Using my time

I wanted to write consistently at least twice a week, but I have found that I have very little time during the week. Compared to my first two weeks of work, my new job site cuts down on my free time considerably. I lose at least an hour and a half to the commute, and I’m also more tired because of the increased physical demands. If I brought my laptop then I could write in the car, but I’m not going to leave a thousand-dollar laptop in a location where it could so easily be stolen.

For the past two weeks I wake up at 4:45, get ready, and go to work without any down time. By the time I get home and take a shower, it’s about 5 PM. I might play a bit of KoL or guitar before dinner. After dinner I talk to Mom or play games, KoL, or guitar. About 8:30, I get ready for bed. I might read a little, but my lights are typically out by 9. I generally spend about an hour on KoL and 30-45 minutes on guitar, which I think is reasonable. That leaves between 60-90 minutes (depending on the family activity of the night) which I waste on other things and which could probably be spent more productively. Oh yeah, I was also watching electrician videos, but I watched all the basic videos and now I’m struggling to find topics that seem relevant.

What other goals do I want to pursue? I want to improve on my calisthenics, but an extensive session of push-ups, l-sits, and handstands only takes about 5 minutes per session and I wouldn’t do more than three sessions a day. In other words, it’s not even worth scheduling, but I do need to start doing it. In my current situation, I’m around a lot of Spanish-speakers, and I even ride to work next to one. It’s a perfect opportunity to improve my Spanish, so I should figure out a way to work on that. Maybe go back to that grammar website and finish it off with about 10 minutes a day, and then alternate between reading and watching TV for another 20 minutes. Sounds good. I also want to work on my knowledge as an electrician, but I’m not sure how to do that. It’s a research topic for a weekend, I guess.

Another research topic, though not necessarily for the weekend, is something that I can do during the commute that doesn’t require a whole lot of concentration. Rubik’s cube is one idea, but I’m not going to do it for more than twenty minutes, and I would be inviting ridicule for sure. If I find an interesting book then I might be able to make that work, but I feel that at the moment I don’t have access to any, and a Spanish book would definitely take too much concentration. Spanish grammar is a possibility, and I could do vocab flashcards too if I made them in the evening.

Once I move out, I plan to do cooking on the weekends. The weekend will also involve laundry, cleaning, and probably grocery shopping for the week (in the early morning). I’ll update my budget too, and hopefully play tennis with Jared. I’ll try to find something social to do once that becomes more of a possibility. Then again, if I start spending all day at church again, that will probably fill up my schedule.

New year, new job

To continue from my last post, I ended up finding a Honda Civic '11 at a dealer in Graham as soon as he put it on the market. I went down to look at it, found it good, and bought it less than a week later. The price was a little lower than I was expecting to pay, especially after my first excursion. The car looks really nice and has a reasonable number of miles on it. I've had it for nearly two months and I've only gone through one tank of gas.

I was supposed to do student teaching this semester, but there was an early deadline that I was not aware of until too late. Hence, I needed to find a job. I've been wanting to try my hand at a trade for a while. Of course getting into software development is much more lucrative, but I haven't had any success in that area yet. So my dad's friend got me set up with a job as an electrician's apprentice (outside of union circles, this is apparently known as a electrician's helper's helper). Tuesday was my first day, and aside from the mud, I rather enjoyed it. We mostly dug trenches and put conduits in these trenches. On Wednesday I didn't do much of anything except watch work being done, so that was less fun. On Thursday I was in a similarly spectating mode, but I did do a few things--maybe forty-five minutes' worth of easy work altogether. Hopefully I'll get to a point where I can do more very soon.

One unfortunate part of this new job is that everyone goes out to eat. I did it too, but then I had a terrible stomach ache yesterday which we attribute to something I ate from a restaurant. So I'm going to need to take my own lunch, but there won't be a microwave, so whatever it is I will have to eat it cold. Mom makes a curried chickpea salad, which is decent but not something I want to eat often. Thus I need to figure out some meals that I will enjoy eating that do not need to be heated. That's goal for the new year, but I need to do it quickly.

Another consequence of not doing my student teaching this semester is that I no longer feel justified in staying with my parents. So I've started looking for a new place to live. Fortunately, my brother's circumstances also changed recently so that he too is looking for a new place. Unfortunately, our finances are a bit sketchy at the moment--he doesn't have enough money for a deposit and I don't have much of an income history. His situation could be remedied easily, but my income may be unsatisfactory for three more months. Ideally, I would stay with my parents for that time, but according to my brother the best time to get a new apartment is between December and March, and plus I'm not sure that he can live where he is now for three more months. Some of these worries are presumptive, so it could be that we can move in soon after all.

I worked some more on the compost bin and I now have the frame more or less put together. The wire is giving me a headache, though. I was planning to work on it today since it's supposed to be fairly warm without rain, but I'm not sure yet if I will feel like it.

Since I don't have to think about school all the time any more, I need to make some goals for the new year. I want to improve my skill in playing guitar. I got new guitar strings for Christmas and they sound so much better. For a couple months, I think I should devote a little time to learning electrician work. I want to read decent books again--I have very little patience for most fanfiction nowadays. I want to keep up this journal, though I think every day will be excessive when I'm working full-time away from a computer. I want to go back to working on calisthenics, and I might do aerobic exercises later. Then of course there is cooking, and I might make an attempt at having a social life if the impact of COVID-19 ever diminishes. That's probably a decent number of goals for now, and tomorrow I will try to quantify them and set objectives and/or deadlines.