things lately

well lets see what ive been up to in the last…. oh, forever since i wrote a substantial entry.  i fear that this wont be much more than just a standard boring list entry, and it probably doesnt matter anyway, as i expect i have been removed from various favorites lists due to inactivity. 

for the most part, i have been working more than is probably healthy.  it isnt uncommon for me to get up at 6am to teach, and then come home at 1130 after work (non-teaching)…. i suppose that this in itself requires a small update.  I mentioned that i had been laid off from my second job due to "budget constraints."  however i managed to wiggle my way into a position in a different part of the store.  so now i am the closing supervisor (PIC) for the new department I am in.  basically i somehow managed to change a lay-off into a promotion of sorts.  meh.

I have been teaching (subbing) most days, though the long hours have been making it difficult some mornings to make it to a sub job, and i have been marking myself unavailable more often than i would really like to, simply because i feel too exhausted to function properly in the classroom.  again, the job market here for teachers is miserable, even though the only core subject that I wont be endorsed to teach by the end of the summer is science…  with any luck, i will be filling in for a teacher during the first semester of next year who is leaving on maternity leave.

This next weekend will be busy for me.  I received a text message yesterday informing me that a friend from college, one who had been in my fraternity with me had waited until his roommates had left for spring break, locked himself in his room, and shot himself.  His funeral will be on the 4th in oregon, so i have to drive from here to gresham (about 7 hours) on friday morning, and then back here the following morning to attend the law school prom/awards evening fancy thingy.  i always feel out of place at funerals/memorials/wakes, or when talking to someone who is devastated by a death.  I mentioned somewhere previously when remarking on my grandmothers death that i always feel slightly detached from the process…. like im acting strangely because the inevitability just robs me of overt sadness.  though this time, i did have a strange dream the night i found out.  it was the most vivid dream i have had since a nightmare that i had when i was about 8…. i rarely remember my dreams, but this one sticks with me for some reason….

Aryn and I were at some dive bar/restaurant, and through the swinging doors i saw this bouncing yellow playground (kickball) ball.  someone was bouncing it off the wall, then off a vending machine.  over and over again.
so i poked my head around the door and there was matt (the friend who killed himself), wearing a red track jacket over a white tee shirt, with jeans and white tennis shoes.  i said "matt?" and he just replied "hey jeff."  I told aryn that matt was here, and we went out onto the deck… i stood on the second step of the raised deck, matt sat on the top step, and a girl he was there with (he introduced her as kile – she had braces and long straight brown hair – a long face, with a hawkish nose – she sounds severe, but seemed nice) she stood on the top landing.  i asked matt why he was there, and if he knew that everyone thought he was dead.  he said that he knew, that he got that a lot.  after that, it broke down as i began to wake up, but the basic idea of the rest of our conversation was that he was using his student loan money to travel around the world, and he was just waiting for the check so he could go on his "next big adventure" (his words).  —  this sticks with me, with almost the same intensity as the yellow ball image.  im not a religious person, perhaps best defined as an agnostic, and the "next big adventure" just feels like a strange conversation for matt and i to have.

yeah…. thats all ive got though.

this turned out to be a bit more lengthy than i planned.

i will leave you with this image that i thought was pretty humorous.