I made a big and happy show of revitalizing my blog - it's still a great thing to have and to not have it would feel strange, after six years, but I've also fallen out of the habit of writing posts.
I have also, to be fair, been a little busy.
Let's just say that the amount of work I have means I am listed on a document somewhere in my boss' boss' computer as being about 180% committed at the moment. I shall be going in to work tomorrow. That's a Sunday.
On top of the 'serious' business, rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing are now a nightly affair, meaning that I cannot work late to ease the 180%. And seeing as that 180% doesn't look like going away for a while, this might be the last time I can feasibly be in the Communicable Arts summer production... which makes me even more determined to do it this year, and do it as well as I can.
With work and play (haha) there's not been a lot of time for er...play.
I have a PlayStation 3 now, but I have no games, and it's a model which isn't backwards compatible with PS2 games. I've installed Folding@Home, played a demo or two...and elsewise left it alone. It feels like getting a Ferrari and using it to pop down to the corner shop for the paper. Apart from the
Folding@Home, which feels like getting a Ferrari and then using it to help...cure Alzheimers. Which I'm not sure Ferraris can do. But hey.
I've felt odd lately. Work is such a huge part of my life that I don't like to talk about in case my employers don't like me talking about it, but it's changing me, I think.
I'm an engineer. The only thing I've ever been utterly, directly, professionally passionate about is environmental change. I took a degree with a huge green engineering tilt to it. Now, I design building systems - heating, ventilation and air conditioning, in the world's most energy-happy nation. In a manner of thinking it makes sense - this is where the greatest improvements can and must be made...but I always envisioned myself rolling up my sleeves and building a dam or drilling wells in Africa; creating ingenious designs for essential devices that would improve the lives of the world's disadvantaged.
But in spite of that view of my future life, one of my professional idols has always been Reginald Mitchell. If it weren't enough that my grandfather flew his aircraft in the Battle of Britain, if it weren't enough that he is credited with one of my
favourite engineering quotes of all time, I remember reading, in some musty old book, about his days before the design of the aeroplane that would become the Spitfire and the inspiration for the US Mustang. It described him in front of a vast drafting table in the late twenties, and the design teams for all of the projects at Supermarine would wait for some of his time. They would roll out their drawings, outline the problem, and in a few moments of discussion and sketching from Mitchell, they would be on their way to a solution. At the age of twelve or thirteen I read that and thought, "That's how my brain works! Quick, intuitive and clever. I want to do that."
I'm working on several projects at the moment. It's very tough, in terms of juggling project requirements and the like, but when the phone calls die down and a hour or so is free, there are a plethora of problems laid in front of me, and I dip in and fix something a bit, tend to something else, finish that first thing, send out the last, revise something we thought was finished last week, sign off on another thing entirely.
And while it feels an entirely schizoid way to work, all that effort is aimed at producing two or three buildings that work; work better than most...consume less energy...harm the earth a little less.
So theoretically, being this busy is awesome.
It's changing me in that I don't feel the need to shy away from it - it feels tough, and unfortunate, yes, but I can see the need and feel the motivation - this is it, this is what I need to do.
One building at a time, two buildings at a time, three buildings at a time, four....
It's not the revolutionary, trail-blazing environmental career I envisioned in college; there's less glory and more hard work for one, but it's aimed in the right direction.
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Bernard Schlink's characters feel unique in so many ways, adding to the visceral and at times biting reality of this book. Characters do not act with clear or indeed any motivation at times; there is logic, emotion, confusion and apathy in equal measure. I couldn't come across a new person without having an emotional response to them within a few pages.