monday night thoughts

Going to the gym has helped me tremendously from feeling the slump of a desk-job. I thank Shawna for the encouragement to keep up the habit, and my 3-day-a-week routine of running and weight-lifting not only gives me a medium through I may vent and exhaust the pent-up energy I gradually accumulate over the day and slough it off, but it also regenerates me to a significant extent.
I spoke to Dave on the phone at last. He is back in the States, and, having seen a "lion eating a warthog's ass sixty yards from his sleeping place," I should say he is quite well for the most part.
It is beginning to occur to me how quickly this summer is fading. I have been enjoying it very much, but soon I really need to update my resume and start applying for other jobs. I'm open to any new range of experiences. I don't want to get stuck in a rut, and I feel one of the things that keeps me going is that for now I am simply an intern, and there is a foreseeable end to my work there, an end to the hours upon hours of data entry.
For some reason I am not worried. If we move out of Portland, I should have plenty in savings to get started up and maybe find a gateway job to at least have some money coming in. Maybe it would be nice to have a more physically active job next time around... just a thought.

I'm getting more interested in travel as I catch a whiff of it coming up potentially (if I can get time off). I would love to travel with any number of people as companions- if not simply by myself, with a friend, a family member, with Shawna. Either way it would be special. Even if it were frustrating and bothersome at times. I like the identity of places and I like the thought of me being in places, as though those places define who I am, or at least, help to form some sort of vague boundary that is me. I think about the name of a place and all the images I can conjure, whether or not I have been there, and that mental vision is itself giving identity to a place, something very unique for each person who imagines it. In essence, any single place has billions of definitions, yet one very concrete position on a map. Traveling is a very precious opportunity, made all the more valuable by its lack of form for anyone but the traveler himself/herself.