Today I got all of my Feedback forms from the people I've worked with. Towers has a scarily frank policy wherein you provide feedback, including negative, on people you work with, then put your name on it, turn it in to their people manager....and then the employee gets it at their review, names still on there. Is that normal? It seems like it could very easily go confrontational.

But, no such luck. No one hates my guts or cites hygiene problems or anything. Actually, the things they said are incredibly nice and I'm really proud that so many of them liked working with me and, more importantly, want me to return.

New Rule: I'm not allowed to play beer pong without my Irish Euro necklace. It is my amulet of accuracy, my talisman of triumph, my medal of mastery. I was foolish to start the night without it.

Aw, my coworker John won't be here next week, so he just stopped by to say goodbye. Boo on goodbyes!

So it seems like tonight's plan is double-decker beer pong. We're going epic tonight ladies and gents and I'll have to decide who to call upon for my teammate. Tom and I have a history, but Jon and I have a winning streak and playing with Paul = winning. I think I've beaten each of the three with one of the other two, but I don't know how to choose!

No, really, this is what I'm doing at work today...

Does anyone else feel like they're constantly protecting their soul these days? Two nights ago, I was waiting in the front of campus to go to dinner with Cat, reading Meditations and generally grooving out. The sun was shining, but it was breezy and dry, for once this DC summer, and I kept looking up and watching the leaves blow or climbing the stone sides of Healy with my eyes, while looking for another face I hadn't seen for a while.

It hit me just now. I felt as though I was taking my soul for a walk, as though it were a dog, leashed and collared and I was allowing it to run around for a while while I sat and read. I often attribute the purity of my relationship to the more soulful part of myself with the amount of observation I partake in. When I'm in a pure mood, I look at the sky, I scan trees, admire buildings. I notice. I stop and smell, if you will.

It's just a shame that I'm so attuned now to the need to parcel that time out, to say to myself that it's time to go enjoy the world for a bit. Some might call it a shame that I have to set aside time, but to them I say this: towards the end of this past semester, I found it difficult to find Ireland again in my heart, to achieve or visit that serenity that I found standing on the eternal cliffs of the past overlooking the very ocean that separated me in every way from the life I actually lead. Two days ago, sitting on that bench, taking my soul out after a hard day's work, I was able to find it again. I owe some of it to Marcus Aurelius, who gave me the guidance to find that place to retreat to, that same place Westley goes to in The Princess Bride, the book, while being tortured. But I owe some of it also to having something to let go of.

One of my guiding principles is to leave things behind, but to remember where you left them. The only thing healthier than recognizing that a habit should be dropped is to come back to it with a knowledge of its absence and take it up again in earnest. With that in mind, let me now say that I have found my desire to write again. Perhaps I mean to say that I found the desire rather than the need. I no longer want to write as the vehicle of my escape from a corporate world.

I can't wait for the freshmen to come in. Seamus and I spent an hour or so last night updating our scene, and I just can't wait to have fun in front of that audience, to show them the incredible time we have being a part of this group. Seamus guided me towards putting in some of the heart and soul Mask and Bauble changes that I'm planning to implement. Among all the buddy gags and overacting, I am actually glad that I'll have the chance to tell the incomers that they should try anything, because we can give them a vehicle for it.

So I've decided that I like this life a lot, if only because it's helped me deal with so many things that I otherwise would never have. For instance, the idea of being single is not only acceptable, but actually kind of necessary where I am now, with studying and everything. Had things not turned out the way they did, I'm convinced that the end of July beginning of August would have had the same result in that regard.

I was told Monday that on Wednesday I would have to present on a business-related topic of my choosing to one of the managers of the Mid-Atlantic group (DC and Philly). It was something new for the interns this year, meant to test/show us how we'd deal with a rushed client request. So, there I was yesterday, with a big presentation (15 minutes) that I had thrown together in two days, before said manager, my personal manager Diane, two consultants and one very close but still incredibly respectable colleague.

I nailed it.

For all my nervousness, I was clear, sharp and engaging. What's more, I was able to talk about something (a conversion of tools that we're working through) with actual accessible knowledge. Apparently, this was the this that wowed them, which is interesting, because it wasn't a goal of mine. They were impressed that I knew enough to even talk about the topic I chose, much less essentially teach them how well the new tools work.

I felt really proud to hear Dave Suchsland, the high level manager, say to me, "It's amazing to me the amount of crap you've learned and been able to do in eleven weeks. You've learned certainly faster than anyone I've seen." It was just wonderful to hear that. I felt a pretty big smile going on as they evaluated me (and there were some constructive criticisms) and my manager told me that she was amazed at what I was able to put together.

So yeah, this summer was worth it. For all the times that I said that it sucked, that it was hard, that I'd never been so drained, so sad, so alone...it was worth it. Because I stand on my own now more than I ever have.

4 more days of work...then the exam...and then sweet sweet relaxation!

Why AM I here?

That is my mental response to a surprising question from In Sung, one of the the principals here at Towers (it's amazing, the principals have been more influential in how I see my future here than those who are just a little older than me). He asked me when school started and I said the 30th and so he asked why I was leaving earlier and I said I had responsibilities to my theater group. I told him that I was involved in theater (not that I act, but that I was involved at all) and he said, incredulously,

"Why are you here?"

And I answered that I liked math and that it was the safe cocoon of college theater that appealled to me, but it was interesting to have someone from this office say that to me, especially when Rob Nation's always reminding me that they were worried that I'd run away as if theater was actually the circus (insert joke here).

Well, soon I will not be here. How's that?

I realized today that I have a new mental goal. I mean, a while ago, it was for my mom to admit I can act, that I really can do it well. But she has, so now I have a new one.

My office coworkers have told me that I should totally let them know when I'm going to be in a show so that they can all come see it. I want THEM. I want the people I work with to see me doing it. I don't know why. It's not like I need them to say "you should go do that instead." In fact, if anything, if they thought I was good, it might worry them even MORE that I might be leaving. But I just want them to see it, see where I'm coming from or something.

I don't feel like I'm lying to myself, because I don't think I'm at a point where I can honestly "ruin" my life. Way too early. I also will be interested to see how, after the 18th comes and goes, it feels to not actually have any obligation to Towers Perrin. Because right now, I feel locked in, no matter how much I'm actually NOT at all.

I can't wait for the end of the summer. I came, I saw, I conquered...but I want Senior Year.

No matter how many good days I've had this summer, and there have been a lot of them, this has been the hardest time of my life. I think the hardest part is that everything fluctuates so much. This weekend was Social City, population: me. Actually, this weekend, I was probably the mayor of Social City. I had a lot of fun with the house crowd and got to do a lot.

Now it's nothing but work, work, work all the time. Studying for the actuarial exam is tedious, but not because I know the material. I know a lot of it, but it's only really tedious because my house is still out playing pong, while I'm doing my 20th problem on conditional probability.

I had a great lunch yesterday with Mark Dungan, a pretty high level principal in Philadelphia who, with Paul's Dad, helped me get the job. I thought it was going to be this big "So, what do you think of your time here?" discussion, and part of it was, but the better part of it was just he and I talking about life. He just got back from a lake weekend himself, with a bunch of his college buddies and he was talking about how it was the most relaxing thing. That made me smile to think of my A Kids, and how I hope that we keep coming back to each other, year after year.

I have to keep reminding myself that we're not in some science fiction society where if, in a year or so, I decide that I just can't do this actuarial thing, I won't be dragged to the outskirts of the village and shot. I enjoy it now, but I still haven't figured out whether it's what I want to do.

As per usual, my life is coming into focus through a series of closing doors. Recently, I realized that New York is not for me. I can't wait to visit my million friends there and see how well they're doing, but I don't want to live there. Maybe I have said that already here and I'm just trying to cope with this shifting time of life by pointing out all of the decisions I have made.

It's funny when I start listening to really heavy Friends lines, the ones I used to hear and think "less talk, more Chandler!" Last night, I was watching the episode where Joey gets fires from Days of Our Lives and has to give back all his stuff. Ross says to him, "Joey, I need that whole security thing. I need to know where my next paycheck's coming from. I could never do what you do, man" but with this sincerity that I liked so much, that I didn't realize right away that it's been what I've said about acting, myself.

I've gotten into the habit of telling myself I shouldn't think too much about stuff at certain times, like when I first get up, because it inevitably leads to me driving myself nuts by the time I'm at my desk. But now I wonder if perhaps I have that backwards. Jon, our roommate, was telling Sarah Krokey and I how it's actually thought that, instead of thinking yourself mad, you should just go to sleep, let your selfconscious wrangle it out (which it's better at doing when it comes to an important decision about life) and come back to it in the morning.

So what are my normal morning thoughts?

1. I want to stay asleep - Ok, no big deal there. I've gotten that about class for years.
2. I have so much to do today - You know, maybe this is what I'm adjusting to. The king slacker has been actually pretty diligent this summer. I've been going from start to finish of my days and the only real down-time is my hour after work and my one episode of Friends a night (horrors!).
3. I wish the summer was over - I do, plain and simple. I can't wait until my last day here. I wouldn't say, however, that I hope I never come back. It's just too much right now, with AP stuff starting up and knowing that school is coming. This actuarial exam has added a whole new madness to this process, and that's just how this profession is. I have to get used to the studying, which will be SO much worse as the exams continue on.

I keep telling myself, people DO this. People go through hell for a job. Think med school and law school and all that stuff. And the right people go through hell for acting. Adam, for example, is going to have a tough life. It's not going to be Georgetown theater for him and he knows it. BTA is going to have a tough life in LA. He's gonna wake up some mornings and wonder who he is.

Is this life? Or can each of us really pull out of it into something better like so many songs and movies and daily allusions would have us believe? Did I just grow up too fast?

I want to be proud, is all.

I suppose if I wanted people to comment, a sad post about people leaving wasn't exactly the medium I should have selected.

Once again, the workflow here at Towers Perrin has slowed down for me and lots of folks are out of the office, so it feels as though it might stay dried up for the day (which admittedly only has an hour and 15 minutes left in it). This job keeps getting better though. I find it odd that I have gotten a lot out of the big meetings the last few days. Yesterday was the Washington RLOB (Retirement Line of Business) meeting, where the whole crew here got around a table and the principals talked about trends and occurences in the market. And then today was the whole Mid-Atlantic RLOB meeting, which involved the same crew as yesterday video-conferencing with the folks up in Philly.

When did this become my life, I ask you?

It's lonely in georgetown right now. Any sense of a Group that's Around has disappated and now it's up to those of us that are left to make plans with one another unless we want to spend our evenings feeling lost and alone in Washington. "The District Sleeps Alone" was written during the summer. I can almost guarantee it. Unless DC just becomes this way all year round when you don't have school to go to in the fall...best not to think about that.

It's just too vacant. Sarah Krokey and I see each other all the time, but that just feels so weird compared to the extensive network that Georgetown becomes when school's in. Hell, even the ragtag band of Housing bohemians last summer felt more cohesive and home-y.

I've come to the conclusion that none of us is really going to escape work. Even doing something we love is going to end up taking out 8-9 hour chunks of every weekday. As much as I like a good project here, and I love it when I have piles of work to do, I will never get up for work without bed-abandonment issues and I will always be happy when the GUTS bus drops me back on campus. I stand by, however, my claims that the work-week accentuates the highs of life. Nothing makes weekends more restful, or the lake weekend more priceless, then what the weeks hold.

By the way, I'm staying a full year this coming year. I was toying with the idea of leaving early, because the job felt good and the money was still as much as it ever was to stay a student when even a four class semester in the fall could make it all she wrote for college. But then the financial aid info came in and the package this year was so good, that the words "stay the whole year" came out of Mom's mouth before my own.

I miss a lot of people right now. While that makes it perfect for this stand-alone summer I've crafted for myself, I feel like so many friends are beyond my reach.

This is suddenly shaping up to be the hardest summer I've ever had. And that's only because I'm suddenly living in the world of goodbye. The first few people who left were surprisingly hard, especially Joe Talarico, who some know I didn't really mesh with because I didn't tap into his humor like everyone else seemed to. But then recently, after hanging out a bit more and seeing him really stretch himself for Dream Boy, I really have a lot of love and respect for him. And so to see him go during the World Cup party on Sunday was terrible, and that's after only a little bit of friendship. Sophie I lost as if to thieves in the night and she was someone with whom I had the most natural cadence and rapport I've ever experienced. What about when Philippe goes off, not to be seen until I visit him in London or after that, not until next year. What about when Adam, who has become so much closer just this summer, heads off to New York? What about when Krokey goes to Italy and I lose her warm, cozy friendship right next door? How do I say goodbye to Jojo, if only for a semester, after she has become a surprisingly important person in my life, one of the most important? And for fuck's sake, where do I start with Brian? I've already decided not to waste time with apologies for the time when we parted ways, angrily on at least my part. So instead we grew close again and closer in the course of living together and of course, just as I reach my peak of reliance and vulnerability with him, I have to let him go his own way to find what makes him feel fulfilled. I've been blessed by these people, I really have. For all the times I feel like I lack something, that something has never been friends, thank God. I'm blessed to be able to seek out the people in this world that I can trust and that can trust me, but the blessing, no matter how beautiful or how much I would never give them up, often comes to this curse.

The curse of a goodbye.

Once again, nothing to do at work. From here on out, one can pretty much assume that if there's a post on the blog, it's an unwritten intro that I have little work to do at the office.

Things are shifting, moving, changing shape, shifting focus. I'm finding more and more that I not only want to take more time for myself, but that it's starting to become a requirement. Since I now make an effort to go about on my own without taking the myriad thoughts of everything in which I'm not alone with me, I find that the peace I find there is something I really cherish.

Dreamboy was breathtaking. I've never been so impressed by a show I've seen at Georgetown and I have seen some fantastic theater. But to watch Brian and Adam (and everyone, as it's been said) commit so truly to those characters, that it really put us in this rural Southern town, in the woods while they camped, in the house where the audience was just as haunted as they were, was beautiful. From the moment Brian and Adam looked at each other as they walked on stage, there was this intense chemistry, and an honest acceptance of that chemistry. I had expected this Brokeback-esque story where they come to realize how they feel, but in this, it was like they knew it when they saw each other. Brian's Roy was powerful, and it was the first time that his incredible upkeep of his body really gave everything to the role, because he was believable as perfect to Adam's character, Nathan. I think, though, that my favorite Roy moments were when he enjoyed something honestly, like his beaming smile when they arrived at the indian mound. I could see Brian doing that, in a moment no one saw, where the physical world lifted him up.

Adam was beautiful. I have had the pleasure of working with him many a time now and I've seen power, humor, and intense commitment. But in this show, he was so incredibly fragile and sweet. Like Brian, there were moments when Nathan would smile and I'd melt inside, because it was so beautifully committed.

Cranium with the cast last night was fun, and Sophie and I rocked a pretty sweet connection until Jesse and Philippe pulled away with the win. But hey, Cranium: Primo Edition is HARD.

Alright, work has arrived, so au revoir.

Georgetown makes one cynical about Georgetown.

It's sad, really, but I was just reading my posts on A Kids blog about Georgetown, circa freshman year, and I'm so mystified and excited about every little thing in them.

But after a while, there's always plenty of people that really depress you with their existence, be they overachieving library addicts (not normal like me who stayed there until 2 AM lots of times), toolish prep school kids, or crazy political types. I think I've said it before, but I would never want to date the majority of women at my school. Now Sterling will attest to their attractiveness, but as for personality, some are downright scary. in fact, I think Sterling felt the energy on campus. It's bleak, very bleak, like we've all spent too much time in the world already and we're tired of it and tired is all we ever are, in fact. I can't think of one friend at school who's getting enough sleep.

It's a shame. I miss being bright-eyed and busy-tailed, you know? About lots of things. I mean, I try to just enjoy things as they come right now, but my knee-jerk reaction is the doom and gloom, and I think only a part of that was there in high school.

Anyway, so I've gotten into a pretty good routine now. I'm really starting to love work. I enjoy the large amounts of time after work that I have to myself. And last night, I had my first Tombs outing with the old'uns, which was great because apparently I gave my graduated friend Adam a moment's pause as he tried to figure out what Ian Fahey was doing in the Tombs at this hour...OH! He's 21 NOW! Drunkenness ensues.

So yeah, as I wiped off the rubber stamp at the bus stop this morning, I had to stop and smile, because things are going very well, and that's nice, y'know?

Take a goo-ood look at my face,
You'll see my smiiile looks out of place...

Tonight's the big night, going to the Tombs as a 21-year-old man. 21 years, man. Don't they go by in a blink?

No, actually...I don't feel like I've blazed a fiery path to this point in my life. Did anyone else feel that way? I don't feel like the last 21 years (or like 17 if you want to talk REAL awareness of oneself) have slipped through my fingers, though I have noticed an exponential increase in time elapsed as the years march on. However, even as time slips away ("and leaves you with nothin', mister"), I've noticed that the distance between where I am now and whatever was the last chapter of my life (Kate and I used to refer to the many years within a year) feels broader every go-round. Living in Village A, for instance, seems like a story I could tell now, when it was less than two months ago. Winter's Tale feels like two such seasons have passed since. Much Ado and its attendant situations have acquired the smirking humility I often attribute to high school.

How does this happen? I feel like this could be something unique to me due simply to my ability to become enveloped in the current chapter of life. No matter how much agency I may shirk in the daily goings-on of myself, I definitely frame my world around the current situation.

Pangs suck.

They have very little work for me again, today, and so I'm here, trying to piece things together. I''m turning 21 tomorrow. It's like getting your college acceptance letter. There should be something here. Remember the somewhat shocking silence of the moment that you knew you'd be going to college? There was nothing to it, just something that hadn't been suddenly was and nothing really changed around you, except perhaps a pursuant influx of school colors and flags and hats and shirts, which seem to be desperately addressing that need for some sort of visible shift in one's current life.

Well, I now have a project, and as I am being paid, my conscience is going to make me work for it.

Later y'all.

You know all those posts on this blog where I'd bitch and moan and rant and rave and beat myself down and pull myself up again and then shrug it off and say "That's all"? I stopped doing those a while ago, because I felt like that's all the blog was, especially when Tom told someone that "You should stop by Ian's blog some time, it's like Ian Hates the World. " Now, though, I understand a lot better why I used to do that.

I needed it.

I have gotten to a point in my life where, when I'm unhappy, or stressed more like, and then I get moody, I get down on myself for being moody. Then I get down on myself for being down on myself again. Then I go talk to someone about it, because at least I finally have started doing THAT, but then I get down on myself for talking so much about my problems. Then, once again, I have to chastise the chastising. It goes and goes and I don't know if it stops so much as attention shifts to some new kernel of the whole thing.

Today, for the first time, while I was in my head during my commute, banging on myself because I couldn't let go of thoughts I was having, I heard something completely new from within. I distinctly heard a "Please, stop, no more." I had said it, thought it rather, and there it was. Now, jokes or perhaps concerns about voices in my head aside, I don't know if my reaction to the beating I give myself has ever been anything except for more beatings, but apparently the silent martyr of ego that took all the beatings I've dealt out since I first recognized it couldn't quite take much more.

So when it falls between laying into myself until I beg for mercy and lashing out into a little posting box on the blog, I say let's have a renaissance of Ian Hates the World, because I am NOT laying another hand on me. No more beatings, just lightly trying to figure stuff out.

That being said...

I have trouble existing alone and in the present. I realized the other day that I have a bizarre relationship with mirrors. It's like I check to be sure that I look alright in my clothes and gauge the state of the feral wildthing that is my hair, but I rarely register that what I see is the external packaging of the consciousness I ride out day to day. The other day, when the crowd I went to dinner with all went to a show that I didn't have a ticket to, I walked back to my house and spent more time alone than I had in a long, long time.

Who's surprised in the audience? Anybody? (Ooh, I've missed these little blog shoutouts...) Of course I have trouble. How public am I, right? I love people, I love crowds, I love laughter and parties (that I'm not hosting, mind you) and I love love love my friends. So yes, I spend a lot of time extroverted, despite my capacity for thought. Maybe I need to think more about me, though, nonetheless.

It's amazing, I've known about this problem for a week or so and my first response was to rattle off the me-ness of me: the job, the house, my mom, my friends, the A Kids, my majors, the shows I've been in. But like any resume, the ability of all that to actually tell someone about me is laughable. But this, this blog, without me trying to list everything singular and not invested in someone else, has made me feel better already. I haven't come to much, but that's ok. It's high time I stop seeing my long pensive sessions as a formula with an end result of peace of mind. When I look at the happiest moments of my life, I realize that, at the time, I didn't give them much thought.

Why is this so important to me? Because lately my inability to be alone with me and to see myself as the main character in my own life rather than the funny neighbor in everyone else's, has caused me to strain things in a few relationships. Those two things are somehow related, I'm sure. Then again, I've also done a lot more selfish stuff lately (that's Ayn Rand's selfish for those of you keeping score), trying to keep an eye on what I want and on how important those things I want are in relation to the people around me.

Well, seeing as I just got paid for writing that...I should go.


That's all......it's good to be back.

I want to act.

Not forever, not as the be-all and end-all, but I want to give it a shot. I need to find a way to convince Mom that there is a planned way for me to do this. There is a guy at work who, when I was interviewing, told me that he did an internship like mine and then went and did music for a few years. He came back and got an entry level job at Towers Perrin (which, ps, is where I work now). So, I do this internship, do it well, take a few of the exams and then bang, I have a parachute. I hope that that's enough for my mom, especially since she's now going to community college to get certified in Interior Design.

And all because Pericles in the park was amazing tonight!

I'm back in Harbin for Late Stay housing until we can move into our off-campus townhouse of madness. I love this dorm so much. It's the one that adopted me freshman year, when I couldn't stand my own. When Tom and I came up the elevator, it let someone off on the third floor (which was always a total faux pas, you don't take an elevator to the third) and I felt a pang...that was two (almost three) years ago. When I first got here and was intimidated and found these friends and held on like grim death. The smell is still here, and I like to think it's all of that anticipation, fear and nervousness about finding a place here. Without fail, however, people find their circles and those concerns are left behind along with surplus hangers and the over-zealous name tags on the rooms.

And maybe that's why the smell is so comforting...because it reminds me what it's like to be nervous again, to have more options than I knew what to do with. Even now, I look out of this 7th floor window with a view of the sports complex and the west, where I'll probably catch a few beautiful sunsets and I can't help but think that if I'd lived here freshman year, I'd have a completely different history at Georgetown. I'd have watched the football and lacrosse games, become an avidly spirited kid and probably would have gone out for GUSA (student gov.) or something. Hoya Saxa, hardcore.

I'm not saying I want that parallel universe, but it's just pause-worthy to think of me in this same room two (almost three) years ago, without the piles of crap that comes from moving two guys from an apartment to a dorm room. The really great part is knowing that instead of this topic, this blog would have been about drinking remorse.

Here's to senior year, folks...here's hoping it's as amazing as the last one we had.

I have tried my hardest to keep Ireland in my heart the past few weeks, but naturally, I've let things here get the best of me lately and now it takes a considerable amount of thought to reach the peace I thought I'd brought back from those cliffs for keeps. Instead of revelling in the continued emotions of that last blog, I found myself grimacing at typos and bad grammar, feeling like I sold the moment short when I know I didn't. I wish there was a way to say "God, why am I always my own worst critic?" without the irony. So I think I'll just try to say it less.

I was in the library today trying to find a copy of Faulkner's The Unvanquished when my eyes caught the two bookcases of Faulkner literary analysis and criticism and once again felt confused about whether I ever want to write stuff like that. I decided not to do Honors English because I didn't want to have a guided process wherein I'd produce something hopefully publishable. Fact is, I'd need a really good reason to do it because I've reached a point where tacking Honors on the end of my degrees isn't going to be any more fulfilling. Maybe I'll regret it down the road, which is probably why I tell myself if I want to write something, now I can do it on my own time.

But do I? I mean, the idea of my name on something you can find in the library is kind of cool, but libraries are HUGE...I mean, how much will I really get out of that. I think I can only remember a handful of essays like that that have ever really moved me or impressed me and I can't even remember the names of them. So I'd have to be doing it for the satisfaction, and I'm wondering if being published will give the same jolt as when I say something that really hits home in a classroom setting. I mean, I'll be the first to admit, I get a cocky high when I know I've made a good point in my English classes, and sometimes I get really excited about a big idea in literature, but when someone shows me the grunt work of research, I shy away immediately. And I honestly can't decide if I need to buckle down because I'm a slacker, or if it's honestly not going to make me happy.

You know, I thought I'd made my peace with the quitting thing. I look back at high school and no longer kick myself for quitting Mock Trial (I can't believe I ever kicked myself for that, but I did), because I know I was just trying things. And I know that, in a sense, we're still just trying things, but I just wish I knew whether something was justifiable quitting or just me being lazy.

ARGH! I like books! I like reading! I don't want to pick it apart! I'll talk about it until the cows come home, but don't make me dissect something as beautiful as As I Lay Dying.

So that's that.

Emotionally, I have a limbo on the horizon and I don't know what to do about it. My choices are really limited. I just need to make sure I don't do anything I'll regret or hurt anyone I care about.

This is a time in my life where I am forgiving myself for so many of the beat-downs I've received at my own hands over the years and yet, in some ways, the biggest recurring things that I have are at a sort of nth degree right now.

There are a few instances in which I know what I want...that's something, right?

The world has changed...

That's the only way I feel like I can explain the last three weeks. I'm regularly feeling a peace I have not known, certainly not for a while anyway.

Ireland...so magical. It was so wonderful being in this new place with a whole different feel. I got my usual European willies at being at a place so much older than America will ever feel. Dublin was the epitome of a modern city that at the same time will never lose a certain Victorian sensibility. Thus, it was like the city, the buildings themselves, frowned down upon any modern frivolities and was only soothed by the age-old pastime of "Let's go drink."

Pubs are heavenly. It's not just the booze. It's the warmth, the music. Drinking, not drunkenness, as a pastime. About being in a dim room full of people without feeling predatory vibes. We sat, night after night, with our heavy, filling Guinnesses, a drink you can really feel complete holding, and just chatted and listened to Irish music and ignored whatever world started outside of the pub's threshold.

I rode a horse on an Irish beach. I had a monstrous beast of a Budweiser horse handed over to me, an Irish Draft horse, name o' Fionn. He was honestly the most majestic animal I've ever seen and I fulfilled a movie moment I didn't even know I wanted to fulfill by riding him into the muddy fields and then down the said into the high tide of the Atlantic Ocean. Then, while I looked out, feeling the rhythmic jostle of the horse, watching the sun flick over the ocean, blocked partially by a sleeping hulk of rock in the bay, I reached beyond. I forgot who I was there with, if anyone, where I came from, both geographically and personally. My heart felt ready to burst out of my chest, my happiness with that moment was so powerful.

And then came Dun Aonghasa, the cliffside fort on the tiny island of Inishmore, where a 5 hour bike ride brought us after many a frustrated moment, looking over a dismally beautiful landscape of stone wall after stone wall. Tired, sore and very punchy, four of us ascended the last stretch by foot, up a hill of scattered rocks that led to a fort wall built 4000 years ago, through which the sun blared. When I made it to the door, having pushed my body in order to race up the final incline, I walked into the closest thing to Elysium this world may have to offer. Quiet...unbelievable quiet on a football field sized expanse of walled in land, with the edge of the cliffs on the other side of the field. It was like walking toward the horizon and suddenly attaining it, the way land just ended on that edge, and as I walked toward it, the sky and the Atlantic Ocean before me began to grow, until I saw more sky than I ever believed I had vision. I hit my stomach and crawled forward the last few feet and looked over. Beneath me, the Atlantic's emerald water was crashing into the cliffs, which dropped sheerly from my very face.

I don't know if I will ever feel so powerfully moved in my life. It was so unbelievably beautiful, so perfectly majestic. That's exactly it. Words I don't use regularly, except in talks about ancient kings and ancient courts and everything ancient, nothing modern. It was so fantastically epic to be there, seeing the land slope down to the left to the tiny villages and smaller crashing waves, while the cliffs to the right, more jagged and rocky, seemed to indicate an even further place whose terrible, beautiful violence was not for human experience or perhaps that they were there just to be seen from where we were, so we could watch the surf crash two stories high against them, the thundering sound a part of the aforementioned silence, as though any natural sound IS silence. I don't like pictures of me from those 30 minutes or so, because I don't like to think "Oh, I was standing there...I was wearing that shirt...I looked like that" I was spiritual from the moment we entered, I left my body, my age, my experience at the rocky entrance and glided over that ancient ground, which existed in no time but its own, which I became a part of, albeit briefly.

Things like that will change you. It changed me.

More later...

This one's for you Ali-girl...I have way too much work tonight, but I'm also at a good halfway point.

I'm FREEEEEEEEE!!! Winter's Tale is over and I would like to say it is the single most fulfilling thing I have EVER been a part of. I would apologize to people involved in my other shows, but this just felt so much more epic than anything else I've been in. It's not because of the Gonda. It's not because of the Gonda. It's not because of the Gonda.

It's because of the Gonda.

I'm sorry, but having a "real" theater is an amazing addition to campus and I really think it was that ability to walk onto the apron of a stage and deliver a soliloquy that really just took me to a whole new level. It made me think of Milton and that undeniable rush we all got when we walked out in green tights on our legs and grins on our faces. In fact...that moment might tip the fulfillment scales. But we sense a theme, no?

The life plan question gets harder...and yet not.

The Winter's Tale cast really got to me. I think doing karoake and two champagne parties and having a set post-show song ("millennium" by robbie williams) just put me in such a happy place when I went to calls. I miss it, but I'm glad it was temporary, because a) I'm free! and b) I like memories. We know this.

I'm single again. Cat and I are fine and actually wonderful friends again. That's all that's fit to print. Actually, I just want to say, I'm very happy to have someone to be that honest with.

I have a position and title in the world! I am now the Associate Producer of the Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society, which makes me somewhat of a Vice President and in charge of club morale. I plan parties, I plan the Orientation Show, I plan the club events. I basically make people happy, which is what I love.

With my hot little passport now in hand, I am ready to go to Ireland. I'm so excited to let go of things around here for a while because this last month has been INTENSE. So here's to getting the last of this work done and spending next week reveling in the wonders of a Magical Isle.

Follow Sterling's lead, take road trips. Not to me necessarily (though that's also TOTALLY acceptable), but definitely take them. I loved mine last year and if I didn't want to try something new, I'd be surfing Southern couches all next week myself.

And so Good Night...

I'm torn as to what to write, so I'll hit both.

In terms of the hard facts, The Winter's Tale is kicking my ass. Seriously, I've never had such a "Well, fuck it" attitude towards class as I do right now. Probably not the best time, what with me trying to figure out what Honors Theses I'm going to pursue (having now almost agreed not to try one for each major...oh, no wait, there's my ego flaring up again) and the English one being due at the end of the month. Not sure what I'd even write about...the Reconstruction of English History through Renaissance Drama? The Inherent Need for Instruction in the Reading of Faulkner? Man, those sound good, huh? Yeah, too bad all it proves is that I'm still brilliant at bullshit. All hail the king.

But anyway, The Winter's Tale is amazing. Since it's with the Theater Program, as opposed to the student groups that I normally act with, the budget is ridiculous and so we have amazing sets, gorgeous costumes and incredible special effects. Oh, and the acting's good too...whatever. No, seriously, it's dramatically intense and I'm really excited about it going up this week and next....hint hint. I know, it's a ridiculously long way, but I still entertain foolish ideas that I don't go to school so far away from everyone. So yeah, I'm excited, especially because 11 members of my family are coming on Saturday...I'm still amazed at the support they've given me for my shows.

Things I'm dealing with right now: exhaustion. I was absolutely passing out at a party Saturday night from very little to drink, purely because I've just been running myself ragged over this play.

future, I have to call back a woman who's supposed to be representing my interests with Towers Perrin, an actuarial firm...sigh. It's hard to be friends with so many theater people who see something like doing this job as a sell-out. I honestly don't know what purer, more individual job I'd be giving up. Acting? I can't deal with the lack of stability, not as the basis for my life. I enjoy it now without worrying about it being the only way to pay my bills. Teaching? Hmmm, maybe. One of my cast-members, Brian, who graduated our senior year of high school, is now a fourth-grade teacher. The stories he tells really drains away the cynicism that seems to coat everything like a layer dust here at Georgetown. I don't know what it is about being here, but it's so devoid of big ideas sometimes. It's like we've collected all of the people who have been fucked over, be it by their government, their political party, their parents, their general ideals. Is that just Georgetown? I hope so, because if that's the state of America or even just American higher education right now, then I might honestly start crying.

I'm so tired of the sell-out debate within myself. It's like I feel like showing the world I'm conflicted about it makes me feel like I'm showing everyoen that I have a good heart being repressed by the system. It's not true. Frankly, I haven't found what it is that I feel like I NEED to do yet. So I'm going to do what I can until I do. If you have great ideas and great dreams and a drive to do one particular thing, for god's sake, do it. Good for you, honestly. But leave me alone if I haven't figured it out yet. I guarantee everyone that loves me and worries about me putting all my potential to good use that when I find that thing, I will drop everything that isn't important.

Writing? Most definitely.

By the way, my Faulkner class is both inspiring, fascinating and, as you might have noticed, slightly liberating in terms of my writing. I'm not trying to emulate, but I trust that people will follow my ideas when I jump around.

Oh, damn it, the crazy security lady who works outside of my Residence Hall Office is spraying the air freshener again...she's NUTS.

Anyway, I've got to reread the Quentin chapter of The Sound and the Fury, so I'm gonna go do that. Take it easy everyone and Happy Valentine's Day to all my southern girls.

This is about when I write my yearly musings on what home is, how that definition changes all the time...or maybe it just changed the once and I keep talking about it.

This trip home was wonderful. I loved being in Georgia again, first of all. For those of you who still call Georgia and specifically Alpharetta home, and who find the latter tedious, yuppy and mind-erasingly boring, have a heart, because even a trip to Publix made me feel all warm inside, and maybe that's something you should envy about me.

The buzzword this year: drama. I'm not going into specifics...I'm not going into specifics...I'm not going into specifics. Ok, that wasn't for the reading audience; that was for me. As I realized more than ever this break, I talk a lot and sometimes about things I should keep close to the vest. So I'm gonna err way on the side of caution and say the buzzword was drama. Now, using drama like that sometimes connotates overblown or unnecessarily public events. I don't intend this. The trip was just dynamic. And for all of us that love stepping back sometimes to see the A Kids as something almost anthropological, it was pretty intense.

But like I said twice already, don't apologize for stupid things.

A whale shark is a big big animal...two whale sharks make me make me like a two-year-old with my mouth gaping.

Rag on the team all you want...that punt fake was a shot to the gut.

Joe, Thanks always for the place to stay and, more importantly, for the endless rides everywhere we go. Part of that thank you is for shuttling me around. The rest is for the conversations we've had whilst making our way from one event to the next, be it making plans on our way to something, or doing an analysis on the way home, it's something I really enjoy.

Dan, Well, twice in one year is a little better than normal. I agree with your post.

Kate, thanks for the New Years couch talk...and the really sweet things you said; way to pump up the ego.

Hanley, I love the gift and I can't wait to watch it...here's hoping someday you'll get a DVD from me of something. I missed seeing you, darlin', you be in touch, y'hear?

If I didn't single you out, don't think it's because you're less important...that's silly and its something I would do. Y'all know how much I love you and I wish you could see me smilin' when I talked to kids at Georgetown and my family about coming down. Right off the bat, we all still fit and I get so caught up in how natural it feels to be with you guys that I am a little shellshocked when the final hugs come at the end of the trip.

Sterling, there's a quote from the play Cat's doing that goes something like this. "A true friend is one soul in two bodies."

Boy, oh boy...