January's Journal

Gentle readers here is my January update for your reading pleasure.

January 11

Last night I finished writing in my journal and then went downstairs to watch ‘Diner’ with Mary and Emma. I was the only one to make it through the whole thing. Sometime between the end of the film and midnight, Melissa left a candle, matches or something burning in our bathroom and caught the place on fire. I only noticed this when the smoke alarm went off and I trudged upstairs to see how much incense (I thought) was being burnt upstairs, only to find that the tank of our toilet (made of plastic) was burning. I was able to put the fire out, thankfully…but it was pretty close to being a major fire. Both bathrooms are coated in a fine layer of soot.

That was certainly all the excitement that I needed for that night. The thing that upsets me most about that situation is what could have happened. If the smoke detector hadn’t gone off, the whole bathroom could have gone up in flames, and not just the toilet. The way that our house is laid out, a large fire in that bathroom, if it spilt out into the hallway would have blocked me (downstairs) from any of the bedrooms, including Mary and Melissa’s (which were the only two occupied).

With time to reflect on this incident, I’ve found a real feeling of impotence when I consider those, ‘ifs’. If the house were going up there would be nothing that I could have done to help out my housemates; there was no action for me to take that would have done any good faced with that. Now, weeks later, I’m able to look back on that evening with more controlled emotions than I had that night, and simply be thankful that the fire was something I could handle.

16 January 2005

Time flies when you’re working for ‘The Man’. Melissa just informed me that we have less than seven months left here. I’m talking with people about summer travels. I’m planning on purchasing rail passes and reading tour books. I’m wondering if my backpack is moth ridden. I got an e-mail about heading home. I just got another about more work with the Presbyterian Church…another year of service. This is one option that I will have to give its due consideration. While I do think it’s time to be starting my PhD before what I learnt in grad. school goes out the proverbial window…I cannot help but think that more service and more time of dedicated, introverted self-reflection would do me a world of good.

All the while, I’m in the here and now. I sat down with Mel today and we scheduled out the next few months, attempting to plan week by week what sort of things we want the youth group to be doing. With her now out of the house on Thorndale and living with her flatmate Allison, our time together is less and less. I expect to be seeing her, at the most, for two days per week (and as I look back on this month, that seems like a solid estimate).

Training for the marathon is going. As I ran yesterday, I really had the thought that I was going to be able to do it. I think that I actually will be physically capable of going the distance. I have less than four months to go and I feel pretty good. I guess it’ll be what happens over those four months that turns the tide. Tomorrow I will be doing 90 minutes of running. I’m actually looking forward to the morning. Ninety minutes will be the longest I have run since high school. That’s something…to look forward to the morning and know that in that morning, you will be doing something that you made your body do a decade ago…hell, at 15 I would have dreaded a long 90 minute run. Tonight I’m looking forward to it…and that is something.

All the groups are back on for next week and I’ve been asked to teach religious education at St. Patrick’s College, Beereghea. I’m excited and nervous about that. More on that later, I’m sure. I have a meeting with Melanie from St. Patrick’s Monday afternoon. Also, Kelli has announced that she’s leaving the Partnership…I’m not sure if it’s because her husband has lost sight in both eyes due to a viral infection, or for some other reason. On a happy note, Nigel told me this week that his wife is pregnant, and should give birth sometime in August.

Epilogue:

I was thinking, as I finish this journal entry, about how I construct and publish these journals. I always sit and wonder what to put into them. I wonder if you readers would like to hear about my day-to-day activities. Perhaps you want to read about my challenges, my successes and inevitable failures, my spirituality. Maybe you want to hear about the shopping I did this afternoon and the film I watched this evening. I feel, though, that glossing over the harder parts of my life here is somehow cheating you out of my experiences. I suppose in a way that, in another way, it actually cheats me out of something as well…although I would be hard pressed to put my finger on what exactly to call it… So, with half my time here gone and half left, perhaps I should open this forum up to thoughts and suggestions. E-mail me. ianborton@hotmail.com