Self-motivation time!

Man, have I got a butt-load on my plate! There's too much to do... So what am I doing renewing my Blog? I have no idea...

Okay, so I ran my marathon (beat my goal of 4 hours by about 7 minutes!), but I'm still running. I did a half-marathon last weekend. Interestingly (?), I still don't think of myself as a runner. I just like those finishing-medals hanging off my mirror! Okay, I like the fact that it sort of sets an example for my soon-to-be-6-year-old, too.

So... what am I doing these days? By day, I'm a computer programmer. By night, I'm a father and a sound designer for a local, professional, and quite excellent theatre company. In the interest of maintaining just a wee bit of anonymity, I won't name the company here.

On top of these things, I'm still setting up my condo (purchased in March), working on my Master's Project (personal goal: completion in calendar year 2005). If, somewhere in all this, I could find time to finish my movie script and figure out some other publishers to send my children's book manuscript to, that'd be golden!

So... I have a hard time believing anyone is going to be reading this. The real purpose of this, then, is to keep myself in check and to help me focus. And so here it is that I will journal my progress on my Master's Project, on my sound designs, my movie script, my children's book, my exercise, parenting, and what passes for a social life for me these days.

Where am I? I'll just list the big couple right now...

Master's Project: collected the material and done the research... I just have to go through the tedious process of actually writing it up now. For some reason, I just can't seem to get going. I've been taking classes for 5 years to get to this point and I just want to get it over with! This'll be for a Master's in Computer Science, by the way.

Sound Design: It'll be over a month before rehearsals begin on the first play I'm working on. I've already read and plotted a possible sound design for that one and am working on play #2 (a Shakespeare, full of flourishes and music and battles... ugh), but I'll soon have return my attention to play #1 and consider how I'm going to pull of making it sound like an actor on stage is playing the piano! All told, I'll be doing 4 plays this season... possibly 6.

Parenting: I've got shared custody of my almost-6 year old. He's great. He showed an interest in tennis this year, so I got him a racket and we practiced a little. He's not very patient when it comes to his progress, however. I'm not very patient when he's not very patient. I think he's probably too young for formal tennis lessons, but I don't know. I guess I should ask around. Something I love to do with him is read. We listen to books on tape in the car (his favorites: "Frindle" and "Charlotte's Web"... We just finished "The Whipping Boy" which he liked and just started the first in the Series of Unfortunate Events which he finds funny [particularly when the baby, Sunny, "talks"]), I read to him every night (a chapter from a chapter book [right now, "The BFG"], and two picture books [any two he picks from his extensive library]), and I read in his classroom. Reading in his classroom started 3 years ago, almost by accident. I'll be starting it up again here in just a few weeks, so I need to hit the library. I'll probably do Halloween-related books to begin with, since it will already be the middle of October when I begin. MMMmmmaybe I'll wait until week 2 for those, though. There are something like 13 new kids in the class (it's a Montessori classroom with 3-through-6 year olds in it) and I don't want to scare them with a monster book before they get to know me! :) My son and I also like to go on walks and do art projects. He plays T-ball and a little soccer and wants to be a Power Ranger for Halloween this year. He has begun reading and is good at math and is a real charmer. Very polite and innocent and funny.

My son is with his mom this weekend, so now's the time to really kick it with the Master's Project and the Sound Design work. I'd really love to emerge from this weekend with some solid progress in both those areas. I don't have work tomorrow (but I'll be going in for a couple of hourse), so hopefully I can get to the gym (Spinning at 9:30 AM? I don't know... it's already 1 AM and I'm still going!), then to work, then get some of my stuff done before taking in a show (a friend of mine directed a play that opens tomorrow night). You know what would be interesting... I have season passes to the zoo. I could take my laptop down there and work on my thesis among the animals! Ahhh... I'd probably do too much people-watching. Still, it would be nice to find a place out of the house to work on it... Maybe the library. If I do it at the downtown branch, then I'll be close to the theatre and I could take in a meal some place nice.

I'll let you know.