It has now been a little over a month since I left GE. I was doing lunch Wednesday with a friend and he asked me a question which should have been pretty easy but actually caught me a little off guard - simply what my goals were for the summer and how I was doing. I certainly haven’t suffered from boredom yet! But my plans changed quite a bit at the beginning of the summer - I was originally planning to go to California for a few months but totally dropped that at the last minute. After changing everything up I was left a little disoriented about exactly what my goals and purpose are this summer. So it’s time to make a list and define it a bit. None of this is new; it’s what I’ve been working on for the past month - but until now I just haven’t actually sat down and said “these are my goals for the summer.”

Three major goals this summer:
1) Volunteer at Emmaus to the maximum extent I can become involved
2) Complete two night classes at DePaul
3) Finish up my summer reading list

The summer reading list is the real kicker. I want to read 5695 pages total this summer. As of right now I have read 759 pages (13%) and finished two books. I want to finish all of it by the end of August (two months away). Here’s the list…

Christian:
- Through Gates of Splendor (268p, Elliot)
- Shadow of the Almighty (250p, Elliot)
- Wesley and Men Who Followed (263p, Murray)
- Bible (cover-to-cover 1873p, NAS translation)
Oracle:
- Oracle Insights: Tales of the Oak Table (406p, multiple)
- Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals (451p, Lewis)
- Expert Oracle DB Architecture (703p, Kyte)
- Oracle Wait Interface (331p, multiple)
Male Prostitution:
- Times Square Hustler (142p, McNamara)
- Young Men In The Street (112p, Snell)
- Children of the Night (262p, Weisberg)
- The Sexual Outlaw (307p, Rechy)
- Downtown Street Hustlers: the role of dramaturgical imaging practices in the social construction of male prostitution (327p, Thesis from UCal-SanDiego)

The plan right now is to finish all of this by the end of August then pick up a contract working with Oracle somewhere downtown.