a little piece of a new beginning

i'm back at home now, with my family. it feels weird to be back in the same room i grew up in but now at a totally different place in my life. i had never imagined i'd be back here, thought life would have taken a more predictable turn than it did. it's good to be back. for the first time in five years i have all of my clothes in one closet, i have a lot of clothes. my shoes have spilled on to the floor from my shoe rack and my book collection has outgrown my once adequate shelving. my desk dwarfs next to my computer monitor (no flat screen here) and all of its components. i have constructed a makeshift piece of cinder blocks and plywood. even after 2 years of structures in school my father questions my ingenious solution.

i feel kind of like i am floating. i am in between two worlds of school and work. the reality of finishing 5 years of architecture school hasn't yet set in and i have a whole month before i begin the rigors of a real-life job. i have no clock in my room and no schedule in which to adhere. if i want to sleep a hour more in the morning, i do. if i want to go to the store to buy a yogurt, i go. my day consists of a morning run and quiet time, leisure shower and bowl of cereal, packing and sorting, and whatever other people have planned in the evening. it's funny how my day is given structure by other's routines. i don't know how long i will be able to take it, but it's nice for now.

i have a lot of time to think and a lot of things going through my head which i am sorting through. i can't even piece them all together for myself now, but i have a feeling they will come out in little pieces as i type over time. your glimpse for now: i feel like i am on the verge of something big, or maybe i just hope that i am. my biggest fear in life is not heights or eating brown, slimy things, but rather complacency. maybe i hope for change for fear of things staying the same and slipping into a life that is comfortable and just around the corner.

between life and death

tonight, or rather this morning, i had a near death experience with a gobstopper. i was enjoying the chewy goodness of my sugary energy boost when something went down the up tube in my throat. there are times when you swallowed something wrong and then there are time when you really choke. this was one of those times. i gasped for air that would not come. i could feel it still in my throat but there was nothing i could do. finally, after several minutes of shallow breathing and much attention from my classmates, life returned to normal and the gobstopper made its way down to the rest of them in my stomach. why are they called gobstoppers anyway? who was the marketing genius behind that one?

random thought of the night: when working in autocad and executing the "hatch" command to fill in an area with a particular pattern, frequently the program will ask you "do you really want to do this?" i don't think my autocad program really wants to know my answer to that question.

project to be approved by pope

funny things happen when you haven't slept much...after watching some of the coverage of the newly elected pope, i took a nap. i found myself dreaming of my project, as usual, and the requirement our dean had added for seniors. He was requiring us to have our projects approved by the pope before we would be allowed to graduate. i tired so hard to get a hold of the father. but due to his new papacy and all the new things he had to do, i failed . i kept saying over and over, "i just have to graduate! i have to graduate!" ahhh, alas; stories from the sleep deprived.