values

i had to do an exercise for a class where we had to take these questionnaires that helps you take this long list of basic values and puts it in order of most important to least important. below is part of my paper about the results.

            "After completing the Five-Sort Value Inventory and the Values Priority Exercise I have discovered that my top 3 values are love, loyalty and justice with love at the very top and my bottom three values were physical appearance, power, and religious faith with religious faith at the very bottom. I wasn’t surprised by these results when I had finished. My values and outlook on life are a direct result of the way my parents raised me. Despite our lack of money, I had a very happy childhood. Perhaps the fact that my parents always put family first is why we didn’t have much money, but we really couldn’t care less. I always knew I had their unconditional love and that they would always have my back. We always made time to play and have fun with each other. Because I felt so loved and accepted by them growing up, I really looked up to my parents and wanted to be like them. I watched them lead by example, I learned from their successes and mistakes, and I really listened to them when they spoke. They are the most influential and important teachers in my life. My love for them is great and is the reason why love is my most important value. I will always put the ones I love first; they are the source of my joy in life. Because of this, loyalty is my second most important value. I would do anything for the ones I love. For me love and loyalty go hand-in-hand quite naturally.

            Although I don’t remember any serious conversations with my parents about justice, I’ve always found it very important. Perhaps it was implied by the other conversations we had or the way they acted. I know that acts of injustice get them upset, so somehow that got transferred to me during my childhood. I feel as though other important values like morality and honesty sort of stem from justice. If the world were completely devoid of justice there would be no point in morality and honesty. If every time I did something good I got punished and every time I did something bad I got rewarded, eventually I would stop doing good things. And if you think about it, as children we learn through both positive and negative reinforcement. If good deeds were always negatively reinforced, we wouldn’t do them. There needs to be some level of justice in this world to make other values like morality and honesty meaningful.

            As for my bottom three values, they aren’t things I hate or dislike. They are all things that to a certain extent would be nice but aren’t necessary for me in my life. The value at the very bottom of my list was religious faith. Although I don’t mind faith and beliefs in general, it’s the “organized” part of religion that I tend to have a problem with. My parents really never made me go to church because they didn’t really see a need for it. They knew they could lead my spiritual development without it; knowing that at some point I would decide for myself exactly what I believed and why. I do remember when I was really young talking to my mom about God and religion and she said, “All you need to know about God is that he is unconditional love.” That has always stuck with me and really has been all I needed to know about him."


after this part i had to talk about how these values and their level of importance could help and hinder my ability to be a physical therapist and blah blah blah. but i didn't wanna bore you with all that crap. 

personality profile

for one of my grad school classes, i had to take a personality test and talk about the results and whether i thought they were accurate and why. below is an edit version of the paper i wrote.

"After answering the questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, my results were INFP. 

The “I” stands for introvert. 

I find spending time alone to be important. I spend some time every morning and night by myself just so I can clear my head. I really enjoy the time I spend alone, I get to do what I want to do without having to compromise for someone else’s desires. I also prefer to figure things out for myself. I often study alone and only occasionally will choose to work with others when it comes to certain subjects. Even when it comes to personal issues, rather than ask everyone I know for their input, I just spend some time by myself to really think the issue through and figure out what I really feel and what I really want. Sometimes I’ll avoid meeting new people or delay meetings with people if I’m really stressed and don’t feel like I have the energy for it. I don’t even like talking to people I don’t know on the phone. When I was younger I always used to make my parents call people who weren’t my friends that I needed to talk to because it made me uncomfortable. Talking with a group of people can be difficult if they aren’t my closest friends. I tend to just sit back and listen to others instead of really participating in conversations much. I prefer talking to one or two other people at a time. When it comes to school related meetings like group projects, I tend to let others talk and take the lead unless I really feel confident in my knowledge of the subject or have a really strong opinion on something. Sometimes I prefer to have the serious conversations I need to have with people through email because I can really think about exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it instead of having the conversation in person and hoping that I get to say everything I mean to without getting cut off or distracted by what the other person said and forgetting something. And just in general it takes me awhile to get comfortable around new people. If I’m in a situation where I have to be sociable and warm I really have to get into that frame of mind ahead of time.

The “N” stands for Intuitive. 

I grew up in a really creative family that really appreciated art and imagination. I’ve always had a great love and respect for art and people who are capable of high levels of imaginative thought. I feel like I can deal with the small details and specifics necessary to carry out certain assignments and projects, I just don’t really care for them. They are a necessary evil that I often wish I had an assistant to deal with. 

The “F” stands for Feeling. 

I have strong emotions and I tend to value those emotions and others who are in touch with their emotions. I almost always find myself considering the other person’s feeling when making decisions that might affect someone else. It is hard for me to make decisions solely based on logic and the facts when people are involved. I try to put myself on other people’s shoes and try to see their point of view. I tend to avoid telling people things that are unpleasant, but if they need an answer either way then I’ll suck it up and tell them. Sometimes bad news is necessary news and it’s better to give it than leave someone hanging. Even though I don’t like being in the middle of conflicts, occasionally the people around me will make me their moderator or consultant when dealing with a conflict with someone else. This has happened since I young: helping a friend figure out what to say to someone else or relaying what someone else has said in a more constructive manner than was initially worded.

The “P” stands for Perceiving. 

I think because I can see situations from different points of view and acknowledge the fact that nothing is black and white, I’m often fine with leaving things open-ended. Not everything needs to fit perfectly into a little box. Because of this it can be hard to make decisions, which is when I turn to how I feel and how others feel about the subject in order to make a decision. I don’t like making lists and formalizing detailed plans for everything. I think the only thing I like making lists for is the grocery store so that I don’t forget anything. It doesn’t come naturally for me to be so organized with everything I do. It’s something I can do when things get really busy and I’m truly worried I will forget to do something really important. I also don’t always do assignments right away when they are assigned. I don’t necessarily wait to the last minute if I know it will be advantageous to get it done early.'' 

i know most of what i wrote above was based on the descriptions of what each category meant and which aspects of those categories applied to me. hopefully that wasn't too confusing or too boring. just want you guys to get to know me better. peace out, homes! 

peggy

     i was raised by parents who were kind of raised christians (it's a long story) but went through a new age phase when i was a young child. we would talk about astrology, reincarnation/past lives, out of body dreams, tarot, palmistry, enlightenment, and chakras. they were very open minded and raised me to be the same. ever since i was little, the idea that dreams could be something more than just dreams was common place. the idea that you could leave your body or get visited by family members who have passed on was accepted as normal. and i definitely had a few dreams over the years that seemed to be more than just dreams. 

     i was young when my grandfather died and i had a couple dreams about him after he died that were very special. the first one was of us running along a beach and just enjoying some time together. it was a beach i had never been to or seen a picture of before but when i described it to my dad the next morning he knew exactly what i was talking about and that it was a beach from my grandfather's youth. this happened soon after his death and when i was still very young. the next dream i had about him was when i was a teenager. it was very powerful. the part that i remember the best was when he was standing right in front of me and said he had a very important and special gift to give me. i felt him hand it to me but i couldn't look down to see what it was and then i woke up. i welled up with emotions. i felt like i had literally just been face to face with him and i couldn't stop thinking about that dream for weeks. to this day i occasionally think of that dream and get a warm feeling of love for my grandfather.

     back about 10 years ago my grandmother died. i was never really close to her. apparently, the first time my grandmother held me as a baby i immediately burst into tears and wouldn't stop crying till i was back in my mom's arms. our relationship never really got any better than that. i never understood her at all. she always seemed so intense, moody, and unhappy. she was always complaining and trying to guilt people by talking about how horrible her life was. and it seemed like she was slowly falling apart since i was born. i don't even remember her without a walker. after my grandpa died she only got worse. slowly she lost her vision, lost her hearing, had to stay in a wheelchair, and was completely dependent on my aunt by the end. when she finally died it was a relief, like she could finally be back with her husband in the afterlife and be free of a body that gave out on her.

     i didn't dream about her soon after her death like i did with my grandpa. it wasn't until recently that i dreamt about her. in the dream i was at a rehab hospital and she was a patient there. she was actually looking happy and calm. she asked me for advice on exercises for her to do. we went over the ones she was already doing and i gave her a couple more that i thought would be helpful. and then i hugged her and said goodbye. i actually felt close to my grandmother in that dream. like i could see the real her, the best part of her. i felt like even though we didn't have a great relationship while she was alive, there was hope for us to be close in the afterlife. it was an amazing feeling. 

     the first person i told this dream to was my dad. not just because it was about his mother, but because he had a similar kind of dream about his dad not that long ago. he dreamt that he went to this rehabilitation place and saw his dad looking healthy and happy and his dad even showed off his nice pink lungs which had been healing since his death from lung cancer. he had this feeling from it that after we die we go to a sort of rehabilitation place where we recuperate from what happened to us while we were alive. a place where we could get back to who we really were. i knew he would be happy to hear of a dream of mine that was like saying that grandma was there now and she was doing great. 

     i have no idea if this is really how it works or if it was simply a dream. but i like the idea of it. i like the idea of getting past the crap that life dealt us so we can get to the core of who we really are and be our best selves. i like the idea that whatever issues i had with a relative while they were alive doesn't really matter after they have passed. it's over. just gotta let it go. i don't know how this universe works and i don't expect to ever understand it while i'm alive. but if life is what you make it then i will enjoy this theory of the afterlife. it makes sense to me and it gives me a feeling of warmth and calmness. what's wrong with that?

lung cancer sucks

     When I was about 7 years old my grandfather died of lung cancer that spread to his brain. He was my father’s father and had smoked cigarettes since he was about 13 years old. Some time before his death they had found the cancer and did surgery on him to remove it, telling him not to smoke any longer. He took that to mean that he should switch to a pipe. That was not a good idea.

     My dad told me when he was a kid he used to sit on the floor to watch TV so as to be below the cloud of smoke coming from my grandfather. He had to put up with hours of my grandfather’s lectures. He was forced into helping my grandfather fix up the house, even on Christmas when he had brought my mom home to meet my grandparents for the first time. My dad knew all the strengths and faults of my grandfather. I did not. 

     As flawed as my grandfather was, he was my favorite grandparent. We called him “the grandpa toy” because all he ever did was play with us kids. My only memories of him are of me laughing with him. My favorite picture of him was where he was covered in our toys, looking very regal, and using our toy vacuum cleaner as his scepter. I never wanted the fun to end. 

     Towards the end I wasn’t allowed to see my grandfather. He was in a lot of pain and my parents were afraid it would scare me to see him like that. My dad wished he could have taken his pain away, but he couldn’t. I just wish I had said goodbye. 

tattoos are cool

     so i told mentioned before that i have a cherry blossom tattoo, that is the only tattoo i have right now. lately i've been thinking about a possible second tattoo i will get in the near future. i've had a lot of different ideas for a second tattoo after i got my first one. but i didn't want to get a tattoo just for style or for fun. i wanted it to be important to me.
     after starting this very difficult grad program i found myself thinking that getting a tattoo that represents this incredibly difficult period might be a good idea. something that represents the journey i'm on right now. i've learned a lot about myself over the years. i've been learning who i am and what i want. and the fact that this program is so stressful makes me see it as a right of passage of sorts. so when i was watching a tv show about tattoos and their cultural significance and history around the world and there was a part at the end where the host got a lotus tattoo and the artist who gave it to him explained the significance of a lotus tattoo, it seemed the most appropriate subject for my next tattoo. the lotus flower has the grow through mud and muck and all this water to reach the top where is sits beautifully and serenely on the surface of the water. the difficulties of the journey is necessary for the beauty and existence of the flower. that sounds about right to me.
      now that i have a basic idea in mind that i really like, i have to figure out where i want it and what i want it to look like. my gut reaction when i started thinking about this tattoo is that i wanted it on the outside of my right calf and i didn't want it to be pink like my other tattoo. gotta mix it up. i like the idea of a purple lotus flower. i also like the idea of having the stems of the flower and the water in the tattoo. i don't want it to just be a view from the top. i want it to follow the shape of my leg. when i saw the show about tattoos, i really liked the style of the lotus tattoo that the guy got. he got a tibetan thangka lotus flower. i tried finding a good picture of it online and all i found was a video of the clip. so i screen captured it. it's kinda blurry but i think you get the idea.

     i don't know if i want it exactly like this, but i like the idea of a side view of the flower coming up to the surface of the water. but then i also like those mandala style tattoos. i like the intricacy of the design. kinda like this.

     but then i would want a lot of color. i truly don't know who i could ask to do this tattoo where they could combine the two ideas into one tattoo. and i'm not in a rush to get this. i probably won't start it till i'm done with school. but i would love to see what it could look like awhile before i get it so that i can really get used to the idea and determine if i really want to get it. 

     sometimes i think it would be nice to get a tattoo on my arm. but because of my career goals, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. i'm in school to be a physical therapist, and although there isn't a strict dress code for all PT's, for the most part they tend to wear pants and a short sleeve shirt of some kind. a lot of PT's like to wear polo t-shirts for some reason. i can't say i understand why. but it's a very physical job and if i had tattoo sleeves then i would have to wear long sleeve shirts everyday, which means i would probably get very sweaty at work. so for the time being, i don't have any plans to ever get a tattoo on my arms. but i think if i did it would probably look something like these because they are bad ass.

if you have any suggestions of tattoo artists in the so cal area for this job, please let me know. 

unlucky

     so you may have noticed a tendency for me to talk about my frustrations with my love life. that's because it's never not frustrating. all the other areas of my life will wax and wane, going between being really good and being really difficult. but my love life has always sucked ass. it's really frustrating to never have felt like you had a really good moment in your love life when you're 29. all my other friends have had serious relationships, some have been married and had kids. and even if their relationships failed and ended in heartbreak, at least they really got to experience being in love with someone who loves them back. i have never had that. i've just felt so unlucky in love.

     i've only had 3 short relationships; the first two were only 2 months long and the third was 5 months long. none of them ever called me their girlfriend or told me they loved me. they only person i was ever in love with never loved me back. all i got from him was a half-hearted "haha! i love ya, katie" after i told him something silly and weird. i'm sorry but "i love ya" is not what i wanted to hear. that's not the same thing as someone looking you in the eyes and seriously saying "i love you." ugh, really? "ya?!?" what a douche bag. you can take your "ya" and shove it up your ass. 

     i feel like i've been on a million dates over the past 12 years. most of the time it's just awkward and horrible and i can't even imagine seeing the guy again. on the very few occasions where i go on a few dates with a guy and start to think that there might be some potential for a real relationship with them, life gets in the way and it all falls to pieces. it literally feels like there is some external force that's screwing me over. i don't know if it's the universe, fate, god, aphrodite, or just dead relatives butting in, but they can go fuck themselves. shockingly, i don't like always being alone. it fucking sucks. even when all i wanna do is just have some fun and not get too serious with anyone, life still manages to make that an impossible feat too. 

     the past couple years that i have been in grad school have been really frustrating and stressful. and the past semester in particular has been one where it just seems like every area of my life is such a struggle. everything is hard. so now that i'm on a 7 week summer break, i just want things to be easy. i just wanna have someone (preferably a guy i like) who will go to the beach with me, drink wine with me, see movies with me, and just have fun with me. am i going to find that? probably not. i'll probably end up doing everything alone and spending most of the time just watching tv at home. most of the people i know don't have the summer off. they have day jobs during the week. they are in serious relationships, or married, or live far enough away that just seeing them a couple times will require a lot of effort and planning on my part. 

     i have to fly out to colorado just to spend some time with my parents, who i haven't seen since november. i have to drive 90 miles one way to see my best friend michelle and her baby girl. i have to email my bar friends weeks ahead of time to plan when i can come down and get a drink with them since i never know when they will be out of town and i have to figure out where i'm gonna be crashing since there is no way i would drive from garden grove to pasadena after a night of drinking. i miss the old days when my parents had dinner with me once a month and i had lunch with michelle once a week. when i would go to Azteca's at the end of the week and get a drink with my bar friends and a little stress relief. now everything is so complicated. love has always been hard for me but now everything is hard. 

     i just really need things to be easy for awhile. i need my love life to be easy. and to whoever or whatever keeps that from happening, i have a big middle finger waiting just for you. just fuckin let me be happy! baaaaahhhhhhh!!!!

procrastination

tomorrow is my last final for the semester so it seems like a perfect time to talk about procrastination. since i am near the end of my second year of grad school, i have become an expert at not studying. there are so many other things i'd rather be doing. here are my favorites:

pinterest/finding funny pictures - funny pictures make me happy. i like to share them with friends to make them happy, which makes me happy :) look at these awesome pictures!!! 

facebook - where i put the funny pics i find - i have a special album for them called "random crap", chatting on the IM thing with random friends (especially if i've had some wine), and this tumbler: http://whatshouldwecallptschool.tumblr.com/ which is only funny if you are in or ever were in school to be a physical therapist

spotify - constant playlist making: i have almost 20 playlists. only joined in january (i think) and only 7 are playlists i made before spotify. my very first playlist i made just for spotify is called "hipster mustache" and i'm kinda proud of that title. i will send you awesome music if you are also on spotify because my playlists are awesome and you will be blown away by my amazing taste in music. i like when people send me music too, but that's only happened a couple times. 

youtube - 

tv - aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh i love tv! i often just study during commercials. i love a good sitcom. i've been watching a lot of new girl, cougar town, big bang theory, up all night, modern family, how i met your mother, 30 rock, psych, and two broke girls. i also love dance competition shows, i.e. dancing with the stars and so you think you can dance. and then there is also the occasional trash: kardashian shows and tough love. trashy shows always make me feel better about myself. i can't for the life of me imagine what the people who go on those shows are thinking. they clearly aren't thinking about their professional futures and the effect of showing the world how dumb and crazy they are will have on them. 

really, it's amazing i get any studying done at all. maybe once i'm out of classes for awhile i can add exercising, learning how to cook, cleaning the apartment regularly, doing the dishes regularly, and eating healthy. but i don't wanna set goals i can't accomplish :)

myspace blogs and relationship insights

     hey, remember myspace? doesn't it take you back, just hearing that word? oh the glittery posts on friends' walls and other crap. so i randomly got reminded of how myspace had that section of your profile called a "blog" where you could post whatever random crap you wanted, kind of like a blog. i used it for random funny quotes, quiz results, and dance videos. but i remembered, i also had one i wrote several years ago which was like a letter to the universe where i was telling the universe what i wanted in a guy. and i acknowledged that being too rigid wasn't good, but also being to vague wasn't good either. so i tried being specific and flexible. i created a list of characteristics i wanted in a guy, saying they didn't need to have all of them but it would be nice if they had at least half. and then i added a time restraint. i said "you have one year to bring me this guy." i'm not sure what i expected to do in retaliation if the universe didn't come through in time, i just wanted to show that i was serious. 

     now, i tried finding this post so i could copy it here. i even logged onto myspace and i swear i could hear crickets. but sadly, i had deleted it at some point and don't know if it's saved somewhere else. so i can't share the specifics of the list but i can give you a general idea. it wasn't your typical high maintenance list of dream guy qualities. it's wasn't all about looks or money or being treated like a princess or whatever bull shit you tend to hear. half the time when a girl makes those lists it's the mom's fault, the other half of the time i swear it's Disney's fault. anyways, the list was more of a reflection of myself. the fact that i had realized all these weird little quirks about myself: my weird eating habits, my random allergies, my weird taste in music/movies/books/comedians, and probably other things that i just thought were funny. i really just wanted a guy who could acknowledge all my little quirks and just be laid back about them. someone who was like "whatever, i got my shit too. it's cool." now, because i do have a tendency to be shy or anxious, i really like to surround myself with laid back people who are a little more outgoing than me. who just accept me the way i am while still being able to talk me into trying things i wouldn't do otherwise. it's hard enough to find true friends that can last a lifetime. but trying to find someone you could marry and raise a family with... shit, that's hard.

     so the funny thing about this is that it did kinda work. i met an awesome guy from an online website within a year of that post. and he was really cool, sweet, smart and funny. looking back later, he really did have most of the things on my list. all my friends loved him and thought he was perfect for me. we got along like best friends and we had the best times together. so what was the problem? zero sexual attraction. we really should've just been friends. and looking back afterwards, i realized that in all the characteristics i listed in that letter to the universe, i didn't include sexual attraction. for awhile i really thought that if i liked him enough, the sexual attraction would grow over time. nope. you can't create sexual attraction out of thin air. you can't will yourself to wanna have sex with someone when you really don't. it was such a sad situation. and frustrating, because i could look at him and objectively say "yes, that is a handsome man. he's tall and blonde with a nice face." but still, nothing downstairs. sometimes i think it's because we were too similar. 

     i often think sexual attraction comes from that tension of being with someone who pushes your buttons and challenges you and does things that you just plain don't understand. so finding the right balance is hard. finding someone you really get along with like a friend, someone you could spend all day with and really enjoy their company. but then that person also has to make you all crazy horny and wanna jump their bones. i find the two don't come together very often. i got frustrated meeting guys at bars when i was younger, cuz i'd talk to them due to my sexual attraction to them, and then they'd open their mouths and i couldn't stand spending more than a few hours with them. and then when i tried online dating, i would wait to meet a guy until we had been talking a little while and i realized i thought he was really smart and funny and easy to talk to. and then after a few awkward dates with a few awkward kisses, i would realize there is no way i was gonna do anything more with them. i don't wanna be in a sexless relationship. what's the point of having a boyfriend if you either can't stand their company or don't wanna have sex with them?

     thus, i am still single. it's cool, i'm super busy with school and it's better than being in some toxic relationship where we're both so frustrated from trying to make it work that we fight all the time and treat each other like crap. no thank you. got enough shit on my plate. (eew, just got a gross image in my head. i'm not gonna want to eat for awhile.) so what's the plan? i have no idea. but i'm in the middle of finals, my last one is monday and then i have 7 1/2 weeks off before summer classes. i'm so excited to get some down time to relax and see friends and family i normally don't get to see. i just wanna have some fun this summer. if i meet someone, awesome. if not, whatever. life has a way of working out, just gotta let it happen. 

mornings suck

     i don't remember a time when i didn't hate mornings. even as a child i would glare at my parents with pure anger if they tried to talk to me before i had breakfast. most mornings, the first thought in my head is "oh crap, it's morning. ugh, i have to get up now." i don't even like to be sociable until after lunch. there's a reason why i love this picture so much:

     so in the past semester, my classmates may have noticed my increasing tendency to listen to music on my little ipod shuffle whenever the teacher isn't speaking. there's a couple reasons for this. one is that it helps with stress relief, listening to music that makes me happy and distracts me from all the crap i gotta do. the other is the fact that i truly hate the sound of 100 people talking at the same time in a small room. i definitely can't stand the sound of everyone in the program talking loudly in the morning when i'm already crabby and wishing i were in a quiet, empty room. i think the problem is, i can't help but hear random words of 20 different conversations within just a few seconds. it drives me crazy. and it makes it impossible for me to have a conversation with anyone who isn't sitting right next to me. if you are more than 2 feet away when everyone is talking, i will literally only hear every tenth word you said and completely give up on trying to hold a conversation with you. even when i talk to someone who is within a foot from me, i still miss a lot of words and occasionally have to do a fake smile like i know what the hell is going on. so i put the earbuds in and turn the music up loud enough that the sound of everyone in the room turns into a murmur where i can't distinguish any actual words being said. 

     sometimes i miss undergrad. not the just the lighter workload and having less pressure on myself, but the way people acted. normally, even when i was taking classes in my program, i only knew maybe a handful of people in the class.  so when there was a big lecture class of 100 or so people, it was for something like history, and most people didn't know anyone. and everyone was fine with sitting there either in silence or talking quietly to the person next to them. so when i had my quiet moments and didn't feel like talking, i didn't feel like the antisocial weirdo. nobody expected me to talk and be friendly to everyone in the room. it's kinda frustrating being in a grad program where all 100 students take all the same classes together and get to know everyone and are super friendly all day everyday. so even though no one has ever said anything to me directly, sometimes when i sit there with the earbuds in, playing solitaire on my phone, i wonder if others in my class are judging me for not being all sociable and talkative like them. 

     it's been a rough semester, i'm just trying to get through it in one piece. and among all the things i've learned about myself, i've confirmed something i've known for sometime. i'm not the sort of person who has fifty friends and constantly gets invited to parties and tailgates, i'm the sort that only really opens up to really close friends so i only really have a small group of really close friends. i cherish my best friend michelle who i have known for twenty years. i've made various friends from various places who i continue to keep in touch with, even though i really don't get to see them in person very often. i love my bar friends who bring out my more social side and make me feel normal. and i've become really close with a girl in grad school who is also named katie. i can see her being a close friend for the rest of my life, we have so much in common. i'm so glad i get to see her at school everyday. so going on the flex plan, where after this summer we won't have anymore classes together, is really gonna bum me out. hopefully i still get to see her on campus and hang out on the weekends. i don't know what the future holds and whether we will be in the same state or even the same country in the next few years, but i know that i will want to keep her in my life in some way. and with the invention of facebook, texting, and skype, it shouldn't be that hard.