What Have You Been Up To? Well it's about that time. At least 2-3 times a year i try to meet up with people i haven't seen in a really long time, and i think this would be an ideal week for that for a few reasons. First, i have received phone calls from people i haven't hung out with in a long time. Second, i've begun thinking about people i haven't seen in a while, and 3rd, what better to help me recover from a cold than to be around people that i know will bring a smile to my face. I met up with an old friend today, and it dawned upon me that i have known her for 7 years. Now for the greater part, i can say that for just about everyone i hung out with since my social group dynamic changed from grade 12 to OAC, but with her it's different for some reason. We were talking about when we first met, and she said she was only 16 at the time. I paused and did the math in my head, and realized how long ago that was, and i began thinking about why i am so stuck in a mindframe that i'm still fresh out of highschool? Then, like every so often in my day to day life, it hits me. I did a 2 year accelerated program after highschool, and i was done before everyone else. I wasn't sitting there waiting for people to meet me at the end of post-secondary education, but i figured that that was the end of my educational life at that point. I didn't really have time to detatch myself from the highschool mentality also because where i went to school after highschool felt just like highschool (i just used the same word 3 times in one sentence). I never experienced that whole university thing where you listened to lectures and whatnot. For me, it was exactly like being in a classroom where you are set to do an activity for an hour or two, then you move on to the next thing. They may as well of had periods on the time table. So this is why i think i'm stuck in that "i'm still young" mentality. Not that 25 is old, but it definitely isn't young. Ranting and raving about the quarter-life crisis with a friend on line, she tells me that Mr. Trump says that if you haven't made it by age 30, you're never going to make it. Where is "it" and how do i get there? I talk with an old co-worker on line and hear how everyone is going places and doing things they set out to do, and i just sit here wondering why i couldn't ever push myself that way. There's probably a reason the Gavin DeGraw song from One Tree Hill is one of my favorites, and the lyric goes " I don't wanna be anything i don't want to be...." which tied into a lot of the highschool image stuff and fitting in, but still translates into my life now. Part Time Poker I'm setting myself up to just cash out every day whatever i profit. If i treat it like a part time job, i can actually make some extra money. I just hope i don't get so efficient at it that i stop looking for some normal job that wouldn't require me to gamble during my free evenings. Great Song "Somebody" by Depeche Mode is a great song. Lyrically it is so straight forward about just what a man looks for in a mate. I can play this song on the piano (surprisingly easy), but if i were to ever perform it i'd need to practice. I used to have "A Whole New World" from Alladdin memorized on the piano, but now i can only get to a certain point, and the one note i keep forgetting stops me from finishing the song. That reminds me, i must confess, i have an addiction to buying sheet music, learning to play the first page, and then never looking at that piece of sheet music again (no need to tell me about not finishing what i start). Over-Worry By some sort of old superstition, since i was born on a wednesday, i was born a child full of woe. When i start to think and worry too much, i almost feel better about the situation, because by over-worrying, i prepare myself mentally for something, and when it comes time to address it, it's not nearly as dramatic as i imagine it to be. With the amount of worrying i do, it's amazing i don't come off as more of a paranoid anxious person. Maybe it's not so much worrying, but just really thinking about possible scenarios. I remember trying to explain visually the way i analyze a situation, and i described something like a word web, where there is one word in the middle, and from that, you come up with a bunch associated to that, and then the same thing for those words, but when i do that, i try to make sure they all tie back into the first word (even when i don't want to think linearly i think linearly). Sometimes i wonder if I am as creative as i want to think i am. I know very well that my problem solving skills are based on things working in sequence, but not in a scientific way. Maybe that's how my creativity works; by finding an efficient way about something without losing it's organic nature. That's how i play poker, not just by the numbers, but what the scenario (or what i believe to be my read), dictates. I never claim to be the most efficient, but i know how to make things happen.

Source: The Pebble Says...