On second thought

Oh, and I have to say, being taken out and fed all last weekend for just about every meal was different. Now I know how some girls feel. You all have a pretty decent racket going on. Too bad about the pms and the kids thing. HA HA!

It must be my Birthday!

Yeah, yeah, I'm about to eat some crow...Go figure that right after I post about how I'm not a fan of birthdays, I have to go and have the best one of my life. I suppose it all started last Wednesday morning, when my friend Sarah invited me over to eat breakfast at her place. She fixed me pancakes and sausage, which her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend promptly ate most of it, but it was really nice to see her again. Then I went to work, which was unavoidable, and afterwards hung out with my friend Carrie. I worked Thursday morning too, but I slept in about two hours so I went in at 8 instead of 6. I felt it was deserved! Right after work I headed down to that pit of self righteousness and judgement otherwise known as Provo to hang out with my sister. She took me to the Brick Oven for pizza, but I don't know which was better, the food, or the fact that she didn't know how to pay for the check. So much for feminine Liberalism and self independence. I guess you've been on a few too many dates my dear sister. But we had a great talk, and enjoyed each other's company.

Most of you know that I'm a huge pro any team that plays byu fan... Well ever since i found out that TCU was playing byu (and no, I'll never capitalize that) on my birthday, I've been hoping that they'd lose. AND THEY DID!!!! Like 32-7. BLOW OUT! My friend Alecia and her roommates were so upset that they turned off the TV and refused to even hear about what was going on, at the start of the 2nd quarter! There I was, willing to watch the most hated team play football on my birthday, and they wouldn't even let me! I'm still really excited that they lost. Their team must have a lot of questions after coming apart that badly, but I have only one. I wonder what their new slogan will be since "quest for perfection" is down the drain! To cap it all off I got some Cold Stone ice cream too.
Friday was a continuation of my birthday, since it was actually on Thursday, but since my friend Josh turned 23 on Monday, we decided to combine birthdays and have a party on Friday. I'll be honest, I don't really like parties, or large social events where I'm required to interact on a large scale, even more so when half of it's supposedly centered on me, so I was less than excited. My dear friend Julie fixed me breakfast, which was amazing, I was so full. She gave me, as a gag gift, an old Clay Aiken calendar. Well I didn't want Jason to feel left out, so I put it on his bed, and then went off with Diana for the afternoon. She took me to lunch, and we spent a good part of the day in the park just talking and enjoying each other's company. It was good to talk to her and catch up since she's so far away in Logan for the school year. When i came home, i found that Jason had taken the calendar, cut out all of the pictures, and decided to have a Clay Aiken themed party!
There were pictures of Clay all over the living room, and Jason had picked all of the gay, or questionable themed music from his computer (he has quite a bit) and made quite the play list. I have to say that I was scared, but I loved it at the same time. Only in that it was probably the funniest thing I've ever seen. Soon, alot of my good friends showed up and we talked, played games, ate food, and listened to music (we changed the playlist pretty quickly) till about 2am. It was really nice in that I got to see my sister Laura again, even if I had to take her home at 10 so she could take the GRE practice test in the morning.
Saturday morning I slept in, studied for the mid-terms I had on Monday. That afternoon I hung out with Diana again, and tried to find her a dress for church on Sunday, but ended up getting shoes instead. i managed to pick up a few pairs of jeans, since mine all had holes in them. I should be good for a few more years. Then we went to a Real Salt Lake game, which they won in a spectacular fashion to help get them into the play-offs. They're not there yet, but winning 3-1 sure helps! Sunday I went to church, happy in the fact that all my sports teams won that weekend, or the right ones lost... Julie came over and baked the most wonderful cake ever, SO rich. It took me till last night to eat the last of it it was so potent. We had a great talk about my life, and just everything that has been getting me down and causing me stress.
Lately I can say that I feel, I don't know if it's true or not, but I feel, as if I'm finally growing up. I feel more comfortable in myself, I think my actions through a little more, not always, but more often. I'm more determined in what my goals are, more confidant that I'll reach them, and more solid in my ways. I feel as though my feet are finally on the ground. I know some of my friends will look at this and laugh and shake their heads, but I think they'll know it's true. For the most part. I can still act like I'm 13, and when it comes to matters of the heart, and things that threaten it, I do frequently.
Another sign I'm getting old is my memory is slipping. You think I'm joking but I'm not. I've sat through conversations this past week, or told people things, and I don't remember what happened. I don't know if I just need to focus more, or if life has gotten so stressful that I can't remember much anymore, but it's annoying. I used to have such a good memory!

Stop pestering me. About this anyway.

Ok, fine. So apparently more than one of you missed my weekly update, that or just wanted to give me something to do so I'd stop bothering them because I was bored. I don't have a really good topic to write about, no flowers, no sun glaring in my eyes... Nothing really new with the Army, though they did quite piss me off last week and pretty much ruined my conference weekend, that combined with something to do with my blanket statement from the first blog. But both issues have been resolved or are in the process, and that's all I can ask for, so I'm content.
I've also been pestered about my upcoming birthday, about what I want for it, what I want to do for it. Yeah, not so much. I've never been one to celebrate birthdays, at least not my own. It stems mostly from that time in 2nd grade where I invited my whole class, and nobody showed up to the party (yes, those kinds of things do happen in real life. I realized I wasn't the most popular kid, and that's ok) or my 15th birthday when I had some of my best friends drive 40 miles to my house to see me, and while I was driving to get another friend, my mom and I got into a car accident. We never picked up the other friend, and the ones who were already at my house had to go home while my dad took my mom to the hospital to get checked out. We were both fine, just worried about some scratches. It was then I realized the futility of celebrating a birthday. When I was in Kuwait I turned 21. Most of my friends were non LDS, and honestly felt horrible that I had to experience such a big day in a dry (non alcoholic) country. Even though I don't drink, they wanted to drink for me. How thoughtful. I did, however, go down to the local Baskin Robbins and get myself an ice cream cone, and tried to eat it/enjoy it before it melted too quickly. I usually celebrate it by myself by fixing a cake and sitting at home wtih a tub of ice cream watching chick flicks... Oh wait, that's every friday night... Anyway. I've always been touched by how much it means to other people that I have a good birthday. A friend I barely knew brought me a doughnut with a candle in it a few days afterwards because I had just moved to Utah and didn't know anyone. And lately it just seems abstract that people are much, much, more excited about it than I am. And no, this isn't a pity plug for my birthday. Thanks though. I guess about the only thing I get really excited about is the chance to say to one of my friends that "I'm much older than you are, and that means I know more, so you have to listen to me". I wonder how much longer that's gonna hold up, as she has a degree, a husband, and a kid. Not to mention they're looking at buying their own house. Scary.
Once more, I have pulled off a great feat, writing a paper for a class in about 7 hours, plus 4 more of just messing around. And I didn't even know the paper was due till I attended the class that day. Lucky for me it was in the early afternoon. It was on the crusades, and it was worth 25% of my final grade, so I hope I did well. Oh, and in addition to my normal load of reading, one of my teachers just assigned a whole other freaking book on top of it! I can't tell you how happy that made me. Good thing my fall break is coming up, I'm going to need it. And, I think that's about it. Life is good, friends are good, work is...work. Parents just bought a house in Alabama, but still don't have a buyer for their house in West Virginia, should make life interesting to be sure.

And one more thing....

I just wanted to give a quick update to my life. Yes, I'm still sitting here bored at work, and yes, I should be reading homework. A new teacher (one of my classes is broken up between 3 teachers, each taking a third of the semester) assigned 147 pages of reading for the week, on top of my regular reading. I'm not very pleased. Jason, my best friend/messiest person in the whole world forgot (too lazy) to mail the rent check out this month, so after I get off work tonight at 10, I get to drive around the backwoods of Salt Lake looking for a house that we've only been to once before (took us 3 hours total, in broad daylight), and then be up at 4:30 for work the next morning. Yeah. But I did stop to smell those flowers from a couple posts back. Too bad I was sick and my stuffy nose prevented me from smelling anything good. I'm sure they were nice though.
There has been one recent development in my life that will have far reaching effects. Last March I put in an application to be considered for a Warrant Officer position in the Army. Warrant Officers, for those of you who don't know, are somewhere in between Enlisted and Officers on the pay scale, and somewhere between Einstein and Sir Issac Newton on the "I know what I'm talking about" scale. It's kinda scary. These guys don't wear the same uniform we do. They still have the basic one I wear, but they add stuff to it, like a clipboard, a huge coffee mug, and a scowl that makes you think the mug must be filled with vinegar. And they like it. They basically do whatever they want, and nobody has the guts to tell them otherwise. I've seen them spit at Generals, whereas I've seen other men wet themselves around Generals. And I LOVED IT! I want to be one. They're basically the subject matter expert in their field, and usually know every minute detail on the most obscure subject you can think of. It scares me, because, well, to be frank, I'm not that good. I keep telling myself that I'm not that good, yet... but it hasn't sunk in.
I've decided to accept the offer they extended me last week. This would get me out of going to Afghanistan with my current unit next spring, which is nice. I had quite the internal debate about this with myself though. My unit and I knew that I'd be offered the Warrant position (selection is based off the fact that there's a need for them, a HUGE need, and I'm a warm body who happened to meet the bare bone requirement to become one) so it wasn't a surprise that I finally got it, we just didn't think it'd happen so quickly. But the agreement I had with them was that I'd go to Afghanistan with them as their head supply person, which I'm not terribly qualified to do, but I'm the most qualified person they had. But I'd go with them, and then once we got back I'd take the Warrant position. This summer I've been gone most of the time, a good 6 months of training to prepare for the job I'd be doing in Afghanistan, and my unit has done nothing but stab me in the back. I recently got a new boss at my unit, who is FAT (which in the Army is something people tend to look down on for some reason), but very knowledgeable as he's got 20 years in the supply field. I've got about 8 months. So to take attention away from the fact that he's shamu's big fat uncle, he likes to point out all the things I did wrong while I was in charge, or the things I didn't do. He now has the head honcho wrapped around his finger, and convinced him that I did everything I could to destroy the supply system. Eh, whatever, he's fat, I get it, I don't hate fat people. But I get the impression that when I go overseas with them, it's just going to get worse.
I felt bad even thinking about leaving them high and dry while I run off and progress my career. I knew they'd probably pull some unsuspecting fool from another unit to go over with them in my place. I knew they'd spent thousands of dollars to send me to those classes. And most of all, I knew I had told them I'd do something, and now I was thinking about backing out of it. Then my friend Paul pointed out, that the Army had "screwed" me plenty of times before, and that I was the one who did the research into what classes I'd need to be productive overseas, I was the one who signed myself up for them, and took time out of my life to take them. My unit was just going to send me untrained, and leave me flapping in the wind. And really, I was helping the Army out overall by filling a position that they were very short on. Granted, this position I'm taking is in a newly formed Medical Command out of Salt Lake, who will never go anywhere or do anything, and I'll be able to stay in that position for the rest of my career... That's not too shabby. It still bothers me a bit about more or less going back on my word, but I think that'll be easier to get over than never being able to reach the knife that would be lodged in my back.
And yes, I know my blogs seem to run longer than most people's but really, who doesn't like hearing about my life?