Going Against the Grain

Whew! What a long night. I've been busy doing all sorts of things. And now that the laundry is taken care of for now, I finally have time to update this thing.

It's starting to look like my decision to stay in Austin is turning out for the better! I had a bit of a slow start, but I definitely feel as if I'm being productive despite having no distractions since everyone's out of town. It's kind of funny, seeing people's Facebook statuses bitching about feeling lazy and unproductive in Houston....

Trying to get stuff done in this atmosphere is actually kind of like practice from this past semester. Hoping to be productive after dropping all my extracurriculars and shying from human contact just resulted in an epic fail for my GPA. The major takeaway lesson from fall semester is that I have to be careful what I isolate myself from, as well as how I expose myself to distractions. It's like I need both to function, but they have to be carefully controlled. Study smarter, party harder, am I right?

Bah! I bore myself. Back to the matter at hand: what did I do this week?

I've actually been getting back into the gym! I've forgotten that feeling of pleasure I get from seeing people's shocked faces when I do dumbbell shoulder presses. (There's no way a little guy like that should be lifting that much!) Of course, I haven't always been going to Gregory at 7:30 AM like I planned to, but I'm getting more consistent. Whatever.

Oh, and dear God, I've forgotten how disgusting casein protein is to swallow. It feels like you're drinking your own vomit. That stuff is so thick, it doesn't completely dissolve instantly in water like whey does; instead, it teases you and partially dissolves, leaving a mixture of super-diluted casein-water and globs of dry, undissolved casein. So, when you knock it back down your throat, it's right at about the same consistency as puke. Delish.

...In other news, I visited a bunch of restaurants downtown, again, and came away with more bad news, and some good news. First, the bad news, since I'm such an optimist!

In addition to the recession's impact on "hire-ability" of new waiters, most restaurants (read: nearly all) aren't hiring now since everyone's getting into the big event of the busy season, the Christmas-New Year's week. Nobody's looking to train a new hire in the middle of the most chaotic part of a biz that's already organized chaos. It's like a wife who holds back from her husband because she's mad at him, and then kicks him out onto the couch, to add insult to injury. Doesn't that suck.

Now the good news. After the chaos (read: tipping spree) period is over, everything kind of settles back into itself, and all the restaurants shake off frazzled employees to announce openings for new ones, all at once. I guess that's when I'll most likely get my job, and hopefully then I'll have a better selection. But that won't happen until about "mid-January", so I'll just be patient.

I really wish I didn't have a court appearance in Houston on Tuesday. I'm really building some momentum here. At least there'll be some good Ultimate to play in Houston....