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tbonecats
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Name: Christine
Country: United States
State: Ohio
Metro: Dayton
Birthday: 4/1/1982
Gender: Female
Interests: Lots of things...most recently swing dancing, but also spending time with friends, reading, music, writing, playing sports, keeping up with the news, watching movies, taking walks, thought-provoking conversation, teaching, learning as much as I can about anything and everything, and most of all strengthening my walk with God...which is what provides the basis for everything else.
Expertise: Supposedly music, especially trombone...but sometimes I'm not so sure about that. ;-) Also have my teaching certification, so that's supposed to mean something, I think. But really, what's expertise anyway? It seems to me that the more educated you are the more you realize you have yet to learn...
Occupation: Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  CUtrombone
Member Since:
7/8/2005
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| I just posted a backdated entry (cause that's when it was written and I wanted to distinguish it from this post), so if any of you are curious as to if you missed it, no you didn't.
I have done an incredible amount of thinking and reflecting lately, most of it not for my thesis (which is coming along well enough at this point, except my prof still hasn't given me feedback, so I'm flying blind and will likely have to go over his head next week if I intend to graduate. Yeah, not fun, but too late now.)
I've been reading through friends' blogs, chatting with different people, and taking a lot more walks to think and pray. I've started to realize just how much I live in the future - always looking to the next thing - instead enjoying what I have now. I have been incredibly nostalgic this week, already missing people when I haven't even moved yet because I'm thinking ahead. I can likely tell you why, but that is not for a public forum. It also doesn't determine what I'm going to do about it. Because the key is in realizing that life is a series of choices each of us make. For some of those choices, certain ones of us are wired to be partial to choose a specific way, and yet, it IS a choice. The past doesn't have to dictate the present, at least not completely. Just becasue I chose to respond one way before, and it was the wrong way, doesn't mean I'm destined to choose wrong again, because it is just that...a choice. I have been gifted with the ability to learn from my choices, both the mistakes and the right ones, and to fix where I screw up the next time. When I do something I know I shouldn't *coughprocrastinatecough* or don't do something I know I should, those establish patterns that are hard to break, but not impossible. Just because I gave in to my fear, or my pride, yesterday, (or earlier today) does not mean I have to let it win today (or now.) This is grace, that I have the ability to do differently than I have in the past. To do things the way I should. I am a slave to my past only so long as I choose to be. Each day is a new opportunity not to be wasted to get to the weekend, or the move, or the next big event, but to be lived, moment by moment, as much as possible. Each person I cross paths with is a unique individual, a child of God, who I can love and help empower and/or show God. Each moment passed in fear or doubt is lost, and as I grow older I realize how few the moments of life really are. My life has been given to me to spend, yet it is not mine to squander by looking so far ahead. Instead I need to focus, to genuinely care for others, and to take in as much as possible, especially in my limited time left in Dayton.
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| I wrote this on Sat in the midst of thesis writing, after having had too much caffeine to sit still...keep in mind, this is stream of consciousness hijacked by caffeine.
I am so far behind right now - trying to do a project in three days that takes most people half a year.If I focused I could do it, but the focus isn't there. It's not that any one thing is distracting me either. If MHA wasn't there or MSN or even the internet at all, I'd still stare at the ceiling, the floor, go wash dishes, do laundry...anything but the paper.
I've had three cups of coffee and they have all hit me hard. On a rough day I normally have only one, not until two weeks ago did I ever have two within the same day, and those were nearly twelve hours apart. Three means I'm now walking around the apartment complex trying to work it off instead of writing.
I so very much want to be done with the thesis; I can see myself done, I just have trouble focusing on actually getting there. Unbeknown to most, I've *always* had this problem with large projects. My Senior trombone recital was the worst before now. Yes, I practiced daily, but I didn't work near as hard as I should have just because I wanted to be done.
I live so much in my own head, in realms of worlds and ideas that parallel reality at times, but never *are* reality.
I want to be done with the paper, I really do, I just can't seem to connect the dots.
I'm walking around the apartment complex after having had that much caffeine and starting at a computer screen for so long and I see without seeing. It's like having my eyes focused on the hidden picture within those Magic Eye prints rather than seeing the surface dots. It's an interesting phenomena, similar to what I experienced on those non-caffeinated undergrad days after staying up all night hastily completing the music history study guide and attempting to study for the test. Except then I didn't care about anything besides getting through the day enough that I could go back to the dorm and crash.
I think being *almost* done is a curse...at least for me.
I go and sit on the swings outside my building. I remember writing a Xanga entry last summer about feeling like a child after a bout on the swings. Little has changed since then, at least on some levels.
Yes, things are changing with law school and moving and such, but in many ways I am still waiting. I'm still questioning, still searching for many of the same things. So much has changed around me and yet so much of me has remained the same. But I don't feel like a child anymore, not with knowing the tasks ahead.
If I stare up at the sky I can see the imperfections in my contacts. I discovered that this fall when I laid down on the cement wall bordering the quad at WSU. I was working on the same paper I am trying to finish now, and an Ohio case I read really ticked me off - enough so that I wanted to heave my binder of cases across the quad. Instead I closed it and put it beside me and laid down and tried to physically relax myself. The relaxing part didn't work so well, but tracing the imperfections as I stared up at the sky made for a nice distraction. I can only do it when I'm tired enough that my vision isn't focused, pretty much the state I'm in now...
Break's over. Time to get back to work.
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| PerspectiveKnowledge isn't belief
For so long I thought knowledge was all I had
But then I tried to walk away
And I could not.
The pain, mine and others
The sorrow, helplessness
Without You they have no point
All would be lost and I better dead
Than having to fight, day after day
Yet hope remains
Even in the depths of despair
Persistence wins in the face of trials
If it was just knowledge
I would not have come back
Here I am
I believe
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| There is much I could post. Life has been busy...more so than before if that is actually possible. Maybe sometime I'll actually write about it. Or not. But for now I'll just say that within 2 days I have made lots of little decisions that have culminated in two major ones. I have bought a new laptop computer for law school, and I have agreed to rent an apartment for my 1L year with potential of keeping it through all 3. All that's left is to reserve the moving truck, pack, move, and start my life in PA. And my thesis. I am altering my topic slightly. Should let me focus more on the cases I have spent so much time with these past few weeks. Now I just need to write the paper. Then look forward to one last Memorial Day at home with the family (and picking up boxes while I'm there) and a summer of packing and doing all the things in the Dayton-Cincinnati area I said I would do before I moved.
But first the thesis.
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| A final decision but more choices
So, I’ll be attending Penn State Dickinson School of Law this
fall. It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’m sadder about having to say no to
schools I liked than excited about going to Penn
State right now. The excitement
will come, as it gets closer to moving and I find a place to live and then
actually spend the time paring down my belongings in prep for the biggest move
I’ve made on my own. Most of my friends went away for college. I have been
about an hour away from my parents for the past 8 years, and now I’m finally
moving away like I always threatened them. And I don’t think I shall return.
One of the decisions I have to make is whether to switch my residency to PA or
keep OH. If I keep OH I have to use my parents’ address as my permanent
address, and well, I really don’t want to do that. Plus it will make life
difficult for vehicle registration and getting my driver’s license renewed and
all that. Plus voting absentee and not really being able to get involved with
local politics if I should ever want to…yeah. I’ve decided to switch. It’s time
to leave Ohio, and there’s a good
chance I won’t be back except to visit friends and family. It’s time to stretch
my wings and catch a breeze and see where it takes me. It’s going to be hard. I’m
already starting to realize all the “lasts,” some of which I failed to realize
because it passed before I knew. Already there is sadness in knowing I will be
leaving people I love, some of which I may not see again, as it will be too
much to keep up with everyone.
And yet, I know this is right. I am slowly connecting with
those who will become my future classmates and it is good. I am even planning a
bit of exploration and perhaps a roadtrip after moving to PA but before law
school begins. It is time to move on, to start the next leg of my journey. But there
is much to do before July.
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