Christmas Letter, 2005

Contact Light, December 2005, by John M. Burt, 960 SW Jefferson Avenue, Corvallis, Oregon 97333 USA // john_m_burt@hotmail.com // (541) 753-6094
[“Contact light”: Buzz Aldrin’s terse observation that a pressure sensor had tripped, indicating that the Eagle’s feet had touched down. Thus, the first words spoken from the Lunar surface.]
Life goes on
It’s been a year since the last Contact Light. Some years, I’ve sent out two or three issues, but I’ve been busy this year, especially the last few months. After two years of taking prerequisite courses and submitting applications, I was accepted to nursing school, and I’ve just finished the first term. Barely.
Blessed be
Everyone warned me that it would be difficult to work full-time and also go to nursing school, but we really couldn’t afford for me not to. Working night shifts at one job and mornings at another, with classes in the afternoon and “clinical instruction” shifts at Lebanon Community Hospital in the evenings, and massage clients whenever I could schedule them, I often got only two or four hours’ sleep in every 24. I don’t think a single day passed in which I didn’t have work, school or both. I joked that I was embracing a clock-free cyberpunk lifestyle, but as the term progressed I was runing down badly and was too stressed out to even notice how bad the situation was.
Keep on truckin’
School was closed for a four-day Thanksgiving weekend, and so was the day job. I had arranged to have time off the night job during those days, too, so I had the eerie experience of a couple of days in which I could not only do what I wanted during the day, but actually sleep at night. I went back to school in good enough shape to be actually aware of how close I had come to utter collapse, and resolved to do things differently from then on. The first application of this determination was that I begged off a night shift before an 8AM final. Now, that may seem to you like an obvious thing to do, but at the beginning of the term I would have shrugged and said, “No problem.” [By the way: I passed.]
Take care
Things are going to be different Winter term. For one thing, I’m going to insist on at least one actual day off every week. A small concession to mortality, but it’s a major commitment for me, and it’s not going to be easy to fit it into the appalling schedule of a student nurse working 40+ hours a week..
Live strong
After years of hard work sustaining the Willamette Valley Community School, Kathe finally resigned from the board. Now she has time and energy for other projects, like restoration work on the house and sewing. She has a talent for fiber art which she doesn’t fully appreciate, and I’m hoping she will continue to create things like the projects she’s already done this fall. Kathe’s health remains a concern, but she’s had no new crises this year (touch wood).
Don’t take any Wood & Ickels’
Michu (aka Mestowet) was living in Dallas, Texas, but is now in Las Vegas, working hard and putting away money. We’d worry more about her being so far away, except that she’s with one of her Ethiopian relatives and embedded in the local Ethiopian expatriate community, and our experience is that they’re good people. Biftu (aka Asnakech) is still in Portland. Tesfaye was living with her for awhile but is currently back with us and looking for work in Corvallis. Waldy went on an extended road trip with friends this summer and came back in one piece. He’s looking at going back to school.
Take it easy but take it
The face of Corvallis is changing rapidly just now. Most noticable to us is the remaking of the block next to ours, an entire block of aging apartment houses being replaced by new buildings where the housing density (and the rents) will be dramatically higher. 1) It was sad to see the old houses go, 2) it was amusing to have an unobstructed view to the west for a couple of months, 3) it’s currently interesting to watch the construction in progress, and doubtless 4) we’ll soon be numb to the presence of the monolithic apartment blocks across the street.
Don’t let them get you down
A few blocks further from the house, next to the beautifully refurbished former train depot, a couple of buildings that had been moved there from elsewhere are finally being renovated. About time: they’d sat there up on blocks for years. The larger of the two buildings has an amusing history: at various times it had been used by the University’s agriculture department as classrooms and as a grain bin.
Walk tall
Across the tracks from the refurbished buildings, an immense new apartment block is going up. We’re still getting used to being able to see the thing from our house, and now we can look forward to getting used to seeing an even taller apartment building looming over the riverfront.
Speak the truth, as it is given to you to understand it
Also on the riverfront, the Benton County Historical Society pulled a bait and switch, proposing to use the historic Copeland Lumber building to house the long-awaited new museum, then demolishing the building and declaring that they needed to raise millions of dollars to put up a new building. Kind of reminds me of how we wound up in Iraq.
Peace

//The Magic 8-Ball remains on vacation\\