Spinning my wheels, in the good way
Dig up footage of an old steam locomotive starting up from a dead stop. The driver opens the throttle all the way for a few seconds. Naturally-the wheels spin wildly, but there's enough traction to beat the inertia and the train starts moving. Then the driver throttles back enough for the wheels to gain purchase on the tracks once more and start actually pulling the train along gradually faster.
Obviously, this is a metaphor.
Those of you who've known me for any length of time, or feel like reading back through this journal, have a sense of the physical and mental health issues I've been dealing with for the last long time, and the crisis I passed through a couple years ago. I've now gotten enough of the integration and rebuilding done that I can seriously begin working on my actual, honest-to-Bob life. You know, that thing that's been a complete unstart for the last fifteen years...? -___-
I have filled out the application for the Seattle Film Institute. Today I met with the head of the school and he agrees I'd be a good fit. As soon as I get two letters of recommendation, I submit my application. I also need to meet with a Vocational Rehabilitation counsellor to talk tuition coverage (they've done it for SFI before). I am also on track to begin the next cycle of electrician certifications. Both of these are starting in September. That's a little ways off, yes, but I had to get the wheels spinning now, so I will actually hit the milestones along the way to actually getting the first part of the training I need to do what I want to do with my life.
The SFI program is a 40-week immersive course, and the certification cycle is spacesd throughout a year. So the following fall (of 2010), I will be going to Olympic College to add to my skillset and collection of certifications.
On top of this, in the "convergence" category, there's this house, see. *heh* Nearby my parents' house is a house built by a former neighbour around the same time we started on this one. I went through school with his daughters, and spent a lot of time over there, so I know the house and grounds very well, and always wanted to live there.
After I got out of the hospital back in late '05, I started noticing that there was occasionally a for-rent sign up at the house. More recently, I mentioned to an old friend at my family's church, who is a realtor, that I'd like to find out who the owner was so I could maybe rent it in a couple years. And found out that the owners are another couple at church that I've known forever (and went through school with their kids, too). They bought it just before I got up here in '05, and intended to hang onto it, and some other properties, for five years and then resell them. That would mean in another year or so they'd be putting this one on the market. But with the housing market and mortgage industry in the state they're in, it's going to be a bit longer.
So now, I have a goal to aim for between work and school, to be able to live in that house, whatever the details he and I settle on. He'd love to sell it to a friend, and I'd love to support a couple wonderful people, and get a nice home in the process. Two to three years is my target, and two years is his optomistic target, too.
All the portents pointed to 2008 being a year of upheaval and change. Boy howdy, so it was. For me and just about everyone around me. I started feeling the shift somewhere between Samhain and Yule, and by the time January rolled around, I knew 2009 was going to be a good year, albeit still a hard one. With some life tools and structures that I've known about forever, but suddenly actually find myself using, I've organised myself, my life, and my time out through the next turn of the year. January I had set as my "getting it all worked out and plotted" time, with actual movement to start in February, culminating in the beginning of classes next September.
The line between what I wanted to get done in January and what I want to start getting done in February has been blurring a little, but I'm just about finished spinning my wheels, I've beaten the inertia, and am beginning the slow crawl up to cruising speed by the end of Summer.
Obviously, this is a metaphor.
Those of you who've known me for any length of time, or feel like reading back through this journal, have a sense of the physical and mental health issues I've been dealing with for the last long time, and the crisis I passed through a couple years ago. I've now gotten enough of the integration and rebuilding done that I can seriously begin working on my actual, honest-to-Bob life. You know, that thing that's been a complete unstart for the last fifteen years...? -___-
I have filled out the application for the Seattle Film Institute. Today I met with the head of the school and he agrees I'd be a good fit. As soon as I get two letters of recommendation, I submit my application. I also need to meet with a Vocational Rehabilitation counsellor to talk tuition coverage (they've done it for SFI before). I am also on track to begin the next cycle of electrician certifications. Both of these are starting in September. That's a little ways off, yes, but I had to get the wheels spinning now, so I will actually hit the milestones along the way to actually getting the first part of the training I need to do what I want to do with my life.
The SFI program is a 40-week immersive course, and the certification cycle is spacesd throughout a year. So the following fall (of 2010), I will be going to Olympic College to add to my skillset and collection of certifications.
On top of this, in the "convergence" category, there's this house, see. *heh* Nearby my parents' house is a house built by a former neighbour around the same time we started on this one. I went through school with his daughters, and spent a lot of time over there, so I know the house and grounds very well, and always wanted to live there.
After I got out of the hospital back in late '05, I started noticing that there was occasionally a for-rent sign up at the house. More recently, I mentioned to an old friend at my family's church, who is a realtor, that I'd like to find out who the owner was so I could maybe rent it in a couple years. And found out that the owners are another couple at church that I've known forever (and went through school with their kids, too). They bought it just before I got up here in '05, and intended to hang onto it, and some other properties, for five years and then resell them. That would mean in another year or so they'd be putting this one on the market. But with the housing market and mortgage industry in the state they're in, it's going to be a bit longer.
So now, I have a goal to aim for between work and school, to be able to live in that house, whatever the details he and I settle on. He'd love to sell it to a friend, and I'd love to support a couple wonderful people, and get a nice home in the process. Two to three years is my target, and two years is his optomistic target, too.
All the portents pointed to 2008 being a year of upheaval and change. Boy howdy, so it was. For me and just about everyone around me. I started feeling the shift somewhere between Samhain and Yule, and by the time January rolled around, I knew 2009 was going to be a good year, albeit still a hard one. With some life tools and structures that I've known about forever, but suddenly actually find myself using, I've organised myself, my life, and my time out through the next turn of the year. January I had set as my "getting it all worked out and plotted" time, with actual movement to start in February, culminating in the beginning of classes next September.
The line between what I wanted to get done in January and what I want to start getting done in February has been blurring a little, but I'm just about finished spinning my wheels, I've beaten the inertia, and am beginning the slow crawl up to cruising speed by the end of Summer.