For what will envelop me?

The fall break is almost done. Just Friday before the school stuff starts again. While I've goofed off some this break, I mostly worked. I lazy-worked some, but unless I am really lazy tomorrow, I will work every day over break except last Friday. I know there are other people who have worked as much as I, but part of my irritation stems from the fact that I didn't plan to work this much, that I agreed to do some more work than I had initially planned on, that I couldn't get gear for this project that I needed to do until yesterday, and I planned poorly, so I have to work tomorrow, to get my school projects finished.

Today has been a day of heights and lows. We started out the day and hiked up the mountain. It was just a small group of us, and while we didn't get all the way to the top, we still made it a good way. We got up to the ridge line right as the sun was creeping over the far mountains. I think the teacher that brought her camera got some really nice pictures. We went a little way further, then stopped, and read 1 Jn out loud. That was really... awesome, and peaceful. He is Love, and the propitiation.

Then, I went and spent more time that I had initially agreed on helping someone that I have helped more this week than I had originally planned on. This leads me to become very frustrated, because I know I'm a pushover, and people who will will take advantage of that as far as they can. The further frustrating thing is that it wouldn't have had to happen if I hadn't left some things to be done by people who said they could take care of it. I should trust my own judgment on whether or not people are capable, rather than listen to them. Even further frustrating me was that I had said, "I need to leave by X to be back at school." And when X comes, I'm knee deep in solving the problem, and I could just leave, saying, "I was here at Y, said I could only be here until X, and you didn't tell me that this was the main problem you wanted me to fix until some time after (((X-Y)/2) + Y)" but what good does that do other than make me feel good? People don't get their problems solved, they get mad at me, and I have to explain to other people why I now have the people who they set me up to help mad at me. I finally extricate myself from the mess, and I have to remain patient while thinking, "I'm not going to get any of the cook's pizza because of this traffic in this stupid system where right of way is arbitrarily selected, the roads were designed for a fifth of the traffic it carries, and I'm in a Corolla with a timid driver instead of an SUV with our preternaturally awesome driver." I also have to not get angry over the fact that I know I have several hours of work to do this afternoon that are probably going to now have to get crunched in, or just worked on tomorrow, because I couldn't get gear and then didn't plan my time properly.

So, I get back, do actually get pizza (which is pretty good for an Afghan making western-style homemade pizza.), then get my clothes out of the stinking washing machine that decided not to drain the water or spin my clothes (so they are still soaking wet), and will finally drain, but won't spin. I hang my sopping wet clothes out at 1:00 P.M. instead of the 10:30 A.M. I had initially bargained on, meaning that when I go out to remove them from the line at 6:30 P.M., half of them stay up since they're still wet because they only got two and a half hours in the sun with the way the earth's axial tilt is going these days. Anyway, then I go down to our new building to start work on hanging conduit and running 20m of cable. That doesn't sound too complicated, Russ, you may think. Well, it is when you have to get the maintenance guys to drill holes in the concrete to screw the conduit to, drill holes through door frames because when you decided to change from wired connections to wireless APs you forgot to check if there was power where you wanted to but the APs, the ceilings are 3 meters instead of the normal 2.4 so you have to stand on rickety chairs, and you keep having bad terms somehow, even though you can definitely see that the wiring pattern is correct and the crimps look good. Yeah, around 6, I decided I was just done for the day, which I'll probably regret tomorrow, but I was getting tired, cranky, and irritable at the dumbest little things.

Come back to the kitchen, have little annoyances like almost all of the chicken lasagna being eaten, the pizza from lunch having been set out but all of the cheese was already taken so you're reduced to picking the mushrooms out of the piece you pick, having people ask work-related questions without greeting or other preamble as soon as you walk into the dining room, people wanting to watch a movie but deciding to watch a horror movie after saying that your choices are kind of silly (hey, folks, I think Vertigo is silly - what were you saying about Star Wars:Clone Wars again?), going to work out after supper because there's nothing else to do, but basically quitting halfway through to beat on the punching bag for a while after realizing that you don't care or really want to exercise since what does it matter how many KG I can lift or how long I can run. I let to much of these little things get to me, inexplicably, and so in a foul mood, I returned to my house and had a pudding cup, Sprite, and KitKat just because it was childish and stupid to eat them all at once.

I pulled open my laptop to check my e-mail, reflecting on the fact that at dinner, all these people were talking about what they did on fall break, the places they went, the shopping they did (if they were girls), how relaxing it was to not work, and other than the work-related questions, no one talked to me without me initiating conversation, and even then they were short conversations. I further thought about how I was irritated, since I had kind of built up my hopes to going out to get a milkshake after supper (you know how you sometimes make up some goal/reward to get through a sub-par day?) only to hear at dinner that the place was closed, and how that just irritated me. I pondered the fact that I was really angry at a small combination of little things. I sort of thought about writing a blog entry about it, and how I see that I haven't changed any despite my expectations before I came here. How I was really frustrated at little things, when other people were doing pretty good, despite having things like emergency surgery for mysterious infections acquired under mysterious circumstances.

I checked my e-mail. Sometimes, you know, you read things that make you stop. My Dad's oldest brother died this morning. I had gotten an e-mail the other day saying he had had heart surgery to fix some fairly major arterial blockage, but he was going to get out of the hospital, and seemed to be doing OK. I don't know any specifics about the situation. Left in this world are his wife and three adult sons.

In Him is no darkness at all. Giveth and taketh away. Blessed be the name.