So anytime I swear I am going to continually update this thing...it just doesn't happen.

But a few things.  I am applying for a few different jobs right now.  I had kind of a bad week last week, and had a "talk" with my manager.  Apparently the problem is that I don't have do a lot at my job, but then again I don't have a lot of work assigned to me.  There was a lot of talk when I began about being a self starter, and taking initiative and what not, and how capable I am, but apparently none of that has come to fruition.  My problem is that no work comes across my desk, and to ask me to go out and "find the work", so to speak, seems odd to me.  I am new to the position, and with a company as big and complex as we are, I rarely even know where to begin.  I feel grossly mismanaged in this department, since I am neither currently aware of how to do my job, now being given the resources to discover how to do it.

And of course to top this off there was an assignment that I was given that I completed on time, but did not let my boss know it had been completed.  I should take a moment and mention that I am defiantly not giving my all to this.  I don't pretend that I have not played a part in where I am now, or rather not played a part.  I admit this freely, and have said from the first interview that I do not do well when I have nothing to do.  When I have no work coming to me and I have nothing to do, I become slothful.  When I do get work in I don't try to get it off my desk because then I will have nothing else.  It's a recipe for disaster, not to mention I have an inexperienced manager who responded by getting all flustered and upset (seriously I think she was breaking into hives during the meeting).

The problem then is that this job works really well for me in terms of mobility and job security.  I am not in danger of losing my job at all, and the job itself offers great mobility in the future, both in terms of location and upwards.  With Jess looking at possibly clerking in a few years it would be nice to take my job with me should she be offered a clerkship in some other part of the country.  But work just feels bad right now, I dislike being there and I dread going.  The work itself, when I get any, is not really interesting or challenging to me.  It's more like, hey find this answer because we are too lazy to, or look this up and write it down because no one ever bothered to.  I suppose this is the kind of thing I should be expected at this point in my career, its only been a year and a half at this company, but I was lead to believe this job would be something challenging and exciting.  Add on top the fact that it has been almost 3 1/2 months, and they are still not paying me more than I was making previously.  How hard is it to figure out my pay?  Really...

So yea, work is tough right now.  I trust, I believe, but I feel like I am being led in other directions now.  One job I applied for inparticular seems very appealing to me, and it could lead to other interesting jobs in the future... and it would be back in politics again, which is really a place I would like being again.  ::shrug::  I trust, I believe, and I think that will be enough. 

Oh, and on a videogame note, I am so stoked for Fable II...can't wait for october.

Currently Listening More Betterness! By No Use for a Name see related

So nothing too new to report.  Keeping pretty busy with various activities.  Graduation season has passed, and now wedding season is upon us.  The first of which one of Jess's friends from high school which was this weekend.  Its fun to see others get married and be all happy and the like.  If only they knew the true reality that is awaiting them...j/k.  It was a good time anyway.

You know.  I really think I should be posting here, but I often find myself without anything to really say.  Also it tends to be really late when I post here, if I can't sleep often, and my writing takes a turn downhill.  ::shrug::

We went to I Nonni again to celebrate Jess's entry, though temporary, into the workforce.  It was a good time, but heres something.  The couple we went with, pretty good friends Jess met at the law school this year, the guy was really hung over, like seriously hung over.  Now maybe its just that I never get really hung over, but he was kind of pale, and had to get up and head to the bathroom multiple times during the meal, and it was kind of weird.  I would feel kind of dumb dropping the kind of money we ended up paying and spending most of the time feeling terrible.  I guess I don't really have anything else to say there, I just didn't get it.

Otherwise I am playing a ton of Call of Duty 4.  If you have a 360 my gamertag is Feklr... feel free to friend me if you read this.  The game has a totally addicting mulit-player system that gives you a rank, and as you move through the ranks it increases your weapons options and adds all sorts of other additional weapons and options for them.  Its pretty neat, and trading it for my copy of GTA IV made Jess happy so it was a win win sort of thing.  Hope things are well with you.  LateR!

P.S.  I ran spell check and for the first time had no mispelled words...weird

Currently Gaming Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Game of the Year By Activision Inc. see related

Sometimes I wish I had taken philosophy of law a little more seriously.  It was a class that turned out to be more philosophy of punishment than "law" and I think that initially turned me off quite a bit.  It didn't help that it was full of the typical Morris philosophy majors, mostly the kind that rarely showered and liked to pontificate for long periods of time about minute details that rarely had anything to do with the core argument, but supported the straw man they had set up to say they believed the author was an "idiot".  Oh and the prof didn't do anything to discourage this either... basically the class was set up for me to hate.  The material turned out to be fairly interesting, when I read it, but the class has turned me off so much by that point that I probably didn't truly glean what I should have from it.  I thought perhaps I had saved the materials, most of them were given to us in pdf's, but turns out I deleted it.  Not sure how this is relevant to anything, but I am sitting here unable to sleep for some reason, and I find that modern philosophy writing can put me to sleep fairly easily.

And this is how this turns into a inquiry into the modern state of philosophy, and how I yearn for the earlier days of ideas and discussion.  At some point in philosophy, I would argue around the turn of the century (1900's) philosophers began to diverge from the modern language into one of their own.  While many might find the writings of the greek philosophers difficult to read, it is the ancient language vs. the modern langauge barrier that creates the difficulty and not the langauge itself.  However the modern philosopher seems to take great pride in constructing arguments that are both overly grandiose and difficult to understand, not because their ideas have gotten more complex or high minded, but because I believe they themselves have become high minded.  In an age of video games and television they tend to view the pursuit of philosophy as a higher pursuit, one that needn't be understood or discussed by the common man.

There is a vestige of the old style of philosophy; it exists in the self help section of your local book store.  There is an excellent episode of the West Wing television show that pokes fun at this type of philosophy.  As an example I put forth the Strength Finder series of books, put out by the Gallup organization.  To boil down the already boiled down philosophy it states that instead of focusing on our weaknesses we should each find out true strengths and work towards improving and using those goals to the benefit of the organization as a whole.  Sounds like it could be beneficial, and the company I work for has bought the idea entirely.  Here's the thing.  This is stolen almost exactly from Plato.  In his Republic he outlines how each person in society should fulfill the role they are meant to play.  The person who should be a doctor, the labor the labor and so on.  The "philosopher king" is the one who is able to determine this about each individual, and society will function at its best when this is accomplished.  If you substitute the online questionnaire, and its creator and author of "Strength Finder", with the philosopher king, the comparison is almost uncanny.

It is this kind of dumbing down that drives me insane.  However I think that it has also become necessary due to the overly complex state of philosophy today.  Since the modern student has spent little to not time studying the ideas of old, and with an increasingly less self aware culture of entertainment, the ideas of old are passed off as original with ease, while the few intellectuals who spend the time, that few of us would actually have, to understand current philosophical writings continue their stranglehold on ideas. 

People crave self awareness such that they will buy into the watered down ideas, creating a vacuum of originality.  The problem with watering down the ideas of one such as Plato is that rarely is any room left for discussion and argument.  Plato is not considered to be one of the greatest philosophers of all time because his ideas were correct, it is his discussion and desire for intellectual pursuit that make him revered and beloved.  When his ideas are watered down to a survey and a 30 min video, no room is left for discussion and whether this is "right" is left out completely.  My organization continues to roll forward with the Strength Finder way, without stopping to question whether this is truly right for us. People wander around reading self help books, and never stop to question whether this is truly right for them until the next best seller comes out.  We don't even search out for ourselves what path should be correct anymore, relying on others to tell us which one to follow.  If you question the validity of that check out Oprah and "The Secret", just google them together or something.

All of this to say, that I am really craving some new philosophy to read that is written in such a way that I do not have to take long periods of my day to understand it.  I don't have the time that I had when I was student anymore, and there are many pursuits that pull on my time.  I should probably read my bible more than I do.  Truly it is one of the simplest philosophical writings out there written by the greatest philosopher of all time.  But in the pursuit of politics and governance there must be more out there of worth.  I just wish there was a way to wade through and find it.

Anyway I should go to bed now.  It felt good to write a blog post like I used to.  I need to do this more often...

Currently Listening In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 By R.E.M. see related