Lay offs

So I no longer have a job. Of course if I wrote this tomorrow, that may not be true, but anyway. That is correct, Net Marketing Alliance downsized, and I was ousted! It is the first time I have not dictated the time when my work relationship with a company would end. I really am broadening my horizons. It doesn't really bother me actually, because I was there long enough to figure out what I want to do, and now I can go about trying to make it begin to happen. That's right, I want to be a Productivity Specialist. A productivity specialist, you ask? What is that? I have never heard of it before. Well that is quite right my friend, it is a position I would like to invent, a position that I think will one day prove to be quite invaluable. The gist is that I will keep all the employees happy to be doing work. Sounds like a great job, eh? Anyway, so I decided that to promote myself as this, it would be helpful to have some sort of business background, and so I am contemplating getting an MBA. Plans can always change, but that is the plan for now. So I'll graduate, work for a year or two, and then get an MBA. So now I am looking for a job that will help me on that path.

On another front, kinks are back again. Making exercise a daily venture is proving trickier than I thought. But I am vigilant! By which I mean, not actually doing anything! It is much easier to adjust my schedule when I have one, and when I am working, I don't have one. I realized yesterday when I got laid off that I really like working. I don't like not working.

Work is slow, so I will entertain you

I got to work today at 6am. A little before 6 actually, just to help people coming to our Nashville conference with directions. So I have now been here for three and a half hours. It has been ridiculously slow since other people came in at 8am. Now all the Nashville people are there or not coming, and we don't have many conferences for people to register for. I feel like doing a list, so I will create a list on the first topic I think of.

List of Books I am Reading/Going to Read:
The Sigma Protocal by Robert Ludlum
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket
Thank You for Smoking by I don't remember
Dune

Of course two of the books I am listening to as books on CD/on my Ipod. Dune Janardan was reading to me at night before I would go to bed, but then he started going to bed before me. I guess I could start making him read to me again now that he is sleeping after me again. I actually wanted to read The End today at work instead of Carnivorous Carnival, but I apparently grabbed the wrong book. Carolyn and I had a discussion about an interpretation of a detail in that book, and I wanted to read it again, so I could back it up, but alas I have the wrong book.

I finished The Ambler Warning this week, and it was a very interesting book. I thought the ending was kind of a letdown, though it made a lot of sense. It was just kind of sad. Which really gives away nothing! So go ahead and read it, and when you finish it, we can discuss. Or don't read it.

So I have been contemplating houses. I've had a really good idea if I do say so myself. My idea is that whenever we move to Oregon (I think I am getting settled on that idea, though the exact city not yet), I should buy one of two things 1) a mobil home on a large piece of arable land or 2) a large piece of arable land and a mobile home. The beauty of the plan is that mobil homes and incredible cheap. But then I could get settled on a piece of land, get the land working the way I want it to, and then maybe in some amount of time, I could have a house built on the land, and sell the mobile home, to be moved to a park or wherever. I think it is a grand idea. Of course I haven't talked even to Janardan about this plan, but I am sure he will be won over by my genius idea, unless of course he is opposed to living in a mobil home. But they are like cheap, and like affordable. Anyway. Just an idea I have been tossing around.

Ok perhaps I will now make another list.

List of ways I want to be domesticated:

1. Share a cow that can be milked for fresh milk
2. Make cheese from said fresh milk
3. Be able to subsist mainly on food grown on my land
4. Make homemade food as much as possible
5. Have a greenhouse~
6. Punch you in the face

Ok, minus that last one. It's funny. All of my aspirations mainly have to do with food. Like buying cloth for sewing, or buying clothes isn't something I really have an aim to stop doing. I guess I just see those things as less vital for survival. If something happens, I can survive without being able to go to the fabric store, but through no disaster would I be able to survive without cheese. Ok, just kidding, I meant food, not just cheese. I guess it is the idea of necessity self-sufficiency. Or just being as self-sufficient as possible. It's also that you just get a lot better quality from things that are grown there in person. Things that don't have to be shipped from some other place don't have to be picked unripe so they will ripen, you can get them fresh. And then you get a lot less going bad, well in some cases at least.

I would really like to develop a permaculture. Read about it on wikipedia if you don't know what it is, but it's basically creating an ecosystem of edible food. And Emily's chickens could graze on it for fertilizing and weeding. Ok fine, maybe I will get some of my own chickens too. I'll let her keep the bees, though. Ok, I am leaving work soon. Bye kids. Don't be stupid!

Kinks

It's interesting how little things can throw you. I was sick on Friday. More like half of Friday, the first half, starting at 2am. And it has been such a kink in things. I tried waking up yesterday for water aerobics, but I was just too tired to get up, so slept in later. And then today I wanted to get up and go swimming, so I made sure I got to bed at a decent time, but I didn't want to get up that early again. And so my dishes are undone, as the time when I feel like doing them has been missing from my day. The system that I had worked out and was happy with now has this kink thrown into it. I'm pretty sure it will just take a few more days to get back into it, but it's kind of thrown me that it is taking this long.

The second kink is that I think I could be heading towards higher amounts of socialization in my life, which I highly welcome, but it hard for me not to let go of everything else in favor of socialization. It is generally what is most important to me. But with greater socialization comes more pressure on my sleep schedule, making it harder to exercise, and less time to practice the piano. All of these competing interests. The natural way to take care of it is to turn my hobbies into social activities, which I have figured out how to do in certain areas. Sewing could be done with my sister. I could try and find someone to sing with me for the piano, the only problem being I am not quite ready for that, but that is my end goal. I suppose in that case the sacrifice seems worth it. But then it becomes the question of how often.

In freedom, we are still bound by our choices. I can do anything I want to do, but I can only choose those things that are most important to me. I cannot do everything, not immediately at least. And that is the kink. I have to choose what I want.