A Fine Yule (b)Log

If you hadn't noticed, I haven't been motivated to blog recently. My list of excuses includes: being sick, being tired, working late, office Christmas party, business trip to Cambridge, having nothing to say, creating Christmas cards, and many more! Take your pick! Two for one!

Today I finally uncovered an afternoon with no previous plans... and being sick, I wasn't willing to tax my body with several hours of walking, despite great weather out. So I worked on my Grandma's Christmas present instead. Last Labor Day, she sent me home with a Kinkos-made booklet of all her essays written since the 60's. My assignment was to read the whole thing (I've actually read half of them in previous visits anyway). Some of them are... well, let's just say I'm not much of an essay-reading guy. So my gift was not only read them--all of them--but to write up my comments about them, thus proving I've read them. Yes, it took all afternoon and it's time I'll never get back, but Grandma is about the only person I can crticize openly and in explicit detail and will still love the attention. Merry Christmas, Grandma!

Work continues to be less than satisfying... but enough of that, already.

The office Christmas party was held at local hotspot Solas in Raleigh... last Sunday night. The place is neat and I'm sure it's quite the place to be (you know, NOT on Sunday night), and the drinks were great (free). The music was a tad loud though, so any chance I had of opening up and being social was pretty much shut down by my loud-averse ears. I mean, how much can you really socialize when every other word is "What?" Craftily scheduled for Sunday night, no one got balls-out drunk, or at least not in the time I was there. And everyone who said they'd be in late on Monday morning... they were bluffing. Tricky!

I'm coming up on six months in Raleigh now... beginning to enter "real" time here, time when I can start reflecting on it enough to figure out if it's worth it. Well, I have to say the weather was surprisingly bearable today. I guess if one thing has lived up to expectation, its been fall weather. Some trees still have a few leaves hanging on for dear life, even. Finances... well, I'm still spending at least as much to live, but I'm living larger. At least in the amount of space my meager possessions have to spread out. Career-wize... well, we'll see, I guess. I get the sense that this firm is probably the best one around when viewed from most perspectives, I just don't know that I'm able to see from those perspectives yet. I'm sure if I ever left, I would see it all much clearer, and much too late.

So here I sit, making use of my extensive Christmas music collection, getting ready to turn the warm glow of the TV back on, remembering Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Netflix), getting sick of hearing the cat lick himself, and hoping that I can make it through another week without falling into a complete loser hole. Wish me luck.