Friday, January 9, 2009

The New Year: Part 2

     Now comes the non-WoW part of the new year. The part where I take a look at what I've done, what I'm doing, and what I plan to do. Now while I sit back and relax to tell you how it might be, go make me a sammich. No? Well then sudo go make me a sandwich! Why thank you!

     So where was I the start of last year? At work, kinda aiming halfheartedly towards a nursing degree. I had signed up for a couple classes for the spring, no real passion to go though, just the certain knowledge that I had to do something. So we go through that semester, I get my butt handed to me in one class (A&P_grade = 'C'), and manage to do a decent job in the other (Microbiology_grade = 'B').

     Why did I do so poorly? Oh quite a few reasons: I wasn't really interested. It really didn't make any sense. I worked lots of night shifts. I started play WoW again towards the end. And I'm really bad at rote memorization.

     I also volunteered to go do child care in Germany for two weeks for a mission conference in July. Not really important here, but comes into play later on.

     So here comes the summer, I was ready for it! I even had a plan to keep me busy and away from playing to much WoW. I was gonna (sorta) work for one of my doc friends helping him clear property to (eventually) build a sort of missionary resort dealie. This was also gonna help me get some funds together to play for my mission trip.

     So I went out working with him, and he's a great man of God so I started talking to him about what I'm doing in life. How I'm kinda wanting to do nursing, but most of that has to do with the fact that I adore my co-workers, no real love of the work itself, and no real natural talent in that are. Other than usually being pretty good at taking care of people. After we talk and pray about it some we both kinda come to the conclusion that I was just doing nursing for my co-workers. All of my natural skill/talent leans towards computers. 

      About this time is when is when my plans started coming down. First the government decided that I owed them something in the neighborhood of $25,000 and they weren't going to force me to pay it immediately, but they were going to confiscate my $813 tax rebate and continue taking any more I had until I paid them back. This was a problem because, well, not only did I not have the money and needed that rebate, I also did NOT owe them $25,000. Or any money at all.

     Cherry on the cake to that? My arm broke. Me and my friend were out clearing brush trees (DIE CEDAR!), namely chainsawing and burning them. Well he decided to start a patch on fire that was still up against the other stuff, planning on just moving the brush in as the fire consumed it. Or something like that. Anyways, I kinda raised objections, though I really didn't put enough force into them, but he did it anyways. The end result being it got out of control, he screamed at me, I ran over, helped him move one of the larger trees that was sorta on fire about to go up in flames. It caught on something, then got uncaught sending me about three feet in the air off an embankment and instead of falling on my nice large rump, I put my hand down to catch myself. Craaaaaaaaack.

     So there I was, nothing to do but play WoW. Short a LOT of money for my mission trip. And really, really bored. So what did I do? I played WoW and got a lesson in humility by having to ask people for money to the tune of roughly $2,000.

     Now I realize that missionaries do that sort of thing all the time. Heck, I've given money to them plenty of times, and I'm sure you have as well. But asking people for money? Yeah, I had a bit of a pride problem with that. Namely I always had enough money. Never asked people to pay for my meals, always tipped well, and always could pay for someone else to eat as well (though it might mean I ate Top Ramen for the next few weeks). Bit of a pride issue there.

     Anyways, God provided the money in time (like always) and I got to go on the trip. Woo! Which is a good thing too, it really reminded me how much I need him on a daily basis, not just Sundays and sad-days.

     Came back from the trip just in time to get ready for the school year. Pellgrant paid for everything plus a little (it ended up buying me WotLK =D) so I didn't have any financial issues in that regard. 
     
      The rest of the year kinda went smoothly. The only hangup being when I drove to my parent's house for my mom's graduation/birthday. Yeah, found out about 100 or so miles out of Waco that my front left brake was riding metal on metal. Made for a very prayerful trip to Las Cruces.

     But I made it there without any problems! No tickets, no major mechanical failures, no one peed in the car, and I didn't fall asleep/starve to death on the way! Buuut there was still the matter of getting my car fixed before I drove back (I know God is infinitely kind and merciful, but I don't usually feel like testing him).

     I was in luck though! A good friend of mine hails from El Paso. You wonder why this is lucky? Her dad owns a car shop! Yay for reliable mechanics! Got over there, got it fixed, found out I had WAY more problems than I thought I did, but still affordable!

     Well, I say affordable, theres a pride story in that one too. You see, I could pay for it right then, but that would leave me barely making it back, and no paycheck for two more weeks. This would be a far less than optimal situation, especially with that month's bills to pay.

     Usually I'd just borrow money from my Dad, he's great like that. But after having all the family down, helping pay for stuff, and graduating in general, funds were kinda in short supply there too. Not that he wouldn't have helped me, but there's a good chance he might have to put stuff on credit cards, and debt is icky, and if I won't put myself in debt how could I ask someone else to do it? Soooo, time to call people!

     But God has supplied me with an ample number of friends, good ones at that! So I called Jolene, who honestly counts more as a sister than a friend, and asked if I could borrow $274 or something like that. Namely the exact amount of the bill, and pay her back on my next paycheck. Her response? She gave me $300 and wouldn't let me pay her back. Dang women!

     Oh! And I got my spiffindefiliss internship! Which is actually where I wrote most of this, gotta do something on my lunch break after all. Welp, just about time to get back to work. I'll try to sit down this weekend at some point and describe how wonderful my job is, but that'll have to wait. This post is to long already!


~joe(ishvi)


p.s. sorry for the extended length and bad formating. I made it over a series of lunch breaks

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