Stream of consci...

I recently took a quiz that told me my personality is an ENTJ: the executive. I can't help but wonder if I created that monster or if the monster created itself. I'm going to have the hardest time in the world finding someone to love me, deal with me and make me feel loved and respected and cherished. And in the meantime I just let people walk all over me. Just walk and walk and walk. But it's not friends that walk all over me, it's men. Which is funny because I used to let my friends do whatever they wanted and put up with everyone's shit. I guess I felt like I was just lucky to have a friend, lucky that someone wanted to spend time with me. And because of that, I was willing to sacrifice myself to figure that out. And now, now I have that all together. I have me together. I have my friends. I have my freedom. I have my own time, my own way of doing things. And as my dad said, you are making choices that create a life that you can't un-create. You are making your future one choice at a time. And even not choosing, well that's a choice now isn't it? Choices are so scary. They can consume me. I hate making choices because logically I can think through something but then I just let my heart decide what I should do and come up with reasons to support my heart.
My heart. Wow. My heart. I think I'm broken, or screwed up. Who knows. I feel like I carry my baggage around like crazy. Yes... all these boyfriends, with all these pasts. I feel like I should make a pact with myself. Once I move down to Houston, no more talking about past boyfriends. No past stories. I'll recreate myself. I can make my own image of myself to make myself happy. I can be skinny, successful, a dog owner. I can run trails around my house. I can live in a lush area in a cute apartment. I will be me, but better. I'll be an image of me that makes myself happy, that makes myself proud to be myself. I'll be an image of the woman I want to be so that when I find the man I want my future me to be with, he'll want to be with me also. I keep trying to tell myself that, but it's SO hard. I can meditate on my own images, on my own thought process. God Hindi is such a hard language to learn. I left class today thinking I was a failure. All I could see was why high school was so hard for me. It's brutal.

Anti-Vibrational Table

So because of the condemnation of the lovely building that I get to work in. (Well 1/3 of it anyways.) I will be forced to move my office a total of 3 times in the course of 3, possibly 4 months. Due to this atrocity, I've packed up a lot of my things, and have decided to keep them in a box where they may stay until I'm procrastinating enough to put them away or until I graduate and am left wondering why I saved my notes and crap in the first place.

Although, in and of itself, moving certainly sucks, trying to find where to put my CL microscope has been the more difficult endeavor. I have the option of moving it to the survey where it will be under lock and key and in a very nice room. Or I can move it to IGB next to a room with vibrational issues due to refrigeration units next door. Bruce is against moving it to the survey because it won't be under his control. He wants it close by and where he can supervise it. He then suggests getting an "anti-vibrational" table to remove the issue of the room moving around.

All I know is if I'm the one responsible for clearing out that room before getting the CL scope in there... I may throw a fit.

Harmony

So, I know that in January I tried online dating. I was excited, exuberant and ready to do something good for myself. I know that I was lonely and feeling down on myself. However, I think one of the reasons it didn't work for me was that I just wanted to be with someone to make myself feel better. I didn't "need" them per-say. I just wanted to feel good enough for someone to like me.

And in the process I met Kevin. Now, Kevin is an amazing person. He's kind, considerate and an overall good person. The only issue I had was that the spark wasn't there. I wasn't intrigued. There wasn't anything about him that I needed to find out more about. I think I let it go on a little too long, although it was only a month or two, so maybe 6 or 7 dates. I kept trying to find that spark, but it just wasn't there.

In theory, that spark is some natural chemistry that makes you irresistible to each other. And I can't but help wonder if it's the spark of the unknown or the unsure or the confused. But either way, I've spent the last 6 months working on me. I've began working out, trying to look on the positive side of life. I've cultivated my friendships in the department. I've maintained my friendships with Kayla and Amy. I also let go of Brett as a friend. I knew he is somewhat caustic and probably a horrible person to have in my life, but our friendship was addictive on a whole new level. I liked the support and the degradation that littered our somewhat bantered friendship. I knew he had my back and I also knew he didn't take me seriously. Basically, attached enough to find the time to make fun of me, and selfish enough to really not care that awful much.

Mixing Working Out and Pleasure

So I've been working out with this trainer Matt. Basically I need someone to kick my butt and there is nobody else around here to do it. So Matt and I work out twice a week. It keeps me honest and I can see improvement. I've also lost almost 2 inches off of my waist. I don't think I've really lost any weight (maybe 3-4 pounds max) but my muscle mass sure is on par. I can even fit into the bridesmaid dress from last summer. You know, the summer were I stressed out, freaked out, forgot to eat and slept all summer? Well good. Glad you remember.

Anyways, Matt is from a teeny tiny town in Illinois and likes hunting, working out, and is going to go to school to be a chiropractor. I.E. a doctor. He's gorgeous. He has piercing light blue eyes, as in glacier blue eyes. His smile is adorable. He has some freckles and sandy blond hair. I know... another Alex look alike eh? Oh my god. That's what he is. He's another Alex. Ugh. Dumb dumb. How could I be any stupider. How did I not realize that until just now.

Well I should just rename the title of this post right now. Well as long as I know this now, I can work it out in my head. I know what is OK and what isn't. That probably means he'd be a great friend, supportive and friendly. However, I can't help but think he'd be a little different than Alex. So how jaded am I? I went from... wow, he's funny, nice and smart to ugh...

I think Usher said it best in "You Remind Me."

See the thing about you that caught my eye
is the same thing that makes me change my mind
kinda hard to explain but I'll try

CHORUS:
Cos, you remind me of a girl
that I once knew
see her face whenever I , I look at you
couldnt believe all of the things she put me through
this is why i just cant get with you

Thought that she was the one for me
til i found out she was on her creep
oh she, was sexing everyone but me
this is why we could never be

Panic at the... yoga?

Well this story is almost a week old now, but I figured, better late than never. I was thinking of calling it closure, but that just isn't quite right.

So last Thursday I headed to Yoga and was actually quite early. I ended up getting there before the instructor (yogi?) Jenny, and started chatting it up with Jackie. Jackie happens to work for Bruce on Sci Flix, which is Bruce's version of getting science-y videos into middle schools. He films different research areas of his and talks about their importance. In theory it's a great idea. HOWEVER, Bruce would have to follow through in order to get anything accomplished.

Well enough about Bruce. I could probably complain about him forever. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So Jackie and I were talking and I asked her how she ended up working for Bruce. She mentioned that she went on the Campus Honors Program trip with Bruce and had Phil (Alex) and Carly as her T.A. I was dumb enough to ask her if she had found out that Carly and Phil are engaged now.
She got so excited and emphatically said, "I know! I saw the ring earlier this week! I'm so happy for them. They are perfect together. You should have seen them on Curacao. They were so perfect together. Too bad they weren't dating then. But isn't that great that they are together now."
In between trying not to hyperventillate, I said something along the lines of, "Yah. Isn't it great. Yah they do look great together."

And then I went into my head, (where it's safe, and they know me there) and tried not to have a panic attack right before Yoga class. Thank goodness I know how to take deep breaths all on my own!! I couldn't concentrate for the first 10 minutes of the class and it took me forever to get my breathing in line and concentrate on my poses. However, by the time class was over, I was feeling lighter, and if not happier that the encounter had happened, well at least I lived through it.

I can't wait to leave this campus and Phil and Carly FOREVER. Dear God. Please let them fall to the wayside so that I don't have to see them or talk with them or work with them after I graduate. That would be just swell.

A Spark

I am at the point in my life where traditionally people make big grand decisions about their life. Are they going to work full time? Are they going to get married? Is buying a house a good idea in this market?

And me. Well I'm trying to decide what I want to do for the next 5 years of my life. I figure if I graduate at 23.5 years old, travel abroad in India for 30 days, work for GeoCorps for the entirety of the summer and then travel in Patagonia for 90 days, I should be pretty worn out from all the outdoor adventure... right? Or what if it sparks in me an insatiable desire to continue. What if it makes me want to keep trying to find the next mountain to climb, the next river to forage, the next adventure to have?

The Apple and The Tree

I've recently been blessed to be able to identify with where I get certain attributes of myself. I know that my pudgy hands and feet are from my dad. I know that my stubbornness comes from my mom. I know my squinty eyes are inherited from my grandma Dwyer while my love of sweets comes from my mom's mom. My cold ears come from my grandpa Quatroke and my love of rocks come from grandpa Dwyer.
It's nice to think that for however unique I am, I am also an integral part of the tapestry of my family. I share Colin's sense of humor, Mike's sense of adventure, Johny's love of competition (running even?), I love Adam Sandler like Ryan does and admire Jennifer's grace and style. I wish I could have even a spark of Stacy's attitude and Suzanne's adaptability.
And so, from all of that, I need to make my own way in live. Maybe I'll be the only one to backpack through the Himalayas, or mountaineer through Patagonia. I'll probably be the only one to get a Master's in Geology. Maybe I'll get a Ph.D. (doubtful). Maybe I'll find my place in this world and where I fit into it.
What I really want to catalog in this post is this last weekend with my parents. There's a certain peace that comes when everyone reacts how they usually do. I had started setting up a top rope in one of the trees up in Three Lakes, WI. I didn't really expect anything to come of it. We were waiting for all the boats from the boat race to leave the marina so we could hitch up the Hayes' speedboat. So I "pulled a dad" and began my own project, incorporating everyone I could. Val was my spotter, although I have no idea what she planned on doing if I fell. Jessica was the photographer. And my dad was the curious little monkey who couldn't wait to get his hands on everything.
I ended up climbing about 45 feet or 50 feet up the tree and set up an anchor with two branches. So Jessica ended up climbing up after me. I was surprised at her agility and strength even though her hands are SO TINY! Val made it up after wards with her trick knee. My dad hovered around the edges of my peripheral vision the entire time. After Val got down, I asked my dad if he wanted to climb, and he said heck yeah. So I got him suited up... (in a medium... I still have no idea how that worked.)
He climbed up in his hiking boots and sweating through his purpley gray shirt. His strength is still there, but there is more of a question as he moves. His wrist, broken last summer, was giving him some issues, but otherwise, he scampered up there just as easily as I had. Once he got up, he asked for the hand saw and went to town getting rid of cluttered branches and dead limbs. Finally, he wanted to come back down. HOWEVER, he did NOT want to trust the rope. I told him, "It can hold a pick up truck, so I'm pretty sure it'll hold you." But dad didn't want to believe it. So he stood up 45 feet on a branch and did the funniest shaky dance I've seen in my life. He was hopping up and down, waving his arms and shaking the branches and holding onto the rope laughing, giggling and suggesting that the rope would likely NOT hold him up.
Somewhere in the middle of that dance, I realized what all the hopping was. My dad was afraid. He didn't want the rope to break. (Hell, who would?) And he showed his fear by admitting it, dancing around, laughing and finally, getting down to business. I saw in that moment why I laugh when I'm afraid. I learned it from my dad. And I'm so glad I learned that skill. Maybe one day this little apple will grow into a strong beautiful tree like my dad. I'll never forget that day up in the trees. And I hope he never does either.