Going through the new posts on Nathan's blog, and having just printed yet another post, I'm reminded that I can't seem to print in my last template using black ink, but only in grey (the actual text colour). As a result, although I did like the dark look of the previous template, I've decided to change the look of the blog to something with black text, so that it actually will print mostly in black.
Now, if I had a black laser printer like I wanted, this wouldn't be an issue, but I don't. And I think it's quite clear already that I've spent enough money this summer.
If you're asking "why is Michael printing his blog?", the answer is fairly simple:
a) I'm a paper fiend, and thanks to Tolkien, my goal is life is to leave more paper behind than a dead Redwood, and:
b) I worked in an Archive all summer, and am acutely aware of how much better it is reading paper than a screen--and how impermanent electronic storage can be.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Don't judge me by my cover!
I've just come back from a visit to the eyedoctor, and the verdict is about what I had reason to suspect: I need new glasses. I've had my current pair for three years, and every year the prescription has changed slightly, so that while my eye-health is about the same as its always been, my vision no longer matches my glasses. This bugged me all last winter, during Logic class, trying to focus on the projection screen, and has made some driving difficult, when looking for street signs, but hasn't been a huge deal.
I'll probably be safer on the road, and it's certainly about time they were replaced.
All the same...
New car, new glasses. I hope I don't show up at seminary looking like I have it made, financially, because that would be horribly, ironically, false.
I'll probably be safer on the road, and it's certainly about time they were replaced.
All the same...
New car, new glasses. I hope I don't show up at seminary looking like I have it made, financially, because that would be horribly, ironically, false.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Spiritual Summer
It seems somewhat appropriate that I culminate my "summer in review" posting, looking specifically at how July really helped my spiritual life, on the day that I finally go to Confession. All the old is wiped away, with today starts a fresh slate.
July was, moreso than anything else, a really important month for me spiritually. In July I not only managed to start praying again, something I could only manage as a plaintive plea in my loneliest, most despairing moments, earlier; but I also found the FLAME rekindled.
I've spoken, at least once in this blog, of my passion for becoming a priest, using the metaphor of an all-consuming flame. Burning with intense heat and shining with passion very much describes how badly I want to be ordained.
From when I broke my leg, for about all of May and June, I could barely muster a flicker of conviction that this was my vocation. It wasn't so much that I abandoned the idea, or intellectually lost hope, since my stated goal remained a return to the seminary this fall, and I never considered otherwise. No, what happened was a complete loss of passion. My relationship with God went from "I really want to be a priest" to "why me? why me?"
Not "why do you want me as a priest?", but "why did I break my leg?"
It was the most basic of plaintive cries. "Why me?"
I asked the same thing again, not even two weeks ago, when my car's transmission went and I had to replace the whole car. However, because I was able to work through the question the first time, when it REALLY hurt, it was hardly an issue at all the second time.
It's easy enough to believe, when you're not the one concerned, in the idea of Divine Providence, and all hardships and ailments working for one's own good, but it is HARD to believe that there is a point to having something bad happen to yourself. We are not an objective race where ourselves are concerned.
July not only saw me lose my crutches, it saw me regain my balance spiritually. Even before I got rid of the crutches in mid-July, and long after I was SO eager to lose them, I managed to start saying the Liturgy of the Hours again on a regular basis, something that I lost the ability to do as early as April 22nd. This coincided with wanting to go to daily Mass again, with wanting to talk to Jesus, with living in a mindframe that was more God-oriented.
And then things started sort of slipping into place, understanding-wise.
Just from a plot, "this is what happens to Michael" point of view, I could see as early as May what breaking my leg meant: working in the Archives, and all the wide array of effects that could have on my life. The stuff learned there provided lots of potential teaching for the day-to-day problems of being a priest and parish administrator, as well as possibly being the first step on a path towards a career in the Archdiocesan administration, for all that I am able to guess.
More importantly, though, I began to see the effect that it was having on me, as a person.
In breaking my leg and having to suffer through all the effects of surgery and healing, I went through my "valley of the shadow of death". It's one thing to just sit there and know something, intellectually; it's quite something else to experience it. Breaking my leg, being hospitalised, and having to go through the agony of recovery is likely to be, for me, an incredible experience for being able to relate to people. A large part of the ministry of a parish priest is ministry to the sick and dying. The healthy cannot relate nearly so well as the formerly-injured can. In one, very important, way I grew up that much more thanks to the broken leg.
I think it was also important for me to be forcibly knocked out of a feeling of optimism where the seminary was concerned. I needed to go through a period where I didn't want to think about the future, didn't want to do ANY work, and didn't want to really have anything to do with people, where all the good parts of seminary life were missing, and I was left in a grey, half-seminary which it was ultimately really good to get out of.
What this meant is that in the future, when a point comes in my seminary life where the academics finally become too much, where the busyness becomes too much, where I just don't want to be in those walls any longer-- I'll have somewhere to look back on and remember "this isn't nearly as bad as that was, and I got through that".
As of right now, I'm not quite out of the woods with my leg: I'm still limping somewhat. Spiritually, however, I'm well away. I've spent more than a month now with the flames not only regrown to their former height, but soaring higher: a wildfire raging out of control. I want to to be a priest so badly--the seven years to ordination hasn't looked so long since before I entered. I'm finally over the bad end to last year, and I'm looking forward eagerly to next year.
July was, moreso than anything else, a really important month for me spiritually. In July I not only managed to start praying again, something I could only manage as a plaintive plea in my loneliest, most despairing moments, earlier; but I also found the FLAME rekindled.
I've spoken, at least once in this blog, of my passion for becoming a priest, using the metaphor of an all-consuming flame. Burning with intense heat and shining with passion very much describes how badly I want to be ordained.
From when I broke my leg, for about all of May and June, I could barely muster a flicker of conviction that this was my vocation. It wasn't so much that I abandoned the idea, or intellectually lost hope, since my stated goal remained a return to the seminary this fall, and I never considered otherwise. No, what happened was a complete loss of passion. My relationship with God went from "I really want to be a priest" to "why me? why me?"
Not "why do you want me as a priest?", but "why did I break my leg?"
It was the most basic of plaintive cries. "Why me?"
I asked the same thing again, not even two weeks ago, when my car's transmission went and I had to replace the whole car. However, because I was able to work through the question the first time, when it REALLY hurt, it was hardly an issue at all the second time.
It's easy enough to believe, when you're not the one concerned, in the idea of Divine Providence, and all hardships and ailments working for one's own good, but it is HARD to believe that there is a point to having something bad happen to yourself. We are not an objective race where ourselves are concerned.
July not only saw me lose my crutches, it saw me regain my balance spiritually. Even before I got rid of the crutches in mid-July, and long after I was SO eager to lose them, I managed to start saying the Liturgy of the Hours again on a regular basis, something that I lost the ability to do as early as April 22nd. This coincided with wanting to go to daily Mass again, with wanting to talk to Jesus, with living in a mindframe that was more God-oriented.
And then things started sort of slipping into place, understanding-wise.
Just from a plot, "this is what happens to Michael" point of view, I could see as early as May what breaking my leg meant: working in the Archives, and all the wide array of effects that could have on my life. The stuff learned there provided lots of potential teaching for the day-to-day problems of being a priest and parish administrator, as well as possibly being the first step on a path towards a career in the Archdiocesan administration, for all that I am able to guess.
More importantly, though, I began to see the effect that it was having on me, as a person.
In breaking my leg and having to suffer through all the effects of surgery and healing, I went through my "valley of the shadow of death". It's one thing to just sit there and know something, intellectually; it's quite something else to experience it. Breaking my leg, being hospitalised, and having to go through the agony of recovery is likely to be, for me, an incredible experience for being able to relate to people. A large part of the ministry of a parish priest is ministry to the sick and dying. The healthy cannot relate nearly so well as the formerly-injured can. In one, very important, way I grew up that much more thanks to the broken leg.
I think it was also important for me to be forcibly knocked out of a feeling of optimism where the seminary was concerned. I needed to go through a period where I didn't want to think about the future, didn't want to do ANY work, and didn't want to really have anything to do with people, where all the good parts of seminary life were missing, and I was left in a grey, half-seminary which it was ultimately really good to get out of.
What this meant is that in the future, when a point comes in my seminary life where the academics finally become too much, where the busyness becomes too much, where I just don't want to be in those walls any longer-- I'll have somewhere to look back on and remember "this isn't nearly as bad as that was, and I got through that".
As of right now, I'm not quite out of the woods with my leg: I'm still limping somewhat. Spiritually, however, I'm well away. I've spent more than a month now with the flames not only regrown to their former height, but soaring higher: a wildfire raging out of control. I want to to be a priest so badly--the seven years to ordination hasn't looked so long since before I entered. I'm finally over the bad end to last year, and I'm looking forward eagerly to next year.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Life Without People
If memory serves, I more or less set up my life as it was when I moved into the Rectory, just into the month of June, and made it fairly clear it was a not particularly good time in my life. June was too busy to be much better, one way or another. I was still settling in, and I was busy with going home on weekends, spending time with friends, and, of course, work.
July was a horse of a difference colour.
Work was the same.
Residence was the same.
Nothing else was.
I went home for the last time, the last weekend of June, for my cousin's wedding. That was a long weekend, and I stayed until Monday night/Tuesday morning, getting up really early, so as to avoid the long weekend traffic as I returned to the city. From then on in, I had a month to myself.
The single most important thing about the month of July, 2007, at least as far as I can see it right now, is that it amply demonstrated I'll have no problem with living alone as a priest. This is no small discovery, given that loneliness is given as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to people envisioning what it is like to be a priest. Mind you, I never had any serious doubts on that score, but there's a world of difference between thinking something probable, and knowing it.
In all fairness, though, I probably had a quieter month than I'll ever get as a priest. True, unlike the priests living at Annunciation, I probably won't have housemates, but considering that they were hardly ever in the building at the same time, that's not exactly a major factor. With holidays and three disparate schedules/careers, they were often gone, and I was quite often home alone.
Furthermore, the day jobs of the priests are a good deal busier and full of people than my job was. Working in the Archives was lovely, given bad memories of dealing with hungry, cranky people at Panago, simply because it was almost completely free of human contact. There were a couple of weeks we had a researcher in, but that was hardly something I was much involved in, and researchers (like archivists) seem to be a quiet sort. Other than that, there was the odd visit from upstairs into the sacramental registers (usually regarding people wanting to find out if they were baptised and/or confirmed in the church, in order to get married) was about it.
I've described the month of July many times to many people already as a "silent retreat" or a "month long retreat" or a "sabbatical". Words like this describe really well what it was for me: a time to recharge my batteries. May and June, particularly the parts where I was around people, were full of me putting on a happier, more patient face than I really felt like doing, simply because it's not in my personality to whine and complain very often. By the time May rolled around, I'd had my leg broken for more than a week, I was out of the hospital, and I was starting to get around. I still needed help with things, but my mind was already going into its normal mode of "you don't want to bother anybody, either with your woes or to take up their time helping you".
For me, it was a major struggle during May to deal with people offering to help me. Maybe it's my genetic heritage, maybe it's being an eldest child amongst seven children, maybe it's just how I fluked out-- but whatever the case, I am not the sort who is good at asking for help, and I get uncomfortable if it's offered too often, at least if I actually do need it, since I feel like I should somehow be tougher.
By June, I was pretty much past needing much help, and I was getting really good on the crutches, but it was hard month too, with those weddings, ordination, and grad. Three weekends out of five that month, I made the journey back to Olds, squeezing in a weekend between the pressures of work and commutting, to attend some sort of major ceremony where there were all kinds of people that I had to explain--again--how I broke my leg, as well as Mass each Sunday in my home parish where there were, every week, people who didn't know about the leg... and had to ask.
I appreciated the concern and the interest in my life--really. As someone who has at least as much of the general human condition of insecurity and a need for validation as the next person, it feels great to be noticed and love.
But.
There's always a but, isn't there?
But the fact is, though, that what I wanted, as early as the beginning of May, wasn't attention and sympathy about the leg--I was tough enough for that--but to be able to blend into the crowd. I wanted to be normal again. Perhaps a rather plaintive cry, and a very silly one, given that I'm hardly normal to begin with, and don't intend to become such, but as regards my leg, I wanted normality.
And recovery never goes as fast as the patient wants it too. I was (and am) making noticeable progress from week to week. I cannot say I was ever stagnating or backsliding... but I wanted off of those crutches so badly. I had hoped, initially, that I might be into a walking cast after a few weeks, but either my doctor isn't a fan of those or I had the wrong sort of break for it, but he kept me on crutches. Then I thought I might be off them towards the end of June, say 8 weeks/2 months or so after I broke my leg. Well... no luck there. It was another 3-4 weeks of crutches, then onto a cane, then I would see him again in late July. Accepting that was hard.
So what was the sum of all this?
Basically, it was that I was tired of having to put on a happier face than I was feeling, and the effect of having to "ride the circuit" saying "hi" and being happy on the weekends was really too much. Perhaps that's a very ominous thing to say, given that it can be taken as one of the descriptions of a priest's weekend life, so I'll point out a fundamental difference between the two: as a priest, I'll be a working man, I'll be a useful, busy, funtioning member of a community--a man with a mission, while as the guy with a broken leg, I was exerting all this energy at a low point in my life, and coming home and.... doing nothing.
The fact that I was sort of just "there" at the weddings etc, and unable to really do anything irked me. While I'm not a dancer to begin with, the fact that I could not have danced and was basically a chairbound invalid meant that I would have LOVED to danced, something not normally the case.
A solution for many people in a situation like this, of having to put on a happier face than they feel might be resolvable by being around people they feel really comfortable with, who they can let down their guards and just whine and baby themselves--I don't know, since that solution is an imperfect one for me.
It's only my family that I could really do that around--and they were much too busy and wrapped up with all that was going on those weekends to really be available in that respect--and Mom complained each time, I think, that my visits were too short and hectic. Furthermore, I am probably just as likely to put up a strong face for family and friends as for anyone else, if not moreso. For me, the solution is not the right people, but no people.
And that's what I got in July. Thank you God, that is what I got in July.
To Be Continued...
July was a horse of a difference colour.
Work was the same.
Residence was the same.
Nothing else was.
I went home for the last time, the last weekend of June, for my cousin's wedding. That was a long weekend, and I stayed until Monday night/Tuesday morning, getting up really early, so as to avoid the long weekend traffic as I returned to the city. From then on in, I had a month to myself.
The single most important thing about the month of July, 2007, at least as far as I can see it right now, is that it amply demonstrated I'll have no problem with living alone as a priest. This is no small discovery, given that loneliness is given as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to people envisioning what it is like to be a priest. Mind you, I never had any serious doubts on that score, but there's a world of difference between thinking something probable, and knowing it.
In all fairness, though, I probably had a quieter month than I'll ever get as a priest. True, unlike the priests living at Annunciation, I probably won't have housemates, but considering that they were hardly ever in the building at the same time, that's not exactly a major factor. With holidays and three disparate schedules/careers, they were often gone, and I was quite often home alone.
Furthermore, the day jobs of the priests are a good deal busier and full of people than my job was. Working in the Archives was lovely, given bad memories of dealing with hungry, cranky people at Panago, simply because it was almost completely free of human contact. There were a couple of weeks we had a researcher in, but that was hardly something I was much involved in, and researchers (like archivists) seem to be a quiet sort. Other than that, there was the odd visit from upstairs into the sacramental registers (usually regarding people wanting to find out if they were baptised and/or confirmed in the church, in order to get married) was about it.
I've described the month of July many times to many people already as a "silent retreat" or a "month long retreat" or a "sabbatical". Words like this describe really well what it was for me: a time to recharge my batteries. May and June, particularly the parts where I was around people, were full of me putting on a happier, more patient face than I really felt like doing, simply because it's not in my personality to whine and complain very often. By the time May rolled around, I'd had my leg broken for more than a week, I was out of the hospital, and I was starting to get around. I still needed help with things, but my mind was already going into its normal mode of "you don't want to bother anybody, either with your woes or to take up their time helping you".
For me, it was a major struggle during May to deal with people offering to help me. Maybe it's my genetic heritage, maybe it's being an eldest child amongst seven children, maybe it's just how I fluked out-- but whatever the case, I am not the sort who is good at asking for help, and I get uncomfortable if it's offered too often, at least if I actually do need it, since I feel like I should somehow be tougher.
By June, I was pretty much past needing much help, and I was getting really good on the crutches, but it was hard month too, with those weddings, ordination, and grad. Three weekends out of five that month, I made the journey back to Olds, squeezing in a weekend between the pressures of work and commutting, to attend some sort of major ceremony where there were all kinds of people that I had to explain--again--how I broke my leg, as well as Mass each Sunday in my home parish where there were, every week, people who didn't know about the leg... and had to ask.
I appreciated the concern and the interest in my life--really. As someone who has at least as much of the general human condition of insecurity and a need for validation as the next person, it feels great to be noticed and love.
But.
There's always a but, isn't there?
But the fact is, though, that what I wanted, as early as the beginning of May, wasn't attention and sympathy about the leg--I was tough enough for that--but to be able to blend into the crowd. I wanted to be normal again. Perhaps a rather plaintive cry, and a very silly one, given that I'm hardly normal to begin with, and don't intend to become such, but as regards my leg, I wanted normality.
And recovery never goes as fast as the patient wants it too. I was (and am) making noticeable progress from week to week. I cannot say I was ever stagnating or backsliding... but I wanted off of those crutches so badly. I had hoped, initially, that I might be into a walking cast after a few weeks, but either my doctor isn't a fan of those or I had the wrong sort of break for it, but he kept me on crutches. Then I thought I might be off them towards the end of June, say 8 weeks/2 months or so after I broke my leg. Well... no luck there. It was another 3-4 weeks of crutches, then onto a cane, then I would see him again in late July. Accepting that was hard.
So what was the sum of all this?
Basically, it was that I was tired of having to put on a happier face than I was feeling, and the effect of having to "ride the circuit" saying "hi" and being happy on the weekends was really too much. Perhaps that's a very ominous thing to say, given that it can be taken as one of the descriptions of a priest's weekend life, so I'll point out a fundamental difference between the two: as a priest, I'll be a working man, I'll be a useful, busy, funtioning member of a community--a man with a mission, while as the guy with a broken leg, I was exerting all this energy at a low point in my life, and coming home and.... doing nothing.
The fact that I was sort of just "there" at the weddings etc, and unable to really do anything irked me. While I'm not a dancer to begin with, the fact that I could not have danced and was basically a chairbound invalid meant that I would have LOVED to danced, something not normally the case.
A solution for many people in a situation like this, of having to put on a happier face than they feel might be resolvable by being around people they feel really comfortable with, who they can let down their guards and just whine and baby themselves--I don't know, since that solution is an imperfect one for me.
It's only my family that I could really do that around--and they were much too busy and wrapped up with all that was going on those weekends to really be available in that respect--and Mom complained each time, I think, that my visits were too short and hectic. Furthermore, I am probably just as likely to put up a strong face for family and friends as for anyone else, if not moreso. For me, the solution is not the right people, but no people.
And that's what I got in July. Thank you God, that is what I got in July.
To Be Continued...
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The Silence of Summer
Well, it's taken me a while, but I think I'm finally about ready to look back on my close to two months with scarcely any internet or social life. Already, closing in on two weeks past, it feels like quite a while ago, though I can't really say I feel like I've been home for a long time. As an aside, let me say that perception of time has got to be one of the oddest things there is. The simultaneous feel of a given space of time as "long" and "short" is just plain weird.
Anyway, to recap: at the very beginning of June, I was told Wednesday morning that I had until Sunday night to move out of the seminary. In reality, however, since I was going home that weekend for a wedding, I really only had until Friday morning. To make matters worse, when Fr. Paul (the Archdiocesan vocations director, who is "in charge" of the seminarians, more or less, if they need it) told me this, he didn't know then where I was moving--and I didn't find out until the next day.
I'll ask you to recall that, at that point, I was still on crutches, and I was working at the Archives. This gave me two evenings to pack and move a year's worth of stuff. Christian charity prevails among seminarians, thank God, and with help I just managed it. I didn't realise I had so much STUFF--even after leaving two lockers of stuff behind at the seminary (and these are pretty roomy lockers), I still had a full car.
Anyway, the weekend passed, and I found myself living at the rectory of Annunciation parish, in west Edmonton--just six blocks or so from West Edmonton Mall, with three priests: Fr. Paul, Fr. Andrew (the parish's pastor), and Fr. Stephan (a professor at St. Joseph's College on the U of A campus).
June, though more or less internet-deprived, was a busy month. After that first wedding, I was back in Olds on two more occassions: for my brother's grad, and for my cousin's wedding. I also went up to St. Paul (in Alberta, not Minnesota) for an ordination, visited my uncle and cousins, and hung out a couple times with a few friends. Not a crazy life, by far, but with work it was certainly one relatively occupied with people. Even if I didn't have time to post anything, my visits home meant that I was able to at least keep informed of the goings-on of my online life.
Perhaps it should be highlighted here that I did not have internet access either at the rectory or at work. At work, of course, I was dealing with 10, 20, 50, 100+ year old documents, and not with computers at all. The rectory is another matter. It certainly had internet hookup, and Frs. Andrew and Stephan, if not Fr. Paul as well, had computers using it, but those were in their own rooms. My computer remained in my car's trunk for the duration of my stay there. I had an internet connection in my room, but no place to put a desktop computer. What's more, having the broken leg didn't encourage me to attempt rearranging things.
Finally...
I wanted a break.
Really, thanks to the literal break in my leg, I was internet-burned out. In the month and more previous, the computer was pretty much all I did in my off-time. I didn't have any fresh reading material, and I didn't have the interest or stamina to try and find more. There were the occasional forays other than work or time spent alone, but these were not regular or frequent. I spent a LOT of time online--hours a day.
Eventually, it you CAN'T do anything else, that burns you out--especially when you don't have the energy to DO much online... but just sit, and read, and post somewhat.
Breaking my leg, I didn't realise at the time, took more out of me than just my ability to walk. I was tired emotionally. I didn't want to do pretty much anything. My prayer life was completely derailed. My personality and sense of vocation was knocked aside. As my body focussed on repair, my mind was left... unfocussed.
In part, this was probably due to the school-year ending. Rather than being a moment of celebration and free abandonment to summer, the stresses of finals were prolonged and merged with the agony of crutches, and as everyone left the seminary for the summer and I was left behind pretty much alone and unable and unwilling to go OUT and do anything, I was left more or less empty.
To Be Continued....
Anyway, to recap: at the very beginning of June, I was told Wednesday morning that I had until Sunday night to move out of the seminary. In reality, however, since I was going home that weekend for a wedding, I really only had until Friday morning. To make matters worse, when Fr. Paul (the Archdiocesan vocations director, who is "in charge" of the seminarians, more or less, if they need it) told me this, he didn't know then where I was moving--and I didn't find out until the next day.
I'll ask you to recall that, at that point, I was still on crutches, and I was working at the Archives. This gave me two evenings to pack and move a year's worth of stuff. Christian charity prevails among seminarians, thank God, and with help I just managed it. I didn't realise I had so much STUFF--even after leaving two lockers of stuff behind at the seminary (and these are pretty roomy lockers), I still had a full car.
Anyway, the weekend passed, and I found myself living at the rectory of Annunciation parish, in west Edmonton--just six blocks or so from West Edmonton Mall, with three priests: Fr. Paul, Fr. Andrew (the parish's pastor), and Fr. Stephan (a professor at St. Joseph's College on the U of A campus).
June, though more or less internet-deprived, was a busy month. After that first wedding, I was back in Olds on two more occassions: for my brother's grad, and for my cousin's wedding. I also went up to St. Paul (in Alberta, not Minnesota) for an ordination, visited my uncle and cousins, and hung out a couple times with a few friends. Not a crazy life, by far, but with work it was certainly one relatively occupied with people. Even if I didn't have time to post anything, my visits home meant that I was able to at least keep informed of the goings-on of my online life.
Perhaps it should be highlighted here that I did not have internet access either at the rectory or at work. At work, of course, I was dealing with 10, 20, 50, 100+ year old documents, and not with computers at all. The rectory is another matter. It certainly had internet hookup, and Frs. Andrew and Stephan, if not Fr. Paul as well, had computers using it, but those were in their own rooms. My computer remained in my car's trunk for the duration of my stay there. I had an internet connection in my room, but no place to put a desktop computer. What's more, having the broken leg didn't encourage me to attempt rearranging things.
Finally...
I wanted a break.
Really, thanks to the literal break in my leg, I was internet-burned out. In the month and more previous, the computer was pretty much all I did in my off-time. I didn't have any fresh reading material, and I didn't have the interest or stamina to try and find more. There were the occasional forays other than work or time spent alone, but these were not regular or frequent. I spent a LOT of time online--hours a day.
Eventually, it you CAN'T do anything else, that burns you out--especially when you don't have the energy to DO much online... but just sit, and read, and post somewhat.
Breaking my leg, I didn't realise at the time, took more out of me than just my ability to walk. I was tired emotionally. I didn't want to do pretty much anything. My prayer life was completely derailed. My personality and sense of vocation was knocked aside. As my body focussed on repair, my mind was left... unfocussed.
In part, this was probably due to the school-year ending. Rather than being a moment of celebration and free abandonment to summer, the stresses of finals were prolonged and merged with the agony of crutches, and as everyone left the seminary for the summer and I was left behind pretty much alone and unable and unwilling to go OUT and do anything, I was left more or less empty.
To Be Continued....
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sick
CAUTION: The following post contains scenes of illness and disgusting subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.
It feels like every time I start to get over one thing this summer, another thing hits me. Just when I was halfways recovered from the car loss, the internet abstinence, and the crutches... I get hit with my first stomach bug in years, and have a horrid day.
It all started last night... amidst dreaming about visiting home, seeing people I hadn't seen in a few years (and their sisters, whom I've never met... ??...), I start dreaming about being back in the seminary, which for no good reason had a long, wide, curving hallway spliced between the entrance and the chapel. And, while dreaming this, I start dreaming that I have an upset stomach, which proceeds to dominate my dreams (they weren't quite uneasy enough to be nightmares) until I get up this morning.
I think the dream version might have been a bit better. All I did there was vomit, and that without the normal issues of that horrid acid aftertaste and the muscles complaining about working in reverse.
No, in real life, I did not vomit... but there's actually a lot more discomfort to the stomach. I haven't eaten all day, due to a complete loss of appetite and a fear of prompting a real life vomitting. I spent my first two or three hours awake running to the toilet with diarrhea every 15 minutes or so. The only reason I figure that stopped is that the bug ran out of ammo.
My stomach, due to care nurturing (ie. sitting on the couch as still as possible, watching movies) has more or less ceased to pain me--unless I get up and do anything, in which case it doesn't take long to make me queasy again.
I suppose it's just as well it's not happening while I'm in school, and it probably couldn't come at a better time, if illness ever can... but I still feel like crap.
It feels like every time I start to get over one thing this summer, another thing hits me. Just when I was halfways recovered from the car loss, the internet abstinence, and the crutches... I get hit with my first stomach bug in years, and have a horrid day.
It all started last night... amidst dreaming about visiting home, seeing people I hadn't seen in a few years (and their sisters, whom I've never met... ??...), I start dreaming about being back in the seminary, which for no good reason had a long, wide, curving hallway spliced between the entrance and the chapel. And, while dreaming this, I start dreaming that I have an upset stomach, which proceeds to dominate my dreams (they weren't quite uneasy enough to be nightmares) until I get up this morning.
I think the dream version might have been a bit better. All I did there was vomit, and that without the normal issues of that horrid acid aftertaste and the muscles complaining about working in reverse.
No, in real life, I did not vomit... but there's actually a lot more discomfort to the stomach. I haven't eaten all day, due to a complete loss of appetite and a fear of prompting a real life vomitting. I spent my first two or three hours awake running to the toilet with diarrhea every 15 minutes or so. The only reason I figure that stopped is that the bug ran out of ammo.
My stomach, due to care nurturing (ie. sitting on the couch as still as possible, watching movies) has more or less ceased to pain me--unless I get up and do anything, in which case it doesn't take long to make me queasy again.
I suppose it's just as well it's not happening while I'm in school, and it probably couldn't come at a better time, if illness ever can... but I still feel like crap.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Car Troubles
So, I do still intend to have a big post or two on the whole awesomeness/terror of my mental state this past month and more, but I'm still experiencing serious internet lethargy, so we'll just put up a status update for the moment, regarding my car.
Turns out, having a Ford Contour is crap for repairs. Used transmissions are expensive and near impossible to find. Even if you do, the design of the engine makes for ridiculous man-hours of repair, and the end result is that it would have cost $4000.00 or more to repair.
I learned that yesterday morning. It was worse news seconding bad news.
Yesterday afternoon we started looking around for a new car. We looked at one in the evening, and another today, about a couple hours ago. Between the price and quality of car, they are probably about as good as I'm likely to find in the two weeks before I go back to seminary.
We've decided to buy the one we saw tonight, and come this time Wednesday, it should be mine. It's a 1997 Ford Escort, so a very similar car to my last one, though a couple years newer. It's a darkish green, well-taken care of, with 215,000 kilometres, so more than my car had--which is why, probably, it's a bit more affordable.
Mind you, affordable is a relative term for me right now. My parents are going to do what they can to help me out right now, and I should get a little (and really, little is the right word) for the Contour--if my experience in trying to get parts for it in the past and present is any indication, it should have some value, and the tires are fairly new.
So... I'll have a new car. The major heartache/headache of not having a vehicle is basically resolved. The heartache/headache of being broke is barely begun.
Turns out, having a Ford Contour is crap for repairs. Used transmissions are expensive and near impossible to find. Even if you do, the design of the engine makes for ridiculous man-hours of repair, and the end result is that it would have cost $4000.00 or more to repair.
I learned that yesterday morning. It was worse news seconding bad news.
Yesterday afternoon we started looking around for a new car. We looked at one in the evening, and another today, about a couple hours ago. Between the price and quality of car, they are probably about as good as I'm likely to find in the two weeks before I go back to seminary.
We've decided to buy the one we saw tonight, and come this time Wednesday, it should be mine. It's a 1997 Ford Escort, so a very similar car to my last one, though a couple years newer. It's a darkish green, well-taken care of, with 215,000 kilometres, so more than my car had--which is why, probably, it's a bit more affordable.
Mind you, affordable is a relative term for me right now. My parents are going to do what they can to help me out right now, and I should get a little (and really, little is the right word) for the Contour--if my experience in trying to get parts for it in the past and present is any indication, it should have some value, and the tires are fairly new.
So... I'll have a new car. The major heartache/headache of not having a vehicle is basically resolved. The heartache/headache of being broke is barely begun.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Sabbatical in Retrospect
So... I had really planned on my first big post upon having an internet connection again being about all the GOOD stuff of being away: how refreshed I feel, how great it is not to be addicted to the computer, how my leg is better, how much writing I did, how my vocation is definitely back, and a number of other things...
Instead, I am writing about the bad stuff that happened about three hours before I got home.
Those of you who were reading any of this last year will remember that I wrote about a game called Bunnock, and that my family goes every year, on the first weekend of August, to the town of Macklin, Saskatchewan, to compete in a huge tournament of the same. For the fifteenth consecutive year, we did so, and my last day of work at the Archives was timed so that I would arrive there Thursday night, my family having already shown up.
Well, it was a great weekend, all told. It was probably my poorest year ever, in terms of wins/losses, but my level of play was about the same as last year, which isn't bad given that I played only two games this summer, and those on crutches. For the first time, all of my siblings were playing on one team or another, and I was impressed at how well they were playing--though it seemed that we were all about the same for lack of luck in winning games.
Anyway, we had a great weekend, and yesterday we all headed back to Olds. Well, that's about a 4.5 to 5 hour drive, depending, and we were on the second leg of the trip, and I was ahead of the others on Highway 21, just south of Delburne. At one of the intersections crossing the highway, as I was coming near, some brainless front-end-loader tractor driver with a bucket full of boulders decided to cross, forcing me to slow down unexpectedly. Now, this in itself would have been only a minor irritation, had not one of his boulders bounced out and landed right in my path. I suppose, in hindsight, if I had been thinking and knowing what it was, I would have swerved immediately, but for all the multiple reasons that were on my mind at the time, such as irritation at the tractor, concern for the vehicle behind me, and thinking it was just a garbage bag or something... well, I cruised right over it and blew my transmission.
This effectively ruined my day.
I coasted to the side of the road, and waited fifteen minutes for my parents, who were behind me and had stopped for gas, to catch up, and then proceeded to drag out the remaining hour and a half of the trip home into about three hours, while we found a towtruck (not easy on a holiday Monday) to pull my poor abused car home.
If I was not in a mood to do more than passively check the news online yesterday, I think depression can be considered a contributing factor.
Mind you, I should be depressed today, but I had a very long sleep, and I'm not on the road in the blistering August sun trying to get home after an exhausting weekend. Besides... there's pretty much nothing that can happen now to make things worse. Dad phoned this morning with the news that I'm looking at around $2500.00 to replace the transmission. This is very nearly what I have in my bank account right now, and even if I had the leg or the energy to work until it's time to go back to seminary, that's only about two and a half weeks of work...
So I'm very, very depressed at the moment, in terms of money, but I'm also kind of just at the point where I don't care anymore. I haven't got the faintest clue how I'm going to pay for anything, starting about right now... but I'm a little bit beyond caring. It's so much easier to worry when you have $2500.00 with which to pay $6000.00 of expenses than when you have $0.00 and the same expenses.
Mom wants me to work, I think, and Dad is probably thinking about the money too... but I need a break. I went straight from school into breaking my leg into work this summer. I haven't had a rest since Christmas (Reading Break so does not count...). I need my two and a half weeks of doing nothing.
Meanwhile, I am so broke....
Alms, anyone?
Instead, I am writing about the bad stuff that happened about three hours before I got home.
Those of you who were reading any of this last year will remember that I wrote about a game called Bunnock, and that my family goes every year, on the first weekend of August, to the town of Macklin, Saskatchewan, to compete in a huge tournament of the same. For the fifteenth consecutive year, we did so, and my last day of work at the Archives was timed so that I would arrive there Thursday night, my family having already shown up.
Well, it was a great weekend, all told. It was probably my poorest year ever, in terms of wins/losses, but my level of play was about the same as last year, which isn't bad given that I played only two games this summer, and those on crutches. For the first time, all of my siblings were playing on one team or another, and I was impressed at how well they were playing--though it seemed that we were all about the same for lack of luck in winning games.
Anyway, we had a great weekend, and yesterday we all headed back to Olds. Well, that's about a 4.5 to 5 hour drive, depending, and we were on the second leg of the trip, and I was ahead of the others on Highway 21, just south of Delburne. At one of the intersections crossing the highway, as I was coming near, some brainless front-end-loader tractor driver with a bucket full of boulders decided to cross, forcing me to slow down unexpectedly. Now, this in itself would have been only a minor irritation, had not one of his boulders bounced out and landed right in my path. I suppose, in hindsight, if I had been thinking and knowing what it was, I would have swerved immediately, but for all the multiple reasons that were on my mind at the time, such as irritation at the tractor, concern for the vehicle behind me, and thinking it was just a garbage bag or something... well, I cruised right over it and blew my transmission.
This effectively ruined my day.
I coasted to the side of the road, and waited fifteen minutes for my parents, who were behind me and had stopped for gas, to catch up, and then proceeded to drag out the remaining hour and a half of the trip home into about three hours, while we found a towtruck (not easy on a holiday Monday) to pull my poor abused car home.
If I was not in a mood to do more than passively check the news online yesterday, I think depression can be considered a contributing factor.
Mind you, I should be depressed today, but I had a very long sleep, and I'm not on the road in the blistering August sun trying to get home after an exhausting weekend. Besides... there's pretty much nothing that can happen now to make things worse. Dad phoned this morning with the news that I'm looking at around $2500.00 to replace the transmission. This is very nearly what I have in my bank account right now, and even if I had the leg or the energy to work until it's time to go back to seminary, that's only about two and a half weeks of work...
So I'm very, very depressed at the moment, in terms of money, but I'm also kind of just at the point where I don't care anymore. I haven't got the faintest clue how I'm going to pay for anything, starting about right now... but I'm a little bit beyond caring. It's so much easier to worry when you have $2500.00 with which to pay $6000.00 of expenses than when you have $0.00 and the same expenses.
Mom wants me to work, I think, and Dad is probably thinking about the money too... but I need a break. I went straight from school into breaking my leg into work this summer. I haven't had a rest since Christmas (Reading Break so does not count...). I need my two and a half weeks of doing nothing.
Meanwhile, I am so broke....
Alms, anyone?
Monday, August 06, 2007
Memo
I am back from my month-long, internet-free, telephone-light, computer-free, friend-free, family-free sabbatical.
I am so tired of people, after spending a weekend around them, following a month without, that I can't even work up the stamina for a post--though I've spent the better part of a month wondering over it.
I'm also really ticked off about my car... but that's another story for later.
Just announcing that I'm not dead yet.
I am so tired of people, after spending a weekend around them, following a month without, that I can't even work up the stamina for a post--though I've spent the better part of a month wondering over it.
I'm also really ticked off about my car... but that's another story for later.
Just announcing that I'm not dead yet.
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