Every dark cloud has a silver lining, or so they say. Of couse, most silver linings are more about how one recognizes them than anything else. A pure pessimist won’t see silver to save his day, but an optimist can be counted on to at least point it out. My week so far had been pretty shitty given the time constraints, as I had previously stated. But today, when I got to work to participate in the team meeting with our vice-president, I was struck by inspiration due to the circumstances of my arrival. I had just come from my last class to work, just like I said I would, and since I was there, I was also helping out in the network operations center. Answering phones, opening tickets, just the small stuff to help my co-worker out. I found out forty-five minutes later that the meeting was cancelled and no one told me. Hell, no one told my co-worker, either; so much for healthy communication in the workplace.

Anyway, the silver lining here is, it looks like I may have a good shot at getting my schedule changed from 9pm to 9am, to noon to midnight, which is by far a much better shift than what I’m working right now. If I just go straight to work from school, that’s much better than trying to force myself to go to sleep or trying to catnap my way through the night and be really groggy for classes and then driving home while trying not to fall asleep. Most of my exams are scheduled for Friday mornings, so anything to help cut down on shitty grades would be a big help to me. My co-worker is all for it. He’s more than willing to go 12 to 12 for my sake, which I appreciate greatly.

So we’ll see what happens.

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I didn’t fully appreciate exactly how much of my free time school was going to take. Nearing the end of my first week back, and in looking back over these first five days, I’m noticing a couple of things different from the previous attempts. First, I’m constantly feeling double-booked. I’m getting pressure from all sides to do this or that, when all I really want to do is take a breather.

For example, every week since February of 2002, I’ve been going over to ’s house for movies and more recently, tabletop gaming. Now, barring yesterday, either he had been unavailable or I had over the course of past two weeks. Rather than postponing ourselves for one more week, we decided to do it on Thursday. Wednesdays were usually the day, but this week my dad and I were celebrating his sixtieth birthday at Pacific Bell Park. Unfortunately and fortunately, yesterday I really wanted to relax, and my mind was feeling rather cloudy. I don’t know why, but while I was over there, I just couldn’t think clearly and so my heart wasn’t really into the tabletop gaming much. I felt bad because I really wanted to play, and I know that was also looking forward to inducting me into the world of Third Edition AD&D. Halfway through the gaming, I just looked up at him with these droopy eyes and he suggested we knock off for the day because “man, you really suck at this.” Ugh. Yes, I really really didn’t throw myself into the campaign like I used to, and yes, that really sucks when it’s only two people playing. To compound the problem, I was feeling overheated. Several times I complained about the heat, and I was very clammy, as though I had some sort of fever. But that morning, I took my temperature with the digital thermometer, and it was actually a couple degrees below normal. So, I knew it wasn’t a fever, low grade or otherwise. When I left ’s place, I felt absolutely drained. But I had other things to do and I didn’t end up going to bed until almost midnight.

Now, I would like to make it absolutely clear, because I know that is going to read this and possibly think that I don’t like going over to his place every week. That’s not true. In fact, for a long time, now, it’s been the highlight of my typically dismal week. It’s just that now, my weeks aren’t quite as dismal, and I scale cliffs to get to class every day. I enjoy spending time with you, and I love gaming, but with all the work I’ve been doing this week in Japanese and especially Philosophy, where there are no wrong answers and seventy differing opinions on what you have to say… I have just been feeling stretched thin, with no break in sight.

Today, I go to school in the morning, and then I have to figure out a way to knock myself out before my work shift tonight at 9pm. I also have a NOC meeting at 11am which I will actually be showing up for, for the first time in six weeks. But this morning, I woke up at 0630 to be at school by 0800 to insure that I won’t have to play parking lot shark in order to get a parking spot quickly. And on some days, like Monday and Wednesday, even 0800 isn’t enough to prevent playing that game with the rest of the campus. So this has become the “routine” every day. Wake up at 0630, get out of the house no later than 0715 or 0730, because I will encounter traffic. It always slows to a crawl when I get near the major higway interchange, and there’s only one between me and Foothill.. and it’s enough to make me 30 minutes late if I don’t alot for it. But alotting for it also means that I lose more sleep in the long run. On the average day this week, I got about 4 hours per night. That’s insane over five days straight, plus working twelve hours a day on top of it all. I think I’m bound to be a tad irritable toward others at times, even if it’s entirely uncalled for.

As I look back on this week, I’m thinking that I need to schedule my time better, so I don’t feel like I’m caught in a time-space vise that makes me feel like shit on Friday.

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