Unemployed - Day 2

A typical unemployed person's story doesn't start at 4:45 in the morning. Well, this one does and it's atypical for any other story in my life; I never wake up that early, not even when I am jet-lagged. As some friends have already pointed out, there is a lot of irony in this statement - I used to struggle to wake up before 8 when I was working at Amazon, and couldn't get out of bed before 9 when I was at Microsoft. That I went to bed before 10pm last night has something to do with why I woke up as early as I did, but it can't be just that. It's more because a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and a stress-free Manoj is a better sleeper.

I veered between torpor and hyperactivity yesterday. I had a few things on my list of things to do, one of which was having my laptop looked at. Instead of lazing at home, I started my day with a trip to the Apple store to have them investigate "the case of the draining battery". Yes, all batteries drain eventually, but my relatively new battery was relieving itself of its charge even before the obligatory two hours I expected it to last. After a long chat with the Apple Store Genius, I was told that more extensive tests were needed to ascertain the cause of said mysterious drainage, and that I would hear from them once they had more information. My Mac is 5 years old now, so it's a Vintage. I was informed by the Genius that Apple has a great deal for out-of-warranty Mac owners like myself; bring your old Mac in and for a flat $310, Apple will fix and replace anything that is wrong with it. In effect, you walk into the store with a problem-Mac, and you walk out with an almost refurbished one, complete with a 90-day warranty. If the technicians find a lot of things busted in my Mac, I'm going to avail of this killer deal. No sub-500$ PC is going to be as good as my 5-year old Macbook Pro!

Leafing through The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest at the Barnes & Noble in the U Village was utterly relaxing; I needed it after my hour at the Apple Store (rolls eyes). Justin and I had planned to workout a little after lunch, so I headed over to the gym for a workout at 2pm with the self-proclaimed workout machine. It was a bust! He was eating lunch as I walked into the club, and am glad I didn't wait for him to be limber again - he hadn't started his workout even after I left the facility two hours later. For my own part, I interval trained for twenty minutes on the bike, and followed it up with a solid chest workout. The soreness is beginning to kick in right about now.

The evenings are hard to pass without having a real objective, so I am open to suggestions from you on what would be a meaningful way to spend the hours post a workout. I experimented with lying on the couch and intermittently reading, watching TV and reading the news online. Two problems with the couch setting - it's sleep inducing and leads to binge eating. Help an unemployed person be productive, please...