Interviews...round two...

OK...so yesterday...Monday...I had my second interview with these folks and this time it was with one of the managers I had met before...plus two other folks. Apparently there are 11 different jobs open that they are hiring for and I am hoping to get blessed with one of them. We shall see...I am hopeful...

The 11 positions...are for several different departments...but all the same category basically...so the differences consist of working within different populations...but they are all clinician positions...so any one of them would mean I would start counting my face to face hours again...which means I will be working towards getting closer to my license....which will be awesome...and a huge deal for me.

I felt like the interview went well...we sat around and basically had a conversation for about an hour and fifteen minutes...and again....as I wrote in a previous blog...I just concentrated on being myself...and staying in the moment...so that I could do my best to shine...to the best of my ability...and I walked away feeling like I was able to do that...so once again...I feel like I did my part...I did what I could do....I did my best....and now it is what it is...and I just have to wait and see. This is hard to do...because I want to know...but I have to be patient...and trust that whatever happens will be for the best.

The funny thing is though...that getting this job would be a big deal for me...no matter which population that I worked with...because I would be back on the road towards achieving my goal...and I would be learning more in the field...and I would be getting better at one of the things I do...and I would be earning more money...and I would feel more secure again...which would help in certain areas around home...it would be a big deal for me...and it would be a big deal for Heather...and it would be a big deal for us.

Everything has two sides to it and so there will be frustrations and hard parts to it as well...I know that....and that can be a bit scary...but there would be some big pros as changes if this happens...especially since Heather has gotten a new job for the city...and will start that in early December...which again will be a big deal for us in many ways...

She will have a job that she is going to absolutely love...doing things that she has dreamt of...and it will actually be a management position for her...so that is a really big deal...because that opens up so many possibilities....as well as more money...and better insurance...which is not only better...but also cheaper...it's all good...all good...

So now...we will see what happens...and hope for the best...

Even after everything happens it will be hard for me to change the life I have built in the last year and a half...it will be a change but as I have written in recent blogs...I need a change and this would be great experience...so we shall see...

Long live our lives of balance and change...whose ideas wander and courage ponders the greatest wonder of our lively luxurious lustfully passionate lives...and may our minds render the heart's surrender of loving our clinging relief to our safest security when at once and for all time we find that we were never...ever...who we feared we would become...by being who we truly...and completely are. I am.....me.

I need to figure out what I want to get tattooed on my next trip to Maui...life is too short...and we need to make the most of it while we are here. I have some ideas...and I am jonesing to get more ink...I ab...so....lute....ly....can...not...wait.

I love Maui...

I love Maui....

The west coast of Maui to be specific...

This is me on a beach right across the street from our timeshare there. It was early morning...everyone we were there with on this trip last November ('06) went over to the beach with us at 8:30 AM. This is how our day started...

Hallo....

I am not even sure what it is about Maui that made me fall in love with the island...but I would if I could.....own a place there and be there at least three months out of the year....at least...

This was the view that same morning from our room before everyone else was up...awesome sunrise...and view of a construction site LOL...no worries...it was still absolutely beautiful...

Banyon trees are absolutely awesome...and huge...and not found anywhere else to my knowledge...

Everytime we go...we have been there three times in the last three years....and each time...it is getting harder to come back home...and I hear that from every person that travels there...they don't want to come home...some of the people that we have met there....welp...they never did...they just found jobs in the paper and they just never came back to the mainland...it is truly paradise...I would want to travel back and forth regularly just to avoid island fever....but man....what a life...and when I am there...it "feels" like home...and when I do come back...I am just trying to figure out how to get back...

Interviewitas...

So the interview has come and went...

and I am still here...

I started freaking myself out about it for awhile...and then somewhere along the line I remembered...breath....breath dummy....just....breath....the night before...I was full of anxiety...the next morning....when I went to work and taught my class...that was the only peace I got...because I could get my mind off of the situation....and then I finally went....and they made me wait there...I was fifteen minutes early...so they made me wait there....for another ten or fifteen minutes...beyond the fifteen minutes I had arrived there early...so I sit there for close to if not a half hour...devouring a package of Breath Savor mints...and trying to remember everything I know...and then it hit me...well...I'd say about ten minutes into the half hour...hey....I need to just be in this moment...

Not in the moments to come...but in this moment..."mindfulness"....stay in this moment right here....right now....not in the future....not anywhere in the past....but in this moment...and just....breath....

Ya know....it's silly...but this is such a huge lesson...get out of your head...and just be.....be in the moment...because that is really all we have anyway...just right now...so BE present...fully...and things will work themselves out......and they did.

I was nervous until I remembered all this...and then I looked up and out a window...I could just barely see the top of a tree...and I just stayed there...in that place and in that moment....and I breathed....letting the panicky feeling wash over me and out of me...and I said to myself...ya know...self....I am just gonna be....me.....I am just gonna be who I am....and I managed to stay in that place....that frame of mind...until they came out and met me and invited me in to the interview room.

From there I felt in control of myself...I answered their questions....asked my own...listened and paid attention...made them laugh a few times...and walked out of there feeling like I did a good job at representing myself.

We will see how they felt LOLOL...but I felt good...and so...der it be mon....it is wat it is...and I be dah bettah fer it mon...eder way it goes...cuz I did me best...an I feel guuud ah bout it mon....nuff said...

If I am fortunate enough to get it.....one of the 11 positions they are hiring for...it is almost a guarantee that I will get the rest of my hours towards my license pretty quickly...which will be a good thing...a good thing indeed.

Thank you for your support...I do appreciate it! ;)

New Risk...

So...tomorrow...I have a job interview...which could be good if things go well...it is a risk...and it will be an adventure...wish me luck...and say a prayer for me if you are so inclined...I definitely appreciate it.

Thanks...and we will see what happens!

Bang bang...

OK.....so....um...I go to work Tuesday afternoon/night right? Everything is normal and moving along like any other Tuesday night. Questions are asked and answered...role is taken...check ins are done and things are moving along. I run three groups back to back and each are two hours.

We are in the second of the night and in comes a familiar face...I have seen him only once before. He was very somber the first time...acts as if he is not interested and just not really a part of the process. I have seen this before...more than once or twice. Apathy...anger for being there...the you ain't gonna control me attitude...the you're just another one of "them" vibe...but at the end of this second group...this night...after sitting through two thirds of the night as stated above...his face changed. He grinned from ear to ear and his face lit up...he was animated and alive...and quite different. I got a check in he says. He has met a girl.

He carries on about this for some time and I do my usual thing...listen and look for areas he might not be conscious of or thinking about...areas where he might be able to improve on how he is treating this relationship, his partner, and himself...so that I can advise him and teach....so that I can find a way to help....in other words do my job...

I let the class go at the end of the two hours and I have another group coming in...about 7:00 in the evening...and as they are passing each other in the parking lot...this individual heads to his car...the following is told to me from members of both groups...because I remained in the group room.

Apparently...as he approached his car which is parked on the street right next to the parking lot where all the other group members are parked...he approaches his car on the passenger side. No one else is with him or in the car. Suddenly a black truck whips around the nearest corner...drives straight up to his car and opens fire. This is located directly in front of a house which houses young kids...adult teens mostly...who are pregnant or having other life issues and troubles...two of which are standing on the porch of the house as this happens. Of course everyone ducks and runs for cover.

I still do not know at this time what happened to my group member. I went out and inspected the scene about an hour later when my current group was on break. There was a lot of broken glass and shell casings covering the ground right next to the car. The shooters could not have been more than approximately five or six feet from the vehicle when they opened fire. There was no blood and no bodies thank God. Not like the last shooting...the one by my house. My group guy must have gotten away...but of course that is my assumption based on the evidence I viewed at the scene.

There was a line of bullet holes approximately three to four feet wide and maybe eight to ten inches high along the middle of the drivers side door. One bullet hole through the center of the drivers window. Approximately thirteen bullet holes and shots fired in all. I took a flashlight and peered in without touching anything from the passengers side window which was intact. The bullets clearly went all the way through the drivers side door of the vehicle. If anyone had been actually in the car...they would have been killed...no doubt about it in my mind.

This was no warning. They were trying to murder this man.

As I said...on the groups break...I was out there an hour after the shooting for about ten minutes. The police had not yet arrived. There were approximately eight to ten neighbors standing around in the street looking at the car and surrounding scene...two of them...two women were on their cell phones with 911. They reported to the group that they were both being told that the police would not come out until the owner of the vehicle called in. I told my group that we needed to finish and so we went back in and finished our last hour.

As I left for home...one hour later...after inspecting the scene...and two hours after the shooting had happened...I walked out and found one police car parked next to the shot up vehicle. I approached the police car and gave the police officer the information I knew...and he requested...with one exception...I just let him know I wasn't positive about the constraints of confidentiality in regards to the group members which "might" have been witnesses to the crime. I gave him contact information for myself and the agency and he told me that detectives would be in touch. Somewhere in the middle of all that I had called Heather to let her know I would be late coming back from work and that I was OK.

So...anywah...once again...twice within the past three months...I am left with the feeling of being ultimately disrespected and overwhelmed because other people...my suspicion is young males...possibly even young adult males....who do not understand what actual self-respect is...and how to define themselves as men...and instead think....as thugs...that respect and being a man has something to do with violence. We are in a need to call to arms...the lack of real "men" in our society...men who will take care of their business....not by endangering other people and children...but will be there to parent and raise their children...because a "man" can not be a "father" from a jail cell or from a casket.

For those fathers out there...who might be reading this...please...please....be there to raise your children...and do a good job at doing that...because the consequences that we all pay...when your child does something like this violent act...simply because they did not have a "real man" around while growing up...is the worst sin a father can commit...and the heaviest burden a man can carry...knowing that your child is living this kind of life...

Sorry to be so heavy handed...maybe I am really feeling it right now...because it is all so fresh...no maybe about it...I am fairly stressed out by being exposed to two shootings in three months...but I am working through it...I just wish....wish...it would stop...before anyone else gets hurt...or worse...God forbid...