Blargghhhh

Why Blargghhhh, you might ask? Some might have noticed a certain amount of lack of creativity and motivation occurring on my blog the past several weeks. If you didn't notice, just trust me, it did happen (I know, I was there, does that mean I have street cred?). I think the problem is a result of my missing a mundane life. I've been missing the nice life that I had when I spent weeks at a time at home in Bogra. Even when I have been in Bogra, I managed to spice up that life a little bit by moving into a new house. Now I'm attempting to settle into said house without being here for more than maybe 3 days in a row at any point in time. Makes me miss my childhood when I would spend 99% of my time at home on the farm because my parents weren't dumb enough to torture themselves by taking me places when they had someone else at home to watch over me in a controlled environment (I can't blame them). That's one snippet of life. Here are additional random snippets.

I slammed my finger in a window today. It bled.

My big toenails are getting long. I should probably trim them.

I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and decided I should probably work on being a little more diligent in how I approach my faith. I then read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and decided that some memorization work might be a good start since he talks about how that's where the Jewish children in Jesus' time started. I chose Psalms because it seemed like a good mixture of praises and laments that you could pull out and "chew your cud" on. I then took one last practical step and gave myself 2 years to complete this task. This is an effort to do this as something I enjoy and not ruin the pleasure of enjoying it by pressuring myself into difficult measurables. I'm not on pace to reach my goal currently but I'm hoping I get a snowball effect later on maybe even beat it.

My pants got ripped the other day. I really liked those pants and now they will be out of commission until I have time to take them to be patched. I got those pants for free from a coworker.

I bought new sandals last night. My old ones broke and were getting pretty nasty even before that. I wore my new ones out of the store. I told the salesman that I didn't want the old ones. I thought they might have someone they sell used ones to. I was wrong, he picked them up, walked to the front of the store as I stood there watching (fun fact for you, the comma that would normally go in this location is called an Oxford Comma and is actually totally unnecessary, which is why I will leave it out) and just threw them into the street.

I have a fake Christmas tree sitting on the desk in front of me. I never put it away from last year and it seems that there is no rush now.

We plan on having a real American turkey for thanksgiving this year. Someone is coming to Bangladesh in Mid-November and will be throwing a frozen turkey in their suitcase for us.

Those new sandals I bought, yeah, totally rubbing my feet raw in a spot or two. I'm hoping the problem goes away if they're broken in or even if I just build up calluses I'll be ok.

I haven't been to the dentist in a while. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

I do think I'm going to get new glasses soon. I had talked myself out of them about a month ago but since the dry season has arrived the dust is starting to build and that is reeking havoc with my contacts. This has put the prospect of wearing my current glasses more into focus (laugh, it's a pun) and since they are half broken, that seems like a bad situation.

Oh and I was talking to my boss earlier this week. He was telling me about this thing called appreciative inquiry. Next thing I know he is mentioning how there is a workshop on it going on up in Nepal later this month and that a few people from MCC will be attending. Next thing I know after that he says, "you should go too, I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner." Within a couple of hours I had a plane ticket back to Katmandhu on Biman Airlines for November 15. Part of me wanted to turn it down and just stay put for awhile but frankly, this is a really interesting concept to me and I can see where it might help me directly in the work I do.

Oh and I also got a cold yesterday. It's a fun life