29 August 2017
The bicycle ride to work yesterday felt very good compared to my first experience. Work went smoothly. Only one crew worked on Sunday, so my daily report was easy. We have crews all over for me to monitor today. I had an extra hour at the end of my day, so I did some data entry. I rushed home because I needed to get a smog check. I barely made it to my appointment on time. The evening was distracted again from Family Home Evening. We made a "To Do List" for Jessica to be more productive today. It's not much of a FHE. I ran out of mobile Wi-Fi on my phone, so I can't publish Storify posts on the Mormon YSA Blog Spot.
I felt like I was doing a duathlon. After a long hard bicycle ride home, I carried the bicycle on my shoulder as fast as I can up the stairs to place it in my apartment; then, I immediately went to the car to go to my appointment. I was very sweaty in the car.
30 August 2017
I feel like today is the day when the writer feels like there is not much to write about. Yesterday was a normal day at work. A coworker named Jamie called me Alex the Reaper Hicken. My project manager finally called me. He gave me an assignment, which took me a couple hours. I am driving to Oakland today to check on our inventory. This means that I can't ride my bicycle to work today. I think that I met the general contractors' stone project engineer. She is going to meet me at Oakland.
Home life varies. I need get the car's registration renewed, and I asked Jessica to get the sticker for me. She looked into it all day, worrying about driving. She does not like driving, and she does not want to drive to the DMV.
31 August 2017
Today I am writing for two days because I wanted to figure out paying rent this morning. Yesterday Jessica and I both had adventures. I had to drive to Oakland, and Jessica went to the DMV to get a new sticker to prove that we renewed our car's registration.
1 September 2017
Time is hard to balance. I am finding a difficult time going into the details. I have things to write about, but home life is miserable. I don't know how to be honest. Jessica deals with about twenty demons daily, and I have to wrestle with them too sometimes. She has regressed to making herself to only making herself one meal a day rather than two, which she did last week.
My quest to Oakland was to discover our inventory. I simply just had to record the crate numbers. I recorded the miles in order to be refunded, and I was surprised when the trip was exactly one hundred miles.
Jessica's mission was to retrieve a registration sticker for the car from the DMV. She was very nervous because she does not have a California driver's license. She was successful in her mission. When I arrived home, I gave her the honor of putting the sticker on the car. She was proud of herself, and she even looked up the instructions on how to put the sticker properly on the car. We followed the directions, having to remove the previous stickers over the past several years, which was a pain.
During my quest in Oakland, I stepped on dog poop, yet I returned to the office with no mention of it. I even reached out to create a friendship with a guy named Derek, who sits right next to me. He works for an electrical contractor. I asked him if he lives in the same apartment complex as me because I thought that I saw him a few days ago. He told me about the area. It turned out that he was vegetarian, and we may go out for vegetarian food because he knows of a couple places. Derek said that he would hail me up later to hang out. It is nice that coworkers and associates are friendly in our jobsite trailer. Derek also said he has a coworker that lives in our apartment complex too.
Audriana, another project engineer at Columbia Stone, is a good friend too. She walked out with me to the jobsite, and it seemed like she wanted me to go with her because she wanted me to take pictures of her. She is proud of her work. She worked specifically on a wall, which will have an ATM machine in it, so she wanted me to take a picture of her with the wall.
Yesterday was an interesting day because I found out that the day crew has lunch at 10 am. When I saw everyone walking outside to eat, I followed them to hang out with them. I mainly got to know a man named Daniel. He is an Asian from Modesto, who likes to work out; although, he has achieved his goal a while ago. He lost 60 pounds with his new workout routine. A lot of my crew members gave me snacks to eat. I felt like I was at elementary school. This gave me leftovers for dinner especially as the general contractor catered some food, which I enjoyed.
I have been feeling better cycling to work. Yesterday I ran into some competition on the road. I was able to keep up with a guy until I had to turn onto another road. A second person came a long, and I was able to keep up with him; however, I couldn't keep up with him for more than a mile. My legs got fatigued. This morning there was a guy that passed the street of my residence on a bicycle, and I chased after him. I was catching up to him; although, he was about 50 meters ahead of me. I gave up chasing him, when I ran over a rock. There is a lot of debris on the expressways of the Silicon Valley.
2 September 2017
Today I went to work. Saturday for me is an oxymoron somewhat because it is the day that I have to do double the work for my responsibility; however, it is the day that I should not work. I wrote why I work on Saturday in the last entry. At this moment, I feel like my personality has been sucked out of me. I am making a point to write about it because I learned a few years ago that you can write feelings out of your soul. If you write out your feelings, you can take the feeling out of you and on the paper. This morning I fill our container of dish soap and water; furthermore as I made the stir fry for today, I chopped up garlic that we bought in our food processor. Since I did not have to be at work at seven, I was generous with my time at home, preparing those two things. Jessica did not appreciate the mess that I left because I realized that I would be very late if I cleaned up everything. There is a lot to do at home. At work, I made the report for Friday completing my second week report. I relaxed because it should have been my day off scheduling blog posts. I also made a Storify blog post this morning because I got mobile Wi-Fi hotspot data, since the beginning of the month started yesterday. After lunch, I kind of took a nap, and walked out to record what the crews did for today. It was more than a hundred degrees outside, and a cyclist rode by in the morning as I crossed the street, saying "Can you walk any slower?" I feel mentally exhausted, and I feel that I broke when I got home. After sending the second report of the day. A man came in asking who I was. I said that I was a project engineer for Columbia Stone. He turned out to be Doug, the company's quality assurance and control manager, who has been working night shift. He was a talker. Jessica was wondering when I was coming home, and he came right when I said I was about to leave. We probably spoke for about an hour. I did not get home until about 5:30.
I came home from work, and Jessica regressed again, not making herself any meals. I thought that we could go out to eat and have a very nutritious meal. I asked her a couple times. Why can't you take care of yourself? I think that I broke when I felt like my efforts are useless. I am trying to recover, and I am not good at acting. When I began writing this entry, I was asked by Jessica why I feel broken. I said that I sacrifice my life for you, and you throw it away. She said that she doesn't like my tone of voice. There is an odd theory that women love about having a good tone of voice that I am still figuring out. I go to sleep late trying to encourage her, waiting for her, and more. I asked what she thinks about my effort to help her, and she could not identify much. It turned out that we cannot go out to eat because we barely survived saving up money for rent in half a month. We are basically starting from scratch this week.
I started laundry, and my personality was drained. I laid on the ground; although, laundry was ready to take to the laundry room. Jessica was encouraging me to get up, but I was unmotivated. I finally got myself up, but I didn't want to walk around because I felt that I looked like my soul was sucked out of me, a doll that can walk. A guy came into the laundry room ready to put washed clothing in a dryer. Since he wanted to get to a dryer, I sat myself on a counter, laying one arm on a window sill and the other on a bag of dirty laundry. I sat as an emotionless doll. I didn't want the guy, doing laundry, see my-disturbed-self, so I went to walk and meditate. As I laid on grass, meditating; I realized a reason for my broken state was my efforts to help Jessica is futile. I walked back in order to know when she finished. I remembered that I can write this emotional state out of my soul from my previous writing experience, so I determined to do that.
3 September 2017
This morning I woke up, sleeping in until 6:30. I made a Storify blog post. Last night I felt a little better before dinner after writing most of last night's entry. I still have to write about my day at work. It was mostly normal. My crews think that I don't understand the trade of masonry. Jamie, the guy that said that I am a reaper, advised me to watch them for about thirty minutes to see how difficult the work is. Yesterday our foreman said that the day was very difficult. I asked if it was because of the heat, but he said that I would not understand. I felt disappointed in my relationship with him because he did not feel that I was sympathetic enough to even be worth an explanation.
When I spoke with Doug, my initial relationship with him in our conversation changed from a temporary intern to a promising new hire, for he is planning to have me sit in for him in the Quality Assurance and Control meeting. He has known many of the people in the company for decades; although, he is a new hire too of about a year. He spoke about the project, every person that he knows for decades, his experience, his role, the workplace, and more. I should thank him for his time, and say that I look forward to working with him closely. He seems to be a person that can help me develop my career well with Columbia Stone. He has been in the masonry industry for more than forty years.
I had to go to church between editing and publishing, and I am proud to say that Jessica drove me home from church. She doesn't like to drive, but she did it fine.
