Happy New Year/Thoughts on the Immediate Future

I’m not going to go into a lot of cliches here, but I DO have some resolutions. Some of these come in the shape of multiple parts.

*Be an even better family man (both husband and dad). Some people might say I am already pretty damn good at these things, but I look at it the way I look at wing chun…or writing…or ANYTHING: you can always be better.

*Work harder again at getting my writing out there in any way possible. I want to start posting poems here. I am also going to start actively looking for artists to help me turn short stories into comics. Those stories that never get drawn will be sent out to magazines again.

*Attend wing chun at least once a month. Practice my forms multiple times a day. Write down a list of all the parts of the second form (chum kiu) that I don’t understand and send them to my teacher. Recently he said to me, “In order to be a Sifu, you need a deeper understanding of the system.” So I need to work on that.

*Start following the nutrition guides to the workout programs that I do so I can see REAL results. Next up to bat is Les Mills Combat. This will be followed by Asylum Volume 1, then the Insanity/Asylum hybrid.

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Well, tomorrow I have to take a bus at 10:30am to Syracuse so I can start working for a new over-the-road company called Swift. The orientation starts on January 2, but it’s at 7:00am so that is why I am taking the bus a day ahead.

I don’t want to go over the road again. I was hoping that this local company would call me back, but that hasn’t happened yet. They interviewed me on December 21. On Thursday the 27th I tried calling them; I was told no decision had been made, and I was able to leave one of the guys who interviewed me a message. No call back though. They had one driver position open because a guy just got promoted. Then this other driver will be retiring on January 4th. Maybe it’d be a good idea to try calling on January 7th. It can’t hurt.

Aside from trucking, there is another position I am interested in for the State. According to the Civil Service website, there will be an exam on June 1 for Parole Officer Trainee 1. The pay grade starts at a 13, which is pretty high up there. Then you can move on to Trainee 2 without having to take another test, and then finally you drop the “Trainee” and become just a plain old Parole Officer, which I believe is a grade 21. Not bad for just one test!

I don’t want to leave. Right now my son William is playing in the back room with his cousin, completely oblivious to the fact that I will be leaving for a long time again. When I am on the road I will talk with him and my wife via Skype. I hate the sad look on his face when he says he wants me back here. It’s almost enough to make me want to ask Civil Service if I can be reinstated NOW, but I know my pay as a grade 6 will no longer cut it. That would mean either working tons of overtime or getting a second job again.

From my brief experience on the road, I can tell you the part I hate the most is not being able to come home to my wife and son after a bad day at work. No matter how bad it got at OCFS, I could come home and play with William, then cuddle with my wife as we drifted off to sleep. Nothing can take the place of that.