Harley's Little Brother

"Surprise!"

"What!? That's not mine... really?!"

:) 

My dad's birthday is Christmas eve, and as such it's been his life long burden to endure the "double-gifting" or the "combination present" of b-day and christmas.

So this time, much to the despair of my bank account, we got him a pure bred brother for Harley.

While the name is still yet to be determined, the little guy is so black is mesmerizing. It's almost as if he's just a hole in space. The eyes are coal, the fur doesn't reflect. 

Of course, Harley and The little puppy have taken about sowing an endless path of destruction. He's small, but he doesn't back down. They've been tumbling, tugging, tearing, and of course peeing everywhere.

One madly swinging tail was bad enough. Not with two, things are breaking at a near world record pace.

:) It's great.

Different

I've never been away from home for this long.

This time it was effectively a year before I came back. 

Sure I was here for 4 days in may and 2 days at the end of August, but now everything has a strange feeling.

Perhaps it'll wear off.

It started with flying in. Maybe it was the 5am rise, and the 8am approach over the city. However, we the plane swung out in a wide turn over cape spare (as it always does) the cliffs looked different. It felt like it was the first time I was seeing them. I felt giddy and awe struck with the accompanying thought "This is amazing, I've never seen this before".

Then it continued with Harley not recognizing me right away. Of course that soon changed with some exciting jumping, scrapping the hardwood floor, and my parents shouting for him to get back in the kitchen. "Get in there you little $#%#$%#$ #$%#$ #$%#@#$% $%#^%$ $%^&$@ #$". But still, he'd never not recognized me before.

Moving along, the city's different. The people are different. 

It's certainly more cosmopolitan here every time I come back. There's a star bucks downtown now, it nearly always has a lineup. There's every manner of breakfast joint, all of which are packed with groups of women that remind me of my mother and her co-workers and friends. Then of course there's the high powered business luncheons and the suits, the lawyers, that all seem so out of place.

What's happened?

This used to be a sleepy little place in the winter. Sure there's cut throat shopping and such like any other place, but downtown was always kinda nice and peaceful. Now it's like everywhere else.

Is that good? It's proving not to be much of an escape anymore.

Well, either way, it's not bad, especially if it's not a good, but it's certainly different.

Perhaps even startling so.

At least there's lots of snow to play with harley in :)

Escalating Quickly

Something sort of happened.

It wasn't entirely unexpected, and absolutely wished for.

But now it's happened and it's escalating quickly.

Might as well race to it and meet it head on.

Accelerating to Attack speed.

Decompression

Uh oh.

I've signed up for a Half-marathon.

I figure it probably wouldn't have been enough of a challenge before.. no you see, with me being in the worst shape of my life it should be interesting... or of course, it could kill me. But I'm not really entertaining that idea.

So I've got 9 weeks from now until race day. 

The one good thing here, at least according to basic thermodynamics is that in order not to freeze to death, my body will have to burn way more energy. End result, I'll lose the 15 lbs I've put on during the past four months by living at school and surviving on fried foods.

This christmas season is setting up to be somewhat different from last year. Drinking everyday? probably not.

and you see, this all works very well within my plan. My plan you ask?

well it's simple, I plan to...

oops. Not sure who's reading this anymore :)

plan to come later.

T-minus 16 hours

Freedom is so close the euphoria is beginning to set in. It's making it exponentially more difficult to study, which isn't all that great given the first 2 exams out of 3 this session has been the stuff of nightmares.

Yes, I'm procrastinating.. actually I just woke up from a nap. One I very comfortably took on top of my binder. Sure, I was panicked for a second when I woke up with pencil on my face, but it faded as I the reality of the situation set back in.

I don't really care anymore. I'm going to pass. The teacher's have essentially all but openly admitted that they take it harder on our year's class than any before and probably any after. It swings back to 2 things really, a school obsessed with it's image and the influence of the infamous double cohort year on the quality of recruitment.

Why should it have to be made harder for my class because there are more smart people? Should we get harder tests than all the other years just so that our average hovers around 65%? Does a high average say the school is doing something wrong, or does it just say that this class whips ass compared to the others.

It hardly seems fair, but then again, things rarely are when it's about image.... if that's actually what it's about. Strange how when it's not a Respected institution ganging up on you because you're smart it generally called bullying, discrimination, or something else criminal sounding. Either way, the motivation is stolen when you hear that its going to be harder because you're better.

One more exam to go tomorrow and that's it. After noon it's all over and these 4 months will fall into line on a shelf somewhere waiting to be included in my memoirs. They'll be filed along side the other array of 'life's worst' notes and I'll draw on them when I think something is shitty in the future. Hard to think what could compare.

And of course, there's Plan B. If this whole bit doesn't work out, there's always the marines... or perhaps the rangers. That could be fun, if not honorable.