The Long-Awaited Return to Blogging!

Ah-hah, hello! look who it is, back to the blog after all these months! i can't say what exactly is prompting me to blog on this particular april evening, just that i randomly had the urge to come read my old blogs from last summer, and reading them made me want to write another one! i guess I am not technically "wandering far and wide" at the moment... but i am far from where i was in my last blog, so maybe it is legitimate. doesn't matter... in the scheme of my entire life, i bet this little bloggy from sweet sweet athens, ga will constitute a wandering, a place far and wide from where i end up (maybe).. but, enough of that! moving on!
letsee. next week is the last week of classes of my junior year of college- then the next week is finals week. and then i have a 2 day rest period... and then its off to costa rica! THAT is defintely a far and wide wandering... though I am not sure i'll be able to blog from there. but alas--- i will be journaling.
it is very strange to me whenever i go back and read journal and/or blog entries from the past. because i can see how distinct and real those things were to me at the time, and i feel how far they are from now, but part of me feels like they are so close and real again. time passing never ceases to amaze me, for some reason. its funny to me that all the things that have happened to me since i last wrote are things that i had no idea at all about. my life this past school year was a complete mystery to me in the past, but now it has been revealed so to speak. its like ive acquired things without losing anything-- ah, nevamind. it makes more sense in my head.
i wondered when i started where this blog post would go-- and it turns out its becoming a post about my life in athens this past school year. junior year. year # 1 in the house at 346 n. pope street. ive tried to examine the year as it passed, but its so much clearer (obviously) now that its over. i think overall it has been a fantastic, quite fantastic year. i havent been as psychologically tumultuous (for most of it) as i have been at certain periods in the past, and so in some ways i feel like i've "grown less" perhaps... but i am thinking maybe that is not a bad thing. this semester, especially the past couple months, have been really really awesome for me in a quite, simple way. i have felt more comfortable and at peace in athens these past couple months than ever before. little things have seemed immeasurably beautiful and wonderful to me. things like biking with andy and tj to the oconee river greenway, or sitting on the deck with my binoculars like a nerd and birdwatching, or pulling into the driveway and seeing the roomies sitting on the deck. or hanging out in the living room the morning after a particularly crazy friday night and discussing the events with the roomies/whoever may have slept over in the house. or going to my sisters and eating quesadillas on the front porch. or sitting in the sun in the warnell courtyard between classes. things like that. st. patricks day parties with green beer and walking to taqueria or getting margaritas at taco stand on a sunday night. playing power hour with beer. watching hawks games, studying on the porch, going to the basketball courts down the road.
i have one year left in athens. i am fairly certain i will be leaving the summer after i graduate. as much as i love it here and as attached as i am to so many different things here... i think i am going to leave. and i have always wanted to. but now that i am so close to doing it, i am terrified. i am sad. and i am.. not ready i guess. im not ready to not be near my parents and sister and friends i have had since high school or before. and to be in the intense summer heat and here the crickets and catydids all night. to be a college student who sleeps in and skips class and eats mac and cheese way too much, who finds themselves drinking with their friends the night before a big test. i guess i shouldnt worry too much yet, because i do have an entire year left. and-- i am in many ways ready to graduate (classes and labs have really started to wear on me). but. i feel i am nearing a crossroads type of thing. a transition. the same as leaving for college, but probably much much harder. and college was a difficult transition for me. i am curious to see where my life goes after this. i guess i want to see other places and experience life outside of north georgia. i dont really know anything else. last summer was a little taste of something completely different from what i am used to, but i dont know if even that qualifies. i dont know what exactly it is people are looking for when they leave and home and go out into the world and start new lives and all that. what drives them (me?) to do it? whats WRONG with staying where you are? whats wrong with having a simple life? i guess i do have a certain degree of restlessness--but whos to say that has anything to do with which city i live in? ahh who knows. too many questions. i always have too many questions!
all in all- i am satisfied with my life right now. i feel like i have matured a fair-ish amount this past year. in a calm way-- not in a grown up way, if that makes sense. i mean, i am 21. definitely not a kid anymore. not a youngster, if you will! which im fine with. its a good age. solid. all that kind of thing.
but yet- i think i am going to brush my teeth and get in bed before midnight for once. lab practical tomorrow. and another friday. terrapi beer tour/twilight/low country boil/jonnas 21st bday party this weekend. presentation monday, paper due wednesday, another paper due thursday AND a lab practical thursday. then--- finals week after that to round it all out. COOL!
what a cliche college life. and im ok with that!