WAG - A Memorial Weekend Update
Hello.
This is Caleb’s site.
I am trying a new variation of an old practice so forgive me for the longer post. I hope it is worth the time you spent to read it, skim it, look at the pretty words in caps, etc…
Many of you have been directed to the archive page of the main site of The World According to Gap, though some of you will have wandered here on your own (and good for you).
For visitors who haven’t read an email introduction to this specific post, I’m placing my regular update email here. It’s an attempt to reduce the amount of space I take up in email inboxes with my musings AND increase hits on my site (and further support the lie I tell myself that this site is visited by more people than just my relatives [THANKS FOR READING GRANDMA!]).
Also, if people should reply to my email (and I hope you do), my inbox won’t be besieged by people who simply hit REPLY, type out a few sentences, and send the email back to my inbox. I don’t know if people naively do that out of habit and don’t realize I like to save replies OR whether they do that with the ruthless intent to discourage future mailing by clogging my inbox in return.
Either way, it hasn’t worked yet though.
If you don’t want to be updated again, I don’t know if you’ve actually read so far, but simply email me telling me you want off the list. Don’t jokingly ask to be taken off the list because sarcasm and irony don’t translate well through email and I have accidentally taken people off the mailing list in the past. No hard feelings Brad…?
Anyway, I’ve been doing well lately.
I emerged from another semester at the University of Missouri – Columbia largely unscathed; despite numerous assaults on my sanity (many self-inflicted). Working at the local newspaper was a challenge that I enjoyed, but won’t be returning to for at least another semester. I may try it again in the spring, but after signing up for a third year of Marching Mizzou, I don’t want my schedule to go from Mission: Improbable to Mission: Impossible.
(APPOLOGIES TO PETER GRAVES FOR THAT LAST PUN).
(NO APPOLOGIES TO TOM CRUISE, HOWEVER)
Anyway, instead of logging stories for the Columbia Missourian, I’m logging miles for the Missouri Department of Conservation’s gypsy moth trapping program. It has caused me to totally revamp my daily routine.
Defying my night-owl inclinations, I get up early (for me) around 6 a.m. to start a full day of moth tracking. After pounding the snooze alarm for a while, I get up do my online news crunch checking email and wire sites (just like in college, except I’m working on a much slower laptop and internet connection – a fierce double-whammy) before piling into the truck around 8-ish. Since work starts and ends when I want it to, with my boss’s blessing of course, I sometimes take greater advantage of the ambiguous starting time than I should.
My job is to set and check red cardboard traps to snare the “fearsome” Gypsy Moth. It may not sound like much, but it beats flipping burgers. My title is moth trapper, but my job more typically entails driving the back roads of two counties while cranking the radio in my Department of Conservation truck.
I’ll probably encounter more poison ivy or paranoid land owners than gypsy moths (only four were found in the state last year), but it’s a great chance to work on my own outdoors. When your office is a truck and the company pays for your gas, you don’t have much to complain about.
I usually work eight hours straight, eat my sandwiches between stops, and take my “lunch break” at the end of the day so I’m around 5 p.m. at the latest. Having my evenings free is a greater benefit when one has someone to spend the time with, but with my girlfriend living 160 miles away, it’s not as big a deal this year as it was last year.
I haven’t directly mentioned this in the Blog till now (though I’ve hinted at I), I’m going out with Jessica “Jessie” Wyatt. We went to the same church in Columbia, and when I spent part of my Spring Break working extra for the Missourian, we got to know each other a little better.
One thing led to another and now we’re working to keep up a long-distance relationship through phone calls and letters (and maybe emails if she gets her computer situation worked out). We won’t get to see each other very often, but since we both admit we’re not easy people to put up with, going slow might be for the best.
At least that’s what we try to tell ourselves.
In other church related news, at my Sullivan church, I “graduated” from the High School Sunday school class into the Adult class. I’m going to turn 21 this summer (on July 20 for those who wish to send regards, letters, or cash) and I figured I was about to overstay my welcome. Of course, now it’s weird being in the same class as your father, but that’s the way life goes sometimes.
After moving around so much when I was younger, part of me doesn’t find it such a big deal to move on. I’m already making plans for next semester when I’ll be a Community Advisor in Cramer Hall – the Journalism/Mass Communication learning community.
(Note: I spammed my co-workers for next year with a link to come to this site, and if they had the attention span to read thus for (and Lord bless ‘em if they did), so I know they would call me on it if I didn’t stress the fact that Mass Communications is a VERY IMPORTANT part of residential life and how ABSOLUTELY VITAL it is not to malign or neglect to mention it.
It will be strange leaving the Honors Learning Community in Hatch Hall behind, but it’s a chance to help cultivate the minds of a new group of people. Actually, it’s really an excuse to have my own room and swap stories, but I plan to work to build a stronger sense of community in the dorm… when I have the time… Just joking… I think.
Seriously, it’s a lot of responsibility, but it can also be a lot of fun. The idea is to do the most with the first part and hopefully have enough time to have some of the second part as well. I’ve always been working to build up the people around me; I just now have a more formal commission of doing so.
Here’s hoping I’m up to the task (and this isn’t just “whistling Dixie” to sound impressive. This is my honest prayer).
Anyway, I have lots of reasons to be excited over the summer and lots of things to look forward to when I return to Columbia. I pray all your summers are doing well and hope to hear from you all soon.
Sarcastic or sincere, serious or joking, there’re few things better than having an inbox full of notes from your friends.
I hope this post was worth the time it took to read it and hope this site lives up to the play-up I sometimes give it.
Take care of yourselves,
- Caleb
'TTFN_tah_tah_for_now'
