then, of course, apply them in practice. Speaking of practice, in the interest of “if you don’t use it, you lose it,” I decided I ought to start trading on the practice account while I’m doing all of this research. However, I’ve taken so many real losses over the last year, I found myself scared to dive in, even though it’s a simulated account, and none of it has any real effect on my precarious financial situation. So I patiently watched crude oil(CL), diesel(HO), and gasoline(RB) all day, looking for a safe place to put in an order. It was nearing the 2:30 settlement, and I was finally comfortable placing a bid in the January gas crack (RBECLE); gas had remained fairly neutral throughout the day, if even slightly firm, while crude was taking its afternoon nose dive (something that, of late, had become pretty standard). So I placed my bid a few ticks below asking, and… ORDER REJECTED. I double checked everything, and placed my bid again, and again…ORDER REJECTED.

Awesome.

So then I placed a bid in the gas outright, thinking perhaps I’m not allowed to trade spreads or cracks within the confines of the TopStep rules for trading, and again…ORDER REJECTED.

What in the actual fuck.

I checked the list of permitted products to trade, and I see Crude. Now, in my experience, Crude is the umbrella, and under it are its products (heating oil and gasoline). In other words, it would just go without saying that they, too, are permitted. So I emailed TopStep customer support, and watched angrily as the gas crack flew up 50 ticks. Alas, I never heard back from anyone before the close (I did later, just not when I wanted to, which was immediately). I was so frustrated at this point with everything. I can’t figure out how to create a blog (at least not a pretty one). I can’t quite figure out this new program, and I find the platform it uses to be a shitshow. Mostly, though, I was pissed at the 500 fake dollars I didn’t get to take for profit because I was just told, repeatedly, by a British bot, that my orders were all rejected. I took this very personally. I’m like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: I want everything to work, and I want it now.

So! Because it’s Friday, and because I’ve spent the last several days marinating in a pool of frustration, I decided to kick off the weekend at 4 o’clock instead of 5, and I will return on Monday, hopefully refreshed and ready to probably be rejected again. But hey, that’s the job, and really, I should probably get used to it.