This is a disjointed, poorly-written account of recent days.
This weekend felt like it was busy, even though I ultimately spent a lot of it asleep. On Friday, I took off after "half-day Friday" ended work at CUS to Green Empowerment's downtown office to take care of some volunteer tech support work for them. I'd expected it to only take about an hour, but I wound up spending over three there: first an hour and a half in a meeting about upgrading their website, then another couple hours setting up two new (well, FreeGeek-new) computers and installing XP on one of them. By the time I rode the bus home again (with two people on either side of me reading Harry Potter, and one in front reading a printed-out email forward from http://www.fastandpray.com) it had essentially been a full day of work anyway.
Aside: I cannot recommend Green Empowerment highly enough. They're doing vitally important work: helping construct and install renewable water and power sources in villages in central and South America and Southeast Asia. Their work has an environmental component-- they teach villagers abut solar panels and install tiny hydroelectric power sources, thus providing people with cheap, renewable, earth-friendly energy from the start. It has great economic and social value-- many villages use their new power sources to run small machines which can improve the quality (and thus also resale value) of their agricultural products (often coffee and fruit), and when they use technology to bring water sources closer to villages, it greatly improves the lives of the women and girls who are often the primary water-bearers. Go take a look at their website, and if you have money to spare, send them a few dollars-- they're funded almost entirely by donations.
I have absolutely no memory of what I did Friday evening, but I assume it was fun.
Saturday morning I got up an at ungodly-early hour (a little before seven) to go give blood with kestrelct. It turns out I needn't have gotten up quite so early-- I'd mistaken the time at which she was coming to pick me up-- but ah well. We got to the blood donation center with many mishaps, given that the Rose Parade was blocking all logical routes to the center. Blood donation itself was surprisingly successful-- I was under the @#%^! weight limit for a long time, and since then have been sick every time a blood drive has come to Reed or Allie's organized an expedition. [1] Unfortunately, my veins are surprisingly difficult to find; the nurse had to poke around inside my elbow for a long time muttering "I'm just to the right of it" before she finally managed to get a working line in. Equally disturbingly, my blood stopped flowing out of the needle for a while without explanation. Go figure.
Once successfully drained of blood, I was left somewhat brainless and tired. I read all of Ender's Game for the first time Saturday afternoon while curled up in bed, and was not actually that impressed. (knittinggoddess has reminded me that the book is actually aimed at kids, which I wasn't aware of.) It struck me as rather poorly written (too much telling, not enough showing), and the "trick" of the ending was easily anticipated long beforehand. It was interesting, and enjoyable, but not a story that's going to have any lasting impact on me as a reader.
Sunday was spent sleeping, napping, taking a long walk from NW 23rd to the waterfront and back with Jay, cooking dinner, and watching a deeply disturbing movie about Idi Amin. Now I'm stuck at work for another week, which is a far less engaging and satisfying proposition this summer than last. I feel like if I slow down, I'll be doing something wrong. My commitment to the museum officially starts this Saturday, and I now have an ongoing project to work on for Green Empowerment; MercyCorpsNW still hasn't gotten back to me about the website work I'm supposed to be doing for their clients. CUS work this summer is so slow that I feel like the majority of every day is being wasted, when I could be doing something worthwhile.
I don't know. I should calm down and enjoy my summer, but I feel too damn jittery to do anything but increase the amount of work I'm supposed to be holding onto.
[1] Technically, I'm still not eligible to give blood, and won't be for a while. But that's a poorly-designed, discriminatory requirement.
Aside: I cannot recommend Green Empowerment highly enough. They're doing vitally important work: helping construct and install renewable water and power sources in villages in central and South America and Southeast Asia. Their work has an environmental component-- they teach villagers abut solar panels and install tiny hydroelectric power sources, thus providing people with cheap, renewable, earth-friendly energy from the start. It has great economic and social value-- many villages use their new power sources to run small machines which can improve the quality (and thus also resale value) of their agricultural products (often coffee and fruit), and when they use technology to bring water sources closer to villages, it greatly improves the lives of the women and girls who are often the primary water-bearers. Go take a look at their website, and if you have money to spare, send them a few dollars-- they're funded almost entirely by donations.
I have absolutely no memory of what I did Friday evening, but I assume it was fun.
Saturday morning I got up an at ungodly-early hour (a little before seven) to go give blood with kestrelct. It turns out I needn't have gotten up quite so early-- I'd mistaken the time at which she was coming to pick me up-- but ah well. We got to the blood donation center with many mishaps, given that the Rose Parade was blocking all logical routes to the center. Blood donation itself was surprisingly successful-- I was under the @#%^! weight limit for a long time, and since then have been sick every time a blood drive has come to Reed or Allie's organized an expedition. [1] Unfortunately, my veins are surprisingly difficult to find; the nurse had to poke around inside my elbow for a long time muttering "I'm just to the right of it" before she finally managed to get a working line in. Equally disturbingly, my blood stopped flowing out of the needle for a while without explanation. Go figure.
Once successfully drained of blood, I was left somewhat brainless and tired. I read all of Ender's Game for the first time Saturday afternoon while curled up in bed, and was not actually that impressed. (knittinggoddess has reminded me that the book is actually aimed at kids, which I wasn't aware of.) It struck me as rather poorly written (too much telling, not enough showing), and the "trick" of the ending was easily anticipated long beforehand. It was interesting, and enjoyable, but not a story that's going to have any lasting impact on me as a reader.
Sunday was spent sleeping, napping, taking a long walk from NW 23rd to the waterfront and back with Jay, cooking dinner, and watching a deeply disturbing movie about Idi Amin. Now I'm stuck at work for another week, which is a far less engaging and satisfying proposition this summer than last. I feel like if I slow down, I'll be doing something wrong. My commitment to the museum officially starts this Saturday, and I now have an ongoing project to work on for Green Empowerment; MercyCorpsNW still hasn't gotten back to me about the website work I'm supposed to be doing for their clients. CUS work this summer is so slow that I feel like the majority of every day is being wasted, when I could be doing something worthwhile.
I don't know. I should calm down and enjoy my summer, but I feel too damn jittery to do anything but increase the amount of work I'm supposed to be holding onto.
[1] Technically, I'm still not eligible to give blood, and won't be for a while. But that's a poorly-designed, discriminatory requirement.