Thanksgiving

For the first time ever all ten kids were home for Thanksgiving. That may seem surprising, but when the baby was born my older brother was already in college, and he always spent Thanksgiving with family on the East coast. Last year, his first year out of school, I was in Samoa. I must admit it was nice to have everyone home for the holidays. It's amazing how easy it is to slip into old routines with family. If you know me, you know that as a rule I don't watch much TV. Yet over the course of the past few days I watched quite a bit of football. Part of it is a feeling of wasting time whenever I "veg in front of the box." But with family, it never feels like that.

Thanksgiving will most likely end up being the one holiday that brings us all together again. Christmas will as well, but it's harder to coordinate with Mass. Christmas is more of a religious holiday and so church is a priority. Plus it can fall anytime during the week. Thanksgiving is always a four day weekend, making it easy to predict and plan.

Wet puppy

That's pretty much how I felt by the time I made it back to my car after today's game of ultimate. Yet despite all of that, if I had the chance I would be out there again right now. I miss playing ultimate. I don't care if I was soaking wet from the incessant drizzle and covered in grass and mud...I had fun today! One of my roommates doesn't like to break a sweat and so refuses to play spots. I just don't understand that. I love the tired feeling you get after a hard workout; digging deep and pushing yourself. What I hate is feeling is feeling out of shape so that my body doesn't want to respond the way that I want it to. I think I might have to start running occasionally in addition to swimming. Or maybe a track workout. For some odd reason I'd much rather do sprints than run distance.

Rain

It's not that I don't like the rain. It's more that it's very inconvenient for it to be raining so much right now. I bought a new mountain bike earlier this week and was really looking forward to trying it out on some of the trails around Houston but no. The rain has put a quick stop to that. It's not that it has been raining non-stop, but it's been raining enough to keep the trails muddy, and riding muddy trails equals ruts which equals not good. So instead I've had to keep busy in other ways; like hanging out with my sisters, watching the new Bourne movie (finally!!!), attempting to go to a Rice football game only to have the rain postpone it near the end of the first quarter, catching up with friends I haven't seen in a while, and curling up with a good book on the couch. Being grown-up still scares me, but I am also beginning to appreciate just how much fun it can be.

Little Sister

One of my younger sisters moved into her dorm room this afternoon. That was just weird. I know that she's not little anymore, but I just can't believe that she's old enough to be in college. For that matter I can't believe that I'm old enough for her to be in college. It was also somewhat strange to be back on campus, watching everyone move in, and knowing that I won't be going back as a student. Watching all the freshmen walking around campus trying to orient themselves and parents investigating everything to ensure that their little darlings will be comfortable took me back to my first day at Rice. I was so nervous and scared, with no clue what I was doing. I've changed a lot. I hope that in four years all these young kids will look back at the beginning of O-week and realize that college is an awesome experience. I hope they have as much fun as I did.

Weekends

During the week I don't do much besides swim, work, drive, and sleep. My weekends however, look like they will be a lot more fun. Not having homework problems to do or tests for which to study makes it so much easier to relax and just do whatever. Friday night I went to an Astros game with a group of Rice friends. Things are really going to be different after Biggio retires at the end of this year. I remember going to games with my dad and older brother when I was in first and second grade...watching Biggio and Bagwell play. At one point I had a ball signed by all the Astros. I have no clue where it is now.

Saturday morning was spent running errands, which did include a stop at Borders. Books and shoes are my weaknesses. I already have to buy (or build) another bookshelf for my room. I spent the rest of the day playing in a hat tournament. I seriously almost died. It had to have been one of the hottest days of the summer, and with no cloud coverage for most of the day. I felt as though I were running with an elephant on my chest. Add to that the fact that I've started swimming in place of running and I am actually somewhat sore right now. It was so much fun though. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about ultimate. I know that I won't be joining a club team this year, but I really do enjoy playing. The problem is that it's much more fun when you're actually in shape and in practice so I'll have to find a way to make that work. After the games were over I stopped by a friend's apartment to say hi. I didn't plan on staying for long because I was quite nasty from the day. I didn't think much about it cuz the guy is practically my older brother. I've known him since I was 3 1/2, and so I was just planning to chill with his wife and his younger sister who was also hanging out at his place. Well, they didn't bother to tell me that it also happened to be poker night...yeah they just left that little detail out until a couple guys showed up at the door. Of course at this point they wouldn't let me leave because they wanted another player for the game. I was not ok with this. It's pretty bad when you know that you don't smell too good. To make a long story short I ended up borrowing some clothes and showering there so that I could stay and learn how to play Texas Hold'em. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and I probably could have placed higher than third if I hadn't gotten impatient at around midnight and decided I just wanted to go home.

Today was also jam-packed. I got to church early because a friend and I wanted to try to join the choir. I've wanted to join for the past four years, but because of the car situation I haven't actually done so. As of this morning however I am now a member of the Annunciation choir. It's "off-season" now so we're just singing hymns, but come Advent we should be starting back up with the Propers. I think we're also going to try to get some more enthusiasm going for Polyphony. After Mass a large group of us went out to breakfast. There is no parish hall, which makes it somewhat difficult to meet a lot of people at church, but this breakfast group is a ton of fun. I went last year once, but now that I have a car I should be going much more regularly. It's a whole mixture of people- from a retired history professor to little kids. After breakfast I went to a semi-housewarming party and re-watched the second Borne movie. Now I have to go see the third one. The remainder of the afternoon was dedicated to a nice long nap before heading over to another friend's house for some fresh grilled fish which were the product a deep sea fishing expedition yesterday. And now, I am ready for bed. I really don't want to go to work tomorrow, and I definitely don't want to get up at 5:15 to swim in the morning. Why am I doing this to myself?

Diversity and Inclusion

Today we had what BP likes to call "D&I Day." Is is basically an excuse to have free food all day long and bring in speakers who talk about various diversity or inclusion issues. The first speaker today was talking about the need to respect and love ourselves before we can respect and love others. She went on about commonality and looking beneath the surface blah blah. I could understand the point she was trying to make, but it still seemed like there was this huge part that was missing. The whole thing was approached from a purely human perspective. It just seemed like it was more about "feeling good" and "being happy" for yourself. Including others, and celebrating differences were good things to do because of what they did for you. I can't remember off the top of my head what the four major themes were but one was "We are all similar and we are all different." Another one was "Communicating with compassion." Both of those are good, but as with everything else she was saying, they revolved around self. She recommended taking some time in the morning to "listen to your heart and connect with your inner being." It is all so close, and yet at the same time so far away from hitting the mark. Unless God is the center of our lives we will not be able to achieve this inclusion and understanding of others. When you examine it from a Catholic point of view, all the pieces fit. We are all the same. We were all created in the image and likeness of God Himself. We all have eternal souls. But at the same time we are all different. Each human being is unique. We all have free will. When we look at this world keeping in mind this fact that we are all children of God, and when we see in other people God Himself, it follows that we will treat others with compassion.

We are faced with many social problems in our society, but they are impossible to cure without knowing the cause. The root cause is that we have taken God out of our lives. We are trying to address the symptoms without acknowledging the disease itself. It is as though a doctor were handing a band aid to a patient who has been in a horrible car accident. It might cover a scratch but it won't do much good beyond that.

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