![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
yuoofox's journalLog in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more
| You are viewing yuoofox's journal Log in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more | Explore LJ: Life Entertainment Music Culture News & Politics Technology |
|
|||||||
 |
|
|
|||||
|
Yuoo's Diary  I've decided to continue my diary at my main website, www.yuoofox.com My thinking is, I'm paying for this website anyway, and if I switch over to LiveJournal for my diary needs, then I'll basically be paying for a dead, neglected website. Instead, you can view my diary at http://diary.yuoofox.com Gosh, I haven't written in quite some time. After arriving at my parents' house, I spent the first month or so just relaxing, not in any hurry to look for a job. After that, I started looking for work, but at the same time boredom and loneliness set in. (That is how I've been feeling during the holidays lately, so I might be biased in how I remember the last few months.) I looked for a job for a while, particularly for video game / 3D graphics jobs, but I didn't get anything. Well, I take that back. I did spent one day working at a temp job sticking labels onto mail packages at a warehouse, but I stopped that after I got called in for an interview at a video game job (which nothing came of. It turned out that my skills at 3D Studio Max were not enough for what game companies require. After trying out some self-paced learning (videos, books), I decided to enroll in the Evergreen school for 3D Modeling and Animation. It was expensive, but my parents have given me a loan. This is the first time that I've taken out a loan, albeit an inter-family one. Since that time, I've had problems with anxiety and depression. I won't go into detail on this public blog, but I'm going to counseling and receiving medication now. As a whole, I have very few responsibilities, but I don't have a job yet, and my parents are supporting me. On one paw, I am grateful for this, but on the other paw, it's not very good for my self-esteem. I feel like kinda stuck in limbo in terms of growing up. I was hoping to have a job and be finally, completely independant. Another problem is that I'm a lonely fox. Back when I lived in Loblolly, I was around my coworkers all day, and afterwards I was often at Mortar Abbey with my friends. I had a good network of friends there. Now, I go to a church that only meets on Sunday mornings because they don't have a building. They meet in a rented school cafeteria. You might wonder why I haven't gone to another church. Well, I just like everyone there. I like the message they teach there, and I like the people. That is something harder to find than you might think. I spent some time looking, too. Well, I completed my first month-long semester of the 3D classes at the end of November, and I've been on break since then. My parents provide my room and food, but other than that I have no income, so I can't afford to spend a lot of time driving around and buying stuff to keep myself entertained. Over the holidays, I got into a mood where my favorite video games weren't entertaining anymore, and I wasn't in much of a creative mood for my ideas and projects. Tomorrow, is my doctor's appointment in the city, and my classes resume on Monday. Oh, I forgot to tell you about my classes. They're at night, and they're in the city. I drive my car to the transit center, and I take an hour-long bus ride into the city. On the trip back, I arrive home after midnight. I ride the bus because it saves me money on parking and on gasoline. I enjoy using public transportation, but sometimes it can be inconvenient and scary. Sometimes there are creepy snakes and spiders that ride the bus. Fortunately nothing bad has happened to me, but I hear stories, and it's always scary to sit next to someone who's pickled. Well, I'll try to write more often this year. Friday. Well, I did arrive here in Evergreen on Wednesday. I left the motel at about 3:30 am to arrive here early, but I forgot that I was about to drive through the mountains in April, and I ended up behind some snowplows. Driving in the snow is no fun! :( Well, I made it through the mountains slowly, and I enjoyed the beautiful Washington scenery. I went through more mountains and it was snowing there too, but the sun was shining, and the roads were mostly dry. I arrived at my parents' house just before noon. It was so nice to see my parents. That evening, my Dad took me out to his church and showed me the illustration and printing work they do there, which is pretty impressive. I spent the day yesterday doing stuff on my computer. Well, I suppose you could say I spent time NOT doing stuff. See, I reinstalled Linux on one of my hard drives, and the boat loader got corrupted, so I pretty much said, “The heck with it!” I backed up all of my important files, and I did a clean format and reinstalled both OS's. I did it in a sneaky way, though. Instead of giving the Linux hard drive the option of booting Windows, I made it that both hard drives think they're completely in control of bootup, and I'm using my BIOS to choose which one is dominant. Well, I worked through a few more weird bugs, two of which I have yet to solve... but enough about that. I'm at Bucky Beaver's oil change right now, and after that I will go to an employment center. Tuesday. I had a rather busy past few days. Well, what I mean is that I did a lot of driving, as you can see in the chart above. [Thursday 120 miles, Friday 470 miles, Saturday 480 miles, Sunday, 350 miles, Monday 430 miles, Tuesday, 490 miles] I enjoyed the scenery, and I stopped at almost all of the rest stops, but I didn't stop to see much else. Well, I did stop at a wind farm site yesterday. I spoke with the entrance guard (a prairie-dog lady wearing flannel and a hardhat), and she showed me the office. It's weird; I didn't stop at the national parks, but I guess I was more interested in the ordinary. Tomorrow is my last day on this trip. Sunday. Right now, I am sitting in my car in a church parking lot in a small prairie town in Dorathia. It's 7:30 am, and I'm waiting until it's 9:30 am for Sunday School to start. The sign in front says that it's a Wesleyan church. I assume that it's somehow connected to being Methodist, but there's already a Methodist church here in town, so I guess that it must be one of those denominational split things. [emotional stuff censored out] Let's see, where did my last entry leave off? Okay, Friday morning I left Musicville and drove through Brock and Shomi. I drove past the St. Louis arch, which was pretty neat to see. Seeing the city made me think of the webcomic Lackadaisy Cats, especially when looking at the older buildings. Aurrin warned me that this city has a lot of crime, so I avoided meandering through it, the way I did through Musicville. They have an L-train system there. Next, I spent the night at a Motel 6 in Shomi. The weather wasn't all that great for driving. It was raining, and the wind was so gusty that I had to keep careful contro on the steering wheel to keep from being blown out of my lane. I learned my lesson about searching for an inn too late in the afternoon, so I've made a habit of starting at 6 or 7 am and checking into an inn at 4 pm. Well, I'll be starting 11 or noon today because of church. I know that I could be on the road right now, simply pulling over into another town about 10:30, but I just wanted to connect to this community a bit. I spent the night at a locally-owned motel called the Free Breakfast Inn. The lady who owns it has crosses and scripture verses everywhere, and I wanted to see what worship is like here. (To be honest, I'm expected to see a lot of elderly people here, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.) It's getting sunny outside, so I think I'll take a short walk. I'm back. It was getting cold out there, even though I wore a jacket with a towel as a hood. (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was right.) Oh, and I saw bunny rabbits! (the non-anthropomorphic kind, for those of you who are following the talking animal aspect of this journal) There are rabbits that hop around in the streets and in people's yards here. They seem to be about as tame as squirrels in this regard. One of the residents told me I was welcome to take them all with me in my car. Anyway, yesterday I saw the most interesting thing of this entire trip, which surprised me, since this is Dorathia. I saw wind-powered turbines, and I was amazed at how enormous they are! When I played the game Sim City 4, I thought they were exaggerating how big the turbines are in relation to buildings, but it turns out they weren't. Just seeing the rows and rows of turbines cascaded across the prairie reminded me of something out of Star Wars. It was as if you'd expect to see floating airships among them or something. I stopped at a rest area nearby, and I daydreamed about cowboys and Native Americans slipping into a time warp, and they approach the turbines and the interstate rest stop in bewilderment. I could really feel a sense of both new and old there. In that particular hour, it wasn't very windy at all, so the turbines weren't moving much. Still, you could see them slowly turning, and considering how big those blades are, even the minimal power they output must not be trivial. I can certainly understand why the nanotech scientists featured turbine blade skin made of Bucky-paper in the grant proposals we made at the Etheratory [a fictitious but appropriate name for my previous workplace]. There are many things I will not miss about _______________, but the propagation of science is one thing I will miss. I'm inside the church now. A couple came to open up early and make coffee. They told me about the Wesleyans, and I was pretty much right. Their books and lesson material seem pretty modern. I'll probably just stay for Sunday School. Thursday. I'm sitting in a motel room right now in Musicville. It has surely been an adventurous four days. I left Loblolly Monday morning, and I took a series of rural highways through Peachland and then Garnet, where Aurrin lives. At first, I was only planning to spend one night there, but I got a headache that evening, and I decided to stay another day, which became two days. It was a pleasant time for sharing company with their family, especially Aurrin and his mother. Aurrin still had to work those days, so we spent time with each other in the evenings. We mostly played computer games, but at bedtime we sat and talked a long time about this and that. During the day, I mostly spent time with his mom, talking about life and such. Aurrin's personality is a hybrid of both his parents. One evening, I helped his mother with gardening (well, toting water jugs to it). Their house is in a woody, hilly secluded place, and the lack of urbanization was a pleasing change of pace for me. On the computer, Aurrin and I played Warcraft 3 on our two computers, including a map I made that features Kit. =^_^= Today, I left their house at about 1 PM, having planned out a route before and and finding GPS coordinates for the junction cities. I drove to and through Musicville. Due to my lack of travel experience and hotel planning, it didn't turn out like I had planned. First of all, I learned this lesson: if you stop at a travel center and get a coupon for a $25 room, check to see where in town it is. If it's downtown, then it's probably in an unsafe part of town. Fortunately, I had stopped for directions at a church headquarters for services (disaster, hunger, homelessness, etc), and a raccoon* lady working there warned me about it. * As a carryover from my previous fantasy diary, all of the people I meet are portrayed as animal characters, though I don't always point it out. I choose a person's species based on their personality or occupation, trying my best to avoid discriminatory stereotypes. I still tried to make it to the model (but with plans to stay locked in my room the moment I checked in). It turned out that the whole place was booked, which was probably safer for me anyway. Well, I wandered through slow traffic looking for a lodge, and to make a long, dull story short, I ended up going to a budget motel north of the city. Ideally, I wouldn't have minded a slightly less expensive room if it means giving up the microwave oven and mini-fridge, which I won't use anyway. However, I got a clean room with a nice king-size in an okay neighborhood, reserving it as a last-minute walkin, so I really can't complain. I'm really glad that I turned on the Weather Channel because I've learned that it has just started snowing in Potatoland, Roosa, and the Welklands. I don't think I want to drive through the mountains like that, so I'm planning to go through Dorathia, Skyland, and Zion instead. Sunday. Well, it's about 8:00 PM, and I'm sitting here in a very empty house. After church this morning (which was very good), I spent the afternoon emptying out the house. There was very little left to pack, and it's too late to donate the few odds and ends to Goodwill, so other than a few bottles of soap I gave to my neighbors, I threw everything away. I mean, I wish I could have recycled more things or given more items to Goodwill, but this is the last minute, and sometimes you just have to. So... it's all done. My affairs are in order, and if I maybe a bit dramatic, I am now dead as far as Loblolly is concerned. Actually, I take that back. I have one more thing to do here (aside from buying fuel), and that's going to the student breakfast at Mortar Abbey. That's kinda nice. I get to spend a few moments of my last day in Loblolly with my friends, and I get a free breakfast too! :) It's a win-win situation! Well, I am going to bed now. I could also tell you how the Kimmie Rolls at Mortar Abbey got their name, but I don't feel like it writing it out. Good night, Loblolly. Addendum: The Kimmie Rolls are named after a little girl whose mother once worked in the kitchen. They were Kimmie's favorite rolls, and it eventually became Kimmie Rolls. I ask that question after my goodbye speech that morning. Saturday. Yesterday was my last day of work. They organized a party for me at lunchtime, and everything was fun and good. Afterward, I went to Mortar Abbey, which is where I am at the moment. I played video games in the Dormitory B, just casually spending time with my friends. Someone told me yesterday that a student in ___ Hall committed suicide recently. That makes the second time this year. :( Today at 1, we're going to have a video game session, especially inviting students from ___ Hall. Tomorrow is Goodbye Sunday, when all of the graduating or leaving students get to give their goodbyes during the service. Let me brainstorm what I wish to say: First came to Mortar Abbey in 2001; first ministry open; I love the openness and community, the people playing guitars there for no reason, the spontenaity; Ryga, Bo, Hsara, Mada, Abbot Senoj; helped me have a reasonable separation from [crazy religion] stuff, slowly separating from old fears; helped me during depression, not cure but help; I'll miss the abbey; this place has been a home to me, a real church family; a lot of people mean a lot to me, but particularly Abbot Rains and Rovert; I thing the abbot's long hair looked cool; the abbey isn't perfect, some unpleasant things did happen here, everyone things differently, but people's hearts and strivings are good; my home church is still an important part of me, but this has been my first real church, something not decided by my parents; I love you guys. I'll miss you. Thursday. Moving day is getting closer and closer. Yesterday when I was at work, someone replaced the drywall in my house. I'm at work right now, and the 3D model is rendering. I'm glad that I'm spending my last two days doing 3D modeling instead of clerical stuff. These past two or so weeks, I've been buying everyone in the office some snacks. I want to end on a fun note with everyone. Tomorrow is my last day. Sunday. Yesterday, I deposited two checks that Dad sent me, for a total of $3500.00. This is supposed to be my payment for being his agent-- you know, meeting with real estate agents, hiring cleaners, doing cleaning myself, paying the contractors, etc. Today was my next to last service at Mortar Abbey. The sermon was about communal celebration, and it really highlighted one of the things I like most at Mortar Abbey. ___ and ___ took me out to lunch, and we brought our food out to Lake She. |
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||