pressure (people) – prompted

Things to do this year, to be more productive (whatever that means). Quick, before I forget.

• Share ideas with more people. I like ideas. I don’t always like sharing.
• Instigate more.

Maybe these come down to extraversion, of which I have very little. But I have enthusiasm, so I should leverage that. I just hate the feeling of being excited about an idea only to have no one get excited about it with me.

Also,

• Find a way to tie more goals to pressure agents. The things I get done are the things that have deadlines. External deadlines – I can’t fool myself with my own deadlines. Probably gets back to instigating and sharing. I need people, for the pressure they provide to get things done. If I plan to put together care packages for homeless/pan-handlers by myself it probably won’t ever happen; it’s another thing entirely if I have people helping me. But, are there other pressure agents – other than people? Hmmm, maybe not many, for me.

Fifteen Hours

Fifteen hours. 38% of my work week. Roughly 18% of our household’s total working hours. I need to make this time count.

In November I started a new job, working 25 hours a month. After adjusting to the new job and completing NaNoWriMo 2009, it’s time to figure out exactly what I’m doing with the other 15 hours.

I had been looking, and praying, for an opportunity like this for a while. There are a lot of things I’m interested in that don’t pay well and I don’t feel free to pursue for that reason – I would be making less than a third of what I make now. I can’t be one of those people who quits their money-making job to chase their dream.

I just can’t seem to shake the money-maker, haha. It might be because though I’m idealistic I’m also cautious. Security for my family is a big part of it. While I know intellectually that we don’t need even half of what we make, there is also the feeling of security to consider. I used to chafe at that, but I realize it is a real thing.

I also enjoy my paid work, a lot of the time. I like software quality assurance and feel that I’m good at it (which probably helps me enjoy it).

And I can’t really quit one job to chase something else, because I am pulled in more than one direction. I would just switch to yet another thing later on. It’s not a matter of not committing; it’s a matter of multiple interests. Until I find a single position or project that includes a majority of my interests, I’m going to have to pursue more than one thing.

This isn’t the first time I’ve finagled part-time gigs out of normally full-time positions before. As a data analyst in Seattle, I found that the job was easily scalable because my time was divided between clients; my manager graciously allowed me to work with a smaller number of clients. Later when we moved to Spokane, I offered to work part-time for my west-side company to fill a hiring gap, and later I worked part time on a special project for the QA department. In Seattle, working part-time allowed me to volunteer with an after-school club. In Spokane, the focus was to have our little girls at home more and in child care less.

Anyway, I started a new job, working part time. What is new this time is that I’m starting with less direction. Red flag. I tend to flounder without direction. Or worse, under my own direction. Right now I’m just getting comfortable with the numbers, so just for fun here is the breakdown of all the work our household does in the work week: 84 hours (7 days x 6 hours x 2 kids) learning in elementary school. 40 hours paid for serving the public via your friendly neighborhood libraries. 25 hours paid for testing software and data and stuff at a healthcare informatics start-up.

And 15 hours unpaid for… whatever it is I do. Stay tuned.

Nanowrimo 2009

[Edit: DONE! Interesting graph. Not exactly slow-and-steady-wins-the-race. Guess I'm the hare, not the tortoise.]

So far Nanowrimo 2009 is going well! Stats (which should updated as I go) are below…

a bedtime story

I told the girls a story tonight. It had been a while. Tonight I asked 1st-grader what she wanted in the story, and she said “a plane crashes on an island that’s not there- like, no one knows it’s there.” We had just watched a bonus feature from the Lost season four DVDs

(-which was so cool! It was about the orchestra music for Lost – I showed the bit to them because 4th-grader just started orchestra (we’re renting a violin, which she named Pyro) and because it was so cool! But I love “the making of” DVD bonus features in general anyway.)

, and I’d told them a little about the show, so that’s where that came from.

Then I asked 4th-grader for something to put in the story and she wanted to change her sister’s idea to a bunch of knights on a dragon instead of people in a plane. Where that idea came from is that for the longest time I’ve told them “Gina stories” – about Gina the Dragonslayer, whom I invented when I ran out of Jack the Giant-Killer stories. (Don’t tell the girls, but Gina is easier – she just charges in, whereas Jack has to outsmart the giants; ideas for clever heroism aren’t easy to pull out of thin air.)

So the story went something like this. A dragon is (once again) terrorizing the countryside and has captured Gina. Her knights are building something – a little owl came and gave them the plans for it. At it’s core is a big braid of leather that they’ve twisted around so many times that they can use if to turn a propeller on a big metal thing. A plane, with swords sticking out of it, for the knights to operate like oars. It made perfect sense to the girls, and I guess to me too.

These stories tend to be stream of consciousness, by the way. The knights saw the dragon flying by and released the propeller, and shot up in the sky. The plane and the dragon collided, and their combined trajectory took them out over the ocean. The dragon couldn’t get untangled and didn’t want to drown, so did magic dragony stuff and took them all to her lair — which was a tropical island inside some old granny’s recurring dream.

Long story short, well, the knights ran away from the dragon after they crashed (I explained how their cowardice was understandable, given what they’d just been through and how the dragon was talking all scary to them), and found Gina imprisoned in a nightmare inside the dream, and they were all rescued by Lancelot and the little owl.

The End.

Good Night.

Things to Say to God

“The Lord’s Prayer” is an example prayer that Jesus including when he was teaching about prayer. A lot of people have memorized it, so the challenge is really to keep something so familiar from losing its meaning and becoming just something we repeat without thinking.

Jesus did not mean this prayer to be some kind of magic speech that does something powerful if we word it just right. It’s a lesson about how we relate to God, and a recommendation of some things we might want to take to Him in quiet conversation.

In our Tuesday night group I wanted to look at how this prayer relates to other things Jesus said (and did). Jeanette, Peter, Miriam, Geancarlos, Geancarlos Sr, and Gwendolyn each took a part of the prayer and found other things in the bible that connected for them. There were some interesting connections, each leading in a different direction:

Our Father in heaven, Your name is holy

• Matthew 28:19  
• John 17:9

May your kingdom come, and your will be done

• Matthew 26:39 
• Acts 1:7 

On earth as it is in heaven.

• Luke 4:18

Give us today our daily bread.

• Proverbs 30:8
• Luke 4:4
• Isaiah 33:15-16
• Matthew 6:25
• John 6:35

Forgive us for the wrong things we’ve done, as we forgive those who have wronged us.

• Matthew 18:21-22
• Luke 23:34
• Matthew 6:14-15

Don’t lead us into temptation, but deliever us from evil.

• Luke 22:31
• John 17:15

(“Amen,” we always say at the end of a prayer. It’s not in here though… How did they know they were done praying?)

Green|Life

I have always thought that environmental justice and pro-life ethics should go hand in hand. I can imagine a movement that combines the two. I\’m not Catholic, but seems like that is a group where these issues might coincide. Yet even within Catholicism, I see the two issues are often situated among different groups within the group.

I reject that most issues are easy, black and white. The issues are complicated. It\’s actually a point in favor of fitting them together. Battle lines are drawn simply, stupidly. These are some of the complications I can think of. Just my thoughts. Disclaimer, disclaimer.

1. Many people consider Roe vs. Wade to be a landmark victory in the struggle for women\’s rights. \”Choice\” is not just a slogan; it has real meaning that even conservatives might agree with in part.
2. We want to make the world a healthier, safer place for future generations. We insist that our children have the right to clean drinking water. Don\’t they also have the right to be born? 
3. For most supporters of a cause, the scenario feels like the fight between good and evil. Evil empire vs plucky rebels. Both sides think they are the plucky rebels. Who wants to see good in the enemy? Who wants to change their mind, if it means going over to the Nazis?
4. If we consider abortion to be an evil still have to draw the line somewhere between protected human life and… something else. Should we also be working to make miscarriages a crime? What about zygotes that happen to never implant at all? Or are we just saying, Nature can kill but doctors can\’t? (I won\’t even bring up contraception… Or celibacy…)
5. I hate urban sprawl because I grew up hiking in the woods and I love nature. Is my environmental concern rooted more in the love of nature or more in the concern that the environment should be able to sustain human communities? Has the political divide between green and pro-life harmed the soul of the green movement?
6. Abortions happen, legalized or not. \”Black market\” abortions are dangerous, deadly and possibly common in places/times when abortion is illegal. Are pro-lifers seriously comfortable with that fact? Is it really the same as \”any other criminal\” suffering natural consequences in the course of their criminal activities?
7. Why are pro-lifers less green? Why are greenies less pro-life? Do activists tend to just take up single causes? Is it because our hearts are too small to really care about everything and everyone at once? Or, are we reliant on platforms to tell us which causes fit together? I reject that pro-life and greenness are philosophically opposed, but looking at our major political platforms it is easy to think that.
8. Are those of us who insist abortion is a bad bad thing ready and willing to provide for unexpected, unwanted babies? Are we supporting them now?
9. How much of a good, whether environmental consciousness or respect for human life, should be forced on individuals?
10. Is it easier to consider the welfare of the public in general or to love people in their messy specifics?

Not a Whole Lot

This week there’s really nothing to report in the way of hobbies, major life events, etc.

Sunday is the Henry Weinhard’s Day Run, which I’m doing with the wife and my two brothers and I guess a ton of people I don’t know. I haven’t run since I ran with the dog on Monday. We did walk on Wednesday, but not for long because I thought my face might freeze off. I’m going into this Henry’s Day deal pretty cold, but if I slow it down to a shuffle I’ll still be able to meet my very basic goal of not walking.

Running the whole way is a big deal to me. I feel like there’s something to build on if I can at least complete a run. I can imagine longer and longer runs. But if I stop running, it feels like the next run will be even tougher. Running, however slow, feels like big-picture progress.

Which reminds me of Meet the Robinsons because of the “keep moving forward” theme. But my all time most-inspiring kids’ Disney movie is Lilo & Stitch. That “ohana” stuff gets me every time.

Running with the Pooch

I’ve begun running with the dog in the mornings. We started this week with very short distances, less than one mile. He’s out of shape and I don’t want to push him. Maybe that applies to me too, haha.

Each day we ran a little farther, so we’ll probably hit a mile next Monday and then continue on from there. Eventually I want to get up to two or three miles with him, and of course longer runs alone. I don’t really know how much endurance running a dog can do. Or maybe that’s me too, too.

Uh sih luh

I think Donkey is dead. Here’s what I got this evening: “… however, very soon [he] starved to death.”

Donkey’s only hope is that “starved to death”, 饿死了 (pronounced something like “uh-sih-luh”) , is figurative and just means he got really hungry.

It also might depend on what 就 means. It’s right between “very soon” and “starved to death.” There are several possible meanings for the character in the dictionary, and I can’t sort out which one fits here. My brain is fried from playing with C# all afternoon. Maybe next time I’ll figure it out, before moving on to the last sentence of the fable.

Donkey Does the Dew

Tonight I spent a little time on my translation project. “Donkey and the Grasshoppers” is coming along. I left off last week stuck on a couple characters I couldn’t find in my dictionary, just when it was getting good. I had known for a while that Donkey was listening to the grasshoppers singing as was quite moved by their music, and then last week Donkey asked the grasshoppers, “What do you eat, cai you zhe yang dong ting de 噪音?” Hmmmm.

This week, I finished Donkey’s question, the grasshoppers’ answer, and a little more. Those two characters were “zao yin” which means noise or sound. I’m still not 100% certain on zao – the character in the book actually has three tiny 又 characters instead of the three tiny boxes.

So, tonight: “Donkey asked the grasshoppers, ‘What do you eat, that makes you have such a pleasing sound?’ The grasshoppers answered, ‘Dew.’ So, Donkey determined that from that time on he would drink nothing but dew, …”

Kind of a cliff hanger! I’m assuming Donkey won’t suddenly be able to make beautiful nachtmusik, but what exactly will happen, and what moral will Aesop draw from it, and how far from the original meanings will my pre-fluent language skills take this thing? When I’m done, I’ll post this for some of my Chinese friends and get their response. Hopefully it won’t cause an international crisis.