Pretty empty sort of day, except for surprising my boss with the knowledge that I'm trying to pick up skills in a different field of programming (lower-level Unix stuff in C). I think he forgets how much I hate Windows, and either sees more of a career path for me at our company than I do, assumes one will materialize somehow, or just doesn't notice because he's had one. I don't see the opportunities arising that he had: we're the only two software engineers across a family of companies, and the major incoming changes this year have to do with an Oracle ERP installation, which is done by, well, Oracle consultants, not me.

In theory I get more responsibility with time...we'll see. In the meantime my resume doesn't have a whole lot of stability to it, and the economy still sucks and this is a good job, so I'm staying for at least another year. The forseeable future, I guess. It's not that I'm unhappy, as such...just unexcited.

I was just cruising tribe.net and found this really sweet wedding ceremony (from user "Cathyn", for the record).

I've been constantly tired over the past few weeks. I think I'm fending off remnants of the plague from the people around me, but in the end, I'm grouchy about feeling like I don't have the relationships and connections I want in my life, combined with the fact that it's quite a challenge for me to manage them when I do. I irritate myself a lot.

One evening, after a Dharma talk at the Cambridge Zen Center, a student asked Seung Sahn Soen-sa, "When you say you are here to save all people, does that mean only to help them get enlightened or also to save them from hunger, war, and pain?"

Soen-sa said, "I have already finished saving all people."

There was a long silence.
"Do you understand what this means?"
Another long silence.
"Put it down. Okay?"

To be free I feel like I should be doing something, which I am, sort of, but nothing terribly important or really even time-consuming. Too much time to think, still.

But that's okay.