Well, it's high time for an update, I suppose. Although my life has been none too exciting this week, so there really isn't all that much to tell. On the intellectual side, I've been powering through the second half of Kerouac's Desolation Angels, which is much better than the first half, which was leaving me severely disappointed. The second half is more than making up for it, though.

But, as I said, that isn't very exciting. So, I'm sitting here at home on a somewhat lazy Sunday afternoon. It's either the beginning of the week or the end of the week, depending on how you look at it. In my case, though, it doesn't really matter all that much because everyday except for Sunday is Saturday when one is unemployed.

On that front, I must confess that I have made very little progress. I don't know what it is...maybe it's the simple fact that I'm beginning the credential program at Cal State in January that has me wanting to simply take it easy for the time being. It might sound like a lame excuse, but working 12-14 hour days 6 days a week this summer often got the better of me. I think I did very little all summer except for work. I guess that's life in the real world, though. However, as a future educator, I am looking forward to the notion of having every summer for the rest of my life off. Or at least inordinate amounts of vacation time, given the possibility that I could end up at a year-round school.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I am kidding myself if I think I am going to be able to make it through the entire three semester program without having a job...that's one reason why I'm so lackadaisical at this time. Come January I will, hopefully, be working full time, going to school full time and also preparing to return to Kosovo next summer (this time as the trip leader.) So, I forsee in the near future that my life is going to get really busy. Still, that's kind of a lame excuse, I admit it.

There have been a few social highlights this week, though nothing too spectacular. On Thursday night, I had dinner in Monrovia with Amanda Chase, a friend who is currently enrolled at Azusa Pacific in their nursing program. That will make three nurses with whom I am acquainted. Amanda is pretty fun to hang out with, although she is a bit on the young side. I tend to have an aversion these days to forging friendships with people significantly younger than I am, but I make an exception for her because she was on the Kosovo team when I went two years ago.

Friday night, I somehow got roped into playing the role of waiter/busboy at a fundraising banquet that was held at my church. I'm still not quite sure how it happened, but there I was, filling pitchers with water and giving people coffee and stuff. The funny thing is that the majority of the rest of the servers were in junior high school. I honestly cannot abide kids in junior high school. Elementary school is fine. High school is even better (one would hope I would feel that way, considering...) but junior high is, in my mind, two years during which kids should be locked in a closet and thrown a piece of meat every few days. Once they have matured beyond those awkward, feral years they can be released from said closet and allowed to freely attend high school.

At any rate, on Friday night, I happened to mention to Alisa that I happened to think that a certain girl was cute. I'll not mention that person's name here because frankly it's none of your business. So, on Saturday when I went to see The Ring in Monrovia and have dinner with Alisa, Christy, and some friend of Christy's named Jed or Jeb or some other such name commonly found among the Clampetts, I discovered that not only had Alisa told Christy, but that they were, in turn, already conspiring with another friend of said-girl to get us together. (Hopefully you followed all that.) Honestly, all I said was that she is cute. Not that I'd object strongly if their efforts are met with success, but that would mean that I'd have to find a job sooner because what girl would want to date a guy without a job?

As far as The Ring goes, I guess it was ok. Honestly, though, a lot of the parts that one might consider "scary" were nothing more than manufactured "jump scenes" where there is some loud unexpected sound or some ghoulish hand comes from nowhere. I did like the movie, but I found myself often thinking, "Ok...here comes a part wherein they are going to attempt to frighten us." And, sure enough, I was right every time.

My dad is supposed to be driving down from Fresno sometime today, because he is returning to Hawaii on Tuesday morning. Even though he has been in California since November 5, I have not yet seen him, largely because of my excursion to Mammoth last weekend. I'm expecting that I will see him either tonight or tomorrow night, before he returns home.

Which brings us up to now. Here I sit, in my apartment, on this queit Sunday afternoon, wondering if my dad is going to actually call before I have to leave at 4:30 or so to go to a meeting at church relating to the Kosovo trip for next summer. I'm guessing that he probably hasn't even left Fresno yet, so it's most likely that our rendez-vous will have to wait until tomorrow. For the time being, however, I have to go see if I can do something about this splinter that has somehow lodged itself in my big toe. I tried to get it out earlier, but was unable to do so and gave up in frustration. I'll let you know what happens.