Belated Christmas Explanation

Christmas was good. A dear friend who I had not spoken with called me and invited me to her house for christmas eve. It was very nice, her family are of people who can easily take someone in and make them feel a valued part of the clan. Christmas day was a low key ordeal for the most part. I had a wonderful conversation with my mom. Although we talk almost everyday if not every other day, christmas day afforded us the time to catch up with one another. Later on in the day I went with Darwin to his sister in law's house where it was a mexican cuisine for christmas dinner which was different than the norm but awesome nonetheless! Home made tortilla chips are awesome.

Closing: Christmas Eve church service was especially well done. I was not with my family this christmas. There were a few times when I got the blues, seeing everybody with their families and not having my Mom around. However, it brought me to look to God and His son Jesus Christ for kinship. There were times during this christmas season when I was praying or just thinking about God that I felt the same way as I would have if my mother was right next to me. In short, fulfillment.

Squaw Valley - a Magical Place

Skiing was everything it was supposed to be... each run got better as the day progressed. Not much more to say.

Snow Day!

view from the kitchenette

my first christmas tree

the main house

this is my attempt at an artistic expression

Seeing snow like this gets me excited. Not just because its beautiful, or because it means I will be going skiing. Snow links me to my childhood. My mother can tell you how I grew up playing the snow. I remember playing in outside during blizzards, making forts out of the ginormous mountains of snow, friday nights at Lost Valley, snow days from school. Snow brings nostalgia and a familiarity. 

I am reminded of the song "Acadian Driftwood" by the Band where a lyric goes "Set my compass north / I have winter in my blood." When I experience this weather my spirit shows sides of itself that only come out when the world is covered in white.  

What people don't understand about snow is how it bring cohesion to the world around us. For a brief period of time everything is one, we see the earth as one majestic creation. Regardless of whether you believe in Creation or creation, when one sees the beauty that is winter they can ask for nothing more nor receive anything less than pure contentment. 

Finals Week

I am almost done. This semester that is. I have pushed myself hard, some would say to my limits. There was a period for about a month where my body, mind and spirit didn't have much left to give. Lisa dying, my car breaking down, work, school, disorganized and often non existent sleep schedule, and trying to figure out plans for my life come March 09 when I am out of the air force.

Wonderful people have come into my life in the past 4 months. Jesus, Lesley, Jesse, Grant. People who I look forward to having in my life to come. 

More later, but a closing statement is that I am on my way in a college education. For a kid who thought he was not college material (and at times still feels that way) that is pretty good. Once I get this degree and figure out how to get this girl to fall in love with me I will be set.

Fatigue: The Friendship You Just Can't Sever

Over the past five months I have befriended fatigue in all of its forms. Actually, fatigue befriended me against my will and despite the many naps and small comas I have had in attempt to rid myself of this friend I have been unable to do so. 

In my relationship with fatigue up to this point I have found like other friends he has different sides to him. He's more like a two headed hydra, where both sides can be nasty.  I truly feel that there are two types of fatigue. 

The first being just tired from not enough sleep. Many of my peers at work and at school complain of this fatigue. They stayed up until midnight or 1am watching Letterman or doing homework and had to get up at 7am so they are only operating on a few select hours of sleep. There is no doubt that this type of fatigue can be wearing.

Alas, I have experienced a new type of fatigue that I have never undergone before in my life and only a select few others have too. There is a fatigue where your body genuinely does not know what it wants to do. You wake up at 3pm on Sunday afternoon and go into work for 7pm. You are up all night at work until you go into school the next morning for 815. Class 815-200pm, you have class at 530pm so you don't take a nap because 1)you won't wake up for class @530 2)your body says it is time to be up. You go to class @530 get out at 1030 and can't fall asleep because this is when you go to work so your body says "stay up." You know you have reached this state of fatigue when your eyes start to pulse inside of your head and you become aware of the frontal lobe of your brain (it doesn't hurt or ache you just know it's there) and the accessory muscles in your upper back (around the scapulas) tighten up to keep your posture and keep you upright. Meanwhile you look in the mirror and ask yourself "What are you doing?!" 

Find Your Place

Whoever has read this blog in the past (or knows how I am with my academics) knows how frustrated I get with school. I don't like school, looking back I never really have. 

So I bombed a chemistry quiz today. I felt really positive going into it as I do almost everything lately and feel negative coming out of it. What frustrates me is that I don't know how to give anymore of my intellect, focus or discipline to my studies than what I am giving right now. Meanwhile, my grades are not equating to what my knowledge of the subject is. Maybe I am a poor test taker, maybe just a poor test taker in certain subjects, maybe just poor in certain subjects. Regardless, I thought that there was this universal truth that what you give is what you get but whenever I ask myself "Are you doing the best you can?/ are you giving all that you have?" my answer to myself is "Yes." Why aren't my efforts showing.

People tell me "Oh well as long as you did your best that's all that matters." Part of me wants to agree but the more realistic part of me disagrees. Colleges don't give a shit about how hard you tried because all they can see is the grade. Not doing well in chemistry is not the end of the world but it is the means to the end of a dream. 

Furthermore, I was reflecting on what I can do to get better test scores. Change up my strategy. Walking to my car I sorted it out in that maybe the lesson I am to learn from this is that you don't get what you give but that it is about finding your place in life. Everyone is smart, smart is just finding out how you learn, where your place is in the various learning styles, harnessing that style and learning. The same parallel goes with finding ones place in taking a test, you can not be overconfident because that spells doom while ill confidence will psych you out. You have to find your place, your median where you can show that you are knowledgeable and capable.