Empathy and Life

I don't even know where to start. Life has been a nut house for the past week or so. Might as well start from the beginning... Isn't that always the best place?

Had a job interview not this past Friday, but the Friday before that. It went well. Monday, I got a call back for a second interview. Second interview went well. Said I'd get a call this past Friday - nothing yet. I know that the retail manager at the restaurant / store is a busy woman, but... still. I want to know if I got the job or if I need to keep looking. I need to call Tuesday (Monday is President's Day) and here's to hoping for some good news...

Hmm. Wednesday, went into the church around midday and talked with the administrative staff and the Pastor for a bit - standard bullshitting around. Normal stuff. The assistant Pastor told me then that I should have gotten an email the night before - I hadn't - asking if I could run sound for rehearsal and then for a service the next week (this coming week). So, I went over to my Mom's office and asked her if she could take me that night. Instead, she calls my Dad and they gave me permission to use the car as needed for sound work within the church - as "professional development". Made me quite happy. Went to the church that night and did my job - the job of a Sound Engineer. And this next week, I'll be at that again... Wednesday is going to be an absolutely crazy, long day. Friday - two days ago - I went in again, and started to pull together a quote to upgrade the network. Our church wants to start live streaming our services. Um... With our current network, there is no way in the name of any kind of god or otherwise that that's going to happen. Our network is a convoluted MESS. We have three wireless routers - routers! - in the building, each handing out its own fraking DHCP settings. I don't even know how our network is still UP, much less actually working! I'm pulling together a quote to basically pull out the entire old network and completely redo it. And, of course, that isn't exactly cheap... But it'll still be cheaper if we do it than if we called a company in to do it. And, of course, I'm going to have to spend some time working on computers themselves so I can set one up to run streaming... And we're going to have to find another volunteer who's willing to run the camera during services. Meaning we're going to have an A/V team of at least three people working in concert for service. Sunday morning - this morning - was normal service, and it went okay. I'm currently training another guy on the board so that it's not... unattended during service if I'm sick or otherwise. Definitely need somebody on the board at all times. Feedback sucks.

Thursday was a mostly amazing day. I asked Kara out - and she said yes. She and I have gone out once before, and it went well for the year we dated. Things went to shit thanks to her parents, but now... now that's mostly fixed. She had asked me to be romantic about her asking her out this time, so I did what I could... Apparently I did a good job. Made me so happy, too. She makes me the happiest person in the world, even with all the insanity she and I deal with and go through on a constant basis. She has already proven to me that she's worth the pain and the struggle. I will make this last. She and I have made several promises to each other over the past couple months, and we both keep our promises. That alone makes it worth it. Happiness ensues!

Friday was... nuts. But I don't want to go into that. It was a mess. Hopefully worth it though. Oh, hopefully, hopefully...

Money is a shitty thing. Know that? It really is. (Going back to) The church is always tight on money. We've always got projects on our hands, and... it's hard to get our hands on everything we need to make those projects pan out. For instance. We're looking to upgrade our A/V system. This... is a big one by itself. We're thinking about adding another projector and screen, and that in itself requires a few modifications. Then, there's the fact that we're going to try to move to live streaming soon of our services. This isn't going to be possible unless we upgrade our network, and some of our sound equipment. By sound equipment, I'm referring to the fact that we need three (new) choir microphones, more boom stands, a couple more (real) vocal and instrument mics... and more XLR cables. Of course, right? I've already done the proposal for that. We're looking at... six or seven hundred dollars for that. Then, to make the network able to handle live streaming, I'm looking at an entire network upgrade. That means running new cables, crimping, adding in switches... et cetera. A lot of stuff, and not the easiest job in the world. I'm a network tech - we /can/ do it on our own, it just requires volunteer time and the ability to make this all work. Oh, and we're looking at a grand worth of new gear, cabling... yeah. I hope we can make it all work.

Oh yeah! I'm getting back into school in March. Right around the corner almost... Two classes, but they're six hours a week a piece. Fortunately, don't have to worry about cost of a parking pass, because they're not on the main campus. Should be... survivable. Just have to knock it out. I have the motivation this time.... I hope. Here's to hope and the hope that a job will work around my school.

So. (Time for another two seventy topic change.) I am an Empath. I absorb people's emotions. As a (direct, possibly) result of this, I do what I can to help other people - especially my friends and family. I listen to what they have to say, I offer my advice when they need it, I do everything in my power to just be there for them. Unfortunately, this means I absorb... a hell of a lot. This leads to me needing somebody I can turn to when things get too bad. As of right now, I have... one... maybe two? people in this world I can turn to. Naturally, everything hits particularly hard at night - around midnight, 01.00. This sucks particularly hard, because both of those people I can turn to are either asleep, or just can't handle anything more at that point. Hard to deal with. This morning, one of the two people pinged me and basically told me that she couldn't constantly deal with it. Which... kinda leaves me fraked. Big time. And blogging only does so much good... I don't even know if anybody reads this, so I'm not sure if it really matters. Don't know.

Blah. Grocery run time. Then... food? And gotta write that proposal. Which is more of a report then a proposal... a "Why we need two grand worth of gear to do this" kind of report. And possibly present it to the committee...

Until next time.

Peace.