Careers and Consequences

Before the updates on my life, I have to bring up the fact that half the reason I have continued to blog for as long as I have is because of my grandfather. He has now passed away. I was never close to him--I sent him emails two or three times a year, and visited once or twice a year when I was in the country. He was an interesting person, though it was seldom apparent to me. He was very strict in his household and didn't have great relationships with his children, but he seemed to have a lot of charisma elsewhere. He had interests in many different fields. To be honest, I don't know how he continued living as long as he did. As far as I could tell, he lived for people. He had a couple of relationships after Grandma died, and they seemed very important to him, but I don't think there were any special ones in the last four years. I don't think I could do that. If God gives me the strength to live that long, I think that I would need a cause to sustain me past a certain point. Anyway, although I was not close to him, I doubt that I will ever write a blogpost without thinking about Grandpa. I do miss him.

I have now been at my job of HVAC controls wiring for 7 weeks. The job is not difficult, but there are many things I don't understand. I've been hopping around to many different jobs in various phases of completion. I'm hoping that if I come on to a job and see it from beginning to end, I will have a much better idea of how everything works--that is mostly what happened when I was doing electrical. I am eager to get to the point where I am less dependent on the job lead to assign tasks--I want to be able to look at what needs to be done and be able to do it. Also, it's a little frustrating that we don't get to see the effects of what we do. We wire up the HVAC systems so that they can be controlled through thermostats and such, but they don't work until the technicians come in and troubleshoot them, which is usually after we have left the job (apparently). In electrical, we got to see lights come on and outlets work if nothing else.

There are many positives about the job, though. The company is dedicated to giving us the tools and support that we need. My coworkers are easy to get along with, and I like working with them for the most part. There is a good deal of flexibility, if it is needed. Our default schedule is four days a week, ten hours a day. I would prefer to have more time to spend every day on tasks outside of work rather than an entire free day, but being saved a 2 hour commute is easily worth the deficit of free time during the work week.

Outside work, life is quite different from how it was when I taught school. On workdays, I generally get home after 6 PM, and by the time I have showered and eaten, it is 7 PM. The book club has been playing Baldur's Gate 2-3 times a week for about 2 hours, so that has eaten some of that time. Otherwise I generally play video games for an hour, and then I read until I fall asleep. On the weekends, I have mostly cooked or played video games. It has become very apparent how easy it is to live by myself and for myself. I'm not sure why this sense was less apparent when I was teaching. Perhaps I felt too busy, or perhaps I felt that I was contributing sufficiently by being a teacher.

Given that I no longer feel obligated to devote almost every waking hour to improving my lesson plans, I have come to re-evaluate where I find value in my life. Relevant to that--since I generally commute around 45 minutes to work each way, I've spent that time listening to John Piper books and sermons. I've been continuously convicted that my way of life is self-centered and short-sighted. What should be done to change that? I need to be involved in church. I've got a church, but I don't know how to get involved, except for asking outright. Why am I so afraid to do that? The reception can only be positive. I don't know. Outside that, I need to get back to studying Bible verses. It's an easy thing that could be done even during breaks at work. I'd like to get involved in some sort of volunteering activity, but I might just become a substitute at school--that would be sufficient, I think.

Although I'm not fond of the commute length, I do like having my thoughts refocused by the sermons that I hear. I wish that I would stop passing judgment on the value of the sermons and instead pass judgment on how well I heard the message. I would like to pray more. 

I am still drinking a fair bit. I thought I was doing better, and my unofficial rule was that I would only buy straight gin or rum. But it's difficult to go to a store (looking for a particular rum) and not buy anything, especially when there are things that I want to buy. This past week I went buy a store that had almost everything I have heard of, and many things that I had never seen. I bought way too much, so now I'm back to thinking--"Wow, I have too much alcohol."

Next Friday, I hope to work on investigating morgage preapproval. I have been looking at houses to purchase for several months now. On the other hand, I realized that cooking for Mom and Dad gives me an excuse and a reason to enjoy cooking more as well as veer away from video games. We shall see. I intend to update again at the end of the year. I will recap, report on church and service involvement, and express hopes for the year 2025.

The future is not as it seemed

Here we are at the end of July, overdue because I was hoping to have a more concrete idea of what was coming next. Alas, I do not.

After school finished, I began taking three classes at ACC: motors and controls, fluid mechanics, and quality manufacturing assurance. Overall it was very fun. Motors and controls was especially interesting. I ended up dropping quality manufacturing assurance because while it was interesting, the class content wasn't very cohesive, I didn't like the forum posts, and I felt just a bit overwhelmed doing all three classes (10 total credits in a half semester). My last day of class was two weeks ago.

I went through the hiring process at Toyota starting at the beginning of May. The interviewers and the proctor of my assessment were all encouraging about my chances of being hired, but I have heard nothing relevant for over six weeks despite attempts to contact them. So I finally bit the bullet and started applying to other places on the Friday after ACC classes ended. I was quickly rejected from the mechatronics jobs which were similar to the Toyota position, and I think that was for the best. I only felt good about applying at Toyota because they insisted that they would train me. So since then I have been applying for jobs as an electrician's helper at big electrical companies. I have yet to hear back from any of them, so I think my next step will be to apply at more local electrical companies and use contacts or go to their offices in person.

The opportunity at Toyota got my hopes up, I suppose. Somehow I started thinking that I could be looking into getting my own place in the next few months. Although come to think of it, that was my plan when I originally moved back in with my parents, too--to be out sometime in autumn of 2024. Now it's looking like I will need to be an electrician's helper for at least another year, which means low wages. Actually, looking at the requirements for a license, it seems that I need at least one year of primary experience, which does not include being an electrician's helper. That means it's more likely that I would need two more years of experience before I can get my license. Lovely. I'm not sure where that leaves me in my direction. My natural inclination is to say that I just need to do everything I can to get on with a bigger company so that I can work up through the ranks there. If I start at a smaller company, then I might have to jump ship within a year, and that may or may not be beneficial.

In other news, I went to Hendersonville about a month ago and did some work on my aunt's mother's house, where they are staying now. It was fun, and the next day we did a whirlwind tour of fun (TM) involving hiking, whiskey tasting, pie tasting, mobile home visiting, and restaurants. I also visited Grandpa again. I think that's all the traveling I have done in the past few months?

With regard to my goals, I have not been doing well, especially lately. Losing my regular schedule led to a falling off in June, which slid into July. That goes mainly for Bible reading/prayer/scripture memory. It's time to get back on that. Also, I didn't join a church, which continues to discourage me. I told myself that it was too much of a commitment if I end up moving. I've continued to read for book club and webfiction outside of that. I would like to get back into doing more normal reading--I'm convinced that most fanfiction and webfiction are detrimental. I haven't done any DIY, and obviously I've done very little journaling. I've continued to be consistent in using my calisthenics app about twice a week. I would like to increase that, especially when I'm not doing much else physically.

This year I have gotten really into making cocktails. It has been fun, interesting, and exciting. However, this past weekend I pulled out all the bottles I own, and it made me a little sick to think about how much I've spent and how much needs to be consumed. I don't drink to excess, but I really want to cut down on how much I drink. I think it might be affecting my sleep and possibly my weight as well (I've gained about five pounds). On the plus side of all that, I have hardly been even tempted to eat candy ever since March or so.

Hopefully I can update this again within a couple of weeks to give an update on my job status as well as a few of these other issues.

Approaching a new era

 It's the first Sunday in April, and I am overdue to update on how things are going this year. In my last update, I was still coasting on momentum that I attribute partially to the beginning of the year and partially from talking to a girl. I subsequently met with that girl, and she stopped speaking to me afterward, which blew out some of my momentum.

Since J-term, it was mostly a grind until the Philadelphia trip. That trip was little underwhelming, but that's not a bad thing--there weren't any disasters or great frustrations. I was hoping for more interaction with the students, to be honest. They were mostly interested in their phones or friends, though. I did get closer to the teachers, so that was nice.

The first day of break, I helped Jordan build a shelter on his deck. That was an all-day affair. It was a bit sunny but overall quite fun and satisfying. At the weekend we visited Grandpa. On Monday I finished my taxes. Thursday I spread mulch, fixed caulk, and rewired some lights. Friday, I renewed my driver's license. Saturday, I finished assembling two wave models, went out to eat for my birthday, and visited Dad's place of work and got a tour of the factory. Obviously I did a few other things, but those were the highlights. One thing I didn't do but had intended to do was apply for jobs. I did some research, but did not begin filling out any applications.

As far as my resolutions go: I was doing well with Bible reading and prayer until break. Returning to that habit shouldn't be difficult when I'm back on a schedule. I've been using another fitness app called Calistree, and I subscribed to it for a year. It's great. I've used it at least twice a week February and March. A few days I did other types of workouts, like with the track team. I haven't read much more of the Chinese history book. I may have to give it up actually--it makes me think of the girl that I met. Instead I'm continuing to read Desiring God and the book club book (I picked): Snow Crash.

We've only got two more weeks in Spanish in World Languages, and I haven't actively studied it at all. Furthermore, we've canceled our trip to Colombia for the year, so the incentive to improve has significantly diminished. On the other hand, I have been playing my guitar on and off. I eventually ordered replacement strings. The string was really easy to replace. I felt silly for procastinating on it.

These next three months should be interesting. I expect that by 7/1, I will have a new job. I'm going to join a church, too, unless I have reason to suspect that I will be moving for the new job.

Post J-term

In the past week, the madness known as J-term took place. Overall, it was a good experience--much better than last year. Woodworking was great fun. We nearly finished the chairs we were building, and got close enough that we could sit in them. Japanese went smoothly even if it wasn't as exciting or fulfilling. I didn't get anything prepared for the first week of the new semester though, since it was really hectic and I had to prepare something for the next day every day, without having a planning period in which to do it. I slept really heavily all week.

Related to that, my reading has not progressed significantly. I'm still struggling through the BC era of the Chinese history book. Apparently I am 20% finished, but this week I have been skipping entirely or reading just a few pages before falling asleep. I did a lot of driving yesterday and listened to Desiring God for most of the trip. It was so good, I came home and started over reading it on my Kindle. It has all kinds of important reminders, and it also inspired me to return to Jonathan Edwards in the near future.

I only did my fitness routine four times this week, attempting to catch up with work on the other days. Also, yesterday I only did half of a workout because I was shaking--caffeine maybe? Anyway, I have become frustrated with the HabitNest app. It has several bugs, the workouts are too long, and the routines and goals are too randomly generated for my liking. For example, the In and Out Push-up is one of the most difficult exercises I have ever done, but because it is a type of push-up, the goal is 10-20 reps just like the other push-ups. If I do 10, I'm nearly worn out for the day. Well, there is no shortage of fitness apps. I'll do this one until the end of the month and then try a new one.

Reading and praying have continued to go well. Bible memory has continued to be a struggle, but I'm not falling behind. If I up the ante a bit and try to go for 30 verses a day, I think I could meet my goal of starting new verses by February.

No progress on the guitar string. I think I will have some time after school some day this week to go and pick up a replacement. Actually, I need to buy something else from Amazon, so maybe I'll just buy them there. As for Spanish... I'm thinking that I might want to hold off for a month or so until we get most of the way through the French unit in World Languages. That way I'll be less likely to be confused. Regardless, I still haven't developed a plan for that. I expect it will at least partially involve listening to podcasts or watching movies. Maybe I can rope Mom into watching movies or shows with me for some accountability.

First 2024 Check-In

It turns out that journaling on Sunday morning is not as easy as I had hoped. The past two weeks have been somewhat abnormal though. I have made it back to this resolution, although it has turned into afternoon and evening. How am I doing so far?

Reading the Bible and praying has been consistent. Bible memory has been more difficult. I have only gotten over 50 verses one day. Right now I'm averaging 20-30. I'll try to keep over 20 for the next week--at the moment, I don't have a plan to do more. I do it for 10-15 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes or so at night, but when I'm fighting uphill against verses that I can't remember, it goes more slowly.

Bedtime reading has also been satisfactory. Sometimes I have gone straight to sleep, but mostly I have been reading a book surveying Chinese history. It's dry, but I am still in BC. If it doesn't pick up near the end, I just won't buy the second volume. For my other books, I have the book club book, Jonathan Edwards, and I'll probably re-read Desiring God again if I feel inclined to avoid the other options. I have barely read any webfiction since the beginning of the year, and then only my favorite two stories. Fanfiction hasn't had any appeal.

Although I have several gripes with the HabitNest app, I have been using it to good effect. I have been tremendously sore everyday since last Tuesday. I do feel stronger, but I should be stretching more. It's hard to do that when it isn't built in to the routine and I already feel like 30 minutes of exercise is more than I want to spend.

It turned out that the welding class is not available at any community college within driving distance. So, I think I will dedicate some time to regularly studying Spanish. I just made this decision today, so I don't have a plan in place yet. This is not only to help me do a good job teaching World Languages this semester, but also to prepare me for going to Colombia later this year.

I broke a string on the guitar, so I haven't been able to practice recently. Hopefully I'll remember to pick up a replacement sometime this week. No progress has been made on the social front. I'm going to visit Grandpa during Easter vacation, so I think that fills up my travel plans for the year.

Nothing particularly interesting has happened these past two weeks. Last weekend we did have a big book club meeting at Jordan's house. It was fun. However, hanging out with those guys incites me to spend money on alcohol. I really don't need to do that--I certainly can't justify it. In other news, I got all the wood cut yesterday for the J-term woodworking class, and I'm looking forward to that. I guess that is all for this week.

Last Day of 2023

Welcome to the end of 2023. I had no idea that it had been so long since I did any journaling--a full 18 months. I will honestly say that I had high hopes for 2023, but as usual the results were mixed. What did happen?

I finished my first year of full-time classroom teaching. Overall it was a good experience. I began a second year of teaching. I had a few reasons for doing this, but in the end it might be attributed to the sunk cost fallacy. Although, it may not have been a fallacy in this case. I wanted to do a better job with my science teaching, and I wanted to see how the precious students that I student-taught in their 6th grade year matured into wonderful 8th graders. Living conditions and a lack of monetary resources probably played into the decision as well. I would like to find my own place to live, but a single year of saving (after nearly emptying my bank account for grad school) was not nearly enough to satisfy the greed of the gluttonous housing market of 2023. As a result, I moved back in with my parents with the hopes of having better prospects in 2024.

In the summer I worked for a general contractor and learned the basics of several skills, especially cutting tiles for drop-down ceilings. There was more demolition than I like and some awkward interactions with a coworker, but I made it through and maintained a good relationship with my employer. Later in the year, I was called for jury duty and seated, thereby making me miss a crucial week (plus a couple of days) before midterms and Christmas break. It was a very interesting experience though, and I appreciated the variety. Throughout this whole year, Jordan, Cody, and I have had book club meetings. This tradition began last August, with the goal of reading a book that one of the three of us would choose and meeting monthly to discuss it. We started out with fantasy books, but have widened our horizons as none of the fantasy books really impressed us.

My traveling quota was met. At Easter break, Jared and I visited my cousin in Hendersonville. It was a good time, and I had fun hanging out with her and seeing Greenville, SC. In August, the family went to Warm Springs for a cousin's wedding. For Thanksgiving, we went to the Outer Banks, because I had never been before. The most distinctive experiences were climbing to the top of a lighthouse and surfing on sand (it did not work very well, but it was fun to try). Finally, for Christmas we went to visit cousins in the Nashville, TN area. I haven't spent much time with cousins since we all became adults, so it was nice to get to know how they matured. We mostly hung around the house, played games, and watched the children.

As I didn't journal at all last year, I am not exactly sure what my goals were. As always, I know that I intended to do regular exercise. I can say with some confidence that possibly discounting 2018-19, the years of biking and bouldering, I did more exercise than any other year in my adult life. I ran with Jared for about a month before I moved, and after I moved I spent a lot of time doing calisthenics, especially push-ups, chin-ups, squats, and handstands. I did exercises about three times a week from August until Thanksgiving break, and a little bit in the summer (though my job was sometimes physically demanding enough that I excused myself). Before Thanksgiving, I was able to do about five archer push-ups on each side without great effort, which has been a goal of mine for a while.

At a presently indeterminate point that had to be at least a year ago, I had decided that I needed to cook at least two meals a week (unless other circumstances render it unnecessary). I have kept to that commitment faithfully and intend to continue it. The leftovers are consumed more quickly now that I live with the parents, but since Mom also contributes to meals, it has generally worked out well.

Every year I make an effort to dedicate more time to the pursuit of Christ. This past year I feel that I was more successful than in the past. I prayed more consistently and read about half of a year-long devotion book. Waking up early helps this tremendously, and until Thanksgiving break and jury duty threw off my schedule, I was faithful in this. Since the new school year, I have also striven to devote my time on Sunday to the Lord. I have generally been successful at not doing work on Sunday, though my substitute for the work has not always been edifying. In April I began using a new Bible memory website, and for six months I consistently reviewed and studied new verses, for a total of 593 verses. I lost my drive when I missed a few days at the middle school retreat, and then I took a break entirely at Thanksgiving.

Unlike last year, I have many intended goals and habits this year:

1. Reading the Bible - going through the entire OT and the NT twice over the course of the year. I will read through a reading plan in the morning. I anticipate that it will take about 15 minutes a day.
2. Prayer--I am going to use a prayer app to help me stay on task with this. I will do it after reading the Bible.
3. Bible memory - I will review at least 50 verses a day and, once I get caught up on my backlog of verses (hopefully by February), I will begin learning one new verse a day. I usually do this right before getting up in the morning, so the time I spend on it varies based on how long I read and prayed. Generally I spend 10-15 minutes on this though.
4. Reading - At least five days a week, I will go to bed before 9 and read until I get sleepy. I will not touch my phone after 9. My reading choices will be varied, but I plan to have 3-4 options at any time. One of them will probably be Jonathan Edwards, and I will have a book club book (unless I have already finished it). The other two are yet to be determined, but I think I will have a lighter theological book and a historical book.
5. Fitness - For now, I will try using the app Habit Nest to do workouts 5 days a week. These workouts will take place before 8:30 PM, but probably after 7 PM on school days. I will not drink any special drink before I have completed the daily workout. I want to be able to do a handstand more consistently and longer, and I want to be able to do a one-handed push-up. I don't have exact dates for these goals--maybe I will update them later.
6. Learning - between teaching world languages and science, my quota for learning will probably be filled. But I also hope to take a welding course or two in the spring. Other goals will be revisted at the end of the school year in May.
7. Journaling - I am going to start writing a journal entry every Sunday. This should be easy to do in the morning after breakfast, because I usually have a couple of hours before church. I can write not just about the past week but also about what I am reading, what I am learning about in the Bible, and the progression of my prayer life.
8. Work - I will find a new job by the end of August. If it takes me a couple of months, I will probably do some interim work somewhere. I don't foresee that happening, but job hunting has a mercurial temperament.
9. DIY - I have to finish the table for the den by the time I move out. For now, my goal is to have it done by May. I will work on it during the weekend if I don't have welding class. That won't happen until after J-Term though, because I have to finish the adirondack chairs for J-term first.

This may seem like a tall order, but the first five are just slight increases from what I was doing before my routine was disrupted by Thanksgiving break. If I sign up for welding, I will be held accountable, and there is outside pressure to accomplish the work and DIY goals. The journaling is the only completely new habit.

There are other areas that I want to address but I have not mapped out a system by which to do so:

1. Music - I would like to be able to play guitar, piano, or violin. I practiced guitar consistently in the fall when I knew that I would play it at the middle school retreat, but I have only picked it up twice since then. I am afraid that I will need some sort of accountability. Thinking on it, guitar is definitely the most accessible, so unless I come across a reason to change to another instrument, I should stick with it. It would be good to have a regular practice time as a habit and some songs I would like to be able to play well as a goal. I will plan to revisit this after J-term.
2. Social - I need to talk to more people and have relationships with them. One way I can do this is by staying at church, which I should do anyway. However, I need to find other ways to socialize. This also needs a revisit after J-term.
3. Travel - specifically for Easter break. I will go to Philadelphia with the 8th graders in March. I plan to go to Colombia in August. If I can get off from work, the family may go somewhere interesting for Thanksgiving. Otherwise, Easter may be my last chance to travel somewhere for a year, but it will likely be the best time for job hunting as well. At the moment I feel a bit travel-weary, so I will need to come back to this too, probably after J-term.

If some of these goals seem like an excessive overloading of my time, that is intentional. There are several negative habits that I want to avoid, and filling up my time with other things helps me with those. My main two bugbears are video games and wish fulfillment stories, both of which lead to escapism and loathing of reality for me. If I can remember the goals that I have made, the appeal of these distractions will lessen. So there you have it, folks: a bunch of goals and resolutions for the new year. I should be back with updates next week, but if nothing else, I should check back in on January 21st to reconsider the areas of uncertainty.

Entertainment

 I really like the most recent system I came up with for keeping track of my activities. It’s a simple spreadsheet with activity categories in the columns, dates in the rows, and the cells contain activity details. It takes seconds to complete for each activity, and I get a good idea of how much I have invested and how consistent I have been. Quantifying would improve it, and that would not take too much effort I don’t think, but I’m not sure exactly how I would do it so for now I will just leave it as is. Unfortunately, when I started working overtime (at R.S. Johnson), I fell out of the habit of keeping track. That’s mostly because I barely did anything other than work.

This past week I overindulged in Terraria in my free time. I also read a few stories from Royal Road, which is my new go-to entertainment source (replacing fanfiction). I have read several excellent stories on there, the first (and highest-rated) being Mother of Learning. I’m not satisfied, though. “Entertainment” is so unfulfilling, beyond an hour or so. I think that’s partially why people “binge”—to forget how unsatisfied they are. I need to change my approach to address this in a healthy and responsible way. I guess my best option for that is to set a schedule or routine.

Lately I have been feeling a drive to exercise. However, tennis is the only real outlet I would consider, and I just can’t see myself coming home from work at 4 in the afternoon, in the hottest part of the day, and immediately going back out to play. After dinner seems even less likely, but I’ll give it some thought.

I finished sealing the door for Mom and Dad’s cabinet-table today. Home Depot didn’t have the proper hinges in stock when I checked yesterday, so I’m going to pick them up tomorrow on my way over to their house. There I will hopefully install it and it will finally be done! I’ve started thinking about other projects, but between the summer heat, unpredictable working hours, and the looming craziness of the semester’s start, I may be holding off for a while.

In other news, I am feeling disgusted with myself about two things: programming and socializing. Well, the latter is hardly novel, I am just feeling it more keenly this holiday weekend. In programming, I really want to get on with a few projects, but it has been so long since I touched them, and there are resources that I can’t find easily, and it’s just easier to go back to reading or something else fun.