week in a flash (week 4)

1. I watched two awesome movies this week.  One was awesomely good (btw if you ever want to hear Kate Hudson sing, rent Nine, it rocks!) and the other was awesomely bad, I knew it would be that’s why I rented it. :D

2. Have you ever had moments when you felt wise beyond your years and then had moments where you felt extremely immature?

3. A few years back I started doing this thing where I say to myself “I love my life, I love my life, I love my life,” I started doing it because I noticed than as soon as I started focusing on how everything was going wrong it was easy to fall into a depressive, dark way of thinking where I would start saying things to myself like “I hate my life” and other such things that I won’t deign to put in print ’cause they don’t belong in my head.  I don’t say “I love my life, I love my life, I love my life” to try to erase anything that might be going wrong or anything that’s hurtful to me or to convince myself that things will get better; it’s just a way to remind myself that I’ve got a reason to live and that HE’s always with me.  Sooo…I love my life, I love my life, I love my life.

4. My bro may disown me for saying this but the Twilight saga has got some great characters…too bad they are stuck in one of the worst stories ever written.

5. With regards to a week two comment I made about people, I also want to say that people can also be amazingly compassionate and just plain nice.

6. My summer class starts in a few weeks.  I’m a little nervous.

7.Would you hate me if I said that I actually like Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and absolutely hate the book?

8. Two of the best sounds in my world at the moment – the crack of thunder, just the way it rumbles and rolls across the sky and how everything trembles and shakes when it’s really loud – in my opinion there is nothing more breathtaking, terrifying and beautiful all at the same time, love it!  And the sound Jack (my Jeep) makes when it accelerates, the raw horsepower and the strength is thrilling.  Granted Jack doesn’t corner like it’s in the Indy 500 the way Baby (my Honda) did but I love ‘im anyway.  (Yes I name my cars, get over it :D)

9. Happy Father’s Day mi padre! (and all the other wonderful fathers out there)

10. Even though you are underway right now and probably won’t see this for a few more weeks, Hippo Birdies bro!!

Hi Honey!

Ok firstly sorry about the title but I’ve had that line from Sweet Home Alabama stuck in my head for a few days now and it was the first thing I thought of…:)

Anyway I wanted to answer Michelle’s question in the form of part of a post.  Yes, I am seeing someone a guy from work who we’ll call Obi Wan Kenobi (he’s a fan of Star Wars).  We’ve just officially gotten to boyfriend/girlfriend status and yes, he is the first guy I’ve dated.  So you’ll have to forgive me if I mention him a lot or gush about him – I can’t help myself :)  He’s very sweet and makes me laugh plus he’s a fan of Star Wars, Firefly, Serenity, and anime same as me and he likes to read.  So yeah I’m pretty happy about it.  :D

Moving on (hope that answered your question Michelle) the reason I’ve not been here lately is because I’m having a bit of a rough time.  I don’t know how many of you know this but my brother straydog is in the Navy, submariner core.  And he’s currently underway (underwater) for about six months which means he won’t be here for Christmas and he’ll likely miss my b-day again not to mention my madre’s b-day and my padre’s.  So I’ve been well frankly depressed about the whole thing.  I’m more proud than I could possibly ever say of him.  But I miss him so much that I selfishly wish he’d never joined.  It’s hard.  Harder than I ever thought it would be.

I remember when he first told me he was thinking about joining.  My whole reaction was disbelief.  He’d been talking about going back to college for the last couple of years and he’d entertained the idea of going into the chaplaincy core before but I had foolishly thought that he’d discarded the idea.  I was a little thrown.  But he stuck to it and went to a recruiter and the next thing we know he’s calling us telling us that he’s joined and that they want him in the nuclear program.  Talk about feeling like a deer caught in the headlights while at the same time bursting with pride at how awesome my older bro was/is.  And then he went off to Bootcamp.  That so far has actually been the easiest part.  I couldn’t call him but we wrote letters back and forth.  It was fun.

After that things got hard.  He went from Bootcamp to another school in Connecticut and then he graduated from that.  Well as things worked out I wasn’t able to go to his graduation.  I wasn’t able to get the time off school or work and he wasn’t able to guarantee me a seat.  Only the parents get guaranteed seating and even that was iffy for a little while.  So my parents went and I stayed.  That was supremely upsetting.

And then he got his assignment for where he would be stationed.  Hawaii.  How cool is that?  I still think it’s awesome that he’s there and if he were there all the time I’d be fine.  But he’s not.  No because of who my brother is and the kind of man he has become he went into the submariner core.  He goes out for anywhere from a month to six months.  And that, dear friends, is what I’m having a hard time with.  I can’t bear going so long without being able to call him.  I can e-mail him but they have to be short and they take forever to get to him and then for his response to get to me.  I don’t like it.  Every other time he’s been away from home I’ve been able to write letters or e-mail regularly or call but not now.  Not now.  And with Christmas coming up it’s getting harder.

This’ll be the very first Christmas that my whole immediate family (parentals, me, bro) won’t be together.  For my whole entire life, 21 years, I’ve always spent Christmas with my family.  No matter what.  When my brother went to Oklahoma for a year or so for school he still made it back.  When I was living four hours and one very bad pass (vail pass) away from my family I still made it.  Even when my mom was working a crappy convenience store job and had to work Christmas day we made sure we spent time together.  Always.

And now…he’ll be on the other side of the world, most likely under the ocean during Christmas.  What am I going to do?  What is my family going to do? 

For the first time in my life I don’t want Christmas to come.