Human Space Pod

There has been so much that has gone on since I came back here in August, I'd be hard pressed to summarize all of it cohesively or coherently.

Plant the seeds, reclaim victory.

This semester has not gone how I thought it would; there's been a far greater learning curve here this semester than I anticipated. I've had to learn how to really live with people again, I've had to learn how to expect the inconstancy that I face, not just in this uncertain third-world life, but in the vagrant state of my emotions. I've had to grow professionally, and try to embrace wholesale job shift. I've had to gain new alibis for my allies.

So what has been so radically different this year?

Well, starting in October, I'm now living in a house with three other guys, and that is far different than living in my own apartment in my own building. Adjusting to others' schedules, idiosyncrasies, lives, it takes time to someone like me.

Also, having more guys around who I can comfortably and easily interact with takes adjustment.

My job continues to evolve, and I don't think I'm doing the best job responding to that. I need to get better at understanding and trouble shooting our network issues, but I suffer the same problem there that I suffer in many other areas of my life - It's just such a big problem, and I want to understand the course before I even start, and since I don't know where to start, what chunks to break this into, I don't start like I should, and consequently, get behind. I need to get a tutorial book or a something, because this trying to figure stuff out when I need to or the paradigm of just googling random terms and situations isn't working as well as I had hoped it would. Also, I've had to deal with a number of info-sec related issues that I am woefully out of my depth to understand or prepare for, and even if no one else knows, I feel highly inadequate to the task.

I am learning more and more what my abilities are, or maybe I mean what my skills are...? No, that doesn't sound right either. I guess I mean that I am learning what I can and can't do, in an abstract fashion. I'm learning that its doubtful that I'm ever going to get tot he point where I am the 'top dog' in a situation. Most of the time, I'm OK with that, except when something comes along that I just think to myself, "Boy, if I were in charge of that, we wouldn't have that problem." Which is probably true, but we'd have other problems. I'm also learning that some of my worst tendencies are magnified when I try to minimize them, because then others' non-minimization of them (if that makes sense) only heighten my desire to minimize them, and then my recrimination of self when I fail to minimize them adequately in relation to my desire.

Another area where I've really struggled to grow as I think I should this semester has been the area of relationships. I decided pretty early that I was coming back again next year, and I know that one of the things that drives me crazy about the life I've been led to lead is the transitory nature of it all. Meaning that I find myself unconsciously avoiding developing relationships further with people who are leaving at the end of this year. I need to do better at that, but I find myself failing time and time again.

And finally, I've really had to grow this year as a man because of D. We haven't exactly had the smoothest set of developments in our relationship, and I've been particularly guilty of becoming to convinced of my vision of the future, and how I see that fitting with our relationship, and trying to be in the future instead of the present. I know not yet where our relationship is destined, but I know that I'll continue to be glad that we decided to see, instead of just cutting it down before it ever had a chance to grow.

I know I'm growing and not always as I would like, but that as I surrender to that, it gets harder and easier, happier and sadder, less and more, and all these seemingly opposite pictures when I lose myself.

I am part of the army of the far from perfect. The time has come to tear down, rebuild, this world.