The End of an Era

I want to start of by just saying, wow! I can't believe the time has come to end a chapter of my life and begin a new one. This chapter of my life began four years ago when I was merely a high school graduate. What was coming next? Would I go to college for academics or baseball? Would I stay pre-med or change my mind? Graduating from Baylor never crossed my mind as a kid; as a matter of fact, Baylor was not even on my college radar. However, I'm incredibly thankful that I decided on going to Baylor. Well here I am four years later, not following a dream, but chasing my passion. In the Fall I will begin my studies at Southern Methodist University, studying Modern Europe.

Everything that I have learned over the past four years has changed me and shaped the man I am today. I've found out who true friends are, what love is, what real hardship is, and how to overcome the toughest of times. A little story exemplifies how much I have changed in such a short time, as well as how much growing is still ahead of me. I recently reconnected with an old high school friend. I remember her as being nice, but she was of the religious, goody-goody, type that a high school boy would never really consider dating. Well, time changes these things and I learned how special her qualities are. Of course, being the "jump the gun" kind of guy I am, I asked her on a date. We had a wonderful time at my favorite restaurant and hanging out on a rooftop terrance in Fort Worth. I never would have imagined feeling that kind of connection with someone four years ago. Once again, this story taught me something about myself. One, that's the kind (not THE girl, but the kind of) girl that's what I want and need. Two, I have grown so much as a person and being with her helped me to realize who I have become; a respectful, kind, gentleman. While that sounds pretty arrogant, I'm proud that I can claim this about myself. So, here we are. The end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. Here's to the next years of this life I have come to love!

Updated plans...

Wow! The last Fall semester of my undergraduate career is quickly coming to an end. Time has been racing, so what have I been up to? Besides the sad ending to the world series, a club baseball team of my own, and the typical school work I have had the opportunity to stop and reflect on who I am and who I want to be. Many of you know that my whole life has been a dream of becoming a doctor for our military, God bless those brave men, but I spent the whole summer reevaluating that decision. As a result I did not apply for medical school this time around. As of now I am looking into graduate school for my passion, history. The whole world is out there for me to travel and study. I'm still young so why sit around and start my career now? I'm looking to take the year off before attending graduate school. The idea of this year off is to create a story and do my own personal research. Living for one year without any plans just mixing with people and hearing their stories will provide me with a better understanding of the human element and also some good perspective. I look forward to graduating this May and beginning my year of living with my main bro and learning who we all are.

Also make sure to check out the new blog co-written with The Wing Expert

IT'S TIME

It's baseball time to be honest but I have taken advantage of the 'creative' minds working in PR and advertising for the Rangers. It's time for me to get back to blogging. A lot is in the near future, what with baseball, stories, and dare I say love. Just pulling your chain but I had you all worried.

An ad fontes, if you will

As many of you know I am studying abroad in the land of the Dutch, the Netherlands, Maastricht to be exact. While I have had long weekends to do travelling and go on a certain number of adventures including nights of quite epic proportions I have had the chance to stop and reflect on myself among others. Now I have met some wonderful people on this venture that I may otherwise never have met while at Baylor and for that I am thankful. Also thanks to a certain someone, who has had previous mention on this site, most of the group has an idea of me and for that I carry a rather perplexing, somewhat interesting, reputation. Not to say that is a bad thing but I haven't been the nicest of guys during certain parts of my career. And so as things go I met someone, and while I'm not the one to believe in love at first site and other romantic ideas of that sort, and I developed a "crush" on her. Now that comes with it's own problems as she has a "significant other," to whatever extent you are allowed to use your own imagination. As the story goes we had become close through our conversations and we entered what can be called as the French say a drôle de guerre, or "phony war." History joke... meaning nothing was happening, just a build up. Much to my expectations when it came time to discuss what to do about this "forbidden love," we logically decided that nothing should come of it as she is involved and I had still been experiencing a degree of heart-break, see my other blog... So as I sit today I suddenly realized that falling for someone is not something that I have sought to do, as a matter of fact, historically, I would want the opposite. Thus today marks the end of my Middle Ages or medieval period and the beginning of my own ad fontes or "back to the source." A new era in which I am to be reborn and strive to reject the past era and return, if I may, to Classical me, a time when my mind and body were of utmost importance. This new "Renaissance of Me" as it's called, will not put me through any suffering, simply waiting for time to happen, but to be given a rebirth and the chance to truly live! This new way and outlook on life is inspired as one could guess, from the Italian Renaissance, but mine should prove to be much more interesting as I will bring about a new era, of course a slightly narrower scale than that of the Italians, but more a more important one to me personally. To wrap up this brief on the state of me, you can all expect a little something new to come, a boost of confidence and an air of elegance and appreciation for that of which I am capable.

One Mistake

One mistake, I make one mistake and I'm the bad guy. My bad I said wander instead of wonder, but whatever, get over it.

Library: Study or Social?

Being such an outstanding student, I often find myself seeking refuge in the library. You might wander to yourself why I would write such a statement. To fully understand you need further back story. When the confines of my house become too loud to maintain the proper mindset required to read history or solve organic chemistry questions, I go to the library where one would imagine to find a nice and quiet sanctuary. This however is not the case. The antagonist that I am faced with, loudness, has followed me to the library. In this instance the annoying laughter and murmurs come from Baylor's asian population. I understand that they are the best students through tactics of focus acquired in their communist homelands, but most of us need peace and quiet to study. They seem to believe that the freedom they gained by moving to America includes the right to be a nuisance in what is a "monastery quiet" floor of the library. They fail to comprehend that this is study time, not social hour. While in a state of tremendous turmoil, my mind began to drift and I may be taking this to the extreme, but I can understand why we dropped the bomb.

My Absence, Updates and Pitching?

First and foremost I would like to extend my utmost apology for my lack of correspondence over the previous months. For those of you who have never been in my situation I hope to gain your understanding in the succeeding sentences. The life of a pre-med biology and history major is not one of leisure so I have found myself in the library late at night, yes, including the weekends. It seems that there is little time to play now that I have so many difficult courses to pursue and conquer. I know what you're thinking, is this not the great thinker who has dominated the classroom with little study, relying strictly of superior mental skills and perhaps good looks (flirting with professors works, btw)? It is in fact, the very same guy who has awed audiences for years, however I have decided to focus deeply on my work as I prepare for wherever my road takes me. It is my deepest hope that I have appeased you all with this explanation.

Now for a quick update! Besides spending my nights studying I have found some time to have some fun. I can't be expected to study all the time. Apart from study breaks with a little senorita who you may have heard about, I have been busy with running club baseball and the start up of flag football. The first game was when the NIM took on Alexander the Great. After valiant efforts from the boys of Alexander, the NIMs (me) took the field with a 24-0 victory. You're probably thinking, "wow you had 4 touchdowns? You really are the star of the team!" Unfortunately, I only had one catch for 8 yards due to a lack of communication with my quarterback. I did however have an amazing catch in the corner of the endzone in which both feet were inbounds while maintaining complete possession. Too bad the officiating crew called me out of bounds before the catch, claiming that I could not be the next one to touch the football in question. I am proud of the NIM as we are 1-0 and look to take on the Penland Pigskin Posse next week.

Now for pitching. It has come to my attention that a certain someone will be giving pitching lessons to one of the youth. While some may doubt this new found coach and his pitching skills, I predict that he will give useful knowledge to this young slugger. You see, I believe in an old saying that goes, "those who can't, teach." If this holds true, someone will make an excellent coach. Lastly, I would like to comment of this "double" down the "line." I remember crisply a bloop single dropping into left field where the left fielder, who's mind capacity can be compared to that of a juvenile australopithecus afarensis, kicked the ball around allowing the batter to cruise into second base.

I leave you with this final thought. 1 in 8 women will someday suffer from breast cancer. I urge you to do all you can to promote research by joining local events such as the Race for the Cure and giving Yoplait yogurt tops to a lovely ZETA.

Thank you and God bless