It’s the weekend. Others love it.
I hate it. No, that’s not quite right.
I intensely dislike it.
I wish it was Sunday night again as on the weekends, I have no real purpose.
And after seeing 2012 tonight, I’m in more of a “meh” state of mind than anything else.
On that note, 2012 has a seriously crap storyline but the special effects are great. Out of 10, I’d give it a 4 (maybe 5 when I think back to the LA scene as it implodes and falls into the Pacific Ocean).
Not looking forward to (light-hearted) jibes from my Dad about why I am not going out with someone on a weekend.
I don’t need a girlfriend at the moment. What I really need are real friends rather than acquaintances.
The loneliness is killing me slowly and softly inside.
But after the years, my eccentricities have multiplied. And the number of actual friends has dwindled. Maybe I will just turn into a hermit.
It’s much easier to cry myself to sleep at night without others around.
2347hrs
Ordinary Time 34/Last week before Advent – Thursday
Feria
Ordinary Time 33/2nd Week before Advent – Thursday
Feast Day of St. Elizabeth of Hungary
I have IMonk to thank for this again. Patrol Magazine rocks. The articles are not your typical fare from a Christian magazine.
Stuff I am reading from there?
- How my faith led me to embrace agnosticism – Tim Raveling
- Why is church so dull? A psychotherapist diagnoses the Sunday ritual – Stephen W. Simpson
- Why Christian sex education doesn’t work – Jon Busch
- What evangelical magazines don’t get about Christian swearing – Patrol Magazine editorial
- David Bazan’s inevitable apostasy – Joel Hartse
- Why obsessing over definitions won’t save evangelicalism – Patrol Magazine editorial
- Christian college students’ universal fascination with Settlers of Catan – Brian Buell & Anna Scott
- Video of the day: Obnoxious Seminarians
+ 2226hrs
To say that I am utterly stuffed after my Canberra trip is an understatement.
I’m still awake courtesy of trace amounts of caffeine in my system from 2 extra strong coffee’s (one here at home at 0245hrs and one in Canberra at 0915hrs), one weak filtered coffee on the plane down to Canberra (at about 0600hrs) and one big ass bottle of sugar-free Red Bull. And a couple of Coke Zero’s.
That’s more caffeine in one day than I’d usually have in an entire week. I did need it though. Finally got to sleep last night at about 1am only to wake up at 2:30am. Hoping to get more than enough sleep tonight because I have a whole day of training on tomorrow.
Canberra though has changed a helluva lot since I was last there back in 1992 on holidays with my grandfather and parents. I love the new office my organisation has down there and I am now wondering whether or not I should apply for a temporary transfer to the Canberra office for say 6 months. It would be great to be in the thick of things given that is my organisation’s national HQ.
Now time for some zzzzzz’s……
+ 2128hrs
Ordinary Time 33/2nd Week before Advent – Tuesday
Feria
It’s past midnight. I’ve been tossing and turning in bed since 9:45pm tonight. And I’m somewhat paranoid about sleeping tonight.
Hence why I am still up.
I’m getting picked up at 0330hrs this morning by a cab to head to Brisbane Domestic airport. My alarm is set for 2:30am, 2:35am and 2:45am. But given my recent unlucky streak with sleep, there’s every chance in the world that I’ll end up sleeping through all three alarms and I’ll miss my flight to Canberra which leaves at 0510hrs. >.<
So I guess that I’ll be power-napping until my first alarm goes off this morning. And then I’ll wake myself up with a cold shower followed by a very, very, very, very early breakfast before standing outside the house in a suit at 3:30am for my cab to arrive. And I sure hope like heck that it does arrive this morning. Otherwise I will not be a very happy chappy and I guess I won’t be attending that work meeting today either.
Maybe this insomnia is a blessing of sorts, just for today.
All I ask God for today is strength to get through a full day of meetings in Canberra and the ability to crash to sleep once I get home tonight.
And that coffee is cheap in Canberra. Because I’ll be needing lots of it on this fine Tuesday of November 2009.
+ 0024hrs
Ordinary Time 32/3rd Week before Advent – Saturday
Feria
Two poems by Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. that I’ve been pondering on ever since I first read them this week.
From Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1963: London, Penguin)
‘My own heart let me more have pity on; let’
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst’s all-in-all in all a world of wet.Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
’s not wrung, see you; unforseen times rather – as skies
Betweenpie mountains – lights a lovely mile.
‘I wake a feel the fell of dark, not day.’
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of a spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
===========================================
Reading still helps me to get through the despair. My reading list over this past week:
- Tom Perrotta, The Abstinence Teacher (2007: London, Harper Perennial)
- Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake (2004: London, Harper Perennial)
- Dave Robinson (illus. Oscar Zarate), Introducing: Kierkegaard (2006: London, Icon Books)
- Monocle (November 2009 edition)
- First Things (November 2009 edition)
- The Monthly (November 2009 edition)
Other things to watch as well:
- Getting back up to speed with Stargate Universe
- Lars and the Real Girl (OK, I have a little crush on Kelli Garner)
- The Namesake
- Marie Antoinette
- Juno
- The Edge of Love
+ 1941hrs
Ordinary Time 32/3rd Week before Advent – Tuesday
Feast Day of St. Leo the Great (d. A.D.461), Pope & Doctor of the Church
[ now playing? ] Juan Diego Flórez & Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (cond. Daniel Oren) – Bel Canto Spectacular
