Amped

I am overtired, overcaffeinated, overstimulated, underpaid, overworked, and under the impression that I'm gonna be able to keep up this pace for whatever length of time I want to. Okay, maybe it will catch up to me, and probably sooner than later, but there is just so many crazy exciting things going on that I feel like I could go like this forever (with maybe a few more naps).

The past two days I have been in the craziest mood! Usually I am at work and I am dragging ass because the days crawl by due to the lack of patients for me to see - so I spend of time LOOKING busy, but mostly I'm counting the seconds until the end of the day. Not really how I want my full-time job to be! But, this week has been completely different, and not because anything at work has changed. I think it's just something in me - I was in this total funk for AWHILE - I was even off in Aruba - and it kind of culminated late last week and maybe it finally boiled over. I don't know what it was that seems to have gotten rid of it, but it's gone, however temporarily. In it's place is this giddy, happy disposition that seems to have come out of left field.

I'd like to think that it's me, it's within me, but I'm sure it probably has to do with something external. I have to admit, I've had some pretty great opportunities to have some fun as of late. Aruba, Killington, and Allyson's birthday dinner just to name a few... the birthday dinner was Monday night and it was with "the girls," as in "the group I have spent the majority of my days with for the past few years but have not seen at ALL since I've been back from Ithaca." Understandably, they have been a little... irritated?... irked?... bummed that I haven't made more of an effort to see them yet, and while we all have our excuses, I probably should have been better about it. Nevertheless, I was more than excited to finally see them last night, catch up a bit, and eat some absolutely incredible food in downtown Boston. Ahhh, welcome home. I definitely realized how much I miss them.

But in the meantime, it's not like I've been twiddling my thumbs. I have a second interview at this personal training place in Cambridge Thursday morning (at like the crack of dawn) - honestly, I don't even know if I'd take the job just based on the location (I am stretched a bit thin with the commute as it is) - but it's really nice to feel like my abilities are WORTH something. Plus it's reassuring to know that I don't have to be a PT Aide forever - I'm not always gonna be flipping sheets! Getting a personal training job would allow me to precribe my own exercise routine and monitor someone's progress throughout... I'd get to effect this person directly and not at the direction of someone else or under the influence of someone else's thought process and ideas. I like that!

Anyway, I'm going snowboarding again this weekend, if I haven't crashed and hit my wall. Up to the NH mountains Friday night to hang with some coworkers again and we're hitting the slopes all day Saturday. Something else to look forward to!! Especially since the Pats aren't in the Superbowl and I don't have any parties to plan/attend. Plus, back to my underlying theme of this blog (the Red Sox, not Transition)... only 19 days until pitchers and catchers!!! Woohoo!!

So hopefully at least SOMEONE out there is at least half as giddy as I am! Or, maybe my craziness rubbed off. At any rate, we'll see how long this lasts! Goodnight!

Transition

I am trying to figure out where to go with my life in the next few years. Every time I think I have a plan laid out, something kind of comes up and forces me to switch gears a bit, shift my focus, put things off and do other things first. It just seems like there is a lot to accomplish just to gain a little bit of progress toward my goals.

It took me 2 1/2 years to get back to Ithaca. Honestly, it could have been worse. In the last few months leading up to my final move to Ithaca, things fell into place like dominos in a line. I moved down, I got my shit done, I graduated. Now I'm back... and the whole thing is so anti-climatic! That's great, I graduated, and I even got my CSCS certification (for those who don't know, that's Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist). But, it's still not what I want to be doing. Okay, well at least I can move on to grad school for Physical Therapy, right? Wrong. At minimum, I still have 5 classes of pre-req's to take, so I can't enter the program until the fall of 2007 (you can't start in the winter).

I dunno, I know this post seems kind of down, which sucks for the readers because I don't post very often anyway. It'd be nice if I had something funny to say, but most of my funny stories are usually the "you had to be there" kind anyway. I guess the point is that I'm endlessly frustrated with the entire process of getting to where I want to be. Is it going to be this way forever? Once I finally achieve what I am striving for scholastically and in my career, will I be content? Or will I want to continuing striving for more, or instead have some other area in my life that I am not content with? Is this the nature of life? I mean, I probably shouldn't get to a point where I'm content to not better myself anymore - I should always be working toward the betterment of myself in all facets of life. I guess I need to shelve my impatience and enjoy the journey. There are just so many things I want to do with my life, but there are all these steps in between that are so tedious...

So in the meantime I guess I have definitely enjoyed myself. Aruba, Killington, this weekend just relaxing and watching movies, next weekend back up to the mountains, and maybe take in some live music somewhere soon - The Push just informed me that Ryan Montbleau is having a CD release party soon, any takers?? I guess I'm just shaking things up a bit and trying to have some fun while doing it - I have 10 Red Sox games on the docket, so there's always that to look forward to. I mean, shit, I'm 24 years old. I think, in a way, I'm having a bit of a quarter-life crisis - worried about the future in so many ways, from the personal to the professional... but maybe I just need to throw caution to the wind and have some fun with it all! I'm always so worried about so many things - money, responsibilities, all that crap that comes along with being an "adult"... Balance. Maybe I just need to find out how to balance all that adult shit with still being the kid I want to be. If anyone has any suggestions how to make that happen, send them my way...

From one extreme to another

This was the view of dawn breaking in Quechee, VT this weekend. We took our annual PT Department ski trip up to Killington. It was absolutely incredible! Coming back from Aruba had been really tough, weather-wise. This past week was extremely cold, but I figured at least I had the ski trip to look forward to. I really wanted to give my new board a run for its money and see what kind of terrain I could handle on it.

We got up Friday night and had a few adult beverages before turning in around midnight. The night was capped off with an epic tale by a half-drunk Jonesy rambling on for 20 minutes about "Three-fingered Jim" and his escapades. This is the same crazy bastard who then woke us all up at 6am so we hit the slopes as early as possible.

The weather, as you can see from the picture, was fantastic. It was around 40 degrees and sunny until around noon, when the clouds started rolling in. It eventually started raining around 2, but we had been skiing for hours so we called a day and hit the bar. Honestly, though, I don't think I've ever boarded better in my life! The guys I went with are excellent skiers and snowboarders, so just keeping up with them - nevermind not dying - is a chore. But, I hung in and held my own, and I got a lot of compliments on it - it was such an amazing day! We were just laughing and having a great time.

Of course, we topped it all off with a nap, shower, and more excessively drunken debauchery (think: Asshole and Power Hour followed by a spontaneous dance party). All in all, one of the greatest weekends I've had in awhile. Thinking about hitting the slopes again next weekend, too! Don't know if I could top this weekend, but any time I can get out for some good times with friends is fine by me. Check out more pics on my webshots photo album!

Bon Bini!

I am trying to come up with a viable reason for moving to Aruba. Look at this place - would YOU ever want to leave here?? It has actually rained twice since we've been here, but only for a half hour at a time, and the sun is so strong that 15 minutes later everything is dry again!

Maybe it's just that I have never been anywhere tropical, but this is truly paradise. Every day is 85 degrees and partly cloudy. 85 is usually way too hot for me, but there's a perfect, cool sea breeze that makes you feel like you could sit outside in that weather for the rest of your life and never have to move. At night the breeze stays and the temperature drops to 75 - you are comfortable in pants and a t-shirt anywhere you go.

We haven't done much else besides sit on the beach/poolside so far - and, of course, hit up every Happy Hour we can find. It's been a little foggy of a trip so far from that perspective. The food is incredible. The other day I had Sole (the fish) wrapped around bits of crab and shrimp with a lobster sauce on top. I have never in my life had something that delicious! We tried to go mini-golfing today - I know, but I love it and it's been so long since I last went - but for some reason the place closes down on Wednesday. Instead we went downtown and had dinner at this neat little Italian restaurant right on the water. Everything here is open air - the restaurants, the "malls", everything. Fresh air everywhere you go. Tomorrow or Friday we're going to take a "Jeep tour" which basically consists of off-roading with a guide to places where you can go snorkeling in the reef and things of that nature. I only wish my camera could go underwater!

Back home (and to reality) in a few days... not looking forward to it, but "nothing gold can stay." I suppose this wouldn't seem like paradise if I lived here all the time - though our cabbie was born and raised here and says he can't find a place in the world he likes better (and he's traveled - he must make a killing here!). Funny, next weekend I'll have pictures of me snowboarding with the Lahey crew, ha!

Speaking of pictures, some of the Aruba pics are up on Webshots already: http://community.webshots.com/album/541795816OcPSud Enjoy!

My devilish best friend and I on Christmas. Good to have you home... try to make it more than once a year!!

Welcome to '06

Can you believe it? It's another year. Every year it goes by that much faster. This year was especially quick considering I spent 4 months of it in another state (in another life, it felt) finally finishing my bachelor's degree. What do I have to show for it? What have I accomplished in this past calendar year?

Honestly, who cares? Ha! I did a lot of things, experienced a lot of things, met some people, got to know some others, and lost touch with more still... I finished my bachelor's, moved twice, volunteered, did a bunch of things I'd done a million times before, and tried some things for the first time. It was good, it was bad, it was everything in between.

And now it's over. Well, it was over right after it happened, but for some reason we all look back at the turn of the new year and examine those things we went through over the past year. I can't say I have anything to complain about, but clearly there are things I want to continue to accomplish. What is life if it is not moving forward? Transition... that's my theme, that's my life. Everything is always changing - might as well jump on board.

Ironically, I am back working at the exact same hospital, doing the exact same job (for the exact same money, dammit) I was doing before I left to finish school. But, it's a jumping off point. I want to go to grad school - someday... I find myself feeling frustrated a lot because I always feel like I'm at the beginning, and never at an end. But what's so bad about that? That means I have infinite possibilities in front of me. That means it's not over, and things can continue to change and grow and get better. Sometimes I just have to remember to enjoy the ride :-)

On that note, a few goals for '06:
* Do a 360. I'm always to afraid to try snowboard tricks, but I know I can do this if I can just get my confidence up.
* Get out to San Francisco. I keep promising her I'll go, I need to make it happen.
* Take the GRE's. Even if I don't go this year, I'm going to grad school eventually.
* Decide between PT and PA and run with it. It's my career, get going on it.
* Have one night of pure, worry-free, unadulterated fun. No worrying about getting enough sleep, what I have to do tomorrow, or anything else. Time to act your own age!
* Try at least one thing that I've never tried before. I don't care if it means cooking something new, it just has to be previously unattempted by me.

Happy New Year everyone :-)