The weekend was going well; I got to play some xbox, didn't have to drive all the way to Magtown to go to church this morning, got some lunch with some of my favorite Riders for Christ and I got to play basketball. Then it dawned on me: "real life" begins again tomorrow.
It's amazing how frustrated I get about work. I'm really torn right now because I feel like I have always given my 110%, got a Masters degree while starting up a new program and constantly try to find new ways to get young people involved at work, yet I can't get a promotion. I just switched to a vastly understaffed program and I have been working my tail off. I hit the ground running and have been trying to keep a positive attitude even though most of the MEs are anything but. I am keeping my responsibilities with e-week, which keeps me super busy, and still trying to learn as much as possible. I just don't understand. It's not the money bonus (although that would be nice) but rather the appreciation and respect that would come with the bump. My friend, who started the exact day as myself, got a promotion last summer and he doesn't even have a masters degree. If I did something to screw up, I just want to know exactly what I did so I can figure out if it was worth it.
Whatever. I'm sick of being upset and so I suppose I should adjust my attitude. That's what leaders do, right? Keep me at my "cloutless" level 1 engineer and I'll keep working my tail off. That way, when I grow up, I might get to move to a level 2. Woohoo! My enthusiasm for work is ever growing.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Chi-town
I just got back from Chicago and I loved it! I never thought I would like such a large, yankee city, but it turned out to be lots of fun. I thought often of Moscow and St. Pete and enjoyed the L there (that's the metro). We worked out of a local church and so we spent a ton of time there. One day we cleaned the whole building, one day we visited nursing homes, one day we spent a few hours at the Great Chicago Food Depository (packaging milk in a 40 degree room) and one day we went sight seeing. The church there is small in number, but large in size and personality. I really connected with a old lady that went with us to the nursing home; her name was Jan and she was young at heart.
While at the nursing home, she entertained an older man who was in a wheelchair. He was very quiet but quite mischievous. He wanted an RC cola, so Jan bought him one. He then wanted the change because it was pretty. She didn't give it to him. He then offered me a drink of the soda, I reached up and he pulled it away and told me to smell it. As I put my nose up to it, he pushed it up rapidly and hit me in the nose. What a stinker! Later, he kept threatening Jan with pouring the soda in the song book bag. It was quite an experience and, come to find out, the guy hasn't spoken much at all until this last visit. Pretty amazing.
We spent Tuesday at the Field Museum. It was really neat, but very dated too. There were a ton of exhibits, but they all need to be updated. I loved the dinosaur skeletons though; super cool! We also explored the "Magnificent Mile". It's a strip of some of the top end stores in America. I didn't go in many of them (the Lego Store, Vic Secret, Eddy Bauer, were about it) but I did enjoy the walk. For dinner, we hit up Ed Debevic's place. It is set up to look like an old diner and the waiters insult you. They're quite rude and it gets to be quite entertaining. Weird right? I paid to be insulted and waited on horribly. Christ, KT and I were the only ones that went and it was worth the long walk (almost a mile off the mile). We got to ride the L train back to the Mag Mile, so it was worth it. Altogether, we walked over 14 miles.
I should mention at this point that I woke up early every morning and lifted weights and swam for at least 30 minutes. I was proud of myself and once again showed that I don't oppose getting up early, but that getting up at 5 is too much (I was up at 6 most mornings). However, I just weighed in and I definitely gained weight. I'll tell myself it was muscle, but I'm still disappointed. On Tuesday, I met a Russian down in the pool and we got to be good friends and speaking with him was something I looked forward to every morning. His name was Anatole. I wish I could have gotten his contact info.
Anywho, fill in the other days working in the church cleaning or preparing the food supplies. There were some adventures in there (like walking to McDs at 10:45 pm on Thursday night), but nothing real big. Friday, we hit up the Lincoln Park zoo and then hit the road. Chicago: been there, done that.
The trip was eye opening for me because I have really become intolerant of people. I tried my best to put up with stuff, but I just constantly found myself cursing under my breath, rolling my eyes or just plain ignoring people. I won't get into the details, but I found myself questioning the sincerity of people's prayers, the immaturity of people being loud and obnoxious and people presuming to be experts because they once did this one thing a million years ago. I'm praying about it regularly and trying my best to help others instead of just criticizing them. I'll survive, I guess I'm just not a college kid anymore but if I want to be a professor someday, then I need to learn to cope.
Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.
Sue
Food Depository
Lincoln Park Zoo
p.s. I should mention I am already ready to travel again.
While at the nursing home, she entertained an older man who was in a wheelchair. He was very quiet but quite mischievous. He wanted an RC cola, so Jan bought him one. He then wanted the change because it was pretty. She didn't give it to him. He then offered me a drink of the soda, I reached up and he pulled it away and told me to smell it. As I put my nose up to it, he pushed it up rapidly and hit me in the nose. What a stinker! Later, he kept threatening Jan with pouring the soda in the song book bag. It was quite an experience and, come to find out, the guy hasn't spoken much at all until this last visit. Pretty amazing.
We spent Tuesday at the Field Museum. It was really neat, but very dated too. There were a ton of exhibits, but they all need to be updated. I loved the dinosaur skeletons though; super cool! We also explored the "Magnificent Mile". It's a strip of some of the top end stores in America. I didn't go in many of them (the Lego Store, Vic Secret, Eddy Bauer, were about it) but I did enjoy the walk. For dinner, we hit up Ed Debevic's place. It is set up to look like an old diner and the waiters insult you. They're quite rude and it gets to be quite entertaining. Weird right? I paid to be insulted and waited on horribly. Christ, KT and I were the only ones that went and it was worth the long walk (almost a mile off the mile). We got to ride the L train back to the Mag Mile, so it was worth it. Altogether, we walked over 14 miles.
I should mention at this point that I woke up early every morning and lifted weights and swam for at least 30 minutes. I was proud of myself and once again showed that I don't oppose getting up early, but that getting up at 5 is too much (I was up at 6 most mornings). However, I just weighed in and I definitely gained weight. I'll tell myself it was muscle, but I'm still disappointed. On Tuesday, I met a Russian down in the pool and we got to be good friends and speaking with him was something I looked forward to every morning. His name was Anatole. I wish I could have gotten his contact info.
Anywho, fill in the other days working in the church cleaning or preparing the food supplies. There were some adventures in there (like walking to McDs at 10:45 pm on Thursday night), but nothing real big. Friday, we hit up the Lincoln Park zoo and then hit the road. Chicago: been there, done that.
The trip was eye opening for me because I have really become intolerant of people. I tried my best to put up with stuff, but I just constantly found myself cursing under my breath, rolling my eyes or just plain ignoring people. I won't get into the details, but I found myself questioning the sincerity of people's prayers, the immaturity of people being loud and obnoxious and people presuming to be experts because they once did this one thing a million years ago. I'm praying about it regularly and trying my best to help others instead of just criticizing them. I'll survive, I guess I'm just not a college kid anymore but if I want to be a professor someday, then I need to learn to cope.
Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.
Sue
Food Depository
Lincoln Park Zoo
p.s. I should mention I am already ready to travel again.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Ugh...
I have been in such a dull mood for the past couple of days. It cycles up and down, but mostly I've been down. I really don't know why, but I am trying to combat it with exercise and eating healthier and such. Actually I'm doing those things so I can sport my sexy hott speedo on my trip to Chicago (there's an indoor heated pool).
I really like my new job. Yeah, I still deal with the same old local junk, but the job keeps me really busy and I enjoy that. Today, the guy that trained me was gone, so I ran basically the entire line. It was super fast paced and I did great in it.
Anywho, I just felt like venting on here about being in a foul mood would help. Didn't do as much as I liked, but I do feel a little better. Time to clean the house and go exercise before going to bed. I work at 5am tomorrow morning. Guess who is excited? :) Life is still good.
I really like my new job. Yeah, I still deal with the same old local junk, but the job keeps me really busy and I enjoy that. Today, the guy that trained me was gone, so I ran basically the entire line. It was super fast paced and I did great in it.
Anywho, I just felt like venting on here about being in a foul mood would help. Didn't do as much as I liked, but I do feel a little better. Time to clean the house and go exercise before going to bed. I work at 5am tomorrow morning. Guess who is excited? :) Life is still good.
Monday, March 07, 2011
What a day!
So much has happened since I last posted on here. For one, I have a new significant other. My last girl just didn't work out; I'm sad things did not go better, but I know that God puts everyone in our lives for a reason and I am glad I got the chance to know V. I hope our paths cross again someday. My new significant other, which I will refer to as KT, is cool. She's an ag major (a little different), fairly athletic, smart, witty and extremely kindhearted. She might just be one of the nicest people I know. It is pretty exciting to be in the starting stage again, but, as usual, I have the common worries of throwing my heart out again to another person. She does seem to be the real deal, but I don't want to throw that label out there just yet; there are still things that need to develop before I can make any sort of outlook. However, I will say this: I think I might have finally found a girl (since I've been seriously dating) that likes me as much as I like her. That's extremely exciting and something I just absolutely adore about her. We'll see.
Enough about all that. I got transferred to another program at work last week. I had spoken with a manager about switching over to help my career a little bit. I am now on a mostly automated program that makes other products that seem much more advanced than the truck. However, they make about 800 times more product than my first line. I have to be at work at 6 (no slacking) and I really don't like that. If I could just come in a little later (7 or 8) I think I would be so much more productive and a better employee; I just don't like going to bed early. All weekend, I stay up until midnight or better, but then I have to get used to going to bed at 8 or 9. Ugh. Beat me with a stick. However, with gas doing like it is, I am glad to have a job.
While life is going very well for me, I must admit I am struggling in many areas right now. First, I just can't seem to get my attitude right. Whether it is dealing with work or just other people, I seem to take the wrong mindset. At work, I see people just being unethical and I can't get over it. It's just so blatant and no one seems to care. On a personal level, I just need to start seeing people like we all are- flawed. I can't really get into it on here; it's just too hard to explain but basically I keep getting mad because I try to do nice things for people (genuinely because I really want to) but don't get appreciated for it. It's selfish and not the way to see things, so I am pretty ashamed of it. However, I am going to start trying to hold onto the original reason I do things for people and forget about whether or not I get thanks for it. Finally, the area I am really bothered by is my weight. I just can't seem to get it under control. It's hovering around 195 and I need to be around 170 or so. I am trying to eat a little better, but it just seems the healthier I eat, the hungrier I am. I had one soda today and I am limiting myself to that (less if I can). I also had an orange, sandwich and small salad for lunch. Within an hour, I was starving. I have found that oatmeal works best for breakfast; I typically don't get hungry again for a while.
Whatever, I am sure I will figure something out. I am heading on a big trip in a few weeks. I am going to work in a soup kitchen and food pantry in Chicago. I'm super excited and hope I really get to do some good work.
Enough about all that. I got transferred to another program at work last week. I had spoken with a manager about switching over to help my career a little bit. I am now on a mostly automated program that makes other products that seem much more advanced than the truck. However, they make about 800 times more product than my first line. I have to be at work at 6 (no slacking) and I really don't like that. If I could just come in a little later (7 or 8) I think I would be so much more productive and a better employee; I just don't like going to bed early. All weekend, I stay up until midnight or better, but then I have to get used to going to bed at 8 or 9. Ugh. Beat me with a stick. However, with gas doing like it is, I am glad to have a job.
While life is going very well for me, I must admit I am struggling in many areas right now. First, I just can't seem to get my attitude right. Whether it is dealing with work or just other people, I seem to take the wrong mindset. At work, I see people just being unethical and I can't get over it. It's just so blatant and no one seems to care. On a personal level, I just need to start seeing people like we all are- flawed. I can't really get into it on here; it's just too hard to explain but basically I keep getting mad because I try to do nice things for people (genuinely because I really want to) but don't get appreciated for it. It's selfish and not the way to see things, so I am pretty ashamed of it. However, I am going to start trying to hold onto the original reason I do things for people and forget about whether or not I get thanks for it. Finally, the area I am really bothered by is my weight. I just can't seem to get it under control. It's hovering around 195 and I need to be around 170 or so. I am trying to eat a little better, but it just seems the healthier I eat, the hungrier I am. I had one soda today and I am limiting myself to that (less if I can). I also had an orange, sandwich and small salad for lunch. Within an hour, I was starving. I have found that oatmeal works best for breakfast; I typically don't get hungry again for a while.
Whatever, I am sure I will figure something out. I am heading on a big trip in a few weeks. I am going to work in a soup kitchen and food pantry in Chicago. I'm super excited and hope I really get to do some good work.
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