Introspection

I'm in an... interesting mood. A rather introspective mood. (on a side note, ever meet someone who was being interspective?) I've been feeling like this for about a month now, maybe a bit longer or shorter. Anytime I start to think about me, and who I am, and where I am in my life, I get kind of... depressed. It's rather odd.

It comes down to one thing: I don't think I know who I am. I feel like I've tried to be somebody my whole life, tried to force myself into some mold I had for myself... but that I've never been honest with myself or anyone else about who I am. I pretend, day in and day out, that I know some things, or that I'm good at some things, or that I like some things. I'm not even sure that I know, am good at, or like anything (there's some Socratic wisdom for you).

So this puts me in the position of knowing that I have built this life that I don't have any connection with. That's not to say that I don't care for my friends; I do, and deeply. It's that I'm faced with the fact that I've probably lied to all of them. Perhaps not outright, perhaps no false words left my lips... but lied none the less. What kind of a person does that make me?

I'm a nice guy, or at least I try to be. Bridget has often gotten on my case about about being too nice, and I think maybe she's right. I don't feel like I let people walk over me, really... it's more like I walk over me for them. I don't know if i can change that. Most people probably don't even notice it, really.

I'm not a good friend. I'm wishy-washy. I'm absent-minded. I do things for me more often than not. I don't think to involve people that are, or I wnat to be, my friends. Combine this trait with the one above, and you get me, whose first thought of one friend is thetime I almost left him behind when going to eat - and he was in the same room with me. I don't even try to keep in touch with some of the best friends I have, and those I do, I perpetuate the lie that is my life. This, as one can imagine, leads to the long, quiet, alone moments that need these days.

(I'm not ranting, or trying to be emotional here. I don't want anyone to apologize to me, or try to talk to me about this - you may notice that comments are off. this is something I need to figure out.)

I am a violent person. Kind of lends itself to the martial arts. I also have a short temper. When I get angry, my first solution is violence. I will often be very, very angry, and will have to fight the urge not to beat the crap out of someone. If you see me clenching fists and/or jaw... well, I'm not happy. Years of practice have made it easier to swallow that reaction, and turn it into long, quiet, alone moments.

So... those are my thoughts for the day... who's next?

The coming week

The forest service job fell through - they were looking for someon who had experience with wildlife and controlled burns, and I do not. Ah well. Keeps me from making a decision about it.

Kent went home, and William left this morning. Kent, Bridget, and I have been trying to find a new roommate for when William moves out... our one prospect has decided not to. I've been checking the papers for new places, both for the three of us and for just me and Bridget. Some nice stuff in the current paper. I would try to call right now, but it is a Sunday. Better off tomorrow. Then again, they may be gone by tomorrow.

We'll be going home for Thanksgiving on Tuesday, coming back Thursday morning - Bridget works Thursday afternoon. We're going to spend time with both of our families, and maybe some time in Hackberry with Bridget's extended family. Yay, poker!

Speaking of poker, Friday night was fun. It was just me, Bridget, and Simo, but we had fun. Bouree would NOT end. And Simo seems to like High-Low Bloody Mary, which makes me happy. It can be a dangerous game, but a heck of a lot of fun.

Oh, yeah, and for the previous audioblog... check out audioblogger.

Testing the Audioblogger

Well, that's definitely interesting. Recorded that in my van, on my cell phone. I can see the usefulness of the feature... away from a computer, wanting to make a blog entry... all you've got is a cell phone. Neat.

Of forests and credit cards

Here I am, 4:30, just running the audit, because whoever worked this morning couldn't do their job correctly. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in their heads when their screwing some of these things up.

"Oh, I posted too much to VISA. I know! I'll post a negative amount to CASH, thjat will give me a zero balance on that room. All done!"

Theoretically, the next part should be: "Oh, my VISA totals in the credit card machine don't match the totals in the computer. Let me think about what I may have done wrong." Instead, if they even compared those totals, this happens: "Oh, the totals are off. The night auditor will fix it."

YOU BROKE IT! I have no idea what went on this morning, or whose rooms you may have screwed up. I have to print at least 3 reports and compare transactions one by one, matching amounts with room numbers (and sometimes people have changed rooms, so those might not even match), and now here I am, an hour and a half late, starting the actual audit process.

In better news, kind of, I've been informed of a job opening at the US Forest Service station near here. The job is on the fire line, running controlled fires, doing forest cleanup, that sort of thing. It pays nearly twice what I'm making now, plus benefits. It's a full time job, plus overtime.

Sounds great. It's a pretty standard day job, though... it will prevent me from taking regular classes as long as I have it. I'd be restricted to internet and night courses. And that's the dilemma... kind of. I've been taking small course loads recently anyway... and it is a LOT more money. Hmmm.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Yesterday at work pretty much sucked. I worked a swing, meaning working a shift, sleeping a shift, working a shift. So I didn't exactly get a whole lot of sleep. So here I am at work, the 7am to 3pm shift that I used to work all the time - the most stressful shift at the hotel. You've got to check people out, make sure everyone gets out in time for housekeeping to get their room cleaned, balance the credit card machine, assign rooms, and make keys for all of those rooms, and eventually start checkng people in. Really, it's not that bad... unless you have 3 schools coming in that will occupy most of your rooms right off the bat, and need to worry about the schools that are coming in omorrow, as well as the silly "flow-through rooms" that have no meaning... and I'm starting to rant, and don't mean to do that yet.

All of that was okay, but I had been forewarned that my relief may not have known she was supposed to work today. My manager even called to tell me to call her. So I did - and left a message. Not a good sign. So later I called again, and paged her. She called back 20 minutes later, FURIOUS that she was on the schedule. She was four or five hours away from the hotel.

To cut off a long story, I ended up working 4 extra hours, and then my manager came in, and William came in 2 hours early. So it earned me and William some extra money, but additional animosity... we just don't know who to aim it at.

To make matters worse, my brand new cell phone is not working. Refuses to turn on. I received a phone call from Coke, and when I ended the call I noticed the battery was nearly out, so I put it on the charger. Hasn't turned on since then.

In other news, next week is Tanksgiving, and that means vacation! Yay! I will actually probably end up with 2 days of truly being off, which will be good. The bad thing, though, is I will probably have to cancel class all of next week. Hate doing that. :-(

On another bright side, Simo may be hosting poker night soon! We haven't played poker in so long... I miss it. It was great when we all played together.

The Big Hit

I just finished watching this movie on TBS. I'd never heard of it before, and reading the description on IMDB (I love having internet at work) didn't make it seem that interesting. Still, it starred Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Avery Brooks, which intrigued me. So I watched.

I loved it. It struck me as a mockery of action movies in general, or at least one that didn't take itself very seriously. The plot was... well, not that great, and predictable, but the action sequences were wonderful. Pretty over-the-top fights, chases, and explosions. It was fun, and enjoyable. I think I prefer movies that are just fun. Terminator 3, for instance. It wasn't the great movie that T2 was, but I don't think it tried to be; it was just fun.

I've just installed Libranet Linux onto my PC. I've tried some other Linux distributions, and have generally liked the experience. We'll see if this one sticks. Really, I could do most of my computing in Linux, as all of the major programs I use run under Linux. Gaming though... I'm stuck with Windows for a while.