Schedule for Week Ending 1/9

I pretty much feel half-dead.

Monday - HOLIDAY FLOAT (8 hours)
Tuesday - 16:00 to 24:00 (16 hours)
Wednesday - 10:30 to 12:00 and 15:30 to 19:00 (21 hours)
Thursday - 08:00 to 16:00 (29 hours)
Friday - 09:00 to 20:00 (40 hours)

Goodbye January

Well, this has been quite the eventful month. I wrapped up my first extended vacation from work, hung out with my Floridian friend, met a few new folks in person and in spirit, got sick and better twice, and messed up my car. I'll get to that last one later, since I haven't written about it. So far it's a pretty good start to 2009, considering this time last year was when I first handed my resume to somebody wearing a Lockheed Martin polo in Coffman Memorial Union.

It's crazy to think that I've come this far in a year. Graduation, getting a real job, getting settled into a career, and high-tailing it across the country to my new life. Inside, though, I don't feel all that different. I've always been pretty proud of what I've been able to do; I'm not the kind of person that has to do everything right or else I get upset with myself. I like doing a good job, sure, but if I have to toss a little duct tape on there so be it, as long as whatever I'm making still works. Hell, even if I were still job hunting, I'd be proud that I got my degree and just figure that times are a bit lean.

But now I've flown the coupe and I'm out and about. I do whatever I want whenever I want, make the mistakes that go along with that kind of behavior. Case in point at a little after midnight on Wednesday when I slid on the freshly-fallen snow and smacked my wheel on the curb, shattering a bit of the hub cap and screwing my alignment up. This caused the steering wheel to wiggle back and forth, which was extremely annoying. Anyway, I took the thing in yesterday and I got a replacement wheel, tire, and realignment. Thankfully nothing was bent in the undercarriage and so the cost wasn't sky high. I did have to shell out more than four hundred bucks, but it could have been a lot worse.

But yes, car works again, I am no longer dying of space plague, and everything's sunny and happy. I was however planning on bulking up my savings a little this month, being a five-Friday month and all, but a good amount of that fifth paycheck got eaten by my car. Oh well, though, at least I didn't have to choose between getting it fixed and eating, for example.

In other news, I'm already setting up appointments for folks to come visit again. Parents will be out to visit in late April along with my sister and Sylvia, and possibly Sylvia's dad Randy. Tony's got to come out and see me again soon. Scott's due out and/or I've got to haul myself over to the west coast just in time for it to break off into the ocean. Adriana wants to come out and possibly look at schools. Andy will be about four hours away, so I'm sure I'll see him frequently enough anyway. Andrew should get out at some point and I don't know, be loud in my apartment or something. Anyway, lots to look forward to!

Fiction

This post on a blog I follow from time to time inspired me to write a little about fiction and book-reading. I read very often, but not in the sense that most people do. I devour thousands upon thousands of words daily from (mostly) internet sources, the bulk of which coming from Wikipedia, SomethingAwful, blogs, and news aggregators.

I am devoid completely of one thing, though, in my reading. I don't touch fiction often. The last time I read a fiction book was re-reading Slaughterhouse-Five a couple months ago just because it was sitting around and I had nothing better to do. This is strange, too, because it's not as if I avoid fiction in other areas; I enjoy television dramas like House, I like non-documentary movies immensely, and I play (obviously) fictional video games. So what gives?

I have a theory over why I'm not drawn as much to literary fiction as I used to be. I am not any less interested in fiction than I used to be, but rather I am far more interested in non-fiction. In following politics, in doing research on fantastic inventions, eerie disappearances, and tales of human triumph over adversity, the plights of vampires, elves and Fabio-esque he-men seem to become a lot less entertaining.

Another contributing factor may be my lean toward wishing to understand and learn "everything," which clearly is impossible, but movement toward infinity is still away from zero, even if infinity doesn't get any closer. I am content to know that I am aware of the world around me enough to form a coherent worldview with reasons behind what I believe, rather than resorting to blind faith. Absorbing non-fiction sources of information certainly adds to this ability; putting political beliefs in historical context is certainly important to most when it comes to having justifications.

Food for thought, I suppose. When I enjoy fiction, I thoroughly love the material, though when it begins to get boring or feels like a rehash, I'd rather be reading an essay on the causes of the current financial downturn.