Back in the race
Jumping back into the race - but where am I going?
This has been a whirlwind of a week. Readjusting after coming back from my first vacation in two years has been a little bit surreal, since I can't remember the last time where I was able to so completely leave behind my life here. This was my first voyage off of the North American continent in nearly twenty years (I've been to Canada and Mexico), and after a few days of walking on foreign soil, I could feel the stresses and mindfulness of work responsibilities, ministry responsibilties, maintaining/keeping up with people, even being conscious of stuff going on in the world and local news (particularly sports), just fade away. Even if I wanted to worry about how things were managing at work or at church without me around, I couldn't. All that I had to think about was what we were going to do that day, and I found that mentality awfully appealing.
To use a geeky analogy, seems that the closest approximation would be rebooting a computer. You know how after letting a computer run for a really long time, a whole mess of background zombie processes build up and consume system resources, to the point where even if the system is still working, it's a little bit slower and more susceptible to a crash? I think that's pretty much what I was like after two years without a vacation. My mind is running a lot more cleanly now that things have been flushed out.
(I can almost hear you thinking, a) "That's just about the geekiest analogy I've ever heard," and b) "Bob's only now figuring out the purposes of vacation?")
However, it has meant several days of getting back up to speed with work, ministry, people, and life in general. While reading through hundreds of emails, catching up on blogs, talking with people in person and online, it's occurred to me that in a sense, this is like the beginning of the rest of my life (kind of a duh statement if you think about it). Meaning, I have just about nothing concrete planned for the rest of this year. I reflected on this towards the end of the trip - earlier this year, I was struggling with a decision whether to go to grad school across the country this fall. Ultimately, I decided to stay, and some of the benefits of staying were the opportunities to go on missions to Mexico and vacation to Spain with friends. Combined with moving out into the new place, it's been quite the eventful last few months for me. Thing is, I no longer know where I'm going or what I'm looking forward to - so much of my year has been dominated by wrestling with decision-making, missions, moving, and vacation. What's next? This is something I'll be putting more thought into in the coming weeks - prayers are appreciated. I'll do my best to communicate where I am on the journey.
I finally felt more like I'm moved after going with Hanlin and Chris to grocery shopping this week. I'm pulling out all the old college tricks - clam chowder as pasta sauce, microwaveable chicken nuggets, Lingling dumplings from Costco, baby carrots to snack on, bags of broccoli all set to stir-fry with garlic, and of course my egg quesadillas. Only a matter of time before fruit smoothies and microwaved "baked" potatoes with cheese and Bacos re-introduce themselves into my diet. If anyone has suggestions to broaden the repertoire, please post a comment :-).
Pleasant discovery of the week - I've discovered that a VTA train station is less than a mile away from the house (probably a little over 10-minute walk) and the train stops smack dab in front of my office. Europe reinforced my enjoyment of taking fast public transportation like trains, so I'll have to figure out how many times a week I can take advantage of my Cisco free travel pass while saving on astronomical gas prices (I had to fill up with premium today, and it cost nearly $50!).
Weird personal realization of the week - apparently I'll be singing at the wedding of a couple of friends in 2006, after having led worship at numerous weddings in the past 3 years and presenting special music at one. I was actually asked to lead worship at another wedding recently by a college friend who I hadn't seen since college days, and asked based on observing me at a previous one (I had to decline due to vacation). If you had asked me 5 years ago whether I thought I'd ever be lending my voice to such a special occasion in people's lives, I'd have never even entertained the thought. God definitely has a sense of humor.
Check out the Spain blog for pics and stories from the trip. I am one of the delinquents who has yet to contribute content, but I've got a few in mind.
This has been a whirlwind of a week. Readjusting after coming back from my first vacation in two years has been a little bit surreal, since I can't remember the last time where I was able to so completely leave behind my life here. This was my first voyage off of the North American continent in nearly twenty years (I've been to Canada and Mexico), and after a few days of walking on foreign soil, I could feel the stresses and mindfulness of work responsibilities, ministry responsibilties, maintaining/keeping up with people, even being conscious of stuff going on in the world and local news (particularly sports), just fade away. Even if I wanted to worry about how things were managing at work or at church without me around, I couldn't. All that I had to think about was what we were going to do that day, and I found that mentality awfully appealing.
To use a geeky analogy, seems that the closest approximation would be rebooting a computer. You know how after letting a computer run for a really long time, a whole mess of background zombie processes build up and consume system resources, to the point where even if the system is still working, it's a little bit slower and more susceptible to a crash? I think that's pretty much what I was like after two years without a vacation. My mind is running a lot more cleanly now that things have been flushed out.
(I can almost hear you thinking, a) "That's just about the geekiest analogy I've ever heard," and b) "Bob's only now figuring out the purposes of vacation?")
However, it has meant several days of getting back up to speed with work, ministry, people, and life in general. While reading through hundreds of emails, catching up on blogs, talking with people in person and online, it's occurred to me that in a sense, this is like the beginning of the rest of my life (kind of a duh statement if you think about it). Meaning, I have just about nothing concrete planned for the rest of this year. I reflected on this towards the end of the trip - earlier this year, I was struggling with a decision whether to go to grad school across the country this fall. Ultimately, I decided to stay, and some of the benefits of staying were the opportunities to go on missions to Mexico and vacation to Spain with friends. Combined with moving out into the new place, it's been quite the eventful last few months for me. Thing is, I no longer know where I'm going or what I'm looking forward to - so much of my year has been dominated by wrestling with decision-making, missions, moving, and vacation. What's next? This is something I'll be putting more thought into in the coming weeks - prayers are appreciated. I'll do my best to communicate where I am on the journey.
I finally felt more like I'm moved after going with Hanlin and Chris to grocery shopping this week. I'm pulling out all the old college tricks - clam chowder as pasta sauce, microwaveable chicken nuggets, Lingling dumplings from Costco, baby carrots to snack on, bags of broccoli all set to stir-fry with garlic, and of course my egg quesadillas. Only a matter of time before fruit smoothies and microwaved "baked" potatoes with cheese and Bacos re-introduce themselves into my diet. If anyone has suggestions to broaden the repertoire, please post a comment :-).
Pleasant discovery of the week - I've discovered that a VTA train station is less than a mile away from the house (probably a little over 10-minute walk) and the train stops smack dab in front of my office. Europe reinforced my enjoyment of taking fast public transportation like trains, so I'll have to figure out how many times a week I can take advantage of my Cisco free travel pass while saving on astronomical gas prices (I had to fill up with premium today, and it cost nearly $50!).
Weird personal realization of the week - apparently I'll be singing at the wedding of a couple of friends in 2006, after having led worship at numerous weddings in the past 3 years and presenting special music at one. I was actually asked to lead worship at another wedding recently by a college friend who I hadn't seen since college days, and asked based on observing me at a previous one (I had to decline due to vacation). If you had asked me 5 years ago whether I thought I'd ever be lending my voice to such a special occasion in people's lives, I'd have never even entertained the thought. God definitely has a sense of humor.
Check out the Spain blog for pics and stories from the trip. I am one of the delinquents who has yet to contribute content, but I've got a few in mind.
posted by Bob at
7:30 PM
1 Comments:
All that stuff about zombie processes apply primarily to Windows boxen no? ;)
Hmmm ... you can take some cuts of beef; dab a bit of oil on a frying pan and pan-fry (not really fry) the steak. At the same time, take some baby spinach, wash, add some dressing. For carbs you can add rice or pasta. For some color with the greens you can add carrots (baby, or slice 'em yourself). Unfortunately meat can be expensive, or you can be like me and take up the less desireable cuts (ones w/ more cartilage in them or something) - the cross-rib something or other ...
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