Life in Hindsight, with A Diploma

I really have to work on writing more often than once a month. Too much is happening to miss all this.

Anyway. Life always gets in the way of writing about life. It's annoying, but necessary, I suppose. Since I wrote last, lots of crazy things have happened. Spring weekend, for starters. I can't believe they convinced me to be on that team. It was a blast, but it really killed to have those practices every day, busting my way through hours of ridiculous dancing, all for a fourth place finish. Someday, I'll be over that. Got to know the guys a lot better, oddly enough. The Meehl twins were so great to hang out with...they easily had the most fun of anyone. Found out I'm really good at rolling an egg with my face, and that Neugums is deathly allergic to such a sport.

And oh, the spring cold that I got for all my stress and sleep depravation. The bane of my existence right through to graduation week. Though, I guess stress-induced fasting and sleep loss will do that to a person. That was a pretty helpless week of worrying, cramming, planning, embarrassing, and crawling my way through life. I'm not sorry it's all over, but it was still a crazy ride.

Then graduation came. It really hasn't hit me yet that I walked across that stage, and that all my hard work has paid off. I have an undergraduate degree. I don't think I've actually said those words out loud yet. It's still too early to think about. It was never about this degree, anyway. College was just a given, for me. This is what you do after high school, and you excel. That's just what you do. Didn't have too much to question there.

Well, guess it worked. I am still getting "I'M GOING TO CREIGHTON!!" realizations in waves, and it's kind of nice. Tempered by the fact that I don't have an apt. or a job, but that can be fixed. This school is going to have an impact on the rest of my LIFE. Forget the 3 to 1 ratio (as if my friends would let me), my career is going to go places because of whatever it was that got me into that school.

It's great to enjoy it all a little, which is a big change for me. That's been the theme of the massive growing pains I went through this semester. I look back on what I was when I got to Concordia, and I hardly recognize him now. Do I like the new me? Partly. Life moved too fast to really get a handle on it, but I'm learning as I go, and that's all I can do.

Here's to an awesome four years.

Playing Musical Chairs with My Future...And Winning...

(Thought I posted this a month ago. Oops. Sort of ironic, though.)

Holy shit, what a ride.

An awful, scary, intimidating, frustrating, time-consuming, insurmountable, non-motivating, painful ride.

And, totally in spite of myself, I did it.

This should have gone up a while ago, but I've never been one to party too hard about too many things. Quiet contentment will probably always be my style. But every once in a while, that doesn't quite do it all justice.

I always knew getting through graduate school apps was probably going to be one of the hardest things I'd ever do, but somehow I didn't let that stop me from just completely procrastinating my way through the whole damn thing. I didn't work fast because I wanted to stay sane. But I couldn't help but lose my mind while everything got done so slowly. Somehow, even though I let every deadline go down to the last minute, jumping to the next spot just like musical chairs (and literally, I suppose, beating other people to a last remaining seat) everything worked out.

The reasons to be happy are countless. I mean, let's face it - there's no justifiable reason a guy with NO previous interviewing experience, NO idea what he really wanted out of this intview, with NO planning for bad weather on this trip, should have ever survived it, let alone done well. Got the acceptance letter within a week. Mission accomplished.

Now, the excitement of that moment has started to fade back into mass-panic, as I begin a new level of challenges (appartment, job, roommate, commute, LOANS, classes, new social group, HOMEWORK, technically being closer to family - ugh- ). Sure, there's going to be some good to come out of it. I don't know how it'll go, but I can't quit now. The door is open, and I've got to keep running.

On the Record (but not really)

Occasionally, there are things I wish I could just say and be done with. Things that would probably make life a little more awkward than it already is. Sentences that wouldn't really change things, but might open a few peoples' eyes. The kind of things that, since you can't say them, they just grow in your chest, like that feeling you get when you're late, and you miss the last exit you could've used on the freeway, in massive traffic, and you know there's no way in HELL you're going to be able to turn the car around, go back, and lead life as if you'd made that choice a mile ago. So, like the necessary screams of road rage after such an event, I feel the need to let out a little frustration in a place that only I am really present.

Big reason for all of this is my brilliant stupid "mature" decision to avoid the idea of relationships all semester. People say it's mature because they either envy the stranglehold I want to keep on my emotions, or they mean "pathetic." Either way I don't really care. A 10 year old would look like an adult on this campus. But that's not nice to say, I suppose.

It was actually an easier choice than I would have thought - once the option to date is gone, so is the temptation to worry/socialize/bend over backwards/try, or just generally give a flying shit. But that, of course, doesn't keep amazing people from just walking right through my life whether I have personal rules or not.

Long story short, I know a girl. And she is beautiful, smart, funny, and clever. I knew I could have loved that girl from the first week I met her. And while you are in fact witnessing the most I will ever emotionally express this side of a soccer field, yes, I get it - none of this writing matters.

So why bother? There's something strangely satisfying about writing something where it's public enough, but knowing that no one will ever really figure it out. I get to keep my dignity, and she gets to go on living her life, without having to think about any of this.

I'll probably never see her again after this year - actually, I only wish that - there's a very good chance that I will, but sitting there and watching her smile, or laugh, while I pretend I only like her, is sometimes too much.

In any event, this post was for me. It's also for a girl, who will never read this, see it, or know about it. But that won't stop me from admiring the hell out of who she is, or appreciating her as the friend she is.

God Works In Blatantly Obvious Ways

Life is weird. Very weird.

I've got this sneaking suspicion that God hates complacency. He's always in the business of shaking things up and messing with me the second things seem average, mundane, or even hopelessly impossible. It happened multiple times as a kid moving place to place, and it seems to be happening more frequently now.

They aren't all bad changes, exactly, but wow it makes things frustrating. At least, I used to think so. For 22 years I've tried to figure out what the heck was going on and why things weren't going my way....but I failed to take into account that I'm a stubborn jackass. Tossing that little variable into things forces me to realize something new:

Life may be weird, but it isn't random. And it certainly isn't impossible.

(AHHHHHH! Pathetically optimistic sentences! Get it off! Get it off!!!!)

Sorry about that. Anyway, I've had to come to terms with a lot this semester. Most of it I brought on myself. Setting insane goals for pretty much everything and then not doing what I had to do to achieve them? Yeah, that's me. And yes I DO in fact still expect to succeed at all those insane goals. (Shut up, it makes sense.)

Perfect example, as well as the reason I'm writing all this: Grad school apps. I put them off. I didn't look into what other schools wanted me to have done (observation, classes, etc). I didn't care. I procrastinated.

And remember, this is my future we're talking about here. Even that didn't get me motivated. It's actually pretty incredible to look back at that mess....kind of like driving right past a really nasty pileup you just missed totalling your car in.

I used to think that God didn't want me in this as a career. Sometimes I even entertained the thought that all those people who made fun of me and wanted me to be a pastor were God's less-than-cool way to nudge me towards the sem. Now, I couldn't be more confident that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

He kept me alive on a 2.5 hour-stretch of I-80, on a Friday, at 6am in a blizzard, through 8am rush hour traffic, in Omaha, while other people were sliding off and crashing all around me.

God, You showed Your hand. And frankly, it was what I needed more than anything.

Things You Would Punch A Random Stranger For Asking You...and other life updates

Well I was supposed to keep up with one of these a week, and sure enough life got in the way. So you get two this week, most likely summing up this first week of being back in Seward in the next message. In the meantime, here's some stolen randomly inspired procrastinational brilliance as I wax nostalgic over an 'about me' list, which I thought had fallen out of the college consciousness after we did like 2000 of them over the last 2 years. Oh well...lol

They Call Me: Schmidty, Joelseph (which is a terrible irony, actually)
- Birthplace: Cambridge, NE
- B-day Month: October
- Current Location: My desk
- Eye Color: Kind of a trainwreck between blue and green
- Hair Color: brownish blondish...again, trainwrecks abound on my face.
- Height: 6'2'' and holding, hopefully
- Righty Or Lefty: Right, unless I'm kicking things. Then it really doesn't matter.
- Zodiac Sign: Keep looking it up, keep forgetting.
- Shoes You Wore Today: My Adidas, tho they may be ruining my feet...
- Your Strengths: Listening, being logical, starting creative stuff without knowing how to finish it
- Your Perfect Pizza: At least three kinds of meat, whole tomatoes, tons of cheese, all with some way of keeping the onions and peppers crunchy-ish.
- Your Thoughts First Waking Up: Dubler, stop calling hunter. He can't/refuses to reach for the phone, which is still conveniently placed right by my head so that it'd be closer for him TO reach it.
- Your Bedtime: Last night, 1. And well earned, I think.
- Your Most Missed Memory: Tie: the last time that the pitch was lit up by heavy lights, with that weightless feeling you can only get from a mix of sweat, endorphins, joy, and competitive fire. The other would be the first time we went to Roger's to watch football. Hard to top those friends, and Nebraska won that day.
- Pepsi Or Coke: Pepsi...then Pepsi again.
- McDonald's Or Burger King: Right now BK has the better dollar menu.
- Single Or Group Dates: Hah! (better in stereo, courtesy of Hensch).
- Best Friend: Hard to come by, harder to keep.
- Boyfriend/Girlfriend: A mythical creature that would only arrive as a precursor to the apocalypse...or a general change in my luck.
- Adidas Or Nike: Adidas cleats, but their shoes are sort of pissing me off as of late...
- Chocolate Or Vanilla: Ice cream? Vanilla. In general? Chocolate.
- Cappuccino Or Coffee: Blech.
- Smoke: Not now, not ever. It's hard enough to run as is...
- Cuss: Am I at home? Then not really. Am I at school? Um...
- Sing: Nope
- Have A Crush: Outgrew those a long time ago.
- Do You Think You've Been In Love: Honestly, no.
- Do you want to go to college: Kinda late to turn around now....
- Where: The build-up over the sarcasm you are probably expecting here is so great that I'm not sure text can actually do it justice. But if I had to do it all over again, I'd still be here.
- Like High School: Sans Soccer, no.
- Want To Get Married: Ironically, more than I want most things.
- Believe In Yourself: In my ability to screw up? That's unwavering. In my ability to fix my screw-ups? Almost as much.
- Motion Sickness: Bring it on.
- Think You're Attractive: Haha, no. But Husker red makes everything a little bit better.
- Get Along With Your Parent(s): In a very, very odd way, yes.
- Like Thunderstorms: Coolest thing this side of July 4th.
- Play An Instrument: I pretend to play the guitar, and I destroy the Rock band guitar...for whatver that's worth (besides getting friends to brag and setting the bar too high...dubler, this is all your fault :P).
- Country/Place You Would Most Like To Visit: Anywhere in Europe
I n t h e p a s t m o n t h . . .
- Drank Alcohol: Yep.
- Smoked: Not a chance.
-Done A Drug: No
- Had Sex: No. I wonder who actually freely admits that or just lets people know for the first time by using one of these things...
- Gone To The Mall: No.
- Made Homemade Cookies: Made, no. Eaten, most definitely.
- Gone Skinnydipping: Have you seen the temperature outside?
- Dyed Your Hair: Nope.
- Stolen Anything: Probably some internet at some point...
H a v e y o u e v e r . . .
- Been Caught, You Know: No, wait...what're you trying to ask, nameless quiz asker-person? You've already asked if I'm in love and if I've had sex...you're going to draw the line now?
- Stripped For Someone: See what I mean? Shameless. And no...that's retarded.
- Done Something Really Kinky: No. Also, I hate you.
- Been Called A Tease: Maybe once. But probably by a girl I would never date.
- Gotten Beaten Up: No.
- Shoplifted: My 'go big or go home' reflex hasn't ever kicked in during that sort of situation, so no.
- Changed Who You Were To Fit In: Yeah, probably when I was younger. And I hated myself for it.
- Age You Hope To Be Married: I'll probably feel too young to get married until it actually happens. Unless it happens very late in my life. Which probably won't happen. So, there ya go.
- Thought About How You Want To Die: In a blaze of glory against a million zombies, or at the very least doing something to save somebody else....regardless, anything that doesn't involve alzheimer's. That shit scares me.
- Given Anyone A Bath? Probably my kid brothers back when they were barely old enough to sit up.
-Bungee Jumped? Someday....
- Made Yourself Throw Up? No, I'm trying to GAIN weight.
- Made Yourself Cry To Get Out Of Trouble? Ha, they never would have bought that.
- Actually Seen Your Crush Naked? Crushes are for 13 year old girls and the Hulk...with completely different definitions.
- Cried When Someone Died? Just enough.
- Fallen For Your Best Friend? Yeah, I think so.
- Been Rejected? I have it nailed down to the week when it will happen, despite my best efforts to the contrary.
- Rejected Someone? Yeah.
- Used Someone? Probably not
- Done Something You Regret? There are also a few things I didn't do that I regret.

Sarcastic Resolutions and Football Withdrawl

Another year, another chance to look for motivation. I've often found it easy to look back and think, "I could have really worked harder that semester, gotten an A in (insert impossible class), or spent more time on securing my future through some other networking means." Then, I realize how much the year really takes out of me. Couldn't have tried much harder in Genetics, still got a B. Couldn't have tried harder for several other things either, but that's the way it went. All in all, it's only worth looking at as a 'bad' semester if I'm willing to work on what didn't work. Otherwise, the status quo must not have been bad enough to foster change, right? Be as upset as you want, but fix it. That seems to be the way I'm wired. I've just let myself go lately, haven't been accountable, and it shows.

This whole graduate school admissions wrestling match has really pushed me to the limit. Hopefully someday I can sit back and laugh (or at least cringe) at how I got by, and can really look at all the things I did that kept me from getting through more easily...but for now, it's just insane. Everywhere I turn, something isn't done right, or won't be in on time, or can't be good enough to get me noticed by these admission people. My biggest hope is that they're easier on me than I am on myself...since I haven't met a single person who has ever been harder on me, I might actually have a shot...who knows?

Really, I'm trying to write something optimistic, but it always comes out sounding so hollow. There's a really good chance that I won't be in school a year from today. Scary thought, actually. I won't be anywhere near the concept of 'on my own', but still - the fact that loans will be due, with the only motivation having to come from me to do things like intern, shadow, and apply (again) is kind of weird. I've been a student as long as I can remember. The thought of just being, out here in the middle of snore-fest IA, is enough to make me lose it.

There was a plan. I like plans. I like my plans working out, whether I have to let people in to help me out or not. The plan was to get into grad school and just keep flying under the radar. Maybe meet some more cool people. Maybe even try a new state on for size (that part may still happen...nothing is worse than a state where I have ZERO friends). But either God or something else doesn't seem to agree with my plan. I couldn't tell you what it is.

The other day, I was asked if I thought God wanted me to be a physical therapist. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time - how the hell should I know? Is there an email I missed where he confirms that this is an ok profession? I mean, the sarcasm could go on forever...I could write a whole post on that idea alone. But that wouldn't really help.

Honestly, I don't know what God wants of me. Figure if I screw it up badly enough, He'll let me know. I do know I'm not going through this for nothing, so in the meantime I'll just fight on, without any discernible reason as to why or how. Ok, the 'why' is actually easy - I'm stubborn and proud, and I always want to be the best. Tempering expectations would just water-down the experience.

So, speaking of expectations, I do have my New Year's Resolutions here. Maybe writing them down will help force me into habit:

-Put up one of these posts every week, for the year. 51 to go.

-Work out 3 times a week, every week.

-Add 25 lbs to my bench, A.K.A. the totally-for-show 225 lift.

-Get a working novel rolling. Not necessarily done, but started. These characters (and my imagination) have waited too long for this crap. Gotta get something done before all my creativity dries up and disappears.

-Play the confidence game. I don't have to actually believe in it when I act it out, but I'll admit, being friends with the mopy quiet kid probably isn't the most fun, for anybody.

-Graduate with distinction. Should be the easiest thing on this list, especially if the next point happens.

-Get a 4.0 on the semester. Should be cake, unless Whitson makes nutrition into a hellish class...something she's perfectly capable of.

-Have a hell of a good time at every wedding I go to. Should be easy as well, but this tour is going to be intense. AK, maybe KS, WI, IA, and by the end of this school year, who-the-hell-knows elsewhere. Everybody's getting hitched. And as long as I can get over the fact of how weird that sounds, along with the notion that finding that person for me would actually be incredible, I should be good to go.

-Oh, and seeing Iron Man 2. That thing looks like the best thing this side of another Batman sequel.

Semester in Review; or, That Time We All Pretended Would Never Come

Yikes, this thing is getting downright depressing when I don't follow up the negative posts with positive (or at least cynical) ones. Definitely leaves a lot to cover between the end of October and now....guess I better get to it.

November was all about those damn applications - which are now done. It feels like that statement should have been followed by a dozen '!' and just as many drinks, but neither happened (sadly). It's more like what happens when you go to light that really big fireworks display that your parents shouldn't have let you buy, but you begged and pleaded and made a general scene till you got it. So now you finally got up the balls to light the damn thing, and the lit fuse went up into the canister and disappeared. Nothing happened. Is it going to explode? Is it a dud? Is it just going to erupt and kill everything in a 3 block radius as soon as you go over to check on it? (Such was my thinking as a child - go figure. I still have all my fingers, though, so that's probably worth something).

Anyway, that's what it feels like. Sort of 'nothing'. It's easier to RE-act to something when there's something to react to. I've recently found this is true with women as well as careers, but I digress. In any event, I'll know 3 months if the fuse lit something and made all my spent money and time worthwhile, or if it's just gonna sit there and smoke.

The other big part of November and December was bracing myself for the all-too familiar feeling of saying goodbye. Lots of friends graduating this winter. Lots of friends getting hitched, too. It's really interesting to say goodbye. It tells a lot about people. I told one person goodbye and they couldn't even say two words back to me - I will never understand or respect that; another person may honestly want to hear what I have to say a month from now and I wouldn't have predicted that at the start of the year. I learned a lot this week.

All in all, the semester went about as I expected. Easy classes were easy, that 4.0 semester still eludes me (but not getting a C was a plus, as well as a gift from God...I must have done ok with those last two tests). I think I did pretty good at making this semester memorable. I did stuff I was too afraid to do a year ago, I made some tough choices and stood by them, I haven't killed my roommate yet, and Nebraska has gone 9-3.

Claims of emotionless attitudes aside, there are a few people I really have grown to love over these 3 short years. People that matter. People that I have to keep talking to. In the end, that's what will define this year.