Sunday, January 23, 2005  10:08 pm  <|>
<206> This Is What We Wanted: I'm finally over being sick... for the most part anyway. I still have a slight cough, but that seemed to improve over this past weekend too. It's good to be feeling mostly back to normal, though I guess all the "resting" was a bit too much, since now I get tired just walking a couple of blocks. I can never win, can I? Well, I'll see how I'm feeling this week. I'm not due for another check up until the end of next week, but if I'm still not feeling back to normal by the middle of this week, I'm going to have to do something to figure out why.

This weekend wasn't especially productive, but I guess that's ok. Lately I haven't felt that ongoing urge to be extremely productive... maybe it's the weather. It snowed all Saturday and stopped in the evening, just in time for us to go out to Copa II for a bit. I had stayed up late into Friday night/Saturday morning trying to fix my computer. I was doing a bit of cleaning up and found a couple hidden spyware programs lurking around, which upon removal stopped my internet explorer from loading any webpages. About 2 days, 15 virus scans, 5 spyware scans, and a few DOS prompts later... things are back to normal... but I wasn't too happy that I had to go through it. But never the less, my computer is nice and clean now. Too bad "back to normal" status is all I have to show for it! Well, actually I also spent this computer time adding to my music collection, which is looking very nice. I'm still kind of afraid to listen to music on my computer after 10:30 (our building's "loud hours" curfew) ever since the girl below us came up complaining that my bass was too loud when my actual music that was turned on could not be heard in my room... bass is weird like that. I adjusted the settings, but I'm the first to admit I know little about speakers and so I'm still not sure that it's all right the way I have it setup. It gets too quiet in here without music though at night, so I tend to try to listen to songs that don't have a lot of bass in them regardless now when it's "after hours."

So I'm slowly accepting this place in life... this place where there is more of "nothing" coming... the thing with nothing special on its way isn't as hopeless as it sounds, I'm just finding it means you need to create things to look forward to. So what if I don't base my life around school anymore? Wasn't that the goal all along? I'm finding this tying into work well right now actually. We're currently restructuring the office a bit and deals in general are happening more often, things are staying busy, which in turn keeps me busy. I have a fair amount of responsibility there and I'm finally getting a chance to put myself to the test and show that I can handle it (at least I hope I can). And I'm basically getting to the point where I will decide if where I work now is where I want to plan on staying at until I move on to something completely different or if I should be looking at my options now. As for a timetable and what those other things are... well I'm not set on anything too definite yet, but I do have some ideas. For instance, I still want to go to grad school, but I'm torn because for what I want to do I don't know if I really need it or not. I mean, if I find I can be happy doing something else, then all I'd be going to grad school for is the title that comes with the PhD diploma. Not that it's just that - I mean I would learn a lot from the experience and everything, but still it's another big investment money and time wise. So I still think I'll get there someday, but I definitely believe "real life" experience right now has some good merit too (plus they PAY me to be there hehe).

As for other options - who knows? There are lots of things I have always wanted to try to do, but what direction to move to remains the question. Right now I have my Sticky Art to keep me busy on the side, but this has been put off lately, or rather slowed down, because I've been trying to decide on my final means of printing for over a month now. I'm still undecided and I really don't know what choice will be the right one. I can get them printed professionally, as I planned on all along and have the color print darker than I want, but at least they'll be waterproof, glossy, and they'll arrive in about a week or so after I order them, all cut and ready to go at my door. Or I can go about printing them myself again, with the new printer I just ordered and have them print with a perfect match to screen, they'll still be waterproof, but not with a laminate and they'll be on matte vinyl instead of glossy AND I'll have to put in a bunch of hours to print them out, cut them and everything. There are other pluses and minus too and I'm sure it seems like a silly thing to worry so much about, but it's been holding me back more than it should and it's pretty frustrating not to know what to do. But I have to make a decision tonight I think, or I'll just keep going back and forth about it and nothing will ever get done. It costs about the same to do it either way, but if I get them done professionally I have to pick a total number and pay for it all at once... so ahh I just don't know what to do... but enough about that for now.

I've been thinking a lot about all my closest friends and people I've spent the last four or so years of my life knowing. So many people are moving in different directions, yet somehow it's all coming from the same place and the same hopes. For the most part we are living how we wanted... We are doing what we said, we are done school, we're trying to pursue the jobs, and schools, and pass times that we love and that make us happy. We are doing our own thing, thinking of new ideas and trying to make them happen. We know we don't have all the answers, we don't even pretend too. We are trying not to break up, tear apart, or drift away. We don't want to admit it, but we know it might not be possible to succeed in everything. Most of us have our goals, though we might not all be sure how to obtain them, but we're trying... we're trying...