Lyric Du
Jour:
"There's this love that is burning deep in my soul... Constantly yearning
to get out of control... Wanting to fly higher and higher... I can't abide
standing outside the fire." - Garth Brooks, "Standing Outside The
Fire."
Today I found
out that the people at my old newspaper don't like me much. At least that's
what the editor told me. It seems that folks think I didn't finish my job.
Well, I didn't. But I don't think it was all my fault. I sorta had to go
back to school. You know, the thing that is a bazillion times more important
that the newspaper where I was working.
When they brought me on to design this visitors guide for them, they wanted
to wrap it up at the end of August. Well, hello... I had to go back to school
in the middle of the month, so they moved it up to the middle of the month.
That was still cutting it close and the paper isn't known for hitting everything
by the deadline. On my last day of work (I worked until about 16 hours before
my first class), I talked to the boss. I told him that I would leave everything
in a nice, neat order for them to work on. If they needed me, they could
call and I would work on the weekends or something. The publisher called
my house and talked to my mom. She gave him my number down here. He never
called. I was here the entire time and never got a call. I don't see it as
my fault. Perhaps that's just my skewed thinking at work. But I don't think
so.
I'm not finished with the
stars yet... but so far, so good.
My own personal galaxy is starting to take shape.
There was a little
excitement this morning in
Smallville. My mother e-mailed me
to tell me about it. It seems that the Smallville Fire Department had two
fires at the same time about 4 a.m. They are good at what they do and it
sounds like everything worked out okay for them. And fires happen all of
the time. It doesn't bother me much that I'm not there to help. I mean, there
will be others. But the dry weather that we've had in these parts has the
world burning down... or so it seems. And I'm stuck here learning about history
and music and biology and printing a student paper. I'm glad I'm here doing
those things. I enjoy college. I love the friends I have here. But it's as
if a piece of me is missing. And I've rarely -- if ever -- felt like this
about anything before.
There are many folks down here that just don't understand my interest in
the fire service. And although I sometimes try to explain it... I've come
to the conclusion that it doesn't matter if they understand because I understand.
And there are so few things that I understand as much as the fact that I
really like this firefighting thing. In my life, I'm often frustrated because
there is so much I don't understand or can't figure out. And that makes how
I feel about the fire stuff so
wonderful.
Jonathan
and I were sitting in the office this afternoon talking about people we met
on a trip to Georgia this Spring. (As referenced in the
June 19 entry). So, out of the blue, we
called a girl from the school that hosted the conference we were attending.
After the trip we had called on another occasionally and stayed in touch
with e-mail. Over the summer, however, communication had pretty much died.
She sounded pretty excited to hear from us... and we found out that she,
Jonathan and I are all supposed to be at another conference together in
Washington, D.C. later this semester. There is already a long list of reasons
why I'm looking forward to the Washington trip... and today, I added another
reason.
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