One of the things I fear the most in my career and profession is being able to detach myself from the job long enough to enjoy the world around me. Lately it seems awfully hard to do, and even though I was on call this weekend, it often doesn’t matter if I am or am not, I still somehow end up doing things even when I should not be working. It’s part of the job I suppose, but lately I keep slipping into periods where I don’t want to do anything beyond my job description at work, just get in and get out. My burnout and recovery cycles are much shorter these days, and I feel this will not change until many things change within our company, which I am hoping happens soon. I feel we’ve been playing a very long game of catch up when we should be out front on the offensive.

I ended up in Boston again for the second weekend since Ashlynn had the weekend off, and she wanted to go to the New England Aquarium. We also wanted to check out a bakery that a friend recommended to us in Cambridge that sold Japanese-style pastries and snacks, including An Pan and Melon Pan. We made a day trip out of it, getting into the city in the afternoon. They had closed the MBTA Blue Line for some sort of day renovation which dislocated us somewhat, until we realized we were only a few blocks from the Aquarium station and the aquarium itself, so walking to and back wasn’t a problem, but it was very cold and windy and while we wore enough to walk around outside in for a bit, we didn’t think we’d be outside long, and the line was a bit long to get in. The place was pretty crowded, we walked around and saw all sorts of crazy fish and sea creatures, the penguins, sea turtles, sharks, and more. Oddly enough we went through the whole thing in around an hour, we didn’t remember it being so small, but also we didn’t spend a lot of time at each exhibit, there were a lot of people and it was tough to move around with so many kids and all. We want to go back in the summer and possibly do the whale watch thing, might be fun. We then got back on the subway and went up to Porter Square and proceeded to get somewhat lost trying to find the place. Turns out they had a small kiosk inside another building that was not marked well on Google Maps or their website. We did find it though, and bought close to forty bucks worth of assorted things. The Melon Pan was pretty delicious, and I had never had An Pan before, which was interesting. I’ll probably go back and visit their main store in Brookline, they say they have a wider selection of things. I was also told a couple places in Chinatown might have meat buns. Any local Boston people wanna drop some locations/addresses for me to aid in this search, please do. After we were set with that we returned to Braintree and had dinner at this Mexican place with a local friend. It was pretty decent food, even though I’d never had a enchilada before, and green tomato sauce as it turns out, was not as favorable as I thought. But I managed to eat it all the same.

Today was spent largely watching anime with Ashlynn. Since the Japan quake, barely anything new has aired, and I apparently convinced her enough that she should watch Madoka and we did so last week. We then proceeded to watch Yumekui Merry, Infinite Stratos, Kore wa Zombie, and the first few episodes of GOSICK. Thing about her is, she’d never really seen or bothered with anime before we met, and even now while she does watch anime and enjoys it, she’d rather watch other shows, and after NCIS, Criminal Minds, Bones, and Rescue Me, she decided she wanted to watch what I have been writing about. Having nothing else to do today we pretty much did just that, watched anime and ate some of the stuff we bought in Boston, aside from lunch at Red Robin. Was pretty peaceful at least until several annoying messages from co-workers about some issue I wasn’t involved with. Ah well.

My goal is now is to somehow make it through the next few weeks without going insane, and to make it to the release of Duke Nukem Forever and Portal 2, which will likely consume most of next month for me. The little things, you know?