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| Fourteen down, four to go This past Friday I finished my fourteenth semester of higher education, not counting summer internships. You think I would be done by now, but I have four semesters to go, not counting summer classes. Three more semesters in the classroom, one in an internship. I don't know, maybe I'll go to Med School afterwards. Just kidding. As many of you can imagine, going back to school is a bit scary, I mean, what if I would have ended up hating my field? What if I still didn't know what the hell I was going to do after this? Alas, fear not, I have good news. I love my field, and I can't wait to actually get into it. Somehow I went from being a barely active slacker some five years ago to increasingly enjoying exercising [except on days like today when my legs felt like crap, but I ran six miles anyway] and desiring to instruct and help people live healthy lives. What I am working towards is basically being a personal trainer in a clinical [hospital] setting, hopefully working with obese patients, perhaps in preparation for gastric bypass surgery. My life has been... good. Yes, crazy but good. I ran a ton this semester and am running the Madison half-marathon in two weeks and will then eat at the world's largest bratwurst fest. Hep! So I'm not exactly the picture of health but I'm getting there. I eat a ton more vegetables and fruits, but still indulge in cheeseburgers, pizza and ice cream - just in less quantities as before. Sometimes. I've been part of three pretty awesome communities. One, the Wilson House, where I live. I struggled to regain an attitude of community living for a while, but this past month has revealed that we, as a house, are making progress. Two, a guy's Bible study on Monday nights. It's been a hectic past few months, but we're just starting to get into the former prophets, which is one of my favorite parts of the Bible, so it'll be dope. Yep. Three, a connection group. This group meets Saturday nights after the evening service, and we eat and then talk about the sermon. I thought that I would hate not having my Saturday nights, but I haven't really missed them yet. Our discussions regularly go until eleven, and no one seems to mind much. It's great. Summer preview: I have a week off, which basically means I get to work fulltime for a week. Then I start summer classes - Intro to Management and then Physical Fitness and Conditioning. You might be able to guess which one I am more excited about taking. These are morning classes, so I hope to get up beforehand and run or lift, clean up and eat, go to class, eat, work, eat, rest, sleep, repeat. Classes conveniently end the day before my birthday, as Kevin Malone would say: "nice". Then a short holiday to a locale undecided, though I'm pretty sure I know where I'll be headed. Then a month of work and the fall semester begins. But aside from all that, I think that this summer will be full of house-cleaning, reading, BBQ's, sand volleyball, and shpadoinkle days in general. And probably more blogging. That's all for now. you have my love.
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| Fruits and veggies For one of my classes we had to choose an aspect of our personal health to "work on". Some people are working on quitting smoking, others on exercising more, that sort of thing. When I went through the assessment the only thing that I noticed was really off in my health was a large lack of fruits and vegetables. Supposedly I should eat four fruits and five vegetables a day. This did not sound difficult when I began, but I was very wrong. Today is the last day of my project. For the past few days I have failed miserably [one and three, two and four]. I am tired of eating fruits and vegetables, even though I gained an appreciation for them these past six weeks. As I am writing this I am munching on some baby carrots and drinking some V8 Splash, and I won't reach my goal for the day. Here's what I've learned. Fruits are easy. One or two at breakfast, a couple during the day to snack on. Easy. Getting enough veggies on the other hand, is quite the task. Think about it. Rarely does one eat any vegetables for breakfast. If I'm lucky I can get a salad for lunch with maybe three veggie servings, but say I only get one serving of veggies at lunch, that means I need to have three or four at dinner. One trick is the V8 Splash, as it's one serving of both fruits and veggies. Regardless, it's a challenge. And now that it is over, I will probably consider three servings of each a day a pretty decent amount. On a positive note, I did eat and learn to enjoy some new foods, including: artichokes [thanks to Steph], oranges, tangelos and mangos. It all sounds very tropical, but let's be honest, it hasn't helped winter die at all. I thought my beard would be sacrifice enough, but apparently winter wants to see what May is like. However, I've heard that today was the last day of coldness, so I'm holding on to that rumour. Tightly. you have my love.
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| deBearding 
depression
anger
bargaining
denial
acceptance
And now I'm without a beard, though with chops and a patch del soul. Chances are good that most of you have never seen my chin without a significant amount of facial hair on it. I haven't clear cut the goatee region since summer of oh-two, so I figured it could use some sunlight and fresh air. Also, please be excited because I have multiple posts on my mind, thus attempting to bring this blog out of impending recession. you have my love.
xanga bonus: if you read this, would you mind commenting? I'm posting this on my "real" blog [viswaters.blogspot.com] and am tired of the work of double posting. Therefore, low readership will result in the dismemberment of this xanga. Or just the stopping of posts. This means you there in Belgium. Peace, Travis. 
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| Prophets, heroes, martyrs and good men [part one] 
1/15/1929 - 4/4/1968, thirty-nine years old "Whenever the Church, consciously or unconsciously, caters to one class it loses the spiritual force of the 'whosoever will, let him come' doctrine, and is in danger of becoming little more than a social club within a thin veneer of religiosity." - MLK jr., in his autobiography. Obviously there are many amazing quotes from this man, but this one is dear to me. It reminds me of his love for the Church. What he did was more than call for equality; he proclaimed the Kingdom of God, like the prophets of old.
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| oMg, SPrinG BrEaK!>!!<%!?!!@ Dude, bro, spring break. Sorry, I can't help from imitating my classmates. So many beers. Sorry, I'm trying. Maybe I should just post some pictures, that way I won't be tempted to.. oMg!~ pictures??!
Brandon M., Brandon B. and I at the Bean in Chicago on Saint Patrick's Day. We're releasing our first hardcore album soon, stay tuned for details. 
Okay, I suppose this is kind of a typical spring break picture. Except instead of Miller Lite we're drinking Bushmill's Ten-Year. And I liked it more than I expected. 
I procured some new trail shoes and proceeded to test them out on a trail along the river. It was muddy and at one point I hopped around beached ice floats.
On this bracket I still have all my elite eights. But it's pretty ugly.
And lastly, I figured I needed a spring break project, so I did what I could and attempted to grow a mustache. It's also pretty ugly. I promise to shave it off before your birthday. 
Not pictured: Britcher having me do a workout to near-barfing, eating artichoke hearts out of a can, sushi, seeing Riddell and Graham, having not-falafel with Heidi, working thirty some hours - throwing boxes down the stairs, speed scrabble at Olde Main, sweet drama at Cornerstone, running six miles at nine in the p.m., an abundent amount of vegetables and the [hopefully] last snow of this everlong winter. It was a good'n, now back to work, er, school and work. you have my love.
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