We come to the end of February today. The roads to church were difficult to drive due to the snow, ice, and lack of plowing. While Mera still handled like a champ, she had to really force her way up the hill that leads from our driveway to the rest of the road system.

I've had a similar feeling in my life lately. I know that I can make it, but it feels like I'm having to force my way uphill while slick grooves try to pull my from the path. Life just feels like more of a battle than normal, and I've got it pretty easy. The sacrifices requested of me are not like the test given to Abraham in today's reading.

What am I willing to sacrifice to demonstrate my devotion to God? It seems kind of harsh to have to be required to sacrifice anything. However, don't all of our relationships require some level of sacrifice? To truly show devotion to a loved one, we must give up some of our own self-interest. The end result provides rewards greater than what we have given, but that does not make the sacrifice any less difficult. 

The path is difficult: steep, slippery, and treacherous. It is literally a slippery slope that requires me to push against the normal gravity. Yet it is worth getting to the top.

While we still got a few inches of snow, I woke up to an icy drizzle coming down instead of flakes. The accumulated snow now had a crunchy coating of ice that made each shovelful sound like scattering plastic beads when tossed. The roads were slick throughout the day, but this also made the accumulated snow on our roof ready to come down. 

In fact, when I first felt the earthquake (a 5.3 that hit north of Anchorage), I was originally under the impression that the snow was sliding off of our roof. Ironically, when the snow did start sliding off of the roof, I first thought that it might have been an earthquake. Both events had the dogs jumping into my lap for comfort.

The icy drizzle must have been good for Connor as he made significant gains on both his time and his placement while skiing at Boroughs today. He even managed to make it through the race without falling, which was something he was particularly proud of. This was the first time that he was on the course with a group of other racers. I think that helped motivate him to do even better.

After picking up the boys from school and dropping them off at home, I drove through the suddenly snow-filled roads to the site of what had been our 9th grade Soldotna Prep School (the Soldotna Middle School before we moved here). There, I sat in the parking lot for a short time before I received the email saying that it was time for me to enter the building (oddly, I would not receive that in text format for another hour I'm glad I didn't wait for that). I walked inside and was quickly signed in and given my first dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine. I say "quickly," but my chatty nature made it so I actually didn't get my dose until after other people arrived, received their dose, and left for the observation room.

Following the vaccination, I was directed to the observation room where they kept us for a minimum of fifteen minutes to make certain that we weren't showing any signs of an anaphylactic reaction. I spent the time chatting with one of my friends who also happened to have one of the later appointments. Once the time was up, I headed home, noted yet another accident on our highway (thankfully, not as serious as the one the other day), and promptly took a three hour nap after getting back.

I'm a little tired, but I have been all week. My arm is a bit warm, but does not feel more than a shadow of soreness. I also feel slightly congested, but that seems to be the limit of any of the side effects so far. Thankfully, I have not (yet) noticed any kind of headache or digestive issues (beyond the normal) that my nurse warned me about.

Our district arranged for all school staff to get the first dose of the vaccine today as well as the second dose in three weeks. I haven't been overly concerned about getting COVID myself, but like my decision to follow the mask-wearing suggestion, getting the vaccine is more about slowing or stopping the spread to others who are more vulnerable. Hopefully, with more people doing the same, we can sooner return to a more "normal" life.

I should not be that surprised that I would have dreams involving a zombocalypse considering that I recently finished a game that dealt with precisely that setting. However, I was a little surprised by the tone of the story and my role in it. Instead of being a straight-forward shoot-the-zombies sort of dream, it was more about building a safe zone and convincing people to work together.

The "vehicles" we were using were not at all practical. They were motorized trends--like those on snow machines--that pulled us with ropes (like we were water skiing on land or sand-seal surfing in Breath of the Wild) which we also used to control the machines. In the dream, I kept telling people that they weren't hard to use, but they also weren't quite doing what I wanted them to do. Considering how exposed we were to the wandering zombies, I don't know why I would come up with that sort of method of transportation.

Soon before I woke up, I was scratched by a zombie. For those who don't know, this usually means that the person scratched will become infected  and turn into a zombie. At first, I thought about covering the wound and pretending it didn't happen. I immediately chided myself for thinking so selfishly. Instead, I held to the hope that I was somehow immune (even thinking that I might be like Ellie from the Last of Us), and I was trying to convince the people I was with to tie me up and see what happens rather than just shooting me outright.

​I woke up at that point, not knowing my dream-self's fate.

A fatal accident between Soldotna and Sterling shut down the only road between the two towns. This trapped Connor and I on one side of the accident and Rowen (at his school) and Trevor (at home, but who had to get to work) on the other side. It happened in an area where there are no possible detours. Actually, there are quite a few stretches along the Sterling Highway which have no alternate routes available; this is one of the reasons that the 2019 fire was so concerning. This particular intersection is one that sees a large number of accidents, many of them serious.

All of the local schools had students stuck at school after hours, waiting for the road to be cleared. I stayed at school longer than normal and then picked up Connor before heading towards Rowen's school. I thought that we were going to be just sitting in traffic, or perhaps detoured into the Fred Meyers lot, but traffic was starting to move by the time we got there.

Unfortunately, this made me have to reschedule the interview I was planning to conduct for my doctoral study today. Thankfully, the interviewee was quite understanding (and had heard about the accident) and rescheduled for tomorrow--where, interestingly, a second person has also scheduled an interview (at a different time). This changes up my plans, and had caused me a great deal of frustration and uncertainty before things were settled.

Yet even in the midst of my frustration, my heart went out to those involved in the accident. Details about it are still scarce, but for the highway to be shut down for so long, I knew right away that a fatality had to be involved.  I felt guilty for my aggravation at the disruption to my day, especially considering that others were dealing with far more severe consequences. My day was merely inconvenienced; theirs had life-changing, and even life-ending, results. I pray for the repose of the soul (or souls) of those who died, for the well-being of the survivors, and for the families who are dealing with their grief.

Tomorrow, I will be conducting my first official interview for my doctoral research study. Thanks to a couple of friends who were willing to test the process, I think that the interview itself should go well. What I am a little more hesitant about is the process that follows. 

Aside from one class on qualitative research, I have not done much in the way of qualitative data analysis. Although I have a highly recommended software set to help me, there are still elements about this process which are a little fuzzy to me … and I really don't want to screw things up. Part of my lack of confidence is that the process actually seems too simple in concept. I'm supposed to read through the questionnaires and transcriptions of the interviews and "code" them. Coding is supposed to take the ideas and better organize them so I can reference them quickly. As I code, I am supposed to start looking for patterns or themes to the answers provided.

Perhaps I feel comfortable (and thus concerned that I'm too comfortable) with this process because its the basis of most literary analysis too--something that I have a great deal of experience in. A difference between this sort of thematic delving and what I am used to doing is the intensity of it. I'm supposed to parse the responses phrase by phrase to make certain that I'm not just seeing what I want to see, but instead seeing the larger picture created by the data.

Well, I suppose that I shouldn't work myself up too much over this. I only have the one interview scheduled so far. Hopefully, I will get more responses in the next week or two. That way I can get this project moving … and stress myself out some more.

I've been recently accused of being a bully. As this was in the context of an online argument, I don't give it a great deal of credence especially since the person who made the accusation was the one casting insults. While, I don't agree with the person's characterization of me, a recent article that I read put the entire question of what it means to be bullied into perspective for me. Here's the link to the article in question.

In general, I have held to the notion that I was bullied for most of my time in elementary and middle school. Starting with a kick to my throat on the kindergarten playground, to being hung upside down on a teeter-totter, to having my head thrown to the curb, to being tripped regularly, to having books knocked out of my hands, to being mocked an jeered in the locker room, to being insulted for my Middle Eastern appearance (despite my lack of Middle Eastern heritage), to even having someone try and hit me with a car, I felt that I had ample evidence that I was the victim of bullying. Although I am not doubting that claim, I do wonder if others may have felt just as bullied by me.

I clearly remember a few students in the sixth and seventh grades seemed to enjoy picking on me no matter the situation. However, I just as clearly remember "getting even" with them with particularly pointed insults. In one case, a meeting with one of my tormentors at our five-year reunion demonstrated that he felt he was the victim of my aggression. 

In truth, I didn't always treat my friends that well either. I tended to say what I thought was funny (and in high school, I found a lot of crude comments funny) without considering how weak my "I'm just joking" defense was when taking account my friends' feelings (which I was not always the best at doing anyway). I certainly did not consider what they might be going through and how off-the-cuff sorts of comments might have only added to their problems.

I wonder how many other bullies think of themselves as victims too. Did we perhaps create cyclical scenarios where one type of bullying led to another? Did those who bullied me face bullying elsewhere in their lives? 

In today's First Reading, God gives Noah his promise that he will never use a flood to destroy humanity, putting His bow in the sky as a reminder of this covenant. In the Second Reading, Paul equates Noah's experience with the flood waters to Christians using the waters of Baptism as a means of saving their lives. In the Gospel, Jesus proclaims, "This is the time of fulfillment. / The kingdom of God is at hand." When taken together, the God's salvation of Noah and his family is the same as Jesus' salvation for all of us. 

The difference is that we are being saved from our own sins rather than from a world that has fallen to sin. Jesus did not come down to Earth to rain fire and brimstone upon the unworthy. He did not come a worldly king to rule our existence. Instead He came to us to save everyone, to minister to the lowly and forgotten, to bring salvation to those full of sin … like me. 

The waters of Noah's flood wiped away the sinful from the world. The waters of Baptism wipe away my own sins. In both cases, the single act is not enough on its own to eliminate sin entirely. Rather, sin continues to find ways to return, ways to bring death back into our holy lives. Yet Jesus shows that He is always there for us, ready to help when we simply ask. 

He didn't say that the kingdom of God was coming soon, but that it was "at hand," there and then, here and now. The kingdom of God surrounds us even now. We just need to accept God's covenant with us. 

I finished The Last of Us Part 2. Like coming to the end of an amazing novel, I just couldn’t put it down. I need to spend some time digesting this fantastic story before writing more on it.

Right now, I should probably go to bed.

For Lent, I've again decided to limit my time on Facebook (or other social media, but Facebook is really the only one I use) to a total of ten minutes a day. While it has always been a bit of a struggle, it has seemed harder in just these first couple of days than it had in previous years. I keep catching myself opening the app without even thinking about it.

Today, aside from scanning through one full article and leaving an emoji on one person's post, I spent almost no time on the app … directly. However, with those few minutes combined with the many, many times that I turned on the app just to turn it off when I realized what I was doing, I logged over twenty minutes on the app according to my phone's screen-time monitor. That shocked me. I guessed that it might have been less than half that amount.

Part of the problem is that I've built the habit of checking Facebook on my phone any time that I'm waiting for something, especially for a computer to load up something. These wait times are everywhere (signing in to a computer, opening a web application, waiting for course materials to upload or download, etc.). Instead of just staring off into space, I usually end up staring at my phone. 

These past few years during Lent, I have noted this problem of mine, this continual need to check to see if anyone has said something to me, a perpetual need for validation through response. I like to think that I have decent self-control and that my self-control is continuing to improve, but this habit seems to indicate otherwise. Even if I manage to catch myself before opening Facebook, I still keep automatically opening my phone.

​Do you have any idea how many times I opened the weather app today--feeling a bit ridiculous nearly every time?

Due to COVID, we had ashes sprinkled on the top of our heads rather than placed in the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads. Although I'm going to need to wash my hair before getting in bed, I kind of preferred this method. The Cross on the forehead has always seemed a little too aggressive. 

I don't have issues with displaying signs of my faith in public, but placing the Cross on the forehead has always seemed to me to be directly against Jesus' admonition in today's Gospel. He specifically tells His followers to not be like the hypocrites by making a big show about any act of charity or penance. In that light, the Cross of ash on our foreheads is literally putting a sign on our heads that we are fasting for the start of Lent. 

With the ashes sprinkled on top of my head, I have not felt like I am "showboating" my faith as much. Meanwhile, I still feel the humility of my temporary existence while making a physical gesture that I have started this year's Lenten journey. The experience feels more personal … even though I guess that I am publicly writing about it.

​Wow … I kind of fell right into that bit of irony, didn't I?

Everything feels a bit off this week. Yesterday was Presidents' Day, but I didn't wish anyone a Happy Presidents' Day. Today is Mardi Gras, but I didn't a single person with Happy Mardi Gras. Even while writing this down, it doesn't feel like the holidays didn't occur as they passed by unremarked.

Normally, we have a pile of paczkis and other junk food ready for Fat Tuesday. Today, we partook of a few of our Saint Valentine's Day candies, but that was it. Wow! I only just realized that we have the four "holidays" in a row this year. Saint Valentine's on Sunday, Presidents' Day on Monday, Mardi Gras today, and Ash Wednesday tomorrow (not to mention Parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday). No wonder it doesn't feel like Mardi Gras. Too many events in a row makes it so that none of them feel all that special.

I haven't quite figured out my Lenten focus this year. It feels like we are already offering up quite a lot this past year, almost like it's been a year of Lenten observance. I will likely go with my yearly Lenten limits on Facebook. Considering the time commitments that my research study is likely to require (I've had more people responding to my questionnaire), I don't really want to add something, so reducing time spent seems like a better idea.

Anyway, Happy Mardi Gras--what's left of it!