So here I am.

My exams are done. One more class and the year is over.

It's amazing how quickly time flies by and how much can change in what seems like no time at all. If you were to say I'd moved into this place a week ago I could easily believe it.

Florida's getting hot. The weather outside just before noon reminds me of home. I've decided that as long as I'm in classes, it'll be the same. I will always walk out of my last exams of the year feeling the sun on my arms and legs and wonder where the heck the time went.

Being in college I can track my life in semesters. The thing is that also never changes. The players may change, but the general circumstances do not. There's always some one angry at some one else for some stupid reason. There's always person A wanting person B and the feelings not going both ways. There's always hurt and anger and rejection. Sometimes the bad memories get the best of me and I'll sit stuck remembering and feeling bad about this situation or that one that I simply couldn't fix.

There are also happy memories, and I try hard to let those fuel my days. Overall I'm very thankful. Once again I can leave for the summer saying that I have learned a lot over the course of the year. I have had my achievements on display and my shortcomings blow up in my face. I have met and lost many wonderful people. I've had a few crazy days and many new things I'll be able to look back and laugh at. I have been on the top of the world and also nearly hit rock bottom.

To end this on an up note, first I'll leave a picture taken back in August during Orientation. I don't know how it hasn't made it's way up here yet, but here goes:

Yes, I really was stuffed into a box by our school mascot.

Lastly, although I hate people who feel the need to throw stuff in their profile so they look popular, I'm going to leave the following so that maybe some of my friends will get a laugh.

"One of these days though, you're just gonna hit me, and I'll be like 'Damn! I've been Jewslapped!" - me to Stephanie er, um, I mean Samantha ;)
"C'mon, we're having sex in here.....can't we get a little company?" - Fadi
"We could do one of those caramel wrap things..." - Nicole
"I love Java!" - Dyan
"Ooooooooooooooooh Nooooooooooo!" - various ambassadors, particularly Jenn
"Oh my god! They're gonna drop asbestos on us!" - Dyan
"Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me!" - The Entire Orientation 2001 Staff
"Oh woe is me. Where is my night in shining armor?" - An unenthusiastic Jay
"Toss a coin and die." - my prob&stats notes
"Underneath my clothes there is a story." - Keebler
"Who runs that flag up your yacht?" - Liz trying to get her lines
"They probably think Oreos is a metaphor." - me to Derek
"Ya know, you're a very strange little man." - me to this guy I don't really know
"Yeah. Like Hamlet." - his response...he had something going with Hamlet that night
"Should we keep this bag because it's big?" - me to Liz
"I always scream your name" - Derek
"...although being bec means you look like a schmuck by default..." - me to Liz
"So Jimmy, how much for the plane?" - Chris and I
"It's not fair to discriminate against the little mermaid because she didn't own a menorah." - me to Samantha
"Ya know, I slept alone last night...." - Andrew S.
"No more talking for you bec, you've used up all your syllables." - Ken
"Ya know, I think I like that dress I bought today. It's kinda cute." - Liz
"Yeah, in a slutty kind of way." - My response
"For some reason I'm thinking of the play and the part where Dirk's all 'I got pinched on the veranda. And I'm not even pretty. Well, not that pretty.'" - me at the Melbourne Arts Fest
"What the hell is this???" - me, at the SG debate
"You take a big person, put them in a big dress, and they get even Bigger!" - Liz

Well, hope some one enjoyed that. If you've got any others, do share. I always like a good laugh. :)

Captured At:1519

It appears that no one knows about my happy ducks. I've been saying for two years now that I'm going to have to take a picture of them, but now I'm really going to have to so I can show them off.

When we moved to North Carolina two years ago I began taking frequent walks around the lake on the other side of the development. This area is home to a wide variety of animals including birds, fish, turtles, snakes, rabbits, geese, swans, and ducks. Two of the ducks who regularly waddle around the lake are the white variety with orange feet and an orange bill, and every time I walked by they were always happily quacking away. Because of this they were dubbed "the happy ducks"; a title which slowly evolved to "my happy ducks."

It was kind of cool because the other day when I was walking around the lake they were both running in my direction for a minute, stopped, and did their little quacking thing. Maybe they recognized me. Maybe not. Who knows?

Anyhow, as stupid as it may be, that's the story of my happy ducks. :)

Captured At:2047

"But then again I will falter..."

To put it in the simplest terms, I'm not happy. I don't think there's much more that can be said than that.

I think I'm at about fifty-six on the "Days until I can be happy" countdown. Well, maybe not be completely happy, but at least able to fool myself into thinking I am for just a little while. In eight weeks I will be in Florida. I will get to see my band. I can make a trip to my beach. And in the hours I spend between those two things I can fool myself into believing I've got something I don't - something that got lost somewhere along the way, and something that I have to find to make my life feel worthwhile.

I am in a slump. I don't know how to get out of it. I don't think I ever really got out when I fell in the first time, although I don't think I know exactly when the first time was. I'm not sure if it came from serious examination of my relationship, Liz, Liz's play, the great Ambassador scandal, the realization my GPA goal was not going to be met, or a combination of all the above.

One of my friends told me they're using this summer to do things that are going to make them feel good about themself. I think that's a fantastic idea and one that I would steal if I had any idea where to begin. Anything is going to be better than last summer. I can only wonder what's in store for my birthday this year. It better be pretty good to make up for the last one, but I doubt it.

I think I'm going to go for a walk. I really need to smile, and I'm hoping my happy ducks can do the trick.

Captured At:1831

Today I was forced to listen to the radio to and from work because I left my CDs in Liz's car yesterday. Ick. Anyhow, I'm driving home with the radio scanning like usual, I catch two notes, and stop the scanner. As the guy began to sing I decided that even a year later, "Drops of Jupiter" is still a great song. Being the way I am I flashed back to last summer. That CD will always remind me of that time, but it also made me think of Nick, who bought the disc for me after hearing me say for months that I was going to have to get it.

I'm feeling all nostalgic when another song from way back when comes on and I thought for a minute I might lose it. "The Rose" by Bette Midler remains on a very short list of songs that actually make me want to cry. Regardless, I sang along with every word.

Then the ad for the station I'm listening to comes on, and I find it highly ironic that a station that calls themselves "Sunny" 90whatever had put me in such a mood.

Scan more. It's Cher. Believe. Again I thought of Nick. It's bizarre; one minute I have a song reminding me of all the good stuff we had, and five minutes later I've got a song telling me that it really is done, but he'll move on and be fine. Immediately following that song this "I Ain't Too Proud to Beg" one came on. I'm not sure why that was worth noting at the time.

Scan more. It's Star Wars, and lots of it. They have the music and clips from the move tossed in there, all "Secret Garden" style. If I had friends, I'd probably have considered getting tickets to go see it last night or today or tomorrow or something, but ah well.

I've decided that despite the traffic I do like driving home. Yesterday I came back and was so happy and felt so at peace with the world that I remember thinking to myself, "If I smashed into the guy ahead of me, or the one behind me came out of nowhere and finished me off, and that was it, I would have died a happy person." As morbid as that may sound I think there's actually something kind of comforting to it as well. It means I can still see the good in my life.

Today we finally got Derek's letter. That boy is too funny. He called us randomly two nights ago saying that he was listening to Buffett and was like "I should call Bec and Liz", and was at the beach and saw the Big Dipper and thought "I should call Bec and Liz", and I told Liz that I didn't know whether to be more happy that he called or impressed that he actually found the Big Dipper for himself. When we go to the beach I constantly have to point it out to him.

A Typical Night on the Beach
b: ::looking up:: Hey! There's the big dipper!
d: ::looking up in the wrong direction:: where?
b: ::looking up and tracing around it:: That's the dipper part, and that's the handle.
d: ::usually responds with a 'gotcha' or 'roger that'::

Today I started making a list of all the things I have to do and trying to figure out all kinds of Ambassador stuff. I have a gajillion emails to send out, but I don't think I'm going to do that until next week sometime. I'm not sure people have been out of school long enough to want to go back to thinking about it, so I'll give them some time.

Anyhow, I'm tired and tired of writing. Until next time.

Captured At:1828

I got up the motivation to run this morning. There was a lot of activity around the... um...body of water that's too big to be a pond, too small to be a lake, and doesn't have a name. I think I'll start calling it the plond.

As I was saying. Lots of activity around the plond this morning. First I noticed the turtles. They were everywhere in all shapes and sizes. Big ones, small ones, some as big...oops, pardon the Lion King break. But yeah, they were all over: swimming, floating, on the grass, on the rocks, on each other...

And of course the ducks and geese and swans were out. There are a few babies kicking around too, so every time you go by them one of the big ugly geese starts hissing at you. That's usually the point where I tell him if he doesn't stop I'm going to kick him into the water, but I digress...

I also saw this really cool looking snake and some of the elusive fish people are always out there trying to catch.

Perhaps the coolest thing was that as I was walking a lap after my run, out of the corner of my eye I saw something jump into the water. Curious to see what it was I stopped and watched it swim away. No big deal, except I saw that it had this long tail. So the thing climbs back out of the water and I see he's this dampened black rat; I'd never seen one of those before. I think the coolest part was that he swam underwater and for a minute I thought he was swimming sideways. Oh the things you can learn about nature.

I also gave in to this desire I had to just hang from something. My blister from the monkey bars was turning into more of a callus than anything else... until two days ago when I finally went for a walk again. Yay blisters! :D

I'm thinking if I get up even more motivation I'm going to give Milo a bath. It's finally hit a reasonable temperature outside (86! yay!) and I can't see any reason not to take advantage of it. Hmm, maybe I can talk Bryan into some basketball when he gets home. That could be fun.

Captured At:1240

Have you ever had a discussion with some one that went a completely different direction than you wanted or intended? I feel like I'm having a lot of those these days. The worst part is that these people are saying things that are so far away from what's really going on that it aggravates the heck out of me. One conversation in particular, which I'm not going into, included an accusation (not about me) that couldn't have been more wrong.

Sometimes I find myself wondering if people actually listen to what I say or just take the words and twist them so it sounds like I said what they wanted to hear. I'm not as foolish as some people would like to believe, especially when it comes to me. I know a whole lot more about myself than most.

Still, I'm going to try and be positive. I'm going to keep telling myself that my life could be worse. I'm going to remind myself how nice it was outside today and how good it felt to go out and run. I'm going to smile about the fact that I took one massively long nap that I hadn't planned on, and that tomorrow is a new day that will be whatever I choose to make it. I have to learn to counter the negativity, not give into it. I have to realize that while I may not have a beach around the corner to sit on I can still put my life in perspective and make a conscious effort to change it.

Album of Note: Left of Cool - Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. These guys are an amazing band who I've seen called Jazz, Fusion, Blues, Folk, but mostly "misc" or "other". I remember really listening to this one on what I think was a trip to Florida during my senior year of high school. Track three, Big Country, is easily my favorite on the disc and always takes me off to another place.

Captured At:2149