the journals

I should make another category and call it “job-related posts.” I think I will, actually, as soon as I’m finished with this entry.

Today was a very good day at work. It’s going well, to be disturbingly general about it; I’m turning out to be not entirely terrible at what I’m doing. I thought customers would have trouble understanding me (literally), but I’m not repeating myself too much, so I’m presuming that isn’t the case. Also, it’s rather fun to be nice all day… it’s hard to be stressed when one is being nice.

I’m getting even more used to the idea of working eight and a half hours a day… I kind of forgot about the weekend! Weekends are lovely things. I’m still kind of in disbelief that I actually get off work two days a week! (Yes, I’m being serious.)

One bad thing is that I’m not sleeping very well. I find myself needing an extraordinary amount of sleep (for me, at least), and I’m having a terrible time getting it. Last night it took me an hour to fall asleep, and I woke up about three or four times in the middle of the night. (Funny fact: I wake up when I nocturnally kick Seth, which is completely backwards since it doesn’t wake him up.) Anyway, I don’t usually have such trouble falling to sleep, but I do wake up a lot for no reason I can figure. This is very weird, because I never used to wake up in the middle of the night, and I didn’t during the first couple of months that we lived here, so presumably it’s not the regular neighborhood sounds that are waking me up. I fall back to sleep okay, but I’m coming fully awake every couple of hours, and I don’t think that makes for very useful sleeping. Thankfully my work performance (i.e., actual, measurable output) doesn’t seem to be suffering due to this, but I can tell that I’m making quite a few mistakes at work that I normally wouldn’t make, and, also, it makes it a bit harder to be in a good mood when I’m so tired!

The weather here is very funny. Oh, and it finally decided to rain!

God is so good to me. I am continually astounded by the good things that God does for me, and yet I see more and more of my failure to do His will. I have struggled this semester with my desire for school, and yet I have been much happier with all the wonderful changes that have come along with being married. Julie is wonderful, and I grow more in my delight for her everyday. Writing music again has also been so invigorating. I’ve also been encouraged to see myself mature. I have also grown to trust God more. But even after all these good things, I still feel a lack of direction. That clarity of purpose that I once had has faded, and I’m not sure why. I don’t like it–that’s for sure. I want to finish seminary, but my desire is little more than a basic motive to finish seminary. Numerous flames of passion have been put out by extinguishing disappointments. Julie has encouraged me continually about this, and for that I am grateful.

Whatever is the outcome, I will press on, and look to God. I must and will follow Him during this time of unsettledness.

Ps – I know I’m not responding to comments, emails, etc. It’s not exactly on purpose… I just have been very busy and haven’t yet worked out how to deal well with what time I have.

A few things I’m learning from working:

• Eight and a half hours is a long time. At first, this was somewhat of a complaint of mine – I really have very little time left in the day by the time I get home – but today something snapped in my head and it turned from a complaint into a fact, which is an infinitely better thing for it to be. I’ve acquired a strange sense of realism that I probably should have had long ago: if I want to live the way we live, if I want to have a home and food and niceties, eight and a half hours a day is the price – and in some sense, it’s not really a very high one considering what comes from it.
• Being cheerful can make one cheerful. I need to be cheerful at work, even when I don’t feel like it – even more so than I had to be when I was student-teaching. It’s not so much about maintaining fairness and even-temperedness all the time (as teaching seemed to be about), but actually about keeping a smile on my face (and in my voice!) all the time, which seems much harder to do. It’s important to me, though; not only because it’s helpful to my actual job, but also because I am truly very happy, and that’s somewhat of a rarity, and it can make people wonder. Anyway, though: today it was difficult at points. And I was wondering – do I “use up” all my cheeryness during work, and thus not have the spirit to be so happy-tempered at home? But on reflection, I decided the answer to that was “no.” I suspect that being cheerful at work will simply make me into a more cheery person in general, especially if I strive for it to have that effect.
• I understand what people mean when they complain about never seeing the sunshine – finally! I haven’t seen the bright light of day since Monday. Yes, I could go outside on my breaks, but for some odd reason I haven’t (because it’s cold, perhaps). When I drive to work in the morning, it’s in the early dim light of still-dawning (which is better than dark, I admit), and when I drive home in the evening, it’s in the somewhat dreary light of dusk that comes just before the sunset begins to get pretty. I haven’t found the bright side of this yet, but I do like dawn very much, so it’s a nice time to be driving to work – very invigorating.

Well… my first day on the job went well, I think. I like my co-workers; they remind me very much of the folks I went to school with.

I signed loads of confidentiality agreements, so there the discussion ends.

I’m extremely, extremely tired physically, albeit not mentally. Got up much too early this morning (no, for real – I had an appointment before work).

So, tomorrow I’m off to work. Bright ‘n’ early, I might add.

I’m a bit scared. I’m a bit excited. And I have absolutely no idea what in the world I’m going to bring for lunch.

Also… Seth has midterms this week.

October is moving much more slowly than September or August did. It’s rather weird.

It’s very relieving to finally have a job. It’ll be more relieving once I actually start! I’m somewhat amazed at how “job-alert” I’d gotten – we were driving home this evening from the WNM, and I caught myself mentally going through the businesses we passed and considering just going into one of them to apply. Then it’s like… duh, got a job already!

Seth has an interview tomorrow.

I’ve been trying to figure out our taxes lately – which is a bit of a task! Federal is pretty straightforward, except that it took me forever to find the tax tables on the IRS website. I don’t think Kentucky has tables – it’s just a straight percentage plus a certain dollar amount (for instance: $280 plus 6%). Much simpler that way. Anyway, I was trying to figure out about how much we’ll pay this year and about how much we’ll pay next year, so we can get a sensible budget worked out.

Found out that Delaware has the 48th-lowest tax-per-income rate, which is why Kentucky’s 17th-lowest rate is seeming so terribly high to me – it is! It’s so nice, though, that they don’t tax food, and I think gasoline is cheaper here.

Speaking of food, we bought a gazillion (okay, more like ten) packs of Ramen (sp?) noodles today. Seth apparently likes them… I don’t believe I’ve ever had them, but for 14¢ a package, I’m more than happy to eat them even if I don’t terribly enjoy them! I also picked up a box of all rotten (er – au gratin) potatoes, ‘cause I like them, but I haven’t managed to make any from scratch yet!

I’m very sleepy, and therefore probably making questionable amounts of sense.

Well. Now I’m being positively overrun with interviews, which is, I suppose, a very good thing.

Already had one today, which went very well. Then there’s one this afternoon, one tomorrow morning, and one tomorrow afternoon.

I have a job interview (again) Tuesday at 2:30… retail sales, again, but a bit brighter prospects, perhaps. From looking on the ‘net, I had to have actually passed this personality test to have even gotten called. No idea how much it pays, but at least it’s not a straight commission job.

This is cross-posted from my other journal…

jobness
Much to my astonishment and much to the humbling of my pride, I still haven’t been able to find a job.  I estimate I’ve applied to well over a hundred jobs.  I’ve had interviews, some of which went marvelously well (I think I’m a good interviewee), but… no jobs.  I got to the end of an interview on Friday, and the fellow had finished telling me about all the benefits and figuring out how much per month I’d have to pay to have health insurance on Seth and I, and telling me about all the little details of the dress code – I think I’d pretty much gotten the job, at least that was the way he was talking – and then he says, oh, by the way, we require all our employees to work at least two Sundays a month.  He negotiated it down to one Sunday afternoon between church services, but I still couldn’t do that, and he couldn’t budge any farther.

I’m learning a lot about a lot of things (including myself) in this business of unemployment, like about trusting God to provide, and being much humbled (I went to college, graduated with honors, and I can’t even get the jobs that don’t require a high school diploma?).  It’s also made me very eager to work and more understanding of the value of money.  Provided that I don’t promptly forget everything I’ve learned, I’m sure I’ll look back at this as a good/helpful time.  And I’m trying very hard to rest in God’s sovereignty now, but honestly, I’m struggling with not being stressed and discouraged, and even sometimes a bit afraid of where the money’s going to come from if I don’t get a job.

Please, please pray for us.  That we’ll keep our perspective right and trust wholly and completely in God’s providence, and also that we’ll find a job.

sinness
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh… But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galations 5:16, 22-24)

Church this morning brought this to mind, although the sermon was on the Prodigal Son, of all things.  I think I used to think that the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit were sorta the same thing – that we got some of them and not others, but that all were good.  But not so; these things are the fruit (singular…) of the Spirit.  This is what comes to bear in the life of a believer.

I was musing this morning – many of these, I don’t have very much of.  I’m so far from perfect, I’m so depraved apart from grace.  And the question arose in my mind: Why isn’t my sin more offensive to me?  I’m not worthy of any of God’s grace, and yet He has bestowed it so bountifully, so why do I persist in stumbling?  Why, when I am so determined to speak with gentleness and patience, do I instead speak in anger and hurtfulness?

My mind knows the “right” answers, but my heart isn’t satisfied with them.  I ache to be free, to be pleasing, to stop doing those things which I do not want to do!

Every year since 2001 (at least), I’ve toyed with the idea of doing NaNoWriMo. And every year, I’ve been knee-deep in schoolwork, and only too aware that second-third midterms generally come smack in the beginning of November, and that writing 1,667 words of fiction every day would be somewhat hindersome to my schoolwork. So every year, I’ve decided to be a nonparticipant. But now I’ve gone off and graduated, so the wheels are churning again. It’d be a bit easier to figure out if I already had a job – I don’t know how much “time” I’ll actually have in a day after working and houseworking and such – but the idea is interesting, at least.

On another note, Seth and I have started having a sort of “ice cream night” at our house on Sunday evenings after church. Tonight was only the second time, but we talked about it a bit afterwards and would like to continue. It’s kind of more brainy-philosophical than it is social; much food-for-thought going on. Although I also put a bit more effort into the real food tonight – in addition to an array of ice cream, we had fresh-baked Swedish chocolate bread (a very hard bread, but yummy) and Japanese fruit pie. I like entertaining, I think, although I’m always a bit nervous.

Well… managed to fail another personality test today. JC Penny’s.

We spent the bulk of the afternoon and early evening going around in malls and asking for and submitting applications (and résumés) for every retail store that looked remotely interesting. Toys ‘R’ Us looks somewhat promising, but we’ll see.

Also got a bit of freelancing done this morning, so I am making a very little bit of money, but please do pray for us and that I would find a job!

Click the title to read the whole chapter.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God….

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

For some reason, I never really saw this in Hebrews 11 before – the chapter seems so famous as the “faith” chapter, and it’s easy to quote the first verse as a sort of definition of faith without really understanding what it means in context. A lot of the chapter goes through all these OT people and says what they did by faith… yet it seems to me that the verses above, especially the second paragraph, are really very key. Strangers and exiles, seeking a homeland, and not thinking of that land from which they have come, but desiring a better one… and God prepared a city.

I’ve been very much encouraged/challenged/stirred by this yesterday and today, and thought I’d share.