{"id":1148,"date":"2005-08-29T16:31:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-29T21:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2005-08-29T16:31:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-29T21:31:00","slug":"labri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1148","title":{"rendered":"l&#8217;abri"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thoughts and prayers for everybody in the Louisiana\/Mississippi area.  We&#8217;ve seen our share of hurricane-related destruction here in North Carolina, but we&#8217;re nowhere near as vulnerable as they are.  Here&#8217;s hoping everyone is safe and the damage is limited.<\/p>\n<p>I was wishing for rain around here yesterday&#8230;  Looks like I&#8217;ll get my wish.  We won&#8217;t get to fly for a little while longer (the flight schedules are still being firmed up), but I don&#8217;t mind all that much.  <\/p>\n<p>Our first quiz was today in ground school.  It consisted of a random selection of 30 questions that are going to be on the FAA written exam that we&#8217;ll take at the end of the semester.  I got 100%, as did most of the other students.  Had a study session yesterday at the house with two of my classmates.  It was the first time I really had people over (besides my parents, of course).  The living room arrangement worked out nicely and I think they had a good time.  It&#8217;s still a little bit odd to be taking quizzes and tests and such again after a hiatus from school of several years.  It&#8217;s not too bad, though, since at any given time there&#8217;s usually something or other I&#8217;m studying and highlighting and really trying to absorb.  Really the only elements that have been introduced are the presence of classmates and the necessity of demonstrating that I actually know the material (i.e. tests).  Other than that it&#8217;s not much of a switch.<\/p>\n<p>Still haven&#8217;t found a job or roommates.  Nothing but dead ends on those two fronts, but I&#8217;m still intently investigating leads.  Haven&#8217;t really found any friends yet either.  How do you make friends if you&#8217;re not inherently funny?  Common interest or activity to participate in?  My car&#8217;s running fine by and large (don&#8217;t need mechanical assistance) and I can&#8217;t very well stand up in the classroom and ask if anybody plays tennis or runs.  That&#8217;s one of the dumb things about being a guy&#8211;we almost have to have an activity in which to participate in order to hang out.  Even if it&#8217;s just watching television.  Gotta be doing something.<\/p>\n<p>I think I would be okay except for a recent rejection of my application by the local Borders, a place at which I was hoping to work.  Rattled my confidence a little bit, and if left unchecked could have seriously undermined my confidence in my ability to get a job in general.  But if I didn&#8217;t get the job there, it&#8217;s because God&#8217;s got something better for me elsewhere.  And if He&#8217;s called me to do this (pursue this course of study), He&#8217;ll provide a job at the end of the tunnel.  And even if He doesn&#8217;t, I&#8217;m confident all this is happening for His fame and my eventual good.  So it can&#8217;t help but turn out well.  Still, I had to fight the &#8220;what the heck am I doing here&#8221; feeling while grocery shopping when the loneliness from lack of friends and the downer about not getting the job ganged up on me.<\/p>\n<p>Fajitas for dinner tonight.  Along with a possible movie viewing.  I rented <i>Notorious<\/i> (great Hitchcock flick with Cary Grant and the incomparable Ingrid Bergman) and <i>Pushing Tin<\/i> (continuing my efforts to watch every John Cusack movie, this one&#8217;s about air traffic controllers, among other things).  Come on over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thoughts and prayers for everybody in the Louisiana\/Mississippi area. We&#8217;ve seen our share of hurricane-related destruction here in North Carolina, but we&#8217;re nowhere near as vulnerable as they are. Here&#8217;s hoping everyone is safe and the damage is limited. I was wishing for rain around here yesterday&#8230; Looks like I&#8217;ll get my wish. We won&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}