(no subject)
Aug. 20th, 2005 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usernamenumberToday, so far at least, I have done no work. Not even on my "fun" projects. With Lizbeth/Zel in CT that leaves just me, so I today I've lived just for me. I am not exaggerating when I say that I cannot remember the last time I did this. And, as rewarding and healthy as it's felt in general, it hasn't been easy. In fact, it's really highlighted some of the issues I have, when there's no one around but me to blame them on. All day there's been a little voice in the back of my head saying "What are you doing? Reading? Playing video games? These things have their place, but an entire day? How can you respect yourself? What are you producing? What are you DOING to earn this prosperity you enjoy?". I know it's unhealthy. I want to say that I think it should go away, but at what cost? For all the stress it's given me, it's also the reason that I am where I am today. I have a dream job, get paid well, and have the satisfaction of making my living doing something that most people couldn't do. And I have all that because I work my ass off.
My work-aholic tendancies have not been helped by the last month's events, which have provided an almost uninterrupted stream of stressy things that all needed to be dealt with urgently. I arranged the moving for our car and our stuff, moved all of our stuff out of storage and into the giant "u-pack" shipping crate thing we used to get our stuff cross country (which ended up not holding everything-- more panic), helped get the latest revisions of two Red Hat Academy's classes out the door, learned and taught Red Hat's advanced security class on about four day's notice, taught classes in New York, New Jersey and Boston, researched (with help from Lizbeth) and bought my first used car, moved into my place in MA, helped Lizbeth move into her place in Ct, and am now helping my landlord get the remaining rooms in my place filled. So after weeks of having spent literally every waking minute of every day dealing with one time-sensitive crisis or another, I guess it's to be expected that learning to just relax again would be more difficult.
Oh, and come to think of it I guess I haven't been totally work free today after all. I've had people coming around to see the rooms we have for rent all weekend. Two so far today with more tomorrow. Oh well. I actually like arranging appointments and showing people around because, like teaching, it's social so no big deal there.
Because things were have been so busy, I'll bet some of you didn't even know I wasn't in CA anymore. There are a bunch of you that I really regret not having gotten to see in the months before we left. At the time I didn't call and arrange something because there literally was not enough free time to do so and lately I've been procrastinating doing so because I felt bad about calling people and basically saying "Uhh... hi. Sorry we can't hang out, I'm on the other side of the country and never got around to telling you...". And so I'll just do it here through a more comfortably impersonal medium.
Wow, I'm realizing how long it's been since I've updated. Well, now you know why. In other news, I'm really becoming a big Jason Webley fan. I've bought three of his albums in the few months since I first discovered him and I've given up trying to pick a favorite. It always tends to be whichever I've listened to recently.
On another musical note (heh), I've also found a reggae artist that I'm really getting into. This is significant because, despite my best efforts, reggae has never really done anything for me. But this artist not only really grabs me, his stuff absolutely kicks my ass every time I listen to it. He's also a hassidic jew. Go figure. His name's Matisyahu and the link is to (samples of) the album I've been listening to. Good stuff.
I should wrap up now, I think. Just one more thing I feel like writing about: A nice thing about packing and cleaning is that you tend to find stuff. While staying with Lizebth's parents I found a huge rubbermade container that I'd stored there many years ago, which contained all of my old LPs and 7-inches. I actually got choked up when I found them. In a lot of ways this music really was my adolesence. It was my escape, my therapy and helped me define myself through empathy with the sounds if not appreciation of the lyrics. I spent a rare hour of freetime listening again to the Nitwits, Mr. Wrong, Driftwood, Still Life, Indian Summer and The Campfire Girls on my in-law's record player. There's something really special about enjoying a band that means something to you, but that you know all but five other people in the universe neither know of or care about. =:) Sadly, the box was too big to take with us and I don't even have a record player anymore anyway, but man it sure was nice to hear it again.
Ok. That's it for now. Going to go find something else to do. There's a random goth-synth-pop-thing show going on in Cambridge and it's about time I braved the much-vaunted public transportation out here. I think I'll go do that.
And in closing: Damn, Half-Blood prince was good. I think I have a new favorite. Managed to get through it without spoilers even, but what's with these assholes making a game of posting spoilerific information all over the net? I have no words for how low I think that is. Feh.
--Brad
My work-aholic tendancies have not been helped by the last month's events, which have provided an almost uninterrupted stream of stressy things that all needed to be dealt with urgently. I arranged the moving for our car and our stuff, moved all of our stuff out of storage and into the giant "u-pack" shipping crate thing we used to get our stuff cross country (which ended up not holding everything-- more panic), helped get the latest revisions of two Red Hat Academy's classes out the door, learned and taught Red Hat's advanced security class on about four day's notice, taught classes in New York, New Jersey and Boston, researched (with help from Lizbeth) and bought my first used car, moved into my place in MA, helped Lizbeth move into her place in Ct, and am now helping my landlord get the remaining rooms in my place filled. So after weeks of having spent literally every waking minute of every day dealing with one time-sensitive crisis or another, I guess it's to be expected that learning to just relax again would be more difficult.
Oh, and come to think of it I guess I haven't been totally work free today after all. I've had people coming around to see the rooms we have for rent all weekend. Two so far today with more tomorrow. Oh well. I actually like arranging appointments and showing people around because, like teaching, it's social so no big deal there.
Because things were have been so busy, I'll bet some of you didn't even know I wasn't in CA anymore. There are a bunch of you that I really regret not having gotten to see in the months before we left. At the time I didn't call and arrange something because there literally was not enough free time to do so and lately I've been procrastinating doing so because I felt bad about calling people and basically saying "Uhh... hi. Sorry we can't hang out, I'm on the other side of the country and never got around to telling you...". And so I'll just do it here through a more comfortably impersonal medium.
Wow, I'm realizing how long it's been since I've updated. Well, now you know why. In other news, I'm really becoming a big Jason Webley fan. I've bought three of his albums in the few months since I first discovered him and I've given up trying to pick a favorite. It always tends to be whichever I've listened to recently.
On another musical note (heh), I've also found a reggae artist that I'm really getting into. This is significant because, despite my best efforts, reggae has never really done anything for me. But this artist not only really grabs me, his stuff absolutely kicks my ass every time I listen to it. He's also a hassidic jew. Go figure. His name's Matisyahu and the link is to (samples of) the album I've been listening to. Good stuff.
I should wrap up now, I think. Just one more thing I feel like writing about: A nice thing about packing and cleaning is that you tend to find stuff. While staying with Lizebth's parents I found a huge rubbermade container that I'd stored there many years ago, which contained all of my old LPs and 7-inches. I actually got choked up when I found them. In a lot of ways this music really was my adolesence. It was my escape, my therapy and helped me define myself through empathy with the sounds if not appreciation of the lyrics. I spent a rare hour of freetime listening again to the Nitwits, Mr. Wrong, Driftwood, Still Life, Indian Summer and The Campfire Girls on my in-law's record player. There's something really special about enjoying a band that means something to you, but that you know all but five other people in the universe neither know of or care about. =:) Sadly, the box was too big to take with us and I don't even have a record player anymore anyway, but man it sure was nice to hear it again.
Ok. That's it for now. Going to go find something else to do. There's a random goth-synth-pop-thing show going on in Cambridge and it's about time I braved the much-vaunted public transportation out here. I think I'll go do that.
And in closing: Damn, Half-Blood prince was good. I think I have a new favorite. Managed to get through it without spoilers even, but what's with these assholes making a game of posting spoilerific information all over the net? I have no words for how low I think that is. Feh.
--Brad
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 09:48 pm (UTC)A day of rest is *good*; a week would be better, but a day is good.
As for HBP, I was so torn - I wanted to read it slowly, and make it last, and savor it, but I was terrified that if I put it down and poked my head into the world for a second, the spoilers would attack me. Dumbass people; how can a few so easily screw things up for the many?