ALIVE

I feel very ALIVE right now, look out!!!

I'm recently returned from playing soccer (our team played awesome - some truly beautiful work). I'm scraped, bruised, and totally pumped. On the way home I was a total "bad-ass", driving with my windows down (yup, it's that warm right now! crazy huh?), and rocking out to a mixed CD of music from Eugenie (ranging from some rockin' guitar/vocal type stuff, all the way up through "Beyond the Sea", a big band favorite), my now quite unruly hair sticking out in all directions in the breeze.

Now I'm showered, patched up, munching on Triscuits and dried apricots, and engaging in some shirtless blogging (Hey, I warned you - I'm in "bad-ass" mode).

A lot has been going on. I'm done with all of my graduate school visits; that part of life is behind me. I have a lot of information, have met and talked with a lot of people, and seen a lot of new places. There's some awesome science going on out there people.

I still haven't made up my mind about where I want to go (wrestling with a 3-way tie for first place). Earlier in the week, when I had just returned from my last visit, this was a significant source of stress and, according to my friends, melancholy, for me. Right now though, maybe because I'm feeling so damn alive, I'm not so worried. Driving home tonight, I realized that I've got a lot to be proud of. I've been rocking my interviews, picking up admissions offers from 4/5 of the schools I applied to, and in many cases competitive fellowships as well. (And that 5th school is blind; I'm well contented not to go there). At all of my interviews, I successfully made myself interact with lots of people, being cheerful and sociable, focused and generally on my game (even though my general preference is to stand in corners and watch). I avoided getting sick until my very last interview, and even that was a minor cold that I beat down in about 3 days.

I don't know where I'm going. But tonight, more than many nights in a good long while, I feel like wherever it is, it will be great. And the possibilities are determined; there's a path out there waiting for me, and I think I'm gonna have funnnn walking it. I can kick butt at science. I can make my life what I want it to be. It's mine to take. I can learn, and think, and discuss, critique and reason and intuit and keep up with the best of them. I am going to stop worrying so much, and start living more. Some things you just can't predict. Living in fear, cautious of doing something wrong, makes for a less tangible existence. So then it's time to jump, to try my best, and start flying. And if something falls and hits the ground, well, I'll pick it up, dust it off, and keep rocking along through life. The most valuable thing about something that is good now is that it is GOOD NOW; I want to revel it in, and extract every bit of enjoyment from it, hoping that it will persist, but beleiving too that life holds in store many other lovely and unforseen moments to come. And, at least for tonight, I am feeling that the NOW is GOOD.

I don't know where I'll be in a few weeks even; maybe my project/job will be done, and I'll hit the road, or embark on an adventure. I don't know even where I'll be spending the summer. But it'll be good. I'll find myself a place. Come the end of the summer, I'll be somewhere good starting a big adventure indeed.

And knowing all of that is enough for me to smile and laugh right now.

*cranking the Paul Simon and kickin' back after kickin' butt*

Theo

is

O
U
T

dudessss
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