Rather than doing something ridiculously epic and momentous for my hundredth blog post, I'll just do a long, boring update on life, experience, the world, and the way I perceive it all.
So living in Orem is mostly all good, with really only one minus-- which minus would be my job. I'm not trying to be ungrateful or complain too much, I promise. It's just that I don't think I'm really cut out for customer service in a call center. I'm most happy when I feel like I'm doing something either epic and momentous, or something very simple and natural. I'm doing something awkwardly none of that. I'm helping people fix problems with their alarm systems, and I do it over the phone. It is neither of epic proportion nor simplistic and natural. And I'm forced to adhere to company rules, like having an average call time of 10:45 seconds while also including proper greetings, closings, and sundry other phone call procedures and protocol. This does not even begin to include all of the issues of actually dealing with people, either incensed with all the self-righteous anger of an American (or Canadian) with an overblown sense of entitlement, or befuddled with age and deafness, or actually very sweet and good people, simply frustrated and overwhelmed with something that went wrong when they really did not need anything else to go wrong in their life.
The end result is me going to work really early in the morning and trying earnestly to be good at my job, sometimes succeeding, sometimes blowing it, sometimes proud of myself, mostly just stressed out, tired, and kind of humiliated from time to time. But it pays me money, keeps me from being idle and a bum, and there's a fair amount of good-natured camaraderie at work among us tech support reps and our supervisors. So I carry on, especially in the knowledge that it won't last forever and that in about a week I'll be working at 7 AM instead of 5 AM.
One of the main things that keeps me going in spite of the way work leaves me feeling drained and demoralized is exercise. I don't have homework anymore, so I have free time when I get home from work. My dad advised me in a special way when I left Seattle in early January to make sure I made good use of whatever leisure time I might have. Well, although I have to admit that I have and do spend time watching Man vs. Wild and other nature documentaries on Netflix, as well as reading the news, Gmailing, and Facebooking on the computer, I've been spending a lot of time exercising. I have a Gold's Gym membership, so several weeks back I started going a few times a week to swim laps, lift weights, and sit in the sauna... and remember how much hotter the Russian banya in Kirovsk was. Also, I've been pretty steadily jogging in my Vibram barefoot shoes and did my longest run in them yet last week, five miles, although it was mostly trail-running so not on concrete. Finally, the newest bit of fitness that I've introduced to my life is yoga. I really really like it. I've been doing a strength-building yoga, and after I go running it feels incredibly good to stretch out and feel my shoulders working hard to hold myself up during "Vinyasa." I kind of tweaked my knee earlier this week somehow, so I've been going a little easy on the fitness, but today I did a hike with Jeff, Kira, and Jeffrey and did just fine, so I figure I'll be back on Monday in full force.
And it feels so good to be healthy and to make my body stronger. It's one of the principal joys of life, I've come to realize. We have these awesome, strong, very physical bodies, with such great potential. Our bodies weren't created to sit at desks and cubicles. They were meant to run, to walk, to stretch, to hoist, to sense, and all in all to experience and perceive the natural world that they belong to by right. I'm going to read "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall after I finish reading Anna Karenina, and I feel like the title of that book sums it all up. We were born to be physical and be beings of activity and movement. Anyway... moving on...
I'm definitely going to graduate in April. That is now a firmly established fact. I sealed the deal last week with two somewhat procrastinated interviews, one with a graduation counselor, the other with the European Studies coordinator. Not gonna lie, it felt a little weird to be back on BYU campus again, but perhaps that's just a sign that the end is near, and that it's now supposed to end. Not the learning and growing and character-building that I associate with it, but just the place itself and the chapter of my life it represents needs to end. I need to move on out, and new people will move on in. But it's kind of gratifying that at the end of April, I'll have a diploma I can waive around at people that has a fancy "Bachelor of Arts" and "European Studies" printed on it.
I generally have not delved too deeply into spiritual matters on this blog, because I have an actual journal that I keep for that sort of thing, but I will say that I have been improving myself in that arena. Spiritual health needs to be nurtured and tended to just as physical health does, in order to have a balanced life. I've been focusing especially on reading the scriptures every day, even if only for five minutes at the most, although it often goes to about ten to fifteen minutes. The important, significant, and new thing about my scripture reading is that I require some sort of pondering and writing to go with it. The Church Website has been really helpful in this regard, because when you sign in you can just highlight a portion of scripture you want to emphasize, and then you can write a note about it in the "margins" which goes straight into your "study journal". End result: I read less verses and get a lot more out of it. For example, I've been studying one chapter in the Book of Mormon for the last week and a half, 2 Nephi 9, and I've picked a lot of interesting, cool things out of it. You want my opinion on the matter, scripture "study" is all about pondering, not about the reading. It's about the thinking that goes along with the reading. The writing helps me get the pondering into a more organized and understandable form. Anyway, besides the pondering, the consistency has been a major of focus of mine, and I can say with pride that for the last two weeks or so I've only missed scripture reading for one day. And I've noticed a difference.
This post is already insufferably long, but suffer me a few more sentences for a final paragraph or two. One of the biggest questions in my life right now is when to leave Utah. I figure that it is sort of inevitable, but it'll be difficult. I have a lot of good memories and associations with this valley. I've spent a lot of time in the mountains and trails that are only a couple of miles from anywhere I've lived here. The more time I spend on the trails and in the canyons, the more I look at the canyons I haven't explored and look at the snowy summits of Cascade Mountain and Mt. Nebo that I haven't climbed, the more I feel like I can't leave until I give the place one more go. I have better hiking gear than I've ever had, and this spring looks like it'll be an early one and a beautiful one. I was thinking about leaving in May for Washington DC last fall. Now I think it may be more like July. We'll see, though.
The hardest part won't be parting with the mountains, though, but rather with the great friends and family that have been a support for me. But I've said goodbye to friends before, friends who have graduated and gone, and left on missions, and gone to find work. I guess my time will come too. But the best part about being done with school, and living off my own check, is that I'm a free man. I can make whatever choices seem best and intuitive and will make me the happiest. So that brings me up to the present, pretty much. Right now, I live in Orem, I work, and in my off time I'm doing what I can to live life to its fullest. And I am in complete control of where my life goes from here. And so whether or not that leaves me in Utah Valley for a little longer, or sends me out to the east coast, who knows or cares? Right now I'm happy, and I know that I'll be able to make whatever decision seems best.
Finally, I just turned 25 last Sunday. Weird. I still feel like the young kid in the family, how could I possibly be an adult in his mid-twenties? But if I live as much as I've lived already, I'll be fifty. That's insane. Well, on that note, I'll finally stop writing and go to bed. Fifty points to anyone who read this whole thing.
So living in Orem is mostly all good, with really only one minus-- which minus would be my job. I'm not trying to be ungrateful or complain too much, I promise. It's just that I don't think I'm really cut out for customer service in a call center. I'm most happy when I feel like I'm doing something either epic and momentous, or something very simple and natural. I'm doing something awkwardly none of that. I'm helping people fix problems with their alarm systems, and I do it over the phone. It is neither of epic proportion nor simplistic and natural. And I'm forced to adhere to company rules, like having an average call time of 10:45 seconds while also including proper greetings, closings, and sundry other phone call procedures and protocol. This does not even begin to include all of the issues of actually dealing with people, either incensed with all the self-righteous anger of an American (or Canadian) with an overblown sense of entitlement, or befuddled with age and deafness, or actually very sweet and good people, simply frustrated and overwhelmed with something that went wrong when they really did not need anything else to go wrong in their life.
The end result is me going to work really early in the morning and trying earnestly to be good at my job, sometimes succeeding, sometimes blowing it, sometimes proud of myself, mostly just stressed out, tired, and kind of humiliated from time to time. But it pays me money, keeps me from being idle and a bum, and there's a fair amount of good-natured camaraderie at work among us tech support reps and our supervisors. So I carry on, especially in the knowledge that it won't last forever and that in about a week I'll be working at 7 AM instead of 5 AM.
One of the main things that keeps me going in spite of the way work leaves me feeling drained and demoralized is exercise. I don't have homework anymore, so I have free time when I get home from work. My dad advised me in a special way when I left Seattle in early January to make sure I made good use of whatever leisure time I might have. Well, although I have to admit that I have and do spend time watching Man vs. Wild and other nature documentaries on Netflix, as well as reading the news, Gmailing, and Facebooking on the computer, I've been spending a lot of time exercising. I have a Gold's Gym membership, so several weeks back I started going a few times a week to swim laps, lift weights, and sit in the sauna... and remember how much hotter the Russian banya in Kirovsk was. Also, I've been pretty steadily jogging in my Vibram barefoot shoes and did my longest run in them yet last week, five miles, although it was mostly trail-running so not on concrete. Finally, the newest bit of fitness that I've introduced to my life is yoga. I really really like it. I've been doing a strength-building yoga, and after I go running it feels incredibly good to stretch out and feel my shoulders working hard to hold myself up during "Vinyasa." I kind of tweaked my knee earlier this week somehow, so I've been going a little easy on the fitness, but today I did a hike with Jeff, Kira, and Jeffrey and did just fine, so I figure I'll be back on Monday in full force.
And it feels so good to be healthy and to make my body stronger. It's one of the principal joys of life, I've come to realize. We have these awesome, strong, very physical bodies, with such great potential. Our bodies weren't created to sit at desks and cubicles. They were meant to run, to walk, to stretch, to hoist, to sense, and all in all to experience and perceive the natural world that they belong to by right. I'm going to read "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall after I finish reading Anna Karenina, and I feel like the title of that book sums it all up. We were born to be physical and be beings of activity and movement. Anyway... moving on...
I'm definitely going to graduate in April. That is now a firmly established fact. I sealed the deal last week with two somewhat procrastinated interviews, one with a graduation counselor, the other with the European Studies coordinator. Not gonna lie, it felt a little weird to be back on BYU campus again, but perhaps that's just a sign that the end is near, and that it's now supposed to end. Not the learning and growing and character-building that I associate with it, but just the place itself and the chapter of my life it represents needs to end. I need to move on out, and new people will move on in. But it's kind of gratifying that at the end of April, I'll have a diploma I can waive around at people that has a fancy "Bachelor of Arts" and "European Studies" printed on it.
I generally have not delved too deeply into spiritual matters on this blog, because I have an actual journal that I keep for that sort of thing, but I will say that I have been improving myself in that arena. Spiritual health needs to be nurtured and tended to just as physical health does, in order to have a balanced life. I've been focusing especially on reading the scriptures every day, even if only for five minutes at the most, although it often goes to about ten to fifteen minutes. The important, significant, and new thing about my scripture reading is that I require some sort of pondering and writing to go with it. The Church Website has been really helpful in this regard, because when you sign in you can just highlight a portion of scripture you want to emphasize, and then you can write a note about it in the "margins" which goes straight into your "study journal". End result: I read less verses and get a lot more out of it. For example, I've been studying one chapter in the Book of Mormon for the last week and a half, 2 Nephi 9, and I've picked a lot of interesting, cool things out of it. You want my opinion on the matter, scripture "study" is all about pondering, not about the reading. It's about the thinking that goes along with the reading. The writing helps me get the pondering into a more organized and understandable form. Anyway, besides the pondering, the consistency has been a major of focus of mine, and I can say with pride that for the last two weeks or so I've only missed scripture reading for one day. And I've noticed a difference.
This post is already insufferably long, but suffer me a few more sentences for a final paragraph or two. One of the biggest questions in my life right now is when to leave Utah. I figure that it is sort of inevitable, but it'll be difficult. I have a lot of good memories and associations with this valley. I've spent a lot of time in the mountains and trails that are only a couple of miles from anywhere I've lived here. The more time I spend on the trails and in the canyons, the more I look at the canyons I haven't explored and look at the snowy summits of Cascade Mountain and Mt. Nebo that I haven't climbed, the more I feel like I can't leave until I give the place one more go. I have better hiking gear than I've ever had, and this spring looks like it'll be an early one and a beautiful one. I was thinking about leaving in May for Washington DC last fall. Now I think it may be more like July. We'll see, though.
The hardest part won't be parting with the mountains, though, but rather with the great friends and family that have been a support for me. But I've said goodbye to friends before, friends who have graduated and gone, and left on missions, and gone to find work. I guess my time will come too. But the best part about being done with school, and living off my own check, is that I'm a free man. I can make whatever choices seem best and intuitive and will make me the happiest. So that brings me up to the present, pretty much. Right now, I live in Orem, I work, and in my off time I'm doing what I can to live life to its fullest. And I am in complete control of where my life goes from here. And so whether or not that leaves me in Utah Valley for a little longer, or sends me out to the east coast, who knows or cares? Right now I'm happy, and I know that I'll be able to make whatever decision seems best.
Finally, I just turned 25 last Sunday. Weird. I still feel like the young kid in the family, how could I possibly be an adult in his mid-twenties? But if I live as much as I've lived already, I'll be fifty. That's insane. Well, on that note, I'll finally stop writing and go to bed. Fifty points to anyone who read this whole thing.
I know customer support sucks, but like you said it's money in the bank. Just remember it isn't forever, even though I know that mid-shift after a call with an abusive, ignorant, unreasonable customer, things can seem pretty bleak.
ReplyDeleteOnce on a Sunday night, working nearly alone, a woman called in with a problem that I couldn't fix over the phone. She got mad, hung up, and called back trying to get another worker in the call center who would solve her problem. But her call kept coming right back to me. She must have done it ten times and by the end she was screaming into the phone and calling me horrible names. I still haven't quite forgiven her. I saved her phone number thinking that one day I'll call her and say mean things back. I've never done it, she wouldn't even remember me, but I've also never deleted her number.
Anyway the point of this long comment is, congratulations on your 100th post, and keep on hiking. Those mountains are the best way to put that dumb call center in perspective.
That's a terrible story, Marshall. I didn't need convincing that call center customer support jobs weren't for be, but you've both reaffirmed that I don't have what it takes. Luckily, I've got something else to do - at least for now - that brings in the money.
ReplyDeleteMatt, wish I had more time to join you for some hiking. Maybe next Saturday, if you were free and had some place in mind. I support you waiting until July to peace out, then we can do some stuff in the spring when possible. In any case, keep on doing what you're doing because it all sounds awesome - except the job, that just sounds necessary; write an essay about it, get a publication, turn it into as much of a plus as possible. Congrats on the 100th post. I remember 25, that was a weird year. May yours be the best there ever was. Cheers.
I love this post! Fifty points to me, cause I read the whole thing. Also, every time I read your blog, I just want to go out and run. Someday, I will find the time/motivation to do so. You're the best, and I love having you around brother!
ReplyDeleteYou're an inspiration!
ReplyDeleteMatty we surely have the same love of exercise/nature gene because while I was swimming this morning I was thinking exactly what you wrote: it feels so good to be healthy and to make my body stronger. I can really relate. Love your writing.
ReplyDeleteI decided that I really need to make better use of my leisure time after reading this. Haha. Oh and I love Vibrams, they're the best!! Anna Karenina is also great! I just finished listening to the audiobook of it.
ReplyDeleteAre there lots of places to go hiking near Washington DC?
To be honest, I really don't know what the hiking is like out there. All I've even heard about is the Appalachian Trail... I'll find out eventually I guess!
DeleteCongrats on post #100! It is a post worthy of its weighty benchmark. Enjoy the freedom; it's a great time.
ReplyDelete