Half-Birthday

A little six month life check-up here. Meant to post it yesterday, but as limited as my time has been lately, I am happy to post this at all.

A lot has changed since my last birthday. I woke up to a new president-elect on November 5th, and he has since been inaugurated. Just yesterday, Dave Bing was elected to take over as mayor of Detroit, finishing out Kwame's last term.

Personally, I've seen a lot of change in/with me as well. 6 months ago I was back in school for the first time in almost ten years, with only a couple classes so I could get back into the swing of things. Until this week, which is finals week, I had class 5 nights a week for the winter semester. 3 of the 4 classes are done, and I have my last final on Friday. Winter semester taught me the value of internet classes, and my two classes for Spring term will be online.

Along with the full load of classes this semester came a new laptop, most of which was paid for with a grant from my parents which was given me in lieu of a birthday or Christmas gift last year. Well, I still got the usual underwear, t-shirts, and socks I have gotten every year since I was like 3.

I love the laptop, and can't imagine ever being without one from here on out....although the new router we have in the house doesn't seem to feel the same way. 3 of the 4 computers we have using the wireless network in the house, as well as Mark's iPhone, have almost zero problems connecting to the network. My laptop on the other hand, has connected to the network exactly zero times without a problem. I have no clue what the problem is considering it is the newest computer in the house, and has connected everywhere else I have tried it without a single problem. Frustrating.

I think one of the biggest things I have noticed in the last six months is an increase in my motivation for several things. I've never been particularly motivated in my life. I've never understood why. I have a few friends that are very much the same way too. One particular handful of us have enough brain power to rival most NASA groups, but have little to show for it. This has been kind of a running joke the last few years....but I think I finally got fed up with my life being a running joke, and decided to follow my latest dream and go back to school. The path I have chosen will take a long time and a lot of hard work, not to mention the crazy cost of all those years in school, but I really believe it'll be worth it in the end.

You can look at my postings here and see pretty quickly that I am a little more motivated this year than I have been before. This is my 58th post of the year, should be 59th but I am yet to finish a draft from a couple weeks ago, where previously my busiest year of posting only made it up to 41. 17 more posts in just over 4 months than any other year before. At this pace, more than half my posts on this blog, which started in 2005, will be from 2009 come the end of the year.

I've also written short stories here and there on top of the blog posts and the writing I must do for school. I've always had a knack for the written word, but but need some inspiration to let it out. I've had a lot of that lately. I can't even begin to express how good I have felt the last 6 months. It really feels like I am alive again for the first time in years.
THANK YOU
Now, feeling this alive is somewhat of a double-edged sword for someone like me. While I can always find the silver-lining in every cloud, I can also always find the one cloud in a beautiful clear sky. That's the best way I can explain to people what it means to be a cynical optimist.

While I love, and I without a doubt mean love, the way I have felt lately....my head is wondering what the hell I'm thinking as I go along feeling this way. I've always had such great restraint on my emotions....if I wanted to restrain them. I can finally let them go again, and that in itself feels fantastic. Usually I have what I think captaining the ship, while the way I have felt was very much like a silent first mate. Nowadays, it seems that both the way I feel and the way I think have an equal say. It's not been easy letting this happen, being the control freak I often am, but this little release of control to the way I feel has greatly improved a number of things in my life. Even on the rainy days, the sun is still burning bright and warm, just waiting for it's chance to be seen again.

In the past three weeks, I have gotten two pieces of potentially life-changing news. The day after I filed my taxes, on the deadline day of course even though I knew I was getting a return, I got some news I had always wanted to hear, but had pretty much given up on ever hearing. You should have seen my reaction. I held in my hands this package I knew was good news, but I just couldn't bring myself to open it right away. I looked at it many times in what must have been only 20 minutes, but seemed like a couple hours, until I finally opened it.

The other news came just minutes before I walked into my second class on Monday. I had to interrupt my conversation with Nyfa to take the call, but when I told her what had happened, she didn't seem to mind at all.

There are so many more things spinning in my head from the last 6 months, but for now I am going to keep a lot of them to myself. Considering these things seem to drive me, I think it's a good idea to keep them close to the vest for now. Now, did I mention that I absolutely love how I have felt lately? And I do mean absolutely.