So not much has happened the past month (except Amanda and Jason coming to visit us for a week during their spring break! Awesome! But they are going to write a guest post for us about their time here, so I can't really use any of that as material (part of the reason less has happened; one week this month we pretty much spent cleaning the apartment and getting ready for them, the next was with them, and since then we have been recovering from that intensity)). As such, I don't really have anything clever to say to start this post off with. Sorry.
There is one piece of big news though: I got a job! Finally! I am working as a climbing instructor for an indoor rock climbing wall. Ironically enough, it is actually the very first job I applied for once I got my work visa. At the time, they didn't have any vacancies, but with summer coming up now they are having to expand their staff. So that was a bit strange...it was almost like God was saying, "See, if you would only trust me. I've got it taken care of. You didn't have to stress yourself out applying for all those other jobs. With me, it only takes one. I didn't need you to try to take care of everything, to try and build yourself a safety net. I am your safety net. Applying for all those other jobs gave you the false sense of security, gave you the illusion that you were somehow improving your odds of finding a job. But all along, you getting a job never depended on probability or anything like that; it rests solely on Me." So I think there's a lesson there for me to learn, though I don't necessarily think it was that I should only apply to one job and then give up, but more like, the whole attitude and approach to it should be "My job right now is to find where God wants me to work. Sin corrupts the line of communication between us, so I'm not exactly sure where I'm supposed to work, so it may take more than one try and I may have to apply for one job," rather than the attitude I often caught myself falling into. That one went something like, "Okay, say realistically maybe I have a 2% chance of getting each job I apply for, so if I apply for 50 jobs I'll get one, and if I apply for 100 jobs maybe I'll get two jobs." I certainly know that God was trying to teach me not to depend on my own expectations, or to even expect the world to act reasonably or fairly; He was teaching me to rely on nothing but him. I think that's part of the reason why, after two successful job interviews with outdoor clothing retailer Jack Wolfskin concluding with the manager saying "We'd really like to hire you. It should just be a matter of paperwork now," they called me a few days later and said they couldn't hire me for no real reason. I can't rely on the promises or predictions of man. (There's your one deep spiritual contemplation for this post). In any case, I have another job interview next Thursday with Kaplan to be a tutor for the SAT and GRE (again a case of applying a long time ago, thinking it wouldn't work out, and then something randomly coming of it weeks later).
For now though, I teach people how to tie a few different knots, how to use a harness, and how to belay. Sometimes I even get to teach them a few climbing techniques for some of the more advanced climbers, though a lot of the time it's just birthday parties and school groups and such, and they could really care less about technique. They just want to climb to the top as fast possible and as many times as possible. You can't really blame them. I also make sure everyone follows safety procedures so no one falls to their death. (So there's the explanation for the cliché title. I wish there was something deeper to it, but there simply isn't. Sorry again). I can also climb all I want for free during my breaks, which I'm really looking forward to.
Two Saturdays ago I had a full day of training, relearning some stuff I already knew, but also learning a few new knots and some other skills to use with large groups of climbers, like the birthday parties. Then last Saturday I had my first shift! I was actually supposed to come and shadow some of the instructors for a few shifts before that, but apparently they were desperate for workers that day so I got to go ahead and work before I completed my shadowing. I also got to triple my hours that day, as the already short staff was stretched even further - someone lit a tire on fire at one of the other locations (very strange form of vandalism if you ask me) so all the managers at my location had to leave to deal with that.
This week I finished up the rest of my shadowing work and Saturday I'll start work in earnest. I'm hoping for about 12 hours week or so at this point. I'm hoping I can work my way up to get more, but we'll see. As if to cement my position with the completion of my training, they gave me my uniform today:
Oh yeah!
Staff!
I've been cycling the 3.5 miles to the wall whenever I have to go in, which I'm really enjoying. This week especially, the weather has been really nice (finally!) so it's been really nice just riding through the streets of London.
Other than that, Theo at church had a party for his second birthday, which was pretty awesome since basically his favorite thing on the entire planet is cake.
Chelsea also had her very last day of class today! Now she just has to write an essay for each of those two classes, and then write her dissertation over the summer. So now she has to have some intense self-discipline to make sure she does everything she needs to do on time with very little supervision. She has started timing herself to make sure she puts in enough hours each day, basically treating it like a 9-5. It's working pretty well so far and she's getting a lot accomplished, but I must say she is definitely a bit brain fatigued in the evenings. But I suppose that's to be expected with a master's!
This Saturday she is going to Oxford for a conference on editing John Donne's sermons, which she is really excited about! It's basically the perfect conference for her, combining all of her interests, and best of all, she got a small travel grant to pay for the conference ticket and the round-trip train ride!
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