plus side

Free time is a definite benefit to unemployment. It's an exercise to take advantage of it, to use it constructively. I have a tendency to get overwhelmed when I don't know the end point and spaz out, escaping any form of productivity. I remember a rowing workout where my coach explained that we would do anywhere from 3-12 all out 1k sprints. I said all out for three looks different than all out for twelve. Then she said, "No, it doesn't." You could argue both our points, but hers is stronger. I've got to give all my effort in each sprint regardless of how many are to come. I like to plan for the future even I don't have the least clue what it will bring. Take for instance, this time last year, I had no idea that I'd be unemployed, dog-sitting, in a long-distance relationship, training for a marathon.

One time when I was lamenting my lack-luster career and station in life my sister gently chastised me. My sister always warns me that I have no clue what the future holds; so, I need to be neither fearful nor complacent. She's right.

So, I'm trying to look for a job that I'll succeed in, grow in my faith in God, and enjoy the time instead of feeling guilty. So, I'm reading a lot and watching movies and cooking. Yesterday afternoon I watched The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. I would highly recommend it. It's the same guy who did Supersize Me. It provokes thought and awareness. Is advertising bad? Can we live without it? How influenced are we by it? Et cetera.

I've also been muscling through a bio of the Brontes and enjoying a bio of Eudora Welty aptly titled Eudora. I've read Welty's memoir and a lot of her work. I like Flannery O'Connor better but Eudora is great. Here are two quotes from the first page:
1) "As you have seen, I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within." from her own One Writer's Beginnings
2) "'It wasn't that Eudora Welty was plain,' said a woman who had grown up in Jackson and now lives in Boston. 'She was ugly to the point of being grotesque. In the South, that was tantamount to being an old maid....'"

I'm finding it really entertaining and interesting, esp. since The Help takes place in Jackson, Mississippi too.