Holidays

New BlackBerry for Hanukkah/Christmas! So awesome!

Going up to Boston after Christmas to spend New Years with Rachel. Pretty damn excited about that. Then I go back down for class to start up again, and she comes down the day after her birthday and spends that weekend/the inauguration/the week after with me in DC/Richmond. I am sufficiently stoked.

All in all, good break so far. Being 21 is awesome. That's really all I've got as of late. Sorry folks.

Oh Hey!

Hey guys, I'm totally 21 now!

No other poignant updates. Sorry.

Right Quick

Hey everyone (no one?). Sorry it's been roughly forever. I'm in crunch time with a zillion papers, quizzes/tests and even an exam or two. Aren't those supposed to wait until finals time, people? Oh well.

So hey, I turn 21 ridiculously soon. I have no idea if I will feel any different or more awesome, as I haven't ever really felt a huge change come with officially turning a year older in the past. Then again, I have a pretty wicked habit of lying about my age (in social situations only, of course). So I suppose we'll see when we get there.

I haven't really been this excited to go home and spend time with my dad and sister in...well, possibly my entire college career. I think it's mostly due to my mom being gone for such an extended period of time; I feel like maybe that's what's subconsciously making the three of us emotionally closer. I'm just glad my mom's been able to keep in contact with us at least periodically. She comes home for a (very) short winter holiday break, but then she's back out until September. I don't have anything negative to say about it, though, because the woman loves her job, is clearly pretty much amazing at it, and the assignment will do wonders for her resume/career.

I think I'll leave this post off on that note. In the recent past, a friend of mine had the opportunity to make the biggest career move of her life, almost double what she's making now and an entry on her resume for which about 95% of all people in her career field would skull-stomp. The thing is, she'd have to leave the place she's lived her entire life (I think she's been out of the country once or twice, but has never not lived within a few hours of the house she grew up in) and the people with whom she's spent that entire life.

She's not taking the position, even though it's exactly what she wants in life.

That completely blows my mind. I could never imagine giving up anything that could boost my career; especially not just so that I could stay with mommy and daddy and stay with a girlfriend (boyfriend in her situation) who could easily move anywhere with the career she's chosen.

I look back on all of that and realize how lucky I am - twisted as it may be - that I grew up in a household that valued education and getting a good career above pretty much all else. Sure, my family's not close and we're one of the pinnacle definitions of dysfunctional. But I know for a fact that when my parents are in their mid-to-late-60s, they won't care if/that neither my sister nor I are within even driving range. I know what will make them the happiest and most proud is when they have a civil rights lawyer/Hill lobbyist and a registered and board-certified OB/GYN as their two legacies, they will finally be able to feel 100% proud of all the sweat, tears and money they poured into us for what will collectively have been around 30 years.

It is when I come across situations like these that I realize how lucky I am to have the parents, sister and girlfriend that I have right now. My mother and father, though it has admittedly taken them a bit longer than I'd originally hoped, couldn't be prouder of the woman I've become and the career path I've chosen for myself (even though my mom secretly hopes I decide to stick with law school and abandon lobbying - but she knows it's a fat chance). My sister is more supportive of me in every single activity in which I participate and decision I make for myself than I am, usually. I'm most pleased and lucky that I am currently involved with someone who views the future - namely her career, but also some social options too - with the same prioritization that I do.

For anyone who might be reading this - how do you feel about this sort of thing? I'm curious to see how other people view and rank their priorities in life. Does it always have to be dream job or dream life, or can there be a happy medium? Am I the only one who considers one of the highest markers of a happy life to be having a career for which one would do anything or go anywhere?

New Frontiers

So tonight has been epic and is the beginning of a beautiful new year and a beautiful new America. I couldn't be prouder to be a Virginian.

Also, hey guys! I turn 21 pretty darn soon. Just throwing that out there. You should consider maybe being around to celebrate with me.

Jump on It? Jump on It.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm kinda glad rugby is winding down for the season. It just became too much with the bullshit on the team. I love the sport, but I think I need to sit down and seriously contemplate returning to the VCUWRFC next season. I just don't know if it's even worth all the pain, time and money.

I haven't seen Rachel in a while, and it seems I won't see her for a while more. I'm over being upset about it, and am now just looking at it as maybe it's not something that's going to work out. It kills me, but I have to look at it pragmatically. I'm not making any decisions. We'll see how things go as time progresses.

There is really nothing remotely positive to update with right now, so I think I'll just end this on a note filled with promise that once something positive pops up, I'll make a much better post.

Just Saying

You guys I turn 21 kinda soonish. Sitting in Boston, on Rachel's bed again, I just wanted to throw that out there. I'm in MA this weekend and will be back up on Wednesday night/Thursday morning for fall break. Because I'm so ridiculously into this girl that I just don't know when to say no. Love it. :)

On Perception vs. Cognition

The weekend with Rachel was next to flawless.

The rugby match was terrible, and I barely played, which I completely expected. It's slowly killing me that the one thing that makes me happier than anything else in the world is the one thing that is making me angry and hateful.

After breaking up a bar fight and having a heart-to-heart with one of my best friends regarding how miserable she is, I turned around in my bar stool to come face-to-face with Rachel. She asked me to be her girlfriend and, of course, I said yes. Come Monday, we talked at dinner and she revealed that she's not positive about putting a label on it yet. I had to let her retract the offer. I had no other choice.

I don't really mind. With or without the title, I know that my loyalty lies with her. I'll be shipping up to Boston once again for fall break (or "reading days" as they are known to VCU's academic calendar, as if anyone is taking those days to catch up on missed class readings). We'll see how I cross that bridge when I come to it.

Though the thought completely depresses me, I am coming to realize that I really, truly, just may never graduate. The School of Mass Comm has ridiculous requisites and formalities that make getting into the Upper School (the Sequence) nearly impossible for anyone pursuing any other academic goals (like [a] minor/minors in non-SMC concentrations, such as the two I am currently pursuing). There's really nothing left to say that I haven't already said or just silently come to accept.

In an only slightly rhetorical question - would I really be the worst person ever if I just gave VCUWRFC the shaft and went to coach for UofR?

Notes on the Seaboard

And so it goes that something I figured would be a one-time, unrequited jaunt into complete lust and infatuation has turned into something real with very tangible feelings and actions to go with it.

Rachel arrives at National Airport around 3 on Friday afternoon. All I've wanted to do is show her the two cities I love - my home, DC, and my new adventure, Richmond - and as I am now counting down the days, I keep my fingers crossed that I am able to show her just who I am and convince her that I'm worth taking just one blind leap of faith in life.

On Relativity and Determinism

As I write this, I am sitting on a bed in an apartment on the campus of MIT in Boston, MA. This weekend has not been one that is easy to put into words. Quite the contrary, in fact. I've typed and deleted attempts to qualify and quantify the events and emotions to this point so many times that I stopped counting.

I think I'm going to give up for now, and leave it at a muddled tentative conclusion of uncertainty, unclarity and falling action.

Držet palce

Translation: Fingers crossed.

Summer is officially over and it's back to school. After sixteenish years, I can't say I'm even remotely stoked to start yet another semester of mindless busywork and intro classes as cosmic punishment for transferring. I still can't get into the Upper School of the SMC, so it seems it's more intros and electives for me. Oh joy.

On the upside of life: RUGBY! Rugby rugby rugby rugby rugby. We have a great handful of new rookies who seem to be loving learning the sport as much as we (the vets) love teaching it. We've always held that rugby is a lot like cocaine; it's not for everyone, but for those who it is, once it's inside you you can't get enough. I'm super stoked for this season. Here's crossing our fingers that everything ends as well as it's starting.

I'm having one of those weird void-like stretches. Every day seems just like the last, and I feel like I'm zombie-walking through it all. I've made some necessary changes - some that feel great and some that hurt like hell - and I'm hoping that they will become the impetus I need to get my shit back in order. I have confidence that I'll be just fine with time and a little hard work, but it doesn't make the current feeling suck any less.

I wish I had more substance to send your way, but sadly, I do not. With any luck, I'll have both the time and the content with which to update this thing more in the future. Wish me luck?

Bouře ve sklenici vody

Trans: A storm in a teacup.

I have returned from the Midwest full of awkward stories that, for some reason, don't seem very interesting at the moment. The drive there was 12 hours, and I was stuck in a car with two strangers I quickly learned I could not stand. The rest of the trip was much, much better.

At the very least, though, I can say I am more positive than ever that I am a big city girl through and through.

Southwestern Illinois was absolutely gorgeous, and I saw the rolling hills of the Shawnee National Forest as a stunning backdrop on our day trip along the wine trail. I strongly regretted not having a working camera, as some of the sights are ones I would've liked to capture to share with anyone who might not be lucky enough to ever see them.

I haven't even told a specific story and I'm already bored with this portion of the post. That said - moving on.

No one's really talking much about it, so I figured I'd go out on a limb and talk about the Olympics (mmm, how facetious of me!).

In all seriousness, though, I'd like to briefly discuss (with myself?) something other than a specific sport or event, or even one or two specific athletes. Granted, like every other warm-blooded human, I do have my own collection of crushes on athletes based solely on their skills/accomplishments and/or their looks. For example: though she is completely illegal for me to even look at like that, and when she talks she sounds like she is perhaps not only illiterate but also a complete ditz, I have an entirely inappropriate crush on Shawn Johnson. I don't understand how she is so little and yet so muscular. I fully believe that if I were driving her somewhere and there was only one spot to park on the street and it was too small, she and her little bag-of-rocks arms could move the car ahead of it to make space for me. And that's hot.

No, I would like to propose a different view of ... well ... how we view the Olympics. I don't know if it's just me, but something about the Olympics - every time, without fail - makes me hyper-nationalistic. And not as in, "And I'm proud to be an Am-err-uh-kiiin, whar at least ah know ah'm freee!" No, no, no. I find myself rabidly proud of my family's heritage.

There, my friends, is where I'd like to make my point. I'm half Czech, half-ish Italian with some southern German thrown in. However, I look Czech, relate more with that side of the family, and have claimed much more of that culture than that of the Italian culture. I was raised much more Czech than Italian, for all intents and purposes.

Every time one of the Olympics...es rolls around, I go into heavy-duty FUCKING PROUD TO BE CZECH mode. Example: did anyone know table tennis was an Olympic sport? Me, neither. But it is! It is, and guess what? There is a super-cute Czech girl competing in the singles event. It seems I have fixated on her as my reason to love being Czech crush.

FUCKING ADORABLE!

I have inexplicably run out of juice with which to write this post, so I am cutting it short and leaving you with something to think about yet again. Where is your family from? Are you finding yourself strangely in love with any and every athlete from your family's country(ies) of origin?

Late Summer Late Post

Sorry it's been roughly forever since I posted. I've moved into my new place in RVA with a sweet-ass new roommate whom I absolutely adore, and I am currently sitting in my awesome new room re-packing stuff I feel like I've just unpacked (and some stuff I really did just unpack) for a ridiculously awesome and long-awaited roadtrip to Illinois.

I'll be in the following states within the next 12ish hours: VA, WV, KY, IN, IL. I'm so super excited!

Hopefully I'll be able to give something remotely substantial when I'm there, or more likely, when I return.

Terms of Imprisonment

While I thought my first summer living on my own would be a blast and a half, it has turned out to be pretty much everything but. I do enjoy being able to come and go as I please, and keeping my room as dumpy as I want, but I really miss DC. I miss the people up there, though I suppose no one up there considers me a close friend either, save Rach and maybe my baby sister. Alas.

Work is winding down, as is my last summer class, and while I am excited about it, I realize I will soon be bored out of my mind again like I was in early May. I really hope I can find another job, even if it is far fewer hours and far less pay. Well, maybe not far less. Heh.

I really need to start going to the gym again. I feel schlubby and gross, and I pretty much look it and...am it too. I feel like I am wasting away and being useless while I'm at it. It's the worst feeling in the world, and yet something I apparently cannot get myself over.

Oh hello, life. I am so glad you are fifth-grade-emo again.

Timely Extradition

After what understandably appeared to be the complete disappearance of me, I return. For the most part. If you can call it that. My life? Oh, no, I couldn't bore you with that.

Oh, well, if you insist.

I've been in summer sessions and working all day every day, which could possibly explain my notable absence. Class at 10am followed immediately by 6 - 8 hours of work a day really seems to tax one more than originally planned. I'm enjoying it, for the most part, though. My job is one I can actually put on a resume, and though it is on the low end of the totem pole, I fully believe that the work I and those below me are doing is worthwhile and will do good for the community in the long haul. It's slightly difficult to explain what I do, but I am a Triennial School Census Team Leader (in title), and I manage four to six census interviewers every day as we cover every square mile of Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond. We go door-to-door, but only to addresses that have not responded to the federally-mandated public school census, and fill out the information manually if we are responded to. It's long, it's arduous, the pay is surprisingly good, and I work with a bunch of VCU and other university kids I might or might not have ever gotten to meet otherwise.

I attended Capital Pride 2008 a few weeks ago and had a complete blast spending time with high school friends and staying at my family's place in A-Town. I realize more and more how much I miss the city that bred and raised me every time I visit, but when I come home to Richmond I always see new things that I didn't appreciate about it before. I definitely couldn't see myself making a life here or staying here long if at all after undergrad, but it's not a terrible place and I think it'll be somewhere that I will fondly remember.

I leave this entry slightly open, so as I have somewhere to pick up for the next one, or at least to give me some ideas. People are complicated, and I am seeing that no matter how hard you try to understand people or their behaviors, sometimes you just can't. Ever. It's frustrating as hell, but it's a fact of life and I think it's one that makes being individuals so awesome. Agonizing, yes. But awesome.

Until next time.

Quick Time-Out

I'm seriously failing at updating, and I realize. There will be more, and hopefully in more detail, in the coming days.

Sleep doesn't even come anymore. I'm depressed, and I don't know why. For once, all the pieces in life have fallen close to one another and all I have to do is give them the littlest touches to put them into place.

So why can't I?

It's eating me up, and it's making her miserable. I'm so scared to push her away. "The best thing to ever happen to me" feels so inadequate to describe this woman in my life. I have no idea what to do, but I will be damned if something like this comes between us and pushes her away.

I have to woman up and grow a pair, and learn how to bottle up my feelings again. It's time to stop letting them be something in life for a while. It's time to get back into gear.

Back At Ya

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (35% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat (35e/76s) Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I can't believe I'm dating a socialist wannabe. *shudder*

She Said, She Said, She Said

Yet another step in the direction towards spending the rest of my life with this unstoppable force that blew into my life and I hope to God doesn't leave any time soon.

I have this collection of still frames reeling behind my eyelids when I lie in bed, and they bleed into each other as I drift off to sleep. I see her eyes, first thing in the morning when I roll over and she's sleeping heavily; I kiss her forehead and they open slowly, a smile creeping across her face. I know she has no idea that they're are lighter than the sunlight streaming through the slits in the curtains.

I have a tendency towards recurring dreams. Last night I dreamt of the future, or perhaps just what I wish it will be...

I awake in the mornings with a curious sense of hope, as if even if the day itself ends up being less than satisfactory, it's just one more on the way to something so much more.

No Pain, No Gain, So They Say

University is a wonderful, twisted, fucked-up little gem of a thing, really. You meet the people you want in your wedding party, and you meet the people you hope to God never even think about procreating. You meet rapists, artists, sexists, future dentists, and everything in between. You see hundreds of faces you may or may not ever see again, all drifting by as the frigid wind whips hats in the air and hair in their faces.

I come to ask myself why we behave the way we do around one another now that we're "adults" - or so we say. I suppose, at least, people paying rent for apartments and not eating mom's spaghetti for dinner every night. The definition of adult only ever gets more subjective lately.

One would think that we'd moved past hating people for differences, for things we don't understand about them. One would think we could put aside our shortcomings and come together for fifty-minutes-three-times-a-week and learn a thing or two about the other six billion carbon life forms wandering around the planet.

Sadly, I find myself sometimes mistaken. And for some strange reason, it still gets under my skin in just the right ways that even though people twice my age and ten times my experience think I'm the best thing to walk out of a higher learning institution, people my own age would much rather stare and whisper to themselves than come and talk to me face-to-face like what I'd imagine a respectable adult would.

I'm not comparing my current situation to high school, as I did that at my old university and it was much more fitting there than it is here. I suppose I'm just pointing out the subtle ways in which, as much as we love to call ourselves grown up and blowing away...some of those people? I don't see them moving any way at all.

One Step Forward, Two Steps --

The first day of spring semester fast approaches, and as I sit here and write this, my new roommate is arranging her furniture and putting her clothes in the shelves her family heaved in earlier this morning.

This is yet another new chapter in my life. I find myself on a new roller coaster, but the kind where I don't worry about falling out; the first one where I don't feel like I never strapped in.

I feel stable and almost comfortable. I never want to feel completely safe and comfortable, though, because I fear that that will mean I've stopped moving and progressing in my life. But I am happy, and that's new and kind of tingles when I quiet everything around me and have a moment to myself. I suppose meditating more and all the self-introspection has been having an effect on that, as well.

Having a significant other who supports me and loves me like mine does also really helps. She's more than I deserve.

I think that this whole notion will define my self-motto for this semester and new chapter in life: "Spring 2008: Strapped In."

Qualifiers and Modifiers

For some, no matter how hard they try and no matter what they accomplish, nothing seems like enough.

I feel betrayed by my university. It's kind of stupid, really. I just wish maybe they'd care enough not to make me take classes that will further enhance my penchant towards mid-semester depression plummets.

I digress.

I find myself making schedules, counting days, making plans, hoping, wishing - wishing I knew how to pray, even? - just to keep my feet on the ground. The distance will be hard, I have no doubt. Distance always is. But we have lives apart from each other and that is something that I cannot and will not allow to be altered. Maybe I was spoiled by seeing her so much over break, as she mentioned she herself was, but I like to think I have more self-control than that. I won't up and jump on a Greyhound to Chapel Hill at midnight on a Wednesday night because I can't stand sleeping in a bed alone, without her.

I do see myself possibly sinking into CNU mode this semester around. I can't lie about it; there's no use. I'm not fooling myself or anyone around me by saying otherwise. The schedule I have and my tendency to slip into depression when isolated from friends and loved ones together bodes for nothing all-too-appetizing.

I'm hoping I do better for myself this time around, though. I think I'll be able to, with the right balance of getting out of my apartment, being with people, working out until I can't walk/see straight, and possibly even eating more than four or five times a week.

So I raise my glass (okay - it's a can of diet Dr. Pepper. At least I'm drinking the overachiever of the titular sodas) to me. Cheers to finishing my second year of university with as much fire and delicious chaos with which I started.

First day of the rest of my...

I sat in the passenger seat of Em's car, rubbing my hands together to keep warm as we sat in my driveway with the engine killed. Every time I'm with her, everything spills out effortlessly. I guess that's what four years of a friendship unlike any I've had before will do to me.

She asked me about the new woman in my life, though we'd been talking about our love lives practically the entire evening up until that point. For the first time in what feels like forever, I couldn't seem to find the words to describe this amazing new person in my world.

She's perfect, I think to myself. No, no, even you aren't that sappy. No one's perfect, anyway.

And with that, everything I'm thinking and feeling just seems to seep out of me. "She's amazing," I begin, drastically understating the point before I even got started. "I've never been with someone who treats me the way I treat them. Someone who can give them self to me in the same manner that I've given myself to them. It's healthy, and it's good, and it's just...unreal."

When she kisses you, you feel it through the tips of your fingers and toes, I hear my own voice in my head thinking. When you have her in your arms, when she laces her fingers with yours walking down the street, your heart catches in your throat and you grin like a moron. That's what she does to you.

I catch myself thinking too much and saying too little, and return to the present. She's looking at me, and smirks. "As someone who's been through all of your relationships with you, I couldn't be happier that you've finally found someone who deserves you. 'Cause you've been with a lot of people who didn't."

I looked up at her and smirked back. And since she wandered into my life, I can't seem to understand what I saw in anyone else but her.


"...And I don't see what anyone can see in anyone else, but you..."
- The Moldy Peaches, "Anyone Else But You"

Prologue

I've decided to start a public blog; somewhere I can post things I don't mind everyone reading. That is what this will be.

This blog is completely separate and unrelated to my poli-blog and any other blog projects I may use this Blogger account for, so please keep anything related to the posts seen here within this blog.

That being said, I have a lot to say and I plan on posting my first entry sometime within the next day or two. Read it if you feel so inclined, or don't.