Back to the salt mine
Back to work today. I actually woke up fairly easily this morning, despite getting less sleep than I would have liked. Huh. So let’s see. I did some research, compared and contrasted options, and concluded that going to school out-of-state would be really expensive. Going to school at Stanislaus State is a lot more feasible, but I’d still need an infusion of funding. Student loans are an option but they’d have to cover all costs of living as well as school. I’ll need to speak to an advisor over there.
My résumé is online in a couple of places. I’ve applied for 3 or 4 positions, including some in the greater Portland area. Still holding on to an against-all-odds hope that something will change here at the college. I’m expecting that my last check will be enough to pay off my car. Not having that monthly obligation while unemployed will be a relief. Even so, missing even a single week of unemployment will be devastating.
Haven’t run for several days now. Sunday was my regular day, but I wasn’t feeling great. Even ended up taking a multi-hour nap late in the day. Plus, my calves and feet hurt! Perhaps I overdid it a bit last Wednesday and the problem had persisted throughout the rest of the week and weekend. In any case, I feel quite recovered today. But I still took tonight off so as to get back on my regular schedule tomorrow.
Had soup for dinner. I sometimes forget how much I enjoy soup. Help me to remember people!
One more day off
Called in sick again today. I’ve had a pressure up in my abdomen for a couple days now, and yesterday I began feeling a kind of body ache like when you have the flu. But I had no other flu symptoms and the ache was located on my lower back. This reminded me of when I had a kidney stone a couple of years ago. So I popped some ibuprofen and acetaminophen and took another day. I did feel better today, so maybe no kidney stone. I did get a ton of play time in on LOTRO.
Wedding pics
Here are some photos from Saturday’s wedding.
The groom getting ready.
The bride getting ready.
Wedding shoot
I assisted with a wedding today. I was, again, late showing up for taking pictures of the guys because I don’t have iPhone service at the moment. The groom’s mom was not happy with the situation, but I did my best to smooth things over and took some shots. Then, I heard that the principle photographer wasn’t at the bride’s house yet so I high-tailed it over there to get some shots of the bride getting ready. I didn’t get to go in for the putting on of the dress (more’s the pity), but the girls called me in right after and I got several shots of the jewelry and garter and shoes going on. Such a beautiful bride! The photog did show up soon after and took a crapload of photos. She’s a nice woman, but not super organized. Good thing she’s a talented photographer! All told, I took something like 750 photos throughout the day. I showed some of them to her, and she was complimentary. That was nice.
Anyway, I’ll TRY to post a couple of the shots I took here tomorrow.
Though I saw it all around, never thought I could be affected
I had a meeting with my photographer associate today about helping her with a shoot tomorrow. I was 30 minutes late because I couldn’t find her house. I went to use Maps on my iPhone only to find out that I’ve had a service interruption. I was sure I’d paid that bill, but maybe not. I don’t know. It’s just one thing after another sometimes.
When I went for my run today, it was really hard. I am just feeling down and dispirited and the difficulty of the run was almost too much. Just when are things supposed to get easier?
I mentioned my difficulty in a Twitter/Facebook post and a couple of friends replied with some words of encouragement. Yeah, it made me cry a little.
I submitted a couple more job applications today. We’ll see.
Consensus?
Tonight, we had another meeting to discuss and plan the implementation of the New Translation of the Roman Missal. I think it was a good meeting. It was Fr. Ramon, Deacon Jose, John, Jody, Cynthia, and me. We talked about how it went last week and whether we wanted to continue with the plan. We also talked about the selection of a new setting of the Mass. Last month, I had suggested and hoped that we would agree that the entire parish should use one common Mass setting for at least the first year. However, last month, that was not everyone’s position.
Fast forward to tonight. Fr. Ramon thought that we had agreed last month to use one setting for all the English Masses, so he was sort of pushing that course of action. There was still a little resistance, but I do believe that the consensus os that we will indeed all be using a common setting of the Mass. Yay!
We also revisited the choice of assembly resource in the pews. It looks like we will be ditching United in Christ for either Breaking Bread or the Music Issue. That too is good news.
License to Ill
Left work early today. My stomach was troubling me a little, and I hardly needed convincing. It’s not that I was so sick that I couldn’t finish the day. It’s actually that mentally and emotionally, I don’t feel good being at the office right now. I have so much sick time built up, it’s ridiculous. It would come out to well over a month of time off. The biggest problem is that when I’m let go, all the sick time I’ve built up will go away and be gone for good. It’s really quite a disincentive.
After a few hours of being home, I went for my run. Did 5 miles in 57 minutes, which is a slight improvement over the same distance last week. As a result of all this running, I have lost as much as 20 lbs in the past few months. That’s good news!
Bullfights
As promised, here are a couple of photos from last night’s bullfights.
The first Cavaleiro
The Forcados (Suicide Squad) biff the first attempt
The Matador
The second Cavaleiro (Cavaleira?)
Blue Monday
2 things of note today.
#1 I was informed that, once again, I am being bumped by someone more senior with the district. I will be unemployed after July, 31st. This sucks. I’m tired of fighting to continue working in a place that has done none of my requested/suggested things to ensure that they retain me. I don’t want to lose my job, but I’m at the point where I feel I just have to make the best of it.
#2 I went to the bullfights tonight. Photos tomorrow.
All weekend in a day
Wow. Today was busy. Busy but fun.
This morning, the 10 AM English Mass moved to the new church. It was oh so familiar to me, but it was really new for Mike. After Mass, he went on and on about how I really stepped up and saved the day for the group. At the risk of being overly modest, I didn’t do anything that he won’t be fully up to speed with in two weeks. Still, it’s nice to be appreciated. I’d say that music went well. We have lots of room in which to get better, but it was a solid start and I am very much looking forward to the weeks ahead!
Right after Mass, Cathy, Joey, and I went to the California Ballroom to watch the Modesto Portuguese Pentecost Association parade and then have some sopas. In all the years that I’ve gone to festas, I’d never had sopas before. Well, that streak has ended. It was pretty good. I LOVE all the cultural shiz!
Spent four hours over at the House of Robot Pets playing the new Star Trek game that Ross and Mike have created. It went pretty well. It calls for a lot of creativity from the players. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stick with the game, but it was fun.
Then back to the festa for dinner. More sopas. I scored a pair of tickets to the bullfights tomorrow. w00t! After dinner, I sat and enjoyed the music of a group from Terceira, even though I had no idea what they were saying. I stayed for a bit of the dance, but as I had no dance partners, I left before 10.
Finally, I managed to get in my run for the day. 3.65 miles in 41 minutes. This was 5 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking, rinse and repeat. Not sure why it should surprise me, but breathing while running is getting easier. 🙂
Tomorrow: the bullfights!
