there's always a first time

My first Christmas as a college student is tiring, filled with lots of assigned readings, a paper on depleted uranium due on January 4th, documentation for rytwel.com and RX, and pressure to do something useful as a committee head of the First Floor Girls. I am constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, always sleepy. Worse, in the past three days, the number of times I've raised my voice exceeds the total count of my shouting explosions in UP. Just some of the reasons I'm don't feel like partying much even though Christmas is just two days away.

Still, I feel the warmth and see the signs that I should, for a couple of days, drop everything and enjoy. Old ladies and groups of teens lugging guitars around, young trapo vendors ditching their merchandise in exchange for homemade tambourines, and the grand green and gold lights display in front of the municipal hall. Even though my eyelids are always threatening to close and I'm perpetually in need of my jacket because of the cold weather, this season brings me a lot of positive emotions. There's the fact that life, Jesus's greatest gift, is still free - priceless. There's hope and love and hugs from friends I haven't seen in months. There's family and the fat chance that our dog will be cowering again come fireworks night. Lots of things and other blessings of Christmas for which I would willingly line up in the crowded Graphic counter, and listen to lectures I can hardly relate to. I would give anything to be home for Christmas.

And for my friends who aren't in their respective hometowns right now, it's okay. There will come a time when all of us won't be able to spend the holidays in the homes we've grown in, and you guys just happened to experience the separation earlier. Someday, I, too, will be far away from home on Christmas eve. But since I've always been a child at heart, and until now I'm still very childlike, please understand that I'd rather my parents waste money on airplane fare than let me spend a special night on my own a hundred miles away from home.

And yes, I'm mushy because I'm frustrated I can't get into the site I want to enter. And those noisy kids are at it again.

Toodles! Poof...