Being engrossed

I think I'm in the mood lately to completely submerge myself in things. Yesterday I was so sucked into work that I didn't come up for air until almost 5 PM, which left me just enough time to write a silly list and go out the door. I'm also now on the third book in the series I've been reading by Katherine Kerr, and am really enjoying it. I read it in traffic jams, and am reluctant to put it down once the traffic clears up; it's pretty good.

Then I sit down in front of Final Fantasy 8, and completely zen into the story. I'm now on disk 2 of 4, and have many characters ranging from 14th to 25th level, all acting together in this grand plot. It's a great deal of fun, and kind of like a 'choose your own adventure' novel. Last night I lost two hours to the game! It was worth it, though, because I got everyone out of the Galbadian Prison and back to the Balaam Garden, and defeated a couple of tyrannosaurs. Fun!

The camera still isn't here, but I don't really expect it until tomorrow or Monday. I'm trying to be patient, but I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas. I went out and bought a travel bag for it, and was proud of myself for saving money. Conventional camera bags are durable, foam-lined dealies, and it's smart to get a waterproof one with a shoulder strap; of course they cost a fortune.

Seeing how I already spent a fortune, I instead I bought a foam-lined, shoulder-strapped, waterproof diaper bag. It's dark blue and has teddy bears on it, but it meets all the requirements for a camera bag at a tenth of the price. I can use the little clear plastic pocket for filters, the main compartment for the camera, and the changing pad for an extra foam lining. There's even a cylindrical bottle compartment that would be the perfect place to stow an extra lens if I ever get one. For some reason every diaper bag I've ever seen is padded, and this one is no exception. It's also lined with vinyl so it's waterproof, and weighs less than any of the camera bags I found. If it proves to be too filmsy, I can always glue foam in there. Or what the hell, I can just glue in a bunch of diapers.

Forest seems to think I was pretty smart in this regard, not only for saving money, but because we won't be such a target for thieves. I suppose that's true; having the word 'Minolta' stamped across one's bag is tantamount to saying, "the expensive stuff is in here, come and get it!" Happily, I can't imagine what thief in his right mind would snatch a diaper bag out of a hotel room.

There isn't much else going on in my life. Wednesday night Forest and I both got to go gaming, which was really fun. My character is a young lady who was raised by a Sith Master, but who is a purely good, angelic person at heart. She's just been convinced she is evil by her twisted upbringing. Wednesday night she became the owner of an evil, intelligent, vorpal sword. It thinks it has found an evil mistress. She thinks she's hearing her Master's voice when it speaks to her, but she hates her master, so she ignores him. It's a very interesting match. I guess you'd have to be a gamer to truly appreciate the level of confusion that ensues.

Wednesday night a newly-tanned Reagan gave me a lovely birthday gift, which she picked up on her trip to Florida. They are beautiful Degas cards, which I am more likly to frame and hang than mail! It was really sweet of her to think of me.

Thursday I was pretty much immersed in work all day. After work, however, I was treated to a large quantity of *gulp* spare time! I hardly knew what to do with myself, because there were so many things to choose from. If I wanted to be productive I could have cleaned my house and done laundry, or gone to the grocery store. Of course, I also wanted to play Final Fantasy, watch a little TV (just to remember what that's like), read my book, and read a script someone submitted to Lansing Civic Players which I must assess by next Wednesday.

Of course, I ended up reading for a while and then playing Final Fantasy. So much for industry.

I actually have to step back and tell myself that it's okay if I spend my spare time recreationally. I have enough duties and chores to more than fill my time, and if I did nothing but work on them, I'd still not be caught up, but be less relaxed and fulfilled while I'm at it. I figure, it's more important to be sane than have the neatest house in the world. It's liveable; it's just never spotless.

I feel guilty because I somehow managed to miss Proposals. Actually, I had planned to see it this Friday, but as it turns out, I was mixing up the dates, and it actually closed October 1. It really sucks, because Andy and Jeff were both in it, and I would have liked to see that very much.

I don't, however, feel guilty in the least that I'm not involved in a show right now. That's something that's taken me a full year to achieve. I didn't hesitate last year in deciding I needed to pull back from theatre and reprioritize, and I am glad I made that decision; but I did have moments of guilt when I saw other members of the theatre groups having to scramble to do things I used to do.

Still, I think at this stage in my life, focusing on my newly-building family is the right thing to do.

Speaking of doing the right thing, I think I'm going to drop from my bell choir in January. I need to spend that time going back to college and finishing my stinking degree. I can't stand the idea of letting all that money and time go to waste; and I can't see how I'm ever going to get into a different job without a bachelor's degree. It's not that I don't like my job as it is; but I can't see myself being a systems integration specialist forever. I'm already tiring of trying to keep up with technology's changes, and fighting the beaurocracy. Not to mention that I'm getting really tired of the invasion of the Nazis in my workplace.

I know I mentioned that we now have to report our time expenditures, down to the 15-minute interval, and allocate them out to the correct expense accounts? I've been getting better at it, but it still takes me about an extra half hour every day just to fill out the dumb form.

It just got better. Now, in order to make a phone call (even a local or 800- one) I have to press 9 for an outside line. Then I have to choose *8 or *5, depending on what type of call it is, and enter the phone number. Then I have to wait for the beep, and type my four digit PIN number. Then I have to wait for another beep, and enter *5, then my 8 digit project access code.

I have to do this EVERY time I make a phone call. I actually have to have an instruction sheet next to the phone that informs me of how to do this. I also have to enter these codes to send a fax or make a photocopy.

Because, you know, I wouldn't want that 1 cent that it costs to make a photocopy to get charged to the wrong accounting line.

As I figure it, this week I spent 2.5 hours filling out detailed time reports, and about an hour typing digits into my phone, the copier, and the fax machine (including times I had to retype because I made an error, and there's no backspace.) There are 250 other people working here who make more money than I do, who are spending at least as much time on this as I am, if not more so. Doesn't that seem like an EXTREME waste of personnel resources to you?

Heil, Hitler, I guess. It just amazes me that our grantors are the ones pushing for this. They pay me to work on a project, and now they are paying me to spend 37 hours per week on their project, and the rest on accounting. If you subtract out the time that I spend on quarterly reports, annual planning, budgeting, meetings, and proposals, it just doesn't leave me much time to work on the actual project.

Today I submitted my grovelling-yet-professionally well-written application for readmission to Michigan State. I figure, what the hell, I can afford to take one class per semester right now, so I damn well might as well do it. If I can make the time for theatre, I can definitely make the time to study. If I get accepted I will address the scheduling issues with my boss. He will likely support me, though, because for a year and a half he's been mentioning that for my own development as an employee, I need to finish my degree.

It's true, you see. I'm probably the highest ranking non-degreed person in my company. I'm in a job that says "Requirement: Bachelor's Degree" in the position description. My boss has his bachelor's, and his boss has a master's, and the boss above him has multiple PhDs. As you can see, education is highly regarded here at the Michigan Public Health Institute. After all, we're partners with MSU, U of M, and Wayne State.

I wish our education benefits were better, though. I get a thousand dollars a year in reimbursement, but they will only reimburse half of my tuition bill, and only if I pass with a 2.5 or better. (So basically there's no way in hell they'll pay for Calculus, where it will be a miracle if I pass with a 1.5.) Also, technically, they only pay for classes which directly benefit my job. Something tells me that Kinesiology is not going to make the cut. I'm going to have classes like "Physiology" and "swimming". I can link these things to public health in general, but attaching them to my job as a computer geek? I don't think so.

What's really fun about all of this is that the class I will most likely take my first semester back will be ISS 315, Global Diversity and Interdependence. This class is the bane of my existence. It's the driest, least interesting, most annoying, overloaded bunch of crap I've had to endure in any college experience. It's about grain. The importance of grain. Do you think they can possibly spend 15 weeks telling you how important grain is? Absolutely. It's more boring than staring at a blank wall. Yes, it's even worse than my 400-level theoretical genetics class. ISS 315, though, is a class I outright flunked before, so it will do really nice things to my GPA to replace those flunkish grades with a shiny new 3.0 and tell the professor where to stick it.

And, most unfortunately, ISS 315 is required for graduation, and I guess I'd someday like to graduate.

On my application for readmission, I decided to bite the bullet and shoot for a dream. I applied to the college of education, because they have a Kinesiology school. Screw it. Why not, right? Maybe if I do well enough, they'll let me get teacher certification.

Kinesiology would be a good degree for me, though, even without teaching. I can go on as I am at MPHI, and perhaps get into a physical therapy or sports medicine program somewhere. These are all things that interest me greatly, and I think I would be good at them.