Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Workin' on the Chain Gang

So I'm capturing footage for a 8-10 minute orientation video. It's pretty funny, but it's also been a cross-country epic, so to speak. We'vc got all this stuff to log and capture. Probably over 9 hours worth!

Granted, full interviews were conducted with each staff memeber they encountered for a seperate project, which is why the footage is so much longer than the final project.

In short, it's going to be an interesting time, as I stay up late and try to edit all of this crap rogether and keep a cool head the entire time. Wish me luck!

Tommorow is the last day before I head out to Spencer, MA for the Spencer Fair. I'm kinda bummed that I have to go, but I will make the money that I need, and that is all that's important.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Aaarrgh! - And Other Musings From The First Days Back At School

So apparently blogger has integrated with/been bought out by Google.

HOWEVER, since I already have an account, it is NOT integrated, and at least at this juncture, it appears that the only way I will be able to integrate will be to create a new blog. Which I am not about to do after almost 3 years of blogging.

What else is new?

Well, I'm back at school, editing segments for Fast-Forward/Rewind, a show that documents freshman orientation week. I actually should be editing right now. But I'm not. I'm already staying up to late and not getting enough sleep, even though no one is here and I am not even that busy yet. I'm really nervous about this year. If I don't step up this year, I feel like I never will. This could be a banner year, or a failure year.

Pete Chvany said I looked like I've lost 15 pounds. In reality, I've only lost about 5, but I can already tell it will be short lived unless I get a fitness regimine going. I need to either walk or go to the gym three times a week at least, and cut down drastically on my soda consumption.

In other news, I talked for over an hour with one of the security gaurds at Emerson named Susan. She was born in Kenya and moved here around 40. She has a facinating life. Interestingly enough, she found out I was Mormon and we talked about Utah. She lived in Logan, UT for a few years when she first arrived in America, and then when she went back to Kenya she told all of her friends that there was no alchohol in America! (Utah has relatively little in terms of bars and drinking). Anyway, we had a great conversation, and I already feel like I know her a lot better. She told me that the personal assistant to the school's attorney is a Mormon, and that we should meet. I agreed.

Anyway, when I left, I bumped into a guy asking for money. I recognized him as the guy who had asked me for money the first day I had got back to Boston, and I had given him around a dollar in change. I told him "You asked me for money the other day" and he said, "No, that wasn't me" and I proceeded to describe what he was wearing, and he said "Oh yeah, that was me". He seemed taken aback, and I'm not sure why. I can hypothosize that he was suprised that I had seen him.

I had looked at him and seen him.

In the city you learn to look away and ignore the poverty and panhandling around you. But I saw him and rocognized him two days later, in the dark. And I think it shocked him that I knew and treated him as a person. I'll never know his story and I just hope he can get to a better position someday.

It's certainly been an interesting time. I'm getting anxious about the future, but we'll just have to see what happens. I'm going to try and post for a little bit every night.

Now, on to that editing!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

4 Days... And counting!

I cannot believe I am moving back to school in four days... I am psyched!

When I was a kid, you could never have convinced me that a time would come that I would wish summer break would be over.

Hope all is well. I am heading up to Union, ME in about an hour to work the fair for another 3 days. Wish me luck and survival.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Shi-tastic Day!

today was a bundle of crap from minute one. Though I didn't have to wake up until 9am, I was woken by construction and banging from the back alley way behind the house. So I rolled around for almost two hours drifting in and out of sleep. Then I woke up, checked my e-mail, showered, and (now this was unusual) made some breakfast. Normally, I don't think to really eat breakfast, so I ended up leaving about 5-7 minutes later than I usually do.

This would prove to be my downfall.

I was drowsy and inattentive while driving to work. I've drive Route 136 hundreds of times, and I am very aware of changes in the road surfaces, speeds, curves and corners. When I got into Durham, I reduced speed to 40 mph, (its a 35mph zone) and cruised through. After passing the junction of Route 9 West and the softball field, I began to speed up to 55mph, knowing that around the next corner the speed limit became 50 mph again.

I saw the blue and white flashing lights and thought "That'd better not for me." But I knew they were--I'd been having a premonition, a prompting, if you will that I was going to get pulled over today. Ever since I first got onto 136 I kept thinking that I was going to get pulled over. And here it was, happening.

The officer TELLS ME that when he first spotted me that I was going 40, (as I told you all) and that I sped up to 54 mph as I rounded the corner! Just so you know, by the time he had pulled me over, I was almost 3/4 of a mile INTO the 50mph zone. This shows you how close I was to the 50mph zone when I was spotted. I didn't admit to anything, but I was given a ticket for doing 54 in a 35mph zone. A 185 dollar infraction. PLUS my insurance card said my insurance had expired (it hadn't, I just hadn't been given a new card from Sarah yet). But that was another 175 dollar infraction. Fortunately, the insurance one will be a cinch to contest. I am still debating whether or not I will contest the speeding ticket. I am going to go back and take photos because I think I can get the fine reduced if not erase. I mean I was literally 1000 feet from the 50 mph zone. I mean, I'll take a 50 dollar ticket for doing 54 in a 50, that's fair. I WAS speeding 4 over. But I NEVER go 19 over, that's not me.

So I went to work, mood soured by my perfect record being spoiled, and my soon to be through the roof insurance rates. I am sure that it won't matter that I have had a FLAWLESS driving record for 3 years. They will just see that I am a Male under 25 and assume that I am a reckless and irresponsible adult. (Sexual profiling is still an okay type of descrimination, as long as it's towards men, not women.)

Upon getting to work (15 minutes late, when the boss has recently been cracking down on tardiness) I found that we were SWAMPED by french canadians. It was busier than a weekend, even though it was a TUESDAY. So instead of being able to chill and hang clothes and listen to music, I had to work on the floor, making pitiful attempts to help customers and fruitlessly cleaning the floor (zipping, tucking, hanging) just to see it destroyed the moment I walked away. I went to lunch a half and hour late because I could get a moments free time, and I decided that I needed junk food because I was in such a bad mood. I grabbed my ticket out of my car so I could read it over at lunch. I walked to McDonalds because Freeport was so packed with people that if I had driven I would have never found a space within a mile of my work.

I called Sarah and vented my problems as I ate a big mac and fries. I totally forgot to read the ticket.

Which is why at about an hour after lunch I realized that my ticket was missing. After work I retraced my steps, asked if it had been turned in at McDonalds, but to no avail. I LOST MY F-ING TICKET WITHIN 5 HOURS. NOW I have to figure out how to get another copy, only to contest it.

THEN my boss asked me to stay an extra hour because we'd been so understaffed.

Awesome. SO I didn't even get home until 8pm, even though I was supposed to work 10-6pm.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

I Survived!

So I made it!

Thank you for all your prayers, I know that they were pouring in. I could tell because the week was actually very bareable and I was fairly happy through it.

So tonight I drive down to plymouth and shoot "The Outdoor Type". I'm going to be acting as Nate, a camp councilor. It should be a lot of fun and a nice change from the work I have been doing.

Wish me luck.

I went shopping for clothes with my Mom, Sister and Grandmother, and I had a really nice time spending the day with them. After shopping, Mom Katie and I went candlepin bowling in Oxford. That was a blast, and I even won one game!

Anyway, I've got stuff to do, so I'll talk to you later. Love you all!

Ezra

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

I Could Use Your Prayers

So in the last week or so I have wanted to cry or come close to crying many times because of the state I've been in.

I worked a 9 day stretch at the North Face in Freeport. It started okay, but after day five I began to suffer, and really began to notice the sorness in my throat and my low energy.

But Thursday I picked up my Brother David and we drove to Laconia, NH to spend some time at Jon's Weirs Beach House. However, to make a long story short, I got even worse, restlessly sleeping and hacking and coughing in the night. My head filled with fluid at one point and made all sound seem as if it were coming from another room through a wall.

I had fun, but I didn't get to participate and do as many things as I would have done if I hadn't gotten sick.

So then when I went home, I had to go to work the next day, and because of scheduling requests already made, I felt that I really couldn't call in sick. So I went, and managed, but I was still at work, sick.

Then after work, I drove to Portland to pick up my sister so that she and I could meet up with the rest of my family (Mom, Katie, David and Grandma) at Margarita's Mexican Restaurant in Lewiston. While there I saw my mom and my sister Katie for the first time in more than 6 months. The whole group had not been together like this for over 2 years, when I graduated from high school. It was so happy and I was so glad to see everyone, but it made me so sad because I know that it was so short and the time that we have with the people we care about is so short.

So David flew home to Utah today, and Tanner moved out and down to Buxton last weekend, so I feel really alone right now, and really sick, on one of the hottest nights in the year (it's 91 in my room right now, and very humid). And tommorow I have to get up early (6-6:30am) so I can drive to Rockland, ME to work a 12 hour day in a concession stand on a hot day while I will undoubtedly still be sick.

And then I'll get to sleep on an air matteress in a pop up trailer and repeat that action. FOR FIVE DAYS.

So I feel like crying and I feel sick to my stomach thinking about the next month and how tiring and stressful it will be. Please pray for me. I need it. I need it so badly I can feel tears welling up just thinking about how many prayers I need.

Katie saved all her change for over three months to give to me for my birthday for college. As I started to count it out today I began to cry as I thought about how much my family loves me and supports me and is counting on me to succeed. What if I let those people down? What if I already have let them down with all of my shortcoming and failings? I'm reminded of the story about the Widow who came to the temple and gave her 'mite' in donation. Others laughed at her because it was such a small, worthless amount. But Jesus said that her donation was the greatest of all because it was everything she had. I know katie didn't give me all of her money, but it adds up. She doesn't have a job like I do, and she too will have need of money for college in short order... so why give it to me?

Because she loves me and she believes in me.

I feel like everyone around me believes in me and sees me succeeding beyond my dreams... execpt for me. I don't see it. I still doubt, fear, and block those people, telling myself that they don't know what they are talking about and that I am doomed to fail.

Please pray for me. I could use those prayers tonight. Maybe I should pray, too. It's been a while since I had a meaningful talk with God.

I hope he still has a line open for me.