What’s Josh Up To Today? (January 27th, 2021)

It’s good to check in on yourself from time to time. While I don’t always post everything I write (especially during the tumultuous year that was 2020), I did think it would be good to update myself on what I’m doing today. Years from now, When this site is up to 5 views annually, I’ll look back on my posts and laugh at how easy I had it, though I thought I was busy. It’s also good to leave your future self things to laugh at (as if my terrible writing isn’t fodder enough for this task!). Also, if I ever have to live in a closet in hiding from a major political party bent on world domination (most likely with Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos in the lead) and my online journal is found years later and published, this will give a sense of how the world was on this day for this one person… who is 32 years old and beginning to lose his hair.

It is a snowy Wednesday and I am off work for the day. This week is the third in a four-week orientation on ICU’s for the Respiratory Dept. at the local hospital I work at. I work the next two days at the hospital, then the following weekend on base for drill(if they don’t cancel due to weather… that’s the modern American military for you). A few weeks ago I was still waiting for my state license to practice RT and was doing whatever the respiratory dept. needed me to do. I am a team player, but what they had me do was a shameless money grab for the hospital and the work was akin to Geek Squad work - which is not at all what I signed up to do… ever in my life… like ever. I gave the state and God an ultimatum that if my license didn’t come by mid-January (the 8-month point on a supposedly 6-month deadline during a “pandemic” of a respiratory virus where the entire world is short on Respiratory Therapists…), I would quit. I even had a job offer lined up that paid me the same as at the hospital but offered better hours and more flexibility. Alas, it came at the 11th hour of 2020 (at 4:58 PM on December 31st, 2020 - 2 minutes before they punched the clock to go home and bury themselves in boxed wine). So now I’m a Respiratory Therapist for not only the Air Force/National Guard but also for Nevada.

I am also in week four of Graduate School for a Master’s in Humanities at American Military University. A global pandemic virus with a questionable vaccine being touted as being approximately 99.99999 percent effective (though there are crazy side effects, recalls, and unknown long-term effects) was enough for me to be done with “emergency management” (which has since turned into public health) and move on to something more interesting to me - Humanities. I love it. I am reading The Iliad and am currently writing this as a break (read: I’m procrastinating) from a paper I am writing about Diomedes vs Achilles: Ancient Greece’s Obsession with God-Men, Heroes, and Hierarchy (working title). Here’s the punchline: Diomedes was way more badass than Achilles (and would obviously be played by Jason Mamoa if I were a movie director trying to redeem The Iliad after Troy’s 2004 failure).

A few weeks ago, I went on a hike of four or five miles roundtrip. The hike was mostly uneventful, other than having to turn around when the trail I was on had also recently been occupied by a mountain lion (judging by the prints in the snow). The next morning, however, I woke up in a ton of pain. I couldn’t look down, nor side to side, and it hurt to breathe. I assumed I had just pulled a muscle in my neck/back and that in a few days it would be solved. It took a week and a half before I could get into the chiropractor to find that I had dislocated a few ribs in my back. A quick adjustment gave me some relief, but I have had to work the past week and a half without being able to follow up and since then, the pain has returned. Not only do I have to work in pain, but I cannot sleep through the pain. It’s miserable.

There are a few other things we, as a family, are dealing with but none that I want to share publicly. We’re busy, but doing well. We are not overly stressed and are in good spirits! The snow is falling, the mountains are calling, and (as soon as my back is fixed and the pain is gone) I will be enjoying some more snow-filled mountaineering training.

Until next time!

Josh