december

is nuts.

it's the month when bank accounts purge.
it's the month when i always re-discover that family equals love, but family also puts on rabid display that ridiculousness runs in my genes, oh god.
it's the month when festivity is sometimes forced.
it's the month when i wish for peaceful days and gentle snowfall. california doesn't really have gentle snowfall, but the breezy stuff is nice.
it's the month when all the awesome movies come out to play. but i have no money to go see them. dagnabbit.
it's the month when i realize that the title "starving young professional" is a little too true. well, not starving per se, but poor. happily poor?
it's the final month before a fresh start. but is january really fresh?

mrmph

either or, but not both?

the game of versus.

idealism vs. realism and pragmatism
solid income vs. boring job?
(not always mutually exclusive)
past vs. future
(present)

the age of 23 doesn't inspire large amounts of excitement. still considered the "early 20s", 23 is, nonetheless, on the verge of crossing over into that period of "respect and responsibility" that society expects. it's also the age at which the 2-year mark post-college (undergrad) becomes significant because questions start to arise: what are you really doing with your life, now that you've had a chance to look around? is that the perfect industry for you? the right cubicle? the correct title on the business card? are your friendships beneficial? is your car reflective of your personality and status? is it paid off? are you saving enough money? 401k? are you being responsible with your finances? are your activities not only fun but also useful? are your relationships leading somewhere?

growing up is overrated. i'll continue to smear mud on my nose, leave work drenched in bay water, talk to the fishies that we study, and make moo-ing sounds with my niece. moo.

tis the season

of thoughts.

for some odd reason, i haven't been in much of a christmas spirit recently. i mean, there's a cute christmas tree sitting in my living room, and the main window is surrounded by colorful lights, but the actual feeling and mood aren't fully there yet. i expect that the rush of holiday-ness will arrive soon, since my family is flying westward-ho as i type. but recently, i've just been so busy with work and schedules and friends and other random stuff that i haven't taken the time to listen to christmas tunes, write up and mail out those christmas cards, or really think about gifts even. and i certainly haven't cruised to any decked-out malls or shopping centers, so i've also been lacking in the overwhelming red, green, and gold colors that accompany the month of december.

it's also the end of the year... so now that most of work has paused for a bit, i'm starting to breathe and think again. about i-don't-even-know-what. 2006 swooshed by fast. last weekend, i spent a freaking awesome time with the dcorc cult at red rocks in vegas. we climbed and talked and gossiped and climbed some more and ate till it hurt and traded a bajillion wonderfully bad jokes and hilarious insults and climbed a little more and ripped off lots of skin and never bothered to sleep. it was great. warning: sappy sentence coming up. i miss them. even the new people are lovely, which is pretty much what i expected. good thing the expectations met up, haha. and for some reason, that whole weekend of nuttiness made me reflect on the year past. it's been a strange one -- albeit a good one... a great one at that.

i dunno about 2007 -- it seems that it'll be solid. but that's probably the flakiest prediction ever. i don't think i've ever really made new year resolutions, and i don't really think that i'll start this upcoming year either. i've discovered that i kinda like going with the flow. i do make plans, but for the most part, i take things as they come and figure it out then. like plankton: plankton are drifters; they go with the flow (of the current). that's the key aspect of the little dudes that hang out at the bottom of the food chain -- they go with the flow. it's a fact -- that even the smartass punk 6th grade boy who whipped out his cell phone in the middle of the program today should remember. go with the flow...?

every once in a while, i get caught up with nature and the glory of good weather and tall trees and large expanses of water and little hilarious fishies and red sandstone and prickly cacti. but then i blink twice and come to realize that, despite it all, i couldn't survive without people. even the stupidhead hormonal middle-schoolers. so much for my backup plan of becoming a hermit in new zealand. ha. happy holidays, eh?

i could live off of..

climbing
cooking
eating
photographing
sleeping

that's about it. well, friends too -- so that i have people to do everything with. but man, i think i could survive doing just that.. climbing, cooking, eating, photographing, and sleeping. mmm.

visual. with captions.

a scattering of photos from the past couple of months:

golden gate park: japanese tea garden

sturgeon!

louis is cloudy

san francisco's bay bridge in fog
(taken from the water itself, yay)

vegas-the-puppy got bigger. his paws too.

gobble gobble (before getting deep-fried)
and a gigantic bowl of amazing mashed potatoes

my niece discovers a cove of mirrors at the children's museum :)

know something weird?
life never settles.

jennifer

apparently, i look somewhat like a jennifer.

seriously. or maybe stephanie is sorta similar to jennifer? in that both names have the letters e, a, and i? yeeeah.. and both have that "f" sound? hmm.. whenever i'm working on the boat, we always hand out evaluations to the chaperones and teachers at the end of the program -- for comments, suggestions, etc -- and on numerous occasions, they write "jennifer" for me. odd.

and today, i got a voicemail from a tutoring person, and SHE called me jennifer! and i've never even met the woman. nuts.

do i really look like a jennifer? i guess i might. haha.