Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Extra Update

So, one last piece of news that we’ve kind of been holding out on until recently. We’re going to be having a baby!

That’s right, there will soon be a mini version of me or my wife running around. We are about ten weeks along, and the due date is supposedly set around April first, which just happens to be around my father’s birthday.

Today was the first ultrasound, and we were able to see the little kid for the first time. Looks healthy enough, doctor said everything was fine and that the heart was beating good and strong. As we were watching, the little one gave us a little kick/wiggle as if to say hello, so you can already tell that they’ve inherited our lack of ability for staying still. So, yeah, new Debenham on the way, and life continues as it always has. Who would’ve thunk it, huh?

Hope all is going well for you guys, and I’ll see you around!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

August Update

Alright, I apologize for the lack of other updates this week. A combination of internet outages, scheduling adjustments and plain simple ‘flojera’ prevented me from posting more frequently, but my hope is that in the coming week I can be more consistent.

One of the factors limiting my time to write is the sudden addition of an hour long commute to most of my days. Driving back and forth an hour to work has definitely impacted my ability to focus on writing, and it has started to wear on other aspects of my life as well. Still, the move was definitely worth it. My dear, patient wife has been enjoying her job a lot more now that she no longer has to deal with said commute, and I have a feeling that this year will be a great one for her.

As far as my own progress, I find myself somewhat lacking. As you might have guessed from a lack of ecstatic updates, I am not going to be attending med school this year. In some ways, that fact disappoints me. In others, it leaves me grateful, since my experiences with my current work and situation have made me doubt that med school would have been the best course for me. The schedule, emotional demands and other aspects of the medical career just don’t seem to be what I would have looked forward to each day.

However, at the same time, my life now lacks a solid direction to head towards. I’m financially secure and employed, which probably puts me ahead of the game compared to a lot of what people are already calling the ‘lost generation’ but I doubt I would be satisfied simply settling for what I have already. Writing has been harder, and I almost feel that as others of my friends have gotten offers from agents and publishers for their stories that I am falling behind there. Grad schools look inviting, but I am plagued by doubts that I am drifting in that direction for the same reason I did med school—simply because it sounds like a good idea and not because I really want that kind of career. It is incredibly frustrating, so tomorrow I may need to sit down with the spouse and actually make some solid goals for me to shoot towards in the long term. Grg.

In any case, that’s kind of my situation as of the end of August. This time I promise not to fade away for a full week before posting again. I hope all of you are doing well, and that your lives are happy. Be safe out there, and I’ll see you around.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

On Moving

Okay, so first off, I’m not dead. Sorry to disappoint many of you. :) We were just moving up to a new apartment this week and the preparations kind of took up most of my time the past week. I was kinda stressed, so writing blog posts just didn’t seem to work out that week.

I hate moving. I think I pretty much always have, even though during my childhood we moved all the time. Part of my dislike comes from the fact that I take so long to make new friends. Being introverted and quiet doesn’t help when you are uprooted and taken to a new place every so often, especially after only a year or so in one spot. It makes me feel like I just barely got to know people and then I have to leave and start the whole painful outsider phase again.

The second problem is that moving carries a lot of baggage with it. It isn’t just about relocating to a new house; it’s about going to a new school or job, adjusting to a new ward with a different schedule and style, and even changing sleeping schedules. I’m not someone who wants everything to stay the same all the time, but changing that many things at once just bugs me. I go from something comfortable and familiar to something strange and often awkward.

I guess the biggest issue I have is my own fault, though. I never seem to have the knack for keeping up with people or places once I move away. It’s simply a talent that I have not mastered quite yet, and so each move is almost like a permanent loss of everything I built up in my original place. I hate losing all of that in one go, but it seems to happen every time.

Oh well, such is life. More about the move next time. Don’t worry, it probably won’t be as whiney and mopey as this post. See ya!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Friday, August 6, 2010

On Being a Loner

So in a lot of ways, this post is linked to the one on loneliness. Society in general tends to look down on loners of all types, painting them with a similar antisocial brush. I wish I could say that Mormon social circles were different, but it almost seems like the attitude is more pronounced there. I even saw a list of clues once, obviously not from a general authority, that included the ‘desire to be alone’ as a clue that you were not feeling the influence of the Spirit. Needless to say, that one irked me a little. Well, me being me, more than a little, but my lack of patience isn’t the point of this post. :)

The truth is that not everyone can be around people all the time. A lot of people are introverts, which means that simply being around people is exhausting. I’m one of the more extreme examples, to the point where I have a definite need to recharge after being around other people. Depriving me of that quiet time alone quickly leads to a lack of emotional health. My brother, by probable contrast is an extreme extrovert. Being around people energizes him, and when he is alone he quickly gets lethargic and grumpy.

It’s not that I don’t like people, really. There are plenty of people that I enjoy having fun with, or discussing things, or any number of other social activities. I just need a little time alone afterwards to recover. To sum it up, I’m not so much antisocial as I am a social hermit. :)

What occasionally bothers me, however, is the perception that not wanting to be surrounded by people all the time is automatically weird or gives some kind of outsider status. There’s a stigma there that I honestly don’t think is needed or helpful, spout whatever ‘humans are a social animal’ reasonings you will. As much as we are a people of groups and cultures, we are also a species of thinkers and ponderers. Needs for individuality and solitude do not need to submit to some kind of social pressure to always be surrounded by others in order to be productive or emotionally healthy, but that pressure always seems to be there. I wonder how many other introverts try to bury their own actual needs in order to fit in with other people’s expectations.

Oh well, yet another rant from me, huh? In any case, I hope you are all doing well. I will try to update again tomorrow, if laziness, stress and distractions do not foil me. See you around!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

On Writer's Block

Lately I’ve been having trouble getting going on writing. For some reason I am finding it hard to focus. Maybe it’s because I have been so caught up with looking for a new apartment, a new car, and applying to grad schools. It could also be that I haven’t worked on a sci fi story in quite a while; the style of writing can be really different. The fact that I will be rewriting for the first time in a long while has also given me some trouble, and there’s always the worry that I will edit some cool part into mediocrity, or wreck the story with inconsistencies and foolish decisions. Grg.

I think the main problem, however, is the fact that I have gotten a bit disconnected from Wolfhound. It has been a few months since I’ve worked on it, and I need to reread the whole story again to get back in touch with it. It will mean a slight delay will happen before I actually start the rewrite, but I think it will be worth getting to know Jacob again, along with the story of his journey aboard the Wolfhound. Hopefully I will be able to get that done this week, in addition to the fifty other things that are going on. Sigh. Oh well. Such is life; procrastinating it will only make the crush worse. I hope you are all doing much better than I am with this, and that life is treating you well. See ya!