The Misadventurous Meanderings of a Semi-Quixotic Wanderer

With such a pretentious title to the post, the only place this post can go is downhill. Or uphill.

Regardless, how's things with you folks? I hope all is well with you and yours. What's new? It's been an eventful semester. Where to begin?

Well...I haven't been good at keeping in touch at all (sorry about that, Carolyn, Michelle, and MOP, I was not ever avoiding you). This semester has been a different one...I had classes twice a week, with four-day-weekends, so it was a much more laid-back semester. Motivation was an issue.

Tangent: Senioritis. Freshmen in college claim a piece of it, figuring that they've just been seniors in high school, so it's residual. Sophomores, now no longer freshmen and eager to assert themselves as such, claim it. Juniors, feeling that they're ALMOST seniors, claim it. I've done it, but it's unfortunate that "senioritis" has become synonymous with such general words as "lackadaisical," "unmotivated," "burned out," etc. As a senior, I am possessive of my condition, for I've never felt senioritis quite as much as I did this semester. I'm inclined to say that what college students really suffer from during the spring semester/terms/months is a) hibernation followed by b) spring. There's something especially aggravating during that last year when work that you don't want and don't see the point of gets in the way of what appear to be much more wholesome and edifying activities (read: everything else).

Anyway, there was a lot of stuff that happened this semester...I was a retreat leader, passed the torch on to the new leaders of Esto Vir and Chastity Outreach, asked a ton of questions, most of them unanswerable, wrestled with them (kinda)...

...actually, the big misadventure of this semester was that I didn't embark on enough misadventures. It was a lukewarm effort on my part. I could have done a lot more, and would have enjoyed the year so much more, wrote down things to do, and even with the knowledge, just wanted to chill. Homeostasis can be an unpleasantly comfortable thing. There were a lot of good conversations, some moments of really intense sadness, delightful moments of surprise and joy and love, and a lot of lessons. As can be said of most of life. It's vague.

As for the present...I'm back home, fighting against being a creature of habit. It's a month till my friend's wedding in Florida. I'll be the altar server. It'll be a good time to reconnect with people I just had to say goodbye to a little under two weeks ago. Then graduation will definitely set in. I'll be taking the GRE right before then, in case grad school's in the distant future...wanna take the test while my test-taking skills are still somewhat intact. Sadly, I won't be able to get out to Jersey this summer because of financial constraints and the impending future...

FUTURE: Well, have to talk about this...it's what everybody asks, especially graduates, right after graduation: now what? Well, I was fixing on service of some sort, and was thinking that New York would be wonderful. There's a youth and family ministry program that operates throughout the Hudson Valley, running youth groups and running retreats and other wonderful and much-needed stuff. It'd be close to the Jersey haunt, I know a whole bunch of people in NYC, my brother's going to NYU next year, it's relatively close to DC, Philly, Boston (well...kinda)...it seemed almost too good to pass up. Naturally, that's NOT what I'm doing. God knows me too well...I'm reminded of that Robert Goulet SNL sketch..."You win...you always do." I need to continue to shock myself, break out of this comfort bubble I've established and confined myself to. That at least partially explains why I was so uneasy about it, and simply knew it wasn't right. Soo....instead, I'm going to be working with the Capuchin Franciscans in Lima, Peru for a year and a half starting in August. I'll be working in an orphanage. I'm crazy excited. Like, you have no idea. Well, maybe you do. I'm insanely nervous, too, scared out of my wits, or at least figure I'll work my way to that point before I leave, but there's something dizzyingly exciting and wonderful about having absolutely NO idea what to expect...aside from speaking more Spanish than I'm used to.

In other news: I really freaking love languages. Learning them, speaking them, looking at their origins, discovering the etymology behind them...I guess a philosopher would laugh and tell me that I love the elucidation of truth both in concept and in art. Yeah, truth is pretty cool, though at times a little abstract (understatement central).

Also, I've decided I need to start writing more. Both a conscious reflection journal and a whatever the heck pops into my head freewriting journal.

Mkay, I need to be an old man and go to sleep. Much love...facebook/text me your email addresses, please, so I can keep you posted on Peru happenings when that happens. Alright, I'm out.

PS- sorry I left out all the misadventurous meanderings and went for musings of a semi-coherent wastrel.